chances

IN the world of public opinion, there’s no doubt that a battle of perspectives is taking place.  Each party has their own platforms or set of principles from which they see events and make their judgments, and many times they clash.

Just take a look at the newspapers, the hard copy or online, and the ever growing number of blogs in the digital continent, and you would have no doubt that indeed there is some kind of war raging out there. 

Social and political observers have attempted to classify them as conservatives or liberals, leftists or rightists, partisan or independent, secular or religious, etc.  One can’t help but use these categories to more or less simplify our life, though we have to admit that these have their limits that we should always be aware of.

This is but normal, as long as we don’t forget that amid the flux of views and positions reflecting one’s attitudes and outlook in life, there is an unchanging core that should unite all of us together. 

This is normal, because we always see things differently, even if we come from the same family, same school, same city and province, etc. Even in our own individual selves, if the different parts of the body could just speak, they too would have different takes on any concern.

Human condition makes each one of an individual person, with a unique character and unrepeatable life and everything that goes with it. We should not be surprised that we have different backgrounds, experiences, attitudes, and therefore different views.

But the problem arises when we get mixed up—when in failing to distinguish between what is absolute and relative, we absolutize what is relative, and relativize what is absolute.

The Church, the “expert in humanity,” offers a perspective that sets the line between what is absolute and relative. That´s because the Church assumes the perspective of God who through Christ in the Holy Spirit has endowed her with powers to do so. ¨Whatever you bind here on earth is bound in heaven...¨

We have to listen to what the Church says, but, of course, we also have to make sure that the Church says something about issues, questions, challenges, etc. She always has or should always have something to say, because whatever affects man, even in his temporal affairs, affects God and therefore the Church.

This is her prophetic mission which is carried out in different ways by the different elements that comprise her. The clergy, starting with the Pope, the bishops down to the priests, have an official or authoritative character when carrying out this function. Thus they have to be suitably competent for the office they occupy.

The lay faithful also have their prophetic mission as they try to infuse the Christian spirit in the earthly affairs they are involved in. This does not mean that the Church can dogmatize on matters of opinion, but she will always have something to say about how these matters ought to be handled.

But because of her human dimension, she cannot but act also in a human way, that is, there is need for study, for consultation, for testing, for correcting, etc., especially when she has to comment on temporal and earthly issues like business, politics, culture, sports, entertainment, etc.

That´s why the social doctrine of the Church has been articulated so that there can be some ground rules to follow in pursuing our earthly business and politics. This is what the Church perspectives provide.

This is a crucial element in any given society, otherwise we will tend to chaos as differences and conflicts can lose their unitive basis and purpose, and their capacity to resolve themselves.

THE powers behind the RH Bill, the prime movers of all possible ways and means of contraception, including the multinational pharmaceuticals wallowing in corporate greed

through the unlimited manufacture and wanton sale of all kinds of contraceptives, recently came up with another well-funded media spin.

With no qualms whatsoever in using the very symbol that they supposedly but deceptively uphold and protect, key representatives of said anti-natalist agents went to a hospital. There they waited for a baby to be born at the strike of the midnight clock. Immediately thereafter they used the tiny, innocent and helpless creature as a symbol of the 7-billionpopulation bomb. To somehow blur their base agenda, they heaped gifts upon the baby who was precisely supposed to stand as a bad omen for the Philippines and for the world as a whole.

This was synchronized with other countries using the same portent symbol of a helpless baby regarded as the harbinger of the catastrophe of global overpopulation. Of course, they saw to it though that the mother was “plugged” as a matter of course

to prevent her from further conceiving.

If these anti-people characters are really convinced that hunger and misery merely depend on the quantitative growth of demographics, how do they explain the fact that there are under-populated nations that are in want while there are other much populated countries that have enough? Why is it that there are people in different parts of the earth with supposedly well-controlled population, but now are staging escalating rallies

on account of economic imbalance and deprivation—such as at Wall Street?

There must be something else that makes nations affluent or miserable other than simplistically finger-pointing at demography. Population can either be the backbone of an

economy or the curse of development. Quite glaringly, there must be something else that makes the difference between the affluence and misery of people. To claim that the number of population alone is blessing or damnation, is too naïve a conviction to take intelligently. Why is it that much populated China is an economic giant while there are scarcely populated areas in Africa that have been long suffering from grave and

lasting want?

Specifically in the Philippines, why is it that there are certain families that are wallowing in wealth while a big number of Filipinos are drowning in misery? Why is it that public officials are synonymous with luxury while the common citizens are

burdened by scarcity? Why is it the political dynasties are so rich that they no longer know where to hide their money while the electorate that make them making pitifully remain impoverished?

There is something in these questions that demolish the myth that socio-economic development—or absence thereof—merely depends on material population count.

But using a baby-symbol to drive home the message of a supposedly impending  population bomb is already anachronistic—and wrong.

POPE Benedict the XVI has officially announced the Year of Faith that will commence on October 11, 2012 and end on November 24, 2013—the feast of Christ the King.  This will mark the 50^th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council and the 20^th anniversary of Blessed John Paul II’s publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. 

