Ang Pilipinas kong Mahal!

ang kwento ni atat at ni dilat.... :-)

2011-08-05T02:42:00.000-07:00

andito na naman si boy siksik... sinisiksik na naman ang sarili sa mga bagay bagay na wal naman syang alam... personal lang... ngunit eto ay pawang obserbasyon lamang at lahat ay ayun sa kanyang nakita at narinig sa kaka siksik sa bus sa oberpass at sa kahit na anong lugar...

ang sulat kong ito ay hango sa mag kaibigan na si atat at si dilat... atat ang tawag sa kanya kasi d sya makapag hintay... dilat naman sya kasi na gising sa kaototohanan...

ganyan ang mga bagay bagay na nagyayari sa ting kapaligiaran.. sa ating sistema na parating ang mamamdali sa kung saan saan... madami naman ang nag bubulagbulagan, d tulad ni dilat at natutu na.. gusto na nyang makawala sa sistema ng dayaan... si atat naman ay guatong mapasok ang kawalan.. maki ayon sa sistema o kaya matutu na kung ano ano...

eto ang kwento ng atat at ng dilat... at umeksena si bulag...

kontrobersyal na naman....

2011-07-08T03:12:00.000-07:00

D artista... di naman politiko.. ngunit kontrobersyal... d naman boldstar... d naman porno star.. ngunit kontrobersyal....

Andito na naman tayo para mag nilay nilay sa mga pangyayari sa kapaligiran... sa ngayong linggong eto d naman maulan ngunit basang basa ang mundo ng kaparian... Sila na naman ang sentro ng mga bangayang pampolitika... mga pari na may sinumpaang tungkulin para mag bigay ng kapayapaan sa mundo.. mga pari na may vow of poverty (english, dko ma translate kasi, pasensya tao lang alagad ng diyos d perpekto), ngunit sila ngayon ang naging sentro ng mga SUV na hiningi sa Philippine Charity Sweepstakes. Alagad talaga sila ng diyos, pinag darasal lang nag kakatotoo na, ngunit d sila lumuhod sa harap ng tuinay na dyos kundi nag sulat sa papel na parang humuhinge ng regalo kay Santa Cluas kahit di pasko, pero kaaarawan naman nya kasi at may rason pah... ganyan lang sila sa iisang iglap mga isang milyon na mahigit na SUV ang binigay sa kanya... d naman tayo nag kukutya.... Inggit lang.. hehehehehe!

sa pag papaptuloy ng ating kwentong kainggitan, pag usapan naman natin kung bakit d nagingialam anag simbahan sa pag rarally sa panahon ni glorya! syempre nakakita ang mga kaparian ng glorya kay Gloria.. madali mag dasal sa kanya, ang hiling ay madali na naiibigay kahit di pa hinihiling... ganyan sa bilis... zooom!

mabilis.... magaling... ganyan ang patakaran...

pero kung titingnan mo naman sa likod ng kwentong eto, pwede hindi pansarili ang pangagamitan ng SUV na to, malayo nga kaya kailangan nya mg Montero Sports 4X4, o kaya isang Strada na 4x4 din... dba d naman magara un. pang bundok lang... may panggagamitan din naman pala eh...

sa pagka bunyag ng kontrobersiya na to gusto daw ibalik na lang para matapos na ang mga isyu... matatapos pa kaya.. nabahiran na ng maduming palad ang mga kaparian... pero kailangan natin na mag isip isip... mag isip ng mag isip para malaman kung kailan din tayo mag kakakroon ng panginoon na walang hirap sa pag bibigay... na sa sulat lang nag kakatotoo ang iyong mga panalangin...

Peace!!!

ang pakikipag sapalaran ni boy siksik...

2011-07-04T22:54:00.000-07:00

andito na naman tayo... matagal nang panahon na di ko kayo na entertain.. (english un ah) matapos ang ilang araw na d ako naka sulat ngayon andito na naman ako makikipag usap sa sarili, kukutayain ang mga nakikita sa paligid.. pero puna lang d naman nakakasakit pang sports pah! Booom!

simulan natin sa pagka panalo ng AZKALS! yahoooo! nananlo ang Pilipinas! Congatulations! (english uli!) nanalo sila a iskor na 4-0, sawsaw balaw! ano naman kung nanalo! (nag kukunwari kuno na d ako apektado) OO Pilipino ang bandera na dinadala nila... Pilipino ang azkals.. marunong ba silang managalog? si caligdong lang ata ang narinig ko na nag tagalog ah?! d naman ata, meron din mga marunong katulag ng mag kapatid na batang-asawa na lalake! a (ang hirap i transalate ah!) Pilipino naman lahat sila, kalahati sa ina or ama at purong banyaga mag magsalita. nabigyan na natin ng explinasyon ang kupunan... pero paano nananalo ang azkals? eto ang scinetipikong explinasyon dyan. una andun si Angel Locsin na nag pakulo ng dugo ni Phil, atat na atat na mag iskor para iapkita kung gaano sya kagaling hanggang mag cramps ang katawan nya... naka iskor naman dalawa pa nga (salamat angel). pangalawa, gustong patunayan ng mga puro na kahit di sila hati na banyaga makakaiskor din sila.. tama nga, unang umiskor si chiffy, na syang nag umpisa ng iskor ng Pinas (salamat mga banyaga). at ang pang huli.. gusto nilang makaiskor lahat para magkaroon ng commercial sa telebisyon.. ung ang pang apat kasi wala sa commercial si Spanish- Pilipino na man lalaro... (Ganun?!) d naman ata pero ganun din un.. lahat sila gusto magkaroon ng commercial kaya halos naubos na ang depensya sa goal.. mabuti nga andun si Neil! Mabuhay!

Salamat sa mga nag Iskor! Sana iapag patuloy ninyo ang nag papabugso sa inyong damdamin na maka iskor para may mapanood naman kami sa Copa del Mundo! (tama kaya eto?)

eto si boy siksik!

bat ganun...?

2011-06-20T00:25:00.001-07:00

i have been watching television lately.. wala kasing magawa ngayon.. maulan, may bagyo, baha... naisulat ko eto ngayon na kaarawan ni Jose Rizal, ngunit kahapon pa pala yon... napanood ko sa telebisyon na iniinterview ang mga kamag anak ng ating pambansang bayani... Di po ba nag sabi ang ating pambansang bayani na mahalin ang sariling wika? bat ganun.. sila ingles ng ingles hindi ko tuloy maintindihan bat ganun? Iyon na ba ang ibig sabihin na mahalin ang sariling wika dahil kung hindi mo mahalin ang iyong sariling wika mangangamoy ka kasama ng mga fish kill sa batangas... ganun ba talaga yon? Ganun na ba ang sukatan ng pagiging apo ng bayani, dapat magaling ka mag ingles? bat ganun?

Marami din ang nag tatanong kung ano magiging si pambansang bayani natin kung buhay pa sya ngayon.. isip isip? di po ba matanda na sya ngayon kung buhay pa sya? o di kaya bed riden na sya dahil sa katandaan? madami rin ang sumagot (tanga?) ganito ang gawin natin, kung nabuhay sya nagayon bayani kaya siya? tsik tsik! nag papapaka tanga na naman tayo... d katulad lang sya ng ordinaryo na tao... pano makakakagamit si pamabansang bayani ng facebook, twitter, o iba pang social network kung d naman sya nabuhay nagayon dahil kung nabuhay sya ngayon bayani kaya sya? o isa rin sya sa mga kumon na tao na sigaw ng sigaw sa kalsada na wala naman ginagawa.. hayaan na lang natin siya sa kanyang panahon, wag na natin ipag sisisksikan ang kanyang buhay sa kasalukuyan... mag isip isip naman tayo.. panahon natin ngayon, panahaon ng mga bagong bayani (sana?) panahon ng mga walang sillbing tao, panahon ng kurapsyon, panahon ng makalumang politica, panahon na kung saan mga bata parin ang iniisip na pag asa ng bayan (kaya ang dami ng mga anak anak)... panahon ng mga pa pogi sa lipunan (parati nananalo sa eleksyon, parati nasa telebisyon o di kaya artista)... sana nabuhay na lang tayo sa panahon...
ang simbolo ng pag asa ng bayan ay nasa mga bayani, isa buhay at isa puso na lang natin wag na tayong mg O.A., hayaan na lang natin sya sa panahon nya. ngayon ay panahon natin, panahon na tayo naman ang maging bayani.. sana man lang may natutunan tayo sa panahon nila. madami ang mga naiambak ng ating pambansang bayani sana payamanin na lang natin at matuto!

ganun ba talaga?

the Philippine National Flag!

2011-05-29T18:24:00.000-07:00

The Philippine Flag has been the Witness of several battles that the Philippines has faced, but people don't even recognized its relevance to thier lives. Flag is the symbol of the maryrdaom of all the heroes in our land, they had shed blood just to see this flag wave up in the air.
The Philippine flag is a royal blue, red and white which this color means blue for peace, red for bravery and white for purity. Our flag is also coposed of the three stars which symbolizes Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, and a Sun with eight rays whci means the eaight provinces that fought the spaniards. this is how colorful anf meaningful our flag is, this is also sewn by Marcela Agoncillo and first waved in the air by President Emilio Aguinaldo.

P-Noy needs more empathy

2011-01-26T20:00:00.000-08:00

P-Noy needs more empathy

DEMAND AND SUPPLY By Boo Chanco

(The Philippine Star) Updated January 17, 2011

Business Section

http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=648746&publicationSubCategoryId=66

“You are starting to sound like you are sorry you supported Noynoy in the last election,” a long time friend ribbed me last week. I just smiled and he continued, “Well, if you aren’t sorry, you should be.”

No, I said. I still pretty much support P-Noy and pray that he succeeds in getting the country on track in the next five and a half years. I can’t say I am confident he will be able to do it but at my age, all I can really do is hope, pray and write.

I explained that when I decided to shift my support to P-Noy last May, I was well aware of the candidate’s vulnerabilities but decided we have to fight our battles one step at a time. First order of business is to vote for an honest President. I figured Mar Roxas can cover P-Noy’s deficiencies in running anything more complicated than a gun club. Who would have thought things would happen the way it did?

Now it seems that with P-Noy, we have to constantly remind him where the daang matuwid is. No, he hasn’t done anything yet to make us doubt we were wrong to think he is honest. But he constantly gets himself in trouble with self inflicted problems, no doubt due to lack of experience or lack of empathy or both. Sadly, he had been less of the Leader we thought he could be.

This week, media and the social networks were riled up about P-Noy’s third hand Porsche. Indeed, if Ate Glue showed lack of empathy to our suffering people by dining in Le Cirque in New York, the same can be said of P-Noy’s romance with a four and a half million peso Porsche or for that matter, Imelda’s 3,000 pairs of shoes. What was wrong for Ate Glue and Imelda is wrong for P-Noy for the same reason… it displays lack of empathy.

It hardly matters that he used his own money. Like Ate Glue’s feasting on caviar and fine wine supposedly courtesy of Congressmen Romualdez and Suarez, getting that Porsch is scandalous in a nation where half the population consider themselves poor and close to 20 percent actually go hungry. It shows the insensitivity of a cacique. It shows an inability of P-Noy to transcend his social class origins to feel the sufferings of a majority of his people.

I understand too where P-Noy is coming from when he bought the Porsche. He is obviously going through mid-life crisis. Being an old bachelor in his 50s with a thinning hair line (I can empathize with the thinning hairline bit) and a limited ability to keep relationships can be emotionally challenging. P-Noy is tao lamang and he obviously needs a testosterone fix real badly. A Porsche, rather than Prosac, is his preferred prescription for that problem.

But then again, P-Noy forgets he isn’t a normal anybody. He is President of the Republic. He presented himself to the people and promised to be the leader we can be proud of. He made a contract with the Filipino people that limits what he can do… something like the vow of chastity that priests take.

