by Mary Eberstadt
I
That Humanae Vitae and related Catholic teachings about sexual morality are laughingstocks in all the best places is not exactly news. Even in the benighted precincts of believers, where information from the outside world is known to travel exceedingly slowly, everybody grasps that this is one doctrine the world loves to hate. During Benedict XVI's April visit to the United States, hardly a story in the secular press failed to mention the teachings of Humanae Vitae, usually alongside adjectives like "divisive" and "controversial" and "outdated." In fact, if there's anything on earth that unites the Church's adversaries — all of them except for the Muslims, anyway — the teaching against contraception is probably it.
To many people, both today and when the encyclical was promulgated on July 25, 1968, the notion simply defies understanding. Consenting adults, told not to use birth control? Preposterous. Third World parents deprived access to contraception and abortion? Positively criminal. A ban on condoms when there's a risk of contracting AIDS? Beneath contempt.
"The execration of the world," in philosopher G.E.M. Anscombe's phrase, was what Paul VI incurred with that document — to which the years since 1968 have added plenty of just plain ridicule. Hasn't everyone heard Monty Python's send-up song "Every Sperm Is Sacred"? Or heard the jokes? "You no play-a the game, you no make-a the rules." And "What do you call the rhythm method? Vatican roulette." And "What do you call a woman who uses the rhythm method? Mommy."
As everyone also knows, it's not only the Church's self-declared adversaries who go in for this sort of sport. So, too, do many American and European Catholics — specifically, the ones often called dissenting or cafeteria Catholics, and who more accurately might be dubbed the "Catholic Otherwise Faithful." I may be Catholic, but I'm not a maniac about it, runs their unofficial subtext — meaning: I'm happy to take credit for enlightened Catholic positions on the death penalty/social justice/civil rights, but of course I don't believe in those archaic teachings about divorce/homosexuality/and above all birth control.
Thus FOX News host Sean Hannity, for example, describes himself to viewers as a "good" and "devout" Catholic — one who happens to believe, as he has also said on the air, that "contraception is good." He was challenged on his show in 2007 by Father Tom Euteneuer of Human Life International, who observed that such a position emanating from a public figure technically fulfilled the requirements for something called heresy. And Hannity reacted as many others have when stopped in the cafeteria line. He objected that the issue of contraception was "superfluous" compared to others; he asked what right the priest had to tell him what to do ("judge not lest you be judged," Hannity instructed); and he expressed shock at the thought that anyone might deprive him of taking Communion just because he was deciding for himself what it means to be Catholic.
And so we have a microcosm of the current fate of Humanae Vitae and all it represents in the American Church — and, for that matter, in what is left of the advanced Western one, too. With each passing year, it seems safe to assume, fewer priests can be found to explain the teaching, fewer parishioners to obey it, and fewer educated people to avoid rolling their eyes at the idea that anyone in 2008 could possibly be so antiquarian as to hold any opinion about contraceptive sex — any, that is, other than its full-throttle celebration as the chief liberation of our time.
And in just that apparent consensus about the ridiculousness of it all, amid all those ashes scattered over a Christian teaching stretching back two millennia, arises a fascinating and in fact exceedingly amusing modern morality tale — amusing, at least, to those who take their humor dark.
"He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh," the Psalmist promises, specifically in a passage about enjoying vindication over one's adversaries. If that is so, then the racket on this fortieth anniversary must be prodigious. Four decades later, not only have the document's signature predictions been ratified in empirical force, but they have been ratified as few predictions ever are: in ways its authors could not possibly have foreseen, including by information that did not exist when the document was written, by scholars and others with no interest whatever in its teaching, and indeed even inadvertently, and in more ways than one, by many proud public adversaries of the Church.
Forty years later, there are more than enough ironies, both secular and religious, to make one swear there's a humorist in heaven.
II
Let's begin by meditating upon what might be called the first of the secular ironies now evident: Humanae Vitae's specific predictions about what the world would look like if artificial contraception became widespread. The encyclical warned of four resulting trends: a general lowering of moral standards throughout society; a rise in infidelity; a lessening of respect for women by men; and the coercive use of reproductive technologies by governments.
In the years since Humanae Vitae's appearance, numerous distinguished Catholic thinkers have argued, using a variety of evidence, that each of these predictions has been borne out by the social facts. One thinks, for example, of Monsignor George A. Kelly in his 1978 "Bitter Pill the Catholic Community Swallowed" and of the many contributions of Janet E. Smith, including Humanae Vitae: A Generation Later and the edited volume Why Humanae Vitae Was Right: A Reader.
And therein lies an irony within an irony. Although it is largely Catholic thinkers who have connected the latest empirical evidence to the defense of Humanae Vitae's predictions, during those same forty years most of the experts actually producing the empirical evidence have been social scientists operating in the secular realm. As sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox emphasized in a 2005 essay: "The leading scholars who have tackled these topics are not Christians, and most of them are not political or social conservatives. They are, rather, honest social scientists willing to follow the data wherever it may lead."
Consider, as Wilcox does, the Nobel Prize-winning economist George Akerlof. In a well-known 1996 article in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Akerlof explained in the language of modern economics why the sexual revolution — contrary to common prediction, especially prediction by those in and out of the Church who wanted the teaching on birth control changed — had led to an increase in both illegitimacy and abortion. In another work published in the Economic Journal ten years ago, he traced the empirical connections between the decrease in marriage and married fatherhood for men — both clear consequences of the contraceptive revolution — and the simultaneous increase in behaviors to which single men appear more prone: substance abuse, incarceration, and arrests, to name just three.
Along the way, Akerlof found a strong connection between the diminishment of marriage on the one hand and the rise in poverty and social pathology on the other. He explained his findings in nontechnical terms in Slate magazine: "Although doubt will always remain about what causes a change in social custom, the technology-shock theory does fit the facts. The new reproductive technology was adopted quickly, and on a massive scale. Marital and fertility patterns changed with similar drama, at about the same time."
To these examples of secular social science confirming what Catholic thinkers had predicted, one might add many more demonstrating the negative effects on children and society. The groundbreaking work that Daniel Patrick Moynihan did in 1965, on the black family, is an example — along with the critical research of psychologist Judith Wallerstein over several decades on the impact of divorce on children; Barbara Dafoe Whitehead's well-known work on the outcomes of single parenthood for children; Sara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur's seminal book, Growing Up with a Single Parent; and David Blankenhorn's Fatherless America, another lengthy summarization of the bad empirical news about family breakup.
Numerous other books followed this path of analyzing the benefits of marriage, including James Q. Wilson's The Marriage Problem, Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher's The Case for Marriage, Kay Hymowitz's Marriage and Caste in America, and Elizabeth Marquardt's recent Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce. To this list could be added many more examples of how the data have grown and grown to support the proposition that the sexual revolution has been resulting in disaster for large swaths of the country — a proposition further honed by whole decades of examination of the relation between public welfare and family dysfunction (particularly in the pages of the decidedly not-Catholic Public Interest magazine). Still other seminal works have observed that private actions, notably post-revolution sexual habits, were having massive public consequences; Charles Murray's Losing Ground and Francis Fukuyama's The Great Disruption come especially to mind.
All this is to say that, beginning just before the appearance of Humanae Vitae, an academic and intellectual rethinking began that can no longer be ignored — one whose accumulation of empirical evidence points to the deleterious effects of the sexual revolution on many adults and children. And even in the occasional effort to draw a happy face on current trends, there is no glossing over what are still historically high rates of family breakup and unwed motherhood. For example, in "Crime, Drugs, Welfare — and Other Good News," a recent and somewhat contrarian article in Commentary, Peter Wehner and Yuval Levin applauded the fact that various measures of social disaster and dysfunction seem to be improving from previous lows, including, among others, violent crime and property crime, and teen alcohol and tobacco use. Even they had to note that "some of the most vital social indicators of all — those regarding the condition and strength of the American family — have so far refused to turn upward."
In sum, although a few apologists such as Stephanie Coontz still insist otherwise, just about everyone else in possession of the evidence acknowledges that the sexual revolution has weakened family ties, and that family ties (the presence of a biologically related mother and father in the home) have turned out to be important indicators of child well-being — and more, that the broken home is not just a problem for individuals but also for society. Some scholars, moreover, further link these problems to the contraceptive revolution itself.
Consider the work of maverick sociobiologist Lionel Tiger. Hardly a cat's-paw of the pope — he describes religion as "a toxic issue" — Tiger has repeatedly emphasized the centrality of the sexual revolution to today's unique problems. The Decline of Males, his 1999 book, was particularly controversial among feminists for its argument that female contraceptives had altered the balance between the sexes in disturbing new ways (especially by taking from men any say in whether they could have children).
Equally eyebrow-raising is his linking of contraception to the breakdown of families, female impoverishment, trouble in the relationship between the sexes, and single motherhood. Tiger has further argued — as Humanae Vitae did not explicitly, though other works of Catholic theology have — for a causal link between contraception and abortion, stating outright that "with effective contraception controlled by women, there are still more abortions than ever. . . . Contraception causes abortion."
Who could deny that the predictions of Humanae Vitae and, by extension, of Catholic moral theology have been ratified with data and arguments that did not even exist in 1968? But now comes the question that just keeps on giving. Has this dramatic reappraisal of the empirically known universe led to any secular reappraisals, however grudging, that Paul VI may have gotten something right after all? The answer is manifestly that it has not. And this is only the beginning of the dissonance that surrounds us in 2008.
III
Just as empirical evidence has proved that the sexual revolution has had disastrous effects on children and families, so the past forty years have destroyed the mantle called "science" that Humanae Vitae's detractors once wrapped round themselves. In particular, the doomsday population science so popular and influential during the era in which Humanae Vitae appeared has been repeatedly demolished.
Born from Thomas Robert Malthus' famous late-eighteenth-century Essay on Population, this was the novel view that humanity itself amounted to a kind of scourge or pollution whose pressure on fellow members would lead to catastrophe. Though rooted in other times and places, Malthusianism of one particular variety was fully in bloom in America by the early 1960s. In fact, Humanae Vitae appeared two months before the most successful popularization of Malthusian thinking yet, Paul R. Ehrlich's The Population Bomb — which opened with the words: "The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now."
