Circular No. 20-10 
March 10, 2020

TO ALL THE BISHOPS AND THE DIOCESAN ADMINISTRATORS

Your Eminences, Your Excellencies and Reverend Administrators,

RE:   PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCY – COVID-19

“For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we wake or sleep we might live with Him. Therefore, encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.” (1 Thessalonians 5:9-11)

The Department of Health (DOH) has declared a state of public health emergency in the country. This according to our health officials is a call to greater preparedness if the spread of the Corona Virus continues to affect greater number of the population. This has caused more fear, anxiety, and genuine concern. We need to take all of these seriously. We have already issued some guidelines in the recent past on the matter but we need to respond to the situation now in consistent efforts together.

As Catholics, we believe that God uses material instruments to bring to us His blessings and presence. This is the reason why we use material elements in our sacraments and sacramentals.

The same material elements that bring us God’s blessings are also subject to the broken nature of our fallen world. Science and our God-given reason demand that we use every means available to protect ourselves and our families against the spread of COVID-19 and any other disease. In the face of this world wide pandemic we are demanded to exercise vigilance as a Church, lest our churches become venues of transmission of the disease.

The measures we are strongly recommending do not change the traditions of the Church but rather are temporary precautions during this time of crisis.

We continue to appeal to our priests and faithful to follow the hygiene protocol that the DOH has consistently requested to everyone, namely, the proper washing and sanitation of hands and avoidance of body contacts. There is nothing more effective measure in this crisis than the best effort to stay clean.

1.      We recommend those feeling unwell physically to refrain from liturgical assemblies until they are certain of their diagnosis. Taking the basic steps of wellness as recommended by the health authorities is not only sensible, but wise and considerate of others. In truth, it is an expression of genuine charity. For vulnerable populations like elderly, those who are immunocompromised, they may view the celebration of Holy Mass on TV and the social media.

2.      Clergy and the faithful alike should use best practices through careful hand-washing and frequent cleaning of liturgical space and objects (e.g. sacred statues and sacred vessels). Our liturgical spaces should be disinfected/sanitized after every liturgical services. We should also provide hand sanitizers at the doors of our Churches for the use of our church goers.

Continue reading

March 8, 2020
by IBON Media

Research group IBON said that the situation of Filipino women workers is getting worse under the Duterte administration. The group said that the number of employed Filipino women has fallen even as those working continue to receive measly wages. Women workers are among the worst affected by the government’s neoliberal and anti-worker policies, said IBON.

The number of employed women in the country fell from some 16 million in 2016 to 15.7 million in 2018, the latest year for which data is available. This means 300,000 less jobs for Filipino women workers since the start of the Duterte administration.

For those women able to find employment, work conditions are hardly improving. The percentage share of employed women in precarious work is virtually unchanged from 15.6% in 2016 to 15.4% in 2018. Over one in four women employed work excessive hours, or over 48 hours per week. This is beyond international labor standards of eight hours a day or 40 hours a week. The share of women employed working excessive hours in all jobs was 27.1% in 2016 and falling only slightly to 26% in 2018.

IBON also noted low wages for Filipino women workers. The average real daily basic pay (ADBP) of women barely increased from Php382 in 2016 to Php389 in 2018, or by just a measly 1.8 percent. The ADBP of women in short-term, seasonal or casual work rose by 6% in the same period but this remained very low at just P257 in 2018.

The wage gap between women and men also still remains wide. The latest available data on ADBP shows that women working in agriculture made 12% less than men in 2016. This wage gap decreased slightly to 11% in 2017, with women having an ADBP of Php201 compared to Php225 for men.

Meanwhile, the wage gap between women and men employed in manufacturing increased from 7.4% in 2016 to 7.8% in 2017, with women having an ADBP of Php374 versus Php406 for men. The wage gap is smallest in services which narrowed even further from 7.3% to 5.9% over that same period, with women earning Php452 versus Php480 for men.

