Corporate World has no more rooms for Married Individuals

Married individuals are human beings with needs in life like food, clothing and shelter. Being married comes from various ages of any person according to their plan as lovers and the plan of God. When one enters into this life, his status changes too. This is an opportunity given to all for free. It is considered the greatest moment in one’s life where life is now settled with the sense of direction. But this opportunity is not at all a happy thing in the corporate world. Being married is treated without the sense of direction for commodity-type mentality.

Corporate world has set the standard for its people in manning and operating its business machinery. This standard is making the institution as center of excellence with maximum profit in the guise of service in catering the needs of the consumers. And so the qualified people could be part of the machinery are the single and young people. These are the two criteria, aside from the “whom-you-know and what-you-know scheme,” that they see deem fit within the definition of excellence.

They need single people because, first and foremost, they can extend their working time according to their discretion within and beyond the bounds of their role. Single people are free from family obligation and could give their service 24/7. And secondly they hire young people because they are energetic, smart and strong. Usually people are considered young are from 21 to 25 years old. (Just look at the ads of many establishments!) Maybe the criteria of idealism and enthusiasm are part of “excellence.” With these perceptions, we may infer the opposite that being married has none of the above to be part of excellence.

Excellence is a cruel term in my opinion. Excellence discriminates married people from having the opportunity to be part of the corporate world despite of one’s merit. These two things – being married and having the merit – could not make you qualified to be their working forces. And this is how the corporate world upholds and defines their standard. Is this something similar to contraceptive-mentality where the message is this: while you are still young, energetic, and idealistic, “stay single yet coz we need you!” and to those who are married and old, “sorry, we don’t need you anymore!”

Why only in the Philippines, known as the only Christian nation, do these things happening? Many Filipinos who are married and old (26 years old and above) find themselves difficult of getting employed and the only option left is to go abroad. Employers from the foreign lands seems to know the meaning of “being human” than Filipinos. These foreigners understand well that even married and old people could be part of defining excellence because they believe in them that they have the energy, they are smart and strong to be part of the corporate world.

This is the saddest part in Philippine history. We are known to be champions of democracy before the world, but in reality, we never understand the essence of democracy of freeing people from discrimination. Instead of becoming icons of being human and Christian, we become the icons of inhumanity and paganism, for we prioritize profit or money at the expense of young and single people. I hope that young and single people may see this ugly reality defined by the corporate people.  No wonder we are the only persons to be blamed of indignity and cruelty.

Bridge and Peace

In reading the full text of Pope Francis on his remark during the audience with the representatives of the diplomatic corps, two things catch my attention. First is about being the bridge. He said that it is difficult to build bridge among people while forgetting god, and to build links with god while ignoring other people. The second point is about the definition of peace. He said that there is no peace without truth, and when there are many truths!

The first point defines the term bridge in a divine way. Being the bridge means building a unique community of people and of god. It is not an ordinary community. It is a sacred and divine community, a presence of the holy. Thus being the bridge must be a lover of people and of god. He does not divide people and separate them from god. It is impossible to think of a community without god, and it is unimaginable to conceive a community with god while excluding other people.

The second point defines peace in the presence of truth. Truth becomes as the compass or guide towards the path of peace. But this truth is not any truths. It is a truth believed by all. Thus peace means unity in mind and heart by all people. It is a unity in mind where all people are one in believing and understanding of truth. It is the opposite of relativism.

Pope Francis brings to the surface the real meaning of community - a community that is divine, composed of people and god, and by having god as the originator of that community.

Is RH law pro-abortion?

Last semester of the academic year, I kept on following the progress and stages of the controversial issue on the reproductive health, which is now a law, and its continuous opposition by the Catholic Church. The church is the staunchest protester against the issue. I even downloaded the whole text of the then Reproductive Health Bill 4244 and shared it to my students.

I read the whole text of the bill, and it says nothing about promoting abortion. In fact the bill is really against abortion. But what I suspect about in the allegation of promoting abortion is that one of the contraceptives under the artificial family planning has the abortifacient effect which the church is referring to. But again, in the final text, which I now a law, pro-lawmakers have made clear that the contraceptives with abortifacient effect should not be make available. Instead on contraceptives with non-abortifacient effect be made available. It also gives directives to the Department of Health to see to it that there are no contraceptives be given, made available or distribute which has the said effect.

The second point is this, that those women who ask for post-abortion help will be assisted by health institutions. It is their obligation to ensure their physical health because the bill is for the good health of the citizens. It shows that the law is really humane on these people who even underwent the illegal process of aborting their own child, and who are on the verge of dying or when there is danger to their health.