When he took that oath at the Luneta, he should have realized the Constitution he vowed to uphold called upon public officials to “lead modest lives.” Thus, he effectively agreed to push back satisfying his own wants if doing so delivers a mixed message that accentuates the great divide between our social elite, of which he is a part, and the masses. In the fishbowl world he now lives in, everything he does must inspire his people.

I also sort of recall a similar provision of the Civil Service Code which requires public officials and their families not to indulge in extravagant or ostentatious display of wealth in any form. There is also the Administrative Code that talks of “thoughtless extravagance in expenses for pleasure or display during a period of acute public want or emergency.” And because he has apparently violated the spirit and the provisions of Law requiring government officials and employees to live simply, he has also lost the moral authority to demand it from the bureaucracy.

The one word that P-Noy must learn and understand well is empathy. Without it, he cannot be the leader who will make a difference. Ate Glue is a fairly competent and even hardworking leader but the one other thing she lacked other than trustworthiness was empathy. She projected a coldness that alienated people. P-Noy, on the other hand, cannot be just the honest President who will not steal a centavo. He must be someone who empathizes with his people, even if he comes from a family of hacienderos.

Maybe what added to the gravity of the Porsche story was bad timing. The Porsche story came out in the same week that SWS released its latest report on the rise in the number of people calling themselves poor and admitting going hungry. It was also the same week when the P-Noy administration took a relatively tough line on increased toll rates, increased MRT-LRT fares, increased taxi rates and granted permission for bakers to increase the prices for bread.

The Porsche story was heaven sent for the likes of leftist propagandists. The Porsche story presented a visible image of a government leader who is not of the people and could therefore not be expected to understand their problems meeting the high cost living. Other than the fact that it might actually violate our laws, getting the Porsche goes against the image of egalitarianism that P-Noy himself proclaimed with his no wang wang message.

What we are left with is the image of a spoiled brat, not of a leader who would deliver his developing country from poverty. What he is facing after all, are problems that should keep a devoted leader busy working on affairs of the state up to way past midnight.

For many of us who voted for him, we knew he wasn’t the sharpest pencil in the box but he did present himself as someone who is a quick learner. We figured he should be enough to get the nation to at least go in the right direction. What we found more important was his potential to inspire the people. Unless the leader inspires, our people will not do their part in nation building but rather, continue to just look out for themselves.

Unfortunately, our Great Leader has proven himself less than inspiring so far.

Empathy. Wikipedia defines empathy as the capacity to recognize and, to some extent share, feelings (such as sadness or happiness) that are being experienced by another. In other words, empathy means being sensitive to the sufferings of other people. A certain amount of empathy is needed before a person is able to feel compassion. Empathy covers a range of feelings that includes demonstrating a concern for other people that creates a desire to help them.

An effective leader must show lots of empathy to the plight of his people. And that empathy is conveyed by giving the right messages… not just what he says but what he does. It isn’t easy being President. And now that he is President, P-Noy will have to start thinking and acting like he is indeed, our Great Leader.

We apparently have to keep reminding P-Noy that the tuwid na daan is not about a race track for his Porsche. It is about getting government to function like the fine tuned engine of a Porsche. I guess if that thought comes to mind when he is speeding around in his new toy, maybe the Porsche is the best thing that has ever happened to the Filipino people. Let me remind you however, it is suicidal to hold our breath.

Beemer

A middle aged man walks into a BMW dealership. He browses around, spots the Top-of-the-line Beemer and walks over to inspect it. As he feels the fine leather upholstery, he inadvertently breaks Wind.

He looks around nervously to see if anyone has noticed his little accident. As he turns around, he sees a salesman standing right behind him. The salesman greets him, “Good day, Sir. How may we help you today?”

Very uncomfortably, but hoping that the salesman may just not have been there at the time of his accident, he asks, “Sir, what is the price of this lovely vehicle?”

He answers, “Sir, if you farted just touching it, you are going to shit when I tell you the price.”

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is bchanco@gmail.com.

Le Porsche = Le Cirque

2011-01-26T19:49:00.000-08:00

CTALK By Cito Beltran

(The Philippine Star), page 14

Updated January 14, 2011 12:00 AM

http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=647964&publicationSubCategoryId=64

The present Aquino administration is so generous.

In fact we can even say that this administration is generous to a fault, particularly their faults. Ever since they stepped into Malacañang, they have been so generous at giving the public every reason to criticize them.

Yesterday was no exception when radio and print media finally publicized or tackled the “issue” of President Noynoy Aquino allegedly driving around Metro Manila in a multi-million peso Porsche.

This of course is “old” news that has circulated among many businessmen and the privileged class. Perhaps, it is now NEWS, since the administration has nothing new in terms of real accomplishments and the public has lost interest in the last-latest girlfriend linked to P-Noy.

Perhaps no one would have noticed if P-Noy or someone pretending to be P-Noy were very discreet about cruising around Metro Manila. Unfortunately the style in which the convoy cruised certainly catches attention.

When I saw the now controversial “Presidential” cruise car, there were at least three huge SUVs running point with blinkers flashing and clearing the road for the President on wheels. I can only imagine that it was like playing Play Station Gran Turismo in real life.

Considering how the “walang wang-wang” declaration put a stop to politicos abusing power, any vehicle using blinkers immediately catch drivers’ attention. Now we watch out for blinkers and sirens because we now willingly give way to legitimate emergencies. But when three SUVs zoom by followed by a Porsche, everybody notices and now thanks to the media focus, everybody thinks or knows it’s P-Noy at the wheel.

It is ironic and alarming that the story of the Presidential Porsche has unraveled on the month when the NLEX and SLEX toll rates went up, when the government announced that they will be increasing the fare on the LRT and the MRT, and the same week that surveys revealed that more Filipinos went hungry in the first few months of the Aquino administration, more than in the time of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

In this season of discontent it was no surprise to hear that the President’s alleged Porsche cruising activity was no different from Gloria Macapagal Arroyo eating a thousand dollar dinner at Le Cirque in New York.

If it is indeed P-Noy who owns and drives the sleek Porsche, he should have consulted with several Porsche owners in Metro Manila concerning the driving etiquette for Porsches.

I am certain there are at least 200+ Porsches in Metro Manila but they don’t simply go out the driveway and flaunt their cars. Usually they leave early in the morning, on weekends and holidays and they try to get out of Metro Manila as fast as possible in order to avoid gawkers and not to attract unnecessary attention.

They drive outside the Metro in places such as the NLEX-SCTEX-Clark-subic and maybe even Baguio or back to Manila. Or they drive out south on the SLEX-STAR Toll-Tagaytay-Calatagan. These routes bring out top end performance enjoyment of the cars without soliciting envy, contempt or unwarranted social judgment.

The Porsche driver is always at point, unannounced and unassuming. They don’t have sweepers. Part of the fun is being able to use the driving skills required in order to fully appreciate the power and performance of a Porsche. They don’t have tinted cars because that would be denying legitimate ownership of a legitimate sports car legitimately acquired at a big cost or a big sacrifice.

Yes, privilege has its price and part of it is the obligation to be discreet and considerate.

I personally have no problems with President Noynoy driving around in a Porsche. I think it’s cool to have a bachelor President who drives himself in a high quality sports car around Metro Manila. But first things first.

As a fellow Filipino, I would tell President Noynoy – establish your relationship, your goodwill and above all demonstrate your love not your politics to the Filipino people and most certainly not your Porsche.

The Filipino people are very open-minded, appreciative people, but at a time when the slogan “Matuwid na daan” has been replaced by “Matarik na daan” (steep path) because of increasing and steep prices, it is no surprise that those who believed in you now take offense.

* * *

I was pleasantly surprised to hear from my friend Gilbert Teodoro who has just returned from a long deserved vacation with his family abroad.

Gilbert Teodoro has obviously been keeping tabs on local issues and commented on the plans of selling Camp Crame and Camp Aguinaldo. Being the former Secretary of Defense, Teodoro is familiar with the facts and figures of the Department of Defense and pointed out that the modernization of the AFP is a long term requirement, and that the money Secretary Purisima could make from selling the camps would probably be used up in one year or could buy only two to three fighter jets and all the logistical support for the three planes.

Being a country with 34,000 kilometers of shoreline, Teodoro stressed that we seriously need to beef up our capabilities to patrol and respond against smugglers, drug traffickers, and foreign illegal fishing boats.

Even more immediate is the serious need to upgrade the AFP’s ability for Disaster Response. We need aircraft that can transport aid, materials and personnel. We need emergency vehicles such as water borne craft and land vehicles so our Army and Navy can respond.

But like all else, we need a serious and informed plan. That’s the difference between people who live the life versus living the likes. I’m betting we will be hearing more from Gilbert Teodoro in the coming days.

Whatever happened to…?

2011-01-26T19:47:00.000-08:00

Opinion

By Rigoberto D. Tiglao
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 04:55:00 01/06/2011

p. A11

http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20110106-312772/Whatever-happened-to

Filed Under: Governance, Graft & Corruption, Civil & Public Services

A FAVORITE feature of mine in this newspaper had been the occasional “Whatever happened to...?”, which followed up what happened later on to news—controversies, crimes, accusations—that had been reported.

It was a reality-check of sorts, as a follow-up often disclosed that seemingly shocking accusations, for instance, were exaggerated. Often, the whatever-happened-to follow-ups were disappointing, as for instance, it turned out that the only thing that happened regarding a crime story after two years was that “the case is pending in the court.” The feature was also a means to pressure authorities to fulfill their promises.

With the start of a new year, it would be useful to list down several “whatever-happened-to’s” of national interest, and revisit it every six months:

One, the jueteng “exposés.” In September, retired Archbishop Oscar Cruz hogged the headlines with his claims that jueteng was prospering under the new administration, and that President Aquino’s top officials, including Local Government Undersecretary Rico Puno, were receiving P8 million monthly protection money from jueteng lords. “Tapos na ang maliligayang araw nila,” Mr. Aquino angrily retorted, as he declared war on the illegal numbers game.

Whatever happened? Nothing. An article in this newspaper the other day, buried in the inside pages, (“Laguna police keeping watch on expansion of jueteng,”) reported ominously: “Jueteng in Metro Manila has expanded its operations down south.”

Two, the anti-corruption campaign. The President has indeed created an ethos that his will be a graft-free administration. At the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp., for instance, the new management has stopped the notorious racket of restaurants’ accreditation by which Pagcor pays for the astronomical, and even fabricated, bills of casino players dining in restaurants it “accredits” in exchange for a monthly commission. We haven’t heard though of any revitalized anti-graft campaign in the “usual suspects”: the Department of Public Works and Highways, the Department of Transportation and Communication, the Bureau of Customs. If Education Secretary Armin Luistro doesn’t comment soon on how he will deal with the oligopoly of loan sharks preying on teachers at his department, I’d be praying for his discernment. All eyes are on Carlos Garcia’s plunder case. But has the Armed Forces set up the mechanisms to prevent other Garcias?

“Tuwid na daan muna tayo” has purportedly been the response of many a corrupt bureaucrat to deals offered, while grinning as though to make fun of the President’s mantra, and apparently just biding their time. That’s good, but if the anti-graft campaign remains on the level of moral injunctions, with little fear of prosecution, the effort will fizzle out. And there are indeed disturbing signs.

Prosecuting the alleged misdeeds of the past administration is not the be-all and end-all of the Office of the Ombudsman. It is investigating 2,000 cases of corruption all over the country. But obviously so mad at the agency’s head, the President has cut down its budget by P400 million this year.

Its performance was not stellar, but the Presidential Anti-Graft Commission was a means for whistle-blowers to report graft cases they knew about. But it has been effectively closed down, with its functions turned over to the executive secretary’s legal office, which is hardly staffed by stellar legal minds.

