REVIEW: A boy named tonylavs
BOOK REVIEW
Ransomed By Love: The unfinished journey of a happy changemaker’s life
Author: Tony La Viña
Publisher: Southern Voices Printing Press, 2024
Davao City book launch on March 11, 2024 at the Ateneo de Davao University
There was a boy, A very strange enchanted boy
They say he wandered very far, Very far
Over land and sea. A little shy. And sad of eye
But very wise was he. And then one day,
One magic day he passed my way
And while we spoke of many things
Fools and kings, This he said to me
“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn
Is just to love, And be loved in return.”
— Nature Boy: George McGrew (aka Eden Ahbez)
There was a boy named Antonio La Viña, nicknamed Tonylavs. He was born in the small city of Cagayan de Oro in 1959 (population: 76,000 that year). His parents were Gabriel Lipayon La Viña Jr. (Dodong) and Lourdes Chaves Maestrado (Inday). The boy was third of six siblings with nicknames such as Pompee, Anne, Tony, Cacoy, Suzy and Maya.
As a boy, he had behavioral traits that some would find “very strange, enchanted.” In his own words: “In those early years, I was already Doctor Strange, having the ability to remove myself from family fights even when I was still physically there, being able to fly anywhere I wanted to go.,,.; it was enough to just leave the room and hide – if physically impossible, through my imagination.”
Sixty-five years later, the boy – who grew up to be an accomplished person after wandering “very far over land and sea” – would write his memoirs: Ransomed by Love: The unfinished journey of a happy changemaker’s life.
It is a stunning, remarkable memoir with the memorialist’s reminiscences detailed in the various accounts of his personal life and experiences. Through this memoire, Tony opens the door to allow the reader to travel through time with him as he unravels the woven threads of his life’s journey. In the process, without any hint of hesitation, Tony – in a metaphorical sense – stands naked in the light and bares his soul.
This memoir is the author’s factual and truthful retelling of snippets from his life handpicked for purposes of retelling stories he considers important to share, as well as an attempt at writing a family history (both that of the union between Dodong and Inday and their clans as well as his own with wife Titay and sons Eman, Rico, and Rafa . Through the pages of this memoir, Tony also acknowledges his debt of gratitude to everyone who has contributed to the kind of person he has become.
The memoir also allows the reader to encounter Tony across the vast landscapes of his academic and advocacy engagements traversing the whole archipelago as well as the whole planet that leaves the reader wondering how he ever found the time to accomplish everything that appears in his lengthy Curriculum Vitae. If there is a glossary listing his membership and affiliations with local, regional, national and international governmental agencies, civil society organizations and educational institutions, the acronyms listed would be quite long. (A short sample: DENR, LRC, ASoG, ACIL, Xristka/SIO, LRC, Samdhana, ADMU, Ashoka, NDV and JVP groups.)
Through this memoir, Tony also pays tribute to his countless friends and colleagues across the country and the whole world from his childhood friends to those he worked with in international NGOs. He names them all, counting hundreds appearing in the pages of this book. One is totally mesmerized how he remembers all their names and the circumstances when he encountered them, one by one.
These include former classmates in all the educational institutions he was enrolled in, colleagues in the government service, collaborators in civil society advocacies here and abroad, and students he has mentored, some of whom he has advised for more than 30 years. They also include those who became his godchildren, as he stood as Ninong at their weddings.
Moving in different circles, he can speak about encountering “fools and kings,” (some “kings” being at the same time fools), the high and mighty in society, as well as mystics and prophets, human rights activists, environmental heroes and victims of human rights abuses. In his written texts, he cites poets (Neruda is a favorite), songwriters (he is an avid fan of Taylor Swift and Ben & Ben), the esteemed teachers in law school (including Owen Lynch and Haydee Yorac), the philosophers whose theories he teaches (Kierkegaard in particular), monk-mystics (Thomas Merton in whose monastery he once spent days in a retreat), and his Jesuit mentors.
In Chapter 49, Tony categorically summarizes what has been his life’s mission. His words: “All I wanted and all I want is to be a humble servant in the vineyard of the Lord. If I had the gift of tongues, I would have wanted to become a priest or a missionary but because the gifts given to me were philosophy and law and a family, I am where I am today: a human rights lawyer and climate justice advocate, a mentor and friend to many, a husband, father, and brother…Today, the best way I can articulate the mission I think I have been given is that .. I am called to be a steward of this earth, to protect planet and people, and yes to help build solidarity among peoples, to be an instrument of peace as Saint Francis was.”
