Latest news with #Eugenia
GMA Network
3 days ago
- General
- GMA Network
Former GMA News Online photo editor Joe Galvez dies at 67
Jose "Joe" Ventosa Galvez Jr., former photo editor of GMA News Online, passed away on Monday, June 9, at the age of 67. He died in his residence in Bagac, Bataan surrounded by his wife Eugenia and loved ones, his son James Konstantin Galvez told GMA News Online. He is survived by his wife Eugenia, his children James Konstantin, John Hector, Eowyn, Anna Isabella, and Lorenzo, and six grandchildren. His wake is being held at the family residence in Bagac until Friday, June 13. Interment will be on Saturday, June 14, in Bagac. Born on May 10, 1958 in Manila, Jogal, as he was fondly called by friends, eventually settled in Bagac with Eugenia. For around 10 years, Jogal underwent dialysis for his kidney problem, Konstantin said. Despite his condition, he remained active in the Philippine photojournalist community, shooting, working, giving lectures, and keeping in touch with his peers. He would be one of the first, in fact, to announce on Facebook whenever one from among their ranks passed on to the Great Beyond. "He was passionate about his craft. He was loving as a husband, father, and grandfather," Jogal's daughter Anna Isabella told GMA News Online. Martial Law, EDSA, COVID A veteran photojournalist, Jogal was always right where the action was, shooting photos during the important moments in the nation's history. Name it, he was there. During Martial Law, he was a photographer of Manila Bulletin, People's Journal, and the Mr. and Ms. Special Edition. In an interview with GMA News Online in 2017, Jogal said the photos that got published during Martial Law were the ones that reflected the good side of the late President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. "Itong mga litrato na 'to, heto 'yung mga gusto ng mga Marcoses na litrato (These photos were the ones the Marcoses liked), the good side of Martial Law," Galvez said, displaying a photo of Marcos side by side with then-First Lady Imelda Marcos. "Kasi dina-divert nila 'yung mga tao sa (Because they were diverting the people's attention from) real issues, which is war, abuse of power," he added. Despite the danger and threats he and other journalists faced, Jogal and other fearless members of media continued doing their jobs. "Du'n tayo natuto. Magtanong. Magtanong. Magtanong. Ganu'n. Hanapin ang katotohanan (That's how we learned. Ask. Ask. Ask. That's how it is. Search for the truth)," said Galvez. Marcos' opponent, former senator Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr. was gunned down at the tarmac of the Manila International Airport on August 21, 1983. Ten days later, his coffin aboard a flatbed truck strewn with yellow flowers snaked from Sto. Domingo Church in Quezon City through the streets of Metro Manila on the way to his final resting place at Manila Memorial Park in Paranaque City. Yup, Jogal was there. An estimated one million Filipinos joined the funeral march of assassinated former senator Benigno 'Ninoy' Aquino Jr. from Sto. Domingo Church to the Manila Memorial Park in Parañaque in August 1983. Joe Galvez Marcos thereafter called for snap presidential elections in 1986 and Ninoy's widow Cory ran against him. Jogal covered the campaign and the subsequent People Power Revolution that toppled Marcos. At a miting de avance at the Quirino Grandstand, President Ferdinand Marcos and his wife Imelda call on their supporters to save democracy by casting ballots in favor of Marcos and his running mate Arturo Tolentino. Joe Galvez "Wala nang ligo-ligo noon. Walang tulog, walang kain (No one took baths, slept or ate)," Jogal told former GMA News Online editor-in-chief Howie Severino in 2011. He and fellow photojournalists hopped from Camp Aguinaldo to Camp Crame, and the stretch of EDSA from P. Tuazon to Ortigas or Shaw Boulevard to take photos of People Power main characters, the crowd, the tanks, the military, and the clergy, among others. Mind you, this was the era of film photography, and Jogal and other photographers had to shoot, bring the film to the darkroom and process it, before going back to the field to shoot again. Rebel soldiers navigate their way through a sea of people as they move from Camp Aguinaldo to Camp Crame, February 1986. Joe Galvez Jogal said he felt driven to document unfolding events. "I had the responsibility to document history as it unfolded," he told Howie. Later on, he joined GMA News Online as photo editor and retired in 2018 when he turned 60. But the photojournalist in him was still there, and he documented the battle he next faced, that of COVID-19. For 18 days in August 2021, Jogal was confined at a