            The formal announcement was made last October 15 during an international conference on new evangelization held in Rome that was attended by 33 bishops’ conferences and 115 new movements, organizations, charismatic groups, parish renewal programs and study groups; convened by the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization.

            The intention and content of the Year of Faith is extensively explained in an Apostolic Letter entitled “Porta Fidei” (The Door of Faith) which the Vatican released two days after the formal announcement of the Year of Faith.

            This, of course, is all about the new evangelization which the Holy Father is strongly pursuing in response to a “profound crisis of faith that has affected many people” the world over.  In Porta Fidei, he reveals, “Ever since the start of my ministry as Successor of Peter, I have spoken of the need to rediscover the journey of faith so as to shed ever clearer light on the joy and renewed enthusiasm of the encounter with Christ.”

            If the composition of those who were invited to the international conference on the new evangelization where the Year of Faith was formally announced were any indicator, then one may surmise of the directions this new initiative is going to take.     Present during conference were the so-called leaders of Communion and Liberation, namely, the Community of Sant’Egidio, the Neo-Catechumenal Way, the Emmanuel Community, the Charismatic renewal communities, the Brazilian media group Cancao Nova, and an Italian parish renewal group.   Reportedly, the new Catholic movements dominated the crowd—which may be a manifestation about a heavily but spontaneously emerging pastoral in the Church today.

            But even more telling were the topics discussed during the same conference.  The discussions focused largely on how to better evangelize in the area of culture, in political involvement, in the use of media, and in the regular apostolate of among migrants, families and parishes.  

            The opening of the Year of Faith will be occasioned by the General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in October 2012 on the theme “The New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith”.   It will be interesting, and one can hardly wait, how the Synod will come up with the new ways of transmitting the faith so that, as the Pope pointed out, there will be a “renewed energy to the mission of the whole church to lead men and women out of the desert they often are in…”  But will the android, the apps and the iPad be counted?

EARLY this year, the world was glued to the unfolding of the so-called Arab Spring that started in Tunisia and high-peaked with the expulsion of the powerful Hosni Mubarak out of his own Egypt.  Most global bystanders thought that a trailblazer of a new paradigm was in the offing.

            International news organizations were feeding viewers with video footages of protesting crowds who were mostly young people and who appeared not to be goaded by radical movements or extremists.  In Egypt, for instance, Muslims and Christians were rallying and praying together at the Al Tahir Square.   Data streams in social media were oozing with encouraging messages.  At the outset there seemed to be no dent of extremism or Islamic agenda.   Young people, it seemed, just wanted to live better lives like their neighbors in Europe.  They never even longed for the blood of deposed government heads who fleeced their countries through decades of corruption.  Nobody, of course, dared to suggest that democracy was looming in the horizon.  What was certain was change was brewing—hence, the Arab Spring.

            But not until last Sunday, October 9.   That day “winter” started with a rather peaceful protest by Coptic Christians who were upset over the recent attack on a church in Assuan, Southern Egypt and deplored the silence of the new government at what happened.  This group was part of the protesters in Al Tahir Squared that called for a change of government.   In the rally, the Copts called for the resignation of the governor of the province and accused him of motivating the extremists to attack their church.

            The protest which started peacefully in the spirit of the Arab Spring degenerated into total chaos when security forces reportedly intervened by violently repressing the protesters with armored vehicles.  It ended with 25 dead and 500 wounded. Coptic priest Father Daoud said he saw a tank roll over 5 protesters to death.   

            Two days after the rampage, about 20 thousand people attended the funeral of the victims at the Coptic Cathedral in Cairo where the Coptic Patriarch Shenouda III announced three days of mourning and prayers to commemorate the victims whom they regarded as “martyrs who have saved the Church.”  A Coptic, Aida Mahrous, told the press:  “the next regime will be the same as the previous one.  Politics will never change.  To solve our problems we need to show that Christians and Muslims are one people, because otherwise the government will remain a mass of corruption.”

            For now, nobody really can tell what is the next picture—except that tentacles of winter seem to be inevitably coming out of the Arab Spring. 

IN July this year, the Senate inquiry on the cars granted by Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) to a couple of bishops has shown that the supposedly well-crafted PR work of PCSO to demolish the church (that is staunchly against the legislation of the Reproductive Health Bill) was not too well-crafted after all—it backfired.  Cans of worms were opened and the public saw how this gambling institution has misused hefty funds for purposes other than those allowed by its Charter—including intelligence work, advertizing and, allegedly, electioneering.  

            But it did not stop there.   A few days ago, the PCSO leadership started a new tirade.  This time, it threatened to delist the erstwhile favorite charity beneficiaries—the religious organizations.   Names of church institutions were exposed together with the amount of money they have been receiving from gambling.

            And this is where a more serious issue looms.

            Since 1996, the Bishops have already issued four pastoral statements strongly discouraging the use gambling money for charitable work for the poor.  In its latest statement on gambling issued in 2005, the bishops says:   “For it is most unfortunate that in our situation of poverty today public funds gained from legal gambling are often the only resource for the poor to be assisted adequately. Even if this were so, the CBCP does not encourage this manner of helping the poor. It could easily be construed as approving and promoting the culture of gambling and thereby scandalize the faithful.”

            Understandably enough, some church people would rationalize receiving money even from devil himself if only to help the poor.  But on closer scrutiny, in the Philippine context nobody helps poor people by giving them a short term relief that gambling money provides.  Rather, the poor becomes even poorer, because a short-term provision cannot redeem a long-term devastation to the psyche of the poor that has wallowed deep into the culture of gambling.  When one becomes such, he loses his capability for industry, his right sense of values and finally his dignity.

            The bishops’ 2005 statements says it better:  “However, applying the general moral principle to the specific Philippine situation, the CBCP has deemed it necessary to state on several occasions that the form of gambling that is organized, widespread, and systemic, whether legal or illegal, is not desirable. It is creating a culture of gambling that is seriously eroding the moral values of our people. In its illegal form, especially jueteng, gambling has bred a clandestine network of corruption that feeds itself on the hundreds of millions of pesos lost to gambling especially by the poor.”

            Time now for a few church people to part with PCSO and the pseudo-charity that gambling money provides. 

IN last week’s senate hearing a Pro-RH Senator finally admitted that the heavily hyped eleven maternal deaths per day in the Philippines is a public relations phrase “used by NGOs to drive home a point.” The doctoring of statistics is certainly a case of intellectual dishonesty that can never be whitewashed by any intention no matter how good.  

In this case, the intention is even doubly dubious in the sense that it is now obviously deceiving some tax payers into believing that there is an urgent need for a legislation that will cut down on maternal deaths.  But of course more frightening is the fact that this deception has found its way into text books of schools to teach young minds and ultimately trigger a perspective and behavior that will look at pregnancy as death-causing and therefore should be avoided like a disease.  And look at how the pro-RH diehards are trying to convince legislators and the public that birth control pills are “essential medicines”.

The “driving home a point” alibi is not actually as comfortable and slight as it seems; it is actually a lot more penetrating that will sadly cause a long term effect in education and mores, like it is now happening in the West and in most European countries.   Naiveté aside, the scheme is sinister, the program is global.

The same maybe said of the gigantic figures of abortion incidence in the country that Senator Santiago has raised to 570,000 annually which, if true, is easily half the number of abortions in the United States where abortion is legal and where the population is roughly four times more than the Philippines.   Reportedly, she has based her claim on the 2008 extrapolations by the Guttmacher Institute and the UP Population Institute—which analogically is like asking thieves about the incidence robberies in the country.   The New York-based Guttmacher Institute is the former research arm of the pro-abortion group Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of abortion services in the US.

Of course these abortion figures are, to borrow Santiago’s term, “taken from thin air.”  The Guttmacher statistics were mere extrapolations of a projected 90,000 or so admissions in hospitals across the country in 2008 due to abortion complications and then multiplying it by a factor of 6 or 7.  At the Senate Hearing last week, this prompted Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile to say:  “In other words this may or may not be true,” referring to the half billion alleged cases of abortion in the country annually, to which Santiago replied in the affirmative.

But one thing good with the RH Bill debates is that cans of worms are getting opened and more lies are being exposed.  Another one is, in all debates conducted by television networks that are mostly pro-RH, the numbers are slowly but surely favoring where the truth is.

THE two million young people from all over the world that gathered in Madrid for the 26^th World Youth Day last August 16 to 21 could have easily been a big media event—or at least according to usual journalism books.   Gathering that big volume of young people  especially at a time following the pro-democracy youth of the Arab Spring and the aimless youth riots in London cannot but hit the pages and TV screens irrespective of whether they were Catholics or not.

            And yet, it was not.  The international media seem to have ignored the big gathering.   Streaks of reportage came from global networks, but mostly to cover the ragtag protestors and the loud but few street economists who bewailed too much expense for the event but were clueless that it in fact has delivered hundreds of millions of Euros in revenues for the host country.  In contrast, the media were more ardent, or so it seemed, about the first World Youth Summit in Connecticut, USA organized by the United Nations last July which did not hit the targeted 20,000 attendance of young people despite the lavish logistics.  

            A young blogger from Reuters, Jo-Anne Rowney, writes:  “When I returned to London from last week’s World Youth Day, I checked the newspapers and logged on to news sites where I expected to be greeted with pilgrims’ smiling faces and headlines capturing the joyful spirit of the Catholic youth from around the globe who gathered to see Pope Benedict during his visit to Madrid.  What I found left me feeling disappointed.  The majority of the articles reported the ‘thousands’ of protestors against the visit.”

            The stark contrasts of young people in the Arab Spring, the London rioters, the UN youth summit and the world youth in Madrid that happened in close chronological sequence should have easily elicited commentaries from international columnists such as those in the New York Times, the avant-garde opinion leaders in the world—but none, to date.

            But, of course, that does not diminish the profound impact of the World Youth Day on the world’s young people ever since it started in 1986.   The 1995 World Youth Day in Manila, for instance, has left an indelible imprint in the hearts of those participants who may have been witnessing their faith by “telling the world of his love” in their own particular ways.

