Yesterday the Department of Health (DOH), the institution that is supposed to be raising the standards of health for Filipinos, caved in to an institution that is very adamant on lowering the standards of health for Filipinos: the CBCP. It seems that when the bishops say “jump,” the DOH asks “how high?”, instead of doing their job for the Filipino people:

Here’s something that some Catholic bishops will be happy about with respect to the DOH on Valentine’s Day.

Health Secretary Enrique Ona on Monday said the DOH will not be distributing free condoms on Tuesday as couples nationwide mark Valentine’s Day with dinner dates, lavish gifts and other gestures of affection.

No Free Condoms from DOH on Valentine’s Day: CBCP Pleased

While DOH Secretary Ricky Ona pays lip service to Catholics who use contraceptives despite the Church, he seems to miss the point that the DOH is supposed to be concerned about the health of the Filipino people and not their holiness:

“Responsible sex means you engage in sexual practices that are acceptable to you and your religious beliefs,” he added. “But still the use of condoms and other artificial contraceptives, which the Catholic Church rejects, was still upon the discretion among couples,” said Ona.

“If they want to use it, then they should buy it themselves,” he added.

The lack of reproductive health education in the Philippines makes the DOH’s condom distribution not just about giving away condoms. The DOH’s condom distribution is a way for the DOH to educate couples who might not know about safe sex. The taboo of sex (thanks, Catholic church!) could also make couples less likely to buy contraception out of the needless guilt the Church inspires. The poor also might not be able to afford contraception. That secretary Ricky Ona would tell people to buy condoms makes it seem like he doesn’t know the DOH’s mission:

To guarantee equitable, sustainable and quality health for all Filipinos, especially the poor, and to lead the quest for excellence in health.

So, DOH. What does the H in your name stand for? Is your mission to serve the health needs of the Filipino people? Or are you here to enforce the “holiness” imposed by the Catholic church?

If you’re angry after reading about the capitulation of the DOH to the Catholic bishops who could really care less about the health of the Filipino people, do something with your rage. Call the DOH, email them. Let them know that they serve the Filipino people. Remind them about their mission. Tell them to work for our health, not the conception of holiness held by the CBCP.

Here are their contact details. If you’re able to call them at (+632) 651-7800, do it. If you can’t, write them an email. Just give them a Valentine’s Day that would remind them that they work for the Filipino people. Not the CBCP.

Image from Instructables

A recent report by the Manila Bulletin said that the Philippine Department of Education (DepEd) will be dropping science classes for public schools from the first and second grades. This was supposedly “in line with its efforts to decongest the Basic Education Curriculum and to make learning more enjoyable to young learners.” DepEd Secretary Armin Luistro says, however, that they will be integrating science topics “in other subjects to make the new curriculum more child-friendly.” This new curriculum will “mainly focus on oral fluency” for the first grade.

Time Allotment for Public Schools According to the Basic Education Curriculum

The Basic Education Curriculum was instituted under the late DepEd Secretary Raul Roco and former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2002, which was “the product of 16 years of study under the various DepEd secretaries.” This 2002 curriculum removed “Science and Health” from the first and second grades.

Since the belated Manila Bulletin report, there has been a lot of outrage regarding this decision, leading Senator Pia Cayetano to discuss the matter with her constituents online. She said that she would discuss the curriculum with other senators “so [they] can act on it.”

The claim that science is too difficult for children is not controversial and it is commonly believed, though seldom backed up by evidence. And, to be fair, it can be quite hard to convey the rigor and chain of evidence employed by science to children. In this way, I can somehow understand (but not agree with) the secretary with his implication that science is not “enjoyable” or “child-friendly.” Even scientists themselves often have a difficult time grasping the more counter-intuitive discoveries of science.

While it is a shame that science is regarded by some sectors of the government as “congestion,” I do not think that this delaying of science will have as terrible an impact as people have been suggesting it will have. Rather, I think that scientific instruction in the Philippines regardless of age has been misguided for far longer than just the ten years since the curriculum revision. Given this, the removal of two years of bad scientific instruction isn’t too big a loss.

The position taken by the government towards science reflects the general attitude of the public—that it is conducive to practical skills and not much else. That’s why the state can afford removing science and replace it with the more economically useful “oral fluency.” Though the loss of even just practical science would still be worthy of outrage, the more noble value of science has long been lost (if it was ever held). The principles of science—critical thinking, skepticism, and reliance on evidence—are rarely ever instilled by educational institutions in the country, even upon science undergrads. We may have some really bright minds in the Philippines capable of unique scientific insight, but we would be hard-pressed to universalize this trait for as long as we have a workaday perspective of science.

Our society treats science as a behavior apart from normal life, which leads to some very interesting, though disturbing, juxtapositions of brilliance and outright nonsense. We have very intelligent doctors who fall prey to alternative medicine. We have scholarly lawyers who believe in feng shui. We have trained psychiatrists who believe that atheism is the cause of depression. New curriculum or not, as long as science is treated by our society as a body of knowledge to memorize and a set of equations that barfs out dissertations, and not as a way of going about the world, it wouldn’t matter even if we started teaching science at kindergarten.

Neil Degrasse Tyson once said, “If you’re scientifically literate, the world looks very different to you.” Beyond its practical utility, science provides an outlook that imbues the world around us with unending wonder, which will always be unavailable to those lacking the curiosity to investigate things deeper than face value. Science empowers one against the cognitive failures our brain is predisposed to (we call these “biases”). Scientific illiteracy is a sure way to getting swindled by liars, frauds, and superstitions but, more than that, scientific illiteracy makes an entire universe inaccessible.

