An ecumenical bombshell

The Pope last October 20 announced a scheme to bring in disaffected Anglicans (Episcopalians in the USA and the Philippines) into the Catholic Church while allowing them to maintain their ecclesial traditions. The Pope's moves comes as an Apostolic Constitution called Anglicanorum Coetibus or in my rough Latin to English translation means "on groups of Anglicans". Apostolic Constitutions are Papal Bulls since they have an importance that concern the universal Church.

I have a keen interest in Anglicanorum Coetibus since we have Anglicans in the family and I was raised as one attending services at Cathedral Heights as a child. The Anglican Communion has been dealing with issues on female priests and bishops, episcopal authority, the ordination of non-celibate gays and now the blessing of gay unions. It seems that the last two issues are the two last straws the broke the camel's back. Conservatives in the USA have split from the Episcopal Church (TEC) and formed their own Anglican Church in North America. Whole parishes and dioceses have seceded causing a flood of lawsuits as departing congregations insist on holding to their churches. US legal precedent sides with TEC since a canon of the TEC states that dioceses and parishes do not own their church buildings.

The troubles of the TEC have also made way into the Episcopal Church in the Philippines (ECP) with some congregations uncomfortable with female priests and bishops, gay bishops and blessing of gay unions. The ECP was founded by American missionaries in 1901 with Bishop Charles Henry Brent as missionary bishop. Bishop Brent is fondly remembered by Anglicans and Catholics for being a witness for ecumenism. Bishop Brent refused to convert Roman Catholics by not "building an altar over another" but instead focused his missionary efforts on the unchurched and non Christian Filipinos. Thus today the strength of the ECP lies in the Cordilleras where most of its clergy come from.

An Episcopalian friend told me that some conservative parishes were totally against what TEC now stands for. This according to him has placed the church leaders in an awkward situation as the TEC was the mother church and had supported the Filipino church for almost a century until 1992, when the church became an autonomous province.

What will the Pope's move do to the ecumenical effort in the Philippines? The Catholic and Philippine Episcopal bishops seem to have kept mum on whether some will take the Pope's offer. But this article in the Union of Catholic Asian News suggests that some are considering the offer. But this comes with a problem. Filipino Catholics are not ready for married clergy. If Episcopal priests join the Catholic Church and still be priests, they will be dispensed from the obligation of celibacy. They will have a family to support. Now since many Filipino parishes whether this be Catholic or Protestant are so poor that the Catholic parishes are unable to support their celibate priest. (However in the Iglesia Filipino Independiente (IFI) a church in communion with the Anglicans, married priests have been in charge of parishes for more than a hundred years)

In the United States and UK, Anglican priests who have been received into the Catholic Church have been dispensed from celibacy and have been warmly received by Catholics. But there had been some experience of a married clergy in the American and English church as permanent deacons (who can be married) have served since the late 1960s as a result of Vatican II reforms. The permanent diaconate has not been implemented in the Philippines since there is a concern that the Philippine church couldn't support them.

How the ecumenical landscape will look like after Anglicanorum Coetibus is interesting. In the Philippines, oppressive social inequities are the focus of the ecumenical effort especially for the ECP, IFI and the Catholic Church who minister to the very poor.

The privilege of being the last to drown.

To understand the magnitude of the recent floods that hit Manila and northern Luzon in the wake of TS Ondoy (Ketsana), it pays to look at the historical record of flooding in the Philippines. There had been major flooding events before and some have been recorded in Spanish friar accounts. Floods regularly inundated Bulacan, Pampanga and Pangasinan as well as the Laguna de Bay area. Marikina was flooded at certain years and this endangered the colony's food security that residents of these areas had to ask for exemption from the hated colonial tribute.

Researchers may well try to see if these flooding events are somewhat related to climate events such as El Nino or La Nina. Also they may take note of how long the floods lasted before it subsided.

One very documented flood is the one that deluged Manila in November 1943. This is so significant that all writers of WWII memoirs recall it since it marked the start of the worst aspects of the Japanese occupation. The flood deluged parts of Manila under 2 meters of water as told by memoir writers Joaquin L Garcia and Benito Legarda Jr. Legarda even mentions how his father's Faura barometer plunged and then rose again as the storm passed. Based on Legarda's recollection, the heavy rain period started after lunch and ended 8 hours later. This 7 hour deluge is similar to what we experienced last September 26. Garcia lived across St Scho near DLSU and if that area sank in 2 m of water, then that is indeed like what Ondoy dished us. However unlike Ondoy, the water subsided immediately. During that time, the mountains surrounding Manila were not yet completely denuded and the waterways were still unobstructed.

