It is the function of a good university to turn out an educated and informed citizenry, trained in the skills of critical thought necessary in building and growing an electoral democracy such as ours. This is why it is with gladness that I would like to invite students of the University of Santo Tomas to attend the forum whose details appear below, wherein upcoming national Senatorial candidates have been invited to a public debate on the vital issues of health, population and development.

I am particularly heartened at the courage and forward thinking of the student officers that took the initiative to organize the forum, and the school administration that must have approved it, which as we know has a history of silencing any open discussion on national reproductive health issues unless it is in line with strict Catholic Church doctrine. Now that we have an RH Law, I am glad that the UST school admin decided to lead its students by example on how to work with national government towards the greater good. It is only fitting that a school such as UST, with its prominent medical education program, should take the lead on learning the stand of potential lawmakers on health issues.

…Wait, WHAT? The school administration had it canceled? Because ProLIFE Philippines, a group that has no problem having a punchdrunk thug like Lito David running for them, complained that Risa Hontiveros, a proRH advocate would be going?

Well, God forbid we should have an open intellectual discussion in the middle of a university! My parents went to UST. They met there. They used to be proud of it. And I think the students there who fight for their right to be informed should be proud of themselves as individuals. I’m aware that as a privately run institution those in charge of it can stuff their student’s heads with whatever they want. As generally conceived, however, a school, especially a university, is supposed to be a place for the mind’s liberation, not its indoctrination. Until those in charge of UST can remember that, those university leaders have only themselves to blame for outsiders like myself thinking of their school as a shitty pseudouniversity run by petty, small minded cowards.

Invitation to #YouthVote 2013

A few months away from the national elections, the Student Council Alliance of the Philippines and the Forum for FP and Development invite you to the first of a series of forums for national and local candidates for 2013 starting with the First Senatorial Forum on Health, Population and Development, January 11, 12nn-2pm at UST College of Medicine Auditorium.

Mainstreaming youth issues, sentiments and policy recommendations for the 2013 elections, the youth leaders spearheading this movement nationwide would like to champion responsible voting, challenge traditional politics and make politics work for the youth and the Filipino people as a whole.

Confirmed guests in the forum are: Ms. Risa Hontiveros, Ms. Grace Poe Llamanzares, Mr. Richard Gordon, Ms. Jamby Madrigal and Rep. Sonny Angara. The event will also be inter-active and on live stream in Bicol University and University of the Philippines Cebu powered by SMART

Details:

Now Trending: #YOUTHVOTE2013

1st Senatorial Debates on Health, Population and Development

January 11, 2013

12:00nn – 2:00pm

College of Medicine Auditorium, University of Santo Tomas

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Image from varsitarian.net

[Photo credit: newsinfo.inquirer.net]

Barely two weeks after the RH Law was passed, James Imbong, son of CBCP legal counsel Jo Imbong, and his wife Lovely-Ann Imbong, filed a petition to stop the implementation of the newly-minted law. The said petition is an orgy of fallacies, to say the least. And orgies, for those who were not yet informed, are what will result from the passage of the RH Law, or so the petitioners seem to imply.

On a more serious note, the Supreme Court’s reaction to the petition should be closely studied because at its heart is the battle for the “ideals and aspirations” of Filipinos. According to the petitioners, the RH Law “negates and frustrates” the said ideals and aspirations. The petitioners even go as far as saying that the RH Law mocks “the nation’s Filipino culture – noble and lofty in its holdings on life, motherhood and family.”

What is curious about this aspect of the petition is that reproductive health supporters can use exactly the same words to uphold the constitutionality of the law. Majority of Filipinos support the RH Law precisely because it upholds our ideals and aspirations. Using the words of the same Preamble the petitioners used, it can be pointed out that our nation needs the RH Law to “build a just and human society” and “promote the common good, conserve and develop our patrimony, and secure to ourselves and our posterity, the blessings of independence and democracy under the rule of law and a regime of truth, justice, freedom, love, equality, and peace.”

Both supporters and opponents of the RH Law agree that our country should be built upon values and the appreciation of the sanctity of life. Hence, it all boils down to what one means when one uses the words “values” and “sanctity of life”. What the Imbongs seem to forget is that the secular nature of Philippine government demands that our foundational values be secular values, and if these secular values conflicts with the values of a particular religion, then so much the worse for the religious values. While it is true that the petitioners tried their best to present secular arguments against the RH Law, the density of fallacies presented in the petition strongly suggests puritanical and religious motivations behind its filing.

How the High Court responds to the petition should be studied closely because the battle for the law on divorce and marriage equality will surely be fought in the same front. In other words, the issue of divorce and marriage equality will once again see us wrestling with the “ideals and aspirations” of Filipinos.

I want to live in a just and humane society where the common good is promoted, where national patrimony is conserved and developed, and where the next generation is raised in “noble and lofty” values that hold life sacred. This is why the RH Law has my support. And this is why I will advocate the passage of a law on divorce and marriage equality. I am confident that my ideals and aspirations are the ideals and aspirations of many Filipinos as well.

The reproductive health (RH) and divorce bills have one thing in common: they both propose to grant certain rights to certain individuals. But their similarity ends there because the rights associated with each bill are very much different in terms of form and what they require of the State.

The rights that an RH law would provide are claim-rights, meaning they correlate to a duty in another person or entity. In this case, not only do the citizens have the right to use contraceptives, the government is actually duty-bound to provide them for free along with other reproductive health care services to those who need them.

Luz Ilagan and Emmi de Jesus

The rights being promoted by the divorce bill introduced by Gabriela partylist representatives Luz Ilagan and Emmi de Jesus, on the other hand, are merely privilege-rights, so there is no correlating duty on the part of the government or anyone else. To have a privilege to do something simply means to have no duty not to do it. With the existing Philippine laws, the offended spouse in a failed marriage still has a duty not to enter into a new marriage contract with another person. The divorce bill aims to remove that duty by providing the option of officially ending an irreparable marriage and thereby grant the privilege to start a new life – with or without a new partner.

Unlike the RH bill, the divorce bill does not seek to appropriate billions in taxpayers’ money for its implementation; the government will not be made to pay for the fees of the divorce lawyers and psychiatrists, or to provide financial assistance to the unemployed spouses and children.

The divorce bill also does not even try to compel churches to recognize divorce and marry divorcees.

The divorce bill is simply about granting freedom to those who need it the most – people whose marriages have caused them untold suffering and who want nothing more than to have another shot at happiness.

We have succeeded in getting the majority of our legislators to vote for the RH bill amid strong religious opposition in using government money to buy contraceptives, which they deem intrinsically evil. While the Catholic bishops are expected to fight more fiercely against divorce after their loss in the RH battle, if the Philippines is truly becoming a more secular state, the divorce bill should even be easier to pass since there is no billion-peso budget involved, and the only objections will be religious in nature and therefore irrelevant to the discussion.