If, as George Weigel has suggested, 1968 was absolutely the worst moment for Humanae Vitae to appear, it could not have been a better one for Ehrlich to advance his apocalyptic thesis. An entomologist who specialized in butterflies, Ehrlich found an American public, including a generation of Catholics, extraordinarily receptive to his direst thoughts about humanity.
This was the wave that The Population Bomb caught on its way to becoming one of the bestsellers of recent times. Of course, many people with no metaphysics whatsoever were drawn to Ehrlich's doom-mongering. But for restless Catholics, in particular, the overpopulation scare was attractive — for if overpopulation were the problem, the solution was obvious: Tell the Church to lift the ban on birth control.
It is less than coincidental that the high-mindedness of saving the planet dovetailed perfectly with a more self-interested outcome, the freer pursuit of sexuality via the Pill. Dissenting Catholics had special reasons to stress the "science of overpopulation," and so they did. In the name of a higher morality, their argument went, birth control could be defended as the lesser of two evils (a position argued by the dissenter Charles Curran, among others).
Less than half a century later, these preoccupations with overwhelming birth rates appear as pseudo-scientific as phrenology. Actually, that may be unfair to phrenology. For the overpopulation literature has not only been abandoned by thinkers for more improved science; it has actually been so thoroughly proved false that today's cutting-edge theory worries about precisely the opposite: a "dearth birth" that is "graying" the advanced world.
In fact, so discredited has the overpopulation science become that this year Columbia University historian Matthew Connelly could publish Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population and garner a starred review in Publishers Weekly — all in service of what is probably the single best demolition of the population arguments that some hoped would undermine church teaching. This is all the more satisfying a ratification because Connelly is so conscientious in establishing his own personal antagonism toward the Catholic Church (at one point asserting without even a footnote that natural family planning "still fails most couples who try it").
Fatal Misconception is decisive proof that the spectacle of overpopulation, which was used to browbeat the Vatican in the name of science, was a grotesque error all along. First, Connelly argues, the population-control movement was wrong as a matter of fact: "The two strongest claims population controllers make for their long-term historical contribution" are "that they raised Asia out of poverty and helped keep our planet habitable." Both of these, he demonstrates, are false.
Even more devastating is Connelly's demolition of the claim to moral high ground that the overpopulation alarmists made. For population science was not only failing to help people, Connelly argues, but also actively harming some of them — and in a way that summoned some of the baser episodes of recent historical memory:
The great tragedy of population control, the fatal misconception, was to think that one could know other people's interests better than they knew it themselves. . . . The essence of population control, whether it targeted migrants, the "unfit," or families that seemed either too big or too small, was to make rules for other people without having to answer to them. It appealed to people with power because, with the spread of emancipatory movements, it began to appear easier and more profitable to control populations than to control territory. That is why opponents were essentially correct in viewing it as another chapter in the unfinished business of imperialism.
The forty years since Humanae Vitae appeared have also vindicated the encyclical's fear that governments would use the new contraceptive technology coercively. The outstanding example, of course, is the Chinese government's long-running "one-child policy," replete with forced abortions, public trackings of menstrual cycles, family flight, increased female infanticide, sterilization, and other assaults too numerous even to begin cataloguing here — in fact, so numerous that they are now widely, if often grudgingly, acknowledged as wrongs even by international human-rights bureaucracies. Lesser-known examples include the Indian government's foray into coercive use of contraception in the "emergency" of 1976 and 1977, and the Indonesian government's practice in the 1970s and 1980s of the bullying implantation of IUDs and Norplant.
Should governments come to "regard this as necessary," Humanae Vitae warned, "they may even impose their use on everyone." As with the unintended affirmation by social science, will anyone within the ranks of the population revisionists now give credit where credit is due?
IV
Perhaps the most mocked of Humanae Vitae's predictions was its claim that separating sex from procreation would deform relations between the sexes and "open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards." Today, when advertisements for sex scream from every billboard and webpage, and every teen idol is sooner or later revealed topless or worse online, some might wonder what further proof could possibly be offered.
But to leave matters there would be to miss something important. The critical point is, one might say, not so much the proof as the pudding it's in. And it would be hard to get more ironic than having these particular predictions of Humanae Vitae vindicated by perhaps the most unlikely — to say nothing of unwilling — witness of all: modern feminism.
Yet that is exactly what has happened since 1968. From Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem to Andrea Dworkin and Germaine Greer on up through Susan Faludi and Naomi Wolf, feminist literature has been a remarkably consistent and uninterrupted cacophony of grievance, recrimination, and sexual discontent. In that forty-year record, we find, as nowhere else, personal testimony of what the sexual revolution has done to womankind.
Consider just what we have been told by the endless books on the topic over the years. If feminists married and had children, they lamented it. If they failed to marry or have children, they lamented that, too. If they worked outside the home and also tended their children, they complained about how hard that was. If they worked outside the home and didn't tend their children, they excoriated anyone who thought they should. And running through all this literature is a more or less constant invective about the unreliability and disrespect of men.
The signature metaphors of feminism say everything we need to know about how happy liberation has been making these women: the suburban home as concentration camp, men as rapists, children as intolerable burdens, fetuses as parasites, and so on. These are the sounds of liberation? Even the vaunted right to abortion, both claimed and exercised at extraordinary rates, did not seem to mitigate the misery of millions of these women after the sexual revolution.
Coming full circle, feminist and Vanity Fair contributor Leslie Bennetts recently published a book urging women to protect themselves financially and otherwise from dependence on men, including from men deserting them later in life. Mothers cannot afford to stay home with their children, she argues, because they cannot trust their men not to leave them. (One of her subjects calls desertion and divorce "the slaughter of the lambs.") Like-minded feminist Linda Hirschman penned a ferocious and widely read manifesto in 2005 urging, among other bitter "solutions," that women protect themselves by adopting — in effect — a voluntary one-child policy. (She argued that a second child often necessitates a move to the suburbs, which puts the office and work-friendly conveniences further away).
Beneath all the pathos, the subtext remains the same: Woman's chief adversary is Unreliable Man, who does not understand her sexual and romantic needs and who walks off time and again at the first sashay of a younger thing. What are all these but the generic cries of a woman who thinks that men are "disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium" and "no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection"?
Perhaps the most compelling case made for traditional marriage lately was not on the cover of, say, Catholic World Report but in the devoutly secular Atlantic. The 2008 article "Marry Him!" by Lori Gottlieb — a single mother who conceived her only child with donor sperm rather than miss out on motherhood as she has on marriage — is a frank and excruciatingly personal look into some of the sexual revolution's lonelier venues, including the creation of children by anonymous or absent sperm donors, the utter corrosiveness of taking a consumerist approach to romance, and the miserable effects of advancing age on one's sexual marketability.
Gottlieb writes as one who played by all the feminist rules, only to realize too late that she'd been had. Beneath the zippy language, the article runs on an engine of mourning. Admitting how much she covets the husbands of her friends, if only for the wistful relief of having someone else help with the childcare, Gottlieb advises: "Those of us who choose not to settle in hopes of finding a soul mate later are almost like teenagers who believe they're invulnerable to dying in a drunk-driving accident. We lose sight of our mortality. We forget that we, too, will age and become less alluring. And even if some men do find us engaging, and they're ready to have a family, they'll likely decide to marry someone younger with whom they can have their own biological children. Which is all the more reason to settle before settling is no longer an option."
To these and other examples of how feminist-minded writers have become inadvertent witnesses for the prosecution of the sexual revolution, we might add recent public reflection on the Pill's bastard child, ubiquitous pornography.
"The onslaught of porn," one social observer wrote, "is responsible for deadening male libido in relation to real women, and leading men to see fewer and fewer women as 'porn-worthy.'" Further, "sexual appetite has become like the relationship between agribusiness, processed foods, supersize portions, and obesity. . . . If your appetite is stimulated and fed by poor-quality material, it takes more junk to fill you up. People are not closer because of porn but further apart; people are not more turned on in their daily lives but less so." And perhaps most shocking of all, this — which with just a little tweaking could easily have appeared in Humanae Vitae itself: "The power and charge of sex are maintained when there is some sacredness to it, when it is not on tap all the time."
This was not some religious antiquarian. It was Naomi Wolf — Third Wave feminist and author of such works as The Beauty Myth and Promiscuities, which are apparently dedicated to proving that women can tomcat, too. Yet she is now just one of many out there giving testimony, unconscious though it may be, to some of the funny things that happened after the Pill freed everybody from sexual slavery once and for all.
That there is no auxiliary literature of grievance for men — who, for the most part, just don't seem to feel they have as much to grieve about in this new world order — is something else that Humanae Vitae and a few other retrograde types saw coming in the wake of the revolution. As the saying goes, and as many people did not stop to ask at the time, cui bono? Forty years later, the evidence is in. As Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver observed on Humanae Vitae's thirtieth anniversary in 1998, "Contraception has released males — to a historically unprecedented degree — from responsibility for their sexual aggression." Will any feminist who by 2008 disagrees with that statement please stand up?
V
The adversaries of Humanae Vitae also could not have foreseen one important historical development that in retrospect would appear to undermine their demands that the Catholic Church change with the times: the widespread Protestant collapse, particularly the continuing implosion of the Episcopal Church and the other branches of Anglicanism. It is about as clear as any historical chain can get that this implosion is a direct consequence of the famous Lambeth Conference in 1930, at which the Anglicans abandoned the longstanding Christian position on contraception. If a church cannot tell its flock "what to do with my body," as the saying goes, with regard to contraception, then other uses of that body will quickly prove to be similarly off-limits to ecclesiastical authority.
It makes perfect if unfortunate sense, then, that the Anglicans are today imploding over the issue of homosexuality. To quote Anscombe again:
If contraceptive intercourse is permissible, then what objection could there be after all to mutual masturbation, or copulation in vase indebito, sodomy, buggery (I should perhaps remark that I am using a legal term here — not indulging in bad language), when normal copulation is impossible or inadvisable (or in any case, according to taste)? It can't be the mere pattern of bodily behavior in which the stimulation is procured that makes all the difference! But if such things are all right, it becomes perfectly impossible to see anything wrong with homosexual intercourse, for example. I am not saying: if you think contraception all right you will do these other things; not at all. The habit of respectability persists and old prejudices die hard. But I am saying: you will have no solid reason against these things. You will have no answer to someone who proclaims as many do that they are good too. You cannot point to the known fact that Christianity drew people out of the pagan world, always saying no to these things. Because, if you are defending contraception, you will have rejected Christian tradition.