But it is the more recent floods that we should take another look at. The Ormoc deluge of November 7, 1991 was brought about by a weak tropical depression (TD Uring (Thelma). As intense rainfall fell on a 100% denuded watershed, the water rose to more than 3 meters in Ormoc City within 4 hours. Seven thousand deaths were recorded and in one district of the city, only 200 out of 2500 residents survived. Ormoc City and its watershed has an area of 616.6 sq km. Uring dumped 580 mm of rain near Ormoc.

Since then we have had these type of floods in Bicol, Mindanao and more recently in July 2008 in Iloilo as a result of Typhoon Frank. Metro Manila residents while they read the news, were mostly unconcerned. The capital has more flood infrastructure and that being the center for national life and the economy, should be able to handle the usual floods.

But September 26 flushed away all of that. Metro Manila while having almost the same area as Ormoc 617 sq km, is almost completely built up. It thus became a mega Ormoc disaster. We haven't finally assessed the toll in lives and property lost or damaged but it is likely much much more than what was lost in Ormoc City.

Two weeks later crazy Typhoon Pepang (Parma) deluged the provinces of Tarlac, Pampanga, Nueva Ecija, Pangasinan and Cagayan. Pangasinan is the worst hit. All of Luzon's dams filled beyond capacity and had to release water. Again water rose to more than 3 meters in less than an hour. Luzon's > 5% forest cover is also attributed as a factor in the disaster.

Metro Manila and progressive northern Luzon has been hit with Ormoc style deluges. Perhaps Metro Manila has bought itself what Jared Diamond wrote in his book "Collapse" "the privilege of being the last to drown"

Ormoc City should have warned us of the dire consequences. Did we heed the message? We are quite sure that an event like this will happen again and again, as history tells us. What can we do?

After we have assessed the damage and began the reconstruction we have to reconstruct with one thing in mind...

Plant more trees!

Important lessons for Environmental Science 1

Some lessons for next semester's Environmental Science 1

1. Natural hazards

2. Disaster preparedness and awareness

3. Why the bahay kubo can survive floods.

4. Gated communities can keep the poor out but not environmental disasters

Sinisingil tayo ng Kalikasan (Nature is demanding payback)

Ironically, I was in the Philippine Coast Guard typhoon response and rescue exhibit in Manila when TS Ondoy's deluge hit Metro Manila. I was following the storm on real time satellite apps on my mobile phone and was shocked to see that the storm's core was compact and consolidated. This meant a deluge will come. Checking on the PAGASA forecast, I saw that the forecast still said "gusty winds"

I have seen and experienced these kinds of storms in northern Australia. During my first year there as a PhD student in 1997, a tropical low dumped a year's worth of rain in 6 hours. The university got washed out. Cars in the student parking lot were piled on top of another as the flash flood rushed from the eucalyptus covered hills. There were no casualties. Six hours before, people were advised to seek higher ground. Those in buildings were advised to seek the higher floors and stay put. Some friends were trapped in the library building and did not go hungry since even the library had emergency rations!

Australia is prone to such disasters since the dry soils cannot absorb that much water in a short time. Water flows down the hills into the gullies. Australians especially those in the regions are aware of how bad a natural disaster could be. The Aussie Bureau of Meteorology comes out with this boing boing boing alert on TV (30 minute intervals) and the radio about cyclones.

My life in Oz primed me to be disaster alert for both of the main dangers of the dry (bushfires) and the wet (floods and landslides). This is one priceless benefit that an Australian education gave me.

So when I saw the satellite pic on my phone, I advised people that coming back to Quezon City will be hazardous but we have to try since being in Manila will be more dicey. We were on the road when the deluge hit at 9:30 AM. I noticed that street floods rose with an horrible rapidity. On Santa Mesa, we saw the water rise one meter in a few minutes and this was a portent of the dangers to come. We were able to traverse the deep water but when we got to the San Juan City-Quezon City boundary at 10:30, we were amazed to see that Aurora Blvd can give Cagayan de Oro a run for its tourist money! The whole street was like a white water rafting paradise!