* * * * *

Image credit: EWTN News

No two freethinkers are exactly alike; a group of freethinkers contains a great diversity of perspectives, so there is no one, official perspective shared among all of them. This makes the freethought community a truly vibrant source of ideas and opinions!

In this light, Meet a Freethinker is our brand-new series featuring freethinkers of all backgrounds and perspectives. We want to introduce you guys to the people who make up the proverbial melting pot of this growing movement.

Our first freethinker is Marguerite de Leon, a 27-year-old social media executive. She was baptized Catholic, and became part of the Filipino Freethinkers in 2010.  

1)     How would you define a freethinker?

A freethinker is someone who chooses not to tolerate bullshit. They don’t immediately believe in something because someone from a position of authority told them to; or because that’s what most people have always believed in for so long; or because there’s some man-made rule that tells you to. They adhere to empirical evidence; they only believe in something if there is actual, tangible, measurable proof that such a belief makes sense. If there is no such proof, then they will continue questioning this belief and searching for the truth.

2) What belief system do you subscribe to?

I am an atheist. This means that I do not believe in the existence of a god or gods. So in terms of religious beliefs, I have none. The closest thing I do have to a belief system is secular humanism, which basically means being a good human being, no religious strings attached.

3)     What was it like when you first seriously questioned the dogma you were told to believe?

The defining moment was when I outright asked my mom and grandmother if I could skip Sunday masses and pray at home instead. I even offered to do the chores, or whatever other good deed they felt like assigning me. I found masses excruciatingly tedious and pointless (those scary rebultos didn’t help, either), and thought it sensible that I do something beneficial to others on Sundays instead of just sitting in a church staring at the clock. I also figured that praying to god directly was more sincere than sitting around reciting words lifelessly.

But no dice. Both my mom and grandmother got incredibly upset with me, and the afternoon ended in tears. They said I was being disrespectful. But no matter how hard they chastised me, however, I still knew I made sense. What I’ve been told to do and to believe just didn’t add up. Soon enough, religion started to look more and more inane and insincere, and I eventually wanted no part of it.

4)     What’s the biggest misconception people have about you as a freethinker?

That I’m holding on to the excuse that I can think however I want, no matter how inane or removed from reality it may be, like some post-modern, “anything-goes-let’s-all-believe-in-magic” kind of thing. That’s definitely not what freethought is. True freethinking has very strict criteria. My beliefs need to be backed up by reason and evidence, and should not be beholden to authority, tradition, or dogma.

5)     What was the funniest or most interesting reaction you got from a person after you told him or her that you were a freethinker?

“So that means you’re smart, right?”

Yes and no.

I’d consider freethinkers smart in that they try their very best to think well—that is, logically and rationally. Having said that, it’s not like I have a PhD, have a bazillion awards under my belt, or refuse to watch films in color or English. For the record, I love trash TV like The Voice, and would much rather read a fashion magazine than a Borges short story. It’s just that when I’m faced with situations like the CBCP telling me to fear the Pill, I don’t blindly follow them. I get my facts straight first and make my own decisions based on what I’ve learned. You don’t need to be cum laude to figure that out.

6)     In what way has being part of a freethinking community benefited you?

I finally found something I truly believed in and wanted to fight for 100%. I’d been pretty apathetic before then, mainly because I could never fully relate to any of the causes and concerns being trumpeted around me. Most charities and groups I’d encountered had an underlying religious bent to it—you’re doing all these good things for god, or because we are all god’s children, etc. I would feel like a poser or a hypocrite joining such groups.

The Filipino Freethinkers, on the other hand, was a group against bullshit, against people being sheep, against shitty excuses to be horrible people. It was right up my alley. I’d never felt more purposeful, more excited to do things for others.

7)     Would you date someone who was a fervent follower of your old religion?

Let’s just put it this way: If he WERE a truly fervent, by-the-book follower of Catholicism, then he would not have sex with me until we were married; he would prohibit me from using artificial contraceptives; he would have our kids baptized and sent to gender-exclusive Catholic private schools; he would force me to go to mass every Sunday; he would remind me to be miserable and penitent on Good Friday because god just died; he would keep me from meeting up with my LGBT friends; he would donate part of our hard-earned money to the church; he would delete most of my videos and music and throw away most of my books; etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

So, no. Unless, of course, he looked like either Frank Mir, Robert Downey Jr., Tom Hardy, or Ryan Gosling. Then all bets are off.

Many people around you are commemorating the humble coming of Christ by extravagantly and wastefully observing pagan practices. What are you to do, lonely heathen? Fear not, you can commemorate the birth of Isaac Newton by celebrating Newtonmas! Here are a few tips on how to do it:

1. Tell everyone that like Jesus, Newton wasn’t really born on Christmas Day. Although he was also born on Christmas Day. Wait, what? Well, it has something to do with some confusion between two calendars. When Isaac Newton was born, most of the world was already using the more accurate Gregorian calendar, which is the same calendar we are using up to this day. However the English, being English, were still using the old Julian calendar during the time of Newton’s birth, and in the Julian calendar little Isaac was born on the 25^th of December, 1642. During the time, however, the Julian calendar was already off by more than a week so that in the Gregorian calendar, Newton’s birthday is actually January 4, 1643.

“Isaac must go on top of the tree.” [Image credit: tumblr/shitsheldoncoopersays]

2. Since it’s the season for Newton, buy your godchildren prisms as presents! Include little “research problems” that they can try to solve using the prisms. For example, you can ask them to convince their parents that when all the colors of the rainbow are combined, what you get is white light. In this way, they can reenact Newton’s experimentum crucis, which is not a Harry Potter spell but rather is one of the most beautiful and elegant experiments in science.

Newton’s critical experiment. [Image credit: peace-files.com]

3. If you’re feeling a little indulgent, buy yourself a Newtonian telescope and discover the beauties of heavenly bodies, both those in the sky and those living next door.

[Image credit: optocorp.com]

4. Feeling the spirit of Newtonmas strong in you? Approach your little nephews and nieces and teach them a bit of Newtonian physics. Tell them about the three rules that obeyed by everything around us.

• First rule, things don’t budge when nothing budges them. In other words, unless an object is pushed or pulled, it will keep on moving the way it did. (If it wasn’t moving in the fist place, then it will keep on staying put.)
• Second rule, the heavier a thing is, the more you need to push or pull it in order to change the way it moves. Also, if you want to change how something moves more, then you must give it a stronger nudge.
• Third rule, when you kick something, it will always kick you back. And it will kick you back as strongly as you kicked it.
• Tell your nephews and nieces that remembering the above rules will help them avoid the following mistake:

[Image credit: Homes]

5. If you want in on Newton’s extreme eccentricity, you can try performing some of his more crazy-ass experiments. See the bodkin below? Newton stuck something similar into his eye socket and prodded his eye ball with it to study how images get formed in the human eye. I’m not kidding you, the guy was batshit crazy.

