You say Ministers Jaime Ongpin, Arlan Bengson, Jose Concepcion, and Lourdes Quisumbing are "clerico-Jesuits" (PDI, Mar. 10), but your criteria for the label --- close links with the clergy and to Jesuits like Fr. Joaquin Bernas --- are so broad as to be meaningless.

Consider the following facts: (1) Publisher Maximo Soliven studied at the Ateneo and at Fordham; (2) Editor Luis D. Beltran’s loyalty to the Rev. Fr. John P. Delaney, SJ, rivals his loyalty to Gen. Fabian Ver; (3) Writer Belinda Olivares-Cunanan was the confidential secretary of the late Rev. Pacifico A. Ortiz, SJ; and (4) you yourself hold two degrees from the Ateneo and you venerate Rev. James B. Reuter as Olivares adores Ortiz.

By your criteria, the "Inquirer" must be a clerico-Jesuit mouthpiece because PDI’s clerico-Jesuit Gang of Four account for all the opinions published in the paper, except the letters to the editor -- which Beltran screens if not actually censors.

You generally write a sensible column. This column was a notable exception.

BENJAMIN H. LOZADA