His pastoral letter for Palm Sunday, Towards a Morally Rebuilt Nation [PDF] , strikes that balance so well, with a perfect Biblical analogy for the situation Filipinos face today.

In this letter, he likens the EDSA I to the liberation of the Israelites from the clutches of the Pharaoh:

The history of salvation teaches us that the long road to freedom inevitably passes through the desert of purification and conversion. Having escaped from Pharaoh, via the miraculous crossing through the Sea of Reeds, the Israelites considered themselves liberated. But they were not yet free, because they wanted to go back to their old ways in Egypt. “Should we not do better to go back to Egypt?” (Numbers 14:2-3).

[...]

Looking back at EDSA I, euphoric and heroic as it was, it appeared that the event became the Filipinos’ day of crossing to freedom; but that was only the first step that hardly anyone knew. The “desert” awaited the people who would be purified and converted, before they become fully liberated. But people preferred the convenient streets as the easier route to an imagined freedom, and feared that the “desert experience” that awaited conversion and new beginnings. [Embargo, 03/14/2008 (pdf)]

Excellent analogy, as it puts into words something that we’ve known for a long time but could not explain; the essence by which why, even if we have ousted a dictator and a plunderer, the country keeps on coming back to its old problems.

The pastoral letter continues into a justified accusation — that our country’s prime industry is not agriculture, not even cheap labor, but simply politics:

We cannot add more to the wrath of God for lies, untruth, injustice and evil. Conscience, as the voice of God within, already tells us what good there is to pursue and what evil to avoid. Our people are known to be God-fearing and God-loving; sadly, they fight, deceive and kill for money.

Shamefully, we have been known to be a nation whose prime industry has been identified as politics simply because politics is the main route to power, which in turn, is the main route to wealth [Embargo, 03/14/2008 (pdf)]

More importantly it underscores a point that I’ve been trying to emphasize for a long time: that beyond expecting our government to clean itself up, everything starts by cleaning ourselves up (emphasis mine):

The Seventh Commandment covers not only the present corruption deals that have been recently exposed, but also all deals, at all levels of government service, of all administrations and governance, no matter what came out of the past or will come out of the present or future inquiries. “Thou shalt not steal” covers also all trading of even ordinary citizens.

We suddenly noticed that the widespread corruption we see in others is also the corruption we detect in ourselves.

Corrupt practices and fraud prevailed in the cities, towns and even in small Barangays. [Embargo, 03/14/2008 (pdf)]

Of course this is not to say that leadership is not required — the point, however, is that everyone from top to bottom must be part of that change:

We need the leaders from the highest to the lowest and their families not only to leads us, but also to give us examples of repentance and true humble conversion. We also need people with other ideas but with positive emotions in nation building. Given the example and encouragement, the citizens will be inspired to follow where in the past they hesitated to proceed — to their “desert” transformation. [Embargo, 03/14/2008]

It also warns against the anger and rage that way too many opposition leaders and leftist propagandists use to stir emotion in the false pretext that such fury translates to action:

We need God’s grace, if we are to encourage one another, forgive each other, pay our debts to the justice that we all violated, and start again, not at the banks of “our Sea of Reeds”, but beyond the streets of EDSA. Believers and lovers of God, like true Christians do not have to hate, destroy each other even if they want to correct the mistakes of the past or the present and of each other. Many are critical of the present governance particularly in the areas of truth and justice. But we can restore truth and justice without restoring to violence and hatred. A nation built on contempt is completely unimaginable. [Embargo, 03/14/2008 (pdf)]

The analogy of the desert transformation is apt not only in form, but in chronology. The Israelites wandered in the desert for forty years. Such a fundamental change in our system will take a lot of time, and I do not even expect that change to come within the next ten years. But eventually the Israelites did get to the promised land — and eventually they were able to rebuild their kingdom.

We must be patient. We must be unrelenting. The time has come for us to stop waiting for manna from heaven or God to part the Sea of Reeds for us: the time has come for us to stop demanding instantaneous change and start subscribing to our institutional processes. It is only when we let the system work — when we allow our institutions to carry out their duties — will we be able to stop running in circles in the desert and find the promised land of a better Philippines that everyone wants to have, become, and be proud of.

I recommend that every Filipino who cares about the nation read it in its entirety.

In the West, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the highest official of the Church of England, held closed door negotiations with its US branch, the Episcopal Church. The point of contention: the Episcopal Church’s liberal stance with regards to homosexuality, and a moratorium on same-sex marriage and consecrating openly gay bishops.