With the blessings of loving kinship relationships, astonishing accomplishments in studies and work, friendships galore, travels far and wide around the world including visits to the most exotic of locations and an intimacy to the Divine Presence, one would assume Tony’s life has been filled with grace and bliss! However, his life has not been a bed of roses; especially towards the latter part of his life when dark clouds hovered to cast shadows, causing mental and physical illness, grief and a greater need to escape from it all and embrace solitude.
Towards the last Chapters of this memoir, Tony details the trials he faced when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. This was how he described the events leading to a serious illness that exacerbated his mental anguish. He describes in Section VII, Chapter 44 how this came to pass.
“And so, on April 6, 2022, I had my usual blood tests taken. A few days later the results arrived, and I saw right away that the PSA (prostate-specific antigen), a marker for prostate cancer, was higher than normal, i.e. 4.80…
The next step was a biopsy … and a week later, we got the result. I had prostate cancer at an intermediate stage (Gleason 7) which is neither aggressive nor mild… Treatment options was going to be based on whether the cancer is still localized or has spread. Because the bone scan turned out to be inconclusive, we had to do a PET Scan which confirmed our biggest fear…the cancer has metastasized to the bones and possibly the thyroid… It turned out that there was – for now – no death sentence. I am not yet in a terminal phase. Yes, surgery is no longer an option but, according to the doctor, hormone therapy should delay progression of the disease and I could still have years, maybe even a decade or more to go.”
That his serious health issues arose during the time of the pandemic exacerbated feelings of depression. He had to go through days of great pain and inconveniences especially when confined in the ICU. He was sucked into a vortex of despair and for a scary moment, family and friends desperately prayed for his survival when his life hang by a thread. By the grace of the merciful God, he survived but only to realize that another storm was brewing.
He writes: “I didn’t realize it but by early April 2023, a perfect storm was converging as my cancer reopened many old wounds and vulnerabilities… The Aspergers’, ADHD, bipolar, and narcissistic traits that I have had to deal with since I was a child became more pronounced. I thought I was doing a good job dealing with my cancer, even calling it a gift (which it is but in a more complicated way). But pride and arrogance, in short hubris, was taking over me, and I acted more and more entitled – hurting people I love especially my wife, sons, friends, and people I work with.”
But the occurrence of such a storm would prove unable to conquer Tony’s gravitas along with a life-long capacity to survive all odds. Given all the risky involvements in what could have landed him in the list of unfortunate human rights victims or the litigations that could have led to death threats, Tony was ready to face life-threatening challenges. After all, in the words of Thomas Moore – “You wouldn’t abandon ship in a storm just because you couldn’t control the winds.”
In this memoir, Tony literally falls on his knees and makes an Act of Contrition. In his own words: “I could have been a mess, I should be a mess now not just because of the shadow of my finitude – but because also of the shadow of my sinfulness. The bees that swarm me, that encompass me about, the demons in the Legion, they have names. Pride, envy, lust, anger, sloth, gluttony, greed. There cardinal sins are not just concepts to me. They are everyday facts in my life. I cannot tell you how many times I hurt the people around me.”
Then comes redemption. He claims: “Legion took over. But God, with his unconditional mercy, saved me… I am truly appreciative of the sacrament of reconciliation and the Catholic Church in how it helped expel Legion from my heart, giving me another chance to be a good person again. Paradoxically, without Legion, I would not have been saved. In the end, my sins should have burnt and consumed me but this in His loving mercy God did not allow. We are invited to share the passion of Christ and to die with Him on the Cross. But we know that is not the end of the story of salvation. There is still the resurrection.”
This is a lengthy memoir covering eight Sections and 49 Chapters. These sections include:
I – EARLY CROSSROADS, II HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYER, III – CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE ACTIVIST, IV – A GLOBAL CITIZEN, V – LEADER AND SOCIAL ENTREPRENEUR, VI – TEACHER, MENTOR, VII – THE PANDEMIC and VIII – MY ROAD TO EMMAUS. Serving as book-ends are a PROLOGUE AND AN EPILOGUE (A CONTINUING JOURNEY).
