The Changing Philippines

Part 2 of a series

The RH Law and the Divorce Bill are merely reflections of the strong undercurrent in the sea of change that the Filipino society is undergoing for the past decades.

I believed that this emerging materialistic and secularist philosophical atmosphere serves as the matrix why the RH Law gained so many supporters among us Filipinos even if they are baptized Catholics. The debates among those who are for and against the RH Law were rabid.

Many of those who are for the RH Law are Catholics, but they would not mind or find any contradictions in this.

The issue of the RH Law is far more complex and profound than what we Filipinos can imagine. The source from which the law draws its dynamism comes from an emerging philosophical paradigm that in my opinion is essentially secularist and anti- Catholic.

It is slowly unraveling the fabric of traditional Filipino Catholic culture. These anti-Catholic groups routinely project the Catholic Church and its teachings as “anti-progress” and “anti-development.”

Reproductive Health Bill: Poverty and Promises

In a Developing Country (called “Third World” before) like the Philippines, there is always the concern of poverty alleviation.

The issue of poverty is usually entangled with almost all the problems besetting the country. Lawmakers cite poverty as the reason for passing this or that law with the intent of making the country materially prosperous. Yet, Hell is paved with good intentions.

Filipinos for a long time accepted these promises of poverty alleviation but after several decades what we got are just pieces of broken promises. Once more, the proponents of the RH Bill presented it as part of the poverty alleviation program. Another promise meant to be broken.

The thinking that the RH Law will alleviate poverty is actually a deceitful attempt to replace the Filipino values with materialistic values because the proponents are insinuating that children are “expenses or financial burdens” and no longer as “treasures of the family” or “gifts from God.”

This is a direct affront to Filipinos who value more than any other possessions their family and children. Unfortunately, this mentality is becoming real to the majority of Catholic Filipinos.

The RH Law with all its intent and purpose is plainly telling us that there will be no poor people if the poor stop reproducing!

I believed that in a poor country like the Philippines, the poor are poor because there are no available jobs while those who have jobs received wages that can barely cover the high prices of commodities, shelter, and medicines.

In other words, it deflects attention from the real cause of poverty in the Philippines, which is corruption in all strata of government and society together with inequality in both opportunities and distributions of wealth that caused the Philippines to languish in poverty.