            The Australian editor of MercatorNet, Michael Cook writes, “The biggest stories are the hidden stories… Unnoticed by the media, 2 million young people have embarked upon a journey which will lead many of them to infuse their home countries with their deeply held Christian beliefs. Slowly the world is going to change. Thirty years from now, the media is going to have one hell of a surprise.”

            That, indeed, is why the World Youth Day is the strength of the Church. 

THE fiasco of the PCSO officials accusing bishops of receiving Pajeros from them exposes the ugly reality of how law and any earthly power and authority not vitally connected to morality can easily be manipulated to allow malice to play its dirty tricks. These man-made institutions and systems, which by themselves are always imperfect and in need of higher and deeper principles, can leave a lot of room for evil scheming to take place.

             This was quite clear when in the Senate investigation of the so-called Pajero bishops, it was found out that there was no Pajero involved, that the SUVs were mostly second-hand utility vans used for rural ministry, that there was nothing unconstitutional in bishops getting some aid from PCSO, that if there was any legal violation, the fault would lie more on the PCSO officials than on the bishops, etc.

             Malice is all over the place. Mrs. Margie Juico is now the face, the poster girl of that vastly orchestrated malice that now appears to have been participated in by some parts of the media, some members of the Senate, and a public relations office. She thought her ‘gotcha’ plan would fly. It crashed on her!

             In spite of being confronted by the tremendous amount of evidence showing lack of basis for their accusation, those involved have not emitted even a fart of an apology. Some continue to be defiant and recalcitrant, going deep in their unfair views.

             “The bishops were given kid-glove treatment by the Senate,” bannered a newspaper headline. Some commentators simply went ballistic with showing what could be inside their heart and their personal status—traces of liberalism, atheism, agnosticism, utter disrespect for Church authorities, etc.  Even gay writers, livid in their uncontrollable bitchiness, pitched in, pouring scorn and insults on the bishops. The issue must have been a eureka and a screaming glee moment for them, showcasing their almost inherent creativity and artistry, honed up by their penchant to live in a fantasy world.

             Of course, the gospel has already warned that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. If one only has malice in her heart, it will definitely show in words and actions.    If one has no faith or only has a badly digested faith, that condition will also show sooner or later. It will express in forms of ignorance and error, confusion, doubts and suspicions, fear, sarcasm, irony, superstition, bias and prejudice, etc.

             All these can be expressed in bitterness, unrestrained hostility, rigidity and inflexibility. Narrow-mindedness assumes prominence. Words become daggers. Arguments come equipped with fangs, claws and poison. 

            One has to look into motives and intentions, because they give the trajectory of our thoughts, words and actions, and indicate the goal we want to reach—God or ourselves.  When intentions are not deliberately purified and made to orient properly to their ultimate goal, God, then they become easy prey to our passions and to the many deceiving allurements of the world.  They influence the way one sees and understands things. An old philosophical adage expresses this well: “Quidquid recipitur ad modum recipientis recipitur.” (Whatever is received is received according to the manner of the receiver.)

            If a commentator, for example, has malice or has an axe to grind against another person, or is an atheist, an agnostic, a liberal if not a libertine, then he will filter and arrange all the data and information he gets according to his mentality.  Indeed, objectivity, the attainment of truth and justice, etc., depends on one’s adherence to God who is the ultimate and providential author of all reality.  One can only become objective, truthful and fair to the extent that he identifies himself with God.   One cannot rely on our reason and senses alone. Not even on our popular consensus on things. These can go anywhere, and can become a tool for malice.

THE National Secretariat for Social Action is spearheading a National Poverty Summit next month.   The objective of the summit, according to Fr. Edu Gariguez, executive secretary of NASSA, is to look into the real causes of poverty and “decide which way to take.” 

            There had been big conferences and even commendable studies on the real causes of poverty notably by the government during the administration of President Fidel Ramos, but once development goals are set they remain just that.   This is not to say, however, that just because nothing happens after these big conferences are concluded, especially now on poverty, doing them again is a waste of time.  On the contrary, they should be held more frequently if only to deliver a message to Malacañang and most legislators that even Mang Pandoy at the barbershop in the corner knows what the whole trouble with the country is.

            One can blow his top finding the logic of why Malacañang can be in the clouds while sorting solutions to the worsening poverty and then coming up with the seemingly big deal band-aid solutions the likes of Conditional Cash Transfer Program and the “Pantawid Pasada Program.”   It is either something is wrong with the logic or there are more logical agenda that overweighs the hunger pangs of the masses.  Take, for instance, the persistent pursuit of the Reproductive Health Bill.  People in the know have been saying that this highly divisive and socially costly Bill is not any solution to poverty or hunger, and yet Malacañang by implication says it is.       And while the streets are wondering why waste so much time and resources on a bill that is not going to help a bit the pitiful lot of Filipinos, some legislators suddenly comes up with a queer variation of the same bill—the divorce bill.  O tempora, O mores!

            At the onset of this Administration, people were of the perception that here at last is a leader that would be an antithesis of the previous that had been so much dinted with allegations of corruption and cunning.  Nothing was more exhilarating than hearing slogans as “Kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap.”  But now that the veneer of a deceiving perception is gone, one finds out a puppy with a different collar.   In fact, a collar that is bleaker. 

Of late, IBON Foundation reported that the Philippines’ first-quarter GDP growth of 4.9 percent is very slow, because principally this administration has been banking on “PPP-driven infrastructure, multi-million cash dole outs, global economic recovery, and the supposed ‘business and consumer’ trust in government.”  It added that the government might do better if only it will devote its energy to building “domestic economic momentum by addressing job generation and creation conditions for strong domestic industry and agriculture”—instead of, if one may add, wasting its energy on useless pursuits. 

A COLUMNIST and supporters of the Reproductive Health Bill now crawling in social networks zeroed in on half-hazard financial data of some dioceses and religious congregations that reportedly have placements in banks and investment houses allegedly running into billions of pesos.   

            Obviously, the equation they are trying to crack is to project the Catholic Church in the Philippines to very wealthy and consequently relate it to her position against the passage of the RH bill that they tagged as pro-poor.  This logic, of course, is flawed.  Irrespective of whether the Church is rich or poor, that bill is definitely anti-poor in that it is founded on the bedrock of eugenicists the likes of Margaret Sanger who have a deep-seated bias against the poor that they claim should not thrive on the face of the earth.

            If the Catholic Church in the Philippines is really wealthy, that should be a happy development indeed, because, unlike the pastor-centered protestant churches in the west (e.g. the Osteens and the Swaggarts) that personally own the assets of their churches, it only means that they have managed well their resources that belong to the parishes or dioceses and not to person of the priests or the bishops.  Cardinal Jaime Sin, for instance, died poor and did not bequeath to his relatives the assets of the Archdiocese of Manila.  Church assets are owned by the particular Christian community for the use of their pastoral and social programs.  

            But then it is not even correct to lump the Catholic Church in the Philippines as wealthy as if it were a centrally managed organization (like Iglesia ni Kristo is) because each of the 86 ecclesiastical jurisdictions in the country is independent from other.            While a few dioceses in the country maybe well-off financially, the majority is not.  The Diocese of Borongan (in Eastern Samar), for instance, has a number of parishes that barely make both ends meet.

            The friar lands that critics still impute to the church till today is a historical baggage that now is in never-never land.  Time to correct wrong perceptions. 

LAST month Pope Benedict XVI formally instituted a new dicastery or a new department at the Roman Curia named the “Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization.”   Apparently, this has been in his mind for sometime now, perhaps taking cue from the Novo millennio ineunte of his predecessor, now Blessed John Paul II.  Expectedly, this dicastery will become very handy during the forthcoming 13^th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in October 2012 that will dwell on the topic “New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith.”

            Human nature has not escalated a bit.  And history has been repeating itself rather consistently.  “What was, will be again, what has been done, will be done again, and there is nothing new under the sun,” or so says Qoheleth in Ecclesiastes.   But in the last decade, or even farther down to the Second Vatican Council, the mode of understanding and expression in the context of rapid technological advances had been incomparable in time.   Secularism, for instance, would have been understood and expressed differently, and perhaps more sluggishly if loosely during the time of the galleons of the colonials than, say, the Facebook that circulates influence in a “viral” way—as viral as the contagious Arab spring in the Middle East that is continuing today or the total demolition of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC) in 2009.

During the first plenary assembly of the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization held last month at the Vatican, the Holy Father addressed the participants:  “The crisis being experienced bears in itself traces of the exclusion of God from people's lives, of a generalized indifference toward the Christian faith itself, to the point of attempting to marginalize it from public life. In past decades it was still possible to discover a general Christian sense that unified the common feeling of whole generations, growing up in the shadow of the faith that had molded the culture. Today, unfortunately, we are witnessing the drama of a fragmentation that no longer consents to a unified point of reference; moreover, we often see the phenomenon of persons who wish to belong to the Church, but are strongly molded by a vision of life that opposes the faith.”

The crisis that the Pope mentions is, of course, viral.  Which is why, it is kind of alarming.  Thus, taking note of this, he stressed that the New Evangelization need to address  “the need for a renewed method of proclamation, especially for those who live in a context, such as the present one, in which the developments of secularization have left heavy traces even in countries with a Christian tradition… New Evangelization will have to be responsible for finding the methods to make the proclamation of salvation more effective, without which personal existence remains in its state of contradiction, deprived of the essential.”

A legislator who, on National TV, proclaimed at the floor “I am congressman who happens to be a catholic but not a Catholic Congressman” is not too far from the case in point. 

AFTER almost a year now in office, President Benigno Simeon Aquino III seems to have been very persistent with only one agenda:  the passage of the Reproductive Health Bill.  If there is anything interesting that can highlight best his first year in office that will be his unrelenting engagement with Catholic bishops on the same worn out issue, the RH bill.   He may be the first president in this country’s history that had the most overt dialogues with bishops at the first year of presidency—but ended up in futility because, according to the bishops’ letter to him, “the prevailing circumstances where a healthy atmosphere for dialogue on the matter is wanting.”

            It won’t appear ridiculous if he will be referred to as the “RH President”.   That will at least be higher in moniker than, say, a “Jueteng President” or something of “Hello Garci” and, perhaps, a lighter epitaph of a “president who hid under her bed”.  The only rub is, if the RH Bill goes down, he may also go with it.  Yes, Virginia, this bill is politically potent that may spell the difference between holding on to power or being booted out of it—or at least reaching the finish line but nursing some wounds of “survivorship” governance.

            The plummeting of his popularity rating of late is not an unusual twist of fate.  This was expected in the face of a growing number of Filipinos who have become unhappy, dissatisfied and disenchanted.  One year in office maybe cruelly too short to deliver campaign promises.  But even streaks of his “matuwid na daan” or “kung walang kurap walang mahirap” is nowhere in sight and maybe just as fancy as the PS2 games where he is reputed to be so obsessively adept.

            What people saw from day one was the innumerable missteps, blunders, boo-boos and diplomatic faux pas.   But these are nothing compared to the absence of a realistic road map that will answer the country’s worsening poverty problem that maybe traced from a whole gamut of mismanagement to endemic corruption. All that this administration has done so far are the “band-aid” solutions the likes of the Conditional Cash Transfer Program and the “Pantawid Pasada Program” which are both tentative and palliative.  

            Of late one reads a barrage of criticisms from commentators and observers.  Nestor Mata, for instance, wrote:  “…ever since he came to power, Aquino has already shown that he has no nescience, that is, he lacks knowledge of rules of governance and is ignorant of the Constitution and other laws of the land.”   And this one from an online observer:  “It looks like unsuspecting Filipinos had elected a little boy to Malacañang Palace, thinking him to be fully a man…The problem is that this man-boy is now technically the most powerful man in the Philippines.  Can we still afford to cut him some slack?”

GIVEN the prevailing notoriety of the Philippines that is perceived as the most corrupt country in Asia, at least according to the 2007 perception survey conducted by Political & Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC), it would not be too hard to swallow the expose of Senate majority leader Vicente Sotto III last May 10 that P2.6 billion allocations of the Department of Health (DOH) for Maternal, Neonatal and Child Health and Nutrition (MNCHN) have not been received by some local government units (LGUs). 

            According to Sotto he has ample proofs to back his claims.  Ilocos Norte, for instance, which was supposed to have received P644,525.60 in 2008; P602,590 in 2009 and P2.48 million in 2010, was among the verified local government units  that have not received the MNCHN funds. Other LGUs that claimed non-receipt of the same allocations are Batangas, Quezon and Lucena, while the verification of other provinces is still ongoing.  Reportedly, the total budget of MNCHN program for the whole country from 2008 to 2010 amounted to P2.6 billion.

            The first question is, where have all this money gone?  In an interview with a TV Network, former Secretary Health Secretary Esperanza Cabral defended that the release of the funds is performance-based, hence LGUs that have not “performed” are not supposed to be given the allocations.  But still the question remains.  The second is, if the government through the DOH is already operating on a well-funded program for Maternal, Neonatal and Child Health and Nutrition then why the aggressive pursuit for the legislation of the Reproductive Health Bill?  The third question is, if the DOH has been implementing this MNCHN program—granting the funds really went to where it should have been—which by public knowledge uses some contraceptives that are abortifacient, is not the government going against its very own constitution that considers abortion a criminal offense?

            At the end of the day, it may not be farfetched to finally discover that the “pro-poor” and “pro-women” spins of those advocating the approval of the Reproductive Health Bill are not really serious.  When money comes in the way, corruption certainly comes sadly as a matter of course—even at the cost of the lives of thousands of mothers and their babies.

            But Filipinos being too pliant have lived and have seemingly condoned corruption since this country started self-governance.  But one wonders now, if they can tolerate a greater corruption, the moral one—the one, for instance, that will corrupt the minds of their children by studying  a government-mandated 6 years, as if taking masteral and doctorate degrees, how to indulge in sex even outside of marriage. 

THE beatification of Pope John Paul II on May 1 will have a healing effect on the Catholic Church that had been bruised for over a decade now by multifaceted onslaughts due mainly to sexual aberrations of some of her clergy.   As pastor of the universal church for over 26 years (1978-2005), he mended conflicts not only within the walls of the church but even in the secular world.   He can do no less now as a beatified pastor.

           The first non-Italian pope after 455 years, Pope John Paul II became a pastoral protagonist in two global upheavals:  the fall communism in Eastern Europe which sprouted in his own Poland in 1989 and the passage to the third millennium of Christianity.  In his apostolic letter “Novo Millennio Ineunte”, he laid out his vision of the Church’s future and called for a “new sense of mission” to proclaim the Gospel to every corner of social and economic life.

           It was to this “new springtime of Christian life” that he saw in his apostolic letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente a substantial impetus of the Church to pursue more deeply the “aggiornamento” envisioned by the Second Vatican Council.   He came up with the new code of canon law and the universal catechism of the Catholic Church.  He issued definitive pastoral letters and exhortations that responded head-on with the rapidly changing perspectives the modern world.