IBON said that Filipino women’s continuing plight is just another result of the Duterte administration’s market-driven pro-big business policies that disregard women and workers’ rights. The group said that that job prospects and conditions for women will not significantly improve unless these policies are changed. ###

5 March 2020

Labor NGO Ecumenical Institute for Labor Education and Research (EILER) expresses alarm as more and more corporations are laying off employees, contributing to the number growing of joblessness in the country.

EILER noted that already at least 2,626 employees are part of layoffs since the beginning of 2020 as specific divisions of Honda Cars Philippines, Inc. (387 plant workers), Wells Fargo & Co. (700 tech employees), and Nokia (700 IT professionals) close, and as PAL downsizes affecting 287 administrative staff. Before the four more talked-about companies, Yamada Technology Corp. (YTC), a manufacturer of furniture and Ecowalls products in Digos, Davao del Sur already closed on February 10 and laid off 552 workers. YTC, a subsidiary of Japan-based Yamada Denki, Co., one of the largest consumer electronics retailer chains in Japan, has been downsizing since 2015.

“The downsizing also affects workers along the supply chains, so the job loss is actually more. Take Honda Philippines for example, the closure of the car manufacturing plant may affect employees of their 60 parts and materials suppliers and 38 dealers nationwide. In England, as Honda announced their Swindon car factory will cease production in 2021, it will be laying off 3,500 workers. Honda said that another 3,500 jobs could be affected in its subsidiaries and partner companies, bringing the total to a massive 7,000 job losses,” Executive Director Rochelle Porras said,

EILER cited the companies’ annual reports and pointed out that they are generating income in spite of the economic downturn. For Honda, production might be slowing, but its profit soared in 2018 by 72% (988 million USD) and net sales is not drastically plummeting. Its forecast for the end of its fiscal year in March projects its operating profit to increase 68.2 billion YEN (635 million USD). For one of the biggest banks in the world, Wells Fargo’s profit in Q4 2019 may have declined to 2.87 billion USD from 6.06 billion USD the year prior, but it’s mainly due to low interest rates and the litigation charges and fraud scandal it faced some years back finally weighing. Nokia’s profit went up to 821 million EUR (917.4 million USD) in Q4 2019 by 11% as compared to the year before. Meanwhile, PAL’s parent company, PAL Holdings Inc. has been able to trim down its profit losses. PAL’s labor costs are steady and cargo revenues are up. In 2019, it announced that it is ‘confident in swinging back to profitability’ with ANA’s investments and its upgrades and expansions to be a five-star carrier.

“Walang nalulugi even PAL is still generating high revenues. That’s why, the workers were shocked at the ill-announced layoffs,” Porras said.

Porras also identified a couple of similarities at least in the claims of Honda, Wells Fargo, Nokia and PAL management based on their official statements in the Congressional hearing on March 3. First, that they are reorganizing, strategizing on technological impacts. Second, they are relocating what they’re closing in the Philippines, to other countries, except for PAL.

“Honda and Wells Fargo see opportunities in Thailand and India. But these two countries, unlike the Philippines, have not ratified fundamental ILO Conventions 87 and 98 on freedom of association and collective bargaining and C095 on protection of wages. With multinational corporations competing for lower wages and weaker labor regulations, it really is race to the bottom,” Porras said.

Continue reading

Your Eminence, Your Excellencies, and Reverend Administrators:

Please be informed that the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) through the Office of Civil Defense announced the cancellation of the 1st Quarter 2020 Nationwide Simultaneous Earthquake Drill (NSED) activity on 12 March 2020 to ensure public health safety of the drill participants and to prevent the possible risk of contracting COVID-19. 

Attached herewith is the memorandum on the said cancellation.

Thank you for your kind attention.