government hospital in Balanga City, Bataan after contracting COVID-19. But he was no ordinary patient. He put on his photojournalist hat, and the result is a photo essay entitled "18 days life or death" published on GMA News Online in September 2021. Sharp eye, funny man His former colleagues at GMA News Online and fellow photojournalists will miss the Jogal they know. "During my five-year tenure as editor-in-chief of GMA News Online, I had the great fortune of working with Joe Galvez as my photo editor. One of my few colleagues with experience as a journalist in the turbulent 1980s, Joe brought the discipline and rigor of an analog native to the fast-paced world of digital news. He had a sharp eye for composition and an instinctive sense for the decisive moment — that stolen shot when a photograph tells the whole story," Howie said. GMA News Online managing editor Raffy Jimenez, who has spent more than 10 years working with him, shares: "Jogal was always a funny man to be with. Maraming kwento, lalo na kapag we're having lunch. We shared experiences from our days sa field, and I always learn a thing or two from those conversations. Even we he retired, we maintained our communications, kumustahan, especially during his birthday because he shared the same birthdate with my son. It is an honor that I got to work with him, and will surely miss those times we had in the office." "Joe Galvez, a veteran photojournalist and mentor, left an indelible mark on the Philippine media landscape. His lens captured the country's tumultuous martial-law years, shedding light on the struggles and resilience of the Filipino people. As a photo editor at GMA News Online, he nurtured the talents of young photographers, passing on his expertise and passion," the Photojournalists' Center of the Philippines said in a Facebook post on Monday. —KG, GMA Integrated News
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Christianity has long revered saints who would be called ‘transgender' today
Several Republican-led states have restricted transgender rights: Iowa has signed a law removing civil rights protection for transgender people; Wyoming has prohibited state agencies from requiring the use of preferred pronouns; and Alabama recently passed a law that only two sexes would be recognized. Hundreds of bills have been introduced in other state legislatures to curtail trans rights. Earlier in the year, several White House executive orders pushed to deny trans identity. One of them, 'Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias,' claimed that gender-affirming policies of the Biden administration were 'anti-Christian.' It accused the Biden Equal Employment Opportunity Commission of forcing 'Christians to affirm radical transgender ideology against their faith.' To be clear, not all Christians are anti-trans. And in my research of medieval history and literature, I found evidence of a long history in Christianity of what today could be called 'transgender' saints. While such a term did not exist in medieval times, the idea of men living as women, or women living as men, was unquestionably present in the medieval period. Many scholars have suggested that using the modern term transgender creates valuable connections to understand the historical parallels. There are at least 34 documented stories of transgender saints' lives from the early centuries of Christianity. Originally appearing in Latin or Greek, several stories of transgender saints made their way into vernacular languages. Of the 34 original saints, at least three gained widespread popularity in medieval Europe: St. Eugenia, St. Euphrosyne and St. Marinos. All three were born as women but cut their hair and put on men's clothes to live as men and join monasteries. Eugenia, raised pagan, joined a monastery to learn more about Christianity and later became abbot. Euphrosyne joined a monastery to escape an unwanted suitor and spent the rest of his life there. Marinos, born Marina, decided to renounce womanhood and live with his father at the monastery as a man. These were well-read stories. Eugenia's story appeared in two of the most popular manuscripts of their day – Ælfric's 'Lives of Saints' and 'The Golden Legend.' Ælfric was an English abbot who translated Latin saints' lives into Old English in the 10th century, making them widely available to a lay audience. 