The RH Bill and Exponential Growth

In my article What the Debate on the RH Bill Should Not be About, I argued that overpopulation is a non-issue in debates over the passage of the RH Bill. There I reasoned that the battle over the RH Bill is a women’s rights battle and that overpopulation has little if anything to do with it. While I am still convinced that the RH Bill is a women’s rights issue, the following observations forced me to reconsider the relationship between the bill and the Philippine population problem:

• The world population has exceeded 7 billion. What’s worse is that it shows no signs of stabilizing on its own anytime in the foreseeable future (contrary to the claims of the laissez-faire advocates).
• The successful population management measures in many countries around the world, particularly in neighboring Thailand and Vietnam, have yielded very positive effects. In fact, the said countries have already overtaken the Philippines in terms of social and economic progress.
• Our legislators, particularly Senator Sotto, continue to use overpopulation denial myths as arguments against the passage of the RH Bill.
• Conservative estimates have pegged the Philippine population at 101 million as of July 2011.^[1]
• The Philippine population grew by 1.904% in the year 2011.^[1]

The above observations should be enough to convince any rational person that the RH Bill is not only important but is urgently needed. Sadly, many of our politicians aren’t really of the rational sort.

Seven billion. That's a pretty big number, dontcha think?

Sotto Voce?

On a Senate interpellation on the RH Bill held last December 5, Senator Tito Sotto parroted the same old ridiculous arguments that supposedly prove that the world is not overpopulated. Worse still, Sotto went as far as to claim that the world would never experience overpopulation. In his own (?) words, “These people think that they are smarter than God. Sa tingin ba nila gagawa ba ang Diyos ng mundo na mapupuno? [Do they think God will create a world that will be overpopulated?]”

"Dapat bang maging senador 'to?" "HINDE!!!!11!!!1!!"

Sotto’s argument is blatantly invalid in two ways. First, it is legally invalid; such a theological argument has no place in a secular interpellation (and that goes for you too, Senator Miriam Santiago). The fact that such a theological argument can be used in a Senate interpellation without drawing any objections from the other senators is enough to give any secularist a conniption. Second and perhaps worse, Sotto’s argument is logically invalid; it does not follow that if there is a god, then that god will create a world that will never be overpopulated.

Setting aside the invalidity of his arguments, Sotto’s claim that the Philippines will never be overpopulated is also demonstrably, disturbingly and dangerously false. The key to debunking Sotto’s absurd claim is contained in just two words: exponential growth.

Three Chinas in a Philippines

This year, the Philippine population experienced a growth of 1.904%. If this population growth rate is maintained, the Philippine population will double in a mere 36 years and 9 months – around 37 years.^[2] If there are 101 million Filipinos alive today, that means there will be 202 million Filipinos alive 37 years from now. Give another 37 years (that’s 74 years from now) and there will be 404 million Filipinos alive. Fast-forward to another 37 years (111 years from now) and our population is already at 808 million; by then our population is rapidly speeding toward the 1 billion mark. Does this pattern sound familiar? Why of course, it is nothing but the geometric progression that we’ve met in Part 1 of this article. By now you should know that if our population keeps on growing in such a pattern, then we’re in for a lot of trouble.

Shown below is a table of the projected population of the Philippines in the next two centuries under the assumption that our population growth rate remains steady at 1.904%.

Under this steady growth rate scenario, the Philippine population would exceed 1 billion somewhere around the year 2130. Our great grandchildren, perhaps even some of our grandchildren, would still be alive at that time and would be among the 1 billion Filipinos trying to fit inside a country 32 times smaller than China. By the end of the 22^nd century, the number of people trying to fit inside the Philippines is more than thrice the number of people living in China today. By the year 2500 the Philippine population is already, quite simply, astronomical. Now matter how look at it, the Philippines can be overpopulated and it will be overpopulated if we will do nothing about our population growth rate. Take that, Tito Sotto.

The Philippine Population Growth Rate: Good News and Bad News

Three objections can be leveled against the previous hypothetical scenario. The first one goes like this: Malayo pa naman ang taong 2196 ah, bakit natin po-problemahin yun? [The year 2196 is still many, many years away, why should we bother about what’s going to happen then?] The degree of myopia implied by this objection is, sad to say, exhibited by many of our politicians and citizens. This can be remedied only by good moral education. But this remedy takes a long time, perhaps several generations. We need to act on the problem now. The only way to expedite the solution is to replace our myopic politicians with wise, far-seeing leaders. For this purpose we have the democratic process of voting our future leaders.

The second objection is worse than the first: Malapit namang magugunaw ang mudo. Bakit pa tayo magpapakahirap sa pag-ayos nito? [The world is going to end soon anyway. Why waste your effort making it a better place?] Unfortunately, many people, some of them even intelligent, sincerely hold this view that the world is ending soon. It is our job as freethinkers and as people who love the earth to think of creative ways to convince these people to care for the future of our planet. We might need to convert them to freethought or to more liberal versions of their religion. We might also try to convince them that if they believe that the god they love created this world, then they should do everything to take care of it. Whatever our strategy is, we must do everything we can to decrease the number of people who believe the world will end soon because if we don’t, then it surely will.

The third objection is a rational one: The steady growth rate scenario is an oversimplification because the Philippine population growth rate isn’t really constant but is in fact decreasing. This objection is in fact valid. (It does not, however, negate the fact that the scenario in the previous section disproves Tito Sotto’s claim that the world will never be overpopulated.) Official records show that the Philippine population growth rate has been on a general trend of decline over the past decades. The Philippine population growth rate over the past few years is shown in the table below. ^[3]

There is good news and bad news in the trend of the population growth rate.

Let’s begin with the good news. The decline in our population’s growth rate is either an effect or an indicator of the following:

• Our government’s previous family planning programs have been, to a certain extent, effective.
• Filipino women have been slowly gaining empowerment over the past decades.
• The Filipino youth have been slowly gaining accurate RH information in recent years.
• Philippine cultural values have shifted from the valuing the quantity of life to valuing the quality of life.
• The Church’s anti-contraceptives stance is quickly losing support among Filipinos.

