What is your priority: faith or people

If Cardinal Tagle’s Oratio Imperata for Deliverance from Calamities is to be believed, collective prayer can stop a typhoon. Consider the below lines:

We pray to you for protection from calamities,

from the floods and raging waters brought by storms,

from howling winds that destroy our homes,

from the loosening of earth that brings landslides.

Calm the storm and keep us all safe and far from harm

these perilous days and always.

Who would have thought that talking to an imaginary being in droves can change the course and outcome of a typhoon. Not only is this impossible, it is also inconsistent. If we assume an omniscient God, a Being who knows everything that is to happen every minute and every second, and an omnipotent God, a Being that is so powerful that he can stop all calamities just by thinking it, the need for prayer dissipates. Prayer goes against the will of God. Prayer is telling God what to do. With prayer, you assume that you know better than God, pretend to know the mind of God. What if God wills that Filipinos suffer through these yearly typhoons? Who are we to deny this God?

After the devastation of Typhoon Yolanda; a friend, Ruben Mendoza, an associate professor at Ateneo de Manila University wrote a piece in The New York Times last November 18, 2013 titled See God in the Response, Not the Disaster. Although he didn’t mention if prayer could stop a typhoon, he offered something simpler: in case a typhoon strikes, don’t despair, just look around you and see God.  A thing I learned about this essay: confirmation bias, as Ruben tried to interpret human suffering as proof of God.  So God sent a killer typhoon because he could not think of a better way to show proof of himself.

If the destruction brought about by typhoons can turn people to God, then Filipinos should welcome typhoons every year with open arms, not pray them away to go somewhere else, say Japan. Ok, I should not make fun of calamities. Natural calamities really do bring enormous and cruel suffering and tears to people. But to tell people that they can find God in their suffering, I think, is more cruel and insensitive. It’s one thing to sympathize with suffering Filipinos and another to suggest they can find God in disasters. It demeans humanity by substituting human solidarity, hope and charity, which is a real thing, with a vain attempt to demonstrate God, who abandoned them in the first place.

Religious people are free to take comfort in God when they suffer of course, yet even if we are able to justify the existence of God through natural calamities, why would you excuse this same God as the source? A God who is incapable of evil? So, don’t blame God, but blame minorities? Yes, that’s a great idea! A Muslim cleric Sheik Fawzan Al-Fawzan blamed gays for the Boxing Day Tsunami in Indonesia. And in the Philippines, two bishops in fact, Lipa Archbishop Ramon Arguelles (famous for the Team Patay - Team Buhay slogan) blamed the RH Law for the destruction of Typhoon Yolanda; and Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo said,

“I don’t know if it’s a coincidence or it’s because the Lord is trying to tell us that if you talk about that [the then RH bill] seriously it’s like there’s a message saying that many difficulties happen to us… especially since we [the Catholic Church] don’t want the bill deliberated hurriedly and secretly so that it is passed.”

Religion has distorted our view of natural calamities. I remember Iglesia Ni Cristo officials refused to help Yolanda victims because they were not members of their church. A humanist and atheist group, PATAS, was turned away from a medical mission because a barangay official thought a bunch of non-believers would corrupt the faith of the people.

When religion trumps human well-being and welfare, it is time to re-think your priorities: faith or people. 

Can Filipinos be saved from themselves?

Why we must criticise the poor for voting corrupt candidates into public office.

Image by Bullit Marquez/AP

I know what you’re thinking: who I am to tell poor Filipinos who to vote for? If they want to vote for a corrupt candidate, that is their right. Suffrage is a political right that any voter can exercise according to his or her conscience. Yet nowadays, I argue that many Filipinos just don’t seem to understand and appreciate this right. And it pains me so much that they waste away this opportunity to make true social and economic reform. 

The same corrupt governors, mayors, congressmen and women, and senators get elected every time. Why? From Cotabato, Iriga, Makati, Cavite and all the way up to Ilocos; the same families still rule these places. The Ampatuans, Alfelors, Binays, Revillas, and the Marcoses have dominated the political landscape. The economic conditions on these places have barely improved. Income is still pathetically low; jobs and infrastructure are still lacking. Everyone knows these people are corrupt. So why do they keep electing them back into office?