'The Golden Legend' was written in Latin and compiled in the 13th century; it is part of more than a thousand manuscripts. Euphrosyne also appears in Ælfric's saints' lives, as well as in other texts in Latin, Middle English, and Old French. Marinos' story is available in over a dozen manuscripts in at least 10 languages. For those who couldn't read, Ælfric's saints' lives and other manuscripts were read aloud in churches during service on the saint's day. A small church in Paris built in the 10th century was dedicated to Marinos, and relics of his body were supposedly kept in Qannoubine monastery in Lebanon. This is all to say, a lot of people were talking about these saints. In the medieval period, saints' lives were less important as history and more important as morality tales. As a morality tale, the audience was not intended to replicate a saint's life, but learn to emulate Christian values. Transitioning between male and female becomes a metaphor for transitioning from pagan to Christian, affluence to poverty, worldliness to spirituality. The Catholic Church opposed cross-dressing in laws, liturgical meetings and other writings. However, Christianity honored the holiness of these transgender saints. In a 2021 collection of essays about transgender and queer saints in the medieval period, scholars Alicia Spencer-Hall and Blake Gutt argue that medieval Christianity saw transness as holy. 'Transness is not merely compatible with holiness; transness itself is holy,' they write. Transgender saints had to reject convention in order to live their own authentic lives, just as early Christians had to reject convention in order to live as Christians. Literature scholar Rhonda McDaniel explains that in 10th-century England, adopting the Christian values of shunning wealth, militarism and sex made it easier for people to go beyond strict ideas about male and female gender. Instead of defining gender by separate male and female values, all individuals could be defined by the same Christian values. Historically and even in contemporary times, gender is associated with specific values and roles, such as assuming that homemaking is for women, or that men are stronger. But adopting these Christian values allowed individuals to transcend such distinctions, especially when they entered monasteries and nunneries. According to McDaniel, even cisgender saints like St. Agnes, St. Sebastian and St. George exemplified these values, exhibiting how anyone in the audience could push against gender stereotypes without changing their bodies. Agnes' love of God allowed her to give up the role of wife. When offered love and wealth by men, she rejected them in favor of Christianity. Sebastian and George were powerful Roman men who were expected, as men, to engage in violent militarism. However, both rejected their violent Roman masculinity in favor of Christian pacifism. Although most saints' lives were written primarily as morality tales, the story of Joseph of Schönau was told as both very real and worthy of emulation by the audience. His story is told as a historical account of a life that would be attainable for ordinary Christians. In the late 12th century, Joseph, born female, joined a Cistercian monastery in Schönau, Germany. During his deathbed confession, Joseph told his life story, including his pilgrimage to Jerusalem as a child and his difficult journey back to Europe after the death of his father. When he finally returned to his birthplace of Cologne, he entered a monastery as a man in gratitude to God for returning him home safely. Despite arguing that Joseph's life was worth emulating, the first author of Joseph's story, Engelhard of Langheim, had a complicated relationship with Joseph's gender. He claimed Joseph was a woman, but regularly used masculine pronouns to describe him. Even though Eugenia, Euphrosyne and Marinos' stories are told as morality tales, their authors had similarly complicated relationships with their gender. In the case of Eugenia, in one manuscript, the author refers to her with entirely female pronouns, but in another, the scribe slips into male pronouns. Marinos and Euphrosyne were also frequently referred to as male. The fact that the authors referred to these characters as male suggests that their transition to masculinity was not only a metaphor, but in some ways just as real as Joseph's. Based on these stories, I argue that Christianity has a transgender history to pull from and many opportunities to embrace transness as an essential part of its values. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Sarah Barringer, University of Iowa Read more: Supreme Court's one-sentence order closes the door to Catholic charter school – but leaves it open for future challenges Ancient texts depict all kinds of people, not just straight and cis ones – this college course looks at LGBTQ sexuality and gender in Egypt, Greece and Rome Transgender people of color face unique challenges as gender discrimination and racism intersect Sarah Barringer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