Sincerely in the Lord,

Msgr. Bernardo R. Pantin
Assistant Secretary General

March 9, 2020

Seeing the link between landlessness and poverty and how the latter could worsen health risks amid the coronavirus scare, 1,000 Negros Occidental tillers led by peasant women leaders have decried the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR)’s insincerity to complete land distribution via the 31-year-old Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).

Wearing white anti-virus masks and protesting against their continued servitude and exploitation under the centuries-old hacienda system, the farmers on Monday, March 9, during Women’s Month, trooped to the DAR Provincial Office on San Sebastian Street in Dawis, Bacolod City and lashed out at the department, saying its “empty CARP promise is making their and their family’s future more hopeless and frightening.”

Coronavirus amid lingering poverty ‘virus’ in Negros

“Landlessness has made us poor and in turn, poverty has caused many of us to suffer from poor health. With a highly contagious coronavirus entering our doors amid the poverty virus lingering in Negros, the DAR has made us more  vulnerable to health threats and complications,” Teresita Tarlac, president of national peasant federation Task Force Mapalad (TFM)’s Negros-Panay Chapter, said, days after the Department of Health (DOH) confirmed the local transmission of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). 

“While COVID-19 is not a death sentence, older adults like us, who are landless and poor and are mostly suffering from underlaying health conditions but don’t have access to adequate health care will be at higher risk of contracting and dying from the infectious disease if it worsens and spreads in our impoverished communities,” said Tarlac, noting that the Filipino farmers’ average age is 57, but among TFM farmers, many, if not most are already in their 60s. 

“Among aging but still landless women farmers of Negros, health risks could also be greater because we work hard without end  ̶  from households to haciendas and back to our homes again. When somebody gets sick in the family, women are the ones expected to provide health care,” the TFM leader added.

Credibility gap

In October last year, TFM compared the CARP performances of post-Marcos government administrations in terms of land acquisition and distribution (LAD) in their first three years in office and bared that the Duterte administration had the lowest average annual LAD accomplishment of 30,592 hectares or just 8 percent of the accomplishment of the Ramos administration, which was 371,006 hectares yearly.

In January this year, while in North Cotabato, President Rodrigo Duterte reiterated his vow to complete the CARP’s LAD component within his term, adding that he had directed DAR Secretary John Castriciones to fully implement the program, particularly in Negros Occidental, the province with the biggest LAD balance nationwide.

In May 2019, as a response to the chief executive’s directive to complete the distribution of agricultural landholdings to their tillers, the DAR said its target was for CARP to be LAD-free by 2022.

However, according to TFM, there remains a big credibility gap between what President Duterte promises and what the DAR does.  

Low land distribution accomplishments and targets despite LAD-free promise by 2022

Tarlac cited the fact that while the President’s directive was to complete LAD and prioritize the distribution of landholdings in Negros Occidental, the DAR had kept its LAD target low.

Continue reading

       As the Catholic Church in the Philippines dedicates this year 2020 to “Ecumenism, Interreligious Dialogue and Indigenous Peoples,” we can recall the historical statement signed by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, the two highest leaders of Christianity and Islam, on February 4, 2019 in Abu Dhabi.  The joint statement is entitled, “Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together.”  This is addressed to the peoples of the East and the West, particularly to the world-wide Christian and Muslim communities represented by the Catholic Church and Al-Azhar.  This is the first time that two supreme leaders of the two largest world religions have signed a common statement addressed to all their members and to all people of good will.

       The document starts with the keynote statement: “Faith leads a believer to see in the other a brother or sister to be supported and loved.”  It points out the remarkable scientific and technical progress achieved by the modern world.  However, it also notes the somber realities of mass poverty, conflict and suffering in many regions of the world due to “the arms race, social injustice, corruption, inequality, moral decline, terrorism, discrimination, extremism and many other causes.”   The document points out some of the major causes of the crisis of the modern world, such as “a desensitized human conscience, a distancing from religious values and a prevailing individualism accompanied by materialistic philosophies…in place of supreme and transcendental principles.” 