Makes me wonder if the Anglican God has homophobia, despite all His might and power. We will see.

In Nebraska, however, God finally responds to the lawsuit filed against Him. In the response, God argues that He, the defendant, is immune from earthly laws and the court lacks jurisdiction over God.

I’m not really interested in God’s response, I am interested in the answer to some questions:

a) If God is omniscient, does He need a lawyer?

b) If God is omnipresent, how much will a lawyer charge Him for being there all the time even on the lawyer’s breaks?

c) If God is called to the witness stand, how does He respond to the “so help me God” clause of the oath?

Gay pride and humor aside, that’s boring compared to the East, where some real action is brewing.

In China, all is fine and well with the Vatican’s approval (finally) of a Beijing-appointed Catholic bishop when Joseph Li Shan was appointed to the post. Beijing and the Holy See has long been at odds over the earlier’s insistence on meddling with the Catholic church’s power structure, despite the communist state’s officially atheistic stance.

Sign of the times? Or maybe China also wants to manufacture plastic rosaries and crucifixes for cheaper at wholesale? Better ask the guys at Catholic Trading in Tayuman if Divisoria’s 168 has been threatening them too.

A totally different god is at odds with the military junta in Myanmar, wherein monks lead “100,000″ protesters in a peaceful rally through Yangon. The military has, however, issued a warning against the monks. I will imagine they could hold Buddha under house arrest alongside Aung San Suu Kyi.

In the local blogosphere, a high school student of a certain science high school (made “certain” by yours truly, a proud alumnus) complains about the seemingly anti-atheistic stance of some of its teachers and officials despite its non-sectarian and taxpayer-funded nature. The ensuing comment thread reveals nothing less than a Da Vinci Code twist to the story.

Ah, nothing like the feeling of god being shoved up your ass.

The youngster’s dad, 45-year-old Alex Hell, has expressed outrage after the primary school in the southern city of Melbourne allegedly refused to admit his son, Max.

“We are victims of our name,” said Hell, whose name is of Austrian origin.

“We’re quite devastated by the whole thing,” the Catholic father of three told the Australian Associated Press.

“It’s 2007, not 1407 — it’s not the Dark Ages.”[AFP via Inquirer.net]

So I was mistaken in my previous post — it’s not fundamentalist Christians: it’s Catholic bigots.

In an age of religious tolerance and moderation, it is unfortunate that some conservatives feel threatened enough to lash out at just about anything to “preserve the integrity of their religion.” Whatever integrity that is however is eroded by irresponsible policies — something rampant in Catholic schools.

In some local Catholic schools, for example, illegitimate children or children of single parents aren’t accepted on that basis. As if the child had a choice in the matter.

When will these so called “Christians” start practicing the real message of their God that they supposedly preach? Jesus was supposed to have taught understanding, forgiveness and compassion, not narrow-minded bigotry as exhibited above.

I believe in God, and I believe in Jesus, but it’s been a while since my general set of beliefs have departed from mainstream Roman Catholic or otherwise “Christian” teaching. I deliberately placed those quotes there — I do think most Christian sects today have missed and are misusing, intentionally or otherwise, Jesus’ message.

If you are Christian (and by that I mean Catholics, Protestants, and other Christian sects altogether) who is deeply religious and whose beliefs are firmly anchored in the traditional Christian Bible, I suggest you either stop reading this and move on to whatever else you are doing, or kick the word “blasphemy” out of your vocabulary. If you decide to continue reading this I just ask you to not flame me nor condemn me to hell, and just please open up your mind — even just a little.

Does it matter if Jesus was resurrected, or is indeed the Son of God?

In my opinion, no.

Jesus’ miracles, crucifixion, resurrection, and place in the kingdom of God were all meant to inspire awe in people who have suffered the pains of the death of loved ones, disease, oppression, and poverty. But all of this is for nought if we forget his teachings.

Many times people focus too much on Christ’s death on the cross, and Catholics in particular bring it to themselves to suffer in guilt for their sins, which is what Christ supposedly died for. Catholics are proclaimed to be “born sinners”, needing to be baptized for Adam and Eve’s sins which seems to be unredeemable (ironically, since the Messiah was supposed to redeem everyone from that).

Filipino Catholics are particularly guilt-ridden; we put more emphasis on Good Friday than we do on Christmas and Easter. And I believe that’s where we got it all wrong. However, I do think that the day that Christians must give more importance to is Maundy Thursday. The word “maundy” has the same origins as the word “mandate”, and the mandate Jesus made on this day (or rather, that night, wherein the last supper was held) was “love thy neighbor.”

