With the reproductive health bill still stuck in legislation, our legislators need a lesson or two about religious freedom. But I hope they don’t follow Michigan’s example.

Michigan recently passed an anti-bullying bill, but instead of discouraging bullies, the bill seems to empower them with a familiar excuse: religion. The bill allows bullying so long as it’s done in the name of God. Anti-bullying? The bill should have been named “Religious Bullying.”

Imagine the following scene:

Harvey: Teacher, teacher! Billy is calling me names and throwing rocks at me!
Teacher: Why are you doing this, Harvey?
Billy: Because Harvey’s a homo!
Teacher: Who told you it’s OK to do this?
Billy: My dad told me that God told him it’s OK, and God hates fags!
Teacher: Oh, in that case, carry on then.

Ironically, the Religious Bullying bill is called “Matt’s Safe School Law,” after Matt Epling, a bullied student who killed himself in 2002. Understandably, Matt’s father is not happy:

Matt’s father, Kevin Epling, expressed his dismay in a Facebook post after the state senate vote on Wednesday. “I am ashamed that this could be Michigan’s bill on anti-bullying,” wrote Epling. “For years the line [from Republicans] has been ‘no protected classes,’ and the first thing they throw in…was a very protected class, and limited them from repercussions of their own actions.”

Last year, in the span of around a month, at least five teens committed suicide because they were bullied for being gay. States such as Michigan are trying to respond, but I doubt that sectarian solutions such as the Religious Bullying bill will do anything to prevent incidents like this from happening. On the contrary, it gives a religious justification to actual bullies and a religious motivation to potential ones.

And Michigan students do not need a law to motivate them to bully homosexuals. They only need to follow their parents’ examples:

At the federal level, they unsuccessfully fought for the inclusion of a provision protecting religious freedom when Congress expanded the definition of a hate crime to include crimes motivated by a victim’s sexual orientation. They also strongly oppose legislation that would prevent discrimination against gay individuals in the workplace, charging that such a law would endanger religious freedom. A report on the Christian Broadcasting Network outlined one such concern: “The special protections for gay and transgendered teachers will make it extremely difficult for [public school] districts that might want to remove them from the classroom.”

In the Philippines, Catholic bullies use religious freedom to justify kicking out unwed pregnant mothers from Catholic schools. They use religious freedom to justify denying even non-Catholics the right to remarry. They use religious freedom to justify denying homosexuals the right to marry and be free from discrimination and violence. And to block the passage of the RH Bill, they use religious freedom to justify denying Filipinos their right to plan their families, protect themselves from HIV and pregnancy complications, and choose what’s best for their own bodies.

As Amy Sullivan wrote, they’re getting religious freedom wrong:

Social conservatives believe that efforts to protect gays from assault, discrimination or bullying impinge on their religious freedom to express and act on their belief that homosexuality is an abomination…

This belief, however, relies on a warped understanding of religious liberty. Freedom of religious expression doesn’t give someone the right to kick the crap out of a gay kid or to verbally torment her. It doesn’t give someone the right to fire a gay employee instead of dealing with the potential discomfort of working with him…

The same religious conservatives who applaud the religious exemption in Michigan’s anti-bullying bill would be appalled if it protected a Muslim student in Dearborn who defended bullying a Christian classmate by saying he considered her an infidel.

Worst of all, such abuses of the concept of religious liberty undermine efforts to focus attention on serious threats to religious freedom. A Christian pastor in Iran currently faces execution because he will not convert back to Islam. China openly represses religious minorities like Tibetan Buddhists and Uighur Muslims. Christians in Syria and Egypt continue to be targets of violence, and Muslims in Europe face civil penalties for wearing religious garb in public. Next to these realities, it takes a serious persecution complex to get worked up about defending the right of a Michigan high school student to target a gay classmate for ridicule.

I hope our legislators take the time to read Michigan’s Religious Bullying Bill. It serves as a perfect example of how religious freedom is done wrong.

The official news website of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) recently published an article titled “Church and state: Why can’t they be friends?” which tells of the Pope’s warning on the dangers of secularism.  The following are some key excerpts pertinent to the Philippine situation and worthy of analysis, in an attempt to answer the title question why the church and state can’t indeed be friends.

[T]he pope warns that societies without the moorings of Christian values will be lost at sea, unaware of or indifferent to the truth that anchors humanity to justice, peace, respect and solidarity.

This statement implies that the principles of justice, peace, respect, and solidarity are held exclusively not only by religion, but by a particular religion, which is Christianity. It is a very arrogant statement that insults not only nonbelievers but believers of other faiths as well. Such a premise alone is already reason enough as to why church and state cannot be friends.

The separation of church and state, which is a hallmark of a democracy, “has also gone onto the separation of God and life unfortunately,” in which religious beliefs and values are expected to be left not only out of the process of public decision-making, but out of people’s own personal lives, too, he [Fr. Theodore Mascarenhas] said.

Secularism does not really intend to eradicate religion as much as keep religion a private affair. In our country alone, millions depend on religion for hope, happiness, and peace of mind, and secularism has no problem with that. It’s one thing to want to keep religion separate from government; it’s totally another thing to try to wipe it out.

One key topic, in fact, under discussion at the 2010 special Synod of Bishops for the Middle East was how to promote “positive secularism,” a form of separation of government and religion that still allows people’s faith to have a role in society without consecrating one religion as the religion of the state. The church supports a form of church-state separation that ensures religions have a voice in society and that laws reflect moral values — including laws dealing with life and marriage.

The main problem here is that different religions disagree among themselves on important issues including those involving marriage, such as birth control and divorce – both of which the Roman Catholic Church condemns while other religions accept. If our laws were to reflect religious moral values, the halls of congress would be filled with a cacophony of voices and our laws would conflict with one another.

In the West, secularism is understood as the problem of God being foisted out of the public sphere; but for the East, it’s a positive state of affairs in which governments show respect and protect all religions, letting them have a voice and not treating anyone better than the others, he said.

In the Philippines, one religion has the loudest voice and is listened to more than others.

“A real church-state separation would be that the church can freely express and ask its followers to adhere to the principles it holds dear,” Father Mascarenhas said.

Sounds just about right, for as long as the legislators, most of whom are members of both state and church, do not forget that they represent the former when they are in congress, even as they heed the latter for guidance on how they live their personal lives.

“Show me one human situation that is not reflected in the Gospel,” he said. Not only are the human challenges of death, fear, doubt and persecution detailed in the Bible, it also spells out the solutions, too.