Now off to the bad news. I will first state them in somewhat technical language. Later I will unload them in layman’s language. Here they go:

• While fertility rates have been steadily declining in middle- to high-income families, the fertility rates in low-income families have not dropped; in fact, studies show that they have increased in the period between 1997 and 2000(see Reference [7]).
• The disparity between our country’s fertility rate (somewhere between 2.79 and 3.19^[4]) and population growth rate (1.904%) is an indication that there remains a high infant mortality rate in the Philippines.
• The decline in our population growth rate is better modeled by a decreasing exponential and not a decreasing linear plot.^[5]

Now let us explain the bad news in layman’s language one by one.

First bad news: Families with means voluntarily undergo family planning while poor families continue to have more babies than they can feed. (But who doesn’t know this already? Apparently the anti-RH camp.) So even though the population growth rate of the Philippines is declining on average, the decline is not uniform across all income levels.  This causes the top of the social pyramid to become thinner and the base to become wider. If this keeps on going, this means that in the near future our society will be composed of fewer and fewer people with means and more and more people who cannot feed their families. (Wait, am I describing the future here or the present?) An economist of any feather will tell you that this is really bad news.

A Philippine porridge line. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

Second bad news: If there are many children born for every woman in the Philippines, then why is our population not growing as rapidly as it should? Surely this is not because of an increased natural death rate; our natural death rate is in fact declining. The only explanation available is that many infants are dying. High infant mortality rate is an indication of high birth rates among low-income families. That brings us back to bad news number one.

Third bad news: Yes, our population growth rate is decreasing, but its rate of decrease is slowing down over time. This means that as years go by, it won’t decrease fast enough to curb our growing population. For example, by year 2100, our population growth has decreased but is still at 1.52%. That’s 89 years from now when our population growth rate is at 1.904%! End story: our population will keep on growing exponentially if we do nothing about it. The decline in population growth rate is not enough to curb the exponential population growth that has been going on for decades now.

The graph below shows the projected Philippine population in the coming decades as assessed by the U.S. Census Bureau. According to the graph, the Philippine population will be at 150 million in the year 2050. Note that this projection is around 75% of the value projected in Table 1 for the year 2048.

Projected growth in Philippine population. From the U.S. Census Bureau.

Lessons From the Losing CEO

If we learned anything from Part 1 of this article, then it is that one should never underestimate the power of exponential growth. We are therefore faced with the following fact: Our population is already at 101 million and it continues to grow exponentially. Even if our population growth rate is declining, it is not declining fast enough to curb the dangerous rise in our numbers. Worse still, studies show that while families with means tend to have fewer children, poor families tend to have many.

But we’ve seen that there’s good news. As long as you give families and especially women the freedom to choose, they will choose to keep their family size manageable. This is shown by the significant decrease in the fertility rates among middle to upper class women over the past decades. Poor families and poor women in particular, however, still do not have the means and the freedom to choose the family planning method that suits them best. This explains why the fertility rate among low-income families remain dangerously high. All the facts indicate, however, that if we give them the power to choose, low-income families will voluntarily plan families of manageable sizes (1-4 children). Note that they will do this for their own good without knowing that they are, in effect, helping to solve a national problem.

Herein lies the magic of the RH Bill: It solves two different problems in one stroke. On the one hand, it will give poor families the power of options in planning their family. On the other hand, its end effect will be the curbing of our population growth. The RH Bill will do these and more. At the most basic level, the RH Bill will give women their basic rights to family planning services and it will give the youth their basic rights to scientific and age-appropriate education.

The RH Bill: An Urgent National Concern

Never forget that one does not kid with exponential growth. If we are to secure our future as a country, then we must manage our population now. In fact, we should have started decades ago.

Congress and Senate must pass the RH Bill by January of next year, or else it will be too late. Remember, we are racing against time in our battle against the most powerful force in the universe.

Reproductive Health = our Republic's Health.

* * *

Notes:

^[1] Taken from the webpage of index mundi, Reference [4]. See also References [5] and [6] for official data.

^[2] The equation for any kind of exponential growth is similar to that of compound interest: FV = PV(1 + i)ⁿ. Here, FV is the future value (of an investment or of a population), PV is the present value, i is the rate of increase and n is the number of times the value is increased. In our case, PV is 101 million, the present population of the Philippines. If it doubles, this means that FV is 202 million. Meanwhile, i is 1.904% = 0.01904, the population growth rate. We want to solve for n, the number of years it takes for PV = 101 million to become FV = 202 million. This is accomplished by dividing both sides of the compound interest equation by PV, then taking the logarithm of both sides and then finally using the properties of logarithms. The solution is going to be n = 36.75.

^[3] See References [5] and [6] for the official estimates. Reference [4] provides more recent, unofficial estimates. Reference [8] provides projections based on UN studies.

^[4] The high estimate is from Reference [4], the low estimate is from Reference [8].

^[5] The best fit exponential curve in the population growth rate has an equation of f(x) = (2×10^-7)e^-0.01x with coefficient of determination R² = 0.935. I tried the best-fit linear curve, and its coefficient of determination is only at R² = 0.932; even then, the slope of the linear trend line is negligibly small so that difference between the predictions of the linear plot and those of the exponential plot will not be very great.

* * *

References:

[1] Miller, G. Environmental Science, 10th ed, 2005.

[2] Campbell, N.A., Reese, J.B. and Mitchell, L.G., Biology, 5th ed, 1999.

[4] Index Mundi. <http://www.indexmundi.com/philippines/population_growth_rate.html>, accessed 15 December 2011.