By giving benediction in 1930 to its married heterosexual members purposely seeking sterile sex, the Anglican Church lost, bit by bit, any authority to tell her other members — married or unmarried, homosexual or heterosexual — not to do the same. To put the point another way, once heterosexuals start claiming the right to act as homosexuals, it would not be long before homosexuals start claiming the rights of heterosexuals.
Thus in a bizarre but real sense did Lambeth's attempt to show compassion to married heterosexuals inadvertently give rise to the modern gay-rights movement — and consequently, to the issues that have divided their church ever since. It is hard to believe that anyone seeking a similar change in Catholic teaching on the subject would want the Catholic Church to follow suit into the moral and theological confusion at the center of today's Anglican Church — yet such is the purposeful ignorance of so many who oppose Rome on birth control that they refuse to connect these cautionary historical dots.
The years since Humanae Vitae have seen something else that neither traditionalist nor dissenting Catholics could have seen coming, one other development shedding retrospective credit on the Church: a serious reappraisal of Christian sexuality from Protestants outside the liberal orbit.
Thus, for instance, Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, observed in First Things in 1998 that "in an ironic turn, American evangelicals are rethinking birth control even as a majority of the nation's Roman Catholics indicate a rejection of their Church's teaching." Later, when interviewed in a 2006 article in the New York Times Sunday magazine about current religious thinking on artificial contraception, Mohler elaborated: "I cannot imagine any development in human history, after the Fall, that has had a greater impact on human beings than the Pill. . . . The entire horizon of the sexual act changes. I think there can be no question that the Pill gave incredible license to everything from adultery and affairs to premarital sex and within marriage to a separation of the sex act and procreation."
Mohler also observed that this legacy of damage was affecting the younger generation of evangelicals. "I detect a huge shift. Students on our campus are intensely concerned. Not a week goes by that I do not get contacted by pastors about the issue. There are active debates going on. It's one of the things that may serve to divide evangelicalism." Part of that division includes Quiverfull, the anti-contraception Protestant movement now thought to number in the tens of thousands that further prohibits (as the Catholic Church does not) natural family planning or any other conscious interference with conception. Such second thoughts among evangelicals are the premise of a 2002 book titled Open Embrace: A Protestant Couple Re-Thinks Contraception.
As a corollary to this rethinking by Protestants, experience seems to have taught a similar lesson to at least some young Catholics — the generation to grow up under divorce, widespread contraception, fatherless households, and all the other emancipatory fallout. As Naomi Schaefer Riley noted in the Wall Street Journal about events this year at Notre Dame: "About thirty students walked out of The Vagina Monologues in protest after the first scene. And people familiar with the university are not surprised that it was the kids, not the grownups, who registered the strongest objections. The students are probably the most religious part of the Notre Dame . . . Younger Catholics tend to be among the more conservative ones." It is hard to imagine that something like the traditionalist Anscombe Society at Princeton University, started in 2004, could have been founded in 1968.
One thing making traditionalists of these young Americans, at least according to some of them, is the fact of their having grown up in a world characterized by abortion on demand. And that brings us to yet another irony worth contemplating on this fortieth anniversary: what widespread rejection of Humanae Vitae has done to the character of American Catholicism.
As with the other ironies, it helps here to have a soft spot for absurdity. In their simultaneous desire to jettison the distasteful parts of Catholicism and keep the more palatable ones, American Catholics have done something novel and truly amusing: They have created a specific catalogue of complaints that resembles nothing so much as a Catholic version of the orphan with chutzpah.
Thus many Catholics complain about the dearth of priests, all the while ignoring their own responsibility for that outcome — the fact that few have children in numbers large enough to send one son to the priesthood while the others marry and carry on the family name. They mourn the closing of Catholic churches and schools — never mind that whole parishes, claiming the rights of individual conscience, have contracepted themselves out of existence. They point to the priest sex scandals as proof positive that chastity is too much to ask of people — completely ignoring that it was the randy absence of chastity that created the scandals in the first place.
In fact, the disgrace of contemporary American Catholicism — the many recent scandals involving priests and underage boys — is traceable to the collusion between a large Catholic laity that wanted a different birth-control doctrine, on the one hand, and a new generation of priests cutting themselves a different kind of slack, on the other. "I won't tattle on my gay priest if you'll give me absolution for contraception" seems to have been the unspoken deal in many parishes since Humanae Vitae.
A more obedient laity might have wondered aloud about the fact that a significant number of priests post-Vatican II seemed more or less openly gay. A more obedient clergy might have noticed that plenty of Catholics using artificial contraception were also taking Communion. It is hard to believe that either new development — the widespread open rebellion against church sexual teachings by the laity, or the concomitant quiet rebellion against church sexual teachings by a significant number of priests — could have existed without the other.
During Benedict's recent visit to the United States, one heard a thousand times the insistence that Humanae Vitae somehow sparked a rebellion or was something new under the sun. As Peter Steinfels once put the over-familiar party line, "The pope's 1968 encyclical and the furor it created continue to polarize the American church." On this account, everything was somehow fine until Paul VI refused to bend with the times — at which point all hell broke loose.
Of course, all that Paul VI did, as Anscombe among many other unapologetic Catholics then and since have pointed out, was reiterate what just about everyone in the history of Christendom had ever said on the subject. In asking Catholics to be more like contraceptive-accepting Protestants, critics have been forgetting what Christian theologians across centuries had to say about contraception until practically the day before yesterday.
It was, in a word, No. Exactly one hundred years ago, for example, the Lambeth Conference of 1908 affirmed its opposition to artificial contraception in words harsher than anything appearing in Humanae Vitae: "demoralizing to character and hostile to national welfare." In another historical twist that must have someone laughing somewhere, pronouncements of the founding fathers of Protestantism make the Catholic traditionalists of 1968 look positively diffident. Martin Luther in a commentary on Genesis declared contraception to be worse than incest or adultery. John Calvin called it an "unforgivable crime." This unanimity was not abandoned until the year 1930, when the Anglicans voted to allow married couples to use birth control in extreme cases, and one denomination after another over the years came to follow suit.
Seen in the light of actual Christian tradition, the question is not after all why the Catholic Church refused to collapse on the point. It is rather why just about everyone else in the Judeo-Christian tradition did. Whatever the answer, the Catholic Church took, and continues to take, the public fall for causing a collapse — when actually it was the only one not collapsing.
VI
From time to time since 1968, some of the Catholics who accepted "the only doctrine that had ever appeared as the teaching of the Church on these things," in Anscombe's words, have puzzled over why, exactly, Humanae Vitae has been so poorly received by the rest of the world. Surely part of it is timing, as George Weigel observed. Others have cited an implacably secular media and the absence of a national pulpit for Catholics as contributing factors. Still others have floated the idea that John Paul II's theology of the body, an elaborate and highly positive explication of Christian moral teaching, might have taken some of the sting out of Humanae Vitae and better won the obedience of the flock.
At the end of the day, though, it is hard to believe that the fundamental force behind the execration by the world amounts to a phrase here and there in Humanae Vitae — or in Augustine, or in Thomas Aquinas, or in anywhere else in the long history of Christian teaching on the subject. More likely, the fundamental issue is rather what Archbishop Chaput explained ten years ago: "If Paul VI was right about so many of the consequences deriving from contraception, it is because he was right about contraception itself."
This is exactly the connection few people in 2008 want to make, because contraceptive sex — as commentators from all over, religious or not, agree — is the fundamental social fact of our time. And the fierce and widespread desire to keep it so is responsible for a great many perverse outcomes. Despite an empirical record that is unmistakably on Paul VI's side by now, there is extraordinary resistance to crediting Catholic moral teaching with having been right about anything, no matter how detailed the record.
Considering the human spectacle today, forty years after the document whose widespread rejection reportedly broke Paul VI's heart, one can't help but wonder how he might have felt if he had glimpsed only a fraction of the evidence now available — whether any of it might have provoked just the smallest wry smile.
After all, it would take a heart of stone not to find at least some of what's now out there funny as hell. There is the ongoing empirical vindication in one arena after another of the most unwanted, ignored, and ubiquitously mocked global teaching of the past fifty years. There is the fact that the Pill, which was supposed to erase all consequences of sex once and for all, turned out to have huge consequences of its own. There is the way that so many Catholics, embarrassed by accusations of archaism and driven by their own desires to be as free for sex as everyone around them, went racing for the theological exit signs after Humanae Vitae — all this just as the world with its wicked old ways began stockpiling more evidence for the Church's doctrine than anyone living in previous centuries could have imagined, and while still other people were actually being brought closer to the Church because she stood exactly as that "sign of contradiction" when so many in the world wanted otherwise.
Yet instead of vindication for the Church, there is demoralization; instead of clarity, mass confusion; instead of more obedience, ever less. Really, the perversity is, well, perverse. In what other area does humanity operate at this level of extreme, daily, constant contradiction? Where is the Boccaccio for this post-Pill Decameron? It really is all very funny, when you stop to think about it. So why isn't everybody down here laughing?
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Mary Eberstadt is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, author of Home-Alone America, and editor of Why I Turned Right: Leading Baby Boom Conservatives Chronicle Their Political Journeys.
© Institute on Religion and Public Life
This item 8380 digitally provided courtesy of CatholicCulture.org
available at http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=8380
accessed 21 November 2010
Monday, November 29, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Unoriginal
Opinion
By: Alex Magno
(The Philippine Star)
Updated November 20, 2010 12:00 AM
Links: http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=631761&publicationSubCategoryId=64
The Department of Tourism (DOT) says it will conduct public consultations regarding its controversial campaign logo. That is quite unnecessary.
The world of social media has spoken. The ad has been trashed. It is not only uninspiring; it is also unoriginal.
Trust the world of social media to uncover what might have been thought to be undiscoverable. The new DOT logo has been found to be “plagiarized” — it uses the same font and basically the same colors as Poland’s tourism campaign logo.
