Gary Pekas
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By Estanislao C. Albano, Jr.
I am going to Manila this 22nd for a reunion of former staffers of The Quezonian, the student paper of the Manuel L. Quezon University (MLQU) which I guess has already been closed by the administration several years back. Along with The Dawn of the University of the East and The Collegian of the University of the Philippines-Dilliman, The Quezonian was among the first student organs revived some six years after the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos declared Martial Law and padlocked the press including campus papers. These student organs were the initial concrete results of the first stirrings of student activitism during Martial Law.
Then a journalism student of the MLQU, I was a member of the second batch of staffers of the resurrected paper. We had a two-year term which begun in the first semester of 1979. It was in the campus paper where I first dealt with the population subject. I remember raging against the irresponsible people who bring children into the world without thought of their future in my column and also lamenting the fate of these children in a poem. Back in those days I had this mistaken notion that I could write poems. I will try to go to the library of the university during my coming trip to xerox those pieces for purposes of sharing with you just in case the amateur outputs do not make me blush.
Before going to Manila to pursue my college education in 1976, I was already deeply troubled by the problem of what I now call future-less children. I trace back my awakening to the problem to one night in early 1976. As part of our training in the Mountain Bible College in Sinipsip, Buguias, Benguet where I was in my second year, we have to go around soliciting subscribers to our church’s magazine and the practice was that wherever darkness finds us, we would look for an allied church to spend the night in. That particular night, I found myself in the town of Sayangan, Benguet and went to the Baptist Church there. The pastor and his family were on a trip and it was the woman caretaker who took me in.
The caretaker and her family were occupying a tiny house beside the parsonage and it was there where she invited me to lodge. When I entered the shack, I saw these seven children sitting before the stove to keep themselves warm. Just like the caretaker, they were all thin and obviously malnourished. I estimated the eldest to be around 10 years old and the youngest a toddler. The woman who must have been in her early 30s but looked much older said they were all her children. From our conversation as she boiled rice, I found that the congregation had decided to make her caretaker so that she could get some support for her children plus a roof over their heads. Previously, the family only depended on the daily wages of her husband who worked as a laborer in a vegetable garden. The sight of those children eating rice with just salt disturbed me for a long time.
But they were not what I wrote about in my column in the Quezonian. It was that cadaverous women who was a fixture in the eastern end of the Quiapo underpass back then. At first, she had one emaciated baby with her and then later, a newer baby. There were times the two babies were with her with one in her arms and the other lying on a sheet on the floor. Why a woman who begged for a living would bring another living being into the world and not content with that, still another was beyond me. Everytime I passed the woman, my indignation that there are Filipinos like her and that woman in Sayangan welled within me. If I remember right, I recommended in my column that child-bearing should be conditional and not an indiscriminate right, that before having a baby, couples should first show proof to authorities they have the economic wherewithal to properly provide for the child otherwise they would be disallowed from doing so.
I also did the pictures of the paper then and used to tote the camera wherever I went but it never occurred to me to take a photo of the woman in the underpass and her babies I do not know why. Had I done so, the photo could now be used to counter the slide of the poor children shown by Congressman Roilo Golez during his debate with Congressman Edcel Lagman on the RH Bill. The caption would be as follows: “1980. Where are these children now?”
Regardless of the allegations of Golez that many poor children become successful in life, I am dead certain that the children of that woman, if they survived their infancy, have inherited the economic status of their irresponsible parents. I could bet my bottom peso that they never became assets to the country. Just like thousands of similarly placed Filipino children all over the country then and now, they did not and do not stand a chance.
Another encounter I had while in the MLQU but which I have never gotten around to write about then was with the clan of shoe-shine boys plying their trade near the school. I got acquainted with one of the members after having patronized his shoe-shine services several times. If I happen to pass by during their drinking sessions in some nook of the block, he would invite me to take a shot then he would ask for some amount for purposes of buying the next bottle. At one time, he proudly declared to me that all the ambulatory shoe-shining outfits in the area belonged to their family and that it was their father who laid claim to the turf when he was still young. He also said that their children would inherit the territory. He did not talk about it but I assumed that they lived in some slum somewhere in the city.