All that white water was rushing towards the San Juan area in Ermitano. The water reached up to the edge of the huge Mt Carmel Church (which is built on top of a knoll).

We succeeded to pass through the little that remained unflooded in New Manila. Upon reaching the Roxas and Kamuning districts, it was just too dangerous and I told the driver to seek the highest ground. The highest one was a Catholic charismatic church. The priest had opened the church to stranded people. And we were the first to be there. And 30 minutes later, the flood of Metro Manila's environmental refugees came in.

Many of them came from areas in the city that never has been flooded at all. Whereas before many were from the lower socio-economic classes, many were middle class and one family 2nd floor condo unit sank in 8 feet of water while they were away.

With two UERMMC 3rd year medical students checking for vital signs among the refugees, we organized a sort of triage until two doctors came. I was concerned about the senior citizens caught by the flood and the small children and babies who had to evacuate without their baby bottles.

We were there for 8 hours since parts of Quezon City leading to Diliman were under 3 meters of water. Friends couldn't believe that while our car "survived" Santa Mesa, it could not survive Kamuning! This was simply unbelievable!

Anyway, one of the women from a lower socio economic background broke down and saying "sinisingil na tayo ng kalikasan" (Nature is demanding payback!). Nobody in the church blamed God or the Devil for this disaster but us. Nobody thought the disaster is a punishment from God.

The woman and her family listed the environmental determinants. 1) Garbage, 2) Too many people in the city, 3) Corruption and 4) Climate change

An upper middle class refugee said that PAGASA failed in its forecasting but I told them that given PAGASA's lack of equipment and funding, it can only forecast the best it could. It can never forecast as well as the Australians could. The Doppler radars that could have advised many on the amount of rain that would fall (worth one case of bottled water per square meter) weren't yet installed and operational.

Many were in disbelief that this kind of disaster could befall Manila.

We all are now environmental refugees.

The wages of sin on the environment is death!

Musing about bookstores and Galileo: Antichrist

I have to thank Nanay's (Soccoro Ramos) National Bookstore (NBS) for making available decent books at affordable prices. I'm not advertising NBS but the truth is my bibliophilic generation is truly "Laking National". When we were much younger, only NBS had carried good books in many of its branches. True there were other more specialist bookstores with fine books like Erehwon, Bookmark, Solidaridad and Popular, these bookstores were located in faraway Makati and Ermita (I lived in QC) or in the case of Popular just off Avenida Rizal near the Rathaus beerhouse. The first two bookshops are defunct, Sionil-Jose's Solidaridad is still around and Popular has moved to a trendier location on Quezon City's Tomas Morato near the Boy Scout roundabout. When I was an undergrad, a lefty friend of mine and I would take public transpo to get to Popular since this was the only place where we can read "commie" books. This is where I got my whole edition of Marx's Das Kapital. Recall that this was in the waning years of the Marcos dictatorship.

Popular was also the only bookstore to carry erotic classics like Boccacio's "Decameron" and the Olympia Readers. But NBS wasn't left out. NBS carried these titles too but were not prominently displayed. NBS had a wider clientele than Popular.

The lefty friend and I trooped to the new Popular in Quezon City a year ago and while the "commie" books are still there. In these more democratic times, reading communist books is a ho hum but one thing is missing, the proletariat feel of reading "forbidden books" in a dingy bookshop is gone. In the old Popular, I could fantasize as a would be Lenin. In the new Popular, I could fantasize as a would be Bill Gates!

Now back to NBS. The store has recognized the maturing readership of its customers and now carries a wide range of books. Its spinoff, Powerbooks and Bestsellers carry many of the good titles but the old NBS even has better titles if you know where to look. It is only in NBS that a copy of "Hitler and Aesthetics" can be had. For the arki types, the book should be a good read since Imeldific and Ferdie understood that Architecture is Power and Imeldific like it or not is immortal since she undoubtly understood the Theory of Ruin Value.

The nice thing about NBS is that it has a twice a year "cut price" booksale. In these recessionary times, they cut the prices of books up to 80% off. I found the latest Galileo biography by Michael White "Galileo: Antichrist" in a pile of books at NBS Quezon Avenue. It was on 50% discount.