How about three: cloning, stem cell research, and genetic engineering. But there’s a situation about disobedient servants that the Gospel of Luke (12:47) talks about and spells out a solution to: “The servant who knows the master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows.” Should this be incorporated in our Labor Code?

“The answer to death is the resurrection, and the answer to doubt and anguish like Jesus felt in the garden of Gethsemane is give yourself over to the will of God,” he said.

But who gets to declare what the will of God is, assuming he exists? The Vatican? What about the other sects and denominations? What about the other religions?

In The Science of Good and Evil, Michael Shermer wrote:

“Religious freedoms must always be protected, but the price for this security is the separation of religion from government. Historically, where church and state were wed, individual liberty suffered, including and especially religious liberty.”

Former supreme court justice Isagani A. Cruz explained this separation as follows:

“The rationale of the rule is summed up in the familiar saying, ‘Strong fences make good neighbors.’ The idea is to delineate the boundaries between the two institutions and thus avoid encroachments by one against the other because of a misunderstanding of the limits of their respective exclusive jurisdictions.”

Indeed, Church and State can be good neighbors for as long as the strong fence of secularism stands between them, because rights are trampled every time either of them crosses that fence and steps into the other’s territory. And no matter how noble their intentions are, they can never, ever be friends.

______________

Image from www.thesimsupply.com

Some anti-RH arguments are so stupid that satirizing them is almost too easy. Consider this series of lectures from an anti-RH forum four months ago. If we took the commentary out of the recap post, it could have passed for satire[1]. Which is why it took little effort from one of our writers to turn it into one of the most successful posts on our site. As of this writing, it’s received 95,187 views, 27,510 likes, and 4,745 comments.

Another successful satirical post is the one about the CBCP trademarking the term “Catholic.” It’s not as successful in terms of views, likes, and comments, but it succeeded in a different way: Despite the more ridiculous claims I tried to sell in that post, journalists from both social media and mainstream media bought it. Abante even interviewed several key people about the issue and published their report on the front page. (And they didn’t even give credit to their main source.)

What made these posts successful is the fact that although many of the claims made are false, they ring true. We never heard anyone use caves and the ocean floor as an argument against overpopulation. Nor did we hear that the CBCP even considered trademarking the term “Catholic,” let alone “moral,” “family,” and “life.” But these claims are at least consistent with much of the thinking and behavior that characterizes anti-RH individuals and organizations. This is key: In order to satirize well, you have to be able to characterize your target accurately.

This is why it’s close to impossible for the anti-RH to satirize the pro-RH. Either they don’t know the pro-RH position well enough, or they distort it too much it becomes unrecognizable except to them. In other words, instead of portraying the pro-RH, they create a straw man:

The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person’s actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. This sort of “reasoning” has the following pattern:

Person A has position X.
Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X).
Person B attacks position Y.
Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed.

This sort of “reasoning” is fallacious because attacking a distorted version of a position simply does not constitute an attack on the position itself. One might as well expect an attack on a poor drawing of a person to hurt the person.

Consider how the pro-RH position was portrayed in the anti-RH forum mentioned above. They say that “separating sex from procreation develops in the person an anti-life mentality.” In other words, they’re saying that using contraception will make people hate life — treat pregnancy like a disease, despise babies, etc. You must be thinking that they couldn’t possibly mean this; their position must be more nuanced than that. But they also said in the forum that in Japan, when the elderly can no longer be supported, the pro-choice solution would be to kill them.

Would it really be possible for the pro-RH to kill their parents and grandparents? Do the pro-RH really hate babies and think pregnancy is a disease? Do the pro-RH really think RH is good only because the US says it is? Do the pro-RH really hate reproduction and health and only advocate RH because they want money? These are just some of the straw men anti-RH advocates love attacking. I’ve met hundreds of RH advocates, and none of them fit these false characterizations.

While satire reveals truths about its target, straw man arguments say less about the target and more about its author. Are the anti-RH so helpless in the face of the real pro-RH position that they’re left grasping at straws?

***

[1] Since Youtube User Tamtampam thanked God for an earthquake that killed thousands of atheists in Japan, netizens have been debating about whether she was doing satire. Only when she came out as a troll was the question really answered. It’s tough to tell satire from straight news because there are actually people who think God should be thanked for teaching Japan a lesson. One of them is our very own Dr. Montes, from the same anti-RH forum above:

(while showing the population growth rates of Japan) “Ayokong isipin pero hindi ko ma-help i-connect yung disaster sa Japan doon sa facts na ang tagal-tagal na nilang nagaabortion at may policy on population control.” (I don’t want to think about it, but I can’t help connecting the disaster in Japan with the fact that the Japanese have long been purveyors of abortion and population control.)

_{The following was published in Manila Standard Today on August 27, 2011}

If you respect the separation of church and state mandated by our Constitution, you can find better ways to start Senate hearings than saying a prayer. Yet this is just what our senators do, and the start of the debates on the reproductive health bill were no different.

What bothers me more than the fact that a prayer was said in a supposedly secular setting was what the prayer implied, politically.

The prayer was supposed to be led by Senator Panfilo Lacson, but because of problems with his voice, he asked Senator Vicente Sotto to do it in his place. Considering the content of the prayer, I’m sure Sotto was more than happy to oblige.

The prayer was originally delivered in 1996 by American Pastor Joe Wright to the Kansas House of Representatives. Legislators, including the House minority leader, criticized the prayer for its “extreme, radical” views. At least one legislator walked out. When the same prayer was said in the Colorado House of Representatives later that year, more legislators were angered; several walked out.

The reaction of our own senators to the same prayer was apathy—it was just another prayer. But senators who respect secularism, especially those who support the reproductive health bill, should have reacted at least as strongly as the American legislators did.

Not only is the prayer sectarian, it’s also anti-choice, and therefore, anti-RH. Here it is in full:

Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and seek your direction and guidance. We know your Word says, “Woe to those who call evil good,” but that’s exactly what we’ve done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and inverted our values.

We confess that we have ridiculed the absolute truth of your Word and called it moral pluralism.

We have worshipped other gods and called it multi-culturalism.

We have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle.

We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.

We have neglected the needy and called it self-preservation.

We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.

We have killed our unborn and called it choice.

We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.

We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building esteem.

We have abused power and called it political savvy.

We have coveted our neighbors’ possessions and called it ambition.

We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.

We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our fore-fathers and called it enlightenment.

Search us O God and know our hearts today; try us and see if there be some wicked way in us; cleanse us from every sin and set us free.

