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How Catholic Talibans stormed the CCP
By William M. Esposo (The Philippine Star)
The Catholic Church in our country is so messed up that it cannot...
by Kel Fabie
Epal: a common practice among public officers, whether elected or appointed, to append their names to public works projects which were either funded or facilitated through their office. – Epalwatch
Case in point:
I spy yet another Magsaysay… sigh.
Instances like this are pretty clear-cut. In the midst of relief operations, their face is plastered all over the truck, as if to announce “Hey, you undeserving peon! Gaze upon your salvation that is I, Jobo Jobo. For I am Jobo Jobo! People call me Jobo Jobo! Gaze, I say. Gaaaaazzzzeee!” Then there are cases where people get even more blatant, like this:
Oh, screw you.
The definition from Epalwatch was very clear. It’s all about people who put their name and face to projects, goods, and services to claim credit, with the obvious intention of leveraging themselves for the next elections. Well before campaign period, you’d see faces on sardines, stickers, tarps, everything short of a big, honking billboard, in an attempt to grab your attention — and votes.
Whoops.
Epalwatch is a worthy cause. It keeps public servants on their toes and keeps them from willfully using their position of power to spend public funds in an effort to advertise themselves for re-election well before they even file their candidacy. It helps other politicians from making a name for themselves at the expense of genuine public service. I am also a writer for Blogwatch (the group behind Epalwatch), and I agree with the objectives of Epalwatch in principle.
However, in an attempt to stamp out this epal-ing phenomenon, overzealous advocates of the Epalwatch movement seem to have resorted to calling out anyone who is seen doing any kind of public service. This may do more harm than good, because even sincerely well-meaning politicians would fear having their name besmirched just because they want to help.…
Read the full article on the Filipino Freethinkers website.
From the Manila Standard Today:
Solons troop to Palace for marching order
President Benigno Aquino III has invited lawmakers to the Palace today for a final push to win support for the reproductive health bill ahead of a crucial vote on Tuesday.
“The President wants to convey his thoughts on responsible parenthood. The President has been very clear and consistent on where he stands on the matter,” said Transport Secretary Manuel Roxas II, president of Mr. Aquino’s Liberal Party.
“The multi-party meeting has been scheduled to ensure that the President is not misinterpreted and his words are not misappropriated. We expect a very good turnout of about 200 lawmakers.”
Congress is set to decide on Tuesday if it will end the debates on the bill that have lasted for more than a year to move it closer to a final vote. The lawmakers who oppose the bill have sought to delay its passage by dragging out the debates, a tactic that succeeded in the previous Congresses.
The United Nations on Sunday called on Congress to pass the bill, noting that the time spent debating the proposal was measured by the lives of 15 women lost to maternal death daily.
Presidential political adviser Ronald Llamas accused Catholic bishops of bullying lawmakers into voting against the RH bill and saying contraception was a form of corruption.
“It’s unfair but not unexpected. From the start the anti-RH campaign has been characterized by false claims and misinformation,” Llamas said.
In its statement Sunday, the UN dismissed the concerns raised by the Catholic Church.
“The United Nations believes that apprehensions such as exposure of people to risks of contraceptive use, encouragement of sexual promiscuity and legalization of abortion have no basis,” the UN said.
Read the full article on the site.
From The Daily Tribune:
With the Catholic Church leaders flexing their muscle with a show of force through a planned huge mass protest against the Reproductive Health (RH) bill renamed by the Palace as the Responsible Parenthood (RP) bill, President Aquino, speaking through his official spokesman, Edwin Lacierda, took a new approach in portraying the Church and its leaders as unpatriotic with congressmen who will pass the RH bill as true Filipino patriots who think only of the country and the Filipino’s future — his future children.
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At a press briefing yesterday, Lacierda also urged the members of the House of Representatives to “think about the great service they will be giving the country” when they finally decide on the much-talked about bill primarily designed to promote and promulgate provisions on safe sex and population control.
by The Editors
23 July 2012, Quezon City – Members of secularist group Filipino Freethinkers (FF) posed as pregnant versions of Philippine President Benigno “PNoy” Aquino III outside the Batasang Pambansa Complex as the former held his third State of the Nation Address (SONA) indoors. The demonstrators wore blown-up PNoy masks and housedresses, carried baby dolls, and bore a banner that read: PNoy, kung nabubuntis ka, ang RH batas na (PNoy, if you could get pregnant, RH would be a law by now).
FF’s demonstration alludes to the President’s failure to prioritize the passing of the Reproductive Health (RH) Bill into law. Despite the bill’s inclusion as a priority measure by the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) in 2011, the President has continued to ignore the delaying of its passage by anti-RH legislators. FF claims that if the President himself could literally get pregnant, he would better understand the bill’s overwhelming positive impact on Filipinas and speed up its passage.
“Considering how PNoy has been ignoring the RH issue, we highly doubt that he’d mention it at all in today’s address,” says FF President Red Tani. “This is grossly negligent of him, as 12 women die each day due to maternal complications, and Filipinos in general are not properly educated on their reproductive rights. An RH law is an intrinsic part of our nation’s quest for true progress; we cannot let PNoy forget this.”
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Filipino Freethinkers (FF) is the largest and most active organization for freethought in the Philippines. Freethought is a way of thinking unconstrained by dogma, authority, and tradition.
Every one of FF’s efforts aims to promote reason, science, and secularism as a means of improving every Filipino’s quality of life. The group wishes for everyone to live free of ignorance and oppression—in a society where they are able to act and think for themselves, and in a country where religion and governance are clearly and permanently separated.
You may reach the Filipino Freethinkers through our contact page.
