Paradox of growth

By: Lila Ramos Shahani
Philippine Daily Inquirer  
10:02 pm | Saturday, December 10th, 2011

Here’s the paradox of growth in this country. From 2003 to 2009, the economy grew by an average of 4.8 percent. And yet, instead of decreasing with economic growth, the number of poor Filipinos actually burgeoned from 19.8 million to 23.1 million.

So where did all that growth go? Celia Reyes of the Philippine Institute of Development Studies (PIDS) reports that a significant increase went to corporations (P3 trillion), while households only took in P2.4 trillion. In short, economic growth did not benefit the poor as much as it benefited corporations and better-off families. Economic growth, in fact, heightened the disparity between rich and poor, and across regions.

Another PIDS study covering 2004 to 2008 reveals that, despite improvements in income, two-thirds of the poor consistently earned less than the threshold income. This phenomenon, known as chronic poverty, tells us that many of the poor are born and die in poverty, leaving their children in the same abject conditions.

The National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) defines the “poor” as having a monthly income below P7,017 for a family of five (2009)—the minimum amount necessary to meet basic needs, including those for food, housing, education and health. Within this bracket is another group called the “subsistence poor” with monthly family incomes below P4,869: barely enough to meet basic food needs.

Statistics on poor households tend to vary. In 2009, the NSCB put poverty incidence among Filipino individuals at 26.5 percent. Using “self-rated poverty,” Social Weather Stations (SWS) found that, over the past decade, 46 percent to 66 percent of the population considered themselves poor. What remains indisputable: Poor Filipinos are growing in number, their situation growing progressively more severe.

Regions

Of the 20 poorest provinces in the country, half are in Mindanao, most of which are in Caraga and ARMM.

In terms of severity of poverty, Central Visayas and Bicol top the list: Central Visayas (181,649 families), Bicol (137,527 families) and Western Visayas (115,298 families).

The regions with the highest income inequality are Central Visayas, Eastern Visayas and Northern Mindanao. The incidence of armed conflict in these regions is particularly high.
An enduring pattern in this landscape is an old, persistent story: The farther away from the National Capital Region, the graver the poverty and inequality.

Stuck

A number of reasons explain the cycle of poverty that continues to define this reality for one in every five Filipinos:

Weak economic growth and unemployment. The poor are often solely dependent on their own labor. With poor education and health comes an inability to compete for better work. Most of the poor are also in the agricultural sector, where large populations and poor productivity continue to keep incomes low.

The poor have nearly three times the family size of better-off families. Larger family size, by increasing the number of dependents, lowers per capita incomes. Had the Philippines, with a similar population size in the 1960s, followed Thailand’s population policies over the past three decades, more than 3.6 million Filipinos (one-third of the poor) would now be out of poverty (Balisacan and Mapa, 2004).

High levels of inequality


The country has a poor record of implementing asset redistribution to the poor. Land reform has been slow and, as of 2008, less than 25 percent of ancestral domain lands had been distributed to indigenous people, over a decade after the passage of the Indigenous People’s Rights Act.

Armed conflict deters economic growth. Most severely hit by a decades-long insurgency are the provinces of Mindanao, where hundreds of thousands of Filipinos have been forced to leave their communities with little assurance of ever recovering what they’ve lost. Government resources are diverted to assist internally displaced populations, while investors continue to balk at investing in conflict-ridden areas.

Natural disasters also hurt the vulnerable most. Natural disasters greatly affect up to 6 million Filipinos every year, destroying crops, killing livestock and affecting food prices – wiping out small livelihoods and the poor’s meager belongings.

Lack of representation. Despite their large numbers, the poor are inadequately represented in local and national government, with little voice in matters that affect them most.

Who are the poor?
(See table below.)

The poor are predominantly in rural (74.8 percent) rather than urban (25.2 percent) areas (Balisacan, 2006).

Over 35 percent of Metro Manila’s population lives in informal settlements, suffer from “insecure land tenure, lack adequate health and educational facilities, and (are) unable to access capital, credit or social safety nets. They are further exposed to makeshift housing, unsafe water, poor sanitation, crime, fire and sudden flooding” (ADB, 2009).

(Lila Ramos Shahani is an assistant secretary of the National Anti-Poverty Commission.)

The poor by sector
Group                           Poverty Incidence (in percent)     Number
Fisherfolk                      49.9                                            482,477
Farmers/forest workers   44.0                                         2,095,646
Women                          30.1                                       12,806,177
Children                         40.8                                       14,405,899
Urban poor                    16.1                                          6,852,965

http://bit.ly/ukVmCf 

10:03 pm | Saturday, December 10th, 2011

An old woman gathers charred wood
in an urban community hit by fire.
Contributed Photo

(Editor’s Note: President Aquino’s approval rating declined to 72 percent in August from 77 percent in November.  The decline may be partly due to a double-digit rise in disapproval of his efforts at “reducing the poverty of many Filipinos” from 21 percent in May to 36 percent last month.

So how is the Aquino administration addressing poverty? The National Anti-Poverty Commission presents its strategy here.)


Synergy as strategy
By Jose Eliseo M. Rocamora

The depth of poverty in the Philippines will require efforts on a massive scale. A multidimensional approach grounded in economic growth and its distribution will therefore be needed to effectively reduce poverty.

The participation of all stakeholders – local governments and government agencies, the private sector, civil society, and the poor themselves – is vital.

The government’s resources have been focused on Pantawid Pamilya, which will benefit 4.3 million households in the next three years through conditional cash transfers that are linked to the health and education targets of the Millennium Development Goals. We are also targeting 5.2 million poor families for subsidized health-insurance coverage. This is the first time many poor Filipinos will have been helped by the government.

The goal of Pantawid Pamilya and PhilHealth is to deliver direct and substantial assistance to the poor in the quickest possible time. The targeting and administration of beneficiaries is therefore centralized.

These programs are geared toward addressing the health and education needs of the poor. By improving school attendance and health conditions of the poor, intergenerational poverty can be significantly arrested.

Our long-term goal is ultimately the empowerment of the poor. We must convince the poor that, with a little bit of help, they can be the source of their own deliverance. The poor must actively participate in designing and implementing their own poverty-reduction programs. This can only be possible if the center of gravity for these programs is local: clearly, the poor can best be organized at the municipal level.

Our localization strategy maximizes the impact of existing programs by generating greater local government and civil society participation and providing a framework that links local and national antipoverty planning.

We have therefore compiled a list of over 600 municipalities based on a combination of criteria: poverty incidence and magnitude, as well as access to Pantawid Pamilya, PhilHealth and Pamana (which focuses on peace and development). These municipalities account for almost half (40,298,709) of the total population, including around 12 million of the country’s poor, who are concentrated in four regions: Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), Caraga, Region 5 and Region 8.

To focus on these municipalities, the community-based monitoring system will be used as a mapping tool for antipoverty programs. Support for nonfocus municipalities will be demand-driven, with special attention given to members of the House of Representatives and/or governors supporting programs that cut across more than one municipality.

Development planning


As data on growth and poverty incidence from 2000 to 2009 indicate, rapid economic growth is a necessary, but ultimately insufficient, condition for poverty reduction. Our development policy is therefore based on “inclusive growth.” While social protection programs (e.g., Pantawid Pamilya) lessen the income gap, asset reform programs (e.g., agrarian reform) address the “asset gap” between rich and poor.

Because almost two thirds of the poor live in rural areas, we will pay particular attention to developing agriculture by crafting policies that correct distortions to reduce the economic and social opportunities of the poor in rural areas.

As Dr. Emmanuel de Dios (1993) has noted, growth affects poverty reduction if the production factors and resources being enhanced are those owned by the poor, or if the returns on their outputs increase with growth. Regrettably, the sector growth pattern since 2000 has been biased against agriculture and toward the least labor-intensive sectors.

