Daniel Alphonsus

verandah living, also examining at @ExaminerLK

[Daniel Alphonsus @danielalphonsus]

A crisis manifesto: exorcising debt, hunger and unemployment. Summary 🧵 https://t.co/vx3VSoinrJ 1/14

[The Examiner @ExaminerLK]

Last month the Asgiriya Chapter called on 23 drug-smuggling monks to voluntarily leave their robes. But the chapter said that’s “not needed” in the case of Pallegama Hemarathana, a top monk accused of child rape.

https://t.co/Eb2ZLDcuGh

[The Examiner @ExaminerLK]

Malwatta hasn’t received any previous complaints against Hemarathana, claims its deputy registrar. The Siam order appoints a chief monk for each locality, and a monk to take charge of legal matters.

https://t.co/Eb2ZLDcuGh

[The Examiner @ExaminerLK]

Although the monastic order can expel a monk, they can’t forcibly disrobe a monk. Last year, the Malwatta chapter expelled “about four monks”, after they were first found guilty in civilian courts.

https://t.co/Eb2ZLDcuGh

[The Examiner @ExaminerLK]

Galkande Dhammananda pointed to the case of the 23 drug-trafficking monks, when all senior monks called for their disrobing. At the same time, when one of their own is accused of a crime, nobody is calling for his disrobing, he said.

https://t.co/Eb2ZLDcuGh

[The Examiner @ExaminerLK]

The Siam order is calling on the government to amend the Buddhist Temporalities Ordinance, to obtain additional powers to enforce discipline like forcible disrobing. But other monks worry about this intermingling of monastic and state powers.

https://t.co/Eb2ZLDcuGh

[The Examiner @ExaminerLK]

The NCPA recorded 488 complaints of abuse made against Buddhist monks between 2018 and 2022. The authority’s referrals have resulted in charges against 27 accused monks in the past three years.

https://t.co/Eb2ZLDcuGh

[The Examiner @ExaminerLK]

Galkande Dhammananda criticised the caste-based institutions, noting that they have undergone only “little reforms” historically. As such, monks in charge of administering justice locally are inactive and do little.

https://t.co/Eb2ZLDcuGh

[The Examiner @ExaminerLK]

Issue #36: Sangha isn’t investigating Pallegama Hemarathna

[Sushant Singh @SushantSin]

Superb from @ananthkrishnan - fabulous to have him back in China and reporting. He provides the Indian lens we desperately need, away from intermediation of all reportage and analysis on China through the western prism.

[The Examiner @ExaminerLK]

The GSMB admits that the 2012 cabinet paper on value addition blocked exporters. More absurdly, Lanka Mineral Sands — the state-owned, sole entity exporting mineral sands — was exempted from the policy.

https://t.co/ju3YvqDyrc

[The Examiner @ExaminerLK]

The GSMB’s first-come, first-serve licensing system means that companies are able to lock large areas of prospective land under exploration licenses for decades, and never actually mine.

https://t.co/ju3YvqDyrc

[The Examiner @ExaminerLK]

The Treasury accepted bids at 140 basis points higher than before. “The Central Bank over-reacted, the PDMO over-reacted, and the market over-reacted,” a banker said.

https://t.co/h6FU3WfYPa

[The Examiner @ExaminerLK]

Financiers think the Treasury borrowed at excessively high rates, resulting in unnecessarily expensive government borrowing.

https://t.co/h6FU3WfYPa

[The Examiner @ExaminerLK]

Oil import payments were so large the CPC had difficulty sourcing the dollars from commercial banks, leading to discussions with the Central Bank on potentially buying dollars from them.

https://t.co/h6FU3WfYPa

[Daniel Alphonsus @danielalphonsus]

https://t.co/l0VyzItMXy

[Daniel Alphonsus @danielalphonsus]

Surely the aviation minister knows how to charter a flight.

[M A Sumanthiran @MASumanthiran]

From Rev. A W Jebanesan who conducted DBS Jeyaraj’s funeral:

Today I had the privilege of speaking at the funeral of DBS Jeyaraj [David Buell Sabapathy Jeyaraj] - journalist, storyteller of a nation's pain, and for many of us in the Tamil diaspora, a moral compass.

I want to be honest. He was not a regular churchgoer. But I have known many regular churchgoers who made no impact on the world around them. They attended every service. They followed every religious rule. They were seen in all the right places. And yet - when they were gone, the world continued exactly as it was.

Nothing changed. No one was challenged. No truth was spoken that cost them anything.

And then there are others. People who may not sit in a church pew every Sunday - but who carry something far more costly.

Something that Jesus called a cross.

DBS Jeyaraj carried that cross.

He wrote about things that powerful people did not want written. He named what others were too afraid to name - not only injustice from outside his community, but wrongs committed within it. That kind of honesty does not make you popular. It makes you a target. And he knew that. He paid for it in ways that many of us will never fully understand. And still - he kept writing. His last article was published on April 1st, 2026. He died on May 17th.

He came from a Methodist family. His grandfather was Arlvarpillai - a Tamil pandit. His mother's brother was Rev. M. A. Ratnarajah, a Methodist minister. Faith was woven into his roots - even if his life's work was not in a pulpit but at a desk.

And I was told that his favourite psalm was Psalm 23.

That did not surprise me at all.

Because there is one line in that psalm that I believe he understood better than most - "𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐈 𝐰𝐚𝐥𝐤 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐲, 𝐈 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐟𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐧𝐨 𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐥, 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐦𝐞."

David did not write that line from a place of comfort. He wrote it from experience - from real danger, real loss, real darkness. And a man who spent decades writing truth in the shadow of intimidation, who lived in exile and kept going anyway - that man knew something about dark valleys.

He did not stop walking. He did not put down his pen. He walked through - and he kept writing.

I read his articles when I lived in Sri Lanka. I followed his website from Canada. He shaped how many of us understood our own history and our own community. That is not a small thing.

There are people who are religious all their lives and leave no mark. And there are people who live for truth - at great cost — and leave the world a little more honest than they found it.

DBS Jeyaraj was the second kind.

May he rest in the presence of the Shepherd he trusted.

"𝐒𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐦𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐈 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐝𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫." - Psalm 23

[The Examiner @ExaminerLK]

According to the NCPA submissions the victim’s mother took money from Hemarathana on the same day she dropped her to the monk. The monk paid her 100,000 rupees according to the mother’s statement. She had said, “Puthe, I am taking this money because of our poverty.”

https://t.co/RXoqyDtOKN

[The Examiner @ExaminerLK]

As a monk, Hemarathna is also subject to monastic discipline. According to the vinaya sexual intercourse is one of four grounds for the involuntary de-robbing of a monk.

https://t.co/VtM4JAPP1E

[The Examiner @ExaminerLK]

On earlier court dates, no separate legal counsel appeared on behalf of the child — this led to outrage on social media. But today, about 50 lawyers were seen at the court, offering to take on the case. Asith Siriwardena and six other lawyers are now appearing on behalf of the child.

https://t.co/RXoqyDtOKN