Skip to main content

Black or White



Black or White?

The recent impeachment complaint against the Philippines President Gloria Arroyo has made people think about the truth about the “Hello Garci” recordings. The is a new organization of civic society people who are for the impeachment of the president. They call themselves as “Black and White”. To them the truth about the impeachment complaint is black and white.  The Black and White Movement “believe the issues surrounding the presidency and the impeachment complaint are as clear as Black and White. There are no shades of gray when it comes to the Truth.”

But what is truth anyway? Is it black and white? Has truth have many shades or colours for that matter? The best remembered rhetorical question in the Gospels is that of Pontius Pilate who asked his prisoner Jesus Christ, “What is truth?” Take note that the Black and White Movement spells truth with an uppercase T, while the Evangelist writes it with a small “t”.

Pilate asked the most famous rhetorical question in history [John 18]. After which he said he found no fault in this man [Jesus]. A procurator like Pilate is Rome’s chief executive and judge in a province. Pilate using Roman Law found no breach of law in Jesus’ acts. With that  he asked “What have you done?”

The same question can be said to all of us. But Jesus was present before the procurator. If he is the truth then he made himself apparent. His claim that his kingdom is not of this world is His claim alone and no one else. A claim that is true at least in Jesus’ mind. It is possible that we cannot recognise this truth due to bias and this clouded Pilate’s judgement and so thus is the story of Jesus in the Gospels.

But the Black and White Movement is not witness to the acts of the President concerning the grounds for her impeachement. It has to find out the truth through filters of reason, experience, culture, religion and science. With all these filters, can you see clearly in black or white? Or will you see shades of gray?

There is a danger in claiming to see Black and White clearly. The whole facet of human experience is thus limited to two. The weighing of evidence requires that all shades of experience and testimony be tested. We scientists use the scientific method.  Judges use reason and law.  At least in science a wrong inference has no moral consequeces. In law and justics, a judgement made in black and white may result in injustice.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Simoun's lamp has been lit, finally.. not by one but by the many!

"So often have we been haunted by the spectre of subversion which, with some fostering, has come to be a positive and real being, whose very name steals our serenity and makes us commit the greatest blunders... If before the reality, instead of changing the fear of one is increased, and the confusion of the other is exacerbated, then they must be left in the hands of time..." Dr Jose Rizal "To the Filipino People and their Government" Jose Rizal dominates the Luneta, which is sacred to the Philippine nation as a place of martyrdom. And many perhaps all of those executed in the Luneta, with the exception of the three Filipino secular priests martyred in 1872, have read Rizal's  El Filibusterismo . Dr Rizal's second novel is a darker and more sinister one that its prequel but has much significance across the century and more after it was published for it preaches the need for revolution with caveats,  which are when the time is right and who will in...
Post a Comment
Read more

Kung bakit dapat maging wikang pambansa din ang Ingles

Isang kakatwang eksena ang nasaksihan ko sa isang pribabdong opisina kamakailan lang. Dalawang empleyado ang inatasang bigyan ng solusyon ang isang isyu tungkol sa logistics. Ang isa ang tubong Davao at ang isa ay taga Iloilo. Ang unang wika nila ay Cebuano (Bisaya) at Hiligaynon (Ilonggo). Ang dalawang wika ay halos pareho ngunit may mga katagang iba ang kahulugan sa isa't isang wika. Ginamit nila ang wika nilang kinalakihan at hindi sila nagkaintindihan. Ang nangyari tuloy ay gumamit na lang sila ng wikang Ingles! Yung na nga rin ang sabi ko. Mag-English na lang kaya kayo! At bakit di wikang Filipino ang ginamit nila? Sa totoo lang, marami pa rin ang hindi bihasa sa Filipino upang gamitin ito sa mga larangan tulad ng logistics. At hindi lamang sa mga larangang teknikal, sa mga biyahe ko sa ibat-ibat lugar sa Pilipinas, ang mga naka-paskel sa mga CR o palikuran tungkol sa pagtitipid ng tubig ay naka sulat sa 1)Wika ng rehiyon 2) Wikang Ingles 3) at minsa'y sa wikang Filipino S...
Post a Comment
Read more

Marikina River and the "janitor" fish

My newest environmental science research project is to determine the evolutionary biology of invasion by the "janitor fish" in Marikina River. Today we made our first survey and collections. Marikina River is the"greenest"in Metro Manila but that is just on the surface. One master's student is doing her thesis on biotic integrity and a volunteer MD is working on the project too. The "janitor fish (Pterygoplichthys sp) is the dominant fish now in the river,displacing traditional Marikina food fishes such as dalag and hito. The fish are collected and left to rot on the riverbanks. Despite this, there is still some subsistence fishing on the river. The highest densities of the fish are observed near sewage outfalls where they find food to eat. It is likely that the fish can be controlled if we can clean up the river! BTW the name "janitor fish" insults janitors. The fish thrive in dirty rivers and don't clean them up. Janitors on the other hand, ...
Post a Comment
Read more