I have an interest in Galileo and have a few of Stillman Drake's autobiographies of the man. (BTW I got these books for a dollar each at a Louisiana flea market). I also got the Cambridge reader on Galileo which I bought for 60% off the shelf price at a cut price sale three years ago. My interest here is how science can clash with religion. The thesis is that science will always clash with religion. While in Galileo's time it was with the Roman Church, today it is with the various Christian fundamentalist sects, Islam, anti GMO environmentalists, animal rights advocates and even Marxists.

The Roman Church is unlikely to meet science head on since it is still shell shocked by the Galileo affair. This even if Pope John Paul II had issued an "apology". The Church was able to survive the Reformation but it isn't likely to survive a clash with Science with its reputation intact.

To his credit John Paul II had come to terms with Galileo since he had an interest in science and as a Pole, had interest in the Copernican theory. However John Paul II's Galileo commission reduced the Galileo affair into three points

1) Galileo did not understand that the Copernican theory was a hypothesis

2) The theologians then did not correcty understand Scripture

3) When Copernicanism was verified, the Church accepted this and admitted implicitly that it was wrong in condemning the hypothesis.

Roman Catholic apologists today lay the blame on Galileo for not understanding what a scientific hypothesis really was. Galileo may have been a garrulous man but he did have some empirical evidence for the Heliocentric theory (in fact by demonstrating that Venus had phases and moons orbited Jupiter, he falsified the Ptolemaic theory).

This apologists' stance represents a scandalous twisting of facts. The Church wasn't really interested in the scientific merits of Copernicanism but was in threats to its power as represented in its worldview. Neither Bellarmine or Barberini in Galileo's committee were interested in the science and were trained scientists. Joseph Ratzinger then a cardinal said that the Church was more faithful to reason than Galileo himself was.

White's thesis is this and refers to motive: Science is motivated by a desire to know and understand while Religion is motivated by fear. Fear that its hierarchs will lose their power over the faithful.

White says that the Church had Galileo gagged since one of his works "the Assayer" had a passage that denied Transubstantiation. I reproduce the passage in Stillman Drake's translation from the original Italian

"Now I say that whenever I conceive any material or corporeal substance, I immediately feel the need to think of it as bounded, and as having this or that shape; as being large or small in relation to other things, and in some specific place at any given time; as being in motion or at rest; as touching or not touching some other body; and as being one in number, or few, or many. From these conditions I cannot separate such a substance by any stretch of my imagination. But that it must be white or red, bitter or sweet, noisy or silent, and of sweet or foul odor, my mind does not feel compelled to bring in as necessary accompaniments. Without the senses as our guides, reason or imagination unaided would probably never arrive at qualities like these. Hence I think that tastes, odors, colors, and so on are no more than mere names so far as the object in which we place them is concerned, and that they reside only in he consciousness. Hence if the living creature were removed, all these qualities would be wiped away and annihilated. But since we have imposed upon them special names, distinct from those of the other and real qualities mentioned previously, we wish to believe that they really exist as actually different from those.

Here Galileo has anticipated the empiricism of John Locke. In fact this empiricism remains the philosophical foundation of modern science.

This "denial of Transubstantiation" argument should thrill DJB! The question that is still valid today is how far can fundamentalism deal with science and its goal of objective truth? And this is not with the Roman Church alone, but also with the secular social constructivists and relativists and all sorts of ideologies.

While White's thesis needs more documentary evidence (the denial of Transubstantiation is old Protestant argument and there is no evidence to show that Galileo was indeed a Proteastant), I believe White's title is misleading. Galileo wasn't antichrist but more antichurch.

White and I agree. Science wins!

Another instance of Philippine Daily Inquirer idiocy!

Today's editorial in the Philippine Daily Inquirer I believe is the most silly and idiotic one ever to see print in that blurb.

"Ominous Offensive" takes the pacifist and anti Arroyo spin to its most ridiculous conclusions with non sequiturs worse that what Dan Brown can dish. The editorial link the service call of an American warship on the way to exercises with the Indonesian navy, the fact that MILF insurgents can never be expected to hold to on a ceasefire, the wisdom of offensives against a single insurgent group, fear of upsetting Malaysia with (drumrollls.....), the President's supposed plan to declare a national state of emergency just because a group of bandits waylaid a marine platoon in order to remove the public's bad taste of a Frenchy and Yankee dinners in Washington DC.

Read this

"What haunts the imagination of the public is the mutilation of some of the slain soldiers – this desecration of the dead is forbidden under Islam and has horrified pious Muslims and angered public opinion; it is an atrocity that both Muslims and Christians abhor. In the face of rising emotions, we counsel sobriety: a resumption of hostilities in Mindanao could endanger our democratic project.