 

Perhaps the poor are too afraid to speak up? The proliferation of guns and goons has truly kept the masses in silence and fearing for their lives. How did the Ampatuans get that many guns in the first place?

 

Perhaps it is the sense of futility and helplessness? People are too tired to fight and to voice their rights knowing it will only fall on deaf ears. There is a constant perception that anyone who is in politics is guilty of corruption, so why change?

 

Perhaps poor Filipinos are used to living in poverty? Lack of education, coupled with religious superstitions, has moulded a generation of poor Filipinos too lazy to fight and assert for their basic rights.

 

Perhaps Filipinos have not truly seen the need for elections in the first place? Elections are purely cosmetic in Philippine society. I remember voting in Australia for the first time and I was disappointed. There were no people handing out money, no PPCRV, no flying voters, and no free lunch or sandwiches! Remember, we have barely tasted independence from Spain in 1898 when the Americans became our new colonial masters. All this time, Filipinos never saw the importance of the ballot, because we were too busy trying to kick out these colonizers. Generations of Filipinos never actually grew out of colonial infancy. Filipinos were in perpetual ignorance of the benefits of the ballot.

 

On the other hand, people in other countries have fought, suffered and even died for this right. In 1917 America, President Woodrow Wilson encountered a few dozen women suffragists protesting silently outside the gates of the White House with one of the banners reading: “How long must women wait for liberty?” The women were harassed and beaten and were later jailed; one named Alice Paul launched a hunger strike and was sent to the psychiatric ward. The women suffered immensely throughout the incarceration. President Wilson eventually felt the growing pressure from the public and media. He later pardoned all the women and in a few years, through an amendment in the US Constitution, the women were finally able to vote. It was an astonishing achievement.

 

The famous civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. recognized the ballot as a powerful tool to combat blatant racism in 1960s America. Together with then President Lyndon Johnson, the Voting Rights Act was called ‘‘a triumph for freedom as huge as any victory that has ever been won on any battlefield’’. But winning the right to vote is one thing, exercising it is another. Martin Luther King Jr saw that problem when he said, “that the ballot would only be an effective tool for social change if potential voters rid themselves of the fear associated with voting.” Back then, black voters had to contend with the onslaught of harassments and attempts of states and counties, using regulations and tests, to deny them the right to vote.

 

Many developing countries like the Philippines are still constantly battling election violence that deters many people to vote. But election violence can be minimized, and perpetrators of election violence can be put to justice. The Ampatuans were brought to justice. The current Aquino administration lately has been very successful in going after corrupt politicians. We saw the Chief Justice Corona booted out of office. We saw Benhur Luy testified against Napoles and three Senators. We saw former Makati vice Mayor Ernesto Mercado's testimonies against Vice President Jejomar Binay. For the first time in many years, I am confident to say I trust the justice system in the Philippines.

 

For the first time too, I will temporarily stop criticising corrupt politicians. I am going after a new target, the “bobotante” (stupid voters). Because no matter how thoughtful and rational my selection process of candidates is, the bobotante still outnumber conscientious voters. If Noynoy Aquino did not run for President in 2010, we would have Joseph Estrada, a convicted plunderer, back in Malacanang, no thanks to 8 million voters!

 

It took Western civilization over 300 years fighting for the right to vote; obviously the Philippines cannot wait another 300 years for Filipinos to realize the importance of the ballot in nation-building. The change must start now.

The myth of Philippine Independence

It has been a long 116 years since our first Philippine Independence, yet one thing should be crystal clear to all of us Filipinos: we are still not free. It should be obvious to everyone that Filipinos are far from being truly independent. We may be free from foreign governments, but the country still remain largely controlled by ruling political oligarchs and dynasties, competing religious groups and private business regimes and interests. We may be called a republic, and our political and social framework is democracy, but many Filipinos, most of them poor and the youth, still have no idea what these means: ignorant of the many root causes of our problems, and incapable of critical thinking. The few rich and ruling families have taken advantage of this predicament. Instead of helping, they have employed violence, and fear in places they ruled politically, and often with religious collusion as well. Religious and political authorities have dictated and ruled the physical, social and mental lives of many Filipinos for centuries and until now.

