Sangguniang Laiko ng Pilipinas “Usapang Kaliwa Dam”
October 24, 2020
Save Sierra Madre Network’s Fr. Pete Montallana, OFM and Conrado Vargas together with Dumagat residents of Infanta speak on the consequences of the Kaliwa Dam project on climate change and the future of indigenous peoples of Sierra Madre.
“It is necessary to work with greater commitment at all levels to ensure that the right to health care is rendered effective… to establish a real distributive justice which, on the basis of objective needs, guarantees adequate care to all.”
– Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, Message to participants in the 25th International Conference organized by the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers, November 15 2010
Charity is at the heart of Catholic Social Teachings. One cannot ignore the present, immediate needs of the impoverished in the hope of building a just society. Charity is intrinsically linked with justice, for to love others requires that one must first be just towards them. Consequently, the antithesis or negation of charity is injustice, social exclusion, and marginalization.
The proposed 2021 national budget does not guarantee adequate health care especially to the poorest of the poor and those severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Research group IBON expressed concern over the burgeoning budget on infrastructure amid the worst health crisis and economic decline in the country’s history. IBON noted that the proposed budget prioritizes infrastructure, debt, and militarization over health and other social services, agriculture, and industry. This is evidenced by the colossal budget for infrastructure projects (Build, build, build programs) amounting to Php 1.1 trillion (taking up 24% of the total budget) compared with Php 212.3 billion for health, Php 454.1 billion for social protection, and Php 5.1 billion support for micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs). The proposed budget likewise prioritizes debt-servicing and military expenditure amounting to a total of Php 740.6 billion over a minimal DOH budget of Php 131.7 billion or barely one-fifth of one percent (0.2%) of the total infrastructure spending.
IBON added that while the proposed Php 212.3-billion health budget is bigger than last year’s allocation, “allotment for facilities enhancement, epidemiological surveillance, for instance, were all reduced right when the country’s public health system sorely needs a boost.” Declines were also registered in the epidemiology and surveillance program, to P112.631 million from P115.501 million; and in the operations of national reference laboratories, down to P289.330 million from P326.330 million.
The proposed 2021 national budget is a glaring evidence that Philippine health recovery is not a priority for the Duterte administration as only a tiny fraction of the 2021 budget will be allocated for health.
A Catholic vision of health care promotes “[a] healthcare system… rooted in values that respect human dignity, protect human life, respect the principle of subsidiarity, and meet the needs of the poor and uninsured, especially the unborn children, pregnant women, immigrants, and other vulnerable populations.” (United States Conference of the Catholic Bishop, “Forming consciences for faithful citizenship”). The growing inequality in health care is due in part to the State’s abandonment of duty to protect and provide adequate health services. In a time where the county is hit by the worst health crisis and economic meltdown, the country needs to prioritize health and social assistance to the most vulnerable sectors of society. Amid economic hardships and massive unemployment, the poor needed not only charity but also justice.
Signed:
Fraternity and social friendship are the ways the Pontiff indicates to build a better, more just and peaceful world, with the contribution of all: people and institutions. With an emphatic confirmation of a ‘no’ to war and to globalized indifference.
By Isabella Piro
What are the great ideals but also the tangible ways to advance for those who wish to build a more just and fraternal world in their ordinary relationships, in social life, politics and institutions?
This is mainly the question that Fratelli tutti is intended to answer: the Pope describes it as a “Social Encyclical” (6) which borrows the title of the “Admonitions” of Saint Francis of Assisi, who used these words to “address his brothers and sisters and proposed to them a way of life marked by the flavour of the Gospel” (Par 1). The Encyclical aims to promote a universal aspiration toward fraternity and social friendship. In the background of the Encyclical is the Covid-19 pandemic which, Francis reveals, “unexpectedly erupted” as he “was writing this letter”. But the global health emergency has helped demonstrate that “no one can face life in isolation” and that the time has truly come to “dream, then, as a single human family” in which we are “brothers and sisters all” (Par 8).
Looking at others as brothers and sisters to save ourselves and the world
Chapter One: dark clouds cover the world
In the first of eight chapters, which is entitled “Dark Clouds over a Closed World”, the document reflects on the many distortions of the contemporary era: the manipulation and deformation of concepts such as democracy, freedom, justice; the loss of the meaning of the social community and history; selfishness and indifference toward the common good; the prevalence of a market logic based on profit and the culture of waste; unemployment, racism, poverty; the disparity of rights and its aberrations such as slavery, trafficking, women subjugated and then forced to abort, organ trafficking (see Par 10-24). It deals with global problems that call for global actions, emphasizes the Pope, also sounding the alarm against a “culture of walls” that favours the proliferation of organized crime, fuelled by fear and loneliness (see Par 27-28).
Chapter Two: strangers on the road
To many shadows, however, the Encyclical responds with a luminous example, a herald of hope: the Good Samaritan. The second chapter, “A stranger on the road”, is dedicated to this figure. In it, the Pope emphasizes that, in an unhealthy society that turns its back on suffering and that is “illiterate” in caring for the frail and vulnerable (see Par 64-65), we are all called – just like the Good Samaritan – to become neighbours to others (see Par 81), overcoming prejudices, personal interests, historic and cultural barriers. We all, in fact, are co-responsible in creating a society that is able to include, integrate and lift up those who have fallen or are suffering (see Par 77). Love builds bridges and “we were made for love” (Par 88), the Pope adds, particularly exhorting Christians to recognize Christ in the face of every excluded person (see Par 85).
Chapter Three: vision of an open world
The principle of the capacity to love according to “a universal dimension” (see Par 83) is also resumed in the third chapter, “Envisaging and engendering an open world”. In this chapter Francis exhorts us to go “‘outside’ the self” in order to find “a fuller existence in another” (Par 88), opening ourselves up to the other according to the dynamism of charity which makes us tend toward “universal fulfilment” (Par 95). In the background – the Encyclical recalls – the spiritual stature of a person’s life is measured by love, which always “takes first place” and leads us to seek better for the life of the other, far from all selfishness (Par 92-93). The sense of solidarity and of fraternity begin within the family, which are to be safeguarded and respected in their “primary and vital mission of education” (Par 114).
Continue reading
Laiko online conversation on Fratelli Tutti on October 17, 2020, 2:00 – 4:00 PM, via Zoom, with Fr. Amado Picardal, CSsR, STD, a Redemptorist Priest, who is now in the Vatican serving as Co-Secretary at the JPIC ROMA.
October 10, 2020, 2-4 PM. via Zoom.
The speaker-sharer is Fr. Dominic Derramas, from the Diocese of Bacolod, who is currently a Student-Priest at the Collegio Filippino in Rome Italy. He spoke about CARLO ACUTIS-THE 1ST MILLENIAL BLESSED. It is hoped that this conversation will inspire and prepare young saints in this generation.
Held in Paul VI Hall
The text was provided by the Vatican.
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!
As we read the Bible, we continually come across prayers of various types. But we also find a book made up solely of prayers, a book that has become the native land, gymnasium and home of countless men and women of prayer. It is the Book of Psalms. There are 150 Psalms to pray.
It forms part of the books of wisdom because it communicates “knowing how to pray” through the experience of dialogue with God. In the Psalms, we find all human sentiments: the joys, the sorrows, the doubts, the hopes, the bitterness that color our lives. The Catechism affirms that every Psalm “possesses such direct simplicity that it can be prayed in truth by men of all times and conditions” (CCC, 2588). As we read and reread the Psalms, we learn the language of prayer. God the Father, indeed, with His Spirit, inspired them in the heart of King David and others who prayed, in order to teach every man and woman how to praise Him, how to thank Him and to supplicate; how to invoke Him in joy and in suffering, and how to recount the wonders of His works and of His Law. In short, the Psalms are the word of God that we human beings use to speak with Him.
In this book, we do not encounter ethereal people, abstract people, those who confuse prayer with an aesthetic or alienating experience. The Psalms are not texts created on paper; they are invocations, often dramatic, that spring from lived existence. To pray them it is enough for us to be what we are. We must not forget that to pray well we must pray as we are, without embellishment. One must not embellish the soul to pray. “Lord, I am like this”, and go in front of the Lord as we are, with the good things and also with the bad things that no-one knows about, but that we inwardly know. In the Psalms, we hear the voices of men and women of prayer in flesh and blood, whose life, like that of us all, is fraught with problems, hardships, and uncertainties. The Psalmist does not radically contest this suffering: he knows that it is part of living. In the Psalms, however, suffering is transformed into a question. From suffering to questioning.
And among the many questions, there is one that remains suspended, like an incessant cry that runs throughout the entire book from beginning to end. A question that we repeat many times: “Until when, Lord? Until when?” Every suffering calls for liberation, every tear calls for consolation, every wound awaits healing, every slander a sentence of absolution. “Until when, Lord, must I suffer this? Listen to me, Lord!” How many times we have prayed like this, with “Until when?”, enough now, Lord!
By constantly asking such questions, the Psalms teach us not to get used to pain, and remind us that life is not saved unless it is healed. The existence of each human being is but a breath, his or her story is fleeting, but the prayerful know that they are precious in the eyes of God, and so it makes sense to cry out. And this is important. When we pray, we do so because we know we are precious in God’s eyes. It is the grace of the Holy Spirit that, from within, inspires in us this awareness: of being precious in the eyes of God. And this is why we are moved to pray.
The prayer of the Psalms is the testimony of this cry: a multiple cry, because in life pain takes a thousand forms, and takes the name of sickness, hatred, war, persecution, distrust… Until the supreme “scandal”, that of death. Death appears in the Psalter as man’s most unreasonable enemy: what crime deserves such cruel punishment, which involves annihilation and the end? The prayer of the Psalms asks God to intervene where all human efforts are in vain. That is why prayer, in and of itself, is the way of salvation and the beginning of salvation.
Everyone suffers in this world: whether they believe in God or reject Him. But in the Psalter, pain becomes a relationship, rapport: a cry for help waiting to intercept a listening ear. It cannot remain meaningless, without purpose. Even the pains we suffer cannot be merely specific cases of a universal law: they are always “my” tears,. Think about this: tears are not universal, they are “my” tears. Everyone has their own. “My” tears and “my” pain drive me to go ahead in prayer. They are “my” tears, that no one has ever shed before me. Yes, they have wept, many. But “my” tears are mine, “My” pain is my own, “my” suffering is my own.
Before entering the Hall, I met the parents of that priest of the diocese of Como who was killed: he was killed precisely in his service to others. The tears of those parents are their own tears, and each one of them knows how much he or she has suffered in seeing this son who gave his life in service to the poor. When we want to console somebody, we cannot find the words. Why? Because we cannot arrive at his or her pain, because her sorrows are her own, his tears are his own. The same is true of us: the tears, the sorrow, the tears are mine, and with these tears, with this sorrow, I turn to the Lord.
All human pains for God are sacred. So prays the prayer of Psalm 56: “Thou hast kept count of my tossings; put thou my tears in thy bottle! Are they not in thy book?” (v. 9). Before God, we are not strangers or numbers. We are faces and hearts, known one by one, by name.
In the Psalms, the believer finds an answer. He knows that even if all human doors were barred, God’s door is open. Even if the whole world had issued a verdict of condemnation, there is salvation in God.
“The Lord listens”: sometimes in prayer it is enough to know this. Problems are not always solved. Those who pray are not deluded: they know that many questions of life down here remain unresolved, with no way out; suffering will accompany us and, after one battle, others will await us. But if we are listened to, everything becomes more bearable.
The worst thing that can happen is to suffer in abandonment, without being remembered. From this prayer saves us. Because it can happen, and even often, that we do not understand God’s plans. But our cries do not stagnate down here: they rise up to Him, He who has the heart of a Father, and who cries Himself for every son and daughter who suffers and dies. I will tell you something: it is good for me, in difficult moments, to think of Jesus weeping; when He wept looking at Jerusalem when He wept before Lazarus’ tomb. God has wept for me, God weeps, He weeps for our sorrows. Because God wanted to make Himself man – a spiritual writer used to say – in order to be able to weep. To think that Jesus weeps with me in sorrow is a consolation: it helps us keep going. If we maintain our relationship with Him, life does not spare us suffering, but we open up to a great horizon of goodness and set out towards its fulfillment. Take courage, persevere in prayer. Jesus is always by our side.
Circular No. 20-72 – Joint Pastoral Guidance of the Episcopal Commission on Seminaries and Episcopal Office on Bioethics
O LORD my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me.
(Psalm 30:2)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:
For many months now, the whole world has been struggling with a global pandemic of historic proportions. COVID-19 has already afflicted more than thirty million people around the globe, and tragically, has claimed the lives of over a million, including several thousand Filipinos. It has also locked down our societies and disrupted the livelihoods of billions. With hope in the merciful providence of God our Father, we are now waiting for a vaccine that will help us to end the scourge of this worldwide disease.
Over the past century, vaccines have saved the lives of countless people. However, like all other medical interventions, they have to be developed and used according to sound moral and scientific principles that both affirm the dignity of the human person, especially those who are poor and vulnerable, beloved by the Lord, and promote the common good. This is especially important here in the Philippines where our recent experience with the dengue vaccine that triggered the hospitalizations of thousands of young students has reduced our people’s confidence in the safety and efficacy of vaccines.
Testing Candidate COVID-19 Vaccines in the Philippines
We understand that the national government has agreed to allow candidate COVID-19 vaccines to be tested in our country. Clinical research is morally good, and we commend our fellow Filipinos who have volunteered to be vaccinated with these candidate vaccines. They are heroes who are helping all of us to win the fight against COVID-19. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms: “Scientific, medical, or psychological experiments on human individuals or groups can contribute to healing the sick and the advancement of public health” (§2292).
However, we remind our public health authorities and the pharmaceutical companies involved that that these COVID-19 vaccine Phase III clinical trials must be conducted adhering to the highest ethical standards and best scientific practices. Full transparency is critical at every step of the development and distribution of a candidate vaccine to ensure the safety and effectiveness of every approved vaccine in an immunization campaign. This will help bolster public confidence in the initiatives of medical and governmental authorities.
Before any Phase III clinical trial begins, the results of all earlier Phase I and II trials must be evaluated by designated ethics and expert panels and approved by our national regulatory agencies. The data should be made publicly available so that other scientists and medical professionals can confirm the safety and efficacy of the candidate vaccine.
During the clinical trial, the risks and benefits of being injected by the candidate vaccine must be appropriately communicated to all participants so that they can give informed consent. As the Catechism teaches: “Experimentation on human beings does not conform to the dignity of the person if it takes place without the informed consent of the subject or those who legitimately speak for him” (§2295). This includes informing all participants of any adverse reactions observed in earlier clinical trials of the candidate vaccine and the possibility of still unknown acute reactions, including severe illness and even death.
Further, financial compensation for participation in the clinical trial should not be excessive to avoid the risk of exploiting the poor who would not be free to turn down the payment. This concern is particularly pressing in the Philippines because the barangays reporting the highest caseloads of COVID-19 are often barangays populated by the urban poor. Finally, every participant in these clinical trials must be guaranteed the highest possible standard of care if they experience any adverse reactions. In the case of unforeseen permanent bodily damage, or even death, compensation to the participant or family would be just.
At the conclusion of the protocol, the findings of the Phase III clinical trial must be made public, regardless of outcome. It is our prayer that the clinical trials conducted in our country will benefit the global effort to end the pandemic.
Procuring COVID-19 Vaccines for the Philippines
We hope that at least one of the many candidate COVID-19 vaccines being developed and tested around the world will be found to be safe and effective. If several vaccines are available, we advise the national government to procure vaccines with the following considerations.
If several vaccines are available, we urge the national government to prioritize vaccines that were developed without the use of morally controversial cell lines derived from the remains of an aborted child. As the Pontifical Academy of Life at the Vatican has explained, “there is a grave responsibility to use alternative vaccines and to make a conscientious objection with regard to those which have moral problems.” We must reject any vaccine made from aborted fetal cells.
If several vaccines are available, we urge the national government to prioritize vaccines developed by pharmaceutical companies that are making their vaccines available as cheaply as possible, usually at cost. Not only will these vaccines be more economical for our country but prioritizing them would encourage other global firms to contribute better to the common good by extending their corporate social responsibility programs. Pope Francis has encouraged us to favor industries that contribute to “the inclusion of the excluded, the promotion of the least, the common good or the care of creation.”
Allocating COVID-19 Vaccines in the Philippines
Initial supplies of a COVID-19 vaccine will be very limited. The World Health Organization (WHO) anticipates that nations that are participating in its COVAX vaccine allocation mechanism – the Philippines is one of these countries – will receive an initial allocation of vaccines equal to 3% of their populations. This means that we will receive vaccines enough to immunize only 3.3 million of the 110 million Filipinos who live in our archipelago. Who should be inoculated first?
The goal of a vaccination campaign should be to reduce mortality and to protect the health care infrastructure of our country. This best protects both the individual good of each citizen and the common good of the country. Therefore, vaccines should be allocated to prioritize those members of our communities who are most at risk for infection and for severe disease. As Pope Francis has explained, we must “plan the treatment of viruses by prioritizing those who are most in need.”
First, all medical frontliners who are at high risk for infection because of their vocation as healthcare professionals should receive top priority for vaccinations. We need healthy doctors and nurses to treat our sick so that our people can heal.
Second, adults who are at high risk for severe disease because of their age or underlying medical conditions should be next to receive a vaccine. We especially need to shield our senior citizens who face the highest risk of death from COVID-19.
Third, essential workers whose roles are inherently risky because of necessary interactions with the public and are also important for the common good should be next. This tier would include teachers, grocery story workers, public transportation workers, police, firefighters, and national security personnel, among others.
Finally, the rest of the population would be inoculated, prioritizing those individuals who are living in dense urban areas where they are vulnerable to the virus. Note that these proposed tiers correspond closely with the recommendations of many international organizations including the WHO.
We propose this allocation plan for the COVID-19 vaccine that prioritizes those who are at most risk for infection or for severe disease because of our concern that in the Philippines, vaccines may be allocated first to those who are wealthy, powerful, and influential. This would not efficiently mitigate deaths in our communities and would delay the end of the pandemic in our country. This would be a great moral and social tragedy.
Finally, we urge our national government to provide the COVID-19 vaccine to everyone without cost to the individual. Otherwise it will not be available to the poor. Pope Francis has said, “It would be sad if, for the vaccine for Covid-19, priority were to be given to the richest!” As the pope has said many times, “The preferential option for the poor is at the center of the Gospel. And the first to do this was Jesus. […] Since He was rich, He made Himself poor to enrich us. He made Himself one of us and for this reason, at the center of the Gospel, there is this option, at the center of Jesus’ proclamation.”
In closing, we commend all who are working tirelessly to end this pandemic, all our medical health professionals, our frontliners, our public health authorities, and our scientists, to our Mother, Our Lady, Health of the Sick and St. Joseph, Patron of the Dying. We ask them to intercede for us before their beloved Son, Our Lord, the Divine Physician, that we may be healed in both body and spirit. To Him, be the glory forever! Amen! (Rev. 11:36)
From the Episcopal Commission for Seminaries and the Episcopal Office on Bioethics of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, October 13, 2020
| +SOCRATES B. VILLEGAS Archbishop of Lingayen Dagupan Chairman Episcopal Commission for Seminaries | +RICARDO BACCAY Archbishop of Tuguegarao Chairman Episcopal Office on Bioethics |
Noted by:
