Thinking Christians overcome in the end

GOTCHA By Jarius Bondoc, The Philippine Star, Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Both the Senate and House versions of the reproductive health bill reject abortion. Sen. Panfilo Lacson states right off that abortion, being illegal, shall not be among the full range of family planning services to be granted couples. So does Rep. Edcel Lagman’s, with a qualifier that women suffering post-abortion complications shall be treated at once — a humane act. Throughout the text both stress the criminality of snuffing out the life of the unborn. So why do Catholic bishops deem the authors promoters of abortion?

To be sure, the bishops are against birth control. For the Church, sex should only be between married couples, as obligation, mainly to procreate and then be intimate. Anything that goes against that purpose of sex, say, withdrawal or masturbation is a sin (of Onan). To couples that do not wish pregnancy as yet, for a valid reason, the bishops prescribe abstinence, akin to chastity. They allow the Rhythm or Billings Method only because by natural odds the wife won’t conceive anyway even if the husband aims to procreate.

The bishops ban artificial means. Condoms, surgeries like vasectomy or tubal ligation, intrauterine devices, and injectable, topical or oral birth controls are immoral. It gets messier. For the bishops, all contraceptives are also abortifacients. It is not just out of fear that “once artificial methods are practiced, then legalizing abortion will not be far behind.” Anything that prevents the formation of a fetus is, for the bishops, killing the fetus itself.

Thinking Catholics find it illogical. Contraceptives counteract conception, that is, life, so how can it destroy life? Ah basta, the debate turns dogmatic, that is the moral law, and anyone who doubts or disobeys shall burn in the eternal fires of hell.

The Catholic laity is not as obstinate as their bishops. They try to see things from the clerical viewpoint, and review the Pill and IUD. IUDs may on rare occasion induce abortion, like if a user already is conceiving when trying it the first time. In such event, the tool does become abortifacient, though by accident. The lost fetus, more likely to go unnoticed, is one life too many, so out with IUDs. Chemical contraceptives could accidentally and unacceptably abort too. Say, if the active ingredient lingers in the body too long and fatally weakens a fetus. Out with Pills too.

But condoms and surgical birth-prevention cannot by any stretch of imagination abort. It’s absurd. Pray tell, faithful Catholics beg the bishops, how can soft latex or knotted passageways of human egg or semen kill an unborn babe that wasn’t formed?

The bishops’ line defies science. It doesn’t matter to them. They’ve always clung to unscientific notions versus empirical evidence. Earlier bishops had suppressed Copernicus, a monk who observed in the early 1500s that the Sun does not revolve around the Earth as they thought. It simply went against the view that Creation was centered on the human world. A century later Galileo and Kepler separately upheld Copernicus’ findings and boldly began to define the universe. Galileo was tried in Inquisition and Kepler excommunicated for suggesting that the world might only be a speck in the Divine scheme of things.

Science forged ahead despite priestly resistance. In the 1850s Darwin theorized Evolution, and was promptly banned by Catholic educators. Freud in the 1910s analyzed the many facets of the human mind, panicking clerics who felt he was debunking the concept of Soul. Then Einstein developed General Relativity, which Friedmann expounded into the Big Bang, and Hubble supported with proportions of planetary distances and velocities. Bishops branded them enemies of Creationism, forgetting that the trio continued to attribute to a Divine Master the order of the universe.

Following the footsteps of earlier thinkers who eventually prevailed, today’s family-planning advocates push on. Bishops’ threats of withholding from them Communion and other Sacraments, they fervently pray over to melt. They remain steadfast Catholics trying to reform the Church thinking. Those of them who are old enough have seen it all before. In the early ’60s bishops had called rock n’ roll the work of the devil, yet the new art form found its way into the Jazz Mass and bouncy Gospel music. Today’s bishops in the end will come around to accepting that spaced pregnancy is being pro-life as well as pro-quality of life. It saves mothers and infants from morbidity, and improves their families physically, financially and spiritually.

Before that happens, though, there might first be a breakdown of the Separation of Church and State. That principle was conceived not so much to prevent churchmen from involving in politics, than government setting up a state religion. Bishops understandably will try to influence politicians’ thinking on reproductive health. But what if state leaders acquiesce only to Catholic clergymen, ditching other Christians and religionists who want family planning services? Then things will get worse before they get better.