Three, National Food Authority head Lito Banayo’s “we’re-swimming-in-rice” assessment. Aping President Aquino’s claim when he took office that the past administration “over-imported” rice, Banayo claimed that the previous management had imported “in a midnight deal” P100 million worth of overpriced rice, and even asked the Department of Justice to prosecute former NFA officials. When the rice production data came in, he was aghast to discover that output was significantly down due to drought and typhoons. Banayo then boasted that it was good that the NFA had sufficient rice stocks. Of course, he didn’t mention how much of the stocks were part of the “over-importation” he once disdained. Next year, he blithely announced, rice imports would be just marginally lower than the imports in 2010.

Excusable lapses in judgment perhaps, as Banayo has zero experience in rice trading and agricultural economics. But of all the many state firms and agencies, why did he ask to head a corporation that for more than three decades has racked up billions of pesos in losses, with a deficit this year of P40 billion? A Chinese rice trader I asked responded with a big grin.

Four, the Lamborghini tax-evader. Last July, the Bureau of Internal Revenue charged William Villarica with tax evasion, claiming he paid minimal taxes despite his thriving pawnshop business. It was supposed to be the start of the BIR’s vigorous campaign against tax evaders. To make the story sizzle, the BIR claimed Villarica owned a P26-million Lamborghini sports car. The first court hearing on the case was postponed as no BIR prosecutor turned up. The last news story I could dig up said that Villarica’s lawyer Frank Chavez (formerly President Cory Aquino’s solicitor general) claimed that the BIR didn’t have proof, not even the car’s certificate of registration. The same news story pointed out that William Villarica’s sister-in-law is Bulacan representative Linabelle Villarica, a party mate of President Aquino. I hope BIR Commissioner Kim Henares brings us up to date on their “landmark tax-evasion case.”

There are of course other interesting “whatever-happened-to’s”: the anti-wangwang policy (successful, it seems); the factionalism in Aquino’s government (successful it seems); the Luneta hostage drama (forgotten it seems, except by Hong Kong); 4,300 government positions to be filled (my count: about 100 appointees, including Tesda’s Director General Joel Villanueva, son of evangelist Eddie Villanueva).

(E-mail: tiglao.inquirer@gmail.com)

Rebel taxes started in Bicol, says book

2011-01-26T19:44:00.002-08:00

Across the Nation

Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 22:57:00 01/05/2011
p. A7

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/regions/view/20110105-312735/Rebel-taxes-started-in-Bicol-says-book

Filed Under: State Budget & Taxes, Guerrilla activities, Armed conflict

NAGA CITY, Philippines—Taxation was introduced by communist underground leaders in Bicol as a way of raising funds to feed guerrillas following an extended period of disconnect with national communist leaders, according to a book by Filipino authors published in Switzerland.

The book, “Primed and Purposeful,” said guerrillas in Bicol were the first to collect so-called revolutionary taxes and permit-to-campaign fees, toll that is collected from politicians during elections.

It was published in Switzerland last April by the Small Arms Survey and written by Soliman M. Santos Jr. and Paz Verdades M. Santos in collaboration with Octavio Dinampo, Herman Kraft, Raymund Quilop and Kira Paredes.

Paz Santos, one of the authors, said revolutionary tax was devised by New People’s Army rebels in Bicol at a time when guerrillas in the region were cut off from the national leadership for long periods from March 1969 until the 1970s.

She said the national leadership of the Communist Party of the Philippines once frowned upon revolutionary taxation but later adopted it everywhere NPA rebels operated.

“The group (NPA rebels) had been struggling to feed and arm its troops until it devised the system of charging ‘revolutionary taxes’ or ‘donations,’” said the book.

It said taxes started being collected from farm workers, fishermen, teachers, barangay officials, nongovernment organizations, businesses and landowners. Juan Escandor Jr., Inquirer Southern Luzon

Toll

2011-01-26T19:44:00.001-08:00

Opinion

By: Alex Magno

(The Philippine Star)

Updated January 6, 2011 12:00 AM

Links: http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=645713&publicationSubCategoryId=64

There is something wrong in this sequence.

Immediately after they were given the go-ahead to raise toll rates last month, companies operating the expressways announced they will implement the increase in stages. They, obviously, have an interest in cushioning the impact of the price adjustments on the consumer: it reduces the possibility of violent consumer protests.

As the workweek began, the Palace announced they will ask the companies operating the expressways to implement the increase in stages. Wasn’t that exactly what the companies already announced? Was anybody working in the Palace through the holidays?

Sometime late this week, we do not know exactly when, the administration is supposed to convene its economic managers to discuss ways by which the impact of the toll rate adjustments might be mitigated. Such a meeting ought to have been convened months before, anticipating the hefty toll adjustments that will be made.

It is not as if the toll rate adjustments caught us by surprise.

In its first few days, the Aquino administration announced that the contracts with the investors will be respected. Those contracts assure investors in our infra development cost recovery and profitability. If those contracts are not respected, future investments in our economy will be doomed.

A couple of months ago, a conference was held where potential investors in our infra projects were assured a hospitable policy environment. Our economic managers, in fact, promised something that might be difficult to deliver: government guarantees against any losses incurred because of juridical or political uncertainties.

We knew the toll rate adjustments would happen. In fact, they should have happened a long time ago. Investors were losing massively with every day of delay in the implementation of the rate adjustments. Too, every day of delay meant less time for cost recovery within the concession period — therefore steeper price adjustments to ensure recovery.

The only thing that held back the rate adjustments was a consumer suit filed before the Supreme Court in a frantic attempt to stop the rate adjustments. The Court ruled in favor of government and threw out the petitions.

When President Aquino whined about being singled out by the Supreme Court, he forgot about this important ruling. The ruling opens the way for the administration’s program of “public-private partnerships” to proceed.

The expressway toll rate adjustment is a litmus test for assuring investors a more market-friendly environment in the country. If the administration buckled under populist pressure in this case, its credibility in the eyes of investors will collapse. We might as well give up any hope of attracting private investments to help close our yawning infrastructure gap for the next six years.

True, the toll rate adjustment will inflict pain on consumers. We have long been used to paying ridiculously low rates courtesy of immense government subsidies for everything from electricity to fuel to trains to expressways. Those immense subsidies threw us into indebtedness.

Subsidies are an inefficient use of scarce public finances. They benefit some at the expense of others. They favor richer consumers and disfavor the poor. They benefit those who use a utility at the expense of those who don’t.

Subsidies for roads and rail, fuel and power are generally unjust. If we subsidize fuel, for instance, we favor those who own gas-guzzlers and disfavor bikers. If we subsidize expressways and commuter rail, we favor those in the metropolitan area at the expense of those in the Visayas and Mindanao.

Because subsidies are generally unjust, they deepen regional disparities, preserve rural poverty and retard our development by discouraging market-driven investments in things we urgently need, such as good roads, efficient rail and reliable power supplies.

If we want First World expressways, we should be prepared to pay for their real costs. Justice is better served if the direct users pay for these costs and the non-users of the utility spared the expense. There is an ethical consideration here, not just an economic calculation.

The new toll rates took effect, as long expected, on the first day of the year. The “economic managers” meeting is scheduled about a week after. This is not just a problem of timing but also of audience. This might not even be the right meeting to convene.

A month ago, the President should have convened, not the economic managers, but the line agencies charged with transport fare, traffic management and other related concerns. Government should have been ready with a coordinated response, adjusting fare rates and dealing with traffic overflow caused by vehicles avoiding the expressways.

When the new toll rates took effect, for instance, buses using the expressways took it upon themselves to adjust their fares independent of the government regulatory agencies. For the transport operators, it was a matter of necessity. What they did was illegal, but government action was late.

Little, if any, was done to upgrade, ahead of the toll rate adjustments, the old roads used by small traders who bring agricultural produce to the metropolitan area. If all agricultural produce pass through the expressways, a commensurate increase in food prices becomes unavoidable.

We need more rail services to lower the logistics costs of bringing food to the city. There is no government program for this.

Soon we will have to deal with a fare increase in all the commuter rail lines in the city. Hopefully, we see less of the utter unpreparedness on the part of government characterizing the toll rate adjustments.

We are moving into a new price regime in all our logistical systems as we prepare for their modernization. The Palace should be more proactive in preparing for their many repercussions.

Big money at Immigration

2011-01-26T19:42:00.000-08:00

By: Ernesto M. Maceda

(The Philippine Star)

Updated January 6, 2011 12:00 AM

Links: http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=645716&publicationSubCategoryId=64

Officers and employees of the Bureau of Immigration are up in arms against the “gross, blatant and deliberate violations of law” of Atty. Ronald P. Ledesma, officer-in-charge. They accuse him of removals, designations and reassignments of personnel without the approval of the Secretary of Justice. Particularly targetted are those considered close to President Arroyo and to former Commissioner Marcelino Libanan. Many have been arbitrarily transferred to outports. Employees have been ordered to be out of their offices by 5:30 p.m.

A white paper also points out that thousands of illegal Chinese and Korean nationals have entered the country and are holding jobs or doing business under the protection of Immigration officials. In Divisoria alone, hundreds of non-tagalog speaking Chinese are openly doing work as vendors and salesclerks. The “going rate” for non arrest is P250,000 per head. Also flourishing is a racket for the approval of petitions for recognition filed by naturalized Chinese for a fee of P300,000 per head.

Three women fixers headed by Betty well known at Binondo, are operating. Also thriving is the sale of missionary visas to fake pastors and clergymen.

Human trafficking and escort services at the airport is flourishing but with the price per head going up from P200,000 to P500,000. The US Embassy has complained about the large number of Filipino arrivals in the US with fake visas which should have been caught at NAIA.

The long lines at airport counters are still there. While it takes five minutes or less to clear immigration in Hong Kong, Macau, Japan and Singapore, it takes 20-30 minutes at the NAIA. New rules imposed by OIC Ledesma under Memorandum Order No. RPL-10-004 have delayed the airport clearance.

OIC Ronald Ledesma is impervious to criticism and advice and is very arrogant because he was recommended by a close associate of Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa. Walang tuwid na daan sa Bureau of Immigration. DOJ Secretary Leila de Lima should take a closer look at what is happening at the Bureau of Immigration. There’s an impending paralysis about to hit that office.

* * *

POLICE BESTIALITY . . . PO3 Antonio Bautista of the Manila Police District has been charged with rape and robbery perpetrated on a 30-year old vendor on New Year’s eve, Dec. 31 inside MPD Headquarters on UN Avenue, the 10th case of police grave misconduct the last four weeks alone.

PO3 Bautista and a companion arrested the victim for vagrancy on Carriedo Street while on her way to Sta. Cruz church, despite her protestation that she was waiting for her partner who was buying coffee.

At the MPD headquarters, Bautista took P4,000 from her wallet, then demanded she performs oral sex, then raped her in exchange for her release.

How many times has he done this to women he has arrested? Sources in the MPD say he had a similar case three months ago. When suspects are brought to headquarters or a police station, are they recorded in the police blotter? And shouldn’t the Chief of Police or the Station Commander monitor what is happening in the backroom where suspects are held?

Before this PO3 Bautista incident, we saw a video of Supt. Joselito Binayug torturing a suspect in a Tondo police sub station. Was he dismissed?

How about the policeman who was accused of raping a masseuse at the San Juan police station? Was he suspended? Five QC cops are now accused of kidnapping with murder by James Kumar and two companions in Pasay. One of them was found shot to death in Bulacan. A police major went berserk in Pasig.

DILG Sec. Jessie Robredo who is chairman of the National Police Commission (NAPOLCOM) has finally taken note of the successive cases of rogue policemen involved in serious crimes. He promised to speed up the disposition of administrative cases against policemen. There’s a big problem here as there is corruption in NAPOLCOM as shown by the low 15 percent rate of dismissal, aggravated by the long delay in resolving cases, as long as five years.

After six months, it has been one “palpak” after another for the Robredo-Puno team at DILG.