Tourism Secretary Bertie Lim tries to play down the obvious unoriginality by saying the Pilipinas Kay Ganda logo has more colors. Yes, just one more color. Okay, there is a tarsier there to help clutter that logo along with the dictionary entry.
That is such a lame defense. He could have gone on the offensive by proclaiming that the controversial logo, by being as cluttered as a jeepney’s hood, is truly Filipino.
The font, however, is still Poland’s. With all the visual art talent we have around, couldn’t the DOT have found someone to render the logo manually?
Aren’t we the design and advertising powerhouse of the region? We are now told Filipinos designed and executed the “Malaysia Truly Asia” campaign. That is a classic in messaging.
Why did we have to drastically shift our advertising logo anyway? There is value in using the same logo or tagline over a long period. Retention takes time; familiarity produces value. If we keep on changing our campaign motif, it will not be remembered. There will be no accrual of value. The icon will not stick.
There is nothing wrong with the old tourism campaign logo. The DOT, it appears, wants to change it simply because there has been a change of administration. But it adopted an inferior campaign motif whose design is uninspired and whose message is unclear.
Any ad executive will tell you that the success of a promotional campaign rests on having a unique selling proposition. The new motif does not have that.
The Polish icon from which DOT copied its proposed one has only one word. So is the tourism promotional logo from many other countries. Spain’s colorful promotional logo comes to mind. Why did the DOT choose this one?
Using computer-assisted design is simply too lazy. The logo will, after all, be the centerpiece of a multi-million dollar global campaign to lift our tourism industry from the dustbin. It deserved greater effort in design and messaging.
Because the DOT did not invest due diligence in reissuing the tourism promotional campaign, the entire administration pay the political price of ineradicable impressions formed through the social media networks. That political price is being compounded with every careless incident like this one.
The hostage fiasco inflicted on this administration the impression that it is callous and incompetent. The Mislang affair inflicted the impression that it is petty. Now this small thing about a campaign logo inflicts the impression that this administration is indolent and unimaginative.
That is the truly damaging thing. The impressions build upon each other, reinforce the other.
In this age of social media pervasiveness, a consensus could be formed in the public mind within hours. That consensus is freely arrived at by all the participants in the sum of all blogs and tweets on a particular matter. It is, therefore, a consensus that can no longer be reversed.
We were made to understand that the “strategic communications group” — or at least part of it — was organized to manage the social media environment. That was, as we now see, probably and erroneous premise. Indeed, how could the social media be managed? How could this administration even dare aspire to manage the social media environment?
When the hostage tragedy happened, government portals were flooded with hate mail. Some portals were actually taken down by the sheer volume of mail coming in.
When Mislang made that casual comment about the quality of wine served by the Vietnamese, the outrage over the sheer lack of manners and pure pettiness of the comment flooded the blogs. Special websites were set up as impromptu public billboards to accommodate all the indignation expressed.
This week, the provocation is that completely unoriginal DOT campaign logo. This is a controversy that ought to have been avoidable. Before making that logo public, the DOT might have quietly conducted focus group discussions. They did not. They simply threw out that logo to the public to be feasted upon by the bloggers.
Today, for all intents and purposes, the public resoundingly rejected that logo. No need to do “public consultations.” That is so 20th century. The public review is done. It was accomplished in the world of social media. Traditional media can only echo the consensus that only social media can forge at such speed.
In all the previous encounters between this administration and the social media world, the administration response is late by what could be a lifetime. Ironically, this is an administration among whose first acts was to set up an apparatus to preempt if not overwhelm the social media.
There is much to learn about this latest encounter — and it’s not primarily about logo design or the brass tacks of mounting an advertising campaign. It is about the swiftness with which a constituency could respond to a slip or an act of utter carelessness. That swiftness will make any effort to “manage” social media futile.
Funding a “strategic communications group” will very likely be futile. What this administration must do is build an ethic of due diligence among the cadre it has chosen to run this government.
By: Alex Magno
(The Philippine Star)
Updated November 20, 2010 12:00 AM
Links: http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=631761&publicationSubCategoryId=64
The Department of Tourism (DOT) says it will conduct public consultations regarding its controversial campaign logo. That is quite unnecessary.
The world of social media has spoken. The ad has been trashed. It is not only uninspiring; it is also unoriginal.
Trust the world of social media to uncover what might have been thought to be undiscoverable. The new DOT logo has been found to be “plagiarized” — it uses the same font and basically the same colors as Poland’s tourism campaign logo.
Tourism Secretary Bertie Lim tries to play down the obvious unoriginality by saying the Pilipinas Kay Ganda logo has more colors. Yes, just one more color. Okay, there is a tarsier there to help clutter that logo along with the dictionary entry.
That is such a lame defense. He could have gone on the offensive by proclaiming that the controversial logo, by being as cluttered as a jeepney’s hood, is truly Filipino.
The font, however, is still Poland’s. With all the visual art talent we have around, couldn’t the DOT have found someone to render the logo manually?
Aren’t we the design and advertising powerhouse of the region? We are now told Filipinos designed and executed the “Malaysia Truly Asia” campaign. That is a classic in messaging.
Why did we have to drastically shift our advertising logo anyway? There is value in using the same logo or tagline over a long period. Retention takes time; familiarity produces value. If we keep on changing our campaign motif, it will not be remembered. There will be no accrual of value. The icon will not stick.
There is nothing wrong with the old tourism campaign logo. The DOT, it appears, wants to change it simply because there has been a change of administration. But it adopted an inferior campaign motif whose design is uninspired and whose message is unclear.
Any ad executive will tell you that the success of a promotional campaign rests on having a unique selling proposition. The new motif does not have that.
The Polish icon from which DOT copied its proposed one has only one word. So is the tourism promotional logo from many other countries. Spain’s colorful promotional logo comes to mind. Why did the DOT choose this one?
Using computer-assisted design is simply too lazy. The logo will, after all, be the centerpiece of a multi-million dollar global campaign to lift our tourism industry from the dustbin. It deserved greater effort in design and messaging.
Because the DOT did not invest due diligence in reissuing the tourism promotional campaign, the entire administration pay the political price of ineradicable impressions formed through the social media networks. That political price is being compounded with every careless incident like this one.
The hostage fiasco inflicted on this administration the impression that it is callous and incompetent. The Mislang affair inflicted the impression that it is petty. Now this small thing about a campaign logo inflicts the impression that this administration is indolent and unimaginative.
That is the truly damaging thing. The impressions build upon each other, reinforce the other.
In this age of social media pervasiveness, a consensus could be formed in the public mind within hours. That consensus is freely arrived at by all the participants in the sum of all blogs and tweets on a particular matter. It is, therefore, a consensus that can no longer be reversed.
We were made to understand that the “strategic communications group” — or at least part of it — was organized to manage the social media environment. That was, as we now see, probably and erroneous premise. Indeed, how could the social media be managed? How could this administration even dare aspire to manage the social media environment?
When the hostage tragedy happened, government portals were flooded with hate mail. Some portals were actually taken down by the sheer volume of mail coming in.
When Mislang made that casual comment about the quality of wine served by the Vietnamese, the outrage over the sheer lack of manners and pure pettiness of the comment flooded the blogs. Special websites were set up as impromptu public billboards to accommodate all the indignation expressed.
This week, the provocation is that completely unoriginal DOT campaign logo. This is a controversy that ought to have been avoidable. Before making that logo public, the DOT might have quietly conducted focus group discussions. They did not. They simply threw out that logo to the public to be feasted upon by the bloggers.
Today, for all intents and purposes, the public resoundingly rejected that logo. No need to do “public consultations.” That is so 20th century. The public review is done. It was accomplished in the world of social media. Traditional media can only echo the consensus that only social media can forge at such speed.
In all the previous encounters between this administration and the social media world, the administration response is late by what could be a lifetime. Ironically, this is an administration among whose first acts was to set up an apparatus to preempt if not overwhelm the social media.
There is much to learn about this latest encounter — and it’s not primarily about logo design or the brass tacks of mounting an advertising campaign. It is about the swiftness with which a constituency could respond to a slip or an act of utter carelessness. That swiftness will make any effort to “manage” social media futile.
Funding a “strategic communications group” will very likely be futile. What this administration must do is build an ethic of due diligence among the cadre it has chosen to run this government.
‘Twisting in the wind’
Opinion
By Ramon J. Farolan
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 05:13:00 11/15/2010
p. A15
http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20101115-303313/Twisting-in-the-wind
LAST SEPTEMBER, in the wake of the hostage crisis at the Luneta, I mentioned that Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse M. Robredo, Undersecretary Rico Puno and PNP chief Jesus Verzosa had to go if we are to maintain the respect and confidence of the international community.
Well, Robredo and Puno are still around while Verzosa retired from the service earlier.
More than two months after the fiasco, three things have become quite clear to our people:
First, the level of respect and confidence of our neighbors is best reflected in the recent travel advisory of Japan. While the advisory did not mention the possibility of a terror attack in the Philippines, Japanese Ambassador Makoto Katsura explained that it was a reminder for their nationals “to take safety measures against any security concerns like robbery and kidnapping.” That was a mouthful and says a lot about their confidence in the ability of police agencies to maintain peace and order in the country.
Second, Undersecretary Puno is going to be around for some time regardless of what he does or fails to do in his job as chief of the PNP chief. All policemen from the lowliest private, to the director general of the organization, now know who will be calling the shots when it comes to police matters regardless of who is the interior and local government secretary. After all, with Puno touting himself as one of the few individuals capable of “taming” the President, who in his right mind would dare cross swords with him?
Third, Secretary Robredo remains in limbo as the Palace tries its very best to explain why he remains in the Cabinet as interior and local government secretary.
Consider the following presidential statements or announcements regarding Robredo’s status:
In an interview on ABS-CBN’s “TV Patrol,” P-Noy declared that Interior and Local Government Secretary Robredo and Environment Secretary Ramon Paje would soon be replaced. In particular, he said “I still do not have clear plans for Robredo ... We have programs for informal settlers so a new group may help out on this subject which is really along Robredo’s expertise.”
The following day he seemed to backpedal a bit, denying that a Cabinet revamp was in the offing. He clarified earlier remarks that suggested that Robredo was being transferred to head another agency. “Jesse Robredo can head that agency but as of now, there are no plans to transfer him because the matter is still being studied.” This was followed up by Deputy Presidential Spokesperson Abigail Valte, saying that the Palace was “exploring other possibilities” for Robredo.