[5] National Statistics Coordination Board. <http://www.nscb.gov.ph/secstat/d_popn.asp>, accessed 15 December 2011.

[6] National Census Data via the National Statistics Office. <http://www.census.gov.ph/data/sectordata/popproj_tab1r.html>

[7] Asian Development Bank, Poverty in the Philippines: Income, Assets and Access. 2005.

[8] Costello, M.P. and Casterline, J.B., Fertility Rate Decline in the Philippines: Current Status, Future Prospects. 2005

Dear dboncan,

Thank you for reading my article “Why LGBT people must get personal with the Catholic Church.” I read through the comments you made on the Filipino Freethinkers site and picked out 13 that I thought I could address immediately. The rest of your comments were clearly opinions that I know you will hold on to dearly so I will treat them with respect by setting them aside.

Let me be transparent with you. My objective for taking time and responding to you today is, at the most, to turn you into an ally, and at the least, to change some of your perceptions by giving you needed information.

Of course, this is only possible if both of us keep an open mind and remain calm and objective. So if, at any point, you show signs that you have closed your mind about the topic without hopes of turning you into an ally, or make personal remarks similar to your verbal attacks against the other commenters, then I will respectfully withdraw from the discussion.

Here goes.

Comment #1:

“Let’s see you are pissed because violence is done to them, well so am I. But the law protects everyone and if there is violence, are you telling me that the police won’t act on it just because the victim is homosexual?”

My response: Yes. There are several reported cases of police not enforcing the law because the victims or complainants were not heterosexual. There are even cases where police take advantage of the situation and harrass the complainant or extort money from them. If you need further information. I will refer you to the right organizations but I cannot post cases here because of confidentiality issues. The bottom line is, to say that “the law protects everyone” is only good on paper but it is not implemented in reality.

Comment #2:

Are you telling me that you want legislation that will penalize bullying of homosexuals… but what not weaklings, handicapped, etc… the bullying of homosexuals is because of the perception that they are weak.”

My response: Yes, we want that kind of legislation. But just because we cite examples of discrimination against LGBT people most of the time, it doesn’t mean we do not acknowledge the existence of discrimination against other vulnerable sectors. It only means that we are able to expound on these examples because they are closer to our daily experience. In the same manner, people with disabilities (PWDs) normally cite discrimination against PWDs but it doesn’t mean they don’t recognize the existence of discrimination against others, like, say, indigenous peoples. SB2814 is a bill that will give us, and other vulnerable sectors, that kind of protection.

“Legarda Hails Passage on Third Reading of Anti-Discrimination Bill” -http://www.senate.gov.ph/press_release/2011/1122_legarda1.asp - accessed 2011-12-11

Comment #3:

“A comment above says he is pissed because he can’t hold hands in public without being looked at strangely, should we penalize staring behavior as well?”

My response: Please do not put words in my mouth. This is what I said:

“The truth is, the “Marxist mold” and the politics behind the LGBT movement are irrelevant to me when I can’t hold hands with my partner in public. To me, it is hardly political, it is personal.”

In the context of that paragraph, I did not say I was pissed, I did not say anything about being looked at strangely, and I did not demand penalizing staring behavior. All I did was illustrate my point that not everyone in the LGBT movement has a political agenda and not everything about LGBT activism is political. Sometimes, the discrimination we experience is very personal in nature and has little to do with the politics that Acosta was refering to in her presentation.

If you are referring to someone else’s comment, please post it here and I will gladly apologize for assuming I was the subject.

Comment #4:

“How can marriage be an absolute basic human right?”

My response: Because that’s what the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says and as a member of the United Nations, the Philippine government has the obligation to protect, respect, promote, and fulfill this right as many countries have already done:

“Article 1. – All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

“Article 2. – Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.”

“Article 16. – (1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.

(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.

(3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.”

“The Universal Declaration of Human Rights” - http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml - accessed 2011-12-11

Comment #5:

“Can minors marry? why not if it is an absolute right? can mentally handicapped people marry? can humans opt to marry their pets?”

My response: These are all false analogies. Please refer to Article 16 Section 2 (above). You cannot get “free and full consent of the intending spouses” if your intending spouse is a minor, a pet, or mentally handicapped.

Comment #6:

“Some “rights” are not absolute some are.”

My response: This is simply incorrect. Being absolute is not a characteristic of human rights. Human rights are “Universal, Inalienable, Interdependent, Indivisible, Equal and Non-discriminatory”

“What are human rights?” - http://www.ohchr.org/en/issues/Pages/WhatareHumanRights.aspx - accessed 2011-12-11

Comment #7:

“Tell me how the LGBT are sidelined politically? Has any LGBT been disallowed the right to suffrage or to run for public office, given a drivers license, cedula, taxed higher, refused enrollment in school or refuses police protection solely by their orientation?”

My response: Yes. Ladlad Party List was disallowed in 2009 to run for public office. They were eventually allowed to run when the Supreme Court ruled in their favor but the case is a clear example of discrimination in politics based on sexual orientation and gender identity. In fact, the Supreme Court blasted the Commission on Elections for using the Bible and Quran in its decision. Here are the first two paragraphs of the Supreme Court’s ruling:

“Our Constitution provides in Article III, Section 5 that “[n]o law shall be made respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” At bottom, what our nonestablishment clause calls for is “government neutrality in religious matters.”[24] Clearly, “governmental reliance on religious justification is inconsistent with this policy of neutrality.”[25]

We thus find that it was grave violation of the non-establishment clause for the COMELEC to utilize the Bible and the Koran to justify the exclusion of Ang Ladlad. Rather than relying on religious belief, the legitimacy of the Assailed Resolutions should depend, instead, on whether the COMELEC is able to advance some justification for its rulings beyond mere conformity to religious doctrine. Otherwise stated, government must act for secular purposes and in ways that have primarily secular effects.”