Now, let us tackle the question. Is the RH Law pro-abortion or not? The answer is a big NO. Where does my answer come from? It comes from the reading of the whole text of RH Bill 4244 or RH Law 10534.

Ex-Priests to Politics and the Catholic Vote

As far as my consciousness is concern, only the time of GMA’s regime that some of the men in cloth are courageous enough to disobey the age-old centuries Church’s law and get involved in politics. They are suspended from their ministerial service because of such act. But they are ready to give their selves in civic service for the great number of people, regardless of their beliefs.

And for the past three consecutive elections, only Among Ed won and got into the arena of politics in the first election, but later on was unseated by his opponent after election count was done and proclaimed the latter as the real winner. For the second and third elections, he never did it even running under the ticket of the present administration which represents good governance.

There are three priests, as far as I know, aspire to become public servant, i.e. Fr. Ed Panlilio on Pampanga’s gubernatorial race, Fr. Leo Casas on Masbate’s gubernatorial race, and Msgr. Cris dela Cruz on Zamboanga’s congressional race, and all of them did not make it. This is a very sad experience for the Catholic people as a whole. Where are they? I am thinking about the support of the Catholics to these fellow Catholics.

A tiny part of the congregation has grouped themselves for a cause after the devastating defeat of being passed the reproductive health bill into law by the current administration. That cause is to try to prove that there is such a thing as Catholic Vote. This is to counter the survey conducted that most of the Catholics are supporting the RH Law. Sad to say that the stalwarts of this Catholic vote did not include these ex-priests in their list of support for good governance.

In the first place, these ex-priests did not abandon their service to the people. Their service even expands from serving the Catholics to non-Catholics as well. These men of the cloth are also citizens of this country. But why this movement did not give their support? Is it because out of obedience to their teachers and their teachings of the Church? Where is the sense of common good? Even the Ang Kapatiran Party, as supported by the teachers of the Church, promotes that idea as part of their social justice ideology.

These Catholics did not live up to their identity as ‘Catholics.’ If the word catholic means universal, then they should not only deal the issue on pro-life alone. I am sure that these ex-priests also embrace the idea of pro-life and live the ministerial service for greater service such as for the common good. It is with deep regret that within the catholic congregation, they do not support each other for the common cause to fight the evils in the society.

What do we have here is a picture of division and discrimination within the catholic fold. The men in authority are throwing their all-out support to this catholic vote movement for the purpose of getting the number of lawmakers who are pro-life in the congress. And still these same people did not encourage their flock to throw their support for these ex-priests in the name of disobedience to the Church law.

Traditional People or “Tra-Ple”

Election 2013 is over for senatorial and local contests. People have spoken their will through voting, and the winners have already been proclaimed. What is the next step after the national and local events? It is time for the winners to prove their worth and to put their agenda into practice. This is the usual scenario we witness ever since we become citizens of this country.

We have a democratic and republican system of government in the Philippines. Yes, any one is entitled not only to vote but also to participate in the election by being a candidate, provided he is qualified to be one. And this is the democratic spirit where all citizens are given and treated with equal standing with the rest. But not everyone’s wish is granted.

Only few of the citizens are blest with power and authority as vested by the people according to the Constitution of 1987. One political analyst has said that there are only 14 families who rule the country. And these ‘14 families’ are being called ‘political dynasties’ where family members and relatives are holders of such positions in the government.

The rise of these families is caused by two-fold causes. The first one is their good performances. The eldest Binay in the government has vindicated that their victory in the election is based on their performances. He has two daughters in the Congress and a son as mayor of Makati. I would like to agree with him that performance is one of the indicators of peoples’ choices, just like the Dutertes of Davao City. The other cause is not stemming from the politicians’ performances. And what is this?

If there is such thing as traditional politicians, also known as ‘trapos,’ I believe that there is also other phenomenon to explain the rise of these families into power. This is now on the part of the people, who, at the same time, the source of politicians’ power. They elect their candidates not according to their performance, but according to their traditional names. In short people choose them because they are carrying and inheriting influential names. And sad to say, the winners they have chosen are poor in their performances.

Why do I say this? It is because the electors do not mind about their performances. What is important to them is to place people in positions because they feel comfortable with them for the reason that their parents or grandparents have done something great for their constituents. Through this Filipino trait called debt of gratitude, citizens perpetuate them in power despite of their poor performances.

From this perspective, I could say that the kind of leaders in power reflects the kind of the majority of the electorate. There are the traditional people or “tra-ple.” Sometimes it is only ourselves to blame when the political affairs fails. We fail to play the game fairly. If we think we are contented and satisfied with the way we think, I guess we are wrong. We are always the losers in this scenario.