What I could not understand then and until now is how come a shoe shine-boy who lives from hand to mouth sires many children. While it is true that procreation is a God-given right, men are equipped with brains so they could figure out when to and when not to exercise the right. This brings as to one other reason I could never agree with anti-RH Bill exponents when they say that children are assets and not liabilities. It all depends on a lot of factors foremost of which is what kind of parents they have. When the parents do not even have the intelligence to appreciate what a grave responsibility bringing a child into the world entails and to know that with their squalor, they are hardly in the position to bring the responsibility upon themselves, just what kind of children will they beget? This is not prejudging children from big and poor families but then we could not do away with the obvious that there is a correlation between intelligence and success and intelligence basically comes through the genes. But I am not ready to get deeper into that topic now.
Meantime, suffice it to say that my first encounters with this country’s future-less children convinced me of the need for population control on the ground that it is the height of irresponsibility and senselessness to bring into the world children who may, due to their miserable conditions, regret the day they were conceived. Meaning, as far as I was and I am concerned, that woman in Sayangan and the one in the Quiapo underpass and their respective husbands should have put off having babies until they found a decent source of income to ensure that the child is properly taken care of. Also, the father of my shoe-shine boy friend in Quaipo should have dreamt of his children improving on his status and one key decision towards the fulfillment of that aspiration would have been to limit the number of his children. |
First encounters with future-less children
The misleader
by Estanislao Albano, Jr.
Congressman Roilo Golez of Paranaque is playing to the hilt his role as one of the main articulators of the anti-RH Bill position in and out of the halls of Congress. Nearly every time there is a development in the population controversy, the solon is quoted in the media as having said this or that all in furtherance of the anti-RH Bill cause. At times he himself creates the news by making this or that statement against the bill.
But I notice that for all his reputation as one of the best debaters in Congress, the veteran lawmaker is not above resorting to misleading and deceptive arguments in his running debate with RH Bill proponents. Whatever is convenient to his position, he exploits it sometimes to the disregard of truth and public enlightenment. Let’s take his comments on the population issue-related pronouncements made by former US president Bill Clinton and population and health expert Malcolm Potts. Golez made hay of the passing comment of Clinton in his speech on the challenge of globalization that more babies are a boon to the country. He gloated that Clinton could see what RH Bill exponents do not see: that babies are assets instead of liabilities. He did not stop to think whether or not Clinton is knowledgeable of specific conditions prevailing in the country before he uttered those words. For one, did Clinton know before he opened his mouth that in this country there are hundreds of thousands of couples who bring into the world more children than they could reasonably provide for? Had he known that, would Clinton still have said that we are blessed because of our big population?
Later when Potts, with his solid credentials as an international population expert he being a professor at the Bixby Center for Population, Health and Sustainability at the University of California warned that we will soon become a failed state like Somalia if the population growth of the country is not immediately checked, instead of answering the points raised by the professor, Golez called the attention of the public to Pott’s alleged crimes. He demanded that Potts be deported for insulting the Philippines by comparing it to “super backward” Somalia and for promoting abortion. If I remember my lessons well, that’s what we call argumentum ad hominem where instead of answering the issues, a person attacks the character of the one he is arguing with.
My guess is that Golez has no answer to Pott’s comparison of Thailand and the Philippines. Potts cited the historical fact that in the 1970s, the two countries were comparable in economy and population but that Thais now have a better life because their government has been aggressively promotion condoms while Filipinos continue to multiply without thought of consequence. That’s the very reason he raked up the dirt on Potts and wanted the poor guy deported because of the danger that if the population expert stays longer in the country, he will do more damage to the anti-RH crusade.
Now comes the results of the recent Pulse Asia survey which states that 69 percent of Filipinos support the RH Bill. Immediately, Golez impugned the findings saying among others that the question used by the survey firm was defective because it only asked the respondents if they have heard or read about the RH Bill. According to him, the respondents should have been asked whether or not they read the bill itself and if they answered in the negative, the interview should have been stopped. He asked how the respondents could make an informed answer if they have not read the bill.
