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URGENT Statement on the Recent Flooding

The past month obviously tells us that flooding is now the new normal in the Philippines. This is nothing but climate change in its worst. Science explains to us that climate change gives rise to changes in precipitation, along with temperature, wind patterns, atmospheric pressure and moisture. Many scientists therefore…

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‘Day of Remembrance’ proposed for slain Filipino teen

Death of Kian delos Santos in August 2017 underscores atrocities committed in Duterte’s drug war, senator says

Friends and relatives of Kian delos Santos, a teenager killed in the Philippine government’s war against illegal drugs on Aug. 16, 2017, light candles to mark the first anniversary of his death. (Photo by Kimberly dela Cruz)

Leonel Abasola and Kimberly dela Cruz, Manila, Philippines
August 17, 2018

A Philippine senator has proposed declaring a day in August each year as a “National Day of Remembrance” to mark the death of a teenager last year in the government’s war against drugs.

The death of 17-year-old Kian de los Santos on Aug. 16, 2017, at the hands of police conducting an anti-drug operation sparked national and international outrage.

Senator Risa Hontiveros said the killing of De los Santos “underscored the human rights atrocities committed in the name of the bloody war on drugs.”

The opposition legislator said that by remembering all those who have died in the government’s drug war, “the public states its clear rejection of the culture of killing and impunity.”

“We have a duty to remember,” said Hontiveros. “We must not allow Kian and all the victims to be rendered nameless, invisible and forgotten.”

The legislator said the act of remembering, “is an act of defiance against the killings,” adding that, “to forget is to give consent.”

Bishop Pablo Virgilio David of Kalookan led relatives and friends of De los Santos in unveiling a memorial marker at San Roque Cathedral in Manila’s Caloocan City.

De los Santos’ case stirred up controversy after police claimed that the teenager tried to fight it out with them with a .45 caliber pistol.

Witness testimonies, however, disproved the claims. An independent autopsy also showed the boy was shot in the head.

“If they said that he fought back, and it’s not true, how many other cases are there where police were lying?” said Jose Luis Martin Gascon, chairman of the Commission on Human Rights.

Catholic priest Flavie Villanueva said Delos Santos “became a symbol of systematic killing involving youths.”

Data from the Children’s Legal Rights and Development Center revealed that at least 74 children have been killed in the two-year old war on narcotics.

Opposition congressman France Castro said President Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war has claimed more than 12,000 victims, many of whom were poor.

Early this week, Duterte admitted that he might not be able to solve the drug problem during his six-year term as president.

The Philippine National Police has reported that 23,518 murder cases have been investigated since July 2016, when Duterte came to power, to June 2018. Of that number, at least 4,279 involved drug suspects killed during “legitimate police operations.”

URGENT: On The Recent Flooding

August 16, 2018, Manila – The window of opportunity to act is about to close and the government should act decisively now to save our country from the worst possible effects of climate change.

This was the dire warning sounded by a new network of ecological advocates after days of heavy rains inundated vast swaths of Metro Manila and six provinces of Luzon, causing rivers to swell and bringing massive floods that forced hundreds of Filipinos to flee to evacuation centers, in scenes reminiscent of Tropical Storm Ondoy nine years ago.

Called URGENT, the group was convened early this year by Bishop Broderick Pabillo of the Archdiocese of Manila, Fr. Pedro Montallana, Chairperson of Save Sierra Madre Network Alliance Inc., and Yeb Saño, Executive Director of Greenpeace Asia and former Climate Change Commissioner.

Saño made climate change issues popular when he held a hunger strike and made a tearful, emotional appeal at the United Nations Climate Change Conference that was being held as Typhoon Haiyan, locally known as Yolanda wreaked havoc on southern Philippines in 2013.

Yolanda is one of the strongest tropical cyclones ever recorded that devastated portions of Southeast Asia, causing over 6, 000deaths in the country .

“We need to stop ourselves from a business-as-usual track right now and take drastic actions,” URGENT said today in a statement sent to the media.