To address the unequal distribution in regional growth, our localization program will focus on the poorest regions. But in order to more fully align poverty programs with economic growth programs, we propose to divide the country into three economic zones:

Rural and semiurban areas close to logistical and industrial hubs in urbanizing growth areas;

Areas farther away from urban growth centers but with good resource endowments, particularly land and water; and Areas with neither good resource endowments nor logistical connections to urban areas.

Poverty programs can then be tailored to the needs of each zone: marketing and business development in Zone 1; production and roads in Zone 2; and direct assistance and service delivery in Zone 3.

This “economic geography” approach will link poverty programs with other economic development programs and help shape budget allocations and multiyear investment plans by providing a unified framework for bringing local and national antipoverty planning together.

Good governance

A bottom-up budget process will undercut existing circuits of patronage. Inter-agency planning on poverty programs within the Human Development and Poverty Reduction Cabinet Cluster will shift decision-making away from areas where patronage syndicates might be operating.

Thus, the political economy at the local level can be changed if local officials figure more directly in the planning, service delivery and implementation of antipoverty programs.
With these measures, we hope to build pathways to free the poor from the grim and implacable realities of persistent poverty.

Key programs

1. Social protection

For the immediate term: Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program provides substantial assistance to the largest possible number of poor people in the shortest possible time.
Some 2.3 million poor households nationwide are receiving conditional cash transfers as an incentive to have themselves and their children regularly checked in health stations (P500 per month per household) and for children aged 6-14 to attend public schools (P300 per child per household, for up to three children) or to receive a maximum monthly cash grant of P1,400 per household.

For the immediate to medium term: Health care reform will expand PhilHealth toward universal coverage. A target of 5.2 million indigents will be enrolled in PhilHealth, giving priority to ARMM, Zamboanga Peninsula, Eastern Visayas, Bicol, Mimaropa, Socsargen and Caraga.

For the immediate to medium term: Water infrastructure will be provided to 483 “waterless” municipalities, where over 50 percent of the population lacks drinking water and often suffer from waterborne and sanitation-related diseases.

For the medium to long term: Education-For-All. Resources will be devoted to basic education, aiming for universal enrolment by 2016, by addressing critical bottlenecks: school facilities, teacher positions, textbooks, teacher training and scholarships for poor but deserving students.

2. Asset reform

For the opportunity poor: The goal is to provide access to productive resources and asset reform (agrarian reform; distribution of ancestral domain titles; fisheries and aquatic resources reform; low-income housing and urban land reform). This also involves completing the land distribution covered by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) within five years and the remaining 4.2 million hectares (out of the targeted 10 million hectares) of ancestral domain land under the Indigenous People’s Rights Act. Around 3.4 million hectares are already in the pipeline for distribution.

Of the remaining 1.102 million hectares CARP should cover by 2014, coconut farms represent the largest percentage at 350,000 hectares, one-third of which are large, private agricultural lands. This distribution of CARPable coconut lands will be supported by an industry development plan and a road map crafted with the help of civil society.

3. Microenterprise, jobs

Access to microcredit: For the 5 million poor needing credit for microenterprises, access to microcredit/finance and markets will be provided so they can become part of the solution: creating jobs for themselves and work for others.

Self-Employment Assistance Kabuhayan: Expanding this at the local government level and encouraging community-based microcredit organizations to assist in entrepreneurial development.

4. Localization, empowerment

Widening Kapit Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan-Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services: Expanding from 184 of the poorest municipalities in the 42 poorest provinces to 407 municipalities in 48 provinces by 2016.

Expanding the Payapa at Masaganang Pamayanan (Pamana) program for barangays in conflict areas: Assisting 13 percent of all barangays in conflict-affected areas, where clashes between government forces and insurgent groups are taking place, leading to significant numbers of evacuees and internally displaced persons.

(Jose Eliseo M. Rocamora, a Cabinet secretary, is the head of the National Anti-Poverty Commission.)

http://bit.ly/t9FXMu

My life with Lolo Dency

By Fr. Reginald R. Malicdem
Philippine Daily Inquirer
2:12 am | Sunday, December 11th, 2011

BLESSED SERVANT. Fr. Reginald
Malicdem, secretary of Cardinal Rosales
for seven years, is introduced to Pope
Benedict XVI in this undated photo.
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

It is said that the first five years in the priesthood are crucial because they are the formative years. Thus I consider it God’s great blessing to have spent not only the first five but the first seven years of my priesthood with a good, humble, simple, and holy priest—Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales, whom we fondly call Lolo Dency.

He ordained me on Sept. 8, 2004, and, four months later, appointed me his personal secretary. What I thought was an assignment I would hold for only a few years lasted for seven years, until his retirement.
Those seven years made me discover the greatness of his person. I wish to share seven things about Lolo Dency, some of which probably are not very much known:

1.  He always sees the good.

Lolo Dency believes in the goodness inherent in everyone and in everything.  He always quotes Genesis 1:26 to remind us that we are all created in the image and likeness of God. And because God is good, His goodness is in each one of us.

He always sees the good in people, things and events. I remember a certain man who always goes to the Residencia even without an appointment and is very insistent on his advocacy. At one point, I asked the Cardinal, “Are you not getting impatient with this man?” I was surprised with his reply: “I admire the passion of this man. He would really find his way to do what he wants.  If only all of us would have that same passion…”

He always says: “There is so much good around us, much more than the evil. Why then do we always focus on what is bad?  Why do we always see the fault in people and events?  See the good, and it will change everything.”

2. He loves his priests.

He expresses his love for priests in various ways. First is through his time. He always reminds us in the office that if a priest asks for an appointment to talk to him, we should always give that priest top priority. He also assures priests that we can go to the Residencia anytime, even without appointment.

He visits priests who are old, sick, and are confined in the hospital and stays with them for as long as he can. He will always celebrate the funeral Mass for a priest who passed away, or comfort one whose parent or sibling died, even when this meant going outside Metro Manila.

Unknown to many, the Cardinal, in his private Mass, always says the Mass for Priests on ferial (ordinary) days.  Before every presbyterial ordination, he spends an hour in prayer for each candidate (for bishops, he spends two hours!).

In dealing with erring priests, he is not quick to condemn. He will always ask, what can I do to help you? There was one priest who was so displeased with the Cardinal because he was not given the assignment that he demanded. One time, this priest came to the Residencia and talked to the Cardinal. I was surprised that, at a certain point, the priest was already raising his voice at the Cardinal, but the latter remained quiet. The issue was brought up later in one of our meetings, where most of the priests unanimously decided that there should be sanctions. But the Cardinal asked, “If we sanction him, will we be able to help him? The issue I am concerned about is not that he shouted at me. That is nothing. What concerns me more is that he needs help and I want to help him.”

For many years, the Cardinal chaired the Commission on Clergy of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP). The National Congress of Priests was held twice during his tenure, in 2004 and 2010. I would consider the St. John Mary Vianney Galilee Development and Retreat Center for Priests, which he had built in Tagaytay, as the “crown” of his service for the clergy and a “memorial” of his love for priests.

The seminary has a special place in the Cardinal’s heart.  As a young priest, he was assigned as formator, professor, and later, rector at St. Francis de Sales Seminary in Marawoy, Lipa City, for 12 years.  He also served as rector of San Carlos Seminary in Makati City. He also chaired for many years the Commission on Seminaries of the CBCP.
The Cardinal firmly believes that the renewal of the Church greatly depends on the renewal of priests.

3. He loves the poor.

The poor have a special place in the Cardinal’s heart.  He gives them special attention, fights for them, firmly believes that if we want to enter heaven, we must do something to alleviate poverty and give the poor a decent life. He always tells us that it is not true that it is St. Peter who stands at the gates of heaven to welcome those who wish to enter.  Quoting Jesus’ parable in Matthew 25, he believes that it will be the poor who will welcome us to heaven.