Guide and bless these men and women who have been sent here by the people of Kansas, and who have been ordained by you, to govern this great state. Grant them your wisdom to rule and may their decisions direct us to the center of your will. I ask it in the name of your son, the living savior, Jesus Christ. Amen

What do these words imply?

“Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and seek your direction and guidance. We know your Word says, ‘Woe to those who call evil good,’ but that’s exactly what we’ve done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and inverted our values.”

Right from the start, the prayer privileges Judeo-Christian religions over non-Abrahamic ones. It implies that talk on good and evil should be done in religious terms, and it precludes the possibility of secular morality.

“We confess that we have ridiculed the absolute truth of your Word and called it moral pluralism.”

This implies that the Christian Bible is the basis for truth, and that pluralism —respecting the beliefs of many religions instead of just one—is bad.

“We have worshipped other gods and called it multi-culturalism.”

So belonging to religions other than Christianity is wrong?

“We have killed our unborn and called it choice.”

Although our senators do not support killing the unborn, this statement frames the discourse by associating choice with abortion, a tactic frequently used by anti-RH legislators and advocates.

“We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.”

This part is more relevant to a previous Senate hearing on the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ “Kulo” issue. Just the same, it privileges the Christian perspective as the arbiter of what’s profane and pornographic.

“We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.”

This implies that the “time-honored values” criticized by the Enlightenment —theocracy, anti-rationalism, clericalism, etc.—are better than Enlightenment values—democracy, rationalism, secularism.

“I ask it in the name of your son, the living savior, Jesus Christ.”

Although most senators are Christian, the content of the prayer promotes a particular brand of conservative Christianity. What’s worse, the prayer completely ignores the beliefs of Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and other non-Christian Filipinos our legislators are equally obligated to represent.

After Sotto concluded the prayer, not a single senator walked out. As far as I know, none have criticized it. Instead the other senators reverently made the sign of the cross and raised their bowed heads—like they always do. After all, it was just another prayer.

An artist puts a penis on a poster of Jesus and on a symbol of the Christian cross. A priest puts a penis inside the mouth and vagina of a 17-year-old girl. Which is more offensive? Which is more deserving of a Christian’s disgust and damnation?

When conservative Catholics learned of Mideo Cruz’s juxtaposition of Jesuses and phalluses in an art gallery in the Cultural Center of the Philippines, they were furious. They wanted heads to roll — at least Mideo’s — and heads to resign — whoever was in charge of displaying Mideo’s blasphemy.

They wrote and sent hate mail, hate text, and even death threats, harassing anyone who had the slightest thing to do with Mideo’s sacrilege. They created Facebook groups and pages to express their hate for Mideo and to get others to hate him just as much. They condemned artist and artwork, saying these were not artist and artwork, even lecturing experts on what it means to be both. They vandalized Mideo’s “artwork” and called the violence justified. They called for a Senate investigation and even a national Day of Penance, showing how the entire country should be angry at and sorry for what Mideo did to their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

But Mideo never really hurt anyone — Jesus least of all — with his work. The degree of hurt brought about by offense is debatable, but one thing is clear: he did not hurt anyone physically.

Compare that to what was done to a girl who was hurt so badly she now has to hide behind a fake name. “Leah” filed charges of rape, acts of lasciviousness, and child abuse against Fr. Raul Cabonce of St. Anne Parish in Tubay, Agusan del Norte.

If we’re to believe Leah, Fr. Cabonce forcefully molested her on several occasions, groping her private parts despite her protestations. Fr. Cabonce forced Leah to perform oral sex at least twice. He did this so violently that he made her gums bleed. The sexual harassment and assault eventually escalated to rape.

Talking about an experience like this would be difficult for anybody, but Fr. Cabonce made sure it would be torture for Leah. He threatened to curse Leah and her family if she told anyone. He also made sure Leah saw the guns in his room whenever he sexually assaulted her. Spiritual and physical blackmail.

For what he’s allegedly done, all that Fr. Cabonce got was a transfer to a different diocese, far away from his former servant and sexual object, safe and comfy in a Bishop’s palace.

How did conservative Catholics react to the news of Fr. Cabonce and Leah? What was the reaction of those who so furiously condemned Mideo and the CCP board? Did they send hate mail and death threats? Did they create Facebook groups and pages? Did they doubt Fr. Cabonce’s priesthood or question the authority of those who decided he could be one? Did they ask anyone to resign? Did they commit violence and call it justified? Did they call for a Senate investigation, Day of Penance, or even a public apology?

Mideo Cruz put phallic symbols on a symbol of Jesus and a symbol of his cross. None of the symbols refused. None of the symbols got hurt. Fr. Cabonce forced his actual penis into a living 17-year-old girl’s actual mouth. He eventually forced his actual penis into her actual vagina. In both instances, the girl refused. In both instances, the girl got hurt.

Which is more offensive? Which is more deserving of a Christian’s disgust and damnation?
image by frisno

I’m ambivalent about Sen. Santiago’s RH sponsorship speech. As an RH advocate, I’m happy. Her speech was effective in terms of increasing the chances of the RH Bill passing.

But as an advocate of secularism, I’m disappointed. She replaced arguing from one religious perspective — CBCP’s version of Catholicism — with arguing from another religious perspective — the progressive Catholicism adhered to by most Catholic advocates I know.

This wouldn’t be a problem if she held progressive Catholicism as one of her private motivations for being pro-RH. But to use it as a public argument in Senate is indefensible. This bears repeating: The Philippine Constitution states that secularism shall be inviolable. Although the Philippines may be predominantly Catholic, it should have a secular government — one that is religiously neutral.

Sen. Santiago’s speech is as religiously biased as it gets. How many times did she mention God and the Church in her speech? She didn’t even try to be pluralistic; she could have made God and Church applicable to other religions. But it was clear from the start that she was focused on no other religion but the Roman Catholic one.

Her main argument was that Catholics shouldn’t blindly obey the priests and Popes, their doctrines and dogmas; they should follow their conscience instead. Why? Because the 2nd Vatican council said so. But by following their conscience, Catholics will only be obeying a different group of priests and Popes and doctrines and dogmas.

And while Sen. Santiago argues with the CBCP about which group of religious leaders Catholics should follow, non-Catholic Filipinos remain unrepresented. Non-Catholics don’t care what a Catholic Pope or bishop says. Nor should a secular government.