Newton: “I want this thing inside me.” [Image credit: images.onlinegalleries.com]

8. Read the following passage to all your smart friends: “This chaos is called our arsenic, our air, our Luna, our magnase, our Calebs, but in diverse respect, because our matter undergoes various states before our regal diadem is extracted from the menstrual blood of our whore. So learn who the comrades of Cadmus are, and who the serpent who ate them, and what the hollow oak on which Cadmus transfixed the serpent! Learn what the doves of Diana are which conquer the lion by beating him.” This passage is from the alchemical tract The Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of the King, one of Newton’s favorite. Yes, even the smartest people can subscribe to the most unfounded beliefs. We should therefore be ever vigilant about the things we believe in. Newton’s example reminds us of the beauty of having no one person as absolute intellectual authority. In short, it helps us appreciate being a freethinker.

So there you go, a few holiday tips from one heathen to another.  This Newtonmas, remember to give the gift of discovery to the people you love. And don’t forget to have a happy holiday!

[Image credit: maths.crhs.org.uk]

No, the world is not going to end this week. That belief is too unfounded to be even worth a rebuttal.

Now that we have that out of the way, let us talk about more productive things, like how to really end the world. But before we can start with our crash course on world ending, let us first look at what people usually mean when they say the end is nigh. Based on a survey done by a reputable organization composed solely of the author of this article, when people say “the world is ending” they usually mean one the following things:

1. they lost their iPhone;
2. human civilization will collapse or people will be wiped out from the face of the Earth;
3. all or a significant portion of life on Earth will end;
4. the universe will end.

Since no one really cares if some hipster lost his iPhone, I hope everyone agrees that we can skip the first item. Let us now take a look at how we can successfully bring about the other three world-ending scenarios.

[Image credit: memegenerator.net]

Bye Bye Humans

Here’s how you end human civilization: you do nothing. Or, to be more precise, you just allow humans to keep on doing what they are doing right now. I’m not kidding; just let them carry on with their lives. They’re already civilization-destroying forces just as they are.

How does this work? Here’s how it goes. If humans live as they live right now, then the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere will just keep on going up. This will have the effect of further messing up the Earth’s climate. If humans do not change, the climate will.

[Image credit: wwf.be]

But how can climate change end human civilization? When it gets hot in here, can’t people just follow Nelly’s advice and take off all their clothes? Excellent as Nelly’s advice is (and I surely recommend it to some of more well-endowed human specimens), it simply wouldn’t do because the Earth’s systems are just so damned complicated. Even a mere 1-degree increase in global average temperature can ruin the whole delicate balance of the Earth’s life-supporting systems.

“I’ve got the solution to global warming y’all!” [Image credit: sandgent.co.uk]

Let me mention just a few of the many possible nightmare scenarios that can be brought about by climate change.

First, sea level will rise significantly, causing many major cities to get flooded. If fishes want Manila City, they could inherit it someday, although I already here them saying “Thanks, but no thanks.” Students of UST know for a fact that nature has already been doing not-so-dry runs of this thing, and for those who wish to see the end of human civilization it’s all looking good.

Second, many ecosystems will be messed up and might even crash. Scientists who study the details of this nightmare scenario usually get a lot less sleep at night. But just to give you an idea, when an important ecosystem crashes, farms will fail, the sea  will give up providing fishes (and I’m not even talking about overfishing yet), and the creatures that provide humans with much needed oxygen might simply call it quits.

If those scenarios have not impressed you yet, then this one might. Some scientists think that climate change might cause the ocean’s thermohaline circulation to stop. The thermohaline circulation acts as the ocean’s conveyor belt, distributing oxygen, carbon dioxide and nutrients throughout the ocean’s many levels. If this circulation stops, then much of the ocean will be reduced to a big puddle of stagnant water. When this happens, many ecosystems in the ocean will get messed up, and we’re back to the scenario discussed in the previous paragraph.

Well, that’s just climate change. There are other things that can cause the crash of human civilization without any help from a malevolent Loki figure, like the world’s oil reserves running dry, or overpopulation causing a population crash just like what happened to the reindeer of St. Matthew Island.

If you want to be more proactive in bringing about the demise of human civilization, then you might want to introduce a microbial pathogen that is downright nasty, spreads fast, and is quick to mutate and develop resistance to drugs, quite like the virus that caused SARS. Since international flights are so common nowadays, this pathogen will find it easy to go global. And while you’re at it, why not make it a virus that attacks the human immune system? In other words, why not make a nastier version of the HIV? Also, if you feel a little creative and sadistic, try to go for a zombie apocalypse virus. Although making it spread globally could be a bit tricky considering how strict airport authorities are when it comes to passengers who bite their airplane seatmates.

“I’m sorry ma’am, but the seat belt sign is turned on. I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to sit down.”

Hurtling Hunks of Rock

But if you really want to end a world, why just go for just one species out of the hundreds of thousands, possibly millions that call the Earth their home? When humans go extinct, will bad ass tardigrades give a damn? No.

Tardigrade: “Human civilization has collapsed? Do I look like I care?” [Image credit: sciencephoto.com]

Species come and go all the time; extinction is a part of life on Earth and it is the ultimate fate of all species that exist. Dodos and dinosaurs are not losers for going extinct, they just got there before humans did. (Although at the rate humans are going, they won’t be far behind.) Scientists estimate that around 99.9% of all species that have ever existed have now gone extinct. In fact, every few million years several species go extinct.

However, for us who want to see the world end, several extinctions every few million years are not enough. What we want is a mass extinction event, a massive blowout where up to 90% of all species on Earth bid goodbye to existence within a very short span of time. (And by “very short” we mean around a few million years.) Feel free to choose any of the following means to bring about your desired mass extinction event:

• Send a big hunk of rock (an asteroid, a comet or a big meteor) hurtling towards the Earth. If this hunk of rock is big and fast enough, its collision with the Earth can release the energy contained in millions of tons of TNT. How much energy is that? Well, just enough to boil much of the ocean. It will also be enough send tons of dust into the air, covering the Sun for years on end and causing the Earth’s climate to change – and we’re back to climate change, yay!
• Your big hunk of rock does not really need to hit the Earth to cause a lot of damage. If it’s big enough, even a close encounter with the Earth can cause a drastic change in the Earth’s orbital tilt, rate of rotation or distance from the Sun. If any of the mentioned things happen, creatures everywhere will suddenly find themselves in places too hot, too cold, too humid or too dry for them. Once this happens, many of the more choosy creatures – which is, well, most of them – will say goodbye to existence, and a cascade of extinctions will ensue.
• Turn up the Sun. Or, alternately, turn in down. Just do it quickly. The Sun has been having mood swings for billions for years now. However, it’s been doing it slowly enough that a lot of the Earth’s creatures were able to adapt to many of them. A sudden overabundance of sunlight, or a sudden lack of it, will surely change the climate drastically. Yes, you’ll never go wrong with climate change, fellow world-ender.
• Let the Sun go red giant. It will do this a few billion years from now, anyway, so why prolong the suffering of all earthlings? Go ahead and let their star become a big red ball that will boil all their oceans and possibly even consume their planet.