       To counter this, both religious leaders “declare the adoption of a culture of dialogue as the path; mutual cooperation as the code of conduct; reciprocal understanding as the method and standard.”  Thus, our CBCP motto for this year is “Dialogue Towards Harmony.”  For the Holy Father and the Grand Imam, “dialogue among believers means coming together in the vast space of spiritual, human and shared social values and, from here, transmitting the highest moral virtues that religions aim for.”

       The joint statement calls for the protection of places of worship, alluding to the desecration of the Catholic Cathedral in Marawi on May 23, 2017 and the bombing of the Catholic Cathedral in Jolo on January 27, 2019.  It condemns terrorism and its manipulation by extremists “due to an accumulation of incorrect interpretations of religious texts.”  Both supreme religious leaders declare “that religions must never incite war, hateful attitudes, hostility and extremism, nor must they incite violence or the shedding of blood.”They further state, “God, the Almighty, has no need to be defended by anyone and does not want his name to be used to terrorize people.”

       In the Southern Philippines, we should not forget the mass displacement of families due to the outbreak of war in Central Mindanao in the years 2000, 2003 and 2008, the Zamboanga siege in 2013, the Mamasapano firefight in 2015, and the Marawi occupation in 2017.   We welcome the creation of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao as the outcome of a peace process that addresses the root causes of unrest among Muslim communities.   We likewise join the call for the resumption of the GRP-NDFP peace talks, along with local peace conversations, to put an end to the protracted conflict between the New People’s Army and government forces in the various hinterlands of the country.

       While deploring religious-inspired violence, the two religious leaders also note that “situations of injustice and lack of equitable distribution of natural resources — which only a rich minority benefit from, to the detriment of the majority of the peoples of the earth — have generated, and continue to generate, vast numbers of poor, infirm and deceased persons.”  Pope Francis and Ahmad Al-Tayyeb thus call for the protection of human rights –in particular, the rights of women to education and employment; the rights of children to grow up in a family environment; and the rights of the elderly, the weak, the disabled, and the oppressed.  “It is likewise important,” they note, “to reinforce the bond of fundamental human rights in order to help ensure a dignified life for all men and women of East and West.”

            The joint statement ends with a directive:“Al-Azhar and the Catholic Church ask that this Document become the object of research and reflection in all schools, universities, and institutes of formation, thus helping to educate new generations to bring goodness and peace to others and to be defenders everywhere of the rights of the oppressed and of the least of our brothers and sisters.”  This is also an appeal directed to all our dioceses and church communities.

       As we continue to engage in dialogue with our brothers and sisters from other Christian churches, and from Muslim and Indigenous People communities, let us heed the invitation of Pope  Francis and Grand Imam Ahmad Al-Tayyeb to pursue “a universal peace that all can enjoy in this life.”  

For the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines,

+ ROMULO G. VALLES, D.D. 
  Archbishop of Davao 
  CBCP President
  29 February 2020

We are overjoyed at the declaration of Arroceros park as a permanent park as per Ordinance No. 8607 signed last 2 Mar 2020 by the City of Manila Mayor Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso. We salute the people who have campaigned hard to make this ordinance possible. We commend the Manila Mayor for heeding the call of his constituents to protect, preserve and develop the last remaining lung of the city of Manila.

The ordinance will benefit first and foremost, the people of the city. The trees and plants when preserved can make the city’s air fresher and cooler. Children will have a safer place to play. Senior citizens can have a secured path to walk through. People in general will have space for recreation, for socializing and for communing with nature. Better health for the citizens can be achieved as the park can help rid the city of carbon dioxide and pollution produced by transportation, factories and industries proliferating in the city. It can also serve as a refuge or a safer space in times of calamities. It will be to the people’s utmost interest.

