A reading from the book of Leviticus
So says Garcia
As taken from the May 24 transcript of the interpellation of Deputy House Speaker and Cebu Representative Pablo Garcia during the plenary debates on the Reproductive Health bill.
Every one of us is a servant of God. Whatever we do is in the service of God. Every minute, every minute of our life. God is everywhere. God is not situationary.
Read more…
Defenders of the faith
Today it is the opinion writers being blamed by the Aquino administration.
On Thursday, the gentlemen of the Presidential Communications Group put the slow collapse of the yellow juggernaut squarely on the shoulders of the nation’s opinion writers.
“We don’t have any problem with the Malacañang Press Corps,” says spokesman Edwin Lacierda. “There’s no problem with the news itself but perhaps with the columnists who are always criticizing him.”
Read more…
Codename Hero
Geronimo
The story is told that he could walk without leaving a single footprint.
The military men called him a renegade. His people called him a hero. After Mexican troops massacred his family, he eluded capture for decades, resisting colonization, demanding his people’s freedom, disappearing into his beloved Sierra Madres even as 5,000 American soldiers thundered in pursuit. His small band of warriors stood as the last line of Apache resistance against white America. His name was legend long before he surrendered in 1886. They called him Geronimo.
Read more…
Castro the crusader
Fr. Melvin Castro, executive secretary of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines Episcopal Commission on Family and Life, is very pleased with his successful crusade against the evil threat Ronald McDonald. In a statement to the media, Castro says he is glad McDonald’s has seen the error of its ways. And then he rubs it in.
“I do hope it doesn’t reach this point again. It would have been better if they had been sensitive to our culture, and respectful of our faith.”
Read more…
The executioners
In 2005, 36,510 Filipinos died from pneumonia. 20,951 died from tuberculosis. In Quezon City alone, there were 3,349 attempted homicides, 69 murders, 55 rapes, and 629 robberies. In the entire country, there were a total of 2,962 recorded rapes, 11,833 major thefts, 44 recorded kidnappings, and 4,352 recorded drug offenses. The impunity index ranks the country third in journalist deaths, with 142 killed since 1986. The number of dead climbs every year, and very little has been done to prevent it. Flood, fever, kidnapping, poverty, pregnancy, robbery—in the Philippines, the danger may be clear and present, but it has little effect on a nation that has accepted survival is accidental.
Read more…
Aftershock
The death toll is at 7,197; the missing has risen past 10,000. Almost half-a-million Japanese are homeless, millions without power and water. The earth’s axis has shifted by 6.5 inches. The day is less 1.6 microseconds. The country’s nuclear and industrial safety agency raised nuclear severity from Level 4 to 5, increasing the likelihood of deaths from radiation and a release of radioactive material. A nuclear facility’s managing director has publicly broken down in tears. The Japanese government attempts to reassure a devastated citizenry forced to watch their homes swallowed by tsunamis, their elderly die in gymnasiums.
Read more…
Twenty Five
I was born 25 years ago, five months before Fidel Ramos’ much-repeated victory leap, three months before Ninoy Aquino’s wife became Cory Aquino, a full month before Ferdinand Marcos announced he would hold presidential snap elections. I am, by all intents and purposes, what the national media have been calling an Edsa baby, one of the millions born at the cusp of God’s revolution, the target audience of congressional privilege speeches and television documentaries preaching patriotism and nationhood.
Read more…