He visited the depressed areas in the Archdiocese.  I remember him walking through a dark tunnel in Pasay where he was moved to tears because of the inhuman conditions of the people. In the slums of Baseco and Quiapo, he listened to the people, went into their homes, ate with them, and assured them of the Church’s concern for their welfare.
I cannot forget how the Cardinal fought for the rights of the Sumilao farmers (in Bukidnon).  When the farmers finally reached Metro Manila after their arduous march from Malaybalay, he saw to it that he would be there to welcome them. Unknown to many, it was he who mediated (in their struggle to own land) until finally a resolution was reached. Asked by a reporter in a press conference why he was so involved in the issue, he said: “I will not answer.  Let them answer your question.”  And one of the farmers said, “He knows us. He was our bishop.”

His love for the poor is the motivation behind Pondo ng Pinoy.  This community movement is not just about collecting 25 centavos to support programs for the poor, but also a tool for evangelization, a means of awakening our compassion and charity, of forming our humanity. Through Pondo, the Cardinal teaches us that poverty can only be alleviated through a change of attitude.   He challenges us to make love our way of life. He reminds us again and again, anumang magaling, kahit na maliit, basta’t malimit ay patungong langit (done consistently, even small acts of kindness lead a path to heaven).

4. He loves people.

He is a people-person, unafraid to be seen in public places.  At times, I feel that he deliberately prefers to be seen by people so that he can interact with them.

Every Holy Thursday, the Cardinal goes on Visita Iglesia of the churches in the Archdiocese. When people recognize him, they immediately flock to him, kiss his hands, and take pictures with him. There were times I had to tell the deacons assisting him not to guard him too tightly because he loves to be with people.

When we travel abroad and the Cardinal sees Filipinos working in the airport, he would see to it that he has a little chat with them, asking them where they come from and how long they have been in that country. Even inside the plane, many times I have seen him talking with flight attendants and other passengers.

The Cardinal always says that we Filipinos are known for our personalism. That is another trait I admire about him.

5. He lives by his motto.

Even as a seminarian, he already fell in love with John 12:24. “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains a single wheat; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” And by some stroke of Divine Providence, this is the same gospel pericope read on the Feast of St. Lawrence, deacon and martyr, on Aug. 10, the Cardinal’s birthday.

When he became a bishop, he took this as his motto: Si mortuum fuerit, fructum affert (If it dies, it brings forth fruit). His whole life was governed by this principle, which he calls the Paschal Mystery principle.

Before he left for Malaybalay, the seminary community of San Carlos, of which he was the rector, tendered a despedida party for him.  The community gave him a gift—a keychain made of sterling silver and on it was etched: “John 12:24.”

As bishop in Malaybalay, he admitted that he had suffered a lot. Being a Tagalog, he initially found resistance from the priests and the locals, and had to learn many things, including the dialect, in order to be accepted.  There, he suffered the death of one of his priests because of their advocacy to protect the environment. He had to deal with priests and religious whose leanings were more on the Left. He had to travel great distances, climb mountains, and cross rivers to reach the far-flung areas of the diocese. He had to deal with rebels as well as soldiers. He considered his life in Mindanao an experience of the Paschal Mystery that greatly shaped his person and his priesthood.

Even as Archbishop of Lipa and Manila, he also suffered a lot. He had to deal with erring priests, with people who misunderstood him. In Manila, several times did the media paint a negative picture of him. I knew he was hurt, but he chose to remain quiet and would simply tell me: “This is part of my Paschal Mystery.”

To his priests, he will always say that sufferings, trials, temptations, and even our sins are part of our Paschal Mystery. They are our dying. But if we learn from them, they become stepping stones to our resurrection.

6. He is very simple.

I have never known a man so simple as the Cardinal. His tastes are so simple and his wants are few. One only has to see his room which contains only the things that are needed. He sleeps on a single bed with no cushion but only banig (a mat).

He feels awkward when given special treatment. Once, when we were going to a town in Bulacan, the parish priest said that policemen would wait for us past the tollgate to escort us all the way to the church. Later, it so happened that the policemen did not notice our vehicle, so I instructed our driver to approach them.  But the Cardinal said “never mind, let’s just proceed to the church. There is really no need for escorts.”

A few years ago, the Cardinal went to Lipa for a few days off.  He just asked the driver to bring him there and return right away to Manila. While in Lipa, he learned that a childhood friend had died and that the wake was in Batangas City. Since he no longer had a driver, the Cardinal decided to take a bus, a jeep, and then a tricycle to the wake. The next day it was front-page news.  At first I thought it wasn’t true.  Later he told me: “What’s so surprising about the Archbishop of Manila taking public transport?”

He may be the “most powerful” churchman in the land, but he remains humble. His simplicity and humility inspires all of us.

7.  He wants us to forget him.

At the press conference announcing of his retirement, one reporter asked how he wants to be remembered. His answer was surprising: “I don’t want to be remembered. Please forget me.”  That was no cliché for the Cardinal; he was just being consistent.  He does not want any building, institution, foundation, even a room to be named in his honor.
People who do not know him may not understand, but that is simply how the Cardinal is. He doesn’t want to be remembered.  He only wants us to remember Jesus.

How can we forget?

And that is what he repeatedly tells us priests. We preach not our opinions and ideas but the words of Jesus. We attract people not to ourselves but to Jesus. So that in the end, it is not us who will be remembered but Him.

Lolo Dency wants us to forget him. But how can we forget the shepherd whose simplicity puts us to shame, whose commitment to service is outstanding, whose love for God and the Church is unparalleled, whose holiness is shining?

How can we forget him who has become a sacrament of God’s love? And how can I forget him who trusted me, who taught me a lot of things and brought me to different places around the world, who shaped my priesthood and my person?

We simply can’t. We will always remember. And I will surely never forget. I won’t even try.

Maraming, maraming salamat po, Lolo Dency!

(Editor’s Note: On Oct. 11, Cardinal Rosales, 79, confirmed that his resignation had been accepted by Pope Benedict XVI and that he would be retiring before Christmas this year. The appointment of Bishop Luis Antonio Tagle as Rosales’ replacement was announced two days later. Tagle will be formally installed as the new Archbishop of Manila at Manila Cathedral on Monday.)

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Philippines breaks longest line of coins with 73 kms

By Michelle V. Remo
Philippine Daily Inquirer 3:10 am | Friday, December 2nd, 2011 

Volunteers arrange coins during an attempt to
break the world record of the longest line of coins
at the Quirino Grandstand in Manila on Thursday,
as part of BAngko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ project
dubbed, the "power of small change". NIÑO
JESUS ORBETA/INQUIRER

The Philippines believes it has broken the Guinness World Record for having laid out the longest line of coins of the same denomination Thursdday, when it completed a 73.02-kilometer line of 25-centavo coins.
The previous record was 64.88 km held by the United States.

Organizers of the coin-gathering and-laying out event, called the “Barya ng mga Bayani (Coins of Heroes): The Power of Small Change,” said 3.651 million 25-centavo coins were used to make the 73-km stretch. The coins were laid out in front of the Quirino Grandstand in Manila.

A kilometer required 50,000 pieces, according to the organizers, composed of the Kabayanihan Foundation, the BSP Employees Association and the BSP Officers Club.

The measurement of the line of coins was confirmed by independent geodetic engineer Eric Medrano.
Video and other types of documentation will be submitted to the Guinness World Record office in London in the next few days.

http://bit.ly/u4S5Zr 

Violent video games alter brain function in young men —study

November 29, 2011 12:12pm

Researchers may have found scientific evidence that violent video games have long-term effects on the brain functions in young men.