“G.R. No. 190582 – SC Decision on Ladlad vs Comelec” -http://icj.org/dwn/database/Ang%20Ladlad%20LGBT%20Party%20v.%20COMELEC.pdf - accessed 2011-12-11

People who live with partners of the same sex and raise a family are taxed higher because in the eyes of BIR, the tax status of both individuals is “single” and not “married with dependents.” But in reality, their expenses are comparable to expenses of heterosexual couples who enjoy tax benefits of being legally married.

We have documented cases of schools who conduct masculinity tests and reject students who fail this test. This discrimination also affects even heterosexuals who show signs of femininity.

Comment #8:

“I oppose this because its repercussions introduce a society where morality becomes relative to a persons preference and taste!”

My response: Morality has always been “relative to a persons preference and taste.” What is moral for a Christian might not be moral for a Muslim and vice versa. Thankfully, our government operates on the rules of law and not the rules of morality. As I’ve already mentioned above, the Supreme Court favored Ladlad Party List and struck down Comelec when it used morality as grounds to bar Ladlad party list from running for the 2010 elections.

Same-sex marriage is already legal in the following countries: Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, South Africa, and Sweden

Can you explain the “repercussions” of same-sex marriage in these countries?

Comment #9:

“I oppose certain moves in granting homosexuals sweeping “rights” which should be rightly reserved for heterosexuals like marriage or adoption.”

My response: There are no rights that are “rightly reserved for heterosexuals” as this is clear violation of Article 2 of the universal declaration of human rights.

“Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status”

Comment #10:

“it does not follow that just because someone is productive, they can also contribute to the growth of society in the sense of which i was referring to, i.e. propagate and raise children.”

My response: There are heterosexuals who are unable to propagate and there are heterosexuals who simply want to marry but do not plan on having children. Since they are unable to contribute to the growth of society in the sense that you are referring to, should they be disallowed to marry?

Comment #11:

“It falsely imparts to children that there is such a thing as a third sex when there isn’t.”

My Response: You are right. There is no third sex. There is a whole spectrum of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities. And that is what children need to learn and understand.

Comment #12:

“It is a pretentious union with pretentious results.”

My response: I take offense in this statement. There is nothing pretentious about the celebration of two people being in love and committing their lives to each other. There is nothing pretentious about a person being able to claim inheritance benefits of their spouse, being a beneficiary to health insurance, visitation rights, etc. These results are very real and contribute to the well-being of a person. Please do not trivialize them by calling them pretentious.

Comment #13:

“cisgendered” seriously there is a term? the terms cis and trans used to be a chemical prefix and the word gender used to refer to parts of speech.” I am so amused, we get a chemical prefix and combine it with a reference to a part of speech and we have a sex that is somewhere in between male/female and homosexual.WOW!”

My response: Again, I take offense in your tone. All kinds of terms come up regularly in order to define human experience. Words like insulares, peninsulares, flips, chinks, jejemons, hipsters, dorks, nerds, squatters, kasambahay, whether with negative or positive connotations, were all coined because of the psycho-social need of certain sectors to create a group they can associate with or have an available term to refer to a sector of society. I highly doubt that international law experts, civil society groups, humanitarians, and diplomats said “WOW!” and were as “amused” as you were when they used these terms in drafting the Yogyakarta Principles and the UN resolution on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Also, there is no “sex that is somewhere in between male/female and homosexual.” Both males and females can actually identify as homosexual, transgender, or cisgender. Once you understand the intricacies of these terms, you might be less amused and might find more respect for the people who self-identify with these terms. Here are a couple of sites that might help you understand the terms:

“Transgender, Genderqueer, Cisgender… What Do These Terms Mean?’ -http://kinseyconfidential.org/transgender-genderqueer-cisgender-terms/ - accessed 2011-12-11

“TRANS 101: CISGENDER” - http://www.basicrights.org/uncategorized/trans-101-cisgender/ - accessed 2011-12-11

So again, I hope you take the information seriously. If, as early as now, you’ve already made a decision that I will be unsuccessful in either or both of my two objectives, then feel free to ignore this.

Thank you for your time.

Ronald “Ron” de Vera (aka rondevera)

| Read more from the same writer here |

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Image from andresflava

Dear Editor of the Philippine Daily Inquirer,

Having relied on The Philippine Daily Inquirer as an essential source of information on Philippine politics, lifestyle, and business, I would like to commend the newspaper for continuing to cover stories that matter to Filipinos both in the Philippines and abroad, often with exceptional depth and quality.

Thus, given my past admiration, it is with utter disappointment that I write to strongly critique a recent article, entitled “CBCP Wants Anti-Discrimination Bill Cleansed of Provisions on Gay Rights”, published on December 7th, 2011. In this article, Nina Calleja discusses the CBCP’s opposition to the current Senate Bill 2814 (Anti-Ethnic, Racial or Religious Discrimination and Profiling Act of 2011). Although the bill has passed the third reading in the Senate, it still has to go through harmonizing through bicameral discussions. The CBCP thus wants the phrase “sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity” removed from inclusion as the bill goes through this harmonizing process.

My opposition to the article stems from the following reasons:

1) Given the article’s public nature, and its ability to influence debate regarding an issue with such high stakes, I found it offensive that Calleja chooses to ignore one side of the conversation. Thus, she does not interview anyone—political activists, legislators, and academics to name a few—that could possibly provide feedback regarding the reason for the bill’s inclusion of this phrase in the first place. Off the top of my head, I could already recount many people who could have discussed the issue with similar depth and complexity. If Calleja can claim that no other sources of this information were available at the time of the article’s writing, then that should have been stated in the article, to at least give the impression of balanced coverage. Yet this article, as seemingly straightforward as it is, nonetheless provides a biased reading of the bill, and the CBCP’s stance as a whole.