Perhaps, it would have been more prudent and less humiliating for people if the proposed agency was in place before announcing any possible personnel movements.
The last word on Robredo is that President Aquino did not submit his name to the Commission on Appointments for confirmation.
So, is Robredo staying or going? All indications point to his departure and this may be only a question of time. Until then, he remains in his post, “twisting in the wind.”
Let me repeat what I said earlier. Jesse Robredo, a 2000 Ramon Magsaysay awardee for Government Service, has much to offer in terms of serving his country. It does not have to be in a government position. A Cabinet post involves having the complete trust and confidence of the appointing power. It was obvious from the start of the hostage crisis that Robredo did not possess this vital requirement.
* * *
On the amnesty issue.
In early August of this year, President Benigno Aquino III publicly declared that “Trillanes may have been a victim of injustice.” My reaction was that in his own time he would do what is right to correct the injustice.
Last month, the President signed Proclamation No. 50 “granting amnesty to active and former personnel of the Armed Forces and their supporters who may have committed acts or omissions punishable under the Revised Penal Code, the Articles of War, or other special laws committed in connection with the Oakwood mutiny, the Marines’ stand-off and the Manila Pen incident, and related incidents.”
One of the reasons cited by the President for the amnesty proclamation was to “promote an atmosphere conducive to the attainment of a just, comprehensive and enduring peace, and in line with the government’s peace and reconciliation initiatives, there is a need to declare amnesty in favor of the said personnel of the AFP.”
Concurrence by both houses of Congress is expected shortly. Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, along with 16 other senators, has expressed support for the proclamation. In the House of Representatives, House Resolution No. 524 is expected to push through with the majority supporting the presidential proclamation. Rep. Rodolfo Biazon, chair of the House Defense Committee, proposed returning the proclamation to Malacañang for corrections.
Incidentally, Armed Forces spokesperson Brig. Gen. Jose Mabanta Jr. said the military was consulted before President Aquino issued the amnesty proclamation. He went on to say that “the military through Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin had recommended amnesty for the officers and soldiers...”
With regard to Biazon’s proposal to return the proclamation to the Palace, Senate President Enrile declared that although the House has the right to study the problem, he believes Congress should “respect the policy established by the President. The President has issued a proclamation and it will be impolite for the allies in the house to negate his proposal. I believe in the end they will have to approve it.”
Personally, as I have indicated in the past, I support the amnesty move of the President. I believe these officers have already paid a high price for their idealism and opposition to a government they believed was corrupt and illegal. In the case of Sen. Antonio Trillanes, he has been in jail for seven years, four months—just three months short of the imprisonment of Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. who was detained for seven years and seven months before being allowed to leave the country. Let me also remind our people that Trillanes was elected by the votes of more than 11 million Filipinos in the 2007 elections, besting some of the most powerful candidates of the Arroyo administration. It is time for their elected official to be heard in the halls of the Senate.
In the case of Jose Ma. Sison and his cohorts, they were granted amnesty and one of the justifications given for the amnesty is that they supported the movement to overthrow President Marcos.
Let’s not kid ourselves. Their main objective was to abolish our democratic way of life, replacing it with a communist dictatorship and if the fall of Marcos was necessary to attain this objective, they were only too happy to lend a helping hand.
By Ramon J. Farolan
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 05:13:00 11/15/2010
p. A15
http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20101115-303313/Twisting-in-the-wind
LAST SEPTEMBER, in the wake of the hostage crisis at the Luneta, I mentioned that Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse M. Robredo, Undersecretary Rico Puno and PNP chief Jesus Verzosa had to go if we are to maintain the respect and confidence of the international community.
Well, Robredo and Puno are still around while Verzosa retired from the service earlier.
More than two months after the fiasco, three things have become quite clear to our people:
First, the level of respect and confidence of our neighbors is best reflected in the recent travel advisory of Japan. While the advisory did not mention the possibility of a terror attack in the Philippines, Japanese Ambassador Makoto Katsura explained that it was a reminder for their nationals “to take safety measures against any security concerns like robbery and kidnapping.” That was a mouthful and says a lot about their confidence in the ability of police agencies to maintain peace and order in the country.
Second, Undersecretary Puno is going to be around for some time regardless of what he does or fails to do in his job as chief of the PNP chief. All policemen from the lowliest private, to the director general of the organization, now know who will be calling the shots when it comes to police matters regardless of who is the interior and local government secretary. After all, with Puno touting himself as one of the few individuals capable of “taming” the President, who in his right mind would dare cross swords with him?
Third, Secretary Robredo remains in limbo as the Palace tries its very best to explain why he remains in the Cabinet as interior and local government secretary.
Consider the following presidential statements or announcements regarding Robredo’s status:
In an interview on ABS-CBN’s “TV Patrol,” P-Noy declared that Interior and Local Government Secretary Robredo and Environment Secretary Ramon Paje would soon be replaced. In particular, he said “I still do not have clear plans for Robredo ... We have programs for informal settlers so a new group may help out on this subject which is really along Robredo’s expertise.”
The following day he seemed to backpedal a bit, denying that a Cabinet revamp was in the offing. He clarified earlier remarks that suggested that Robredo was being transferred to head another agency. “Jesse Robredo can head that agency but as of now, there are no plans to transfer him because the matter is still being studied.” This was followed up by Deputy Presidential Spokesperson Abigail Valte, saying that the Palace was “exploring other possibilities” for Robredo.
Perhaps, it would have been more prudent and less humiliating for people if the proposed agency was in place before announcing any possible personnel movements.
The last word on Robredo is that President Aquino did not submit his name to the Commission on Appointments for confirmation.
So, is Robredo staying or going? All indications point to his departure and this may be only a question of time. Until then, he remains in his post, “twisting in the wind.”
Let me repeat what I said earlier. Jesse Robredo, a 2000 Ramon Magsaysay awardee for Government Service, has much to offer in terms of serving his country. It does not have to be in a government position. A Cabinet post involves having the complete trust and confidence of the appointing power. It was obvious from the start of the hostage crisis that Robredo did not possess this vital requirement.
* * *
On the amnesty issue.
In early August of this year, President Benigno Aquino III publicly declared that “Trillanes may have been a victim of injustice.” My reaction was that in his own time he would do what is right to correct the injustice.
Last month, the President signed Proclamation No. 50 “granting amnesty to active and former personnel of the Armed Forces and their supporters who may have committed acts or omissions punishable under the Revised Penal Code, the Articles of War, or other special laws committed in connection with the Oakwood mutiny, the Marines’ stand-off and the Manila Pen incident, and related incidents.”
One of the reasons cited by the President for the amnesty proclamation was to “promote an atmosphere conducive to the attainment of a just, comprehensive and enduring peace, and in line with the government’s peace and reconciliation initiatives, there is a need to declare amnesty in favor of the said personnel of the AFP.”
Concurrence by both houses of Congress is expected shortly. Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, along with 16 other senators, has expressed support for the proclamation. In the House of Representatives, House Resolution No. 524 is expected to push through with the majority supporting the presidential proclamation. Rep. Rodolfo Biazon, chair of the House Defense Committee, proposed returning the proclamation to Malacañang for corrections.
Incidentally, Armed Forces spokesperson Brig. Gen. Jose Mabanta Jr. said the military was consulted before President Aquino issued the amnesty proclamation. He went on to say that “the military through Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin had recommended amnesty for the officers and soldiers...”
With regard to Biazon’s proposal to return the proclamation to the Palace, Senate President Enrile declared that although the House has the right to study the problem, he believes Congress should “respect the policy established by the President. The President has issued a proclamation and it will be impolite for the allies in the house to negate his proposal. I believe in the end they will have to approve it.”
Personally, as I have indicated in the past, I support the amnesty move of the President. I believe these officers have already paid a high price for their idealism and opposition to a government they believed was corrupt and illegal. In the case of Sen. Antonio Trillanes, he has been in jail for seven years, four months—just three months short of the imprisonment of Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. who was detained for seven years and seven months before being allowed to leave the country. Let me also remind our people that Trillanes was elected by the votes of more than 11 million Filipinos in the 2007 elections, besting some of the most powerful candidates of the Arroyo administration. It is time for their elected official to be heard in the halls of the Senate.
In the case of Jose Ma. Sison and his cohorts, they were granted amnesty and one of the justifications given for the amnesty is that they supported the movement to overthrow President Marcos.
Let’s not kid ourselves. Their main objective was to abolish our democratic way of life, replacing it with a communist dictatorship and if the fall of Marcos was necessary to attain this objective, they were only too happy to lend a helping hand.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Army won’t buck release of Morong 43
By Cynthia Balana
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 04:45:00 10/29/2010
Filed Under: insurgency, Healthcare Providers
MANILA, Philippines—The Army said it will not oppose the release of the “Morong 43” if that is what President Benigno Aquino III wishes, despite the “strong evidence” that they are members of the outlawed communist New People’s Army (NPA).
“We are a very professional organization. Whatever the President’s desire on this, of course we will support that. We are a team player,” said Army spokesperson Col. Antonio Parlade.
After he issued an amnesty to all the officers and soldiers being tried for repeated attempts to bring down the previous Arroyo government, Mr. Aquino has been besieged with demands that he extend the same magnanimity to the group of 43 health workers who were arrested on suspicion of being NPA members in Morong, Rizal, last February.
However, not everyone in the Armed Forces would be “happy” if the Morong 43 are granted amnesty, Parlade said.
Giving them a reprieve would affect the morale of troops, he said.
“We are not saying that everybody will be happy. We would be hypocrites if we say they are happy but just the same, like I said we will support whatever the decision of the President,” he said.
Parlade said it would not be necessary for the Armed Forces to appeal to the President and dissuade him from granting the amnesty.
President knows
“He was properly apprised of the updates on this case. So the President knows, so we don’t have to make any appeal to the President,” he said.
Parlade said the military would rather let the court decide the case, adding that the Armed Forces owed it to the people to let them know that these were actually NPAs before they are granted amnesty.
He claimed that five of the 43 had already admitted to being NPAs. He expected the others to do the same in time, he said.