* * *

NO ANCHORS . . .President Aquino assured the Philippine Navy he will secure more ships for them at the installation of Admiral Alexander Pama as FOIC.

As Ambassador to the US, we were able to get a patrol craft (PCF) from the US. The US made available to us a bigger coast guard ship being phased out of service but the AFP preferred to get choppers and a C-130 for the PAF and 6x6 trucks for the Army. It’s time to give priority to the Philippine Navy, considering our long coastline.

We made an official visit to China as chairman of the committee on national defense and security of the Senate. China also manufactures ships of all classes. If we befriend China, we can also get brand new ships from them on very easy terms.

* * *

NO LAW ENFORCERS. . .According to LTFRB Board Member Manuel Iway, the Gasat Express bus that killed 7 family members in a head-on collision at the Star Tollway was out of line and had no permit to ply the Manila-Batangas-Iloilo route.

So how was it able to travel from Cubao-Makati to SLEX to Batangas without any LTO or PNP highway patrol agents stopping it?

* * *

TIDBITS. . . Aroroy, Masbate Vice Mayor Vicente Maristela was shot dead in an ambush in Fairview, Quezon City. Twenty people have died in the flash floods in Bicol, Leyte and Eastern Mindanao.

Southern Police District PO1 Pedro Reyes has been accused of stabbing a neighbor on New Year’s eve.

Condolences to the family of the late Gov. Nancy Q. Sison of Pangasinan. Her remains are at Loyola chapels at Guadalupe

High prices, more poverty

2010-12-12T17:36:00.000-08:00

Headlines

By: Ernesto M. Maceda

(The Philippine Star)

Updated: December 9, 2010 12:00 AM

Links: http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=637548&publicationSubCategoryId=64

During the SONA address in late July, President Aquino claimed that prices of prime commodities were stable.

Barely 4 months after, his administration approved the National Food Authority decision to increase the retail price of NFA rice from P25 to P27 a kilo last Tuesday without previous notice or public consultation. The price of galunggong fish has increased from P120 to P160 a kilo. Sardines have gone up from P10 to P12 a can. LPG prices have shot up from P500 to P720 per cylinder.

There is, therefore, no relief for the poor as yet. In fact, life has become harder under P-Noy because of the higher prices.

But why should the NFA lead the way by increasing the price of the poor’s basic staple, rice? When the P-Noy Administration assumed office, the price of NFA rice was only P18/kilo. It has gone up to P27 in less than 6 months. NFA Administrator Angelito Banayo justifies the increase by the need of NFA to reduce losses. But sir, the main cause of NFA losses is the overprice or tongpats on rice imports which ranges from P100-P500 million per total procurement depending on the quantity and the timing. When then Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap bought about 2 million metric tons of rice at about $1,000 per metric ton, the Binondo rice traders suspected a $200/MT overprice. This is ultimately passed on to the poor consumer.

Stop the tongpats in imports. Stop the corruption in the diversion of NFA rice to favored commercial traders. Stop the overpriced shipping and hauling contracts. Stop the theft and “buriki” of rice sacks at NFA warehouses. Reduce the thousands of political protegees in the bloated NFA workforce. Review the overpriced lease of NFA warehouses. That will result in hundreds of millions of savings, thus removing the necessity to increase NFA rice prices.

In July too, DA Secretary Proceso Alcala promised to achieve self sufficiency in rice in one to three years. He has now changed his tune and admits the government will import from 1.3-1.5 million metric tons of rice.

Happy days are here again. During GMA’s time, FG controlled the importation of rice. Who will be the Godfather of rice in this administration? Will he be a Kamag-anak or a classmate?

Two acts are in order here. Increase the rice hectarage in every province and two, leave the importation of rice completely to the private sector. That’s the straight path for DA/NFA. Better yet, abolish the NFA and save P25-P50 billion in yearly losses contributing to the big government deficit.

The solution is right under your noses, Sec. Alcala and Administrator Lito Banayo, if you really want to avoid the temptation of an opportunity for instant wealth.

Will there be real reform in DA/NFA or will it be business as usual and happy days are here again?

* * *

EO # 1 UNCONSTITUTIONAL . . . The Supreme Court has declared Executive Order No. 1 creating the Truth Commission unconstitutional. Malacañang admits it’s a “temporary setback” in the anti corruption campaign.

Once again, the incompetence of Malacañang lawyers have come to the surface. The bottom line: they crafted an Executive Order that is violative of the Constitution, specifically the provision of equal protection of the law and the lack of power to create an office which is vested in Congress.

The lawmakers led by Sen. Joker Arroyo, Rep. Edcel Lagman and Rep. Mitos Magsaysay have been proven right. They also correctly argued that the Truth Commission is a useless duplication of the Ombudsman, the Department of Justice and even the PCGG.

What is also deplorable is you have a retired Chief Justice and 2 retired Supreme Court Justices failing to see that they were accepting appointments to an office of doubtful legality.

The diligence of a good father of the family should have motivated them to wait for the Supreme Court decision before assuming their positions and starting to spend millions of pesos of taxpayer’s money. They should refund all the money they received and spent. Estimated around P50 million.

And the P-Noy lawyers? They have just validated Senator Miriam D. Santiago’s observation that they are lightweights. In fact, she can now call them flyweights. Now will they follow Secretary Lacierda’s advice, do a Romano and submit an irrevocable resignation?

A few years in city government does not a good Executive Secretary make? It’s time to drink . . .

And the gall of submitting to the Senate a list of amnesty beneficiaries to include a sitting Senator of many years. To say the least, that’s gross negligence! No less than President Erap has this advise to P-Noy. Get an Executive Secretary with political savvy.

By the way, it was a 10-5 decision. The majority was led by Chief Justice Renato Corona and Justice Jose Mendoza, the ponente. The Minority are the new Aquino loyalists led by Justice Antonio Carpio and included Justices Conchita Carpio Morales, Eduardo Nachura, Roberto Abad and Maria Lourdes Sereno.

* * *

BILLIONS GIVEN AWAY . . .There are charges in India of gross corruption in the sale of telephone licenses at prices way off market value. At least some amounts were paid to the government.

In this country, 2G, 3G, and 4G licenses were awarded without any price paid to the government. That means a loss of revenue estimated at P5-10 billion. Note that telcos are raking in profits by the billions yearly.

This is one case of plunder that is easy to prove because not only India but USA and UK auctioned off their telephone licenses earning hundreds of millions of dollars or pounds for the government, but here given away for free.

Look at the lifestyle of all, yes all who serve as NTC Commissioners. They are all extremely wealthy.

Slapped down

2010-12-12T17:35:00.000-08:00

Opinion

By: Frederico D. Pascual Jr.

(The Philippine Star)

Updated: December 9, 2010 12:00 AM

Links: http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=637543&publicationSubCategoryId=64

BAGAC, Bataan (PLDT/WeRoam) — Tucked into this rustic village on the west side of this historic peninsula is Montemar Beach Club, a plush resort quickly making up for the years of neglect that saw an erosion of its facilities and clientele.

Its remarkable turn-around is a story worth retelling and studying. While entailing more than P180 million, its physical and financial rehabilitation that began in 2009 did not cost the majority owner anything in terms of capital expenditures or external funds.

In 1992, the beach club then under the control of the Cachos was on the verge of bankruptcy and foreclosure. When I was here two years ago, I saw why the once prime resort had gone to seed and its patrons continued to dwindle.

I muttered why we had to motor all the way to Bagac for something third rate. The resort was obviously mismanaged, neglected and run-down. I learned later that over half of its members were quitting in dissatisfaction, leaving P40 million in unpaid dues and bills.

The club was opened to the public in 1999 just to remain viable, but the yearly losses kept piling up, thereby eroding the shareholders’ equity to P56.3 million, or almost half the value in 1992.

* * *

BAILOUT: Last year, majority owner Philcomsat (Philippine Communications Satellite Corp.) stepped in to bail it out. It put in P52 million for the banks, P7 million for the Cachos, P90 million for renovation, and P32 million more as advances and leases.

That is a total infusion of P181 million, plus over P20 million in interest payments on the advances and leases that will be paid back. With new equity funds, Montemar is recapitalized with P120 million in shareholders’ equity.

For this bailout, Philcomsat becomes a 60-percent owner. Recall that despite its substantial exposure, it had no control and no board representation from 1992 through 2008.

For 16 years, the club was under the control of a board of trustees and Vicky Gonzalez, who was trustee, president, chief executive and general manager.

* * *

HORROR STORIES: The new officers, some of them from Philcomsat, talk of how the old trustees and managers appeared to have been unaware, to say the least, that the financial statements produced by their accountants were falsified from 1999 to 2008.

They tell horror stories of how the signatures of the external auditor was allegedly forged and the stamp of the Bureau of Internal Revenue faked to make it appear that Montemar management was timely filing with the BIR.

At the end of 2008, when Philcomsat directors uncovered what they said were anomalous financials, they asked for the resignation of the Montemar board and completely overhauled the club’s management.

Gonzalez, the trustees and the resident manager were removed. A new group, with Katrina Ponce Enrile as chief executive officer, took over.

* * *

MESS EXPOSED: Ponce Enrile talks of having found “a totally dilapidated club with filthy out-dated guest rooms, a disfunctional dirty kitchen where third-rate carinderia food was being cooked but could barely be eaten, and unkempt grounds and beach.”

She recounts how they found “a bloated unmotivated staff, housekeeping found sleeping or watching TV in the guest rooms, wait and kitchen personnel pilfering food supplies, lifeguards (six of them) nowhere to be found even when children were in the swimming pool.”

“Cleaners habitually shoved garbage and debris under the shrubs and bushes,” she continues, “and gardeners allowed the grass to turn brown and fallen leaves to pile up.”

* * *

TURN-AROUND: For immediate remedial measures, Ponce Enrile says, “we cut costs by streamlining the organization, retrenched superfluous staff, eliminated unnecessary expenses, trained the remaining staff.”

Consultants were brought in “to do the badly-needed rehabilitation, much of it for the kitchen and dining room, the guest rooms and the grounds.”

While all that was ongoing, the resort was hit by typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng in 2009, causing cancellations and days of shut-down for repairs and cleanup. The club’s revenues dropped 27 percent that year.

But after one year under the new management, Montemar reported profits of P6.9 million from operations, which Ponce Enrile says was the largest in the corporation’s 30-year history of losses.

Word about the upgraded Montemar has gotten around so that the share price that dropped to P40,000 during the bad years had bounced to P45,000 at auction last February. Ponce Enrile says they get calls everyday from people interested in acquiring shares, but none is available.

* * *

EQUAL PROTECTION: In the Supreme Court ruling striking down the Truth Commission created to pursue big crooks in the past administration, the key question is not whether or not anomalies occurred during the term of then President Arroyo.

High crimes and irregularities are committed in all administrations. The issue is whether or not creating such a plenipotentiary commission to dig out crimes only in a particular administration is a violation of the equal protection clause in the Constitution.

The Supreme Court has ruled that it is a violation. That there were some anomalies committed during the term of Ms Arroyo is not the central point. It is not right, the SC said, to zero in on just that while violating basic constitutional rights.

Obviously, one way out for President Aquino is to rewrite the order creating the Truth Commission to include all major irregularities committed in the past. But then, that investigative task is already assigned by the Constitution to existing bodies

Smuggling in Davao port keeps ‘dirty money’ flowing–trader

2010-12-12T17:16:00.001-08:00

Regions

Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 23:15:00 12/08/2010

p. A12

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/regions/view/20101208-307862/Smuggling-in-Davao-port-keeps-dirty-money-flowingtrader

Filed Under: Smuggling, Philippines - Regions, Graft & Corruption

DAVAO CITY, Philippines—The level of corruption in the Bureau of Customs (BOC), particularly at the Davao Port in Sasa here, is so extensive that it could involve a number of the agency’s top officials, a businessman said.