Golez is suffering from the notion that if Filipinos read the RH Bill, they could not help but puke. Going by his reasoning, the 26 law professors of the University of the Philippines and the 69 professors from different departments of the Ateneo de Manila University who issued manifestos in support of the RH Bill also did not read the proposed legislation. Their manifesto proceeded from lack of complete understanding of the bill because they merely heard about it from friends or just from the radio on their way to school and did not bother to read the bill.
In contending that only a reading of the full text of the bill could someone be equipped to render judgment on it, Golez is also belittling the capability of the media to provide adequate information and enlightenment for informed decision-making. Golez will say and do anything to discredit the bill and the people who believe in it including committing something inconsistent with his own actions. You see, for a person who questions the capability of the media to make people decide wisely, Golez is a very frequent user of various media to advocate his causes. Just like I already told you, he almost never misses commenting in the media about the latest developments in the RH Bill issue. Golez even posts in the Internet newspaper articles which side with him in the issue. It is possible that in his thinking, the media is only capable of effective information dissemination when it’s his side that are published there.
To end this piece, let’s have a sampling of Golez’s anti-RH Bill arguments courtesy of a video of his debate with RH Bill proponent Congressman Edcel Lagman on the bill posted in the youtube. He presented a photo of some poor children declaring that they should not be considered as burden to society but assets because many of them in the photo have become professionals and OFWs. He continued that whether or not poor children become assets to society depends on how the government help them in terms of education, social services and health. He concluded that poor children also have a chance of making something of themselves so they should not be prevented from coming into the world. He tried to impress in the minds of his colleagues that what happened to the children in the photo is also happening in all the slums in the country. He seemed oblivious of the fact that in a lot of instances, poor children could not go to school because their parents do not have the means of sending them so how could they become professionals and OFWs like he claims many in the photo did?
It would be interesting to hear Golez define his word “marami” or many referring to children in his slide becoming successful in life. Just how many percent does it mean? And could he say honestly if the percentage applies to the poor children in the second district of Paranaque?
Let me point out that from his own statement, it appears that Golez’s brand of responsible parenthood allows bringing children into the world and then holding the government responsible for their education and health.
Two lost Americans
By Estanislao C. Albano, Jr.
One unwittingly stumbled into the RH Bill controversy while the other intentionally came to lend his support to local anti-artificial family planning forces. The first is a former politicians who is accustomed to trying to say something he thought his host would want to hear while the other is on personal mission to fight contraceptives, abortion and all that he thinks threatens the stability of the family. The first opened his mouth without the benefit of adequate data while the other consciously mouthed anti-artificial family planning propaganda. As would be expected, their pronouncements, instead of helping, further roiled the population debate.
Speaking on the challenge of globalization at the Manila Hotel as part of his 12-hour visit to the country, former US President Bill Clinton carelessly declared that more babies will do the country a lot of good. The papers quoted him as saying “you Filipinos have huge population, which is positive and you have massive natural resources.” I understand that it was only a passing comment but later, anti-RH Bill solon Roilo Golez seized on it as an indorsement of their untenable position.
Really hopeless
By Estanislao C. Albano, Jr.
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) should make up its mind what it really thinks of the late President Corazon Aquino. Sometime ago after the President declared his support for the RH bill, they told the latter that he should follow the example of his mother who, during her term, toed the line of the church when it came to the issue of family planning.
Now Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales has just blamed the parents of the exponents of the RH bill for what he calls the absence of consciences of their children.
It is now apparent that these people do not stop at anything to attain their goal of defeating the RH bill including using the memory of a dead person who they pretend to respect but actually look down on.
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That should have been the CBCP’s course of action right from the very start of the RH controversy. Go to their constituents and convince them that the position of the church in the family planning issue is superior to the proposed government solution and to tell them what to do in the event the RH bill is passed. But their first option which was effective before but is now losing its magic is to interfere in the process of government legislation.
The CBCP is no different from some local politicians. Instead of fairly competing for the votes of the populace, they shoot their opponents.