2) Related to this bias, I was a bit offended by the tone of the article, especially the use of the word “cleanse” in the title. This word presupposes that the bill was polluted, tainted, and made “dirty” (the oppositional word to cleanse by the way) with the inclusion of a non-discrimination phrase that includes women and LGBT identified individuals. How come Calleja did not use “remove”, “stripped”, “taken out” or any possible terms that could convey a similar message, without the overtly political tone? Rather than having myself be accused of being defensive, I’d like to return to the article, and point to the copious amounts of quotations, perspectives, and frameworks coming from the CBCP, without ANY other possible viewpoints being included from the other side. This to me is explicit proof of the article’s point, which is to sway a particular set of legislators and the population, towards its bias around the topic. Granted that anyone should be able to write an opinion in a newspaper, then I suggest that as the Editor, you should have included this article in the Opinion section, NOT the News section as it still currently sits in.

3) Finally, as an out Filipino gay man, as an Assistant Professor of Women and Gender Studies, as a Filipino living in the Philippines and abroad, and as someone who feels invested in the equal rights of women and LGBT Filipinos, I would like to provide a counter-discourse to what Calleja wrote.

A) I find it offensive that Calleja can include passages about our “choice”, about our “third sex”, and about how the threat of the bill’s rightfully “changing society” for the better, without a single gesture or awareness of the violence that these harmful statements enact on our community. During the recently concluded Philippine Gay Pride (December 1), I saw the commitment of our community in fighting the continued spread of discrimination for everyone, not just LGBT identified folks, and to fighting the continued lack of awareness about HIV/AIDS (which is why the parade was timed to coincide with World Aids Day). Thus, as a community, we also desire the non-discrimination of everyone, regardless of gender, ethnicity, class, and religion (which the bill would have still preserved). This is the ethical thrust of the current bill, which is why sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity” were included in the last version.

B) As you can see in the bill’s phrasing, the removal of non-discrimination based on sex and gender would then also exclude not only “sexual orientation” but also sex and gender discrimination itself. Does the CBCP want the continue disenfranchisement of women and men based on their gender and sex (and not just sexual orientation)? I highly doubt the CBCP can claim that they believe women should still be discriminated, and survive politically (even though it is a religious group primarily).

C) The role of a newspaper, aside from providing information, is to educate the population. Thus, balanced reporting, which we had so forcefully fought for amidst multiple regimes and dictatorship, need to be preserved at all costs. This article, and its clearly skewed perspectives, fails to do so. Thus, it needs to be retracted immediately.

Thanks for your time. And regardless of the outcome of this letter, I do hope it gets noted. I’d still like to read the Philippine Daily Inquirer, and teach it to my students. Some of that faith needs to be restored.

Sincerely,

Dr. Robert Diaz

Assistant Professor

Women and Gender Studies Program

Wilfrid Laurier University

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Image from euronest

The LGBT Pride March is one of the happiest days of the year for me.

Last year’s march, when my boyfriend and I suited up as Buttman and his Ladyboy Wonder, was great. It was one of my first major events with the Filipino Freethinkers, and the first time I ever photobombed a fundie and made out in public. FF even won Best Theme that night, although what our theme actually was still remains a mystery, even to us. Whatever it was, it was rewarding enough to be part of the celebration and show our love for the LGBT community. And make out in public.

A year later and FF is still putting the ‘fun’ in ‘fundie.’ We had a solid theme this time around: No Bigots, No Closets. We wanted to express our support for the newly established yet increasingly influential Philippine LGBT Hate Crime Watch, as well as the passage of the anti-discrimination bill. (As of this writing, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines wants the bill stripped of its gay rights provisions, which is downright stupid and incredibly infuriating.)

The team put together three closet costumes and named them Dogma, Authority, and Tradition, then had one FF-er march in each, acting out their discomfort and despair (which wasn’t that hard, since they were, you know, in a box). We also had our usual Bigot Bishops, and was also blessed with the presence of none other than our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Once fundies were spotted on the route, these characters came a-runnin’ and made fresh batches of epic photobomb goodness. Good times all around.

The other groups had great gimmicks, too. A personal favorite were the brawny blushing brides of the Metropolitan Community Church of Quezon City (MCCQC). It was also the first time for our friends from Deaf Rainbow Philippines to participate, and even though they were few, I was happy to see them there.  I actually saw a lot of familiar faces from the 29 Steps event from a few months ago; it really goes to show that the LGBT community here is very tightly-knit and highly supportive of one another.

Rarely do I get to walk the streets of Manila surrounded by hordes of happy, fearless people. The march is really a party of the purest kind, where individuals, no matter how they define themselves, just come to have fun. Hopefully, in the near future, more and more folks — LGBTs and straight allies both — join in and allow this event to evolve into a far greater celebration of humanity than it already is.

Oh, and “Kiddie Kollege?” Seriously, people.

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Photos c/o Michelle Keng, Garrick Bercero, and Troy Espiritu

When Pope John Paul II formally apologized for the persecution of Galileo, it was an apology that took the Catholic Church more than 300 years to make.

If it also needs 300 years for the Catholic Church to apologize for the persecution of LGBT people, then there is no better time for LGBT activists to start working on this but today. And there is a great opportunity today to open minds and provide accurate information to refute the statements of Dr. Ligaya Anacta Acosta, regional director of Human Life International (HLI) Asia and Oceania, that appeared on two different articles.

In the article “Being portrayed as oppressed is best way to public sympathy, homosexual activists told,” Acosta asked the following questions:

Read original article here | Read more from the same writer here

The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines recently announced that it will have its own movement, purposefully echoing the Occupy Wall Street Movement in the United States. The movement, dubbed “Kilusang 99%,” was described by Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo as a “social reform movement” about “making the poor the center of development and making the government accountable for the welfare of the majority.”