Authorities have claimed that the 43 were conducting a seminar on the making of explosives when they were arrested in the Morong resthouse. They said the raiding team recovered a variety of firearms and substances used in the making of bombs as well as subversive documents.
According to Parlade, most of the 43 belonged to the national health bureau of the NPA while the others played secondary roles such as that of medics and logisticians.
The group’s supporters claim, however, that they were indeed health workers who were attending a medical lecture. They have accused the military of subjecting the Morong 43 to torture and harassment.
“It doesn’t change the fact that they are NPA medics. Definitely, they are not health workers,” Parlade stressed.
He said the arrest was done legally, and that the soldiers were armed with the proper warrants.
Parlade denied that the detainees had been tortured or that some of the women were raped, insisting that their civil rights were respected.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 04:45:00 10/29/2010
Filed Under: insurgency, Healthcare Providers
MANILA, Philippines—The Army said it will not oppose the release of the “Morong 43” if that is what President Benigno Aquino III wishes, despite the “strong evidence” that they are members of the outlawed communist New People’s Army (NPA).
“We are a very professional organization. Whatever the President’s desire on this, of course we will support that. We are a team player,” said Army spokesperson Col. Antonio Parlade.
After he issued an amnesty to all the officers and soldiers being tried for repeated attempts to bring down the previous Arroyo government, Mr. Aquino has been besieged with demands that he extend the same magnanimity to the group of 43 health workers who were arrested on suspicion of being NPA members in Morong, Rizal, last February.
However, not everyone in the Armed Forces would be “happy” if the Morong 43 are granted amnesty, Parlade said.
Giving them a reprieve would affect the morale of troops, he said.
“We are not saying that everybody will be happy. We would be hypocrites if we say they are happy but just the same, like I said we will support whatever the decision of the President,” he said.
Parlade said it would not be necessary for the Armed Forces to appeal to the President and dissuade him from granting the amnesty.
President knows
“He was properly apprised of the updates on this case. So the President knows, so we don’t have to make any appeal to the President,” he said.
Parlade said the military would rather let the court decide the case, adding that the Armed Forces owed it to the people to let them know that these were actually NPAs before they are granted amnesty.
He claimed that five of the 43 had already admitted to being NPAs. He expected the others to do the same in time, he said.
Authorities have claimed that the 43 were conducting a seminar on the making of explosives when they were arrested in the Morong resthouse. They said the raiding team recovered a variety of firearms and substances used in the making of bombs as well as subversive documents.
According to Parlade, most of the 43 belonged to the national health bureau of the NPA while the others played secondary roles such as that of medics and logisticians.
The group’s supporters claim, however, that they were indeed health workers who were attending a medical lecture. They have accused the military of subjecting the Morong 43 to torture and harassment.
“It doesn’t change the fact that they are NPA medics. Definitely, they are not health workers,” Parlade stressed.
He said the arrest was done legally, and that the soldiers were armed with the proper warrants.
Parlade denied that the detainees had been tortured or that some of the women were raped, insisting that their civil rights were respected.
P10-b Peace bonds mature next year at P35b, admits Code-NGO
by Christine F. Herrera
Manila's Standard Today – October 29, 2010
THE government will pay investors P35 billion in 2011 for the P10 billion in Peace bonds that it floated nine years ago, officials of the Caucus of Development NGO Networks said Thursday.
Code-NGO and the Peace and Equity Foundation said the 10-year zero-coupon Poverty Eradication and Alleviation Certificate Bonds that were issued on Oct. 16, 2001, would earn for investors 12.75 percent in compounded interest when the government securities matured next year.
“The government did not lose money but actually saved some P2.7 billion because the 12.75- percent interest rate was lower than the 16.93- percent prevailing rate of similar notes in the market at the time of the sale of the Peace Bonds,” Sixto Donato Macasaet, Code-NGO executive director, told reporters.
He said Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman, who used to head Code-NGO, ceased to have anything to do with the bonds when she left the group to join the Arroyo administration as Social Welfare secretary.
Soliman is accused of having been involved in the float that resulted in Code-NGO earning P1.4-billion in commissions.
Macasaet said at least 30 bids were submitted by 15 local and five foreign banks during the auction, with Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. winning with the lowest offered interest rate.
“With 10-year zero-coupon bonds, the government does not pay the semi-annual interest but instead makes a lump-sum payment of the face value of P35 billion when the bonds mature,” he said.
“The P10.169 billion, the amount that the government borrowed, earned for investors an interest of 12.75 percent per year compounded semi-annually over 10 years. The total to be paid back to investors would be P35 billion, the face value of the bonds.”
The zero-coupon bonds were a better way for the government to finance its development projects because it would not have to pay semi-annual interest, Macasaet said.
The interest on the 10-year bonds would come to P25 billion, while the principal was P10 billion, for a total of P35 billion.
When the bonds were floated, Code-NGO, the Treasury, and RCBC already knew that, after 10 years, the government would have to pay out P35 billion, Macasaet said.
“But Code-NGO never had a say on where the government would bring the P10 billion,” he said.
“The money was turned over to the National Treasury. We thought if Code-NGO would not enter into such transaction, others would do so anyway, so we just made sure that the profit from it would go directly to poverty-reduction projects and funding for these projects are continuing up to now.”
Macasaet admitted that the bond float earned for Code-NGO some P1.4 billion in commissions, and of that P1.3 billion was turned over to the Peace and Equity Foundation for various livelihood and anti-poverty projects.
Veronica Villavicencio, the foundation’s director, said Code-NGO established the PEF, led by Cagayan de Oro Archbishop Antonio Ledesma, to preserve and manage the endowment fund of P1.318 billion raised from the sale of the Peace Bonds.
Of the P1.318 billion, some P404 million was allocated to several projects in Mindanao, P238.21 million went to the Visayas, P267.45 million was spent on Luzon, and P154.73 million went to the National Capital Region, Villavicencio said.
Macasaet said RCBC bought the bonds for P10.169 billion through a public auction, and was able to sell them in the secondary market for P11.995 billion and remitted a profit of P1.826 billion to Code-NGO.
“Code-NGO paid fees of P340 million to its agent and financial advisers from the profit. Thus, it made a net profit of P1.486 billion through this private transaction,” Macasaet said.
Code-NGO retained P168 million for its network members and transferred the endowment fund of P1.318 billion to PEF, Macasaet said.
He said Code-NGO needed an innovative way to finance its poverty alleviation programs because its main source of funding from foreign grants was shrinking.
Neither Soliman nor peace adviser Teresita Deles had anything to do with the bond float.
“Dinky [Soliman] and Ging Deles were never involved in the meetings, conceptualization, negotiations and bidding related to the zero-coupon bonds,” Macasaet said.
Soliman resigned as Code-NGO chairman in January 2001, when she was appointed Social Welfare secretary by then President Gloria Arroyo, he said. Deles was never a member of Code-NGO.
On March 3, 2001, Marissa Camacho, who took over as chairman from Soliman, presented to then Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo a request for the issuance of the zero-coupon bonds, Macasaet said.
It was under Camacho’s leadership that the Peace Bonds were conceptualized and designed.
“When her brother Jose Isidro Camacho became Finance Secretary in June 2001, he inhibited himself in writing from transactions connected with the Peace bonds. Marissa also inhibited herself from such transactions from that point,” Macasaet said.
Manila's Standard Today – October 29, 2010
THE government will pay investors P35 billion in 2011 for the P10 billion in Peace bonds that it floated nine years ago, officials of the Caucus of Development NGO Networks said Thursday.
Code-NGO and the Peace and Equity Foundation said the 10-year zero-coupon Poverty Eradication and Alleviation Certificate Bonds that were issued on Oct. 16, 2001, would earn for investors 12.75 percent in compounded interest when the government securities matured next year.
“The government did not lose money but actually saved some P2.7 billion because the 12.75- percent interest rate was lower than the 16.93- percent prevailing rate of similar notes in the market at the time of the sale of the Peace Bonds,” Sixto Donato Macasaet, Code-NGO executive director, told reporters.
He said Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman, who used to head Code-NGO, ceased to have anything to do with the bonds when she left the group to join the Arroyo administration as Social Welfare secretary.
Soliman is accused of having been involved in the float that resulted in Code-NGO earning P1.4-billion in commissions.
Macasaet said at least 30 bids were submitted by 15 local and five foreign banks during the auction, with Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. winning with the lowest offered interest rate.
“With 10-year zero-coupon bonds, the government does not pay the semi-annual interest but instead makes a lump-sum payment of the face value of P35 billion when the bonds mature,” he said.
“The P10.169 billion, the amount that the government borrowed, earned for investors an interest of 12.75 percent per year compounded semi-annually over 10 years. The total to be paid back to investors would be P35 billion, the face value of the bonds.”
The zero-coupon bonds were a better way for the government to finance its development projects because it would not have to pay semi-annual interest, Macasaet said.
The interest on the 10-year bonds would come to P25 billion, while the principal was P10 billion, for a total of P35 billion.
When the bonds were floated, Code-NGO, the Treasury, and RCBC already knew that, after 10 years, the government would have to pay out P35 billion, Macasaet said.
“But Code-NGO never had a say on where the government would bring the P10 billion,” he said.
“The money was turned over to the National Treasury. We thought if Code-NGO would not enter into such transaction, others would do so anyway, so we just made sure that the profit from it would go directly to poverty-reduction projects and funding for these projects are continuing up to now.”
Macasaet admitted that the bond float earned for Code-NGO some P1.4 billion in commissions, and of that P1.3 billion was turned over to the Peace and Equity Foundation for various livelihood and anti-poverty projects.
Veronica Villavicencio, the foundation’s director, said Code-NGO established the PEF, led by Cagayan de Oro Archbishop Antonio Ledesma, to preserve and manage the endowment fund of P1.318 billion raised from the sale of the Peace Bonds.
Of the P1.318 billion, some P404 million was allocated to several projects in Mindanao, P238.21 million went to the Visayas, P267.45 million was spent on Luzon, and P154.73 million went to the National Capital Region, Villavicencio said.
Macasaet said RCBC bought the bonds for P10.169 billion through a public auction, and was able to sell them in the secondary market for P11.995 billion and remitted a profit of P1.826 billion to Code-NGO.
“Code-NGO paid fees of P340 million to its agent and financial advisers from the profit. Thus, it made a net profit of P1.486 billion through this private transaction,” Macasaet said.
