blackshama's commentary on Philippine issues

I would agree with many that the Revised Penal Code's Article 133 on "offending religious feelings" may sound archaic. It may have to be reworded. The code punishes disruption of worship services which offends the congregation  with a prison term. Carlos Celdran, history tour guide par excellance was meted out with a jail term for raising a "Damaso" sign inside the Roman Catholic cathedral of Manila during an ecumenical service on the Bible attended by Catholic priests and bishops and clergy of non Catholic churches. Celdran makes history by being the first person to be convicted under the statute although in 1934 a suit was brought before the courts on claimed offense to religious feelings involving a local Roman Catholic congregation celebrating a para liturgical "pabasa" and  property owners who built a barbed wire fence around the chapel. The court acquitted the persons who put up the fence. The Penal Code punishes crimes against religious wor...

The only known photo of Bonifacio (from Philippine government website) Starting November 30, 2012 and to climax on November 30, 2013, the Philippines will be marking the sesquicentennial of the national hero Andres Bonifacio. Bonifacio is the founder of the revolutionary society Katipunan which organized itself as a military force to prosecute the Philippine Nationalist Revolution in August 1896. As part of the celebrations, Malacanang Palace has created the Bonifacio sesquicentennial portal wherein events and essays appraising and reappraising the role of Bonifacio in the Revolution and beyond it will be posted. Andres Bonifacio unlike Rizal had only one known photograph and its shows a revolutionary in a suit and not in the iconic white camisa and red trousers raising a bolo and the flag in a revolutionary cry. This representation forever characterized Bonifacio as one of the peasant class. The first Bonifacio statue which became the quintessential icon was sculpted by Manu...

Dr Jose Rizal in the 13 th chapter of his “El Filibusterismo” “The Class in Physics” describes the state of science education in late 19 th Century Spanish Philippines. The Physics classroom cum laboratory at the University of Santo Tomas, then the Philippines’ only centre of advanced learning, was equipped with the latest teaching and research lab equipment but according to Rizal was hardly ever used for the intended purpose. In fact Rizal satirically writes that only the janitor and the doorman who out of curiosity, played with the instruments, ever benefited or learned science from the investment on those pieces of lab equipment. A closer reading of Rizal beyond the satire shows the state of science in a society that places a greater importance on superstition and a perverse kind of Catholicism. Rizal writes a damning indictment in the last paragraph of the chapter “ He who weighs the value of a second and has ordained for His creatures as an ele...