Some might think it’s a good thing Sen. Santiago is fighting fire with fire, pitting her progressive theology against the CBCP’s conservative version. But by doing so, she has conceded the battleground. She has implicitly agreed that the RH bill is also about theology — the CBCP’s preferred arena. Instead of setting the stage for secular arguments, she left the door open for CBCP’s religious arguments. And in a supposedly secular Senate, even one is too many.

I believe the RH bill has come this far because of a shift toward a more secular outlook — decreasing trust in religious arguments and supernatural causes, increasing reliance on scientific evidence and real-world effects. Although it aims to weaken an ancient authority, Sen. Santiago’s speech strengthens an ancient paradigm: the Philippines is a Catholic country and you have to use Catholic arguments to change it.

Maybe Sen. Santiago thinks the only way to win the RH battle is to fight it theologically. A victory against the CBCP on its own turf might just be the push the RH bill needs to pass. Though such a victory is still uncertain, one thing’s for sure: using theology as a tactic is a clear defeat in the fight for secularism.

Every night, millions of poor Filipinos pray that when they wake up, they’d no longer be poor. Answering these prayers would take nothing short of a miracle. And a miracle, by definition, is highly improbable; just witnessing one is considered a blessing by many.

But a miracle might just be what Romulo Macalintal has performed. Together with Lito Atienza, Macalintal led a campaign to replace the vehicles returned by Catholic bishops in the wake of the recent PCSO scandal. In less than two weeks of fundraising, donations exceeded a million pesos.

But it’s not the amount of donations that I consider miraculous. Nor is it the fact that they were collected in less than half a month. The fact that Macalintal managed to convince so many that the bishops needed money — now that’s a miracle.

Because as friend and fellow RH advocate Elizabeth Angsioco pointed out, the bishops are filthy rich:

Based on Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) 7 July 2011 records, their holdings in these corporations are now worth a whopping P18,040,238,371.80.

There are a few more minor holdings that are not included here and many more corporations can be examined. Even without touching the RCC’s real estate properties (which are surely worth many billions), and its highly profitable businesses like schools and hospitals, it is quite clear that the RCC as a church, as well as its various entities are FILTHY RICH.

What 18 billion can buy

18 billion Pesos. That’s 18 thousand pesos multiplied by a million. Or 18 million pesos multiplied by a thousand. No matter how I put it, few Filipinos can fathom what it means to have such a huge amount. Maybe it will be easier to understand in terms of what the bishops can buy with all that money.

Consider the Araneta Coliseum. It can hold 15 to 16 thousand people. Picture every seat in every row occupied by a person, from ringside to general admission. With 18 billion pesos, the Catholic bishops can afford to give every person in a packed Araneta Coliseum their own SUV[1]. To be exact, the bishops can buy 15,272 SUVs[2].

If the bishops can afford this much, why did they have to ask PCSO for SUVs? Whatever the reason, it wouldn’t be the only time a bishop asked for something he could have paid for himself.

In Cagayan, the Archdiocese of Tuguegarao asked PCSO for money to pay for the operational expenses of a retirement home for priests. The PCSO gave them P200,000 plus an unknown amount for “finishing touches” on the renovation of the said retirement home. Forget about the fact that this is a clear violation of our Constitution and PCSO’s charter and consider this: Although P200,000 is no small amount, it’s nothing compared to the more than P100 million pesos the Bishop of Tuguegarao has invested in San Miguel and Ayala. With that P100+ million, the bishop could pay for the operation of 500 retirement homes, and he’d still have several million left.

Anyone can use a calculator and plug in the values, but I think there’s something wrong with Atienza’s arithmetic:

“We can do this quickly. If 8,000 Catholics donate P1,000, we could have the P8 million. If 16,000 give P500 or 32,000 donate P250, we could also reach that amount,” said Atienza

Atienza, who helped launch the Piso Para sa Obispo campaign in Cebu, can do the Math. But there’s something wrong when you divide the burden of raising P8 million among poorer people, especially when the beneficiary can afford to give P8 million each to 2,250 people (18B/8M).

The sin of obscene wealth

Surely if there’s anyone that should be doing the donating, it’s the Catholic bishops. Instead, they keep their billions invested where all it does is make the bishops even more rich. Angsioco discovered that from May to July of this year, the value of the bishops’ investments appreciated by P567 million. When Atienza said you can be sure that what you give to the church comes back to you (“Kapag nagbigay ka naman kasi sa simbahan, alam mong babalik din sa iyo”), he might have been referring to the stock market.

And while the billionaire bishops become even richer, millions remain poor and hungry. An organization that claims moral ascendancy should find something wrong with this picture, especially one that calls itself pro poor. Apparently it’s not only wrong — it’s a mortal sin:

The Vatican has revised the traditional Catholic “Seven Deadly Sins” with new ones, including “being obscenely wealthy.” Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, announced the new sins in an interview published on March 10, 2008, in LOsservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper… Bishop Girotti explained that the sin of obscene wealth consists of “the excessive accumulation of wealth by a few.”

Are the billionaire bishops guilty of “excessive accumulation of wealth by a few”? When a few people have enough money to give SUVs to 15,272 people, the answer is obvious. And the bishops owe society a lot. Obviously, I’m not suggesting that the bishops start giving away Pajeros. All I’m saying is that if you’re really pro-poor, you should be the ones giving to the poor, not the other way around. The question is, Have the bishops accumulated wealth so that they could be pro-poor? Or have they pretended to be pro-poor so that they could accumulate wealth?

The problem of evil

Anyway, let’s correct Atienza’s Mathematical mistake and see how much we can divide the bishops’ P18 billion among the people who really need it. According to a recent Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey, 15.1 percent of Filipinos (14.2 million) are hungry and 2 percent of Filipinos (around 1.88 million) are severely hungry, having nothing to eat often or always. The billionaire bishops can feed all hungry Filipinos for more than a month. If they chose to help only the 1.88 million who are severely hungry, the bishops can provide food for more than nine months [3].

The billionaire bishops are in a position to perform a real miracle in the Philippines. For more than a month, they can end hunger; for almost one year, they can put an end to severe hunger. The bishops are able. But as Epicurus asked in his early formulation of the problem of evil, “Are the bishops able but not willing?”