It is possible the CBCP is afraid it really has no sway on its constituents thus, the option to try to bully government instead.
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Clearly, the CBCP does not realize and accept that it is living in a democratic order where there is freedom to hold different opinions and positions and to espouse the same. They cannot brook any dissension. Fairness which is one of the basic ingredients of democracy is not in their vocabulary. As far as they are concerned, they have the right to disagree and fight with the government, a right which right they in turn deny to government officials from the president down when the position of the latter differs from theirs.
They alone know what is good for the people and woe to anyone who dares disagree with them because all the weapons in the arsenal of the church will be unleashed on him. The usage of excommunication and civil disobedience have already been mentioned in connection with the RH bill and I do not think that was a slip of the tongue as they want to make it appear after receiving flak for their threats.
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One of the most inane pronouncements that has come from the anti-RH bill ranks recently is that they are ready to go to jail when the RH bill is passed into law. Like I told you, they do not accept that we are in a democracy so they assume that everybody in this country thinks like they do.
If the CBCP were the government, the RH bill exponents or anybody who challenges the official position would have been locked in jail a long time ago.
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To expose the arrant hypocrisy of the CBCP, just what is the Roman Catholic Church in the country doing for all the unwanted children born into the world thanks to its hard line opposition to artificial family planning? None whatsoever. In fact, it does not even have funds and programs to promote natural family planning among its parishioners. What the CBCP wants is that after ramming down into the throat of the government its brand of family planning, the latter will also foot the bill for its promotion to the public.
And it also wants the government to hire additional teachers and build additional school rooms for the additional babies it wants to enter the world in the name of its doctrine that contraception is murder.
To the CBCP, there is nothing contradictory in defending the rights of children to be born into this world even if the parents could never dream of getting them delivered in a Catholic hospital and sending them to a Catholic school.
What kind of life Filipino children it helps come to the world is of no concern to the CBCP. Its only interest is that the reproductive process be free from something the church disapproves of. Never mind if the child will be born in a leaking barong-barong and will never have chance to see the inside of a school.
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The government is already up to its neck with the bloated population. The exponents of the RH bill and a lot of other people in government are convinced that the population is one of the main reasons the country is not moving forward economically and why there is always a shortage of government services. That has compelled our lawmakers to propose a law that would somehow slow down our population growth to manageable levels. And here comes the CBCP moving heaven and earth to block the passage of the legislation.
Now isn’t it but proper then that the CBCP should do something for the children the government does not want to be born but it is fiercely fighting to be born? Shouldn’t it be building and running schools for the children of the poor alongside its schools for the elite for a change and opening up its hospitals to the poor? Not on your life. All the CBCP wants is that its supremacy remains unchallenged like during the times of Padre Damaso.
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I challenge these self-deceiving anti-RH bill people to answer the following questions: If there is a fire in a squatters’ area, which has the better chance of escaping unscathed – the family with two kids or the family with 10 kids? And which of the two families has the better chance of eventually moving out of the blighted neighborhood to a better location?
I suppose their answer would be as follows: If the government just stopped being corrupt and really did its job, the squatters’ areas all over the land will disappear in no time at all.
These people are really hopeless. You cannot reason with them.
Padre Damaso versus Jesus Christ
by Estanislao Albano, Jr.
It will not only be a risen-from-the-dead Dr. Jose Rizal that the Padre Damasos in our midst will try to run out of town. If the origin of Christianity itself, Jesus Christ, and his disciples were to come back and live among us, they and their minions will do all within their powers to banish them
After going to the extent of dying on the cross to establish a kingdom that is “not of this world,” I do not think Jesus Christ if he comes back to live among men now will be interested in temporal power. He will still say “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” (Matthew 22:21) He will still recognize and respect the existence of the state as distinct from the church. He will not approve of making threats and moving heaven and earth to abort the RH bill.
In all his acts recorded in the Scriptures, Jesus Christ who was very generous with denunciations of the Pharisees never criticized the government. And I do not think that if he comes back to earth now, He would start doing so. The Padre Damasos will not take kindly to being exposed they have been and are up to something that the Person they claim to be representatives of does not approve.