“The heavy rains and floods brought by five consecutive typhoons Gardo, Henry, Inday, Josie and Karding this month should shake us and wake us up to the fact that climate change issue is real and urgent and we need to act now,” the group said.

“It is a must that we make radical lifestyle change as individuals and take drastic collective actions to address this issue,” Bp. Pabillo sounded off. He further echoed Pope Francis call to all people of goodwill in his encyclical letter, Laudato Si on Care for our Common Home, for ecological conversion and hearing both the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor.

Over the weekend, a red rainfall warning — the highest — was raised over Metro Manila and weather bureau PAGASA has said that downpours are expected to persist in the coming days due to the southwest monsoon.

Meanwhile, massive floods occurred in most of Bulacan and parts of Rizal, Pangasinan, Tarlac, Pampanga, Cavite and Zambales, as well as Metro Manila.

In recent years, tropical storms — Ondoy (Ketsana), Sendong (Washi), Pablo (Bopha) and Yolanda (Haiyan) — have left trails of death and destruction, shattered homes, and destroying communities.

In Yolanda alone, non-government organizations have estimated the damage to property and to the country’s economy to be at least P650 billion ($13 billion).

The Philippines is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, including sea level rise, increased frequency of extreme weather events, rising temperatures and extreme rainfall.

This is due to its high exposure to natural hazards (cyclones, landslides, floods, droughts), dependence on climate-sensitive natural resources and vast coastlines where all major cities and the majority of the population reside.

The Philippines lies in the world’s most cyclone-prone region, averaging 19–20 cyclones each year, of which 7–9 make landfall. Due to climate change, sea levels in the Philippines are rising faster than the global average, increasing the hazard posed by storm surges and threatening permanent inundation of low-lying areas.

URGENT was echoing decades of warnings made by many international scientists. Over the past decades, scientists have warned that our increasing use of fossil fuels is adding heat-trapping gases to the Earth’s atmosphere, causing mountain glaciers and ice masses to melt, sea levels to rise, plant blooming to shift, as well as extreme weather events like weird weather patterns, stronger and more frequent storms and heat waves.   Continue reading

Labour Rights Group Condemns the Killing of Butch Rosales, A Labour Rights Defender

The Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR) strongly condemns the killing of its former Cebu staff, Butch Rosales, who was gunned down by an unidentified man last August 8, Wednesday at 12:30 in the afternoon while on board a jeepney in Punta Engaño, Mactan, Cebu a community where Rosales grew up.

He was always known as labour rights activist by his neighbors and acquaintances. Rosales was a full-time human rights correspondent of CTUHR in Cebu 2008 to 2011. A courageous and dedicated activist, he organized workers in Mactan Economic Zone (MEZ), which was considered as among the most repressive industrial enclaves in the country. He was instrumental in the founding of the Unity for Workers Rights (U4WR), a broad organization of workers and workers rights advocates, in response to massive retrenchments in MEZ and in neighboring industrial centers. U4WR was the first workers’ organization established in MEZ since the 1990’s, with members coming from eight factories.

In 2009, Rosales was subjected to surveillance and intimidation by state forces but this did not stop him from pursuing human rights work and labor organizing. He carried on organizing workers in Cebu and assisted in conducting the CTUHR’s human rights’ assessment in electronics factories in the province in 2013 and 2016. He contributed greatly in the trade union movement and local mass struggle of workers.

Very recently, Butch turned to organizing Rise Up for Life and Rights (RISE UP), an organization of families of victims of extrajudicial killings of Duterte regime’s drug war. He was on his way to a 2pm meeting in a Church in Southern Cebu City when the tragic and brutal incident happened. He was on the jeepney’s front seat when the gunman pretending as passenger riding inside shot him at the back of his head. He sustained three gunshot wounds that killed him instantly.

The killing of Rosales done in broad daylight in a public space clearly resembles the brutal anti-drug operations that extra-judicially killed thousands of mostly poor people whom the police merely state to be under investigation. Rosales is the 31st victim of extrajudicial killings in the labor sector since Duterte’s presidency. This incident sees a confluence of Duterte government’s violent drug war and naked suppression of human rights defenders who sought to bring justice to victims of EJKs and other human rights violations.