As if to preemptively deflect accusations of being against the Aquino administration due to their historic chumminess with the former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (who is now facing accusations of electoral sabotage), Pabillo said that Kilusang 99% was not directed at President Noynoy Aquino or any particular leader. The movement has several demands outlined in a letter by Pabillo: agrarian reform, urban land reform and housing, ancestral domain reform, and fisheries reform.

To be sure, a campaign advocating these demands is laudable (though it is definitely not encouraging that Pabillo himself calls the movement a “crusade”). Certainly, capitalism in this nation and in the world has been enjoyed on the backs of the working class who are coerced into unfair labor by the rich and powerful, comprised of less than 1% of the human population. And, in fairness to Pabillo, he seems particularly serious about pursuing economic reforms, especially with Hacienda Luisita. He even supported the Senate hearings investigating the corrupt “Pajero bishops” of his Church. However, what the Church itself doesn’t seem to get is why the Occupy Movement began in the first place. And, in branding its own movement with allusions to Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring, it presents in Kilusang 99% a farce almost too comical to believe.

What the Occupy Movement is

The Occupy Movement is not just a list of demands. In fact, one of the most common criticisms of the Occupy Wall Street Movement is that its demands are not clear or concrete. At its core, the Occupy Movement aims to shine a light on society and criticize what it has become. It aims to redraw the social contract and end the abuses of the wealthy upper class. The Church’s Kilusang 99% resembles this only superficially and misses the point of the Movement entirely.

The Church is not powerless; it is not poor or even for the interests of the poor—relief of earthly suffering (the only kind of suffering that is provably worthy of attention). That it seeks to be identified with the common man only emphasizes how out of touch the Church is as it grasps at any form of relevance in a world growing increasingly skeptical of its authority and its aims.

The Church is with the 1%

The richest 1% of the world have failed to understand that, in their pursuit of wealth and power, they have only done so at the expense of the working class who buy their products, who toil in their factories, who invest in their banks, who rent their land, who make loans they bet against, who purchase their medical insurance only to be denied treatment, who periodically bail them out when their system inevitably collapses. In their refusal to give back to the society from which they have enjoyed a disproportionate amount of spoils, they promote the fantasy that all that they reap is the result of the sweat of their brow. They blame their victims for their suffering while expecting them to continue on playing their rigged games.

In this way, the Church takes after the 1% more than it does the 99%. Like the 1% who perceive themselves as victims, the Church also lacks the self-awareness that would have deterred them from even attempting to represent the 99%. Like the wealthy bankers who gave themselves bonuses after the crash of the markets, the Church refuses to believe that it is they who are deserving of criticism and blame. Like the 1% who pervert democracy and buy their way into government, the unelected Church bullies our elected officials into legislating its dogma and forcing Filipinos to bend to their worldview. Like the 1% who hawk the delusion that hard work will always bring about wealth, the Church scams people into believing that suffering in this life is acceptable, even desirable, as a means to the afterlife. And, like the 1% who enjoy exemption from criminal prosecution, the Church is able to pursue an extrajudicial system to shuffle around its rapist employees and hide them away from the law.

The Roman Catholic Church is exactly the worst kind of organization to associate themselves with a movement dedicated to distributing power more equally. The Church fashions itself as the sole arbiter of morality and refuses to acknowledge even the remote possibility that it might be wrong in the things that it chooses to value. It focuses power into the hands of a few elderly men and peddles their opinions as those of God. It seeks to suppress dissent and criticism by vilifying their opposition as evil and not even human. It strives to deny rights to human beings by calling them unnatural and disordered.

Kilusang 99%: Anti-Authority Authoritarians?

The Occupy Movement is the cry of the common man against a system broken beyond repair. What the Church demands is that we all go back to listening to them, like we used to. The Occupy Movement is everything that the Church would like to be perceived as, but is not and can never be—a movement that calls for liberty and justice for all of humanity.

This is not to say that the Church’s motivations are malicious or purely self-serving. Far from it. I earnestly believe that, with Kilusang 99%, the Church aims only to help those truly in need. But, as even in its most well-intentioned of teachings, it is woefully misguided and fundamentally disconnected from reality. The Church doesn’t realize that it itself is part of the culture of the so-called 1%. It is exactly the kind of institution that requires demolition from the edifice of a truly free society.

The Occupy Wall Street Movement is an expression of anger and exasperation with the status quo. It decries the impunity enjoyed by those in power. It condemns the gaming of the system by the rich and their exploitation of the majority in order to fuel their narcissistic power plays. It laments the curtailment of liberty of the people in the name of economic progress for the few. The Occupy Movement is anti-authority—an ideology that can never be credibly advocated by any revealed religion, which are all based on arguments from authority. The Occupy Movement seeks to maximize liberty by providing for all the same opportunities to flourish and to determine their own direction in life, without interference from those in power. It takes an imbecilic lack of introspection to ever confuse the ideals of Occupy Movement, either in the United States, in the Philippines, or anywhere in the hundreds of cities currently in outrage against the powers that be, with that of the oppressive, conservative, and intolerant Roman Catholic Church.

_{Image Credit: Associated Press}

Today is a day of irony. While today marks the 113th anniversary of the Malolos constitution when congress voted for the first Philippine constitution that definitively declares the separation of church and state; in the present we have a congress that seems ever more eager to please the Roman Catholic church, a congress that is willing to fight dirty against the very people they are supposed to represent.

Today we have a congress where it is alright for representatives to masticate their merienda ever so glacially in service to the whims of the church.

Today we have a congress that remains servile to the church, choosing to pander to the bishops instead of serving the people they are supposed to represent.

Today we have a congress that does not want to serve the mothers of our country, that does not want to educate the children of our country; a Congress that does not care for the health of our country.