***

[1]
Assuming the average price of the 7 vehicles given to the bishops

[2]
P18B = value of stocks owned by CBCP and other Catholic organizations
Cost of 7 SUVs (Sacred Utility Vehicle) given to bishops = P8.25M
P18B / P8.25M x 7 = 15272.72727

[3]
Population of the Philippines = 94M
94M x .151 = 14.2M = hungry Filipinos
94M x .02 = 1.88M = severely hungry Filipinos
P974 = how much a Filipino needed in 2009 to meet his/her monthly food needs according to the National Statistical Coordination Board
P974 x 1.88M = P1.83B = amount needed to feed severely hungry Filipinos for a month
P18B / P1.83B/mth = 9.83 months = months the bishops can afford to feed severely hungry Filipinos
P974 x 14.2M  = P13.83B = amount needed to feed hungry Filipinos

(July 22, 2010) Manila – Filipino Freethinkers marched to Mendiola and Malacañang with other RH advocates from the Reproductive Health Advocacy Network (RHAN) and other pro-RH organizations.

One of their members dressed as ex-President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA), pulling behind her seven huge PCSO checks. Each check was carried by a member dressed in a bishop costume. The recipients and amounts listed in the checks are based on the details of the recent PCSO scandal, wherein 7 Catholic bishops were given PCSO donations approved by GMA.

“We want to warn PNoy not to commit the same mistakes of the past president,” said Kenneth Keng, RH advocacy director of Filipino Freethinkers. “GMA bought the bishops’ silence during the Hello Garci scandal by blocking the passage of the RH Bill during her term. The recently exposed PCSO donations to several bishops are only the tip of the iceberg. There may be more bribes that have yet to
be uncovered.”

Filipino Freethinkers also echoed the call for PNoy to clearly support RH during his upcoming State of the Nation Address (SONA). Keng said: “It is our hope that showing the President the broad based majority support that the most recent SWS surveys confirmed (70% of filipinos nationwide in favor of the RH Bill) and the dire consequences of delay in terms of innocent lives lost (100,000 maternal and infant deaths and 4,000,000 abortions since a vocal minority of religious opposition began opposing the bill 10 years ago) can enjoin him ahead of his upcoming State of the Nation address to take action in making the priority passage of the RH Bill this year a reality.

“We want to remind PNoy to fulfil his promise to provide RH for all,” said Keng. “He has unequivocally given his support to the RH Bill in public fora such as the recent UP commencement address. We’re here to celebrate this new promise while gently reminding him of the need to help push the Bill past all of the shameless, underhanded and undemocratic stalling tactics of groups led by the CBCP in both houses of Congress”

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If you’d like more information about this, or to schedule an interview with Kenneth Keng, please contact us or send an email to kenneth@filipinofreethinkers.org.

It used to be that crimes were done in the name of God. Hand it to the inglorious Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to hit rock bottom and commit malfeasance for bishops’ birthdays. Yes, that’s birthday-plus-s because the Mitsubishi Montero gift was not a lone event. On March 9, 2006, Arroyo made a much bigger offering to mark the birthday of Pampanga Archbishop Paciano “Apu Ceto” Aniceto—policies on women and the Filipino family that, in her words, “would be the best birthday gift” she could give. Unconcerned about displaying the power of Catholic bishops during Arroyo’s rule, the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) released the following account:

[Arroyo:] “It must be providential that the birthday of Apu Ceto (her important adviser) falls within International Women’s Week when I have to make policy statements on women’s concerns and issues relating to them.”
After the concelebrated mass held in the Bishop’s honor at the Mother of Good Counsel seminary in this city, the President would attend a meeting of all female members of her cabinet in which women’s issues would be discussed.
After this, the President said she would make a declaration that “a strong family makes a strong republic”, and follow up with measures designed to further strengthen the Filipino family.
“This I think would be the best birthday gift I could give to Apu Ceto”, the President said amidst loud applause from the audience composed mostly of the bishop’s religious congregation in the province.

Strange but true. Our highest public official openly gifted someone who is not a woman and does not claim to have a wife or kids with policies on women and families. Can this be just one of those quirkiness that makes our great nation so, well… quirky? To answer this, we have to go further into the Archbishop’s background and the context when this event occurred.

Arroyo’s Gifts

Luckily, the regime then was truly indifferent about revealing Catholic church influence over governance. The same PIA piece stated that the Archbishop was the President’s adviser on “issues concerning population, family, women welfare and health” and was consulted on March 2001, just two months into Arroyo’s term, prior to her making a statement on these issues; that the President “consults with him when making a choice for a new Secretary of Health”; and that at an Interfaith Summit and the UN General Assembly in 2005, the President “brought much of the Bishop’s inputs into the statements she made in front of these prestigious international bodies”.

Dr. Manuel Dayrit—a member of Couples for Christ—became the Archbishop-and-President’s Secretary of Health in 2001. In the next few years, Dr. Dayrit created the legal basis and structures for overly expanding natural family planning (NFP) and entwining it with Catholic doctrine. He set an ambitious “mainstreaming” target—unmet up to now—to raise NFP use to 20%; created a National Natural Family Planning Committee with a Couples for Christ doctor as Chairperson and with a representative of the CBCP Family Life specified as a member; and separated NFP from the national family planning program to let the government “work more closely with groups and partners that want to promote NFP exclusively”. He even tried to ban the IUD for being an “abortifacient” but was foiled by protests done by women’s and doctors’ groups.

And what was the Archbishop’s inputs to Arroyo’s statement at the UN? The full speech was 10 paragraphs long, but these two about funding NFP exclusively in the name of Catholicism, and belittling the value of artificial contraceptives are proclamations the Archbishop would surely be proud of:

… We expect the United Nations to be sensitive to the deep Catholicism of the vast majority of the Filipino people. The funding given by the United Nations to our national Government for reproductive health will be dedicated to training married couples in a natural family planning technology which the World Health Organization has found effective compared with artificial contraceptives.
The Population Council of New York has found that artificial contraception contributes only 2 per cent to the decline of birth rates, while the combination of improving the economic condition of the family, urbanization and breastfeeding contributes 98 per cent. Thus we ask the United Nations and donor countries to direct their assistance towards the improvement of family productivity and income.

Both are based on lies, or lapses in judgment if your prefer the colorful language of the powerful who when caught are always absolutely sorry about absolutely nothing prosecutable.

The World Health Organization (WHO) rates most artificial methods as more effective than fertility awareness methods. Moreover, limiting people to a method not of their own choosing—whether pills, NFP or whatever—will do nothing but cut sharply its effectiveness and violate fundamental human rights which the WHO promotes.

As for the Population Council, here’s what they said in an article entitled Family Planning Programs Remarkably Successful: “Decades of research show that comprehensive family planning and reproductive health services lead to sharp rises in contraceptive use that help women avoid unintended pregnancies. Over a 30-year period (1960–90), fertility declined in the developing world from more than six to fewer than four births per woman, and almost half of that decline—43 percent—is attributable to family planning programs.”