           Acclaimed as one of the most influential leaders of the twentieth century, he was also touted as one of the most travelled world leaders in history, visiting 129 countries during his pontificate.  He was fluent in many languages:  Italian, French, German, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Ukrainian, Russian, Croation, Esperanto, Ancient Greek, Latin and his native Polish.  He has beatified 1,340 faithful and canonized 483 saints, more than the combined tally of his predecessors during the last five centuries.

           He used the media as his global pulpit and redefined its engagement more than Inter Merifica, a Vatican II decree on the media and social communications, could have even imagined—thus, even making the internet as a new forum for proclaiming the gospel.

           More than anybody else, he saw with distinct clarity the future of the world in the youth that he inspired not to be afraid of their own youthfulness. He never failed to be in thick of all world youth gatherings, which he institutionalized, until his frail body could bring him no more.

           For many, he was a friend of humanity.  For others, he was a conscience of the modern world.  But for the Filipino youth, he was the Pope who challenged them “to tell the world of his love.”

AS a people, Japan’s handling of its continuing crisis brought about a battery of calamities was no less than exemplary that has earned both envy and growing admiration of international bystanders.  People suffering in silence were seen highly considerate with fellow victims especially when it came to relief distribution that otherwise exudes the worst in man in most countries—even the Hurricane Katrina experience of the United States.

            But as government the scenario may be different.  The raising of the provisional severity level of the nuclear accident at Fukushima No. I nuclear power plant by Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) to the worst rating of seven on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES) has rocked the shaky foundations of a government that is just 20 months into power.   At press time, the leader of Japan’s largest opposition party called for Prime Minister Naoto Kan to resign abruptly ending an easy political truce forged after the devastating earthquake and tsunami.

            Among other criticisms, Japan’s Prime Minister has been lately accused of surrounding himself with newly appointed aides, sidelining bureaucrats and causing confusion in a government already overwhelmed in the aftermath of the multiple disasters.  “I think the time has come for the prime minister to consider his resignation,” said Sadakazu Tanigaki, president of the opposition Liberal Democratic Party.  “To keep going under the current leadership would be very unfortunate for the Japanese people.”

            A level seven rating described by the INES is “a major release of radioactive materials with widespread health and environmental effects requiring implementation of planned and extended countermeasures.”  The only other nuclear crisis to have been rated level seven was the 1988 Chernobyl accident in the former Soviet Union.

            As observers would have it, the political infighting seems to be raising fears that Japan will be left rudderless on its way to the huge task of reconstruction.   Some say it could possibly prolong a political paralysis in a country that has already produced five prime ministers in just five years—touted to be weak leaders from both major political parties.

            Be that as it may, but another major consideration is the growing global debate whether nuclear power should still be harnessed on top of all the renewable sources of energy.   Proponents of the nuclear energy content that nuclear power is still the most sustainable energy source that reduces carbon emissions and increases energy security by decreasing dependence on oil.   A good observation comes from the professor in the department of quantum engineering at Nagoya University in Japan:  “The fact that we have now confirmed the world’s second-ever level 7 accident will have huge consequences for the global nuclear industry.  It shows that current safety standards are woefully inadequate.”   In the Philippines, the best way perhaps is to hammer the last nail for the eventual burial of the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant.

            This issue if dedicated to the 36 year-old Alay Kapwa, the national Lenten action program of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines.   This program may not be as popular today as say, Pondong Pinoy, but there is sense to this year’s theme of equating one’s concern’s for one’s neighbor with that of the environment.   After all whatever one does to the environment will definitely end up with one’s neighbor.  Read on. 

IS the Philippines ruled by a duly framed and approved Constitution?  Does this country have a republican democracy? Are the Filipinos free as citizens and sovereign as a people?  The elementary and immediate answers to all such three simple questions are in the positive. Honest, it is not only inspiring but also endearing to know and to live the truths advanced by such answers in the affirmative.  Moreover, it is not simply proper but likewise just for the Filipino citizens to be told that such sound socio-political realities are existent and alive in their basically docile society.

But then comes the pressing disturbing question: How does one explain with rhyme and reason the following devious design being seriously entertained by the present administration: One, the postponement of the duly legislated and scheduled ARMM elections. Two, the disregard for the political will and societal expectation of the people in the Region.  Three, the subsequent appointment of the public officials therein at the preferential option of Malacañang. Where is the Constitution?  Where is democracy? Where is sovereignty?

The truth of the matter is that the above issue is neither merely social in nature nor purely political in significance.  At the core of such plan runs the counter-ethical principle—not to mention immoral elements—that undermine human dignity and trample upon human rights.  And this is no little matter whereas it is the manifestation of a thwarted conscience, not to mention the revelation of the well-covered dictatorial tendency—all of which run counter to the inherent aspiration and consequent expectation of the people in general.

Time and again, there is not only the disturbing but also disgusting phenomenon that Filipinos are the first-hand witnesses of—in the course of their history as a people.  This: When the political candidates present themselves for election, they loudly and repeatedly claim their pro-people stance, not to mention their unconditional dedication to public service.  But when already elected as public officials, majority of them feel like demigods adorned with some kind of omnipotence to do what they like, how they like it done—and when.  