Considering the short attention span of readers these days, especially among the younger generations, it would be tempting for the reader to pick up the book, scan through the pages and not read the book from cover to cover. However, the committed reader would be rewarded with the engrossing stories Tony weaves together, encompassing all human emotions from the scary to the sublime, from the sadness of the country’s political woes to the joys of family life, from the deep pain when subjected to the body’s deterioration to a sense of peace when one finds himself in God’s mystical presence.
And for the millennials and Gen-X generations, this book provides them a crash course on Philippine contemporary history. The country’s recent historiography is Tony’s own personal, historical narrative. Both are so intertwined that one can imagine Tony’s life unfolding in the context of how the Republic shifted from the Marcos regime, to the 1986 EDSA, to the administrations that followed Cory Aquino (including that of Fidel Ramos when Tony served as DENR Undersecretary) only to go full circle with Marcos Jr. As a human rights lawyers, educator, public servant and environmental activist, Tony had the privileged ringside view of major political upheavals. Reading his accounts of these important events, the reader is provided deep insights into the dynamics of nation-building.
If the personal is, indeed, political, Tony’s personal life embodied the range of his political beliefs and options. What helped him navigate through the intricacies of deciding what political and ideological perspectives to embrace and what paths to follow were his strong foundations in the fields of philosophy and law. In his words: “In philosophy, I found the language not only to explain things to myself but I also found a way to relate to others in a meaningful way. In law, the language of power which I first learned in UP law, I found a way of making a difference in the world using the power of the word and without need to resort to violence.”
Thus when faced with the lifelong choice of a vocation, even as he was attracted to join the Jesuits as an ordained priest, he ultimately opted to get married, raise a family and contribute to the advancement of the Church’s mission as a committed layperson, by being the kind of lawyer in the same mold as Thomas Moore. In the Synodal Church that Pope Francis hopes to thrive even as the West is facing a post-Christian era, it will be laypersons like Tony who will make it a reality in our country.
Attracted to Karl Marx’ theory and ensconced in the Marcos; brutal dictatorship, he once considered opting for a radical engagement in the revolutionary movement. Various developments in the country as well as within the movement (e.g. the ill-fated Operation Kahos) made Tony decide that he could best serve the country by being a human rights lawyer. Thus, eventually he followed the path of Gandhi and Martin Luther King’s active non-violence. Despite a change in his praxis perspective, he has sustained collaborative efforts with the radical left when his skills as a lawyer is required. His commitment to be actively engaged in saving the Lumad schools is a testament to such course of action.
This memoir has the makings of an autobiography as Tony chronicles the events unfolding in his life until the present. Following the memorialist’s timeline, the reader practically travels with Tony along the path of these unfolding events. It begins with the introduction of Tony’s family tree, on both sides of the family. And we get to know this vast network of relatives and the reader can immediately surmise how blessed the boy was to belong to this clan with many gifted members with progressive political views.
Growing up in a provincial city as Cagayan de Oro, Tony lived an idyllic childhood. From 1959 until Marcos declared martial law in 1972, life was easy and the city was peaceful. Things radically changed with the tumultuous consequences of martial rule. As the brutalities of the Marcos dictatorship worsened, along with other conscientized martial law babies, Tony reached a crossroad empowering him to make a radical choice. In his own words: “The Mindanao conflict made me a leader, gave me a calling and mission. I would have preferred to be alone, to continue imagining alternative worlds and lives as I did in my childhood, to not have to engage. How could I do that in front of so much suffering and injustice?”
After high school graduation, he travelled to Manila and enrolled at the Ateneo de Manila University pursing the field of Philosophy. It would be there that he would meet a coed named Carmen Bonto, who would eventually be his wife, Titay. While in college, he seriously thought of joining the Jesuits and made attempts to apply. However, he was still confused as to what he really wanted to become. Unsure as to the direction of his life, he opted to find an “escape door” which was “to go abroad and do volunteer work in Italy through the International Christian Youth Exchange program.”
Eventually, he returned home, joined the second batch of the Jesuit Volunteer Program and took up a teaching job at Xavier University teaching philosophical thoughts of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Marcel, Buber and Sartre; Saints Thomas and Augustine, Marx and Kierkegaard. His romantic relationship with Titay since 1981 would end at the altar four years later. From his stint at Philosophy teacher at XU, Tony moved to UP to study Law.