What’s the Catch?

The Population Council’s 43% became 2% at the UN speech, a remarkable manipulation of numbers to suit one’s needs. Audacious but nothing new. Just a few months earlier, Arroyo was heard in a wiretapped conversation with Comelec Commissioner Virgilio “Garci” Garcillano asking for a lead of one million votes while counting was still going on for the presidential election of 2004.

The Garci scandal and Arroyo’s no holds barred battle to cling to power set the stage for the Archbishop’s birthday gift in March 2006. The scandal erupted nine months earlier in June 2005. Despite widespread protests and calls for Arroyo to resign, the CBCP merely asked for an independent “Truth Commission”. The protests continued and on February 24, 2006, two weeks before the Archbishop’s birthday, Arroyo declared a State of Emergency to quell a supposed coup attempt against her.

The tottering Arroyo needed the bishops to survive. She bought them with various currencies, from religion-inspired policies to the glittering currency of legal gambling. To their historic ignominy, majority of Catholic bishops granted her wish.

Something died during those trying times of Arroyo’s decadent rule. Some may call it the moral authority of Church leaders. Or the principle that the end never justifies the means. Or maybe just plain honesty, fair play and decency. Whatever you call it, something is dead and rotting. And the stench is inevitably escaping.

Via the bureau of communications

There CBCP, I fixed your non-apology apology for you.

Cause you know, separation of church and state? Fuck that shit, it’s not important at all! Please CBCP, do feel free to run roughshod over the constitution and turn the Philippines into your own theocratic state.

Apology NOT accepted.

Make no mistake: The recent PCSO scandal violates the separation of churches and state. Yet some, including several senators, think that the PCSO and Catholic bishops weren’t doing anything wrong. By the end of this article, I hope you’ll agree: In every donation the bishops received from the PCSO, secularism was undoubtedly, unquestionably, and unmistakably violated.

First, let’s review the relevant rules regarding the PCSO donations:

1. To paraphrase the Constitution, public money should not be given to or used by any religious group or individual.
2. To paraphrase the PCSO charter, the funds allocated for charity should be used for health programs, medical services, and charities of a national character.

Consider the first rule. Does it make any qualifications? Does it say “public money should not be used for a religious group except when the money is used for secular purposes”? No. (Atty. Raul Pangalangan shares the same sentiment.)

Given this, we can now create two questions that test whether there were violations in the use of PCSO funds by the Catholic bishops:

1. Was public money given to or used by a religious group?
2. Were the PCSO funds used for a purpose other than health programs, medical services, or charities with a national character?

Tuguegarao Retirement Home for Priests

With these questions in mind, let’s begin with the Tuguegarao case. In Cagayan, the PCSO gave the Archdiocese of Tuguegarao P200,000 for the operational expenses of a retirement home for priests. The PCSO gave an unknown amount for “finishing touches” on the renovation of the said retirement home.

Let’s ask our two questions:

1. Was the public money given to a religious group? Yes.
2. Were the PCSO funds used for a something other than a health program, medical service, or charity of national character? Yes.

Is this a violation of secularism? Unless the priests actually retired to become doctors and the retirement home actually serves as a hospital, the answer is obvious. The fact that priests enjoy a retirement home funded by the public is an unmistakable violation of secularism, even if there were a small section in the retirement home that serves as a priestly private practice.

I’d be interested to hear a rebuttal of this case, especially by the senators who hastily accepted the bishops’ innocence and apologized for their involvement in this scandal. Will they be less apologetic when they learn that the Archdiocese of Tuguegarao didn’t even need the funds, because it had more than P100M invested in San Miguel and Ayala?

The Tuguegarao case should be enough to clear any doubt that there was a constitutional violation, and it’s unfortunate that this hasn’t come up during the investigation.

Sacred Utility Vehicles

Let’s move on to the next violation: the bishops purchasing Sacred Utility Vehicles (SUVs). (I redefined the acronym because, as some have furiously pointed out, not all of the vehicles are Sport Utility Vehicles.)

Some people seem to think that it’s OK for the bishops to receive SUVs as long as they are used for charity work. I’ve already explained that the Constitution does not care what the funds are used for; that a religious group received the funds is already a violation.

But even if we grant for the sake of argument that the funds (and SUVs) can be used for charitable purposes, at least one bishop implicitly admitted that it was used for more than that.

Consider what Bishop Pueblos said in reference to returning his Montero Sport:

“I don’t see any problem with that. I am riding a very old vehicle within the diocese itself. I could even ride a small vehicle if it is necessary. It will not really be a problem,” Pueblos said.

Think about it. If the Montero Sport were only being used for medical assistance or charity work, this is not what Pueblos would have said. He would have said something more like the following:

“I will return the vehicle, but it’s too bad. People in hard-to-reach barangays will not receive the medical assistance they so badly need. We don’t have any vehicle that can cross the tough terrain, so we’ll have to immediately start looking for one.”

But no. Pueblos said that he would use the “very old vehicle” and that he “could even ride a small vehicle.” (Because, you know, anything that’s not a Montero is small.)

The birthday bishop’s statement tells us that the Montero was primarily for his use, and non-sanctioned use of the Montero is a violation, regardless of whether he used it to go to the market or go to Mass. And does anyone seriously think that every trip Bishop Pueblos took on the Montero was a medical mission?

The statement also tells us that Pueblos didn’t need the Montero after all. If a very old vehicle or a smaller vehicle could have done the job, it means that he didn’t have to ask for the P1.7M birthday gift from GMA; even if he needed a car, it didn’t have to be a Montero.

In addition to the Tuguegarao case, this is also a clear violation. And I highly doubt that the other bishops used their SUVs only for charitable purposes. But let’s pretend for the sake of argument that the SUVs were used exclusively for medical missions. Would it still be a violation of secularism? Yes, and here’s why.

Sen. Miriam’s mistake?

As I’ve explained earlier, the Constitution categorically states that public money should not be given to religious groups, regardless of what the religious group does with it — there are no exceptions.

Senator Miriam Santiago argues that this is not the case, and she brings up a 1937 case to make her point:

The post office issued postage stamps commemorating an international Eucharistic congress of the Catholic Church. The issue was whether the stamps used public money for religious purposes, thus violating the Constitution. The Supreme Court ruled that there was no violation.

This is a bad analogy. The public money for issuing the stamps was used by the post office, a government organization — not a religious one. In comparison to the SUV scandal, the public money was given to and spent by a religious organization. The contrast couldn’t be more obvious.

Sen. Santiago goes on to explain a threefold test to check whether there was a constitutional violation. But as Atty. Raul Pangalangan explains, the threefold test does not even apply in this case:

Here we don’t even get to apply that test. What is at stake is not the broad language of the Establishment Clause (“No law shall be made respecting an establishment of religion ….”) but the specific and prohibitory language on the religious use of public funds (“No public money ….”). In interpreting laws, the specific and the prohibitory prevail over the general and the permissive. As the saying goes, “What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?”

And for someone who said that “the COA report is wrong … there was no constitutional violation,” Sen. Santiago comes to a surprising conclusion:

PCSO management apparently admitted that it has not given similar donations to any other religion. If so, then PCSO management appears to be giving preference to the Catholic religion, and that would be a violation of the Establishment Clause.

So what the investigation has shown so far is that there’s at the very least a violation of the Establishment Clause in the Constitution. How can Sen. Santiago say that “there was no constitutional violation” and then say that there “would be a violation of the Establishment Clause” in the very same page?

Reputation vs. Integrity

Sen. Santiago concludes by calling for the investigation of the “maleficent twisted genius” who invented “Pajero bishops.” I wouldn’t mind the Senate investigating this.

But senators, please get your priorities straight. There are more things that deserve further investigation. What about the violations of the Establishment Clause made apparent by PCSO’s admissions? What about the possible violations committed from 1986 – 2007, when, according to the CBCP, receiving donations from the PCSO became standard practice? What about the unsanctioned usage of the SUVs as Pueblos has implicitly admitted? And what about the blatant violations in the Tuguegarao retirement home for priests?

As I said in a recent interview, the investigation into the bishops’ involvement in this scandal appears to have been done in haste. The excessive respect shown by the senators toward the bishops borders on devotion, and this has undoubtedly affected their objectivity. I hope the more sensible Senators remind their more pious colleagues that the bishops’ reputations are less valuable than the Blue Ribbon Committee’s integrity.

(July 13, 2011) Philippines — Over 150 individuals launched the Bantay Bishop movement to support the Senate Blue Ribbon committee investigation on the 7 Pajero Bishops allegedly bribed by ex-President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The individuals come from different organizations, including Filipino Freethinkers, Likhaan, Democratic Socialist Women of the Philippines, Watchbiatches, Pink Rockers, and Interfaith Partnership for the Promotion of Responsible Parenthood. Individual supporters include Carlos Celdran and Dr. Sylvia Claudio.

“We’re here to remind everyone that even bishops can be criminals, too,” said Red Tani, spokesman of Bantay Bishop. “Criminals must be brought to justice, even if they’re leaders of religious organizations.”

The demonstration featured 7 activists, each wearing a costume that resembles a bishop riding an SUV. The costumes were dubbed “Mitsubishop Montero,” “Nissan SaPari,” and “StraDamaso,” alluding to the brands of the SUVs received by the bishops.

“The costumes represent the hypocrisy of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy,” said Tani. “They claim to be pro-poor. But by accepting PCSO funds, they rob the poor of resources reserved for them. They claim to be anti-corruption. But they accepted bribes from a corrupt president, refrained from asking her to resign, and kept quiet about this bribery until forced to confess by someone else. They claim to be pro-life. But by delaying the passage of the RH Bill, they indirectly cause thousands of deaths.”

In addition to highlighting the hypocrisy of the CBCP, Bantay Bishop asked the Senate Blue Ribbon committee to do three things:

“(1) The bishops must be treated like any other Filipino citizen — no more, no less. Recent statements from Sen. Enrile and Sen. Drilon imply that bishops will be treated more carefully than other individuals suspected of corruption. But it’s this special standing that allows corruption to continue because everyone assumes their innocence. It can be difficult to recognize wolves in shepherds’ clothing.

“(2) If found guilty, the bishops must be punished accordingly. In addition to the separation of church and state mandated by our Constitution, the bishops also violated RA No.3019 or the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act, which states that it is “unlawful for any person knowingly to induce or cause any public official to commit” corrupt practices, of which allocating PCSO funds for the bishops’ SUVs is included.

“(3) In addition to following through with this investigation to its conclusion, the Senate Blue Ribbon committee must launch an investigation into other illegal donations that, according to the bishops themselves, have become standard practice since Cory’s administration. The investigation only covers 2007-2009, a mere two years; there are two decades of “donations” yet to be uncovered. We believe that the 7 SUVs are just the tip of the iceberg.

Bantay Bishop will continue to observe the Senate Blue Ribbon investigation and publish commentary on its channels. “We need to guard the bishops because they have shown that they will not guard themselves,” said Tani. “But whatever the result of the investigation we already know this: the CBCP does not occupy the moral high ground.”

If you support the movement, join Bantay Bishop on Facebook. If you’d like more information about this, or to schedule an interview with Red Tani, please send an email to bantaybishop@gmail.com or visit our contact page.

“The CBCP as a body did not have any part in that… it also stands pat on its statement issued six years ago,” Quitorio said.

– Msgr. Pedro Quitorio

 

“We categorically deny that the CBCP as a body has ever solicited or knowingly received from illegal gamblers.”

– 2005 CBCP Statement on Gambling

“The CBCP as a body did not have any part in that.” When I first heard this excuse, I suspected it was an implicit admission of guilt. And I was right.

In anticipation of some bishops getting caught, the CBCP distanced the group from its guilty members in advance. They further distanced themselves by explaining that “while there is a conference of Filipino prelates, all bishops and their dioceses are independent of one another and are directly responsible to Pope Benedict XVI.”

This is quite interesting. Because abroad, Vatican lawyers protect the pope from implication in child abuse cases by asserting that bishops are not directly responsible to the Pope.

Aside from contradicting the Vatican, the CBCP also contradicts itself. The CBCP cannot say that its bishops are independent (not part of a group) and then say that it does not receive bribes “as a body.” Either the CBCP takes responsibility for its members “as a body,” or they avoid making statements “as a body” at all.

And consider what would happen if a Catholic bishop were to do something truly independent — say, support the RH Bill. Would they say that the dissenting bishop is free to be pro-RH independently? Of course not. The CBCP wouldn’t waste a second censuring the pro-RH bishop for ignoring his obligation to be consistent with the CBCP “as a body.”

Because as long as the CBCP exists, they will continue to act as an organization. After all, this is where their perceived power comes from. Flock follows priest, priest follows bishop, bishop follows archbishop, and so on — this ideal hierarchy perpetuates the illusion that the CBCP speaks for 80% of the population. It’s why despite their unpopular, unscientific, and irrational opinions, some people — politicians in particular — listen to them at all.