[Image credit: astronomynotes.com]

•  Help the humans do their work of causing the sixth mass extinction. Scientists have discovered five mass extinction events in the 4.5-billion year history of the Earth. The most popular of the five is the one that led to the demise of all non-avian dinosaurs. Nearly all scientists agree that it was caused by an asteroid impact around 65 million years ago. (If you want to sound smart, call this the K-Pg mass extinction event. K-Pg stands for Cretaceous-Paleogene. It was between these two periods that the extinction event happened. It used to be called the K-T event, for Cretaceous-Tertiary.) The greatest of the five, however, was the Permian extinction event, also known as the Great Dying (dun dun dun!). The Great Dying (dun dun dun!) involved, well, a great amount of dying. 90% of all the species on Earth alive at the time, to be more precise. Many scientists think that a sixth extinction event is on the way, and it is caused by the joy humans derive from cutting down trees and polluting the seas. Hence, if you want to see the end of the world as we know it, you might give these Homo sapiens a little help in their endeavor.

[Photo credit: i.chzbgr.com]

• Life on Earth is resilient. The cosmos has been sending all sorts of nasty stuff to Earth for billions of years, and yet life goes on. If you really want to obliterate life on Earth, you might want to send a rogue black hole to the Solar System. The black hole will gulp up the Sun and all its planets and that’s the end of it goodbye thank y’all.
• If you want to be a bit more dramatic, you can make a supernova explode a few light-years from the Sun. Even though it’s billions of kilometers away from Earth, it will still incinerate all the planets of the Solar System, ending life in this sector of the galaxy for good.

Crunching and Heat

Yes, yes, I know, with billions upon billions of planets in the universe some of you might find it lame to end life in just one planet. You want to end all life in the galaxy, even in the universe, right? Well, unfortunately for us, the universe is such damned big place. How big, you ask? Well, damned big. If you want numbers, the observable universe is about 46 billion light years or 4,300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 meters across. Good luck with trying  to comprehend that.

One way of ending something this huge is by adding enormous amounts of matter to it. You can even add dark matter, if you’re into that sort of thing. If you add enough matter, this will cause the universe to become closed. In a closed universe that lacks dark energy, there will be enough matter to stop the current expansion. This will lead to a universal contraction and an eventual Big Crunch, which is just a delicious name for the opposite of the eve more deliciously-named Big Bang.

The Big Crunch

Unfortunately for those who like to crunch, the universe has a lot of this thing they call dark energy. Scientists know very little about dark energy, but whatever it is, it seems to exert a repulsive force that accelerates the expansion of the universe. If this is indeed the case, the only way for the universe to “end” is by undergoing a heat death. The heat death of the universe will happen when all the energy in the universe will be converted to useless energy, that is, energy that cannot be used to do work. This is given by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which says that as time goes by, the energy in the universe gets more evenly distributed. Evenly distributed energy is heat, which is energy that cannot be exploited to do anything useful. Since life requires energy that can be used to do work, the head dead universe will not be able to support life of any kind.

Now to the important question, how can you bring about the heat death of the universe? Answer: you do nothing; let the Second Law of Thermodynamics do its work. Give it time. Be patient.

Take Home

So there you go, a teaser course on how to end the world. By now I think you would’ve noticed that it’s not really that difficult helping the world reach its demise. With lots of humans caring greatly about trivial things and little about things that matter, the world needs little help to meet its destruction. As a matter of fact, tremendous effort is expected not from those who want to end the world, but from those who want to pass it on the next generation. Even more effort is required from those who want to see a better tomorrow for their descendants. So it’s time to stop reading this article and start help building a better world for all of us. After all, the world is not ending anytime soon.

The Bishops of the Philippines have some really shitty logic and they have been using this logic to spew lies and misinformation regarding the RH Bill.

Just this morning I came across an article called, “Bishop compares President Aquino to Connecticut shooter because of the Reproductive Health bill.”

Here are some of the highlights of that article:

According to a report by Evelyn Macairan of the Philippine Star, “Batangas Archbishop Ramon Arguelles yesterday said that while a 20-year-old gunman killed 20 children in the US, President Aquino would be killing millions of children with a stroke of a pen if he signs the RH bill into law.” 

After Typhoon Pablo hit the southern Philippines, another Church leader, Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo said, “the typhoon that left more than a thousand dead, could be a message from God about the RH bill.”

These conclusions don’t make sense. They infuriate me. So, as a thought experiment I wondered what arguments for the RH Bill I could come up with if, like these bishops, I used non sequitur arguments (“RH Bill caused Typhoon Pablo”), false analogies (Pinoy is like the Connecticut shooter), and other illogical statements.

Let’s call this game the “Bishop Logic” game.

Argument #1:

1. Bishops and other members of the clergy like to sexually abuse children. In fact, the Catholic Church even has a Wikipage dedicated entirely to information about Catholic sex abuse cases. “The Catholic sex abuse cases are a series of convictions, trials and investigations into allegations of child sexual abuse crimes committed by Catholic priests and members of Roman Catholic orders against children as young as 3 years old with the majority between the ages of 11 and 14.”

2. Children living in depressed conditions are often neglected or under-supervised. “A number of prevalence and incidence studies have highlighted the link between poverty and some forms of child maltreatment, especially neglect, emotional and physical abuse.”

3. Family planning will reduce the number of under-supervised and underprivileged children.

Therefore:

“Bishops don’t want the RH Bill to pass because there will be less underprivileged and under-supervised children they would be free to molest.”

Argument #2:

1. God often tests the faith of his “people.”

2. The Catholic Church are supposedly God’s “people.”

3. Typhoon Pablo hit the Southern Philippines.

4. The Catholic Church is rolling in money. In fact, they are able to afford over $2 billion worth of sex abuse settlements. This astronomical number is even expected to rise towards $5 billion in the near future.

Therefore:

“Typhoon Pablo hit the southern Philippines because God wants to test the priorities of the Catholic Church. God wants to find out wherther the Church will use their wealth to help the victims of Typhoon Pablo OR to keep more child molesters unpunished.”

Argument #3:

1. “Higher levels of education lead to lower levels of religious participation later in life“.

2. “Early childbearing can interfere with education, so those with early or frequent childbearing are likely to be less educated.”

3. Sexual education will prevent a woman from having early or infrequent childbearing. “Teens who received comprehensive sex education were 60 percent less likely to report becoming pregnant or impregnating someone than those who received no sex education.”

Therefore:

“The Catholic clergy is against the RH Bill because it wants you to be pregnant and out-of-school. They don’t want you to be educated because the more education you get, the higher the chance that you would stop believing their bullshit and giving them money.”

In summary, using “Bishop Logic,” we have 3 explanations as to why the Catholic church is against the RH Bill:

1. “Bishops don’t want the RH Bill to pass because there will be less underprivileged and under-supervised children they would be free to molest.”