I can rattle off the injustices perpetuated by the ruling class we have today, but that will not mean anything to these people. They rule the roost! They will just ignore these clamours. They will maintain the status quo. We cannot depend on them to initiate change. While we appreciate the ruling class has produced Jose Rizal and Ninoy Aquino. We need the Jose Rizals and Ninoy Aquinos to come out more from the masses, and not just from the well-off of society. And this is where education becomes useful. Not the kind of education where teachers just teach what to know, but education where students learn how to think critically. This strategy starts by teaching students to be skeptical; to doubt established norms and conventions; to employ dialectical thinking; to question and even laugh at authority. To quote the journalist Christopher Hitchens, “The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.”

However, this mentality, this attitude, no, this character will not flourish in a society where children are taught to just follow and obey authority, even if the authority is wrong. Filipino families are typically like this. This so-called “value” was inherited from our theocratic past, from the frailes, from the foreign religion called the Catholic Church. The frailes taught the natives that if they did not obey them, they will go to hell. This value has been passed on to generations of Filipinos up to now. How did it come to this? It was said that the Philippines, after the Spaniards learned the country has no viable mineral resources like gold (actually they didn’t know where to look), was decided to become a religious experiment where the Church had free rein to do whatever it wants with little regard to its economic and social future. Filipinos were sent to a nunnery, to a seminary for 4 centuries. As a former seminarian myself, I know how that feels. But many Filipinos today do not notice the distinction. Many feel that being caged in by centuries of religious indoctrination is a badge of honour. There is hardly anything honourable or respectable being brainwashed by priests who tell you not to think.

To be independent means to be fully free from outside control and not depending on another’s authority. It is to be free from authoritarian rule whether religious or political. But before suggesting that education is the solution, we must face the fact that many Filipinos hopelessly have a flawed concept of education. Let me explain. Generations of Filipino families have valued education as the only inheritance they can pass on to their children. Yes, we value education so much to a fault. Parents will go through every hardship just to see their children, usually more than 5, to earn that precious university degree. So it’s not that Filipinos abhor the concept of education, in fact, we cherish education. But Filipino parents only want education for their kids so that they can function in a society still ruled by the elite, the political dynasties, the religious authority and economic regimes designed to unfairly rule them. That is not real education. Real education should not just be functional; it should empower people. Not just the emotional or nationalistic kind of empowerment, but empowerment by critical thinking. One such organization called Youth4Nature empowers the youth of Tawi-tawi to care for nature.

True ‘people power’ is when people own and lead the revolution. However the revolution I suggest is not an overthrow of a government, although that would be also necessary to end totalitarian rule, but a revolution in creative thinking and creative learning. Ken Robinson, for example, envisions schools that take into consideration the students’ passion and individuality which encourages growth and development.We have sold ourselves into a fast food model of education. And it’s impoverishing our spirit and our energies as much as fast food is depleting our physical bodies. We have to move to a model that is based more on principles of agriculture. We have to recognize that human flourishing is not a mechanical process, it’s an organic process. And you cannot predict the outcome of human development; all you can do, like a farmer, is to create the conditions under which they will begin to flourish.” One of the conditions is by allowing free thought, a precious resource that is under attack in many parts of the world. In these countries people would rather accept a pre-packaged box of answers from tyrants; people would not want to think for themselves. Thinking for them is hard. As Bertrand Russell would say, “Most people would rather die than think; most people do.”

Here lies the challenge for us Filipinos. Jose Rizal said that the youth is the future of the Filipinos. The youth must learn the break the chain of the past. If this happens then our Independence will really indeed bear fruit.

The risks of democracy

It is still 2 years away from the 2016 Philippine Presidential election and yet Filipinos are already in full force endorsing candidates left and right. The inclusion and combination of some of these candidates, no doubt, will surprise, irritate and excite you. There is the Miriam-Duterte, Poe-Robredo, Binay-Roxas, Marcos-Gordon and Escudero-Gibo tandems. You can make your own tandem to suit your liking. Being a free speech loving secularist myself, if I would be given the chance to vote again, I would choose Miriam-Robredo tandem mostly because I am attracted to Miriam’s intellectual prowess and her liberal position on many social issues. I like Robredo’s integrity and her family’s dedication to honest governance in Naga. But that’s me.