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E-mail: jariusbondoc@workmail.com

Araw aksayado sa ulat ni GMA

SAPOL Ni Jarius Bondoc, Pilipino Star Ngayon, Monday, July 28, 2008

NEGATIVE 38 percent ang performance rating ng madla kay Gloria Macapagal Arroyo nitong Hunyo, mas lumala pa kaysa negative 26 percent nu’ng Marso. Ito’y sa kabila ng pamimigay niya ng kung ano-anong limos na panakip-butas sa krisis: NFA rice na P18.50 per kilo, P500 kada pamilyang gumamit lang ng 50 kilowatt-hours na kuryente nu’ng Hunyo, P500 pa muli sa kada sertipikadong hikahos, at planong subsidy sa fertilizer at diesel.

Anang anak na Rep. Mikey Arroyo, bagsak ang rating ng ina dahil sa pagsipa ng presyo ng gasolina at bigas. Mali siya. Bagsak ang marka ni GMA dahil basag na ang tiwala sa kanya ng taumbayan. Aba’y 40 percent ang nagsasabing mambibilog na naman siya ng ulo sa araw na ito ng State of the Nation Address; 14 percent lang ang naniniwalang magpapakatotoo siya. Mas malala ito kaysa nakaraang SONA nu’ng 29 percent ang nagsabing magbubulaan siya at pareho lang na 13 percent ang palagay ang loob ng magsasabi siya ng totoo.

Milyong-piso ang gagastahin para sa seremoniyas ng SONA sa Kongreso: Bulaklak, dekorasyon at cocktails sa Batasan; parada ng mga sasakyan ng mataas na pinuno, at mobilisasyon ng pulis sa kalsada. Pero makikinig ang taumbayan para lang tuyain ang Pangulo. Alam nilang hindi naman niya haharapin ang mga bumabagabag na isyu:

• Pagsangkot ng kanyang asawa at iba pang kaanak at katoto sa bilyong-pisong katiwalian sa ZTE, Northrail at Southrail deals; Transco sale; fertilizer scam; swine scam; at marami pang iba. Aba’y malakas ang hugong na bumili na raw ang First Couple ng mansion sa Portugal, kung saan tatakbo matapos ang termino. Wala kasing extradition treaty ang Pilipinas sa bansang ‘yon, kaya makakalusot sila sa kasong plunder.

• Binali ni GMA ang batas at proseso para maluklok nu’ng 2004 at pagtakpan ang mga sumunod na pangu­ngulimbat.

• Nagtahimik habang pumatay ang militar ng 800 militante.

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Lumiham sa jariusbondoc@workmail.com

Today wasted on her fantasy

GOTCHA By Jarius Bondoc, The Philippine Star, Monday, July 28, 2008

Filipinos rated Gloria Arroyo’s performance negative-38 percent in June, much worse than her negative-26 in March. Three of every five (60 percent) were dissatisfied with her; only one in five (22 percent) cheered. She’s now decidedly the most disliked President since Marcos. That’s in spite of her crisis doles: discounted rice at P18.50 a kilo, P500 per family that burns less than 50 kilowatt-hours of electricity a month, another P500 per family that’s certified poor, still another P500 per needy senior citizen, discounted diesel, subsidized fertilizer, and whatever else gimmick.

Remnant loyalists claim that Arroyo’s popularity sagged due to price surges of rice and fuel. The implication is that outside forces beyond her control — OPEC cartel, Chinese-Indian food and fuel demand — marred her.

They’re wrong. Arroyo got failing marks because of broken public trust. Why, 40 percent expect her to lie through the teeth again today in her State of the Nation. Only 14 percent are giving her the benefit of the doubt in her annual report and initiatives. This credibility rating is again worse than last year’s 29 percent who anticipated her to fib, and statistically the same as the 13 percent who had hoped she wouldn’t.

If government were parliamentary, Arroyo’s admin would likely be dissolved by now in a no-confidence vote. Sadly it’s presidential, with not only a fixed term but also virtual control over the House of Reps’ purse. So the pliant congressmen will fete her today in a Batasan spruced up at the cost of P90 million, with P110 million more to come — from her. On top of that, they’ll be splurging millions more on decor, food and wine, fuel for the motorcade of sycophants to her speech, and mobilization of cops to keep citizens away.

All that money will be wasted. If Filipinos will listen to her address at all, it is only to prepare to refute her, They know she will skirt the real issues:

• Her involvement, and that of her kith and kin, in multibillion-peso scams in ZTE, Northrail, Southrail, Transco, fertilizers, swine, coal imports, telecom frequencies, oil exploration, smuggling, and more;

• Her breach of procedures and laws, first to rig the 2004 presidential polls and then cover it up; and

• Her silence over, or tacit consent to, the murder of 56 journalists and more than 800 militant dissenters by roving death squads.

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On the road to the Batasan, take note of Metro Manila Development Authority chairman Bayani Fernando’s work. Many call it madness.