Rodolfo Reta, owner of Aquarius Container Yard, whose area was identified as a designated examination area (DEA) outside of the Customs Zone, even described the illegal activities at the port as being run by “a mafia.”

But Customs district collector Anju Castigador laughed off Reta’s allegations saying it was akin to sour graping.

Castigador said Reta’s company was a previous contractor under the BOC DEA scheme but its operations were suspended due to nonperformance.

Sources in the customs bureau said a syndicate known as Kimberly Gang is behind rampant smuggling nationwide. Gang leaders, a certain Julie and Noemi, are in cahoots with a certain Manuel of the customs bureau.

Corrupt system

“It is a systematic scheme that has gotten into the bone of the BOC. This is the reason despite reports of irregularities and corruption, many officials remain in their positions. They will do everything just to protect their operations,” he said.

Reta also said his company was doing its job religiously when Castigador decided to suspend its operations in February.

He said the real reason could be that “I spoke and I stood against the corruption happening inside.”

Asked who the leading smugglers are, Reta said they were the Koreans.

“Greed for money is running within the system of the Bureau of Customs. If the government is really bent on cleaning itself of corrupt officials, then they better look first at the Bureau of Customs here,” Reta said.

Gold, silver, bronze

He said BOC officials collect P150,000 for the quick release of cargo labeled as gold (rice, sugar, cars), P80,000 for labeled silver (vehicle and machine spare parts and perishable goods) and P60,000 for bronze (used clothing and products from China).

He said Customs officials and employees would bag about P30 million to P40 million a month for clearing smuggled goods.

He said he had personally witnessed dirty money flowing inside the BOC.

Reta said for example, on September 18 last year, then district collector Ronnie Silvestre issued a release order for several container vans even before it arrived at the Sasa Port.

The same thing happened on September 26 for container vans declared by a local company as “imported talcum powder.”

“But nobody knew what were really inside those containers because they did not pass through examination,” Reta said.

“What can I do? They would tell me to not conduct the procedure anymore. However, against my will, I would end up not conducting the procedure provided that they sign a document that indicated that there was no physical examination conduction on the vans,” Reta said.

For not conducting the inspections, his company’s services had been suspended.

“Someone has to start going public about all of these cases. As for me, I just wish I could sleep well again at night,” Reta said. Jeffrey Tupas with a report from Dennis Santos, Inquirer Mindanao

Labor group joins petition vs EO No. 2

2010-12-12T17:15:00.002-08:00

By Jerome Aning
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 05:40:00 12/09/2010
p. A11

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20101209-307886/Labor-group-joins-petition-vs-EO-No-2

Filed Under: Civil & Public Services, Legal issues

MANILA, Philippines—A labor group has joined the Supreme Court petition seeking to stop the implementation of Executive Order No. 2, which recalled, withdrew and revoked the so-called “midnight appointments” of the Arroyo administration.

The Federation of Free Workers (FFW), a labor group that used to take a pro-government stance during the presidency of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Wednesday said it had filed a petition for intervention in support of FFW national vice president Jose Matula.

Matula was appointed by Arroyo as commissioner, representing the workers, of the Social Security System (SSS) on Mar. 5, 2010, six days before the constitutional ban on midnight appointments.

But since taking his oath on April 14, Matula was classified as a midnight appointee under EO 2 and was not allowed to take his seat in the agency.

With the FFW leaders, Matula filed with the high court Wednesday a petition-in-intervention “with urgent prayer for the issuance of a temporary restraining order and writ of preliminary mandatory injunction”.

The FFW leaders alleged that EO 2 was unconstitutional since it “unduly expanded the meaning of ‘midnight appointment’” without basis in law.

Before his formal appointment, Matula had already been serving as SSS commissioner in an acting capacity since 2006. He said that under the SSS charter, his term should end on Aug. 15, 2012.

Citing Section 3 of Republic Act No. 8282 that created the SSS, Matula said workers’ representatives appointed to the commission have a term of three years.

‘Highly recommended’

The commission oversees the SSS, which has a membership of 28 million workers nationwide and assets of about P300 billion.

As an FFW official, Matula directly represents its more than 100,000 members who are active paying members of the SSS.

He was “highly recommended” to be appointed SSS commissioner by the members of the FFW governing board and other labor unions.

The FFW has been an active tripartite partner of the labor department and and enjoys consultative status with the International Labor Organization, as well as other regional and global federations and networks of labor and civil society.

The FFW is challenging the implementation of EO 2 by SS Commission Chair Juan B. Santos. Matula said he was informed by Santos that he was being terminated and being replaced by lawyer Ibarra Malonzo by virtue of EO 2.

Malonzo was to take his oath Wednesday.

The FFW’s petition also alleged that Santos and Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr., who represents the Office of the President, committed “grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack of jurisdiction in issuing and implementing EO 2.”

It cited that the Supreme Court, after taking cognizance of a similar suit filed by an official of the Office of Muslim Affairs, had issued on Oct. 12 a “status quo ante” order telling the executive branch to suspend the implementation of EO 2.

The FFW said the dismissal of Matula as SSS commissioner was an act in defiance of the court order.

The labor leaders said they filed the petition to “protect the material and substantial right” of Matula to his term of office at SSS and to “prevent serious and irreparable damage” to him, the workers and the entire SSS.”

Secrets of the Communist Party

2010-12-12T17:15:00.001-08:00

OUTLOOK

By Rigoberto D. Tiglao
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Thursday, December 2, 2010

DR. MARIO Miclat’s “Secrets of the Eighteen Mansions: A Novel” (Manila: Anvil Publishing, 2010) reveals in rich detail many of the covert factors that contributed to the growth of one of our country’s biggest problems: the Communist Party of the Philippines.

The “18 mansions” are the buildings in a secret compound in Beijing where the Chinese Communist Party in the 1960s and 1970s housed delegations of communist parties all over the world to facilitate its clandestine aid to their own insurgencies.

Mansion No. 7 housed the living quarters and offices in Beijing of the delegation from the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founded and led by Jose Ma. Sison, aka Amado Guerrero. Miclat was a member of the CPP delegation who, with his family, lived and worked in that mansion starting in 1971. He returned to the Philippines in 1986, totally disillusioned with the party, which he says was a monster he “helped create, yet which devoured” him. He has since become an academic with a PhD and is at present dean of the Asian Center at the University of the Philippines.

Miclat’s is not a fictional novel, but a personal and political memoir of his nearly two decades as one of Sison’s earliest recruits, even living for two years in the “leader’s” “underground” house as his editor and translator, and then as a cadre in the party cell in Beijing. Many of the persons in the book are identified by their real names, others are thinly veiled, while a few are named only by their aliases, probably in order for Miclat to write more freely or to spare these persons from embarrassment.

For instance, “Herz” was one of Sison’s key operatives, who supervised the party’s youth organizations in the crucial years of the early 1970s, the era of student power that led thousands of idealistic teenagers to communism, wrecked lives and, for many, death in some lopsided fire fight. Herz now lives a very comfortable bourgeois life in Canada, even as his Filipino community newspaper continues to rant against the Philippine governments and paint the country black. Herz’s superior, “Goldie,” who recruited Miclat to the party and who, he claims, ordered the killing of a suspected, but unlikely, military agent was Monico Atienza, head of the party’s Organization Department during that period. After being comatose for months, Atienza died in 2007 after many years of living alone despondent and destitute on a meager UP assistant instructor’s salary.

Secrets’ secrets range from the personal to the political. For instance, the book claims that despite the rigors of running a revolution, Sison had the time to womanize, go on dates to nightclubs, and bear an illegitimate daughter. In a scene straight out of a soap opera, Miclat and New People’s Army chief “Kumander Dante” (Bernabe Buscayno) were shocked to see Sison’s wife pound “at the leader’s back with her fists even as she cried about her husband’s indiscretion.”

This might seem trivial today—after all, we had a President who boasted of his womanizing. But womanizing has been a capital offense in the “revolution” for dogmatic and practical reasons, punishable by death, or assignment to hazardous guerrilla front lines. After witnessing that conjugal spat, Dante “cried a like a little boy,” and between sobs asked Sison rhetorically: “How many good comrades have we condemned to die because of sexual opportunism?” I hope Dante will e-mail me to confirm or deny if this really happened.

What is not secret at all to those who have studied the insurgency, but which Miclat provides more details about, is that the Chinese government provided funds and arms to the CPP at its crucial embryonic stage. (A similar account was published in this newspaper on March 25, 2005 by Ricardo Malay, who headed the CPP cell later.) A courier was even arrested in 1974 by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation for carrying undeclared $75,000 intended for the CPP as she was exiting from Canada where she got the funds from the Chinese Embassy there.

As regards arms shipments, Deng Xiao Ping himself was so incensed over his Filipino comrades’ incompetence. The first shipment on the MV Karagatan in 1971 was easily intercepted by the military and most of the 1,200 M14 rifles smuggled were thrown overboard. In 1974, the MV Andrea, also financed by the Chinese, didn’t even reach China as it run aground on a sandbar, which was not unexpected as it was captained by a seasick-prone student activist who just got a crash course on seafaring.

The most earth-shaking secret in this book involves the bombing of the Liberal Party rally at Plaza Miranda on Aug. 21, 1971, the most crucial man-made event that formed the contours of our history since it happened. Miclat asserts with total certitude that it was Sison’s plot, and that he learned of this days after the bombing. He quotes Sison as saying before the attack: “We will force Marcos to declare martial law… People will rise up in arms when he finally shows his fascist face.” Two ranking comrades in Beijing knew of the attack beforehand. Miclat quotes “Peter,” one of Sison’s closest operatives, as telling him in October 1971: “Ninoy Aquino did not go to Plaza Miranda on the night of the bombing. Kumander Pusa phoned him.”

That it was Sison’s project had already been claimed by credible figures, such as former Sen. Jovito Salonga and journalist Gregg Jones in his book “Red Revolution.” For Miclat however, the attack seems to have left a deep wound in his heart. Before leaving for China two weeks before the bombing, he says he was asked to keep two grenades, which he was later convinced were the ones used in the carnage.

He could have dedicated his book to so many other people close to him. Instead he dedicates it “To an unidentified boy whose life was cut short by a terrorist bomb in Plaza Miranda, August 21, 1971.”

Email: tiglao.inquirer@gmail.com

Dangerous Bernas line -- with Fr. Bernas’s comments

2010-11-29T03:42:00.000-08:00

Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 03:09:00 11/20/2010

Filed Under: Churches (organisations), Abortion, Advice, Medicines, Illegal drugs

MAY I thank Fr. Joaquin Bernas for clarifying separation of Church and State and what the State permits under this principle.

I must admit though that I read with dismay this line in his October 18 column: “The moment of conception is popularly understood as the moment of fertilization ... even if medical literature seems to see conception as the moment of implantation.”

This proposition might embolden women to continue using abortifacient contraceptives because, anyway, the embryo is only human according to popular understanding, but not according to medical science, which is the one that decides this question. Viewed together with his proposal for a government budget in support of “artificial methods of family planning,” it sounds like a justification for such use of taxpayer money.

However, the Oxford Medical Dictionary of 2002 defines conception thus: (in gynaecology) the start of pregnancy, when a male germ cell (sperm) fertilizes a female germ cell (ovum) in the Fallopian tube. There is also expert declarations found in: http://clinicquotes.com/site/ story.php?id=28; http://abortionabout.com/ when-does-life-begin.html. Just one example from a medical textbook: “The development of a human begins with fertilization”—Sadler, T.W., “Langman’s Medical Embryology.” The book is described as “Long respected for its scientific authority, pedagogy and clinical relevance to medical education.”

Since Father Bernas is a lawyer, he might also be interested in the US Senate report on the Human Life Statute of 1981: Physicians, biologists and other scientists agree that conception marks the beginning of the life of a human being—a being that is alive and is a member of the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological and scientific writings. (Senate Judiciary Committee S-158, 97th Congress).

