Political Bats

There is an old "Bat Story" that depicts the behaviors of many Filipinos, especially, during these times of power struggle between the administration and the opposition. Some had already made their position, but, many others still don't have, like the Bat.

Bat Story

"Once there was a great war between the beasts and the birds. Bat was on the birds' side. In the first battle, the birds were badly beaten. As soon as Bat saw that the battle was going against them, he crept away, hid under a log, and stayed there until the fight was over.When the animals were going home. Bat slipped in among them.After they had gone some distance, they saw him and asked one another: "How is this? Bat is one of those that fought against us!"Bat heard them and he said: "Oh, no! I am one of you; I don't belong to the bird people. Did you ever see one of those people who had teeth and hair? You can say that I belong to the bird people, but I don't; I am one of your own people."They didn't say anything more; they let Bat stay with them.Soon after, there was another battle; in that battle birds won. As Bat's side was getting beaten, he slipped away and hid under a log. When the battle was over and birds were going home, Bat went in among them.When they noticed him, they said: "You are our enemy; we saw you fighting against us.""Oh, no," said Bat, "I am one of you; I don't belong to those beasts. Did you ever see one of those people who had wings?"They didn't say anything more; they let him stay with them.So Bat went back and forth as long as the war lasted. At the end of the war, birds and beasts held a council to see what to do with him. At last they said to Bat, "From now on, you will fly around alone at night, and you will never have any friends, either among those that fly, or those that walk."http://www.boyscouttrail.com/content/story/bat-883.asp

What really is our stance on these pressing political issues? Are we for truth or for the half-truths? Are we for peace or for confusion? Are we being mobilized because there is an amount attached to whatever action we do, or we act according to the right principles that we believe in?

We cannot forever go back and forth, like the bat. We have to make our own choice; the choice that will make us be at peace with ourselves whatever the consequence of that choice
may be. If we keep changing positions, there will be a time that it will be the others who will determine our fate. Most likely the decision will be: "From now on, you will walk around alone at night, and you will never have any friends, either among the administration, or the opposition."

Called to PARADISE II

In my previous post, I defined the accronym PARADISE and the aim of this program. I would like to elaborate further the reason why there is a need for PARADISE to be understood and to move on a faster pace towards its fulfillment.

Michael Miller posted at T & R group at yahoo: "Fortunately in the last decade, a significant movement within the faith community (referring to the American Catholics) has been mobilized around the call to care for God's creation. We will need to learn to plead for creation. So far we and everybody else seems to be just preaching." I agree with him that many of these calls for the protection of God's creation are mere lip service or media mileage. We have not truly addressed what he called as " sinful structures" that "cause great harm to people."

I can personally attest how the poor are victimized and many are disenfranchised by the moneyed and the powerful while pushing their selfish way to grab more treasures out of the natural resources that God has provided supposedly for the victmized residents. The sadder part of the story is the involvement of the community leaders in devastating creation; they who are supposed to protect the interests of their contituents.

Just few months back, I trekked the rugged roads towards our local mountains that contain our mineral deposits. There, I witnessed how poor people worked rain or shine, day and night, in order to collect mineral rocks with the hope of receiving decent payment for their job if these minerals will be sold to the foreign investors.

Two years had past after the mining operation was started in our place. Hundreds of poor people had come and now are gone from that mining fields. None of them can say, thank God for giving us these minerals. Most of them, if not all, were underpaid or never been paid for the hard work they did. The operators had never successfully traded their product because of political interventions, without mentioning the national law that favors the oligarchs to have control over the national wealth.

More than the devastation caused by mining is the desperation that the poor are experiencing from the system there is in our country with regards to the use of our natural resources. Most of them who started to be an employee of mining firms ended up in joining illegal logging operations or in other criminalities. Morality is very low in the mining field because materialism has been the main motive for work.

There is therefore a need to address these realities the soonest possible time or else it will have a tremendous destructive domino effect to the soceity at large.

Called to PARADISE

For a long time, I've been haunted with the concept of PARADISE. This is not the Eden of the Bible, though it is inspired by the thought of the original paradise. My concern for the environment and the misuse or abuse of our natural resources led me to think of possible program that would address the ecological imbalance we are experiencing nowadays. I realize that this cannot be a single effort or an isolated endeavor.

