Like most Manila Times readers, including ardent Catholics who aren’t Opus Dei members, I was astonished at this newspaper’s Sunday edition, which devoted five long news articles and an opinion column on the “beatification of Don Alvaro del Portillo.”

Even the newspaper’s editorial was devoted to Portillo, whom it described was a  “friend of many Filipinos.” Huh? I had never heard of this friend of Filipinos before, and I thought I’ve been a very well informed journalist.