blackshama's commentary on Philippine issues

I am a staunch supporter of the disestablishment of the Catholic Church in the Philippines. By disestablishment, I mean the Church will relinquish all pretensions to political power and by doing so, she becomes closer to the will of her founder, Jesus Christ. Well it seems that She is headed that way even if her bishops don't think it that way. By calling for civil disobedience on the RH (Reproductive Health) Bill, the bishops enjoin Catholics to "obey God first rather than the Government". If we were in Tudor England, such a statement is treasonous. I don't think a majority of Catholics will follow the bishops. After all, hardly anyone believes using artificial contraception is a matter of proscribing the faith.  In short people will think it is daft to go into civil disobedience over a condom!  This whole call for civil disobedience will be a guaranteed flop.  Unfortunately the whole idea of contraception according to Catholic teaching offends morals. The Chur...

The blurbs have it wrong. The Philippine Flag has no right side up or up side down. The flag's designers envisioned equality in the flag. So whichever side you fly it, it should not matter. However the Flag is unique in that it is the only National Flag which by flying the red side up, becomes a War Standard. Of course we Filipinos want the nation to be at peace. So we would want the blue side up. But the red side up was first hoisted during the Revolutionary War against the Imperialist United States of America (to show that a Sovereign Nation was at war)   which eventually crushed the Philippine Republic.  The American occupiers banned flying the National Flag blue or red side up for 12 years from 1907-1919 on pain of stiff jail terms, fines or even death. This is the time when the flag could be displayed either covertly or as part of Zarzuela costumes. The red side was also up when the Philippine Commonwealth was invaded by the Japanese in 1941 and the Field Marshal...

Buendia during Ondoy? No Orchard Road last June 16! Photo credits from http://www.about-knowledge.com/orchard-road-flood/ Typhoon Ondoy (Ketsana) will be memorable for me since it flooded my house and sending my techie gadgets to the computer in the sky. Also I was trapped in Quezon City, at a charismatic church where I helped evacuees get some assistance with three medical students from UERM medical school who were to report for duty in the hospital, but couldn't. By then UERM hospital was up to its second floor in flood. The polluted San Juan River burst its banks.  I could not forget the long line of schoolchildren with drums and bugles as they were in school for a show when the flood struck and sank their school. But many people lost more in terms of property and worse in lives.  While damaged houses can be repaired, IPods, flat screen TVs and Digicams can be replaced by "cooler" models, a human life lost to the floods cannot be replaced. The blurbs today mark th...

I am reposting my 2006 essay on the burning of books, any kind of book, holy, secular or even heretical Do we have to repeat the same mistakes that have caused millions of human lives? Holocausts begin with the burning of books but if a holy book is burned this time, could a book be enough to stop it? [A pastor's plan to burn the Koran was canceled due to global condemnation] When Books are Burned There is something very sinister with a book burning, an evil that is worse than murder. The world first realized the horrors of what the Nazis were to unleash in Europe when they burned books. A renowned American writer who wrote a biography of Anne Frank rightly placed these events in their proper context. The Holocaust started with a book, (Hitler’s “Mein Kampf”, a book infinitely more evil and lie filled than the “Da Vinci Code”) continued with the burning of more books, then the burning of millions of men, women and children and ended with a the publication of a bo...

Former dean of the UP Law school and nominee for the UP presidency, Raul Pangalangan writes something on foreign scholarships in today's Philippine Daily Inquirer that should be interesting reading for students. The Philippines has been sending students overseas for more than 200 years. The first students sent were clerics during the Spanish period. In the closing decades of Spanish rule, a more moneyed Filipino upper class was able to send their kids to school in Europe. This is the generation that founded the nation which included, Rizal, del Pilar, Lopez Jaena and the Luna brothers. The less financially able were not able to study in Europe but imbibed the radical, nationalist and enlightened attitudes of Rizal and company. To this generation belonged Mabini, Ricarte, Manuel Quezon and one of my ancestors who attended at the UST. After Republica Filipina collapsed, the American occupiers sent government scholars or pensionados to the USA. To this class belonged people who w...

I watched The Cove at the Cine Adarna theatre of the University of the Philippines on September 3. It was a free screening sponsored by Earth Island Institute .  The cinema was packed by environmentalists and advocates of keeping dolphins and other whales out of captivity. However, I had to ditch my environmentalist mode so I can watch the film more objectively and I had to see it with  my ASIAN AND THIRD WORLD EYES ! My assessment is that the documentary was well made but MISERABLY FAILS on  cultural and historical sensitivity . And so it can easily be criticized as an ENVIROIMPERIALIST attempt to trump down Japanese culture. First of all the film shows an all WHITE crew of environmentalists trying to save the dolphins. I do not see any problem with saving cetaceans and many Japanese do so too, but a balanced treatment would have been better if a historical aspect was introduced. Wholesale whale slaughter was first made an efficient industry by who else, White Eu...