PARADISE means Progressive Associations and Responsive Activities Designed to Improve and Safeguard the Earth.

There have been efforts from various groups from different countries, including the Philippines, to arrest the degradation of our natural resources. Paradoxically, more and more forests are decreasing; more and more seas are polluted; more and more plant and animal species are becoming extinct. The mining industry has been opened to unscrupulous miners, both locals and foreigners.

PARADISE aims to pool as many associations to be part of a worldwide web that organises responsive activities that would protect and cultivate the earth.

How can this be done? Who will initiate this? Presently, the most powerful intitution that has the respect of various countries is the United Nation. But, the UN seems to be making its own effort to solve environmental problems without coordination with other groups and organizations worldwide. It's time to take an extra mile to reach out to other groups and become like a server of pro-environmental activities. Nevertheless, PARADISE can also be a local effort even can be started at the household or individual level. One may start a project for cleanliness and beautification. By encouraging and supporting those who have initiated a campaign for environmental protection, you can be a great help for the sustainability of the various inititives.

PARADISE encourages creativity and unity among people who have a heart for this only earth we have.

The more people converge for the reason of improving the earth, the more creative solutions may surface. Conventions, conferences, meetings need to be organized on a regular basis so that difficulties may be lighten through the help of others, and successful activities may be communicated and replicated.

Readings of the Day

As lector of our local church, I am duty-bound to read the Readings of the Day and contemplate on them. Today's reading is very loaded with social relevance specially with the ZTE and other controversies that this present administration is confronted with.

In Isaiah 1: 10, 16 - 20, the Lord warns the rulers of Sodom and the people of Gomorrah:

Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom! Give ear to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomor'rah!

Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil,

learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.

"Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins

are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.

If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land;

But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken."

With all these left-and-right accusations, Psalm 50 has also something to say:


"But to the wicked God says: "What right have you to recite my statutes, or take my covenant on your lips?

For you hate discipline, and you cast my words behind you.

These things you have done and I have been silent; you thought that I was one like yourself. But now I rebuke you, and lay the charge before you.

He who brings thanksgiving as his sacrifice honors me; to him who orders his way aright I will show the salvation of God!"


In the gospel, Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples:

"The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice.

They bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by men; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues, and salutations in the market places, and being called rabbi by men.

But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brethren. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called masters, for you have one master, the Christ. He who is greatest among you shall be your servant; whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted." (Matthew 23: 1 - 12)


The three readings show that credibility and integrity are a very important values that leaders of both the church and of the secular society must possess in order to be pleasing to God. It displeases God than leaders keeps on bubbling their mouths with words without concrete projects that would uplift the unfortunate conditions of the people they are supposed to be serving.

Communal Action

The CBCP is calling for a communal action to be undertaken by the people relative to the expose of Jun Lozada. But what does communal action mean? What specific communal action the church is calling the people to do? Are they calling for another "people power"? another mass movement to topple the present leadership of the government? Are they trying to call the people to throw a stone to the corrupt government officials? Who will be the ones to cast the first stones?



The opposition senators? Who are they? What have they done that gives positive effect for this country? What laws have they promulgated that have changed our decadent nation?

WE haven't tried yet as a nation to radically change our system. There are so much in our system that need to be addressed; need to be uprooted. Jun Lozada had pointed out one or two of those. Instead of the need-driven projects, the supply-driven projects have controlled our government deals. The needs for abundance of food, decent shelter, employment security, free health services, high quality education aren't addressed with utmost priority. Why? Is it because our elected officials are not in contact or aware of these? or because they spent so much to win an election that they need those supply-driven deals in order to regain their loss?

If an honest, well-secured computer system of electing the leaders of this land cannot be installed; and if the very expensive way of winning the votes of the people cannot be stopped, there is no use heading to the call for leadership change. The same old corruption saga will happen. Who among those we saw on television had really sacrificed for the nation? Most of them in that Senate Session Hall are beneficiaries of the sufferings of the poor majorityFilipino people.

Federal System has proven worldwide to be better than this unitary system we have. But, why can't the law-makers pass a law to this effect? It is time for Nograles to prove his worth as a Mindanaoan. If he can't make a miracle while he is the Speaker of the House; if he can't cause the passage of a law that would transform this present system that is very centralized and very powerful top government; if he can't cause that the power of governance be distributed to the regional level, he cannot expect a salute from his kababayan.