2. “Typhoon Pablo hit the southern Philippines because God wants to test the priorities of the Catholic Church. God wants to find out wherther the Church will use their wealth to help the victims of Typhoon Pablo OR to keep more child molesters unpunished.”

3. “The Catholic clergy wants you to be pregnant and out-of-school. They don’t want you to be educated because the more education you get, the higher the chance that you would stop believing their bullshit and giving them money.”

However, regardless of how much “sense” these arguments “seem” to make, being a freethinker, it is my responsibility to tell you that these arguments, for varied reasons, are not entirely logical. I simply wanted to show what kind of arguments the pro-RH side would come up with if they resorted to the same “Bishop Logic” that these clergymen use to make their arguments.

So don’t listen to the dumb shit stupid old men say, because “Bishop logic” is not logical.

–

Image from justinvacula.com

The first one that grabbed my attention was from Rep. Almario, who wanted in essence to send Filipinos to every part of the world, and maybe, in her lifetime, see this planet “Filipinized”.

And I thought one of the charges of the anti-RH camp was that approving the bill would mean “Western” domination of our laws. Tayo pala ang may planong sakupin ang mundo, Rep. Almario? And what does that even mean, “Filipinize”? Is this some homage to ethnic cleansing, popularized by that moustachioed man from Germany?

And who could miss the pronouncement of recently defeated boxer Rep. Manny Pacquiao, who claimed that because of his recent bout with Marquez in Las Vegas, it strengthened his resolve for the sanctity of life…could the boxer/representative still be reeling from that fateful, devastating punch that Marquez used to decide the outcome of their match?

To use current vernacular jargon, nasaan ang konek?

What does his decisive loss have to do with the “sanctity of life”? How does boxing even come close to the concept, when the entire fighting profession is built on the idea of beating another man black and blue, with money exchanging hands and crowds cheering for more blood? Where’s the “sanctity” in this scenario? After we teach our children that violence is wrong, we cheer on Manny trading blows, and he thinks it’s somehow because of “sanctity”?

And, unless we forget it, we are a “Catholic country” – we must be, since an overwhelming majority of these legislators used this particular concept as their defense.

“The bishops guide us.”
“We’re going against the (Roman Catholic) Church.”
“I cannot turn my back on my (Catholic) religion.”

These are essentially what they are saying – maybe not in those exact words – but yes, they claim these, which effectively means we are now a theocracy, not a democracy.

What a sad day for democracy, when the right to choose one’s religion is spat on by our own lawmakers.

When our very own Congress goes against the very document that founded its existence, the Constitution, that proclaims the separation of state and church to be “inviolable”.

When they attempt to make everyone Catholic by force – let’s call it what it is, because that is the effect of legislating Catholic teachings and belief into our SECULAR laws.

I do not want to be hearing from these particular legislators how bad it is for people in Afghanistan, where people can be executed – justifiably – for offending the state religion. They shouldn’t cluck their tongues when they hear of Female Genital Mutilation in certain parts of the world who insist on the barbaric practice because “it’s a part of our religion!”. They are just as equally guilty of enforcing, or wanting to enforce, a state religion, if they had won last night.

And then there were the sob stories: about how a legislator had trouble conceiving with his wife. About how, even after using the pill, a legislator went on to have many children. Or how it was a lawmaker’s parents’ dying wish. And the ones that go back, all the way to the baptism of their first child.

Excuse me, what is this, Dregs Of Our Lives? 

Why am I seeing a telenovela, or worse, a series of mini-telenovelas, being discussed by Congress and why are legislators acting like scriptwriters pitching for a storyboard?

Pati ba naman sa Kongreso, may drama dramahan na?

But just as my attention was starting to wane, my mind went into full salute when I started to hear a prayer being uttered by Rep. Syjuco as his “explanation” for opposing the bill. As a non-Catholic, I had to rely on what people online were saying, and that Syjuco (from what I could gather) was praying either the rosary or the Apostle’s Creed…how is this relevant to ME? And to the millions of other people of this archipelago who do not claim to be Catholic?

Is that what passes for intelligent discourse from our honorable legislators?

I had hoped that with so much time and energy having been expended on this bill – which, to my mind, was mostly needless if they had just put this immediately to a vote and not wasted so much effort trying to prevent it from being voten upon, and quite noticeably, even if the amendments from the bloc opposing it were inserted, they still ended up voting No – that we would see better arguments from our supposed representatives as to why they voted in the negative.

Instead, Congress was mistaken for being a branch of the Catholic Church.

No, anti RH legislators, you do not get to hijack the laws of this land to suit your religious preference. There is no “religious oppression” against you, the CBCP and Catholicism. On the contrary, it is you who continue to disrespect the right of each citizen to choose their own beliefs, and would like to see nothing more than a Catholic theocracy come into fruition, a fact that those in the hierarchy do not even bother hiding as their most desperate desire, claiming this country to be the “only Catholic nation in Southeast Asia!”

We could have done away with nominal voting. You could have given authentic, valid and factual reasons to oppose the bill. Instead, you chose to use the most winding of roads, leaving me and many others feeling the same way even before the debates began:

Stumped.

–

Image from clker.com

Mahigit isang taon ko nang gustong makausap si Tito Sen. Medyo nakaiirita kasi siya. At bagama’t matagal na akong tagahanga ng VST and Co., ang showbiz fan ay hindi political fan.

Setyembre noong nakaraang taon nang una akong nagulantang sa ating Senate Majority Floor leader. Kung inyong matatandaaan, pinabubulaanan niya noon ang istatistika ukol sa dami ng buntis na nanay na namamatay. Napakasakit at nakapanliliit ang ginawa ni Sotto; may kilala akong  mga community health worker sa urban poor areas na maraming kilalang inang nabawian ng buhay.  Simple lang ang panawagan namin noon: “Sotto, humingi ka nang patawad sa aming mga ina.”

Pero hindi nagkakamali si Senator Sotto. Mahirap na ina man o anak ng bayaning Amerikano, walang siyang sinasanto. At, higit pa, hindi siya nagsosorry. Tunay na lalaki (TNL) raw kasi siya. Kaya naman ganun kakapal ang kanyang bigote (sayang wala na siyang balbas).

Dalawang beses ko nang hinamon magdebate si Tito Sen, at dalawang beses na niya akong binasted. Napakasakit, Kuya Eddie.

Una ko siyang hinamon noong 2011 para maipaliwanag niya kung bakit ayaw niyang tanggapin ang dami ng kasong maternal mortality sa Pilipinas. Gusto ko ring ipaliwanag niya kung bakit nakaya niyang magsinungaling ukol sa bisa at pagiging ligtas ng mga condom, IUD, at pill. Huwag na raw; kadebate na raw niya sina Senadora Pia Cayetano at Miriam Defensor Santiago. Nakaiinsulto raw sa dalawang senadora kung ako ang debatihin ni Tito Sen.

