A SOJOURNERS' VIEW. By Karl M. Gaspar

ILIGAN CITY (MindaNews/04 April) -- The title of the piece rhymes with The Reader. 

As devoted cineastes know, The Reader is the film that recently gave Kate Winslet her first Oscar as Best Actress. In this film, she plays the role of a former Nazi SS guard who was a party to the massacre of the Jews during the Hitler era in Europe.  This was the infamous Holocaust, the mass slaughter of men, women and children who were herded together like cattle and sent to the gas chambers only because they were Jews.

QUEZON CITY (MindaViews/14 March) -- Viewing Ditsi Carolino's latest documentary film Lupang Hinarang, one can't help thinking: will there ever be an end to the Filipino peasantry's struggle to own a land they can till?

And one can't help feeling furious at the manner the producers of our food are treated bythe powers-that-be and frustrated that the landless farmers have to go through so much suffering. 

ILIGAN CITY (MindaNews/01 February) -- Not a very pleasant experience if one gets hacked in cyberspace.  Ask any of the victims like, yours truly.

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/05 January) -- This piece should rather have the title - What Matters Most Today for People that I Know and Care About.
The recent holidays that came with Christmas and New Year afforded us, once more, with the chance to catch up with the people we know and care about. I am no exception. As with most people who reach out to their relatives, friends and associates during the Christmas season, I've been doing just that for as long as I can remember.

JOSEFINA, Zamboanga del Sur (MindaNews/02 November) --Twenty years ago, Josefina sang the blues. Located in the Zamboanga peninsula, the town of Josefina was a virtual war zone. Despite the end of Marcos' martial rule, there was no peace in this town situated at the foot of Mt. Malindang in the late 1980s.

society's elite fight with each other.

NEW YORK (MindaNews/26 September) -- It is a good time to be in New York.  Since I arrived here last week, the weather has been really nice: neither too hot nor too cold.  It's like being in Baguio during sunny days this time of the year, too.  The late summer flowers in the parks are still in bloom and the trees stand tall with thick foliage.

Last of five parts
QUEZON (MindaNews/03 Sept) -- When I asked them how many they were in this samahan, he said that they speak in terms of balangays (clusters of families) and as of the moment, they have 71 balangays spread across the country with most of them being in Luzon. Most of those in Kinabuhian are members of their samahan; others live in various parts of the country.

4th of five parts
QUEZON (MindaNews/02 Sept) -- As Mt. Banahaw is considered a place for healing, the local herbs are aplenty and are sold in the various small stores spread all over Sta. Lucia. One could see barks of trees, leaves, limestones being displayed and sold for their medicinal value. Some of these find their way to Quiapo and other outlets for herbal medicine and the like. 

3rd of five parts
QUEZON (MindaNews/01 Sept) -- For students of Spirituality - as an academic discipline - interested in indigenous mystical practices of our ancestors, here in the samahan one is afforded a glimpse into what could be one model or lived experience of mysticism that goes a long way back to our pre-colonial era. While listening to Nanay Isabel, I was conscious of a deep desire: that there would be serious Filipino scholars who would pursue this type of research as it would be most helpful in rediscovering our very deep sense of the divine as well as the roots of our own indigenous spirituality.

2nd of five parts
QUEZON (MindaNews/31 August) -- There are also landmarks placed in strategic areas by the National Historical Commission. One informs the nationalist pilgrim that the hero Macario Sakay and his men retreated to this part of Mt. Banahaw during the height of their anti-colonial struggles. The confluence of these signs and symbols - political, cultural, religious - provides the unique character of Mt. Banahaw as it affirms the sojourner's citizenship, cultural identity and religiosity.

1st of five parts
QUEZON (MindaNews/30 Aug) -- I had always wanted to go on a pilgrimage to Mt. Banahaw, perhaps the country's premiere indigenously Filipino pilgrimage site. However, the visit to the holy mountain remained elusive through the past more than five decades of my life. This desire intensified in the past decade during and after my UP studies and especially as I became more and more interested in knowing more about Filipino indigenous spirituality.

QUEZON CITY (MindaNews/20 August) -- Thirty years since "a group of people," in the words of the American news reporter John Nance, "walked less than 20 miles from their home in a Philippine rain-forest and traveled through 50,000 years of cultural and technological time", the debate on whether the Tasaday were truly from the Stone Age or not continues to rage in the country's anthropological circle.