Today we have a congress that has forgotten our nation’s past, the Philippine’s struggle against a church that sees not the earthly suffering and needs of the Filipinos.

113 years ago from today, we had a congress that remembered the injustices perpetrated by the Church. 113 years ago, we had a congress that knew it had to be free of the meddling of the Church in order to serve the Filipino people.

113 years ago from today, the fight to separate the church and state was only beginning.

Today, we have to continue this fight. If our congress today will be a cowardly lot, then the people they represent will have to stand up for the separation of church and state, against the Bishops who would force their way into the lives of every Filipino.

Today, mothers roared against the injustice of a congress perverted against our democratic ideals; today mothers shouted against a congress that cares not for mothers but cared more for their mother church.

Today, will you stand to keep the church out of our government? Today, will you stand against the meddling of the Roman Catholic church?

Image of Malolos congress from Philippine American War

A group of community women interrupted a session in the House of Representatives, calling for delays on the passage of the RH Bill to end. This was not a silent call. The women shouted. They were immediately escorted out of the session hall because shouting in Congress is against the rules.

But what the women shouted about is not against the rules. It is not against the rules for Rep. Garcia and Rep. Kisumbing to be absent for their scheduled interpellations. It is not against the rules for Rep. Garcia to bring up conspiracy theories, nor is it against the rules for Rep. Daza and Rep. Bagatsing to waste an entire session talking about how boxing should be judged. And it is not against the rules for Rep. Apostol to step out in the middle of the session and make everyone wait while he had an hour-long merienda.

Even with all these dilatory tactics, these legislators played by the book and were not thrown out of the session hall. But they should have been. They should have been thrown out for all the taxpayer money spent on wasted session days, which some estimate at P17-20M per day. They should have been thrown out for using every loophole and tactic to delay the vote on RH, even if it means making a mockery of our legislative system. They should have been thrown out for even entertaining the idea that the suffering of countless women deserves less time than chatting about boxing and having a nice merienda.

By following the rules, the anti-RH legislators may not deserve to be thrown out of Congress. But by disrespecting democracy, they don’t deserve to be in there in the first place.

Right now I so very badly want to be exploring the Winterfell-esque beauty contained in Bethesda’s latest action-RPG epic Skyrim, but as it stands now I seem to have traded in fighting this :

to save this:

for fighting this:

to save this:

And instead of getting to camp here:

I’ve gone camping here:

Maybe I could be more sad about this state of affairs, but Skyrim isn’t going anywhere, while our mothers and children are dying every day. Hope to see you all at Occupy4RH!

We interviewed Tanod/BPSO Arsenio Dela Cruz Jr. today about his encounter with Rizalito David and the anti-RH camp. This confirms once and for all that the anti-RH lied about having permits, and then lied about lying about having permits to demonstrate at SB park.

This also reveals yet another lie: Rizalito David claimed to the tanod that he was a lawyer. As you might have guessed, nowhere in Mr. David’s WikiPilipinas page does it say that he is a lawyer. What it should say is that he is also an Old Snake himself.

Yesterday, I wrote about how an anti-RH group tried to do a demonstration in SB park without a permit. An anti-RH reader (we probably have a few) responded to the post by doing what the anti-RH seem to do best — lie about it:

[aj] You might have read the news from a certain group of people who thinks [sic] they are smart and support RH that the Anti-RH group that went on vigil last night did not have a permit to rally. I won’t post their site, but let me tell you that this is an outright lie. These guys are liars of the highest order and would heckle their way into any decent discussion. The truth is that the pro-life side had a permit issued by the baranggay. The other side also had a permit – coming from Vice mayor Herbert Bautista who is pro RH. So para walang gulo, the vigil was just held somewhere else near the area, pero hindi po totoo na wala tayong permit at nagsinungaling tayo tungkol sa permit natin.

So I issued a simple challenge:

Simple. Just post a scan of the permit and the matter will be settled. But of course, as I wrote, all you showed us was an endorsement letter — not a permit.

Why do you need to lie, AJ? Were you at the site when the endorsement letter was shown to the SB Park officers? Were you at the site when they couldn’t produce a permit and had to leave?

I told them to post a link of the scan as a comment on my original post. I won’t hold my breath.

To our anti-RH readers, for the sake of Truth (which you seem to have a monopoly on), I humbly ask that you accept this challenge.

Sincerely, a writer of the Site-That-Cannot-Be-Named, a Son of Liar the Old Snake, Red.

Anti-RH advocates were forced to leave SB Park after pro-RH advocates discovered that they didn’t have a permit.

The anti-RH advocates tried to bully their way into the camp by setting up tents at the gate for a thanksgiving mass they were planning. When the SB Park officer asked who owned the tents, anti-RH advocates lied and said they didn’t know. The SB park officer was later surprised to see that an anti-RH mass was already set up inside the tents.

When asked about whether they had a permit to do the thanksgiving mass, anti-RH advocates, led by Rizalito David, said that they did have a permit. It was later found out that all they had was an endorsement letter, revealing that the anti-RH advocates lied once again.

Finally, the anti-RH advocates left and moved their planned demonstration to the nearby police station. According to unconfirmed reports, they were allowed to use the venue without a permit.

This small encounter shows how the anti-RH side are willing to lie and disrespect legal procedures, in the same way that they lie about the RH bill and delay the legislative process.

The anti-RH demonstration at the police station will end at 3am tomorrow. The pro-RH occupation, on the other hand, will remain here at SB Park until legislators put the RH Bill to a vote.

UPDATE (Nov. 22): After lying about their lying
, we challenged the anti-RH to post their permit. They declined — of course — and said that we should ask the tanod. We did. Not only were they lying about having a permit, Rizalito David also lied about being a lawyer.