Bernas did try to explain the constitutional basis of the right to life from conception (“the safer approach”) and he wrote that the biological life begun at fertilization will not become human “if it is not already human at fertilization.”

On his suggestion to use taxpayer money for the purchase of contraceptives, kindly study the writings of important social scientists on the destructive consequences of the pill. You can find this in the Net if you Google, say, “The Vindication of Humanae Vitae.”

Also, Edward C. Green, Harvard director for AIDS Prevention, an agnostic, has clearly shown that contraceptives lead to a heightened spread of AIDS. Anti-Catholic Nobel prize winner George Akerlof has shown convincingly that the “Reproductive Technology Shock” brought about by contraceptives has led to more sex outside marriage, fatherless children and abortion.

So I do hope that Bernas would reflect on this letter and modify the “non-scientific statements.” Let me take this opportunity though to express my deep appreciation of all his positive work for human life and his columns clarifying issues that befuddle our country.
—JT U. SAGALO,
jtusagalo@gmail.com

Thank you for your comments. Let me just say two things:
1. My view is that conception in the Constitution means fertilization. Whether this is also the scientific meaning, I leave to medical science.
2. I accept the traditional teaching of the Catholic Church on contraception. I hold, however, that the state cannot impose this view on non-Catholics.
—FR. JOAQUIN G. BERNAS, S.J.

Talking Points for Dialogue on the Reproductive Health Bill

2010-11-29T03:40:00.000-08:00

(HB 96; filed July 1 , 2010)1
Issued jointly by Loyola School of Theolog
and the John J. Carroll Institute on Church and Social Issues
Authors: Fr. Eric O. Genilo, S.J., Fr. John J. Carroll, S.J., and Fr.
Joaquin Bernas, S.J.

Introduction: Need for Critical and Constructive Engagement in the Debate
The polarization of Philippine society over the Reproductive Health Bill has
been a source of discouragement and discontent among Filipinos. It is unfortunate
that the debate has focused only on whether the Bill should be passed or rejected in
its present form. Either option would not be good for Filipinos. The Church sees in
the proposed Bill serious flaws that can lead to violations of human rights and
freedom of conscience. It would not be acceptable to pass it in its present form.
Total rejection of the Bill, however, will not change the status quo of high rates of
infant mortality, maternal deaths, and abortions. It is a moral imperative that such
dehumanizing conditions should not be allowed to continue. What is needed is a
third option: critical and constructive engagement. By working together to
amend the objectionable provisions of the Bill and retain the provisions that
actually improve the lives of Filipinos, both the proponents and opponents of the
Bill can make a contribution to protection of the dignity of Filipinos and an
improvement of their quality of life.
The following are talking points and proposals for dialogue and negotiation
on the objectionable portions of the Bill:
Talking Point # 1: The Protection of Human Life and the Constitution
• The Church insists on protection of human life upon fertilization. The question
to be answered by the State is if this is the same position it will take regarding
the protection of human life.
• The Philippine Constitution says that the State will protect the life of the
unborn upon conception (Art. II, Sec. 12). It is not specified in the Constitution
This version has undergone some editing by Fr. Romeo J. Intengan, S.J., in terms of structuring of the
presentation, medical terminology, typography, style, specification of referents, and citation of sources.
whether conception means fertilization or the implantation of an embryo in the
womb. The Constitutional Convention seemed to favor fertilization. The
definition of conception will have a bearing whether contraceptives that prevent
the implantation of embryos would be legally allowed or not. This definition of
conception in the Constitution must be worked out both by medical and legal
experts in order to determine the parameters of what reproductive services can
be provided by the Bill.
Talking Point # 2: Contraceptives that Prevent the Implantation of Embryos
• At the center of the controversy regarding abortion and the RH Bill are
intrauterine devices (IUDs) and other contraceptive medications and devices
(HB 96, Sec. 4:15; Sec. 7; Sec. 9) that may have the possible effect of
preventing the implantation of an embryo, which for the Catholic Church, is
considered an abortifacient effect. [Contraceptives without abortifacient effects
are treated differently in church teaching. They are forbidden for Catholics.
Some other religious traditions allow them.]
• Proposal: The State first has to make a clear position whether it considers the
prevention of implantation of an embryo as an abortion. If the State takes this
position, there must be a careful and scientifically based evaluation of each of
the medicines and devices provided by the Bill. Those contraceptive medicines
and devices which are determined to have abortifacient effects are to be banned
even now and regardless of whether the RH Bill is passed or not.
Talking Point # 3: Age Appropriate, Value-Based, Integral Human Sexuality
Education
• The mandatory nature of the sexuality education curriculum proposed by the
Bill (HB 96, Sec. 13) is a concern for the Church because it would compel
Catholic educators to teach parts of the curriculum that may be unacceptable for
Catholics. The Church is also concerned that the parents’ right to decide on the
education of their children would be denied by such a mandatory curriculum for
all schools.
• Proposal: For the purpose of protecting academic freedom and respecting
religious traditions, should not the right of religious schools to write and
implement their own sexuality education curriculum according their religious
traditions be respected? For public schools and non-religious private schools, an
appointed panel of parent representatives, educators, experts in child
development and psychology, medical experts, and representatives of religious
traditions can write the sexuality education curriculum and the Department of
Education can monitor the implementation. Parents with children in public
schools should have the right to have their children exempted from the sexuality
education class if the curriculum is not acceptable to them. The Constitution
allows religious instruction in public schools only if the parents consent in
writing. Should a similar provision be enacted relative to sexuality education?
The Bill must also respect the conscientious objection of individual educators
who refuse to teach a sexuality curriculum that violates their religious beliefs.
Talking Point # 4: Providing Reproductive Health Information and Services
for a Multi-Religious Society
• Even if the majority of the population of the country are Catholics, our
democratic system should ensure that public policies are not determined solely
by majority vote but also by a careful consideration of the common good of all,
including non-Catholics.
• The Compendium of the Social Teaching of the Church rejects any imposition
of norms by a majority that is discriminatory of the rights of a minority: (#422)
“Because of its historical and cultural ties to a nation, a religious community
might be given special recognition on the part of the State. Such recognition
must in no way create discrimination within the civil or social order for other
religious groups;” (#169): “Those responsible for government are required to
interpret the common good of their country not only according to the guidelines
of the majority but also according to the effective good of all the members of the
community, including the minority.”
• It is the duty of various religions to teach their faithful and form their
consciences about what their religious tradition allows and prohibits with regard
to family planning. It is the duty of the government to provide correct and
comprehensive information on all non-abortifacient (as defined by law) family
planning methods that are available. Consciences will thus be better equipped to
make informed choices according to their religious traditions.
• Proposal: There can be two separate parallel programs for providing
information and training, one for NFP and another for artificial methods of
family planning (with separate budgets). The separation of the programs will
ensure that NFP will get adequate funding and those trainers who wish to teach
only NFP for religious reasons will not be forced to teach artificial methods.
The conscience of health workers and trainers should be respected. If a Catholic
health worker or trainer conscientiously objects to teaching contraception
methods, he or she should be allowed to teach only NFP methods.
Talking Point # 5: Limits to the Anti-Discrimination Provision
• The current Bill prohibits the refusal of health care services and information
based on a patient’s marital status, gender or sexual orientation, age, religion,
personal circumstances, and nature of work (HB 96, Sec. 22, a, 3).
• Proposal: This provision must have parameters. It should properly address
such questions as the following:
- For example, if a doctor refuses to insert an IUD to a minor who requests for
it, would that be considered age discrimination?
- Should the provision apply equally to both in the public and private health
care providers or shouldn’t private practitioners have more leeway in
practicing their medicine as they see fit?
Talking Point # 6: Employers' Responsibility
• Employers should not be required to provide in their CBAs reproductive health
services of their employees (see HB 96, Sec. 18). To enforce this requirement
would be a violation of the conscience of Catholic employers.
• Proposal: Such a provision is unnecessary because the general Philippine
Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) medical coverage, which is
mandatory for all employees, provides for such reproductive health services
upon request of the employee. This allows employers with religious objections
to contraceptives or sterilizations to avoid direct formal cooperation in the
provision of such family planning methods to their employees.
Talking Point # 7: Contraception as Essential Medicines in Government
Health Centers and Hospitals
• The Church’s objection to this provision is that it appears to treat pregnancy as
a disease (see HB 96, Sec. 9)..
• Proposal: The question of whether contraceptives are essential medicines
should be resolved by a panel of objective medical experts such as the
Philippine Medical Association. What contraceptives actually prevent diseases?
It would be helpful to be able to present cases where the use of a contraceptive
is a medically indicated treatment for a particular disease or emergency
situation. If some contraceptives are ultimately decided as essential or
emergency medicines that should be stocked in government health centers and
hospitals, no contraceptives with abortifacient effects are to be allowed.
Talking Point # 8: Freedom of Speech
• The Bill’s provision that penalizes malicious disinformation against the
intention and provisions of the Bill (HB 96, Sec. 22 e) is quite unclear as to
what “malicious disinformation” means. This unclarity could result in the
prosecution and legal punishment of those who dissent in good faith and for
reasons that are at least intellectually arguable, from the views and positions of
those who advocate the Bill in its present form, and who publicly express that
dissent.
• Proposal: clear and fair description of “malicious disinformation”: The
Bill’s provision that penalizes malicious disinformation against the intention
and provisions of the Bill should be refined by a clear description of what
constitutes “malicious disinformation,” or failing that, the provision should be
scrapped.
• Proposal: role of major religious traditions in the crafting of implementing
norms: The committee to be in-charge of the Bill's implementing norms should
have representatives from major religious traditions to ensure that the rights of
people of various faiths would be protected.
Epilogue: Respectful Dialogue in a Spirit of Charity
The above proposals are intended to generate constructive and respectful
dialogue leading to concrete actions that would correct the RH Bill. It is hoped that
the parties involved in the RH debate would move away from hard-line positions
and consider negotiations as a more positive step towards working for the good of
all Filipinos, with special consideration for the unborn, the youth, women and
families in difficult circumstances.
Finally, we can turn to the following Christian maxim as our guide in our
search for answers and solutions regarding the RH Bill: “In essentials, unity; in
non-essentials, liberty; and in all things, charity.” For things pertaining to
protecting human life and dignity, we need to come to a consensus for the common
good; for things that can be left to individual decisions without violating human
life and dignity, we need to respect freedom of conscience of every Filipino both
Catholics and non-Catholics; in all our discussions, we need to speak and act with
charity and understanding as members of the same human family and community.