CTUHR mourns and grieves with Rosales’ family, friends and comrades. He is survived by a wife and three children. We share their pain and sorrow. In celebrating his life and contribution to the trade union movement, CTUHR vows to pursue his cause of bringing justice to victims of trade union and human rights violations. Amid heightened attacks on people’s rights and freedoms, CTUHR will persevere in the struggle against impunity, rising tyranny and state fascism alongside the people’s movement.

Justice for Butch Rosales!
Justice for all victims of Duterte’s fascism and tyranny!

The Wrong Way to Fight a Drug War

The Philippines has undertaken a brutal battle against “shabu,” or crystal methamphetamine. But the government needs to go after another target entirely.

The body of a man killed in a shootout with police in 2016 in Manila. According to the police, sachets containing a substance believed to be the drug, shabu were found in the killed man’s pockets.CreditDaniel Berehulak for The New York Times

New York Times Opinion 
By Miguel Syjuco
Mr. Syjuco is a Filipino novelist and a contributing opinion writer.
Aug. 8, 2018

If you’ve tried shabu, you’ll understand its allure. Taking it begins with ritual — folding foil into a chute, rolling paper towel into a wick and heating the gleaming crystal into running liquid trailing vapor. Inhaling it feels unbelievably clean, as if your body and mind are scrubbed of all weight. It was so good I tried it only once.

Shabu, or crystal methamphetamine, manipulates the reward pathways of the brain, flooding it with dopamine. As with other addictive drugs, repetition hinders the brain’s transmitters and receptors, pushing users to seek replenishment artificially. A fraction of users get stuck in that cycle, leading to antisocial behaviors or even criminality. Even kicking that drug can lead to dependency on other substances, increasing the likelihood of relapse. This is why it is addiction — not just shabu — that is at the heart of a public health crisis in the Philippines.

Rodrigo Duterte, speaking to Filipinos’ alarm about widespread shabu use, was elected president in June 2016 on his promise to solve the country’s drug problem. But his government’s strategy, based on fear and law enforcement, is misguided. Since he began his presidency, on average 33 people have been killed per day — more than 4,500 suspected drug users — by police, with more than 23,500 more deaths under investigation. The vast majority comes from the poor, who cannot afford private rehabilitation programs.

This drug war has been dramatic, but its effectiveness is dubious. Even official numbers remain hard to come by. Last year, the president fired the head of the government’s Dangerous Drugs Board for standing by the agency’s statistic of 1.8 million Filipinos who used drugs once within a year. That contradicted the president’s own estimate, which fluctuates between 3 million and 4 million full-fledged addicts.

Despite voicing good intentions, Mr. Duterte’s insistence on prioritizing a punitive, rather than rehabilitative, approach to addiction is proving shortsighted. Fear alone is unsustainable.

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Angelus Address: On Not Grieving the Holy Spirit Whom We Received in Baptism

The Promises of Baptism Have Two Aspects: The Giving up of Evil and Adherence to the Good

August 12, 2018 14:16 Virginia Forrester Angelus/Regina Caeli

Here is ZENIT translation of the address Pope Francis gave August 12, 2018, before and after praying the midday Angelus with those gathered in St. Peter’s Square.

* * *

Before the Angelus:

Dear Brothers and Sisters and dear Italian young people, good morning!

In today’s second Reading, Saint Paul addresses an urgent invitation to us: “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption” (Ephesians 4:30).

But I wonder, how is the Holy Spirit grieved? We all received Him in Baptism and in Confirmation, therefore, to not grieve the Holy Spirit it’s necessary to live in a consistent manner with the promises of Baptism, renewed in Confirmation. In a consistent manner, not with hypocrisy: don’t forget this. A Christian can’t be a hypocrite; he must live in a consistent way. The promises of Baptism have two aspects: the giving up of evil and adherence to the good.