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Photos by Frank III Manuel
Yesterday, SONA day, a few of us Freethinkers marched down Commonwealth as pregnant PNoys—enormous face masks, pillows for bellies, juggling plastic babies—to allude to the president’s negligence towards the passage of the Reproductive Health Bill. Our banner read, “PNoy, kung nabubuntis ka, ang RH batas na.” (PNoy, if you could get pregnant, RH would be a law by now.)
We wanted to point out that if our president could literally get pregnant, could experience first-hand the immense hardship so many Filipinas go through raising multiple children on a less-than-meager budget, he’d have stuck to his promise to speed up the long-delayed passage of the bill, and not be the dilly-dallying, passive-aggressive politician he’s being now. Give the man a uterus and see if he’ll still pander to the bullying bishops of the CBCP.
Later that day, my Facebook newsfeed tittered with reports that PNoy had actually expressed his desire to pass the RH Bill during his SONA. Media accounts and FB friends alike sang praises for the following sound byte:
“Ngayong paubos na po ang backlog sa textbooks, sana po ay maiwasan na rin ang backlog sa estudyante. Sa tingin ko po, responsible parenthood ang sagot dito.” (Now that our textbook backlog is growing smaller, I hope that we soon get to avoid a backlog in students as well. In my view, responsible parenthood is the answer to this.)
It was reported that this blip in his speech garnered the loudest and longest spell of applause in the entire event. Some present even gave him a standing ovation. People were ecstatic. People were claiming PNoy had finally put his foot down regarding RH.
But I don’t buy it. And neither should anyone else, most especially fellow pro-RH advocates.
By sneaking the term “responsible parenthood” into a statement about education, PNoy remains the dilly-dallying, passive-aggressive politician we’ve been frustrated with since RH 
became a LEDAC priority measure last year. Not only did he not elaborate as to why responsible parenthood—itself a watered-down, wishy-washy euphemism for reproductive health—would help with the student backlog, but he also worded the statement itself to be quite safe and retraction-friendly.
In his speech, responsible parenthood was a mere aside to a larger concern. Moreover, the phrase “sa tingin ko po” or “in my view,” wraps responsible parenthood in a sheath of self-confessed personal bias. (It’s just his own humble opinion; he’s definitely not setting anything in stone, so to all the anti-RH out there, don’t get all huffy just yet.)
Read the full article on the Filipino Freethinkers website.
Interaksyon.com reports that President Noynoy Aquino will endorse the consolidated reproductive health bill to the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) as a priority legislative measure.
President Aquino at the previous LEDAC meeting
Malacañang spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said that the Palace does not have its own version of the bill but that they “will propose amendments.” One of these proposed amendments will be that the age-appropriate RH age education should be moved from Grade 4 to Grade 5. Despite this, Lacierda said that “essentially the entire bill is okay.”
Read the full article on the Filipino Freethinkers website.
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From The Filipino Freethinkers website:
(July 22, 2010) Manila – Filipino Freethinkers marched to Mendiola and Malacañang with other RH advocates from the Reproductive Health Advocacy Network (RHAN) and other pro-RH organizations. One of their members dressed as ex-President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA), pulling behind her seven huge PCSO checks. Each check was carried by a member dressed in a bishop costume. The recipients and amounts listed in the checks are based on the details of the recent PCSO scandal, wherein 7 Catholic bishops were given PCSO donations approved by GMA. “We want to warn PNoy not to commit the same mistakes of the past president,” said Kenneth Keng, RH advocacy director of Filipino Freethinkers. “GMA bought the bishops’ silence during the Hello Garci scandal by blocking the passage of the RH Bill during her term. The recently exposed PCSO donations to several bishops are only the tip of the iceberg. There may be more bribes that have yet to Filipino Freethinkers also echoed the call for PNoy to clearly support RH during his upcoming State of the Nation Address (SONA). Keng said: “It is our hope that showing the President the broad based majority support that the most recent SWS surveys confirmed (70% of filipinos nationwide in favor of the RH Bill) and the dire consequences of delay in terms of innocent lives lost (100,000 maternal and infant deaths and 4,000,000 abortions since a vocal minority of religious opposition began opposing the bill 10 years ago) can enjoin him ahead of his upcoming State of the Nation address to take action in making the priority passage of the RH Bill this year a reality. “We want to remind PNoy to fulfil his promise to provide RH for all,” said Keng. “He has unequivocally given his support to the RH Bill in public fora such as the recent UP commencement address. We’re here to celebrate this new promise while gently reminding him of the need to help push the Bill past all of the shameless, underhanded and undemocratic stalling tactics of groups led by the CBCP in both houses of Congress” # # #
be uncovered.”
If you’d like more information about this, or to schedule an interview with Kenneth Keng, please contact usor send an email to kenneth@filipinofreethinkers.org.
President Noynoy Aquino’s second State of the Nation Address (SONA), apart from being the most shameless reheating of a metaphor in recent literature, was not much else. Yes, we get it, the man loves talking about hiswangwang, but what of the Reproductive Health (RH) Bill, among other dire matters? Suffice it to say that many people were sorely disappointed by P-Noy’s deafening silence regarding the sundry issues he failed to mention, and clamored for a follow-up.
Sadly, P-Noy’s response was just as disheartening.
Regarding the RH Bill, he said:
“Anong pakinabang nino man na ‘yong proponents and ‘yong antagonists of the bill to discuss it when we are almost at the stage na tapos na ‘yong debate (What’s the use of discussing it when we’re almost at a point where the debate is over)?”
The debate’s almost over? That’s news to us, dear President.
Read the full article at The Filipino Freethinkers website.
Please vote for Filipino Freethinkers in “The One” and “The Advocate” categories of the Globe Tatt Awards. Thanks!