Commonwealth Avenue is supposed to be the country’s widest, with eight lanes on each side, and sidewalks and a median with shady trees and flowering shrubs. The shades and flowers have been ditched. BF spent the money instead to cut three-lane U-turns where unneeded. This constricted the national road not to five lanes but only three, because adjacent to the U-turn slots are BF’s pink-colored, fenced-off jeepney stops.

The outermost of three U-turn lanes have been eliminated, cemented with shin-high perimeters. They’re unnecessary anyway, according to BF, because U-turning jeepneys and buses need to eat into the second or third lane. Engineer BF forgets that the extra-wide turning radius is because the old vehicles from Japan are unsafe because retrofitted with inapt gearboxes. His job as metropolitan chief is to weed out such rolling coffins.

The dead lanes have been gathering rainwater, breeding ponds for dengue mosquitoes. BF had a swift solution. He ordered gravel and soil poured in. If talk was true, he might have spent last weekend prettifying the mess with greens for today’s SONA, but later will just cement them all over.

BF justifies his U-turn slots as necessary traffic chokers. Because Commonwealth is so wide, drivers tend to over-speed; at least one pedestrian or motorist is killed everyday, more maimed. BF’s ingenious answer was the hazardous cemented barriers astride fenced jeepney lanes. Cars must now suddenly swerve or screech to rolling stops. The last time people heard, the sane engineering solutions would have been to paint lane markers, build more pedestrian overpasses, and arrest speedsters.

The public works office spent P800 million to widen Commonwealth, Rep. Roilo Golez laments, only to have BF destroy it. USec. Ramon Aquino swore they never gave BF permission to pave the U-turn slots, yet he did anyway. The House oversight committee is girding to condemn him for it and similar damage on Ninoy Aquino Road fronting Manila International Airport in Parañaque.

“We heard that BF has told off the MRT builders on Commonwealth to not touch his U-turn slots,” Golez says. “Designs had to be redrawn and additional costs will be incurred, just to preserve his folly.”

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E-mail: jariusbondoc@workmail.com

Salitang pulitiko, salitang nanloloko

SAPOL Ni Jarius Bondoc, Pilipino Star Ngayon, Friday, July 25, 2008

MATALINONG tao raw si Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. Kaya nagtataka ako kung bakit niya ito pinambungad sa isang talumpati (isinalin sa Pilipino): “Mga kaibigan, nakatira tayo sa pinaka-dakilang bansa sa kasaysayan ng daigdig. Halina’t samahan ninyo ako sa pag­sisikap na baguhin ito.”

Hello, Barack? E kung “pinaka-dakila” na pala, e bakit mo pa babaguhin, at nag-aanyaya ka pa ng iba? Hindi mo pa ba narinig ang kasabihang “kung hindi sira, huwag ayusin”? O baka naman nadadala ka lang sa sarili mong mabubulaklak na salita — mga salita ng pulitikong nanliligaw ng boto, mga salitang nanloloko?

Dumako tayo sa Pilipinas, kung saan magsasagawa si Presidente Gloria Arroyo sa Lunes ng ikawalong State of the Nation Address. Asahan nating wala na namang laman ang ulat na ito.

Nang sumumpa si Arroyo bilang Presidente nu’ng Enero Enero 20, 2001, araw na pinatalsik si Joseph Estra­da, aniya: “Simple lang ang ipangangako ko sa inyo. Ako ay magiging mabuting Presidente.”

Mula noon, lumala ang kahirapan, katiwalian at kagu­luhan.

Kahirapan. Nu’ng una, 3.1 milyong pamilya ang nag­sasabing gutom sila; dumami ito sa 3.4 milyon, 3.7 milyon, at ngayon’y 4 milyon na. Parami nang parami ang OFWs — 9 milyon — dahil walang trabaho sa bansa. Limang milyon pa ang walang trabaho at 14 milyon ang kapos ang sahod.

Katiwalian. Dalawang araw pa lang sa puwesto, ina­prubahan ni noo’y-Justice Sec. Nani Perez ang maano­mal­yang kontratang kuryente sa IMPSA, na may $17 mil­yong kickback, ayon kay Sen. Ping Lacson. Sa kalalabas na talambuhay ni dating VP Tito Guingona, inamin umano ni Perez sa kanya na pinilit lang siya ni Arroyo aprubahan ang IMPSA deal.

Kaguluhan. Sa tala ng National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, 56 na ang napapatay na mamamahayag sa loob ng pitong taon ni Arroyo sa puwesto; 33 ang pinatay nu’ng Marcos martial law. Patuloy ang pagpatay at pagdukot sa mga militante, huwes at piskal sa kanayunan.