Code-NGO retained P168 million for its network members and transferred the endowment fund of P1.318 billion to PEF, Macasaet said.
He said Code-NGO needed an innovative way to finance its poverty alleviation programs because its main source of funding from foreign grants was shrinking.
Neither Soliman nor peace adviser Teresita Deles had anything to do with the bond float.
“Dinky [Soliman] and Ging Deles were never involved in the meetings, conceptualization, negotiations and bidding related to the zero-coupon bonds,” Macasaet said.
Soliman resigned as Code-NGO chairman in January 2001, when she was appointed Social Welfare secretary by then President Gloria Arroyo, he said. Deles was never a member of Code-NGO.
On March 3, 2001, Marissa Camacho, who took over as chairman from Soliman, presented to then Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo a request for the issuance of the zero-coupon bonds, Macasaet said.
It was under Camacho’s leadership that the Peace Bonds were conceptualized and designed.
“When her brother Jose Isidro Camacho became Finance Secretary in June 2001, he inhibited himself in writing from transactions connected with the Peace bonds. Marissa also inhibited herself from such transactions from that point,” Macasaet said.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Ghost of Ate Glue haunts us still
DEMAND AND SUPPLY By Boo Chanco (The Philippine Star) Updated November 01, 2010 12:00 AM Comments (5)
I cringe every time P-Noy says something that Ate Glue used to say. The ghost of Ate Glue just won’t leave us alone. And it seems P-Noy had been haunted by this ghost. Or what would possess P-Noy to say what he did while he was in Hanoi about the implications of a strong peso?
According to our reporter who covered P-Noy in his visit to Hanoi last week, “Mr. Aquino gladly interpreted the stronger peso against the dollar as an indication of a booming economy, or what he called an ‘emerging market or emerging economy,’ which means a better standard of living for all.” P-Noy, according to our reporter, “assuaged fears of not just overseas Filipino workers here but in other parts of the world as well that the strengthening of the peso means that the Philippines is now an ‘emerging economy’.”
Ano daw? NEDA Secretary Dondon Paderanga is sleeping on the job. He must realize that even if P-Noy has an undergraduate degree in Economics, his teacher was Ate Glue. No wonder it seems like the ghost of Ate Glue continues to haunt us still through P-Noy’s appreciation of economics. This is not a good sign at all.
We can understand some of the twisted principles of Glorianomics during Ate Glue’s watch. She was desperate to show she was a good economic manager and she had to sustain the illusion she was delivering results. Hence, every time she insisted that a strong peso is a sign of economic accomplishment, we just sighed and said “Whateverrrr!”
But P-Noy? Okay, it was good ego trip for P-Noy to keep on hearing from those eager to win his approval such things like the bullish stock market is on account of confidence he generated. That is anyway, partly true. The bigger part of the truth, however, is that investors are just fleeing the American and European markets and flocking to emerging markets like ours.
Sa bagay, if it was still Ate Glue at the Palace rather than P-Noy, the bullish sentiment for emerging markets could have passed us by. Even the Americans withheld the Millennium Development grant because they didn’t trust Ate Glue with their $500 million. But P-Noy must not totally believe all the bulls—t he is told by people who want contracts or appointments.
The peso is strong basically because OFW remittances have been strong even at the height of the world economic crisis. Of course, there is also no denying hot money looking for emerging market profits is part of the reason too.
P-Noy should sit down and have a long talk with Dondon P. who will have to tutor him on economics to banish the ghost of Ate Glue’s class lectures from his consciousness. The NEDA Chief should also start discussing with P-Noy the priorities in a long list of things to do in order to get the economy humming. The time for the ego trips about inspiring confidence from investors is over. Investors have served notice that unless deliverables are delivered soon enough, their confidence in P-Noy will be increasingly eroded.
In fact, that was the mood last week when the foreign chambers of commerce sat down to talk about what to do with the economy. Sure, the businessmen were pretty optimistic not just because of P-Noy’s credibility but also because what looks like a global pickup is about to make them end this year with some amount of respectable growth.
But everybody expressed worry about bottlenecks that may derail their fondest hopes and dreams for the economy. Among problems cited include: the strengthening peso, dwindling productivity, inadequate infrastructure and unclear government policies.
“We need more than 1,000 kilometers of toll roads just like Thailand,” Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. President Ramoncito S. Fernandez said, noting that the Philippines has only 300 kilometers in comparison. “If we can double this in five years, that’s a noble achievement already,” Mr. Fernandez said, adding that the government needs to “fast track the right of way process.”
Yes, also mentioned are: inadequate agriculture infrastructure, need for a roadmap to develop manufacturing, and a fresh marketing campaign to attract tourists to come in the face of our rather challenging international reputation for personal safety. Government is also being urged to address the big disincentive of high power rates. We have heard these all before.
There is also increasing impatience on the slow pace of P-Noy’s administration in securing low hanging fruits like NAIA 3. That terminal had been idle for over ten years now. I asked the German Ambassador last Thursday evening what was going on in the case and he could only shrug as if to say that nothing much is happening. Indeed, Piatco has sent eviction notices to the airlines and other merchants doing business in NAIA 3 who are there under the auspices of government.
I heard from another source that German Chancellor Angela Merkel sent a collection letter to then President Arroyo in connection with NAIA 3. Apparently, the German government had paid Fraport’s insurance claim for the failed project. Now, they are collecting from our government. So it is now a government-to-government dispute. We cannot afford to alienate Germany much longer.
Another low hanging fruit that is turning out to be more difficult to secure has to do with our aviation sector’s international safety rating. I heard from the grapevine that we flunked the European aviation agency’s evaluation again. I understand we only passed one of the many criteria in their checklist. A ghost of Ate Glue is still there at the CAAP… no wonder!
That means we cannot have a tourism drive in Europe because European tourists will not be able to get travel insurance if they want to come here. And if we cannot gain the nod of the Europeans, we aren’t likely to gain the approval of the US FAA. That means Philippine Airlines still cannot use their brand new fleet of long range aircrafts that are more fuel efficient.
In fairness, the administration was able to complete the LRT extension project from Balintawak to Trinoma. We haven’t heard much about the need to upgrade and add to the MRT coaches for the benefit of an increasing number of riders. NorthRail is still quite dead. And all we have heard about the LRT from Trinoma to San Jose del Monte in Bulacan are press releases from proponents.
Of utmost urgency is the power situation in the country and even in the main Luzon Grid. P-Noy has to be heard how he plans to handle what his own Energy department is saying about a 300-MW deficiency by next year. Power blackouts so early in P-Noy’s term will generate glee from political enemies who will call it an Aquino curse, by way of recalling the massive blackouts during his mother’s watch. If only for the sake of family honor, P-Noy must make sure nothing like that happens.
In the meantime, it is important for the nation to see a hardworking President and Cabinet. We may call Ate Glue a lot of names but she is undoubtedly a hardworking President. If only she worked hard for the country’s welfare rather than to merely preserve her precarious hold on power, we wouldn’t be in this dire situation now.
But the first order of business for P-Noy is to exorcise the ghost of Ate Glue. I refuse to believe I voted Ate Glue out of office only to have her continue to haunt the country through P-Noy. If I wanted an Ate Glue groupie, I would have voted for Gibo.
Dondon Paderanga hopefully will work harder in the Cabinet than he did at the PSE, CIBI and the other sideline jobs he had at that time. He has to straighten out our P-Noy, or we can forget hoping for anything in the next six years.
I cringe every time P-Noy says something that Ate Glue used to say. The ghost of Ate Glue just won’t leave us alone. And it seems P-Noy had been haunted by this ghost. Or what would possess P-Noy to say what he did while he was in Hanoi about the implications of a strong peso?
According to our reporter who covered P-Noy in his visit to Hanoi last week, “Mr. Aquino gladly interpreted the stronger peso against the dollar as an indication of a booming economy, or what he called an ‘emerging market or emerging economy,’ which means a better standard of living for all.” P-Noy, according to our reporter, “assuaged fears of not just overseas Filipino workers here but in other parts of the world as well that the strengthening of the peso means that the Philippines is now an ‘emerging economy’.”
Ano daw? NEDA Secretary Dondon Paderanga is sleeping on the job. He must realize that even if P-Noy has an undergraduate degree in Economics, his teacher was Ate Glue. No wonder it seems like the ghost of Ate Glue continues to haunt us still through P-Noy’s appreciation of economics. This is not a good sign at all.
We can understand some of the twisted principles of Glorianomics during Ate Glue’s watch. She was desperate to show she was a good economic manager and she had to sustain the illusion she was delivering results. Hence, every time she insisted that a strong peso is a sign of economic accomplishment, we just sighed and said “Whateverrrr!”
But P-Noy? Okay, it was good ego trip for P-Noy to keep on hearing from those eager to win his approval such things like the bullish stock market is on account of confidence he generated. That is anyway, partly true. The bigger part of the truth, however, is that investors are just fleeing the American and European markets and flocking to emerging markets like ours.
Sa bagay, if it was still Ate Glue at the Palace rather than P-Noy, the bullish sentiment for emerging markets could have passed us by. Even the Americans withheld the Millennium Development grant because they didn’t trust Ate Glue with their $500 million. But P-Noy must not totally believe all the bulls—t he is told by people who want contracts or appointments.
The peso is strong basically because OFW remittances have been strong even at the height of the world economic crisis. Of course, there is also no denying hot money looking for emerging market profits is part of the reason too.
P-Noy should sit down and have a long talk with Dondon P. who will have to tutor him on economics to banish the ghost of Ate Glue’s class lectures from his consciousness. The NEDA Chief should also start discussing with P-Noy the priorities in a long list of things to do in order to get the economy humming. The time for the ego trips about inspiring confidence from investors is over. Investors have served notice that unless deliverables are delivered soon enough, their confidence in P-Noy will be increasingly eroded.
In fact, that was the mood last week when the foreign chambers of commerce sat down to talk about what to do with the economy. Sure, the businessmen were pretty optimistic not just because of P-Noy’s credibility but also because what looks like a global pickup is about to make them end this year with some amount of respectable growth.