 

Many Filipinos however, I noticed, are also drawn to Miriam, but in a different way. They claim they would vote for Miriam because of her no-nonsense approach to governance, her iron-will, her combative stance against corruption and incompetence, and because they say she can get the job done. Surprisingly they say the same thing about the firebrand Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, who likes to utter shooting threats to anyone who he disagrees with. The latest one was when he said he would shoot the guy behind the Duterte-for-President Movement. He is shaping up as this election’s dark horse, a title previously enjoyed by Binay, who fell on the side because of numerous allegations of corruption.

 

So why are many Filipinos drawn to strong, authority figures?

 

Many are convinced that authoritarian rule is the solution to the rampant and uncontrollable crimes, corruption and lawlessness in the country. Irrespective of data and statistics, I would have to agree that this is true. Just listening to news and relatives at home, crimes are so worse in the Philippines even the police cannot help and protect you. Some, if not, most of the police are involved themselves. Remember the photo of the EDSA gun-poking incident last Sept 1? These and other criminals like the “riding in tandem” gangs that roam the streets of Metro Manila are enough to scare anyone to not visit the country.

 

Many point to the heavy influence of religion in human behaviour lulling our minds into non-thinking and non-questioning.

 

Many also point to the influence of a few oligarchic class who is the main cause of the poverty of so many Filipinos and who have kept this nation under their rule.

 

When situations get worse, as they already are in the Philippines, many Filipinos are forced to accept any candidate that comes along, no matter how corrupt and incompetent. Instead of looking for candidates that respect human rights and the democratic process, we are at times left with no choice but to endorse the worst kind of people in our society. An election, after all, is not just for display, it must be taken seriously. Elections must be the gauge of our maturing democracy. When a candidate accused of corruption promises he will do to the rest of the Philippines what he did for Makati, that alone should ring a lot of bells!

 

Democratizing countries like the Philippines, according to Gary J. Bass in the New York Times, often “lack the rule of law, organized political parties and professional news media.” Although those three items don’t necessarily guarantee a successful democracy, neither a sure-fire formula towards building a true democracy, I seem to agree with this assessment. Looking at the Philippines, there is hardly a semblance of rule of law as rich, powerful, corrupt people often get away with a crime; candidates who wantonly jump from one political party to another or even creating one for themselves; and a media that gleefully prioritizes TV personalities, ratings and showbiz instead of engaging viewers with critical thinking and frequent discussion on current issues.

 

It’s enough to make you lose hope and weep.

Why Cardinal Tagle did not answer my question

For a theologian, let alone a Cardinal, one would think that he knows a thing or two about secularism and atheism. Yet this is what I think happened when I attended Cardinal Tagle’s 25-minute press conference in Kingsgrove NSW in South Sydney, Australia last Aug 1 as part of his talking tour: the Cardinal dodged it saying “it would need a semester to cover that question.” Okay I might have taken a bit longer to explain my question, about 2 minutes, which explains something about my lack of knowledge on the nature of press conferences, but that is nothing compared to the ridiculously long and vague ones asked by five other media reporters before me. And why is it that after I was cut off halfway through my question, the moderator, telling me to be quick due to time limitations, allowed two more questions? The Cardinal was also scheduled to deliver an hour long speech in the chapel next door. Was he concerned more about his talk than meeting the press? Was he afraid to engage an atheist like me? Couldn’t he just explain in a few sentences what his thoughts about atheism and secularism? So why didn’t he answer my question? I would not know. I would not pretend to know what his motivation was at the time. And since the Cardinal did not provide any word about my question, I will write my side of the argument here and hopefully the Cardinal himself had the generosity to explain his side.

My question was simple: what is the attitude of the Catholic Church towards atheism and secularism in the Philippines? The last time Cardinal Tagle spoke about “atheism” was to address the Catholic faithful not to fall for “practical atheism” where, in his own words, he lamented that “during Sundays, we profess our faith to God. But starting Monday, cheating happens because of money… we take advantage of other people for our own interest.” It is clear the Cardinal has a very low view of atheists. He implied that atheism is the complete absence of morality, a degeneration of positive human values. And he cleverly did that without even engaging real atheists.