Dahil dito, tinanong ko ang mga pinagpipitagang mga senadora kung okey lang sa kanilang mahiram si Tito Sen. Kahit konting pagtingin lang naman, diba? Awa ng diyos, pumayag ang dalawa.

Kaya hinamon ko ulit si Sen. Sotto noong nakaraang Setyembre. Kasama ko naman noon ang kaibigan kong si Miguel Syjuco. Bilang manunulat, guro, at patnugot, hindi masikmura ni Miguel ang lantarang pangongopyang ginawa ni Sotto sa Senado. Lalo na dahil paulit-ulit niya itong ginawa na para bang nangungutya. Ang sagot ni Tito Sen sa bagong hamon: Pahalal muna kayo!

Aray. Medyo KSP nga siguro kami, pero akala ko macho si Tito Sen.  Akala ko handa niyang sagutin ang lahat. Akala ko wala siyang itinatago. Akala ko may agimat ang mga Sotto. Baka si Enteng lang …

Nabanggit ko na fans ako ng VST. Ngayong mga nakaraang buwan, nagkaroon ako ng pagkakataong sariwain ang mga nakaiindak na awitin ng pinakamahusay na disko band noong dekada 70. Ito’y mula sa mga panahong buhay pa ang OPM … Biro lang.

Ika ng VST dati, “Aaaaahhh, awitin mo, at isasayaw ko.” Ika naman ni Tito Sen ngayon, “Aaaaaahh, isulat mo, at kokopyahin ko.”

Pero sa tingin ko, mainam na pakinggan ulit ni Tito Sen ang VST senti hit na “Ipagpatawad Mo.” Simple lang naman kasi ang hinihingi kay Tito Sen ng anak ni Robert Kennedy na si Kerry at ng tatlong blogger: Humingi ka ng tawad.

Mapagpakumbaba ang singer ng “Ipagpatawad Mo.” Sabi niya, “Ipagpatawad mo, aking kapangahasan. Binibini ko, sana’y maintindihan.” Dagdag pa niya, “Di ko masisi na ako ay pagtakhan, di na dapat ako pagtiwalaan.” Yung banda na lang sana niya ang gayahin at kopyahin ni Tito Sen. Bakit ba kasi ang yabang pa niya?

Buking na buking na nga nagpapalusot pa. “Copying is the highest form of flattery?” Ansabe? Eh bakit hindi na-flatter si Kerry Kennedy? Sa katunayan, nainis pa ito, gayong binaluktot ni Sotto ang salita ng kanyang ama upang salungatin ang karapatang reproduktibo ng kababaihan—mga karapatang ipinaglalaban ng Robert F. Kennedy Foundation.

Hiyang hiya na ang taumbayan kay Tito Sen. Tila pambansang kahihiyan na ang dating national treasure ng Pinoy comedy at Pinoy disko. Pero siguro naman handang umunawa at magpatawad ang taumbayan. Pag-amin lang naman ang hinihingi nila.

Sana nama’y ipagpatwad mo, ang malabis na kabilisan ko.

Iniisip ko ang VST nang mag-file kami ng ethics complaint kay Sotto sa Senado. Katunayan, nagsuot ako ng VST t-shirt. Bilang parangal kay Tito Sen, pinakopya ko sa matalik na kaibigan ang logo ng banda. Gayang-gaya, kanang-kana, eksaktong eksakto. Parang yung mga talumpati ni Sotto.

Simple lang ang dahilan kong bakit ko sinuot ang t-shirt: gusto kong ipaalala kay Tito Sen na may buhay pagkatapos ng pulitika. Nandyan pa rin ang showbiz. Nandyan pa rin ang disko. At sa dina-dami ng fans ng Eat Bulaga, Iskul Bukol at VST (kabilang na ako), siguro naman may tatangkilik at magmamahal pa rin kay Tito Sen.

Kanta na lang sa halip na talumpati. Patawa sa halip na kopya. Katuwaan sa halip na kahihiyan. Kalimutan mo na ang pulitika, ser. Tayo’y magsayawan na lang muli.

–

Image from socyberty.com

The Varsitarian, the official student publication of the University of Santo Tomas, got a lot of flack a couple of months ago for an editorial, entitled “RH bill, Ateneo, and La Salle: Of lemons and cowards,” ranting at fellow Catholic universities for not being authentically Catholic because they employ “lemons and cowards.” This was in reference to these schools’ professors who came out in support of the Reproductive Health Bill, which the Catholic Church leadership vehemently opposes. The editorial was so vitriolic that the faculty adviser of the paper publicly apologized for it, calling it “unchristian.” UST itself denied that it supported the caustic editorial of The Varsitarian.

As The Varsitarian brags in a followup editorial, “Calling a spade a spade, a lemon a lemon,” their previous piece garnered almost 300,000 views, supposedly “shaming” the readership of national news media. They even take a potshot at the claims of the mainstream media having a “national” reach without objective statistics to support this assertion. This plea for evidence is quite incongruous given the Varsitarian’s general attitude toward scientific and logical reasoning, which will be clear shortly.

The Varsitarian fails to account for the proportion of those 300,000 views that were simply from people sharing it with others because they found it hilarious and intellectually bankrupt. If the paper did account for it, they probably wouldn’t go about boasting of thousands of chortling readers. It also, more critically, fails to mention their readership outside lemon, part 1 and whether this was even comparable to the consistent audience of national media. Given that, it is not likely that any of the media outlets that “assaulted a hapless campus paper and accused it of bad journalism” are spending any sleepless nights from a Varsitarian nightmare.

The Varsitarian doubles down in lemon, part 2. Instead of taking criticism in stride, it lashes out at the media that reported on the scathing commentaries against it. In typical anti-RH (and anti-science) behavior, it insinuates (without a shred of evidence) a vast conspiracy, with the media supposedly carrying out “a vicious campaign against the Catholic Church.” (If this were true, it would have come up in our semimonthly meetings to plot the downfall of the Catholic Church.)

The persecution complex of The Varsitarian is at its height as it compares itself with two Christian martyrs, Lorenzo Ruiz and Saint Stephen. It even emphasizes that Stephen was stoned to death. The paper apparently sees what it does as a service to truth “with the purity of searing idealism.” In full self-aggrandizement, The Varsitarian claims that it would “die a thousand deaths” for its faith, even though, unlike those actually mired in religious violence, it has never faced the threat of dying even once. By calling back the imagery of men who were murdered, The Varsitarian likens its role as an Internet punchline to out and out martyrdom. It would behoove the Varsitarian to know that some people actually die, as in cease to have a functioning brain, because of the denial of reproductive health care. But, let’s not have facts get in the way of delusions of grandeur.

To keep its “idealism” in check and prevent it from being “blind,” The Varsitarian says that it seeks guidance from the Catholic Church. Then, what keeps their obedience to the Church from being blind and sycophantic? I suppose they wouldn’t consider that as a bad thing.