Fast forward to August 21, 1983, followed by February 1986, when events shook the foundations of the martial rule that would end with its collapse. In his words: “When the US-Marcos dictatorship fell, I was already in law school, finishing my first year. Ironically, I had enrolled in law school because I wanted to be a human rights lawyer to fight the Marcos dictatorship. But when that crumbled, I knew instinctively that human rights lawyers were even more needed.” At UP Law School, he and a few other students founded the UP Paralegals. The core of this group would eventually lead to the setting up of the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center.
Then came the opportunity to do further law studies at Yale Law School in 1991, where Tony enrolled “in as many environmental law subjects that were offered in that university” while also attending many environmental conferences that were held on campus and in nearby New York, Boston, and Washington DC. Eventually, he encountered Victor Ramos, then the DENR Secretary under the administration of President Fidel Ramos. This chance encounter eventually led to Tony’s appointment as DENR Undersecretary in 1996.
It was meant to be a short government service. President Ramos’ became President in 1992, but his term ended in 1998 when Joseph Estrada took over. With the new administration, Tony had to leave DENR. As it turned out, in his own words: “At that time, I was already being invited by several international organizations to work with them, having seen what I have done in the biodiversity, marine, and climate fields.” He then decided to join the World Resources Institute (WRI) to become the Director of its Biological Resources Program
In the next few years, Tony would travel all over the world, working in Africa and Latin America while also managing projects in Southeast Asia (including the Philippines). He also visited European capitals a lot to raise money or to attend meetings of UN conventions and later of the World Trade Organization. After eight years, his family returned to Manila where Tony took up the offer to be the Dean of the Ateneo School of Government. He also taught graduate students (MPM, MA, MS, LLM, JSD, PHD) in the Ateneo School of Government, Loyola Schools of ADMU, University of Science and Technology in Southern Philippines, and the graduate schools of law of San Beda, Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Manila (PLM), and San Sebastian.” Later he also became the Associate Director for Climate Policy and International Relations of the Manila Observatory.
Then the dramatic events unfolded with the pandemic, the cancer scare and a deeper realization of his mental problems. For persons afflicted with cancer, it is said that they go through stages from denial to resignation. Having resigned himself to what destiny has in store for him, Tony decides to live and let live. For now, he has survived; albeit he has slowed down a bit. But in Robert Frost’s poetic words – “the woods are lovely, dark and deep” but Tony declares “but I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep.”
Concerned with the Lumad schools as well as other human rights and environmental causes, he agreed to team up with former Bayan Muna Partylist Representative Kaloi Zarate to put up together a law partnership and firm –now with a dozen lawyers working with LVZ Law and the Klima Center of Manila Observatory as a go-to place for defending environmental defenders and Indigenous Peoples’ leaders and champions who are being attacked. A few more posts opened for him, including serving as jury the National Book Awards, a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, and the Council of Leaders for Peace Initiatives with the mandate to support the peace process between the government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines. He also remains active with the Neocathecumenal Way for which he has been “truly grateful for this unconditional acceptance that allows me to be who I am, what I am – nothing more and nothing less, a clown of God.”
Finally our journey with Tony ends in 2024 and he waxes sentimental how far he has gone from 1959. In his words: “I may have a broken body and a challenged mind. I have suffered and caused suffering. I have failed myself and others many times… But I have been forgiven, given new chances time and again… I do not know how long I will live, how healthy I will be in a few months, whether I can still teach next semester, or see my sons married and have children… There are many things I do not know. I live with uncertainty every day. But this truth I am sure of:.. Ransomed by love, this autistic, ADHD, bipolar and cancer affected person is happy. In loving and being.. Faith leads to hope which gives us the courage to love… I promise to love more.”
With the symbol of outstretched arms raised to the sky (a pose that now is always present when Tony posts a message in his Facebook wall), we join him in praising God – Laudato Si! – for all that was and is still to come! And through it all, for Tony – in the words of the songwriter George McGrew in his song Nature Boy – the “greatest thing” he’ll ever learn, is “just to love, and be loved in return.”
(Redemptorist Brother Karl Gaspar is Mindanao’s most prolific book author. Gaspar is also a Datu Bago 2018 awardee, the highest honor the Davao City government bestows on its constituents. He is presently based in Cebu City.)
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