 

The researchers presented the results of the study at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), according to an article on PR Newswire.

 

“For the first time, we have found that a sample of randomly assigned young adults showed less activation in certain frontal brain regions following a week of playing violent video games at home,” said Yang Wang, assistant research professor in the Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences at Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis.

 

Wang said these affected brain regions are important for controlling emotion and aggressive behavior.

 

Coauthors of the study included are Tom Hummer, William Kronenberger, Kristine Mosier, and Vincent Mathews.

 

PR Newswire said a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) analysis found changes in brain regions associated with cognitive function and emotional control in young adult men after one week of game play.

 

The study had 22 healthy adult males aged 18 to 29, with low past exposure to violent video games. The 22 were randomly assigned to two groups of 11.

 

Members of the first group were instructed to play a shooting video game for 10 hours at home for one week and refrain from playing the following week.

 

On the other hand, the second group did not play a violent video game at all during the two-week period.

 

Each of the 22 men underwent fMRI at the beginning of the study, with follow-up exams at one and two weeks.

 

During fMRI, the participants completed an emotional interference task, pressing buttons according to the color of visually presented words.

 

Words indicating violent actions were mixed with nonviolent action words. Also, the participants completed a cognitive inhibition counting task.

 

After one week of violent game play, the video game group members showed less activation in the left inferior frontal lobe during the emotional task and less activation in the anterior cingulate cortex during the counting task.

 

After the second week without game play, the changes to the executive regions of the brain were diminished.

“These findings indicate that violent video game play has a long-term effect on brain functioning,” Wang said. — TJD, GMA News

 

http://bit.ly/tu0A0o

Pinoy 'Occupy' movement presents manifesto

PATERNO ESMAQUEL II, GMA News November 30, 2011 2:00am

 

The local, Catholic Church-initiated “Occupy" movement has urged the Aquino administration to widen its vision beyond its anti-corruption campaign and instead also prioritize the so-called 99 percent of ordinary citizens.

“Anti-corruption drives are important – but worthless when unjust structures and policies are not dismantled," said the Church-initiated movement called Kilusang 99% in its statement that its convenor, Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo, sent via e-mail to GMA News Online on Tuesday

“The promise to take us to a ‘daang matuwid’ is not enough," the group said. “Even a straight path, when it leads us to a dead end, can be dangerous and counter-productive."

Kilusang 99% explained, “What we need is a new path to development; a path that puts people first, not profit; a path that restores power to the people, not concentrates power to just a few; a path that is sustainable, not short-sighted that looks at only economic gains; a path that promotes peace, not war."

“What we need is ‘bagong landas,’ not just ‘daang matuwid,’" the movement said. (Read the PDF of the group’s manifesto below).

 

GMA News Online is still trying to reach the Office of the President for comment as of this posting.

Last Saturday, deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte refused to comment on the Church-iniated movement, but said the Aquino administration is also working against greed by encouraging corporate social responsibility.

Inspired by the global “Occupy" movement against corporate greed, Kilusang 99% describes itself as a multi-sectoral, non-partisan movement seeking “to present a social agenda to replace the existing economic paradigms that are bereft of social justice and have spawned social inequalities and much suffering."

Starting point

In its manifesto, the group made 14 recommendations that include the following:

• Full implementation of asset reform laws such as the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, the Urban Development and Housing Act of 1992, the Indigenous People’s Rights Act of 1997, and the Fisheries Code of 1998
• Institution of a labor-first policy that protects labor rights, fair income, security of tenure, and employment guarantees
• Strengthening regulation of corporations and the financial sector to avoid “excesses"
• Priority to delivering basic services instead of debt servicing
• Safeguard basic goods and services against private control, “commodification", and overuse; to serve as a “steward of public commons, not an agent of privatization"

Tighter government regulation

Pabillo, who heads the social arm of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, also explained that the government should more closely regulate what he called a “heartless" market.

“Sinasabi nila, ‘Let the market decide.’ But the market is cruel, the market has no heart, the market has only the logic of profit. It should be part of the government, as a political entity, to look after the common good… Kailangang manindigan ang pulitika," the bishop said.

Last month, the Vatican itself issued a statement that, according to observers, resonated well with Occupy protesters as it denounced the “idolatry of the market" and called for a global economic authority.

The Catholic Church espouses a rich tradition of Catholic social teachings that advance laborers’ rights and wealth distribution, among other things.

For a number of Catholics, however, the actions of some of its leaders seem contrary to the Church’s teachings on wealth and poverty.

A few bishops, for example, were at the center of controversy earlier this year after the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office said they received luxury vehicles from the Arroyo administration. The CBCP has apologized for this. — ELR, GMA News

 

http://bit.ly/vzfkjG 

Palace mum on Church-led 'Occupy’ movement, for now

November 26, 2011 4:38pm

At least for now, a Malacañang spokesperson is not giving any comment on a Catholic Church-led equivalent of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement to bewail corporate greed and the dark side of capitalism.

But this early, deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said President Benigno Aquino III is also working against greed by encouraging “corporate social responsibility.”

“I don’t want to comment on it for now. We have seen similar movements in other countries, I don’t know how they [members of the local 'Occupy movement] plan to execute that here,” Valte said on government-run dzRB radio.

However, she also noted it is the right of people to assemble peaceably and seek redress for their grievances.

Earlier, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines said a Church-led equivalent of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement will launch its formal manifest this coming week.

Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo is the convenor of “Kilusang 99%,” a social reform movement making government accountable for the majority’s welfare.

The movement aims to make the poor “the center of development” and government “accountable for the welfare of the majority.”

Pabillo clarified the Philippine version of the “Occupy” movement is not directed at the Aquino administration or any particular leader.

Instead, he said it is mainly addressed at the well-entrenched financial system that has bred social injustice, economic imbalance, corporate greed and the darkest side of capitalism.

On the other hand, Valte said Aquino has been doing his part to address the issue of corporate greed.

“In one speech before the business community, Aquino encouraged businesses to strengthen corporate social responsibility to avoid something similar like Occupy Wall Street from happening in the Philippines,” she said. — LBG, GMA News

http://bit.ly/rTWSsL 

Church-led 'occupy movement' to launch manifest in Manila

November 26, 2011 10:12am

A Church-led equivalent of the "Occupy Wall Street" movement will launch its formal manifest this coming week, the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines said Saturday.

Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo is the convenor of "Kilusang 99%," a social reform movement making government accountable for the majority's welfare.

“In the Philippines, we find similar restlessness brewing among our sectoral group… this rising tide of discontent, coupled by the indifference of the general public, is substance for insurgency which the Church hopes to stem,” Pabillo said.

The movement aims to make the poor "the center of development" and government "accountable for the welfare of the majority.”

Pabillo chairs the CBCP's National Secretariat for Social Action -Justice and Peace.

However, Pabillo clarified the Philippine version of the "Occupy" movement is not directed at the Aquino administration or any particular leader.

Instead, he said it is mainly addressed at the well-entrenched financial system that has bred social injustice, economic imbalance, corporate greed and the darkest side of capitalism.

“What is happening now is that the government is just at the backseat and they just let the market, which seeks profit and not the common good, dictate,” he said.

“We really need to talk before it’s too late. We don’t want violence and rebellion but we just want the people who are mostly affected by these problems to be heard,” he added.

Sectors covered by the K99% include labor groups, farmers and fisherfolk organizations, the indigenous peoples and the urban poor.

The Occupy Wall Street movement, inspired by the Arab Spring, started last September 17 at the financial district of New York City.

It has so far spread to around 1,500 cities globally to expose how the richest one percent of people are writing the rules of an “unfair” global economy.