When one is trapped in an echo chamber as large and labyrinthian as Catholic theology, it’s easy to talk out of one’s ass. “The Varsitarian upholds the natural law even without recourse to Catholic teachings because the natural law covers everyone, including non-Christians,” says the paper. Of course, what the Varsitarian means by “natural law” is the specific ethical system ingrained in the Catholic faith. To support their claim that natural law applies to and must be believed by everyone, the paper even quotes the system’s major architect and the namesake of the school, Thomas Aquinas. So, the Varsitarian claims to defend a Catholic teaching (anti-contraception) by upholding Catholic teaching (natural law) “without recourse to Catholic teachings.”

In the end, The Varsitarian does admit that its words were indeed unchristian. And yet, it remains sanctimonious enough to call out AdMU and DLSU professors for not being true Catholics. The paper claims that the moral imperative for denunciation was so strong that it justified lemon, part 1, thereby flouting Christian virtue with the bravery of an anonymous editorial. So strong was the necessity that The Varsitarian closes lemon, part 2 with a quotation from Mark, that those who “scandalize” believers (such as the “faculty members and administrators” of their target schools) are better off to have a millstone tied to their necks and thrown into the sea to drown.

Perhaps The Varsitarian is right, after all. Maybe only people who are as hateful and uncharitable as its editorial team should have the right to call themselves Catholic.

A few weeks ago, Taliban gunmen stopped a bus carrying students home from school in Pakistan’s Swat Valley, singled out Malala Yousufzai, and shot her.

Her crime was advocating for women’s education – which the Taliban banned – and for openly speaking out against their atrocities through her blog.

The good news is that as you read this, Malala is on the road to recovery, while the Taliban are being rightfully condemned for their act of brutality and cowardice; it says a lot about how insane a group is, when they think a girl who just wants to go to school is a justification for them to shoot people in the face.

But as I look at the outrage, the sympathy, and at the end of it all, the hope getting mixed into Malala’s story, and I look at the reactions from the Philippines’ own community at the whole thing – which is thankfully supportive – I just have to ask…

Are we really any different?

Because in their own way, the women of the Philippines are under threat from bearded, out-of-touch, religious conservatives who abide by silly religious laws, and run around in sillier robes. These people are intent on stifling not only women’s access to quality education, but also their ability to simply speak up and criticize them.

And the magic is that unlike the Taliban, they don’t have to whip out a gun to get the job done. So how did they do it? Let’s look at some of their more recent examples:

1. Resorting to erudite rhetoric that celebrates the fact that their morally superior university doesn’t put up with liberal nonsense such as dissent, free thought, critical thinking, or scientific facts. God was apparently so touched by this show of devotion that he forgot to bless their last game.

2. Legislators bravely stating the truths of the RH Bill while in senate, buying time for their side, not to mention creating a new, proudly Pinoy meme along the way.

3. Fearlessly speaking against the Magna Carta of Women, which removes their god-given right to eject pregnant students from getting a proper education. Who has a time for school (much less a decent job), when you have to raise a kid before you’ve turned 18, right?

4. Righteously defending their right to condemn the evils of lesbians, a fine trend that they and like-minded predecessors have done for decades.

5. Selflessly sacrificing whatever esteem and respect they had left to support the cybercrime law under the guise of defending people against bullying. After all, calling out an anti-gay/anti-woman bigot for being an intolerant asshole can be painful to their self-esteem.

6. Heroically citing that none other than our national hero, Jose Rizal, would never condone providing women with better access to family planning education.

Who needs bullets when you have a few well-chosen words and the support of powerful, religiously devout, but ultimately imbecilic leaders in politics and educational institutions to shape society according to your whims?

I’m not writing this to reduce any of the much-deserved attention that Malala is getting for herself and a woman’s right to education in Pakistan. What I am simply saying is that as we read about what happens to her, we shouldn’t dismiss it as just a story being told in a foreign land thousands of miles away.

It’s similar to the story of our women here, except that the attempt to murder them comes in inches. The perpetrators do this through through the denial of a woman’s right to proper academic and reproductive education, and through the poisoning of society’s opinion about providing better awareness regarding their rights.

And that is just as deadly – if not deadlier – than a few grams of copper-jacketed lead.

“In A Myriad Small Ways You Have Hastened The Deaths Of Many. You Do Not Know Them. You Did Not See Them Bleed. But You Snatched Bread From Their Mouths And Tore Clothes From Their Backs.” – Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

Hi guys. Could I talk to you all for a minute?

So there’s this guy named Pedro. I don’t know him personally. I mean, I know him, I definitely know him, but I never met him in real life because he’s technically from Guam, plus he lived in the 1600s, so there’s that. But I know the guy, and everyone says he’s awesome, and I think he’s awesome, too.

He’s actually so awesome that he brought this woman from Leyte back to life, and he—Pedro—was already dead! No, I’m serious! What I mean to say is that this whole miracle thing happened in 2002—way, way, WAY after Pedro’s time. Seriously, 2002! And he was from the 1600s! So how did he do it? Well, this woman, she died, right? I mean, she was clinically dead, two hours after a heart attack. And then her doctor prayed to Pedro and then BAM! She’s ALIVE again! I mean, honestly, how else could she have gotten that chance, right? OF COURSE you get to live again when your doctor prays to someone who died centuries ago! Duh! What else could it have been? Go Pedro!

So the Vatican, they’re going to name Pedro a saint because they said he performed a miracle from the grave, miles and miles and centuries away, okay? Okay, so the thing is, this Pedro, who lived most of his life in Guam, was born in the Philippines, so OBVIOUSLY that means he’s a real Filipino and we should all be super proud of him and use him as an example of why we’re the BEST COUNTRY EVER. Sounds good, right? But here’s the thing: we kind of need 60 million pesos from you guys.

Seriously, we need 60 million. We’re going to be celebrating Pedro, and we’re going to need a little extra cash for the tarps, and maybe an AVP. Balloons, if we can find a decent supplier. I mean, this is going to be HUGE, guys. Like, it’s going to be the EVENT OF THE YEAR. TIME is going to STOP on Canonization Day. I mean, people from all over the country are just going to drop what they’re doing—their jobs, their families, their hopes, their dreams—and come over to Manila and par-tay, you know? I mean, I don’t even need to tell you to mark your calendars, because God has already marked them for you. And an event like that calls for a little glitz, don’t you think?

So, yeah. Could you spare some change, friends? I mean, we’re not asking for much. I know most of you can barely afford to feed yourselves, let alone your 10 children, but this is a once-in-a-lifetime event, you know? And ultimately, it’s all for God. For God, guys. Wouldn’t you want to do something nice for God, for once? I mean, He’ll like you a whole lot more if you help us out. Like, bless your life and save you from hell and stuff.