I also pointed out that the Cardinal confused secularization and secularism. In 2013, the Cardinal spoke about the “effects of secularization and the media on the modern family.” For the record, the secularization thesis has been debunked and abandoned. I don’t know of any secular humanist who still promotes the secularization thesis. Secularism, on the other hand, states that best way to deal with religious differences is to come up with a morality that we all share and a morality not based on religion. Secularism actually enables us to build a strong democratic society by giving all religions equal voice in society. Secularism is consistent with the 1987 Constitution principle of separation of church and state. Therefore supporting secularism makes sense because it promotes equality and fairness. For a Cardinal, secularism is a topic that should be encouraged and not avoided.

So it is with sadness that the moral and spiritual leader of the Philippines Catholic Church would refuse to engage this question. 

Bangsamoro is not Gaza

Nation-state is a relatively new concept in the Middle East. This geographic demarcation was a creation of their recent occupiers, the British and the French. However, this is one concept that Muslims around the world do not believe. As Bernard Lewis says, “Muslims tend to see not a nation subdivided into religious groups but a religion subdivided into nations.” That Muslims feel affinity and solidarity with fellow Muslims around the world, especially those that are oppressed, is an understatement. So when the Palestinians and Israelis went shooting at each other, again, this time in Gaza, the rest of the Muslim world felt obligated and duty bound to show camaraderie. 

One such act happened in Marawi City, Philippines last 17 July 2014. One local newspaper described it as ‘Israel’s invasion in Gaza’ probably likening it with the recent Russian-backed separatists’ occupation of Crimea perhaps to elicit greater emotional response. Invasion or not, both Hamas and Israeli leaders, I believe, are complicit in this decades old religious conflict. Both are guilty in perpetuating this senseless war. But as religious wars go, it is very hard to think rationally when faith is involved. Muslims around the world will always see this conflict as Israel’s fault. To make matters worse, Muslim leaders prop up Israel as a common enemy of Islam. In fact the protesters in Marawi held up an Israeli flag with a word that reads Dajal, before deciding to step on it and light it up just what one would normally do with a PNoy effigy. Now I am not familiar with Islamic eschatology so I have to google the word up. Dajal or Masih ad-Dajjal refers to an evil figure, an impostor, the antichrist, the deceiver or a living devil. Call me pessimistic, but if you start calling your enemy as pure immortal evil, talk of peace becomes impossible. This strategy, at the end of the day, will not serve the Islamic cause well in the long run.

I came across in YouTube a Q&A episode back in 2009 when one female Iranian audience member asked “why the Islamic country Iran is a threat to the peace in the world and not Israel?” I noticed that it is becoming a habit to lay blame on Israel whenever the subject of human rights is discussed. What about the injustices and oppression committed by the leaders of those Islamic nations to their own citizens? Don’t the people have their own say in their country’s internal affairs and not to be told by their leaders what the problem is all the time? In the same vein, Muslim Filipinos for decades since the Jabidah massacre had to endure being told by their so-called leaders that the problem in the Bangsamoro was all about religion.

In 1996, while doing a research paper as a student for a 3-unit course in Notre Dame University Peace Program, we arrived conclusively at the root cause of the Mindanao conflict: land. I still believe a lot of scholars would agree with this assessment. Even before the arrival of Islam in the Philippines, indigenous Filipinos from north to south had been brothers and sisters. Historically, ‘Christian’ Filipinos and ‘Muslim’ Filipinos were one people. The Christian –Muslim conflict was an imported issue from Europe and Middle East and still been currently portrayed by politicians and religious leaders on both sides. Nevertheless, the recent creation of the Bangsamoro, though long overdue, is still welcome. In Gaza however, religion and land are still inseparable issues. For example, Israel was created as a state for theological reasons. Jewish scholars were even sent out to locate the birth place of Moses, to justify their occupation of Israel, but did not find anything. Like the Muslims, Jews believed that Israel is their Promised Land ordained by Yahweh. Again this is not the case in the Bangsamoro.