That mandate, despite its simplicity and broadness, is the whole point of Christianity. Thrash the ten commandments and you’ll still be following all of them (perhaps except the first two) without having to be told if you follow this mandate.

Unfortunately most Christians conveniently forget this and choose to wallow on their sinfulness more.

I’ve stopped believing in the afterlife, heaven, and hell

The simple man’s motive to faith and religion is the uncertainty of the afterlife; the belief that one’s actions in this life will determine whether they are rewarded or damned after they die. Therefore the motive for doing good is simply based on fear: the fear of being thrown into the flames of hell, suffering incessantly until the end of time.

Honestly, I think that doing good deeds or behaving properly just for the sake of not going to hell is the worst possible reason to do so. If a person only stayed “good” just to stay out of hell, instead of the fact coming out of their own righteousness and good will, neither do they deserve to go to heaven.

Furthermore, this view of the afterlife encourages people to “delay” their “goodness” or merely find ways to “make up for it.” There are the self-flagellants who punish themselves for one whole day during Holy Week but proceed to commit sin the rest of the year. There are the wealthy gambling lords who “pay” for their sins by donating to the Church regularly. There are those who are active in the church, who pray the rosary and do their rituals and go to mass regularly, but who treat the people around them, particularly their employees or subordinates or any “lesser beings” like dirt.

What kind of heaven is set aside for these kinds of people?

One observation that I have taken, however, is that even here on earth there are tiny patches of heaven and hell all around us. Wherever there is hunger, fear, despair, I see hell; wherever there is fulfillment, joy, and love, I see heaven. And they all coexist in the same plane of reality.

So I try to follow a different philosophy (although I do fail many times); that is, when trying to determine whether my actions are just or proper, I try to measure whether my actions will create a tiny instance of heaven, or hell, for the people affected by my actions.

It makes a lot more sense than believing in an afterlife, and I’ve found it’s the best way to follow Christ’s mandate to love thy neighbor.

What I think Jesus meant with “Eternal Life”

Have you ever thought why people like Mahatma Ghandi, Pope John Paul II, Mother Theresa, and Martin Luther King are remembered with endearment by groups of people who barely knew them? Why they are loved by people who neither met them in person or spoke with them?

They all have a common denominator, in that they all brought a message that these people needed: they were voices of hope.

Jesus, regardless of whether he’s the Son of God, or if he rose from the dead, or if he will come again, was first and foremost a messenger of hope. He brought hope to a world that had none; a world held captive by slavery, injustice, poverty, and disease. A world not very different from ours. And his message rings across all generations because it is the concern of every man. He imparted a universal message of hope, something that is difficult for any man who has felt any form of suffering to ignore.

And by this virtue, these messengers of hope all attained eternal life; the legacies of their message will ring across generations and their memory and words will never die.

So how does this play in our personal salvation? It tells us that we too must be messengers of hope to other men. We too must impart that love, and if possible, the wisdom, that will allow people to enjoy their lives together and coexist with harmony.

And if we succeed in that, and are remembered by that, in our own little way, we will attain eternal life — the presence of heaven and hell (or otherwise) notwithstanding.

Seriously now, while I echo her raves about this book, I’d like to point out another reason why I do like it: it doesn’t sound prohibitive and condemning like Joshua Harris’s “I Kissed Dating Goodbye”. After just the first few chapters of IKDG, it already made me smirk; I mean, when I was reading it the thought that was running through my mind was that “this guy just doesn’t want to face rejection that’s why he’s shielding himself with his complicated God.”

I labeled the book as the “bible of the hopeless romantic” to the chagrin of many of my born-again Christian friends.

Reading HTFYOTL, on the other hand, made me realize why I hated IKDG: it wasn’t apt for our culture. The condemnation/guilt-tripping feeling I felt while reading IKDG was there because Joshua Harris was addressing a far more liberated culture — a culture wherein sex was a disposable good and dating was no more than a romantic dice game. It was addressed to a culture where the rule is you either have sex on the third date or you get the “let’s be friends” speech. While some might argue that the Filipino dating scene is no different, I’ll beg to disagree.

Nevertheless, I’d really like to recommend How To Find Your One True Love for people single and committed alike. I particularly loved Bo’s discussion “over-spiritualism“, which he applies to both romantic and non-romantic aspects of Christianity alike — and an accidentally beautiful insight on Filipino culture. Do click that last link… it’s a PDF sample of the book itself.