After so many decades of Philippine history, it is worth asking:  When will the Filipinos ever have political leaders who would really bring them to the knowledge of objective truth, the experience of social justice, the joy of genuine peace?  To this date when they have a supposedly populist national leadership, it is instead its self-adoring and pro-self governance that Filipinos experience, witness and suffer from.

IS the popular uprising that started in Tunisia and now raging in Bahrain, Yemen and Libya a political virus that is infecting the Arab countries?  Is it an orchestrated scheme of some fundamentalist groups the likes of Muslim Brotherhood in pursuit of a more sinister global agenda?  Or is it just that people are already weary of overstaying regimes as in the case of Tunisia (21 years), Egypt (30 years), Libya (42 years) and Yemen (21 years), among others.   

            But by the likelihood of it, this could be a trailblazer of a new paradigm of change that maybe tilting towards a more democratic way of life.  Judging from photos and video footages seen on international TV, observers see that most of the protesting crowds are young who seem not to be manipulated by radical movements or extremists.  In Egypt, for instance, Muslims and Christians were rallying and praying together—defying the practice of extremists of pitting them against each other.  Except for Libya at press time, political powers have tried fomenting a counter revolution with violence to boot, but they never succeeded.

            What seem common in TV interviews, in blogs and social networks is that young people in these countries have an overarching motivation which is basically to be able to find job, to create a family and to live with a minimum of decency.  And, seemingly, there has not been a whimper of extremism or even traces of Islamic agenda.  Some observers were surprised to note that there was no aggressiveness in the sense of burning effigies of Uncle Sam or the trampling of the Israeli flag.  There has not been any attempt to kill or imprison the deposed heads of governments who were living in luxury and corruption with billions of dollars to their private chests; they were condemned, yes, but allowed to go.

            Of course, there is no denying that the internet is one of the bigger factors in changing mentalities of the new generation in the Arab world.  The young people of America, for instance, and those of Yemen compare notes and opinions which may not be necessarily identical but definitely close to each other.   Besides, the Arab world is very close to Europe where people have relatives that have been assimilated into France, Germany, Italy, England and others.  People discover the chasm of difference in lifestyle between them that live less than $2 a day, as in Egypt, and their relatives in European countries.

            Call this revolution in the Arab world an awaking, but there are issues now that are coming out in the open—that is, at uprisings both in the streets and in social networks.  One is the equality of men and women.   Another is the separation of the state from religion.   This is very crucial and may take a longer generational shift in worldview.  What seem visible now is that young people are fed up with the conflicts of their parents, of the older generation.  They just want to live in peace, build their own families and have a more open and developed nation, like the other parts of world.  If such is the case, then a springtime in the Arab world may be in the offing. 

SURELY, it was not by a careless twist of fate that the architect of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, was voted Time’s person of the year. It was because of the tremendous revolution that this social medium has triggered especially on how people the world over interact with each other, spontaneously bringing about a democratization of information and, perhaps, power.  With about 600 million users and over a billion new pieces of content posted every day, it is touted to be the third largest “country” in the planet—with the most information on its “citizens” than any country in the world.

            In the Philippines alone, there are over 18 million Filipinos connecting daily on Facebook, not to mention other social networking platforms such as Twitter, Friendster, Myspace and a bevy more.   In this country which is one of the global top users of social media, a greater majority of information—from news to views, from hi’s and sighs, from photos to videos—are lodged and dislodged more in these two-way social networks than in traditional one-way media such as television, radio or press.

            That being the case, most of the hullabaloo about the Reproductive Health Bill are found in social networks more than—some say more than 60%—what one hears or see in traditional media.  By cursory check, the latest Pastoral Letter of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines titled “Choosing Life, Rejecting the RH Bill”, for instance, was casted by a popular Facebook account,  “100%  Katolikong Pinoy!”,  to its nearly one hundred thousand members shortly after it was officially released on January 30.  And so were other Catholic social media such as “I Oppose the RH Bill,”  “Filipinos for Life,”  “YouthPinoy” and a few smaller ones that cascaded the same content.  Ironically, the same pastoral letter was not even read in many parishes throughout many dioceses nationwide until today according to ground info.

            On the other hand, the opposite camp, those who are pushing for the immediate legislation of the RH Bill who seem very friendly to the media, are aggressively using every nook and cranny of social networks—even if, by the hasty looks of it, they do not have as much “likes” or membership.  They push and shove every argument they can muster, every “Damaso” they can lash at and every language they can utter, no matter how foul or obscene.  Anyway, this is how Egypt was lately done—through twitter, among others.  This order of things should be very alarming to ordinary mortals who consider even using an email passé—but not to those in greater ecclesiastical circles where the digital divide is still way up in limbo.

             Perhaps, it’s about time now for Church leaders to sincerely peek into what’s all these social networks are all about—and perchance understand why in the arena of public opinion, especially among the youth, a greater majority still do not understand what on RH the Church is trying to say.