“This is really a wakeup call for the government and the business sector to do something for the common good,” Pabillo said. — LBG, GMA News

http://bit.ly/veCD6O

Catholic Church-led ‘Occupy’ movement targets the ‘heartless’ market

PATERNO ESMAQUEL II November 28, 2011 3:10pm

Echoing the global “Occupy” protests worldwide against corporate greed, the Catholic Church in the Philippines is leading a similar revolution — the Kilusang 99% Movement — as it calls on the government to regulate more closely what it calls a “heartless” market.

Weeks earlier, the Vatican released a document on the global financial system, which, according to observers, supports the “Occupy” movement as it condemns the “idolatry of the market” and pushes for a global economic authority.

Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo said the Kilusang 99% movement – which refers to the so-called 99 percent of citizens excluded from the elite – would make the government accountable for the majority’s welfare.

The group will soon launch a manifesto, initiate dialogues with various sectors, and stage protests if necessary, he said.

Catholic Church's 'best-kept secret'

The Catholic Church, often criticized for its supposedly conservative stance on issues such as the reproductive health bill, espouses a rich tradition that advances workers’ rights and wealth distribution.

The Catholic Church’s collection of social teachings, often called its “best-kept secret,” aims to teach persons “the demands of justice and peace in conformity with divine wisdom,” according to the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church.

Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo told GMA News Online that the Philippine government also has to address the issue of wealth distribution “so that there will be peace in society and there will be justice.”

Continue reading here

Pabillo chairs the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines’ (CBCP) National Secretariat for Social Action - Justice and Peace (NASSA), the local counterpart of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace which crafted the Vatican’s recent economic statement.

In an interview with GMA News Online, Pabillo criticized the government for privatizing even basic services, and allowing market forces to dictate the fees for water and electricity, among other things.

This trend, he said, has led to skyrocketing utility rates.

“Sinasabi nila, ‘Let the market decide.’ But the market is cruel, the market has no heart, the market has only the logic of profit. It should be part of the government, as a political entity, to look after the common good… Kailangang manindigan ang pulitika,” the bishop said.

Pabillo said the common justification for privatizing basic services is that government is losing money by running these. However, this is not always valid, he said.

“Kung talagang service ‘yan, malulugi ka. Magseserbisyo ka sa tao eh,” he said.

“Walang pananagutan ang market sa tao,” Pabillo explained. “Pero ang gobyerno, may pananagutan sa tao.”

Aquino's role in PAL dispute

Pabillo said the spirit of the Vatican pronouncement, shaped by Catholic social teachings, could have been applied in a number of current events, such as the recent massive layoffs of Philippine Airline (PAL) employees due to outsourcing.

The bishop said the President, who earlier adopted a hands-off stand on the issue, should have put his foot down on the controversial layoffs.

“Dapat hindi niya pinayagan ‘yung sinabi na ‘it’s a management prerogative’ ang pag-outsource. Kasi kung gano’n, the management can always, babaratin ang manggagawa,” Pabillo said.

Even PAL’s status as a private business entity should not have deterred the President from intervening, according to him.

“Kahit negosyo ng PAL ‘yan, ang PAL nga, ang kanyang negosyo eh affecting the common good,” the bishop explained. “Kailangang ikontrol ng gobyerno, kasi may mga manggagawa sila, mga citizens ‘yan.”

“In a way, talo rin ang gobyerno diyan,” Pabillo added. “Mga manggagawa ‘yan, magbibigay ng tax. Ngayon, kapag hindi nila ‘yan ni-regular, wala nang tax na ibibigay ‘yan .”

President Benigno Simeon Aquino III, however, earlier invoked the good of the majority in acknowledging the flag carrier’s need to reformat their operations “to survive.”

“What is the national interest? And if we define the national interest, there are 10 million Filipinos overseas. With what has been happening in the Middle East, one would want their airlines to be capable of going to the Middle East to fetch our citizens,” the President said.

The President’s position on the PAL issue demonstrates the government’s supposedly “elitist” approach in running the country, Pabillo noted.

“Ang sinasabi nga tungkol sa leadership, hindi concerned sa taumbayan. Ang mas concern niya ay mga business people,” he explained.

The bishop also disputed the so-called “trickle down” system that says the effects of good business will eventually trickle down to ordinary citizens.

“Malaki ‘yung profit, malaking business, hindi naman bumabababa sa tao… Kinukuha lang nila. Kaya lumalaki ang gap ng mayayaman at saka mahihirap,” Pabillo said.

Economic justice

Another Church official shares Pabillo’s views on economic issues.

Caritas Manila executive director Fr. Anton Pascual said the present economic system, which the Vatican document critiques, is “unethical, unsustainable, and bound to collapse.”

“The global financial reform to radically transform the economic system as it is today is very timely to establish economic justice in behalf of the 2/3 poor victims of the world,” Pascual said in a text message to GMA News Online.

Like Pabillo, Pascual believes the government should give priority to its citizens over the market.

“Kailangang maging malinaw kung kaninong pag-unlad nga ba ang nais itaguyod ng ating gobyerno,” Pascual said in an editorial aired on Radyo Veritas.

The priest, who also heads the Church-run radio station, cited the prevailing poverty despite the entry of a number of foreign businesses and mining firms to the Philippines.

“Sino nga ba ang tunay na nakikinabang sa mga negosyong pinapatakbo ng malalaking kumpanya sa bansa? Kung may pakinabang man, gaano kalaki o gaano kaliit nga ba ang napupunta sa mga ordinaryong mamamayan?” Pascual said.

Late last week, a writer for Jakarta Globe expressed agreement with Occupy protesters in denouncing the “excesses of neoliberalism.”

In his opinion piece, however, John Riady said the anti-Wall Street activists “are wrong beyond this point.

“This is because it is not the free trade order per se that is at fault, but its surreptitious transformation into a malignant system in which real people and their productive work are subordinated to the fickle passions of speculative capital,” Riady wrote.

‘Serious’ implementation

Pabillo said the challenge for the government is to seriously implement the asset reform laws that aim to improve income distribution, such as legislation on land reform, fisheries, indigenous people, and the urban poor.

“May batas na, hindi pa ipinapatupad… Eh ‘yan nga ang problema natin, kasi wala ang puso nila diyan,” he said.

Pabillo added that big businesses, for their part, should take corporate social responsibility seriously and not use it only as “propaganda.” “They should be conscious about this because if the society is running well, everybody is contented, it’s good for business,” Pabillo explained.

The bishop also challenged the middle class, including the youth, to oppose the prevailing mindset of putting businesses first.

Otherwise, he said, they themselves could end up becoming the system’s victims.

Pabillo said, “Sila na ang magiging mahirap ngayon.” - VVP, GMA News

http://bit.ly/txJ6I5

 

Terminal decision-making

Editorial

Philippine Daily Inquirer
4:12 am | Monday, November 28th, 2011

Transportation Secretary Manuel “Mar” Roxas II should come up with a better explanation on why his department chose Leandro V. Locsin & Associates (LVL) for the rehabilitation of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 1, other than that the architecture firm was the original designer of the building. The triumvirate of Royal Pineda, Budji Layug and Kenneth Cobonpue has submitted a less expensive plan; the three have even written off professional fees to come up with something that’s aesthetically pleasing and more financially practical.

But Roxas has basically dismissed the Pineda-Layug-Cobonpue (PLC) plan, describing it as strong on design but weak on structure. Structural renovation should be given as much weight as aesthetic amelioration. He explained that the government is going for LVL, led by the namesake and son of the late National Artist Leandro Locsin who designed the structure, since it has the blueprints and presumably knows the ins and outs of the building.