The impact of "scientific misinformation" on other fields:Philosophy, theology, biomedical ethics, public policy

2010-11-29T03:39:00.000-08:00

Dianne N. Irving, M.A., Ph.D.
Assistant professor of philosophy and bioethics
DeSales School of Theology
Washington, D.C.
"Scientific misinformation" or inaccuracies are problematic within the field
of science itself. However, perhaps few scientists are aware of or concerned
about the possible impact which scientific misinformation apparently has on
several other seemingly unrelated fields - philosophy, theology, biomedical
ethics, and public policy. To demonstrate such an influence, I will take only
one issue currently debated in these other fields - the biological "marker
events of human personhood" during human embryogenesis, and trace the
impact that seemingly contradictory scientific claims have had on the
theoretical structures and practical conclusions of the several interrelated
fields. Concern is expressed about the serious need for more accurate
scientific input into these discussions and issues, and for scientists to help
sort out which scientific data and theories are actually the most accurate
and scientifically acceptable.
Keywords: Scientific misinformation, philosophy, theology, biomedical
ethics, personhood, public policy, professional expertise.
INTRODUCTION
To paraphrase an old addage, "A small error in the beginning leads to a
multitude of errors in the end" (Aristotle, De Coelo, in McKeon, 1941).
Similarly, at times the use of scientific information, e.g., scientific data or
theories, can dramatically impact other fields seemingly far removed from
the scientific community itself. Scholars and public policy developers from
innumerable fields rely on the accuracy and objectivity of the information
developed within and passed on by that scientific community. Today more
than ever, scientific "facts" are often the starting point for, or the major
premise, in the development of theories and arguments in fields other than
2
science itself.
When such scientific information is incorrect, highly questionable, or
misapplied even within the field of science, then it becomes problematic. It
becomes scientific "misinformation" instead, expanding inaccuracies,
becoming imbedded within the theoretical structures of those other fields,
and possibly misguiding public policy officials who rely on scientific
experts.
The aim of this paper** is to suggest to the scientific community the
theoretical and practical consequences of such scientific misinformation on
the fields of philosophy, theology, biomedical ethics and public policy.
The method will be to take only one major current issue, which has its
source in scientific data and argumentation, and trace the impact of that
scientific "misinformation" on those other fields. To narrow the issue I will
trace scientific misinformation concerning human embryogenesis -
specfically, exactly when, during human embryogenesis, is there present a
human being or a human person?
I want to emphasize that this paper is not about describing methods of data
auditing (although, it would support the need for such important
procedures). Nor is it about proving or disproving when fetal "personhood"
takes place. That issue has already been discussed at great length in the
references provided. Rather, regardless of one's own position on fetal
personhood, the aim of this paper is to identify the science actually used in
these arguments, consider the apparent contradiction of this science with
that stated by other scientists, and trace the impact of the science actually
used on the theories of other fields.
In addition, since the philosophy and the science used in the arguments of
fetal "personhood" are often complexly intertwined, I will resort, at times, to
clarifying at least some general philosophical concepts in order to make the
scientific problems inherent in these arguments coherent. Because most of
the arguments are in fact drawn from writers who cross interdiscplinary
lines, the categories of "philosophy," "theology," "biomedical ethics" and
"public policy" can only be roughly drawn. The point is to see how
scientific data and arguments stated by scientists find their way into current
arguments in those others fields.
IMPACT ON OTHER FIELDS
I. Philosophy/Theology/Biomedical Ethics: "Early" Embryonic and Fetal
Development
The field of philosophy is difficult to define. Unlike science or mathematics,
3
there is no general agreement on what its subject matter is, or on its
methodology. It is agreed - at least by those philosophers who have studied
the whole history of philosophy - that there are many different schools of
philosophy, each characterized by certain different basic presuppositions
and explanations of the world. The philosophy of science is no exception.
As in all other sub-fields of philosophy, the philosophy of science embraces
all of the very different and often contradictory schools of thought, such as
monism, dualism, rationalism, empiricism, scholasticism and realism. Even
these very terms are defined differently by different schools. There is, then,
no such thing as a "neutral" philosophy, a "neutral" ethics," or even a
"neutral" logic.
For most realistic schools of philosophy, to which this writer subscribes, it is
critical to obtain the most accurate scientific data and theories about the
physical world as is possible, as these scientific facts and theories are the
starting points for all other philosophical endeavors. There are many
important technical philosophical terms whose definitions are derived from
and refined by scientific data - even for example, the seemingly vague
philosophical term "being." For present purposes, a "being," generally
speaking, is a subsistent substance of a particular kind whose nature
determines its kind, and causes certain specific kinds of functions and
activities. There are many different natures or kinds of beings, and thus
many different specific kinds of functions and activities. For example, fish
can swim but trees cannot; frogs produce frog enzymes and proteins, but
tomato plants or giraffes cannot. A being also sustains typical secondary or
accidental modifications. For example, a mushroom is a particular kind of
plant-being; and it can be modified accidentally by being white or black,
small or large, edible or poisonous. Again, a horse is a certain kind of
animal-being; and it can be modified accidentally by being of a solid color
or spotted, roan or bay, short or tall. Mushrooms and horses are examples of
substances or beings. White, black, edible, poisonous, spotted, roan and tall
are examples of accidental modifications of those beings. Changes in
accidental modifications do not change the nature or kind of being it already
is. (For example, an apple can change from green to red, but it is still an
apple).
Not only do scientific observations of the world lead us to specific
definitions of each of the many different natures or kinds of material beings
in the world; they can also lead to analogous definitions of properties which
are "common" to all beings whatsoever. All of these definitions should
"match" as closely as possible that scientific data from which they were
drawn - otherwise we are not theorizing about the real world at all (Irving,
1992). Obviously, if there is an error in the scientific observations or data,
then our concepts about the real world, which are drawn from and represent
to us those scientific observations, are in error as well. A realist's
philosophical concepts and theories, then, must match the best and most
4
accurate scientific data and theories about the real world.
Another general technical philosophical term whose definition is impacted
by scientific data is the term "individual." Speaking generally an
"individual" is that which is essentially unified, and one with, or the same
as, itself. For example, a horse is an individual being; a herd of horses are
many individual beings. In contrast to the "accidental" modifications above,
"individuality" is such a "common" technical term defining an essential and
non-accidental attribute of a being. That is, a being cannot be a being unless
it is "one" being. Needless to say, if the definition of "being" is incorrect, the
definitions of "human being" and "material being" are also incorrect - and
the definitions of "ethics" and of "science" will be incorrect as well.
To the point, two other philosophical terms have recently been affected by
the scientific evidence presented in the literature - the terms "human being"
and "human person." Many articles have been written addressing the
question of when during human embryogenesis is there present a human
being? And is a human being the same as a human person - or does a human
person come later in human embryogenesis than a human being?
For purposes of laying out how others have addressed the issue, and to
provide several references to which one might turn to obtain a more detailed
treatment of the arguments, some writers will use scientific information to
argue that a human being is simultaneously a human person - they cannot be
separated (Lejeune, 1989; Irving, 1991, 1992; Fisher, 1991; Ashley, 1987;
Klubertanz, 1953; Carberry and Kmiec, 1992; Howsepian, 1992;
Moraczewski, 1983; Barry, 1979; Daly, 1987; Werner, 1974; Wertheimer,
1971; Brody, 1978; Santamaria, 1982; Grisez, 1970; Iglesias, 1984; Quinn,
1984; Commonwealth of Australia, 1985; Parliamentary Assembly of the
Council of Europe, 1986; Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 1987).
Their arguments claim that functionally, genetically and biochemically it is
clear that a new unique living individual human being, who simultaneously
is a human person, is present at some point during fertilization, at least by
the point in fertilization called "symgamy" - that moment in time and space
during the process of fertilization when there is the last crossing-over of the
maternal and paternal chromosomes. It is at that moment when substantial
change has taken place. That is, when the "23" chromosomes of the human
ovum and the "23" chromosomes of the human sperm have combined to
form a human zygote with "46" chromosomes (generally the number and
combination of the human species) then a change in natures has taken place.
The nature of the sperm and the nature of the ovum have changed to the
nature of the embryo - as one can determine scientifically by the differences
in biochemical and biological functions and activities of the sperm, egg, and
zygote. Certain realistic philosophical schools of thought, which always use
the scientific facts as their starting points in conceptualizing the real world,
are often evoked which seem to "match" this biological data. This data
5
grounds the argument that from the moment of syngamy there already exists
an individual human being with the "potency" (or nature) to develop
continuously through the later stages of human embryogenesis and
adulthood. Thus embryological development - in contrast to fertilization - is
identified as an example of accidental change - the nature does not change
but the accidents do (Irving, 1991, 1992; Klubertanz, 1953).
"Potency" is a realist philosophical term used to designate an already
existing nature of a particular kind of thing which already has the present
capacity or power to direct the development of itself throughout its
accidental developmental stages. In current discussions this term is
constantly corrupted and construed to mean "potential" or "possibility,"
implying that the nature in question is not there yet, but might be there
sometime in the future. For purposes of correctly understanding the realist
argument on fetal personhood, it is critical that these three terms -
"potency," "potential," and "possible" - are correctly defined, understood
and not equated. A human being with a human nature or potency is already a
human being with a human nature. It is not a "potential" human being
somewhere down the line. And it is not a "possible" human being such as in
the case when the woman decides not to abort, or the IVF technician decides
to implant it). As with accidental change, external circumstances do not
change the very nature which is already possessed by a thing.
Unlike several other philosophical schools of thought, this realistic
philosophical argument formally defines a human being as including human
matter and human powers in that definition. It thus rejects any real split
between a human being and a human person. A "person" is part and parcel
of the whole complex, concrete human being - including the human body.
"Rational attributes" are descriptive of only one of many integrated powers
of that human being. Further, the "soul" is not a thing or substance on its
own; nor does it reside in the brain, or the heart, but in every part of the
whole embodied human being. It understands that "personhood" as defined
by other philosophical systems confuses "person" with "personality"; that it
is theoretically indefensible and leads to rather startling conclusions (Irving,
1991, 1992; Doran, 1989; Wilhelmsen, 1963; Barry, 1979).
Yet other scientific arguments are presented in which real existential
distinctions are variously made between a human organism, a human being
or a human person (Hare, 1988; Buckle, 1990; Dawson, 1990-A, 1990-B;
Bedate and Cefalo, 1989; Suarez, 1990; Bole, 1989, 1990; Grobstein, 1985;
McCormick, 1990; Ford, 1988; Coughlin, 1988, 1989; Wallace, 1989;
Lockwood, 1988; Jones, 1989; Sass, 1989; Singer, 1981, 1985, 1987, 1989;
Kuhse, 1985, 1986; Engelhardt, 1985; Goldenring, 1982, 1985; Kushner,
1984; Shea, 1985; Tooley, 1974; Tauer, 1985; Bennett, 1989).
For example, it is argued that at some embryological "marker event" post
6
fertilization a human "person" is present; before that time there is only a
human "being" present (at best). Bedate and Cefalo, for example, have
submitted sophisticated scientific arguments that at fertilization there is not
even a genetic individual present, much less a human being; "personhood" is
not present until at least 14 days. Others (Grobstein and McCormick) have
argued scientifically that at fertilization there is present a "genetic"
individual - but that "genetic" individuality is not sufficient for the presence
of an individual human "person." What is also needed, they argue, is the
presence of a "developmental" individual, and that does not take place until
about 14 days. Only a "developmental" individual can be a human "person."
If a writer is arguing scientifically for any kind of a real existential
distinction between a human being and a human person, it should be pointed
out that that science contains very specific philosophical presuppositions
like scholasticism, dualism, rationalism, or empiricism. For example, any
real distinctions empirically made between a human being and a human
person contain what is known in philosophical anthropology as a
"mind/body split" - an historical remnant of a Platonic/Cartesean dualism
grounded in a very rationalistic school of philosophy. I will not go into the
fascinating historical interplay between the reciprocal conceptual impact of
philosophy and empirical science, although many have treated this matter
elsewhere (Irving, 1991, 1992; Gilson, 1949; Crombie, 1959). Nor will I
elaborate on the history or the disasterous consequences of the theoretical
problems inherent in a scholastic, rationalistic, empiricist or dualistic
mind/body split in philosophy (Irving, 1992; Fox, 1989; Doran, 1989;
Gilson, 1963; Eslick, 1963; Coppleston, 1963; Wilhelmsen, 1956;
Meilaender, 1987, 1989). Suffice it to say that philosophically a mind/body
split implies the presence of not one but rather two or more independent
substances which go to make up a single human being (or a single human
person). One of a number of the theoretical problems is, of course, that if
these substances are really in fact separate and independent, absolutely no
interaction is possible between them. There is literally no way that so-called
"rational attributes" (consciousness, self-consciousness, autonomy, relating