Considering that formal agreements and peace talks can instantly dissolve the moment fighting begins – with the distinction between MILF and Abu Sayyaf, civilian and guerrilla vanishing the moment the military appears on the scene – it is imperative that our armed forces ponder whether there is such a thing as an isolated offensive versus any single group. The collision of an ancient martial culture, tribal loyalties and the security of the state has been proven, time and again, to be costly to all concerned."

The Inquirer even in its editorial idiocy has got one thing right. A military solution to the Mindanao conflict involves a grand strategy (which I believe the AFP has lost). This is something like the total destruction of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan by the allies in World War II. A Commander-in-Chief should not hesitate to use the appropriate response and firepower to incinerate these bandits. This Republic should not hesitate to destroy its enemies in order to secure the Philippines peace. Who is the Inquirer trying to scare? The Republic's democracy while may be fragile as some people contend, I believe is strong enough that its democracy can prevail over a band of bandits and those who want to exploit these for political gain. If the Inquirer is in shivers over "endangering our democratic project" this is premature. The greatest danger to our democratic project happened 20 years ago when some misguided Mistahs decided to overthrow Mrs Corazon Aquino. Subsequent attempts are laughable, especially the last and Mrs Arroyo knows that.

Securing the peace is costly and we know that. Peace is never cheap and requires vigilance over messianic military officers, the terrorists, petrified Maoist ideologues and all of them demand peace talks . Peace talks demand sincerity. Some of these peace talkers don't even want to be parted from their EU passports! The problem with the Arroyo administration is that it is a lame duck and it is too late in the day to do a Mahindra Rajapaksa.

A clouded 2010 scenario is what the insurgents want and may be a temptation for Mrs Arroyo. If she really can do a Mahindra Rajapaksa however unlikely, she can be PM forever and ever! But emergency rule?...... unlikely. This PhD prez isn't that dumb as those non-PhD critics don't realize.

When dad comes home in a box

Army wives are soldiers too and by extension army brats are soldiers also. My father served in the Armed Forces of the Philippines and saw action in Korea, Vietnam and the numerous unresolved insurgencies of our republic. My mother in many instances had to raise us by herself and was resigned that one day, her husband will come home in a box. The children too had to accept that and that duty to the Republic will take their father from them. I never had the concept of Sunday being a "family day". Dad was on duty on Sundays or at the front. We had to soldier on.

When my father passed away years after retirement from the Armed Forces, my mother thanked the good Lord that her husband did not come home in a box. We brought the box home to bury our father.

But it is very heartbreaking to see a picture in the blurbs of a 3 year old boy rousing his dad to wake up from his coffin. But I believe that the boy had an inkling of his dad as a soldier. And all army brats are proud that their fathers wear the uniform. My heartbreak is not because the sergeant died in action, but that the boy probably never had much time with his father. Civilians will never understand that even a toddler or a small boy has to soldier on. Army brats have no choice.

I have soldiered on from the day I was christened in the Military Cathedral of Saint Ignatius of Loyola and have attended wakes of fallen soldiers in that church. (No wonder I am a Jesuit fan!) When our soldiers fall in battle, the nation should mourn and it should mourn the same way it did for Mrs Aquino. Soldiers do their duty, put their lives on the line and have very little perks. Mrs Aquino did her duty, placed her life on the line and as much as possible did away with the perks of her exalted office. They can't eat 20,000 dollar boodles. In fact it is outrageous for a soldier to eat a lavish meal when comrades don't eat these meals. I remember that dad fed me army rations when I spent my summers in Camp Capinpin with cadets in training. I'm used to this kind of slop!

Our citizens today no longer have any connection with the sacrifices and perils soldiers face unlike in my dad's generation. This gives us a political leadership that regards these sacrifices as typical. The present political leadership abolished ROTC, the only way for a citizen to have an inkling on what it means to defend the country. ROTC cadets are not expected to die for their country once they finish the course. But they do know that the country may ask them to give their lives for the country as on 8 December 1941. And they did without doubt or hesitancy.

Ninoy Aquino famously said "the Filipino is worth dying for" This is true only if the Philippines is worth defending for.

That's what the image of the boy rousing his dead soldier to awaken tells us.