But Cobonpue, a renowned industrial designer whose designs have won important international awards and appeared in leading architecture magazines and even in Hollywood movies, feels insulted that Roxas should think PLC made its plan without the technical blueprints of the terminal. Cobonpue said his group’s design was done in coordination with airport engineers. “We also had the original blueprints and plans in front of us when we were making this,” he said, adding that PLC is qualified to renovate the airport. He also noted: “This Leandro Locsin now is not the same Leandro Locsin that designed the airport 30 years ago,” and that PLC’s expertise could be at par with, if not on a higher level than, LVL’s.

While generally dismissing PLC’s plan as mere aesthetic facelift, Roxas himself said the main chunk of the airport rehabilitation budget, amounting to P500 million, will go to aesthetics and interior design. For retrofit and structural upgrades, the government will spend P340 million. It will also shell out P300 million for rapid exit taxiways to “reduce waiting time’’ of airplanes, P20 million for improvements in 72 toilets in the airport, and P20 million more for urinals and other amenities. Roxas said banks and duty-free shops would be relocated.

The PLC plan seeks to hasten the flow of passengers in the airport while providing both arriving and departing passengers the homey Filipino feel. It seeks to create a feeling of openness so banks and establishments that block the exit to the lobby will be relocated. The arrival area will be surrounded with glass where passengers can see all the way to the lobby and beyond. The wall that separates Customs from the luggage area will be opened up; from there, passengers will see the garden. More natural light will come in. Operations will be streamlined. PLC has called its approach “Tropical Moderne,” with tent-like waiting sheds for greeters, surrounded by foliage and restaurants. The concrete open parking lot in Terminal 1 will be transformed into a three-story parking space and a lush landscape lined with select food outlets. The proposed park will showcase the best of Filipino dining brands and a changing exhibit of artworks. A canopied walkway will lead to the greeters and well-wishers’ lounge. The interior renovation will cost P450 million while the park development will fetch P500 million. The three planners have worked on this project pro bono.

In addition, PLC has been working on the plan for eight months now. It’s surprising that Roxas announced the LVL plan only after a travel website voted Naia 1 as one of the world’s worst airports.

Cobonpue said PLC had been approached early this year by Cabinet men to draft a plan to renovate the airport. Roxas was appointed to the Cabinet only last June.

Understandably Cobonpue feels slighted. He said the PLC plan is cheaper than the government’s which costs P1.16 billion just for the airport’s interior. “All we want is transparency,” he said. “What happened to our eight months of work? Why did the government’s mind suddenly change? He also urged the government to clarify if there was a transparent bidding done before awarding the contract to LVL.

Aside from transparency, the government should clarify its system of decision-making. Just last month, Roxas said that the government was considering the sale of Naia 1 to raise as much as $2.5 billion for aviation infrastructure. Less than a month later, he comes up with the LVL plan which he says is more thorough than the PLC’s, which has taken eight months to draft. Clearly Roxas has a lot of explaining to do.

http://bit.ly/sZnbAU

On the watch list

Editorial

Philippine Daily Inquirer 
12:07 am | Wednesday, November 9th, 2011 

Ah, how the tables are turned. In June 2010, then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo approved the issuance by Justice Secretary Alberto Agra of a circular governing the department’s issuances and implementation of hold-departure orders, watch-list orders and allow-departure orders. Section 2.b of the circular specifically says a watch-list order may be issued by the DOJ “against the respondent, irrespective of nationality, in criminal cases pending preliminary investigation, petition for review, or motion for reconsideration before the Department of Justice or any of its provincial or city prosecution offices.”

Arroyo must now be ruing giving her imprimatur to that otherwise innocuous circular. Just over a year later, her own name is on a DOJ watch list, placed there by incumbent Secretary Leila de Lima in the wake of several cases of plunder and graft that have been filed against Arroyo, plus a poll fraud case relating to the May 2007 elections that she and her husband, former First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo, also face. These cases all happen to be under preliminary investigation at the DOJ, which puts the department on solid legal ground, based on the Arroyo administration’s own circular, to inscribe her name on the watch-list.

To hear it from Arroyo lawyer Raul Lambino, however, there is nothing more base or foul—“dangerously evil,” in his overabundant phrase—than the DOJ watch list. “We believe that the evil called the watch-list order of the DOJ secretary, which has dangerous effects far greater than a hold-departure order issued by the regular courts, would still be around even if De Lima will allow the former president to leave,” Lambino said, referring to Arroyo’s request for travel clearance from the Aquino administration to seek medical treatment abroad. “Such a dangerous evil must be obliterated once and for all for the sake of every individual in the country. Unless and until the Supreme Court rules on this fundamental issue, everyone will be at the mercy of De Lima’s whim and caprices.”

So, in Arroyo’s time, it was par for the course to issue a watch-list order. This time, when the law has unexpectedly boomeranged on her, it has morphed into a “dangerous evil” with “dangerous effects,” threatening the very life, liberty and happiness of every citizen of the republic. Lambino’s ululation would hold more merit if there was a smidgen of acknowledgment there that Arroyo’s pending legal troubles do place her squarely within the sights of the very regulation she herself had promulgated.

There might no longer be any question that Arroyo is sick and requires urgent medical treatment. There remains, however, the question of whether it’s worth the risk to let her fly out of the country and see justice subverted instead when she flees the multiple charges awaiting her here. Arroyo and her camp must forgive the public’s cynicism in this matter. The former president has not exactly been a model of candor and sincerity in her 10-year tenure in Malacañang, and even beyond, when she used her still-considerable political clout and material influence to dismiss, diminish, stall and frustrate questions and investigations into her scandal-plagued administration. Truthfulness is a virtue that seems to have long fled the Arroyo character, from her broken promise not to run for reelection, to the unresolved “Hello, Garci” affair, to ZTE and its sordid by-products of kidnapping and bribery, to the helicopter mess that her husband could not even be bothered to testify about in person, preferring rather to mock the public’s credulity by foisting on it, for the second time, his patsy of a brother as the fall guy.

Even Arroyo’s allies know any assurances from her that she would come back and face the music won’t hold any water anymore with a largely skeptical country, hence their appeal to absolutist scenarios to justify her request. No doctor in this country, they insist, is good enough to treat her bone disorder—a condescension that has earned them the ire of the Philippine Medical Association, which, while conceding that Arroyo has as much right as any patient to choose her own doctor, also says the country’s top bone specialists are as good as anyone whom Arroyo could tap abroad.

That she has been afflicted by what looks like a serious illness is not Arroyo’s fault. But that she has to labor under the impression that she’s not above using her condition to escape accountability and the reach of justice—sadly,

Arroyo has no one to blame but herself.

http://bit.ly/t0JVmV

Boy punctures P-Noy bubble on YouTube

Analysis

By: Amando Doronila
Philippine Daily Inquirer
12:06 am | Wednesday, November 9th, 2011
Children should be seen and not heard.—12th century proverb
President Aquino’s interview with YouTube on Friday was capped by the last question from a seven-year-old boy named Joshua. The boy asked whether the President believed in Santa Claus and what his Christmas wish was.

The President said he wished people would stop “criticizing anything and everything” and would be more “caring.”  Google executive Ross LaJeunesse, who moderated YouTube’s first Southeast Asia’s World View series, picked Joshua from among a group of mature Filipinos. The interview covered a wide range of issues, including the Mindanao war, the reproductive health bill, the greenhouse effect of the chaotic Manila public transport system and destructive impact of frequent tropical storms crossing the islands.

The question from the boy drew out not so much the President’s world view as it did his view on one of the domestic issues that have disturbed his 17-month presidency: how to deal with the mounting criticism of his campaign to put closure to corruption cases he has inherited from the previous administration and of his unimpressive management  to reverse the  economic slump during his watch.