To give up evil means to say “no” to temptations, to sin, and to Satan. More concretely, it means saying “no” to a culture of death, which is manifested in fleeing from the real to a false happiness that is expressed in lies, in fraud, in injustice, in contempt for the other. To all this, one must say “no.” The new life that was given to us in Baptism, and which has the Spirit as source, rejects a conduct dominated by feelings of division and discord. Therefore, the Apostle Paul exhorts to remove from one’s heart all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander, with all malice” (v. 31). So says Paul. These six elements or vices, which disturb the joy of the Holy Spirit, poison the heart and lead to imprecations against God and against one’s neighbor.

However, it’s not enough not to do evil to be a good Christian; it’s necessary to adhere to the good. Here then Saint Paul continues: “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (v. 32). One often hears it said: “I don’t harm anyone.” And he/she believes him/herself to be a saint. OK, but do you do good? How many people don’t do evil but don’t do good either, and their life unfolds in indifference, in apathy, and in tepidness. Such an attitude is contrary to the Gospel, and it’s also contrary to your nature, young people, who by nature are dynamic, passionate and courageous. Remember this — if you remember it, we can repeat it together: it’s good not to do evil, but it’s evil not to do good.” Saint Albert Hurtado said this.

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Filipino Catholic media told to fight ‘fake news’

Bishops stress urgency in addressing spread of falsehoods, especially on social media

About 150 priests, nuns, and lay people attend a national convention of Catholic Media that ends in the southern Philippine city of Davao on Aug. 9. (Photo by Ayie Ortega-Villanueva)

UCANews Judelyn Vega, Davao City |  Philippines
August 9, 2018

Filipinos working in the church’s social communication ministry need a lot of prayer and a “sense of mission” to be able “to combat fake news” and work for peace, a gathering in Davao City was told this week.

The head of the Philippine bishops’ Commission on Social Communications told the gathering of Catholic media groups to be “journalists of peace.”

“As Catholic media practitioners … we must be men and women of prayer,” said Bishop Mylo Hubert Vergara of Pasig, chairman of the commission.

“Being exposed to Jesus … we clearly realize the font and source of what we proclaim,” the prelate told delegates at the 4th National Catholic Media Convention.

About 150 priests, nuns, and lay people attended the four-day gathering to discuss “fake news” and the role of journalists in the peace process.

More than 80 dioceses across the country sent delegates to the gathering that ended on Aug. 9.

Archbishop Romulo Valles of Davao, president of the bishops’ conference, quoted Pope Francis saying that the “best antidotes to falsehoods are not strategies, but people [who] listen, people who make the effort to engage in sincere dialogue so the truth can emerge.”

At a press briefing on Aug. 8, the Davao prelate stressed the urgency in addressing the spread of so-called fake news, especially on social media.

He said people can end “fake news” if journalists “have pure hearts.”

“It seems impossible, but we always pray and inspire people to abandon that life. We don’t lose hope. Catholic media should inspire people in media. We should be conveyors of truth,” said the prelate.

The gathering also held skills training sessions on social communications, including best practices in the provinces.

Last year, bishops issued a statement urging Catholics to refrain from “patronizing, popularizing, and supporting identified sources of ‘alternative facts’ or ‘fake news.'”

In a pastoral exhortation, the bishops called on Filipinos not to be “purveyors of fake news” and “to desist from disseminating” false information.

The bishops said spreading “fake news” is a “sin against charity because it hinders people making right and sound decisions and encourages them, instead, to make faulty ones.”

CBCP Pastoral Guidelines for Discerning the Moral Dimension of the Present-day Moves for Charter Change

Freedom to Do Good and Not Evil

Posted by CBCP News | Jan 29, 2018 |

Catholic bishops pose for a group photo after the opening Mass of their 116th plenary assembly at the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral on Jan. 27, 2018. SAMMY NAVAJA

“Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” (2 Cor. 3:17)

Beloved People of God:

Introduction

To change or not to change the Constitution, that is the fermenting political question of the day. The move for Charter change is, and has been, the proposed vehicle to adopt Federalism as a new form of government. But ignored in the welter of political opinions regarding Charter change is the fundamental moral dimension of this human political act. Continue reading