The communal action needed nowadays is to keep cool; to influence those already in power to focus on the more important issues. Negative reinforcement does not work well with our leaders. They need positive push to do noble, heroic things than criticising them to the efffect that they bounch back violently or shield themselves with lies.

Madam president, I believe in your capacity to bring greatness back to this nation. Make a move to install election reforms. See to it that Education, Public Works, Social Welfare concerns be totally given to the shoulders the regional or provincial governments with their corresponding budget to capacitate them. The central government has wasted so much of the people's money. It is time to make a Supreme Sacrifice. The church's call for communal action is only meaningful and effective if it does not exclude you, but include you as one of the major players in that communal opera for national transformation. Enough for pointing fingers.

Positive Politics

Positive Politics is the "love of all loves". I don't remember the author, but, I heard someone said: "“Loving is good. Knowing how to love is everything.” Politics, whether in the secular world or in religious world, is necessary for the institution. Those incharged in the governance have their own strengths and weaknesses. They have also personal backgrounds that could have influenced their decisions. It would have been an ideal situation if the ones in the position know very well how to love. But the sad reality is that though these people intend to love, they don't know/practice enough the art of loving.

The big trouble in politics is when the good culture is being systematically overtaken by the not so good culture. The current example in the Philippines is the trouble caused by the "kickback system" present in our government's project procurement system. I don't know how these are arrested/controlled in your soceities. I need your suggestions.

Jun Lozada has narrated how deals have been closed relative to the projects of the government. He distinguished between need-driven from supply-driven projects.

A conversation with Pierre

Pierre: The Catholic hierarchy tends to squash anything new, i.e., new thinking.
Den: They test all spirits. They judge by their fruit. How can you expect the hierarchy to accept new things without doing the former?Discernment needs time. That is the vocation of the institutional church. But, the charismatic church fearlessly treads all possibilities of renewal. Where do you belong? Go ahead, fulfill your vocation.

Pierre: I don't understand this question. I never said I expected the hierarchy to accept new things without looking at the fruits.The culture of Catholicism is hostile to new thinking. Many persons have been tortured, killed, dispossessed, ruined, harassed, calumnied by both the institution and by individual Catholics because someone said something new. This evidently historical fact signals to me that cultural change is in order in Catholicism, and most belatedly. At the least, there should be safe fora sanctioned by the Catholic church itself where Catholics can indeed investigate new thinking. As it is, the Catholic church is a place where to be in the good graces of the hierarchy, you should not think except as a parrot. (An unfortunate metaphor, by the way, since parrots are very intelligent and sensitive creatures, and not all are capable mimics.)

Den: Pierre, you have pointed at the dirt of the pilgrim church very well. You deserve a medal for that. The people involved should convert. But, to single out catholicism seems bias and definitely incorrect.

As member of the catholic church, that is not my experience. Laymen are encouraged to participate in different fields in order to be leaven in their respective cell of environment. The problem with new thinking is because they are new. And new as they are need to be tested.

The problem with thinker of new things, myself included, is our inability to communicate well our visions whether they are inline with the truth held by the institutional church. Most of the time our impatience comes in between thus hinders the flow of communication. I agree that all old violent ways of resolving conflicts must end. This is a perennial struggle. Even as a father, it is my inner struggle to follow or not the ways of my parents in dealing with my children now. Shall I use the stick to discipline them or not? To some the stick was effective, to others it wasn't.

Pierre: I did not single out Catholicism to the exclusion of other religions. I cited Catholicism. And to cite Catholicism is not to exclude other religions.

Den: I stand corrected. Thanks

Pierre: Dear Den:I would like you to know I appreciate the integrity of your responses, at least currently. I hope you understand why I am plainspoken, conveying the impression of being curt. I am not interested in getting "involved emotionally" with anyone in these discussion groups. I am mainly interested in exploring ideas. Friendship, warmth, sympathy, etc.--I have no currency in these denominations in yahoo groups, except when I believe it is only but right to express them, e.g., when our moderator is ill.

Den: Thanks, Pierre. I feel flattered with such comment especillay when it comes from someone like you. I believe we are both seeking for reasonable arguments on issues. If our motive is only for that and not to convince others to transfer on our side, it won't be hard to accept our mistakes and the inferiority of our arguments.