But everybody expressed worry about bottlenecks that may derail their fondest hopes and dreams for the economy. Among problems cited include: the strengthening peso, dwindling productivity, inadequate infrastructure and unclear government policies.
“We need more than 1,000 kilometers of toll roads just like Thailand,” Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. President Ramoncito S. Fernandez said, noting that the Philippines has only 300 kilometers in comparison. “If we can double this in five years, that’s a noble achievement already,” Mr. Fernandez said, adding that the government needs to “fast track the right of way process.”
Yes, also mentioned are: inadequate agriculture infrastructure, need for a roadmap to develop manufacturing, and a fresh marketing campaign to attract tourists to come in the face of our rather challenging international reputation for personal safety. Government is also being urged to address the big disincentive of high power rates. We have heard these all before.
There is also increasing impatience on the slow pace of P-Noy’s administration in securing low hanging fruits like NAIA 3. That terminal had been idle for over ten years now. I asked the German Ambassador last Thursday evening what was going on in the case and he could only shrug as if to say that nothing much is happening. Indeed, Piatco has sent eviction notices to the airlines and other merchants doing business in NAIA 3 who are there under the auspices of government.
I heard from another source that German Chancellor Angela Merkel sent a collection letter to then President Arroyo in connection with NAIA 3. Apparently, the German government had paid Fraport’s insurance claim for the failed project. Now, they are collecting from our government. So it is now a government-to-government dispute. We cannot afford to alienate Germany much longer.
Another low hanging fruit that is turning out to be more difficult to secure has to do with our aviation sector’s international safety rating. I heard from the grapevine that we flunked the European aviation agency’s evaluation again. I understand we only passed one of the many criteria in their checklist. A ghost of Ate Glue is still there at the CAAP… no wonder!
That means we cannot have a tourism drive in Europe because European tourists will not be able to get travel insurance if they want to come here. And if we cannot gain the nod of the Europeans, we aren’t likely to gain the approval of the US FAA. That means Philippine Airlines still cannot use their brand new fleet of long range aircrafts that are more fuel efficient.
In fairness, the administration was able to complete the LRT extension project from Balintawak to Trinoma. We haven’t heard much about the need to upgrade and add to the MRT coaches for the benefit of an increasing number of riders. NorthRail is still quite dead. And all we have heard about the LRT from Trinoma to San Jose del Monte in Bulacan are press releases from proponents.
Of utmost urgency is the power situation in the country and even in the main Luzon Grid. P-Noy has to be heard how he plans to handle what his own Energy department is saying about a 300-MW deficiency by next year. Power blackouts so early in P-Noy’s term will generate glee from political enemies who will call it an Aquino curse, by way of recalling the massive blackouts during his mother’s watch. If only for the sake of family honor, P-Noy must make sure nothing like that happens.
In the meantime, it is important for the nation to see a hardworking President and Cabinet. We may call Ate Glue a lot of names but she is undoubtedly a hardworking President. If only she worked hard for the country’s welfare rather than to merely preserve her precarious hold on power, we wouldn’t be in this dire situation now.
But the first order of business for P-Noy is to exorcise the ghost of Ate Glue. I refuse to believe I voted Ate Glue out of office only to have her continue to haunt the country through P-Noy. If I wanted an Ate Glue groupie, I would have voted for Gibo.
Dondon Paderanga hopefully will work harder in the Cabinet than he did at the PSE, CIBI and the other sideline jobs he had at that time. He has to straighten out our P-Noy, or we can forget hoping for anything in the next six years.
Official Gazette
Statement of Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, Secretary Teresita Quintos-Deles on the reconstitution of the Government Peace Negotiating Panel for Talks with the CPP / NPA / NDF
[October 21, 2010, Malacañang]
Today we take the Philippine peace process another major step forward with the President’s designation and appointment of the reconstituted government panel for peace talks with the CPP/NPA/NDF, which peace track has been protracted and tumultuous in the past 24 years. The reconstitution of the Government Peace Negotiating Panel manifests the President’s commitment to a peaceful and just settlement of conflicts with different rebel groups, as articulated during his Inaugural Address on June 30, 2010.
The President’s designation of Undersecretary Alex D. Padilla as the Government’s chief negotiator in pursuing peace with the CPP/NPA/NDF signals the President’s resolve in restarting the peace process that is aimed toward addressing the root causes of the armed conflict and forging a political settlement. Atty. Padilla, who is currently serving as Undersecretary of the Department of Health, is a renowned advocate of peace, justice and human rights alongside his ten years of service in the field of public health. He brings his legal background as a distinguished lawyer and his extensive experience in having worked with the bureaucracy as well as with civil society in their various advocacies to this challenging task. His designation as Panel Chairperson is expected to advance the stalled peace negotiations; move the process to a discussion of the remaining substantive agenda on socio-economic reforms, political and constitutional reforms, and end of hostilities and disposition of forces; and forge a final political settlement of the conflict that will lead to key societal reforms.
The President has directed Atty. Padilla and his team to pursue time-bound and agenda-bound peace negotiations with the CPP/NPA/NDF that is anchored on the principles of peace, justice, and human rights. With this marching order, the newly formed Panel has already started to review past agreements, draw lessons learned from the peace process, enlist the inputs of peace stakeholders especially the affected communities, and chart its road map for a just and peaceful conclusion of the armed conflict. This shall be done in close consultation with the concerned government agencies, the legislature, civil society groups, and local government units to ensure that the voice of the people is carried to the negotiating table.
It has been an extensive and rigorous search process which we undertook to reconstitute our government panel. I am pleased to present to you Usec. Padilla, our new Panel chair. He is joined in the panel by seasoned social reform advocates representing different regions of the country, sectors and constituencies. We have also ensured age and gender balance in the new panel.
The members of our new Panel are Ednar Gempasaw Dayanghirang, a Mandaya and strong advocate for the welfare and rights of indigenous peoples, based in Davao; Pablito Sanidad, a seasoned public servant, and justice and humans rights promoter particularly for marginalized sectors, based in Baguio City; Jurgette Honcluada, a leading gender and labor rights advocate and organizer, based in Zamboanga; and Maria Lourdes Tison, a staunch peace and environmental advocate from the private sector, based in Negros.
With the formal reconstitution of the peace panel, we hope that the CPP/NPA/NDF will respond positively to government’s peace efforts by returning to the negotiating table with commitment towards a peaceful conclusion of the armed conflict. We are grateful to the Royal Norwegian Government for accepting our request for Norway to resume its role as third-party facilitator of the talks.
The journey to peace will not be easy. As fellow peace travelers, we appeal for your support, participation and understanding. Thank you for being with us this morning and we look forward to many more engagements with you.
opapp.gov.ph
References
Profiles of The Government Peace Negotiating Panel for Talks with the CPP/NPA/NDF
Appointment of Peace Panel Signals Government Resolve To Restart The Peace Process – Sec. Deles
President Aquino Appoints New Panel For GRP – CPP / NPA / NDF Talks
This entry was posted in Briefing Room. Bookmark the permalink. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.
[October 21, 2010, Malacañang]
Today we take the Philippine peace process another major step forward with the President’s designation and appointment of the reconstituted government panel for peace talks with the CPP/NPA/NDF, which peace track has been protracted and tumultuous in the past 24 years. The reconstitution of the Government Peace Negotiating Panel manifests the President’s commitment to a peaceful and just settlement of conflicts with different rebel groups, as articulated during his Inaugural Address on June 30, 2010.
The President’s designation of Undersecretary Alex D. Padilla as the Government’s chief negotiator in pursuing peace with the CPP/NPA/NDF signals the President’s resolve in restarting the peace process that is aimed toward addressing the root causes of the armed conflict and forging a political settlement. Atty. Padilla, who is currently serving as Undersecretary of the Department of Health, is a renowned advocate of peace, justice and human rights alongside his ten years of service in the field of public health. He brings his legal background as a distinguished lawyer and his extensive experience in having worked with the bureaucracy as well as with civil society in their various advocacies to this challenging task. His designation as Panel Chairperson is expected to advance the stalled peace negotiations; move the process to a discussion of the remaining substantive agenda on socio-economic reforms, political and constitutional reforms, and end of hostilities and disposition of forces; and forge a final political settlement of the conflict that will lead to key societal reforms.
The President has directed Atty. Padilla and his team to pursue time-bound and agenda-bound peace negotiations with the CPP/NPA/NDF that is anchored on the principles of peace, justice, and human rights. With this marching order, the newly formed Panel has already started to review past agreements, draw lessons learned from the peace process, enlist the inputs of peace stakeholders especially the affected communities, and chart its road map for a just and peaceful conclusion of the armed conflict. This shall be done in close consultation with the concerned government agencies, the legislature, civil society groups, and local government units to ensure that the voice of the people is carried to the negotiating table.
It has been an extensive and rigorous search process which we undertook to reconstitute our government panel. I am pleased to present to you Usec. Padilla, our new Panel chair. He is joined in the panel by seasoned social reform advocates representing different regions of the country, sectors and constituencies. We have also ensured age and gender balance in the new panel.
The members of our new Panel are Ednar Gempasaw Dayanghirang, a Mandaya and strong advocate for the welfare and rights of indigenous peoples, based in Davao; Pablito Sanidad, a seasoned public servant, and justice and humans rights promoter particularly for marginalized sectors, based in Baguio City; Jurgette Honcluada, a leading gender and labor rights advocate and organizer, based in Zamboanga; and Maria Lourdes Tison, a staunch peace and environmental advocate from the private sector, based in Negros.
With the formal reconstitution of the peace panel, we hope that the CPP/NPA/NDF will respond positively to government’s peace efforts by returning to the negotiating table with commitment towards a peaceful conclusion of the armed conflict. We are grateful to the Royal Norwegian Government for accepting our request for Norway to resume its role as third-party facilitator of the talks.
The journey to peace will not be easy. As fellow peace travelers, we appeal for your support, participation and understanding. Thank you for being with us this morning and we look forward to many more engagements with you.
opapp.gov.ph
References
Profiles of The Government Peace Negotiating Panel for Talks with the CPP/NPA/NDF
Appointment of Peace Panel Signals Government Resolve To Restart The Peace Process – Sec. Deles
President Aquino Appoints New Panel For GRP – CPP / NPA / NDF Talks
This entry was posted in Briefing Room. Bookmark the permalink. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.
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