Joshua is presumed to have no intention of embarrassing the President, and yet it was his question that hit Mr. Aquino’s soft spot. His reply was evasive and did not address the issue of what has really disjointed him. As we shall soon see, it showed that the President has not yet come to terms with the issue that criticism of the performance of his administration—or any administration, for that matter—is fair game in democratic politics. In democratic systems, criticism is the means through which the public sectors, including the press and the political class (i.e., the political opposition), challenge the government to lift its game and deliver on its own pledges. There is no other way to prod an elected government to produce results, or in the case of the Aquino administration to strike a balance between prosecuting those charged with abuse of public trust and of power and administering a transparent government capable of competent economic management. This is the crux of the criticisms that irritate the administration so much.

“Do I believe in Santa Claus?” The President said. “Santa Claus is perhaps the personification of … (the) best in people, the idea of generosity. More than anything, we really have to shift, to those of us still left (from) the criticize-anything-and-everything phase to transforming ourselves into how we can assist our neighbor, our sister, our brother or whoever, somebody we don’t even know.”

Mr. Aquino said people should think of how to contribute “towards the improvement of the whole rather than concentrate on envy or our ability to criticize daily to ad infinitum that leads to nowhere.”

“Perhaps the idea of caring for everybody does not exist only during the Christmas Season but more so is a facet of everyday life that has to be looking out rather than looking purely at ones’ own self-interest.”

The President stopped short of saying that he needs a permanent moratorium to enable him to fulfil the pledges of his Inaugural Address and to accomplish the programs outlined in his first State of the Nation Address.

The President has shown many times his annoyance over press reports on his personal life, and more so with the media’s focus on the administration’s meagre accomplishments in economic management, and the high rate of administrative incompetence, and policy gaffes.

All these accumulated gripes came to a head in his response to an apparently innocent question raised by the seven-year-old boy about Christmas. Mr. Aquino is not unlike his mother, the late Cory Aquino, who nursed slights and grudges. Cory was never vindictive but she had a long memory for resentments. Although she was universally acclaimed by the media for ousting the Marcos dictatorship, there was never a warm relationship between her and the media.

The same distant relationship prevails between President Benigno Aquino III and the media. Media people do not identify with the Aquino dynasty. They perceive it as a class by itself, living in their own world sheltered by the wealth of Hacienda  Luisita.

Mr. Aquino appears to have come to believe that his considerable electoral mandate and the iconic role of Cory Aquino in the 1986 People Power Revolution have given him an entitlement that puts him beyond challenged by media which want to hold him accountable for the performance of his administration.

The essence of adversarial relationship between the media and elected power holders, most of all the President, was not erased by his electoral mandate. That mandate did not empower him to be incompetent or not to work hard to deliver a stronger economy than the one he inherited in June 2010.  His election mandate and continuing high popularity ratings have not given him a mandate to be lazy.

Although no one has questioned so far the honesty of the Aquino administration, this perception is not going to be permanent. Already a number of people have questioned the backsliding by the administration on the enactment of the freedom of information bill, the backbone of his promise to give a transparent government.

The government’s cloak of immunity from accountability for its performance is starting to wear thin. The Christmas truce wish between the government and media on criticism is unlikely to happen.

 http://bit.ly/teIvMg

Lawmakers follow Aquino, turn wary over passing freedom of info bill

By Gil Cabacungan
Philippine Daily Inquirer
4:02 am | Monday, November 7th, 2011

A number of lawmakers belonging to different political parties are now hedging on passing the freedom of information bill, echoing President Benigno Aquino III’s line that it could be “prone to abuse.”

House Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales of the Liberal Party, Nueva Ecija Representative Rodolfo Antonino of the National Unity Party and Valenzuela City Representative Rex Gatchalian of the National People’s Coalition said that Congress had to make sure there were “enough safeguards” to ensure that a freedom of information bill “would not be used for mischief against other persons.”

The freedom of information bill would allow the public to obtain  records of government transactions,  meetings and other business, a  right   enshrined in the Constitution.   But for almost a quarter of a century, lawmakers  have effectively withheld the people’s enjoyment of this right   by failing to pass its implementing guidelines.

President Aquino earlier said  he had not yet made up his mind whether or not to support any of the freedom of information bills pending in Congress.

“Freedom of Information Act sounds so good and noble but at the same time, first of all, you’ll notice that here in this country there’s a tendency to  get information and not really utilize it for the proper purposes,” the President had said during an open forum at a gathering of Southeast Asian business leaders in September.

One of his LP allies, Quezon Representative  Lorenzo R. Tañada III, a principal author of the bill, was quoted in media reports as expressing dismay over the President’s lack of support for one of his promises made during the election campaign.

But Gonzales backed the President, saying Mr. Aquino was justified in his apprehensions over the freedom of information provisions because Congress had not yet determined “the reasonable limitations” to be adopted to prevent the misuse of state information.

“What makes the freedom of information bill controversial and difficult to shepherd is the danger that it can be abused. While freedom of information is guaranteed by the Constitution, by no stretch of the imagination should it be considered absolute. All civil liberties and rights enshrined in the Constitution have  limitations,” said Gonzales in a text message.

Antonino said Congress should strike a balance between the right to information versus the rights of those who might be affected by that information.

Gatchalian  said the NPC had not yet come up with a stand on the freedom of information bill because its members were still reviewing the pros and cons of the Philippines’ version of the US sunshine laws.

Ako Bicol party-list Representative Rodel Batocabe, a co-author of the bill, said any measure would always be  prone to abuse unless proper safeguards were instituted and  loopholes plugged. He said this was the reason Congress had to exercise its oversight functions to prevent any law’s misuse.

He said the fears of abuse were at present “speculative.”

http://bit.ly/u686Li

Faith and the Church

Public Lives
By Randy David
Cebu Daily News
8:56 am | Monday, November 7th, 2011

Faith is so intertwined with nearly every aspect of the daily lives of Filipinos that it is hard to say precisely where religion ends and the rest of society begins. A quick look at our mass media and the way we conduct politics and business will show how blurred the boundaries are. As a sociologist, I often find myself wondering if the strict differentiation of faith matters that is supposed to come with secular modernity will ever happen in our society.

An example from my own personal encounter with religion might illustrate this. Sometime last year, my brother, Pampanga Auxiliary Bishop Pablo Virgilio David, who is also the parish priest of the Holy Rosary Parish in Angeles City, spoke to each one of us, his 12 siblings, asking for voluntary donations to a fund he had started. It was the first time he ever asked for anything from us.  The money, he explained, would be used to buy from the banks small pieces of land on which a chapel stands. Although I am not a churchgoer, I do not hesitate to contribute to the Church’s charities and social action projects. But giving money to buy land for a Church, that, as far as I know, already owns a lot of real estate, was a little difficult to justify.

I would gladly give money anytime to my brother, a deeply spiritual person I admire. But what he was seeking was not a personal favor but a contribution to a religious cause he thought important. I had many questions in my mind, and, in full respect for my modernist leanings, he answered them all even before I could articulate them. It is a fascinating story of popular faith, he began, and its complex relation to institutional religion, politics, family, social class and business. “By this project,” he said, “I mean to affirm the strong faith of the simple folk who have found solace and comfort in the image of the ‘Apung Mamacalulu’ (Lord of Mercy) that is kept in the shrine.”

To my surprise, our tiny donation to this project was soon dwarfed a million times over by the contributions that poured in from everywhere after the fund was launched. A wealthy person at one point offered to provide the entire amount needed to pay the banks to which the land had been mortgaged, but his gesture was politely turned down. For it didn’t take long for the parish to realize that more important than actually redeeming the property on which the shrine squatted was the strong current of faith and solidarity that the shared effort to raise funds had awakened.

For a long time, the Church had refused to authorize the celebration of the Mass in this chapel on the ground that it was being denied full authority over the administration of the shrine. So long as one family was claiming it as private property, with prerogative to decide what kind of activities to permit inside it, the Church authorities refused to have anything to do with it. However, this did not deter the devotees of the “Apu” from flocking to the shrine. In time, the whole place acquired the potent imagery of a church that belonged to the poor and the marginalized. Ironically, in trying to prevent the use of the icon as a magnet for the commercialization of folk devotion, the Church had risked being perceived as an institution that stood aloof from the spiritual needs of humble folk.

All this changed when Archbishop Paciano Aniceto authorized the return of the Mass to the shrine of “Apung Mamacalulu” last year, after the owners agreed to donate to the Church a portion of the land on which the shrine stood. The rest of the property has long been foreclosed by the banks, and it has now fallen on the parish to buy it back from the banks. These events, previously narrated only as oral history, are now recounted in a recently published book, “Apung Mamacalulu (The Sto. Entierro of Angeles City).” This beautiful book documents the intriguing saga of the religious icon that became a central figure in the religious, political and social life of a town, and spawned one of the most fervent devotional cultures of our time.

I was totally unaware of the charisma surrounding the icon of the dead Christ until I went on an ethnographic visit to the shrine that houses the “Apu.” The place is in Barangay Lourdes Sur, in the old section of Angeles, just a stone’s throw away from the imposing Cathedral of the Holy Rosary. One would not see it from the main street where once upon a time the town’s important families built their houses, but every pedicab driver knows where it is. One walks into an ordinary-looking neighborhood that becomes, especially on Fridays, a crowded corridor of peddlers’ tents leading to the door of a modern chapel. I have never seen a more incongruous mingling of the sacred and the profane.

A priest is delivering a homily as I walk in. His voice is amplified by a powerful sound system that barely succeeds in drowning out the noise from the market outside. A long queue quietly snakes along the pews on the right side of the chapel, leading to the back of the altar where the image of the “Apu” lies. I fall in line and find myself following a trail suffused with symbolisms of suffering and hope.

One approaches the large glass case that contains the “Apu” by stepping up to a narrow platform that supports it. A hole in the glass allows one to touch or rub a handkerchief on the feet of the image, say a quick prayer or wish, and leave some money or flowers.
Many devotees linger around the “Apu,” seeking out the area by the head. There, between fits of sobbing, they pour out their problems and pleas for relief in whispered confession. Then they fall silent, as if in unmediated communication with a physically present God. So strong is their faith.

http://bit.ly/rByvok

Alkaline water is a scam

Heart to Heart Talk

By Philip Chua
Cebu Daily News
8:58 am | Monday, November 7th, 2011


A COMEDIAN once noted that many of us want to get to heaven without dying. While this sounds funny, it is also a reality especially when it comes to our health and disease prevention.

Majority of us want to acquire the best health effortlessly, without the sacrifices needed to achieve it effectively and safely. We want to be healthy without exercising, dieting, without abstaining from smoking and without disciplined alcohol intake. We want to have good blood pressure and good cholesterol level without skimping on our salt and fat intake and quitting cigarettes. We want to lose weight without cutting down on our calorie intake and doing daily exercise. We want to be free of diabetes, heart attack, stroke, and cancer without intentionally and consciously working hard to prevent them.

For expediency, any pill or juice or gadget that comes along with the claim that it is good for our health becomes a “must-buy” crutch, believing it will confer upon us instant good health and longevity, without lifting a finger, without moving a muscle, or without getting off the couch and putting down the remote control and the potato chips.

Unfortunately, the manufacturers of countless “health” lotions, potions, pills, juices and gadgets are mostly interested in making their bank accounts healthy, and least interested in the health of its consumer-victims. If they are not motivated by extreme greed, they won’t continue to prey on the unsuspecting public and sell their useless products, which may even have severe long term side-effects, including kidney failure, liver failure, and even cancer.

It is one thing to waste money by paying for very expensive “health” pills or juices or machine and finding out years later that they were not effective. It is another to discover years down the line that their use has caused debilitating complications and organ failures, or even death.

On top of the many fraudulent claims that their “anti-cancer mega-dose vitamins and food supplements,” herbal or not, are good for us, comes the alkaline water scam and the so-called water ionizer that produces it.

Not only are these marketed alkaline water and the ionizing machines expensive, but they are, according to scientists, “medically baseless and worthless.”

The claims about most of the good effects these manufacturers claim for their products are actually placebo effects on the psyche of the uninformed or misinformed and gullible users, or their naivette.

The “fountain” of health and youth we are all looking for are available in healthy food items, like fish, vegetables, high-fiber bran, wheat, nuts, fruits (berries, plum, apples, banana, grapes, orange, mango, kiwi, papaya, mangosteen, pomegranates), daily physical exercise, and proper hydration with water purified by the most advanced multiple-stage reverse-osmosis filtration system.

It might come as a surprised to many but boiled water, minus its sediments, is safer than some of this expensive drinking water. Using the commercially available home water filtration pitcher or the below-the-sink filtration system, and then boiling the water will even double the protection. This will certainly not cost $1500-$2500 (P65,000-P110,000) like the water ionizers.

When it comes to health, there is no better guide than our modern science, where extensive and rigidly-controlled laboratory testing, and double-blind, randomized, human clinical trials are the standard before any medication or device gets official approval and goes out to the market.

Anecdotal reports or testimonials (usually from solicited and paid endorsers) are not scientific proofs. These are misinformation used by these unscrupulous companies to market their product with some semblance of truth and integrity. Candidly, however, these are nothing but pure lies. If not approved by the US-FDA, RP-BFAD or any other similar national health agencies, any product is suspect. So, public, beware! Do not be too eager to part with your hard-earned money.

As far as the water ionizer is concerned, here is “the bottom line” as objectively explained in a detailed scientific paper, which aims to educate and protect the public:

“Here, in a nutshell, are few basic facts that anyone with a solid background in chemistry or physiology, or one with basic intelligence and common sense, would concur with:

(1) “Ionized water” is nothing more than sales fiction; the term is meaningless to honest chemists;

(2) Most water that is fit for drinking is too unconductive to undergo significant electrolysis;

(3) Pure water can never be alkaline or acidic, nor can it be made so by electrolysis; no machine can make it “wetter,” a better hydrating agent, or more rapidly absorbed by the body cells;

(4) Ground waters containing metal ions such as calcium and magnesium can be rendered slightly alkaline by electrolysis, but after it hits the highly acidic gastric fluid in the stomach, its alkalinity is gone;

(5) The idea that one must consume alkaline water to neutralize the effects of acidic foods is ridiculous; we get rid of excess acid by exhaling carbon dioxide;

(6) The claims about health benefits of drinking alkaline water were not supported by credible scientific evidence;

(7) There is nothing wrong with drinking slightly acidic waters such as rainwater. Body pH is a meaningless concept in this context because different parts of the body (and even individual cells) can have widely different pH value;

(8) If you really want to de-acidify your stomach (at possible cost of interfering with protein digestion), why spend hundreds of dollars for an electrolysis device when you can take calcium-magnesium pills, Alka-Seltzers or Milk of Magnesia?;

(9) Electrolysis devices or “ionizers” are generally worthless for treating water for health enhancement, removal of common impurities, disinfection and scale control.”

(10) At the present time, there is nothing superior to multiple-stage, reverse osmosis water filtration, or distillation, which is safer, healthier, much lesser expensive than the so-called “ionized” alkaline water, which could be dangerous with its altered pH. Let us not fool with Mother Nature.

If we are itching to give away money, let us donate to charity instead and help our fellowmen languishing in abject poverty.

To protect our health and pocketbook, we must use our wisdom and due diligence.

This and other valuable data are available at www.philipSchua.com

http://bit.ly/vIh18q