Neither will they like the Apostle Paul who in his first lifetime wrote to the believers in Rome the following: “Let every soul be subject to the government authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. For the rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience’s sake.” (Romans 13:1-6)
Paul also wrote his protégé Titus as follows: “Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good work.” (Titus 3:1)
And irony of ironies, the Padre Damasos will also reject the Apostle Peter who they claim to be the first Pope. You see, just like Paul, Peter also advocates subjecting oneself to temporal authorities. Let’s listen to him: “Therefore submit yourself to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake, whether to the king as supreme. Or to governors, as to those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good.” (I Peter 2:13, 14)
Certainly, just like he had a mouthful to say about the Pharisees, Jesus Christ will also rebuke the present day Padre Damasos for their obsession of meddling in affairs of government and in the process, losing sight of the main mission of the church for which he and his disciples died: reconciling men to God and changing men spiritually and morally.
Of course the Padre Damasos will lot change its position on there being no demarcation line between church and state which would prevent them from bullying government officials to do their will at the mere say so of Jesus Christ, Paul and Peter so it is highly likely they will warn the trio to keep their mouth shut on this very delicate issue or they will exert pressure on the government to deport them for the crime of preaching heresy.
Seriously now, I just want to know how come the Roman Catholic clergy persists in trying to dictate on government to do what pleases them when the Scriptures is very clear that church people should subject themselves to temporal authorities. My guess is they justify their meddling in government on the basis of the claim of the Roman Catholic church that the Bible is not the only authority when it comes to matters of Christian faith. There are traditions, etc., etc. But traditions that go against the pronouncements of the very originator of Christianity as recorded in the book acknowledged by Christendom as the very Word of God? Traditions or sources that supersede Jesus Christ Himself? Come on.
Church should put its money where its mouth is – UST medicine prof
By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
TABUK CITY, Kalinga – The Roman Catholic (RC) clergy only talks about natural family planning methods but is doing nothing to promote it among their members.
That is the observation of Dr. Rosendo Roque, a full professor at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the RC-run University of Santo Tomas and a past president of the Philippine Obstetrical and Gynecological Society (POGS).
Roque led a team of 14 obstetricians and gynecologists who came to the province October 8 to conduct a medical mission and lecture on teenage pregnancy.
“The church is adamant on refusing to accept artificial contraction methods and yet there are no strong moves on its part to immerse in the community to strengthen natural family planning methods. If you talk, you offer options and alternatives to what is offered by the other side so you will offer an equal choice so that the population can make a decision on their own,” Roque said.
He added that the church cannot go on “imposing urgent sensitive matters concerning people without adequate study and consideration of what the people really need and what they really desire to improve their situation.”
Regarding the emotion-charged debate on the Reproductive Health (RH) bill, Roque said that the government and the church should strike a compromise because of the survey finding showing that majority of RC people favor the passage of the bill.
“I wish that all the parties will try to analyze in detail the contents of the RH bill that needs to compromise approach so that we can approach our goal to finally improve our society’s conditions because this is just a matter of supply and demand. The bigger the number of people, the bigger is their need for food, housing social services, infrastructure and jobs,” Roque said.
Once both sides understand the contentious provisions, then they can work out compromises that will be acceptable to both, the doctor said.
Citing as sample the issue of the participation of the government in providing contraceptive methods to the population, Roque said that the two parties could talk about alternatives which could include the church strengthening its education efforts on the subject of natural family planning method.
“If they don’t want condoms, they can teach the rhythm method,” Roque said.
He clarified that he is not talking for the POGS albeit he claimed that most members of the organization share his opinion.
Regarding the POGS advocacy against teenage pregnancy, Roque who heads the project said that they teach teenagers “abstinence and substitution of their activities to help them mature responsibly.”
He said that since sexual development is natural, the POGS want the teenagers to be aware that they can channel their excess energy to other productive activities.
“Most teenagers are left to themselves and they cannot cope with the rapid changes in their physical, emotional and social development. A good majority have no guidance especially so that many parents are overseas.
