Azure Wings Café

Come on. We've had enough of it and made so big of a fuss so it's nearly impossible if you don't know what the RH Bill is. In case you were born just this morning and for some reason you already know how to read, write and access the internet then let me explain in brief: basically it's a bill in Philippine congress that aims to provide better care for the reproductive health of the Filipino people, but due to its highly unreasonable focus on artificial contraception, it has been the subject of many issues and debates within both political and social worlds. Since, as mentioned, it is affecting even the social world, and some people are hating me for reiterating a stance that will satisfy neither pro or anti proponents of the bill, I'll make a statement on this post.

Before we make a statement on anything we would like to give a fuck about, we should take note of a few things.

1. Are we aware of what we are talking about?
Usually the educated win over the uneducated in this sense because they actually do their research before giving a damn. However, in a country where anyone can freely claim that the world is locally flat, or that the exact value of pi is 4, it's really hard to determine who are the educated and who are those who simply claim to be educated. We may also note the fact that our country if full of people with the bandwagon mentally as well as people with the mentality of always having to create bandwagons. If you read my post on the minor majority, we can actually see that the people who are in the bandwagons are not aware that they are the ones in the bandwagon. They should be, however, more or less aware of their ignorance regarding the fact at hand, and it should be through this that they base their opinions from. Sad to say that the majority of the people who give opinions regarding this bill are no different that two monkeys bickering at each other for a piece of banana.

2. Are we ready to stand for what we believe in?
There are people who are only good with giving a yes or a no out of randomness, like Manny Pacquiao's vote on Twitter regarding the impeachment of the Ombudsman. Such an uninformed and not well thought opinion is very much subject to change the moment scrutiny arrives, such as antis becoming pros because they cannot defend what they want to defend, or pros becoming antis because they realize that there is something wrong in the propositions they are giving. Such cases also follow from the above mentioned ignorance on the topic, which causes us to stand for things that we have no idea about and then stand on other things when what we initially stand on begin to crumble. Why? We did not build a solid foundation. And without a solid foundation, we are bound to fall.

3. Are the steps we are taking logical and in support of the already existing principles we have already established?
This is where my stand in the bill comes. There goes a saying, "Methods are many, principles are few. Methods change, but principles never do." Under what principles do we ground our methods on? Are these methods consistent with our principles? For example, if we are for physical, spiritual and mental health why are we making big arguments that only hurt the spiritual and mental health of the Filipino people? Note that a body without a soul is lifeless; a physically and reproductively healthy body would be nothing with a dead spirit and mind. Or if we are for life and peace, why are we fighting and punishing those who are against what we believe in? Is this what our principles call for?

Through these questions we can now discuss the following question: If the bill does get passed, will the pros reap the product of their labor? Or will the Church be prepared for it? Knowing the history of the Philippines, we can tell that Filipinos have fought for things they condemned in the end, beginning with freedom from the Spaniards. While I believe that the Filipinos really did deserve freedom, they did not deserve freedom with complete ignorance. Only a man like Jose Rizal back then could think of this. Now the people like Rizal would most likely be regretting attaining such an early freedom since it has left us in intellectual poverty, the worst poverty next to spiritual poverty. In modern times we have elected presidents, despite opposition, that we later hated, like the ranks of Marcos, Estrada, Arroyo and Aquino.

On the second question, which I have retold my answers over and over again, as my Facebook friends should know, the Church should be channeling its efforts into something that is more lasting and productive: teaching its faithful strong and solid moral foundations so that if the earthquake of temptation does come, they would be prepared and remain solid despite the storms and weapons of the enemies. But what are they doing right now? They're blinding the faithful into blindly following against rather than enlightening them to why they should be against an immoral law. Join this, pray that, etc etc. While I am a devout Catholic and have nothing against prayers, these formulated prayers we keep on doing do not necessarily tell us why we have to pray. I also posted something like this in my post on mechanicality, or doing things for the sake of doing them. This is what I'm pointing at when I said that the methods should be consistent with the principles. For an establishment that seeks to spreading light, it is giving darkness to the people so that they may find a light that could never be found in darkness.

I am, by all means, against the bill. However, I find the methods the Church is doing right now very questionable and unconvincing. It's like putting a stopper on a leaking pipe instead of fixing the pipe altogether. A waste of resources and ineffective over long periods of stress. Very Filipino, in a negative way.

If you read (present and past tenses) between the lines, you might have noticed a certain emphasis I gave on this post. Education. Education is something we lack, while ignorance is something we have in abundance. In a country where powerful people feed on ignorance, it's really hard to find the need for good education, and add in the negative perspective of present day society on teachers because of their economic value. We are not Marxists, and neither are we communists. We are living in a democracy, a people for a people. And if we would just be making informed choices and stopped being media hogging assholes, then probably the passage of this bill would be settled and everyone would be happy. A discussion on media hogging would probably lengthen this post a lot more so I would not just give it, however I do assume that everyone who's reading is aware of the negative effects of media on society. If not, ask for the intercession of holy mother Google to find some readings.

On a lighter side of this, I would like to share a story that happened not too far in the past, just around a month ago and which some of you would probably be familiar with. On March 14, 2011 a UCLA (University of California Los Angeles) student by the name of Alexandra Wallace made a YouTube video ranting about how the Asians in their library go all annoying with their "Ching Chong Ling Long Ting Tong" on the phone, effectively making her racist. It doesn't take much thinking to figure out that she gained a lot of negative video responses by Asians who make equally offensive rants against her (some even becoming more racist, but against Whites.) Of special importance is a very light hearted video response by a 24 year old actor and musician Jimmy Wong, the younger brother of Freddie Wong in case the latter is more familiar:



It took a lot of creativity and probably painful restraint to make such a hit selling video response, which made some critics claim the response as one that "saved the internet" due to its positive and intelligent outlook on cyber-bullying. I may not be one like Jimmy in oh so many ways but I'm presenting this video to show that in a world where so much information is available, we shouldn't be resorting to primitive and ineffective means of arguments especially on those cases that matter to our lives as Filipinos, Catholics or humans for that matter since life is a universal treasure.

And yeah, I know, title unrelated. I just tried to make it sound lighter to the eyes. I really suck at being creative with arguments. :(