Citing a document drawn up by the British education ministry, the newspaper said universities had been warned of talent-spotting by terrorists on campuses across the country, and of students being “groomed” for extremism.

It identifies Muslim students from “segregated” backgrounds as more likely to support extremist stances than their counterparts who are “integrated into wider society” [Yahoo News]

What alarms me about the document discussed in this news item is its utterly simplistic approach — simply identifying students who are “inclined” to extremism on the basis of “segregation” apparently forgets that Osama Bin Laden did not come from a “segregated” background.

In a day and age where nothing is what it seems, subscribing to simplistic approaches like identifying terrorists through ethnicity, or “inclination”, whatever that means, will not only be a futile approach to the defeat of terrorism, but may only encourage the moderate Muslims to adopt the way of thinking of their more extreme cousins.

And that’s exactly what we want to prevent, isn’t it?

To quote:

At its finest, the Church embraces science and reason. It tolerates differences of opinion. It nurtures debate, criticism and reflection. It can even simply enjoy a book or a movie. Such sobriety comes with maturity.

The laity no longer comprises unschooled serfs to be shielded from confusing information. Modern Christians know that faith is best tempered and strengthened by critical thinking.

We are a nation that has for a national hero an incendiary novelist who exposed the corruption of the Church in Spanish Philippines. Today, the Philippine Catholic Church owes a huge debt of gratitude to Jose Rizal for the Church run for and by Filipinos. [MT]

Well said bushing Rome! Well said.

The reason I hesitated buying AAD was, ironically, because of an earlier Dan Brown book, Digital Fortress. Around the time I finished TDVC I picked Digital Fortress up in National Bookstore Metropoint and browsed through the first chapters.

I was dissappointed with Digital Fortress. Accustomed to Tom Clancy’s uber-detailed style of espionage thrillers (I have all 13 of Clancy’s novels), I found Dan Brown’s writeup of a high tech cloak-and-dagger style US government techno-thriller lacking. The same was true with Angels and Demons.

When I finished AAD I’m glad I didn’t buy the book. Like Digital Fortress, I found the detail in AAD lacking. The plotline was rather simplistic, almost to the point of exhuding a soap-opera type of simplicity. Finally, the emergence of the villain and the novel’s conclusion almost convinced me Brown has some sort of grudge against the Catholic Church.

Another impression I had was that the writing style screenplay-like. It was almost as if Dan Brown actually wrote the novel with a movie version in mind. I had the same impression with TDVC — though I think Dan Brown hired a better editor for Da Vinci Code than for Angels and Demons.

It is with these observations when it finally dawned upon me why Dan Brown’s books held so much appeal and, consequently, why he has become so infamous amongst conservative Christian groups who are all out in debunking his theories (so much so that a documentary debunking TDVC remains in the top spot in Tower Records for at least three months straight).

When I was reading AAD I felt like I was transported back to fourth grade. It was during this time when I first got hold of The Hardy Boys. With simple though winding plotlines and language unpolluted by jargon, The Hardy Boys was one of the most borrowed book series’ in my elementary days. Although the logic and physics in the stories were questionable, the presentation was so rationally convincing you would actually believe that the deus ex machina-type resolutions to many of the stories were actually possible.

The same is true with TDVC and AAD. While many of the facts are genuinely questionable, Dan Brown is able to present them simplistically enough to sound matter-of-factly. That the details of the facts are debatable is beside the point — the delivery of the idea in clear and succinct manner allows the most ordinary of readers to believe they are learning scholarly accurate information.

Add that simplicity to arrogantly blatantly challenging an institution which was for generations vaunted as infallible and you’ve got yourself a sureshot bestseller.

I believe that the different Christian churches should take a hint from Dan Brown’s success, and start discussing in similarly clear and succinct language vital subjects like the early Christian movement, the Great Schism, which explains the division of the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches, the First Council of Nicaea, where the divinity of Jesus as God was decided, and most importantly, the Council of Laodicea, which decided the content of the current Christian Bible.

I believe that educating the Christian flock regarding these issues alongside the Gospels will not only better inform Christians, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, but also strengthen the faith of succeeding generations of Christians who would not like to be as clueless as their ancestors regarding the history of their faith.

And no I am not questioning whether TDVC or TGOJ were worth paying attention to, or wondering whether they were true or not. I was questioning the most common worry of the conservatives: “What will happen to those who are of shallow faith?”

Shallow faith? Is that how little faith these conservatives have on their own Bible that they are worried about the repercussions of a work of fiction and a manuscript of a breakaway early-Christian sect will have on their flock?