Likewise, the ordinance is needed and timely given the call for bolder actions in view of the worldwide call to declare climate emergency. Eleven thousand (11,000) scientists from 153 countries have warned humanity of catastrophic impact of climate change not only to environment but to humankind itself, if societies all over the world will do their business as usual and if we continue the way we live. Climate Change scientists point to preservation of trees, plants and the whole forest ecosystem as among one of the most natural and effective solutions to the continuing global warming.

More so, with this new city ordinance, the plan to construct a gym and make it a commercial area has been effectively stalled. We need to protect the environment from the hands of greedy businessmen and corporations that only think of nature as source of profit. These kinds of businesses, specifically those into extraction and utilization of natural resources, like mining, have already caused huge damage to our environment. We need to engage them and hold them accountable for all their “ecological sins” so that people’s and nature’s rights are upheld and protected.

But more than the benefits for people and humankind, this is a victory for mother earth. Preserving the Arroceros Park  will save various species of plants, trees and sentient animals living on it.

So far,  this action is  the second most recent victories to protect mother nature by a local government. The first is the Cebuano’s move to save the centuries old Carcar Acacia Trees against the planned road widening project of the government. Both are victories for mother earth, and we expect more and bolder moves of people standing for the environment.

We look forward to a bandwagon of local governments adopting more resolutions and ordinances protecting nature. And even as PMPI pushes for a national bill recognizing the Rights of Nature, a synchronized action with local government units to push for a new legal framework recognizing nature as having rights and parallel drive to implement existing environmental laws are urgently needed.

Quezon City – More than 250 civil society organizations composed of church-faith based groups, non-government organizations and people’s organization coming from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao gathered for the general assembly to push for radical and strong actions in view of a climate emergency and engage state agencies on what they believe as a shrinking democratic space in the Philippines.

At the start of the assembly, Bishop Gerry Alminaza of San Carlos Diocese, addressing the body during his Keynote Speech asked, “Can we still imagine and bear a world that is becoming uninhabitable for the next generation? We need to radically change our paradigm. Climate emergency according to world scientists is mainly driven by humans. A change in the way we relate with nature is needed. We need to recognize that all creation including humans are interconnected and interdependent.”

During the assembly, the need to secure our people in view of climate emergency was highlighted when the assembly gave the highest vote to the Climate Change Adaptation/Mitigation and Disaster Risk Reduction and Management resolution. The assembly challenges the government to make a comprehensive plan that would mitigate the impact of climate change to food security and displacement of people. The importance of developing adaptation and mitigation programs is needed given that drought is projected to hit us hard and sea level rise in the Philippines will be three times more than the world average.

Yolly Esguerra, National Coordinator of PMPI said, “One of our focus is to engage the government and policy makers. This is also the reason why good governance is also among the resolutions voted upon by the network.  We will challenge government to act now and declare climate emergency given that we only have less than 10 years to stop a climate catastrophe or face human extinction.”

PMPI Co-Convenor and Executive Secretary of NASSA/Caritas Philippines, Fr Edu Gariguez said that the network will firmly push for good governance by engaging not only on the issue of corruption but also in extracting accountability on human rights violations perpetuated by the government and its instrumentalities. Fr Edu said that the protection of the rights of people is paramount as we are currently in a situation where our institutions of justice and accountability are being eroded and undermined by the very administration mandated to strengthen them.”

Fr. Juderick Calumpiano of SAC Borongan and PMPI Chairperson highlighted the need for laws to protect the environment. He reiterated that the current Mining Act of 1995 is highly skewed to the interest of corporations. It destroys a whole ecosystem without much regard for the people in communities. Mining results to the further decline of carbon sink. He also reiterated that besides people, other species within the ecosystem should be given a voice and their rights upheld and recognized, thus, the call for the passage of the Rights of Nature bill. Simultaneous to the advocacy to pass the said bill is the network’s active push to hold private corporations accountable for their ecological sins.

The PMPI 6th General Assembly concluded with much resolved to uphold human dignity and recognize the rights of nature. It will move forward listening intently to the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth.