Negros Nine Foundation

“official website of the Negros Nine Human Development Foundation, Inc.”

This website has been set up to continue the work of “total and integral human development” that began in the 1970s on the island of Negros in the Philippines during the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. The story of the Negros Nine symbolises the struggle of the poor for a better life in a safe and sustainable environment i.e, “total and integral human development”.

Many who dedicated their lives to this cause did not survive. Thousands were imprisoned, tortured, murdered and others just disappeared never to be seen again. The Negros Nine did survive and lived to tell their story. However, as of now two of the priests and one layworker have died, another is disabled and two are no longer active.

(FR NIALL O’BRIEN, 1939-2004)

By Fr Seán Coyle

I first met Niall O’Brien on 5 September 1961, the day I entered St Columban’s seminary in Ireland. He was four years ahead of me. Just over a year later the Vatican Council began. It was a time of great excitement in the Church, a time of great change, a time when many shared the hope of Pope John XXIII, who had convened the Council, for a ‘New Pentecost.’ Father Niall was ordained in December 1963, just after the second of the Council’s four sessions and a few months after the death of Pope John.

While still a student the young Niall O’Brien was living out something of the spirit of aggiornamento, ‘updating,’ the Italian word used by many to describe what the Council was about. He was struck too by what Pope John was supposed to have said, ‘We need to open the windows and let some fresh air blow into the Church.’ As a student Niall organized a yearly visit of Malaysians studying medicine in Dublin, Ireland’s capital, to our seminary. Very few of these were Christians. He also organized at least two national gatherings of seminarians, with some from overseas and some Anglicans, at a time when many bishops and others in authority would have grave doubts about this.

By Fr Michael Mohally

The author, from Cork city, Ireland, has spent many years working with Columban seminarians in both Ireland and the Philippines. He continues to do that in Quezon City.

The King’s Speech won four Oscars this year. It tells the true story of how Lionel Logue, an Australian, helped the future King George VI of England overcome a bad stammer. Fr Mohally here tells a story about an Irish priest who helped many, none of them kings and many of them very poor, overcome speech difficulties. In the incident reported here, nobody could have foreseen the consequences, not only in Ireland but in Fiji and the Philippines.

I was confined to bed in the infirmary of our headquarters in Manila and, to keep myself occupied, decided to view a BBC television documentary, first shown on 17 January 1961, about a beloved priest of my native Diocese of Cork, Ireland, Father James Christopher (Christy) O’Flynn. Fr O’Flynn was 80 years old when the documentary was made.