I think that these conservatives are actually the ones who have little faith, fearing that Jesus’ words and teachings are so weak they can be shaken by such works. By choosing to dwell in their familiar blankets of security — the truth as declared by the Church — rather than entertain the possibility of an alternate truth, the conservatives are only repeating the mistakes made by the absolutist pharisees of Jesus’ time.

If you really wanna test your faith, ask yourself the following set of questions:

• If Jesus were married, would that have made Him less divine?
• If Jesus has had sex and sired children, would that have made Him less holy?
• If Jesus has descendants that live to this day, would that make Him less of God?
• If Judas did not betray Jesus, would that make Jesus’ sacrifice less significant?
• If Judas was not absolutely evil, does that mean Jesus wasn’t absolutely good?
• If TDVC or TGOJ were proven true, would they undermine Jesus’ teachings?

Ask yourself these questions. And then tell me how much faith in Jesus you really have.

Sure it’s supposed to be some sort of sacrifice and penance for all the wrongs that one has done in their lives. But if a person finds himself joining the flagellants each and every season of Lent, then it becomes a senseless, futile exercise tantamount to insulting God himself.

However, self-flagellation, carrying of crosses, and getting oneself nailed to the cross literally during Lent is not the only quintessential Filipino practice that involves hurting oneself or otherwise putting oneself to shame. A similar practice is prevalent day in or day out, amongst Filipinos in cyberspace, and it’s done in two easy steps:

1. Find something wrong in Filipino society, government, culture, business… just about anything — whether it’s absolutely true or completely made up. But as easy as that is it isn’t the hardest part. The next step is much easier…
2. Forward it to everyone you know and declare that it’s something that happens “Only in the Philippines” or just declare whatever humiliation you’re illustrating as “The Philippines:”

Madali lang, diba?

To date I’ve received tons of email applying the same strategy to humiliate one’s self. The most recent flavor is some guy not being able to get a TIN number from the inept BIR, and the sports cars being used by police forces in the richer parts of the globe along with the photograph of a delapidated Philippine National Police patrol car.

I don’t know if its just me who realizes that tax collection is such a drag anywhere in the world, and that using sports cars as police patrols are a luxury enjoyed only by car-producing countries. Of course, I admit that the BIR and PNP are corrupt by anybody’s standards. Denying that would be delusion, for lack of a better word.

But what irks me is when Filipinos put on the label on things that are humiliating but did not even happen in the Philippines.

For example, a few years ago when I first received the now infamous Itenas Sex Video featuring a young couple having sex in a hotel room, some people immediately labelled it as having happened in the Philipines — with DLSU students specifically. However in the video one of the guys (who were not part of the sex part but was there in the earlier non-porn parts of the video) was wearing an “Itenas University” t-shirt. Of course, it turned out that the couple in the video were Indonesian.

That’s the reason why I was initially sceptical of the Lasalle Scandal video, though that turned out to be authentic. But I digress.

Recently, somebody has been forwarding an email that the following photograph happened in the Phililppines:

The composer of the message, whoever the person was, proudly declared (in big, bold letters at that) that the above photograph was taken in the Philippines.

One only has to look closer to see that it was far from the truth. The first is the position of the driver. The vehicle is obviously a right-hand-drive truck; Isuzu trucks of this make are never right-hand-drive because it’s cheap enough to sell directly here, with the proper left-hand-drive configuration.

And then you only have to look at the license plate. It’s not even the size of ours. I have no idea which country this vehicle would come from, but I am quite sure that even if these guys falling off the truck look Filipino, they are definitely not so.

I sent a reply to the person who sent this too me cursing and swearing at him for not seeing the obvious. Though I subsequently apologized, I have no apologies for what I said I thought about people who send this kind of email: they are insecure about their being Filipino, and it’s so easy for them to shame themselves even if there is no factual basis to their claims.

I would understand why Filipinos would only have ill-feelings about their country; one only has to open their eyes everyday to see that something is seriously wrong in this nation. But what I do not understand is why while many other people proudly declare their ethnicity despite the misgivings of their governments, we go off and humiliate ourselves with such emails, practically flagellating our egoes in front of everyone else.

How do you expect our people to help fix our country if we’re too preoccupied flagellating ourselves intellectually every single day?

So to everyone who really want a progressive Philippines: drop the “Only in the Philippines” BS. It’s better preoccupying ourselves thinking of ways of how to solve the problem than wasting your time with derogatory emails. Not unless that’s how far your narrow-minded brain can handle.