And about the 18 billion pesos we already have, well, we can’t really spend it for this. Well, we can, but do you seriously think we should, given this godawful recession? Come on, guys. It is tempting to dip into the funds just a little, but you know what they say about temptation. We’re just trying to be frugal here. Live a simple life. Earn a billion here, maybe a hundred million there, then stow it all away for a rainy day. It’s the thing to do. You know how it is. You all understand.

So, do we have a deal? Yes? Okay? We’d definitely prefer cash over checks, by the way. (The Pope’s not too hot on paper trails these days.) Just leave the envelopes with the guard at the CBCP gate

We really look forward to all your help, guys. This means more than you’ll ever know. You have no idea how happy this will make us. And seriously, rest assured that there will be a very, very good return on investment. You’ll definitely get what you deserve. This is a solid deal, guys. Real solid. Serious stuff. Totes legit. It’s going to be the smartest thing you’ve ever done. Seriously. I swear it. I swear to God.

–

Image from http://www.travel-images.com/pht/phil37.jpg

UPDATE (10/4/12) [Pepe Bawagan]:

The following image is a screenshot from the Google Web Cache of another Facebook Page named PNP National Hotlines Directory (Metro Manila+Provinces):

UPDATE (10/1/12 9:37pm): The “Philippine National Police (PNP)” FB Page is up and running again, but without the controversial thread.

The reputation of the Philippine National Police (PNP) is in danger now, thanks to some comments made by the admin of the Facebook page titled  “Philippine National Police (PNP).” I’m being careful about how I worded the previous sentence because the admin of the Facebook personal account belonging to “Philippine  Nat’l Police” has released the following statement denying any “official connection” to the PNP FB page (emphasis added):

Press Statement of
PCSUPT GENEROSO R CERBO JR
PNP Spokesperson
Chief, Public Information Office
October 1, 2012

The PNP categorically denies any official connection to a message which appeared in one particular facebook account found by many to be offensive, threatening and malicious.

For one, official statements of the PNP to include press releases intended for public consumption are published
in digital form through our PNP official web site www.pnp.gov.ph or Facebook under the account name pnp.pio.

Further, said official statements can be released individually to our media friend both in hard and digital copies in the name of the PNP Public Information Office.

We shall have this incident investigated ASAP. You will be updated on the developments.

The phrase “official connection” immediately struck me. Do they have an unofficial connection to the “Philippine National Police (PNP)” FB page? If they do, that would explain why the page was taken down so quickly — it usually takes much longer for FB to act on page removal requests.

In a recent post on Rappler, PNP spokesman Chief Supt Generoso Cerbo Jr. — who wrote the press statement quoted above — told Rappler that “statements made on their Facebook page are not official. [emphasis added]” Does “their” mean they do own the page? Another source of confusion is Cerbo’s next statement:

“Di kami nagrerelease ng statement through Facebook,” he said, adding that the PNP only makes statements through their official website. (We don’t release official statements through Facebook.)

But as of this writing, Cerbo’s statement has not been posted on their official website. It has only been released on the PNP PIO personal account. Should I then suspect the PIO statement on FB to be less than official?

Another thing that bugs me is how Cerbo keeps referring to official statements. The Big Brother comments on the “Philippine National Police (PNP)” FB page were just that: comments. No one seriously takes comments as official statements.

Imagine that something similar happened to your organization. You discover that there’s an FB page posing as someone who is affiliated with your group, and worse, they’re posting comments that make you look bad. How do you respond? You wouldn’t say, “We don’t post official statements on Facebook.” You would say something like this: “We don’t know who is operating that Facebook page, but we can assure you that we have nothing whatsoever do do with it, and that its admin is nothing but a fraud.”

That the PNP statement says something less than this adds weight to my suspicion that the “Philippine National Police (PNP)” FB page, however unofficial, was run by someone connected with the PNP. According to several FB users who have frequented the page, it contained informative posts and was updated more frequently than the PNP PIO account. It also had almost 9,000 likes, dwarfing the PIO personal account’s 824 subscribers. Lastly, compare the headers used by each:

I don’t particularly like either, but the second one sure looks like more effort was put into it. Considering this, together with the amount of content and interaction in the “Philippine National Police (PNP)” FB page, it’s no wonder that many still think it was authentic despite PNP saying otherwise.

This isn’t the first time the authenticity of “Philippine National Police (PNP)” FB page was questioned. Technogra.ph posted an article arguing that the page was fake because (1) the behavior of the admin was too abusive for an official PNP page, and (2) PNP didn’t link to the page from their official website. Both are true, and I particularly agree with their first reason. PNP also took flack for what the FB page had said back then. But that was almost three months ago, and I don’t think the PNP was unaware of what had happened.

So why haven’t they taken action on it until now? And why was the page only taken down now? I hope these questions and more are soon answered by PNP’s investigation into this. And I find it interesting that the fascistic technologies and manpower mentioned in the “unofficial” FB page will be a big help to them now. (It’s also interesting that the PNP statement did not deny any of the statements made by the fake FB page. Are they really monitoring citizens this early?)

Lastly, I’d like to commend the allegedly fake admin of the “Philippine National Police (PNP)” FB page. I read that the page had been up since Jan 10, 2011. (The first activity of the PNP PIO account was on Jan 6,2011.) It takes dedication to attract 8,880 likes in only a couple of years. If this was indeed a long con meant to troll PNP, fool thousands of Filipinos online, including the reporters at Rappler and GMA News (they wrote a post about this but have since taken it down), then all I can say is well played, sir.

____
Check out Google’s cache of the allegedly fake FB page. Really seems legit.

UPDATE (10/1/12 9:42 PM): More updates on PNP’s damage control.
UPDATE (10/1/12 7:15PM): A press statement in this PNP PIO account denies any official connection to the “Philippine National Police (PNP)” page, which has already been taken down.
UPDATE: The FB thread below has been taken down.

The Cybercrime law hadn’t even taken effect, but that didn’t stop the Philippine National Police (PNP) from abusing it. At least that’s what the admin of their Facebook page did when they encountered an unwelcome comment.

The comment was a response to PNP’s post about criminology students doing poorly in English. Here’s a screenshot just in case they delete the comment, too:

I say “too” because right now these are the only comments I can read out of the ones included in a screenshot that is spreading all over Facebook. Here it is, just in case they get Facebook to take it down as well:

As several commenters have pointed out, the law doesn’t take effect till Wednesday, October 3. Yet the “CIDG Anti Transnational Crime is now conducting background investigation against” the commenter. This may or may not be true, but one thing is certain: some who read PNP’s comment are now thinking twice about speaking their mind. And when anyone is afraid of exercising their right to freedom of speech, something is definitely wrong.

Thank you, PNP, for proving that the Cybercrime Prevention Act (AKA Cyber Martial Law) must indeed be stopped. And fuck you.

___

Image source: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=507445769267202&set=a.102182453126871.4645.100000053506248&type=1

PNP thread: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=407303659323060&set=a.145337415519687.39609.145291485524280&type=1