So while it is notable to condemn violence in Gaza, it must not be done for religious reasons. It is a religious falsification that religion promotes peace when in fact it has mostly been the cause of wars. Bangsamoro leaders may well heed this fact as they walk the path of progress and peace.


Read the Inquirer.net version: http://opinion.inquirer.net/78070/religion-not-root-cause-of-mindanao-strife 

Install secular gov’t in the Bangsamoro

Calling the Bangsamoro government a secular government might be an oxymoron. Why? Bangsamoro, a relatively new term, refers to the original ethnic inhabitants of Mindanao. But it’s not just an ethnic identifier anymore; it is religious as well. To state the obvious, the word “Islamic” appears in the official names of both the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters. Right after launching an offensive in Cotabato, the BIFF, true to its name, reiterated its intention to found “an independent Islamic state.”

I lived in Cotabato and the Sulu islands in the ’90s as a seminarian. Religion aside, it was not hard to sympathize with our Bangsamoro brothers and sisters, who, I thought, genuinely have fought for decades for the right to live in their own land. When Nur Misuari and the Moro National Liberation Front made a peace deal with the Philippine government, he envisioned a modern and prosperous Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), not some theocratic state like Afghanistan. (Although I noticed that labeling a region “Muslim Mindanao” seems by definition obviously countersecular.) For a time I thought Misuari was to become like Kemal Ataturk, Turkey’s secular champion. That is until Misuari, in November 2001, in a desperate grab for power, muddied himself with a sordid act of rebellion, which left 100 dead; an act that was repeated just last September when he organized an assault on Zamboanga City in protest over the MILF-GRP peace deal. This negation of the “peace deal” by Misuari, however, could not poison relations with the Philippine government. Misuari, a renowned UP professor, did not explicitly espouse a religious struggle. Building a secular government in the ARMM was obviously far from his mind.

When the MILF broke away from the MNLF, it did not help that that Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines brokered peace talks in 2003 between the MILF and the Arroyo administration. Archbishop Antonio Ledesma, in July 2008, said that “they should get some religious leaders and look at the peace process itself, because it’s the religious leaders who can provide the moral and spiritual underpinnings of the peace process.” Surely the archbishop must have realized at the time that the conflict in Mindanao was not about the lack of morality and spiritual insight. Christopher Hitchens famously said that “religion poisons everything.” We must well remember that in politics, religion is the problem, not the solution. This scenario has happened before in cities like Belfast, Belgrade, Bosnia, Berlin, Bethlehem, Bombay and Beirut where religious solutions to political problems were installed. This is a fact that the MILF, the current peace panel led by Miriam Coronel-Ferrer and even President Aquino realized. No wonder Catholic priest, Fr. Jun Mercado, principal founder of Kusog Mindanaw, to his consternation, is not the head of the current peace panel. Former party-list Rep. Patricia Sarenas in 2007 pointed out, “I guess we should consider the reasons why the MILF would not want a Catholic priest to head the GRP.” Even fellow priests cautioned that “the Church may be perceived to be on the government side rather than on the side of justice and peace and thus become ineffective as mediator. Clergy should be advocate and mediator, not negotiator.”

What’s crucial in the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro is the “right to freedom and expression of religion and beliefs.” Is it possible to be a Moro and respect the secular government? I may be asking too much. While the 1987 Philippine Constitution explicitly states the “principle of separation of church and state,” equally guilty is the Catholic Church which still exerts a powerful influence on state affairs. Marites Vitug in her essay “Are we truly a secular society?” (Rappler 5/3/2013) believes that secularism does not work in practice in the Philippines. “Like many others, I feel the omnipresence of the Catholic Church in government. It’s a layer that seems to permeate policy-making (remember 14 years of the RH bill), government buildings and offices, the way our public officials conduct themselves, and now, our elections.”

In order to build an effective and working secular government, the solution not only rests on whether Catholic and Islamic religious leaders will exercise restraint. The national government must encourage and enforce equal representation of all religions in public life, and start a national conversation on the benefits of a secular government.

Read more: http://opinion.inquirer.net/71565/install-secular-govt-in-the-bangsamoro#ixzz3ASjOZH5D