If the allegations are true, it’s why then-President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) bribed at least 7 bishops. When the election scandal broke, several bishops, including ex-CBCP President Oscar Cruz, asked GMA to step down. But after the CBCP declared its “collective decision … to not demand her resignation,” none of the bishops, not even Oscar, called for Gloria to step down. By buying at least 7 bishops, GMA bought the entire CBCP. This clearly shows that the CBCP acts as a body.

And if the CBCP knew about these bribes or illegal donations — as their statements and actions imply — why did they remain silent? They could have told the authorities, and the “standard practice” would have stopped. By keeping quiet, they allowed the illegal donations to continue. They may not have directly committed the crime, but the silent bishops are guilty of aiding and abetting. So although the CBCP did not officially declare it, condoning bribery practically made it an organizational policy. And for this, the CBCP as a body is definitely guilty.

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In a way, this excuse is meaningless. Of course the CBCP “as a body” cannot accept a bribe. Each bribed bishop received a PCSO check individually. And only individuals, not organizations, go to jail for a crime.

The inanity of this excuse becomes more obvious when you apply it to another scandal. Recently, a 17-year-old girl in Agusan del Norte accused a Catholic priest of rape. Do you think they’ll try to use “the CBCP as a body did not rape the girl” as an excuse?

We often hear the term secularism nowadays, but it’s possible that many people take its meaning for granted and fail to appreciated the profundity of the word. The social theorist Harriet Martineau wrote, “The adoption of the term Secularism is justified by its including a large number of persons who are not Atheists, and uniting them for action which has Secularism for its object, and not Atheism. On this ground, and because, by the adoption of a new term, a vast amount of impediment from prejudice is got rid of, the use of the name Secularism is found advantageous.”

An online dictionary has the following definitions of secularism:

1. a view that religion and religious considerations should be ignored or excluded from social and political matters.

2. an ethical system asserting that moral judgments should be made without reference to religious doctrine, as reward or punishment in an afterlife.

The first definition maintains the separation of religion from State and society; the second asserts the separation of religion from morality. But as secularism aims to remove religion from our interactions with fellow human beings, it also proposes to replace it with reason and the test of human experience. The English secularist George Jacob Holyoake defined secularism as “a form of opinion which concerns itself only with questions the issues of which can be tested by the experience of this life.”

On issues involving sex and relationships like the RH Bill, divorce, and same-sex marriage, secularism examines the discussions and points out that religious arguments, particularly those that are based on supposed divine revelation, are not accepted in public discourse. Secularism does not tell religion to shut up; it merely asks religion, when speaking outside the four walls of the church, to speak in a language everyone in a pluralistic society can understand. Dogmas are applicable only to the members of a particular sect since no single church holds a doctrine uncontested by other faiths. Thus, secularism asks religion to defend its moral and truth claims in public with rational explanations and testable evidence.

Secularism does not intend to wipe out religion; it merely asserts that “religion ought never to be anything but a private affair“ and not to influence public policy. Secularism envisions a society where toleration exists, meaning there is “conditional acceptance of or non-interference with beliefs, actions or practices that one considers to be wrong but still “tolerable” such that they should not be prohibited or constrained.” By toleration, secularism does not expect religion to abandon its sacred beliefs or embrace the diverging philosophies of other schools of thought; rather, it simply asks religion to acknowledge the diversity of beliefs and not necessarily to agree with the opposing beliefs themselves.

In the general concept of toleration,

“it is essential…that the tolerated beliefs or practices are considered to be objectionable and in an important sense wrong or bad. If this objection component is missing, we do not speak of “toleration” but of “indifference” or “affirmation.”“

This objection component is clearly manifested in a 1990 statement of the CBCP on the matter of family planning:

“The Church reiterates its objections to contraception and sterilization and expresses its reservations about the moral acceptability of certain aspects of the Program.  But in a pluralistic society and recognizing the freedom of those who disagree with Church principles, the Church respects the government’s toleration of other means that the conscience of others may not object to and that the law on abortion does not forbid.  Nonetheless, the Church seeks a greater emphasis on natural family planning as consistent with moral teachings and religious beliefs.”

While it is commendable that “the Church respects the government’s toleration,” technically the government is not being tolerant because in the first place it does not share the Church’s objection component, which is religious in nature, towards contraception. As such, what is expected of the government is not toleration but affirmation of modern family planning methods that are effective, safe, and legal. Moreover, secularism calls on the government to be indifferent towards the doctrines of religions especially since they are in conflict with one another. For example, in the following chart which lists the religious acceptability of certain acts ranging from 1 (condemned) to 5 (totally acceptable), only Roman Catholicism condemns birth control (7th line) while other religions accept it.

.

1 = “condemned” 2 = ”morally unacceptable in most cases” 3 = ”neutral” or “no clear position” 4 = ”morally acceptable in most cases” 5 = ”blessed” or “totally acceptable” [source]

With such conflicting religious teachings, it is just appropriate that the government is mandated by no less than the Constitution to give no reverence to any single religion. And while secularism rejects religious claims of divine revelation, it “offers the guidance of observation, investigation, and experience. Instead of taking authority for truth, it takes truth for authority.”

At this point it is necessary to reiterate that secularism is not the same as atheism. While atheism rejects the idea of God and denies his existence, secularism merely points out that “no sacred scripture or ancient church can be made a basis of belief, for the obvious reason that their claims always need to be proved, and cannot without absurdity be assumed.” Moreover, Secularism goes beyond the rejection of unproven religious claims. In English Secularism, Holyoake wrote,

“The Secularist, is without presumption of an infallible creed, is without the timorous indefiniteness of a creedless believer… The Secularist has a creed as definite as science, and as flexible as progress, increasing as the horizon of truth is enlarged… All believe that God, if he exists, is the God of the honest, and that he respects conscience more than creeds, for all free thinkers have died in this faith.“

We at Filipino Freethinkers aim to promote secularism as a means of improving every Filipino’s quality of life, wishing for everyone to live lives free of ignorance and oppression – in a society where they are able to act and think for themselves, and in a country where religion and governance are clearly and permanently separated. And as we are composed of nonbelievers and progressive believers, we have no consensus on the question of the existence of God. What we do agree about, however, is that all religious authority is self-appointed because God, if he exists, never personally endorsed any religion. Thus, being freethinkers – and secularists – we rely on reason and science to chart morality and uplift humanity.