with the world around one, desiring, willing, loving, hating, etc.) can
concretely connect with the physical "body" which is supposed to be
supporting such "rational attributes." Virtually all of the writers I will
address in this paper do make such a distinction between a human being and
a human person - most of them based on these types of theories of
philosophy (whether acknowledged or not).
It might be curious to scientists to see where such a rationalistic philosophy
takes one even in the field of science itself. For example, historically, one of
the major philosophical sources of a mind/body split was Rene Decartes -
who was both a scientist (physicist) and a philosopher. Descartes (Edwards,
1967) defined a human being as composed of two independent substances -
"Mind" and "Body" (or "Extension"). Ultimately he defined a human being
7
as "a thinking thing" - thus one source of the so-called "rational attributes"
used in many of the arguments I will address below.
Descartes also defined the material world in terms of only one of those two
substances, i.e., "extension." Because of this definition of the material
world, and because he rejected the existence of a void, Descartes'
philosophical theories impacted mischieviously on his own theory of
physics and his ability to even do science. For example, because he rejected
the existence of a void, the material substance of the world was therefore
continuous. This had serious consequences in his scientific theory of the
vortex. The material world is not composed of ultimate atoms, but only of
volumes, which must then move as a whole, i.e., a simultaneous movement
of matter in some closed curve. Planetary motion, then, is defined as one
infinite three-dimensional continuous and homogenous extended body.
If there is only one continuous extended substance, then he can only
distinguish one body from another body in terms of differential volumes and
secondary qualities. Therefore he cannot have a definition for density, or for
viscosity. Descartes also omits "matter" from his definition of motion.
Motion = speed x size - but "size" for Descartes is a continuous volume of
body. Therefore his own physical Laws of Impact are actually, empirically,
in error. He also cannot isolate a particular force (like gravity) in terms of
how a body would move if it were free from resistence, because to imagine
it moving without resistance is to imagine it in a void - the existence of
which he had rejected.
Also, Descartes concluded (based, again, on his theory of "being," or
"substance") that animals have no minds, no pineal glands (the physical
organ in humans where somehow, unexplicably, the Mind and the Body are
capable of interacting), and no souls. Therefore they cannot feel any pain or
pleasure, or any other kinds of sensations (sensations were only mental
"modes of thought"). Since animals are only bodies, i.e., "machines," the
only sense in which they can be hurt is to "damage" them.
This rationalistic philosophical system was eventually discredited and
discarded by most of the scholarly community - yet, incredibly, remnants of
it remain today. I would argue that such a rationalistic philosophical system
contains such severe theoretical problems that it actually precludes one from
doing either philosophy or science. And if applied to the current issue of
human embryogenesis, it is clear that such a "theory" is grossly inadequate
to explain either the philosophical theories or the biological phemonena
which need to be addressed. It is clear that one cannot explain any
interactions between the mind (or "soul"), and the body (or brain) of the
developing human being -since they are two different substances which are
separate from each other. There can be no connection between those
"rational attributes" and the "body" (or brain). Nor can it explain the
8
complex mechanisms of motion involved in the genetics, biochemistry and
organogenesis so characteristic of human embryological development. Nor
can the embryo's or fetus' body be distinctively its own, but must be shared
quantitatively with the rest of the material world. Needless to say, however,
this rationalistic philosophical theory is still used - often as paired with
apparently erroneous scientific "data" - as demonstrated in many of the
articles below.
Bedate and Cefalo: Using genetics and molecular biology, Bedate and
Cefalo claim that there are erroneous empirical presuppositions in the
"fertilization argument." Specifically they claim that the human zygote does
not contain all of the information necessary to produce the specific
biological character of the future adult (Bedate and Cefalo, 1989). Although
their arguments contain major logical, philosophical and scientific problems
(Irving, 1991), I give only two examples which are particularly misleading
conceptually as well as empirically incorrect.
The development of the human zygote, they claim, depends on:
1. the actualization of pieces of information that originate de novo during
the embryonic process - "positional information." In support of this claim
they produce the following scientific facts. The human zygote does possess
some of its own genetically coded information but not all of the molecular
information needed for embryological development. Some information is
given in time through interaction with other molecules which were not
coded in the genome.
2. exogenous information which is independent of the control of the zygote,
- molecular information from the mother. In support of this claim they state
that information about differentiation does not exist in the original genome.
The human zygote contains only enough genetic information to proceed
through the blastocyst stage, and does not contain the information for the
process of differentiation. Rather, the information for the process of
differentiation is determined and derived by an exchange of information
originating in the mother. There would seem to be several problems with
their first claim. First, there is an equivocal and misleading shift in their use
of the critically important term "information." "Information" can mean
genetic information, or molecular ("positional") information. The
fertilization argument is not a claim that virtually all of the information -
genetic as well as molecular - is present at fertilization. Neither at
fertilization nor at the age of 45 years do any of us contain all of the
molecular or positional information we will ever have. But that is not the
point. At fertilization a human zygote does contain virtually all of the
genetic information the human being ever will possess. No new genetic
information is gained during embryogenesis - and none is lost. As Jerome
Lejeune, the internationally recognized developmental geneticist, has put it
9
for the non-scientific audience:
...each of us has a unique beginning, the moment of conception... As soon as
the twenty-three chromosomes carried by the sperm encounter the twentythree
chromosomes carried by the ovum, the whole information necessary
and sufficient to spell out all the characteristics of the new being is
gathered... (W)hen this information carried by the sperm and by the ovum
has encountered each other, then a new human being is defined which has
never occurred before and will never occur again... [the zygote, and the cells
produced in the succeeding divisions] is not just simply a non-descript cell,
or a "population" or loose "collection" of cells, but a very specialized
individual, i.e., someone who will build himself [i.e., possesses the nature or
potency] according to his own rule. (Lejeune, 1989) (emphasis added)
Lejeune's description is likewise expressed in more scientific terms in
virtually all embryology and genetic text books known to this writer.
Second, this original genetic information in the human zygote will itself
specifically direct the formation of virtually all of the molecular or
"positional" information necessary for the continuous development of the
human zygote to the human adult. This is explained empirically in part by
the process of methylation, a process which is itself encoded in the original
genetic information of the human zygote. Methylation is one factor which
explains why some genes are "silenced" and other genes are "turned on"
during development (Lejeune, 1989), producing what Lewin describes as a
process of "information cascading" (Lewin, 1983; Emery, 1983). These
processes - which continue into adulthood - help to explain both genetic as
well as molecular levels of developmental control.
In describing the process of cascading, Lewin explains how information is
transmitted from the human zygote to virtually all of the later stages of
development:
"We view the development of an adult organism from a fertilized egg as
following a predetermined pathway, in which specific genes are turned on
and off at specific times... (W)e see that the product of one gene may control
another gene. A cascade of control ensues when a series of such events are
connected so that the gene turned on (or off) at one stage itself controls
expression of other genes at the next stage" (Lewin, 1983). (emphasis
added)
In addition to gene control, cascading also accounts for molecular control.
For example, Lewin states, products of genetic instruction, such as protein
molecules, carry within themselves certain "instructions" by virtue of the
kind of molecules they are. Thus proteins exhibit a diversity of forms. There
are primary, secondary and tertiary forms of a protein. There is also, we
10
know, a relationship between the structure of a protein and the way it
functions (Lewin, 1983). How do these different conformations of a protein
come about?
As Lewin further explains in his text, it is a "fundamental principle that
higher-order structures are determined directly by the lower-order structures.
This means that the primary sequence of amino acids carries the information
for folding into the correct conformation." And this control continues in a
"sequential folding mechanism" through the higher-order levels of
organization. "All the information necessary to form the secondary
structures resides in the primary structure" of the protein. And the primary
structure of the protein is determined by the genetic information in the cell.
Lewin continues that the "structural, catalytic, and regulatory activities of
the proteins of a cell are responsible, directly or indirectly, for creating its
ultrastructure and interconverting the small molecules... Obeying the laws of
physics and chemistry, together these macromolecules are responsible for
the survival of living cells (Lewin, 1983).
Thus - if this scientific account is correct - the claims of the fertilization
argument would seem to be correct, and Bedate and Cefalo's scientific
claims would seem to be incorrect. All of the genetic information is present
at fertilization which is needed to produce the specific biological character
of the future adult, including specifically human "positional" molecules, as
well as specifically human tissue and organ systems. This genetic
information controls both genetic and molecular information which
"cascades" throughout all of a human being's development. Later
"positional" molecules, reactions and organ formations of the developing
human being are not random or independent of the human zygote's genetic
content and structure, but are ultimately generated, controlled and coded by
that very genetic information present in the original human zygote.
Bedate and Cefalo's second argument, that the development of the human
zygote depends on "exogenous" information from the mother which is
independent of the control of the human zygote, is likewise conceptually
misleading and, it would seem, scientifically incorrect. First, I again point
out their equivocal use of the term "information." Their argument is about
molecular information - not genetic information. And, as implied above,
even the use of exogenous "positional" information is pre-determined by the
genetic information in the original human zygote. Second, their claims that
the human zygote only contains enough of its own genetic information to
proceed through the blastocyst stage, and that the process of differentiation
is not coded in the genetic information in the human zygote but rather is
determined by "information" from the mother also seems to be scientifically
incorrect. It would appear clear from Lejeune, Lewin, Emery and most other
well-established and respected scientific authorities that the original human
zygote does indeed contain all of the genetic information needed for all of
11
the processes of human development - including those of cleavage, cell
differentiation, and implantation. Furthermore, there are many recent
experiments, especially those involving transgenic mice, which would refute
Bedate and Cefalo's empirical claim that the process of differentiation is
determined by the mother (Mavilio, 1986; Hart, 1985; and Holtzer, 1985;
see also Suarez, 1990; Szulmann, 1978; Moore, 1982; Wimmers, 1988;
Lawler, 1987; Martin, 1980; Alberts, 1983).
Also, it would seem that Bedate and Cefalo's claim about the source of the
information for differentiation is closely connected to another error, i.e., a
misconception about human "development." Their implication is that human
development is somehow informationally and physically discontinuous. It
would seem that human development is controlled essentially at one time by
"information" from the zygote, embryo or fetus, and at another time by
"information" from outside and independent of the developing human being.
But the most reliable scientific sources indicated above claim that the
essential nature and genetic information of the product of fertilization, i.e.,
the human zygote, itself determines continuously the essential course of
human development. Exogenous molecules contribute only accidentally.
There is, scientifically, no controlling informational or physiological break
from the original human zygote during all of human development.
Thus, according to this science, the human zygote is by nature and by
definition a human being, possessing "46" chromosomes and the active
genetic capacity (including mitochondrial DNA) to change itself over time
in accidental - not essential - ways. There is no biological, genetic or
informational break in this developmental continuum. Exogenous molecular
information - even from the mother - does not actually change the very
nature of the developing human being, i.e., change it from one kind of thing
into another kind of thing. Empirically we know that that is not what
happens -all we have to do is look at the number and kinds of chromosomes
present from the beginning and throughout human development. An embryo
does not have the number and kinds of chromosomes as a tomato plant; nor
does the fetus have those of a giraffe. Maternal molecules do not determine
the very nature of the developing human being nor the nature of its
processes. Maternal molecules are only used in non-essential accidental
processes of human development; and that use is itself dictated ultimately by
the genetic and molecular information in the human zygote, embryo or fetus.
There is also the implication by Bedate and Cefalo that "development" is
restricted to the embryonic and fetal stages. But unrefuted work by the
embryologist Moore - among many others - would reject such speculations
concerning this and the above points. Unless the text books of Moore,
Lewin, Emory and other well-known and generally accepted and
acknowledged scientists, as well as multiple recent works in journal
publications, are grossly incorrect, the most accurate and reliable description
12
of embryological development is as follows (and I quote from Moore):
Human development is a continuous process that begins when an ovum
from a female is fertilized by a sperm from a male. Growth and
differentiation transform the zygote, a single cell formed by the union of the
ovum and the sperm, into a multicellular adult human being. Most
developmental changes occur during the embryonic and the fetal periods,
but important changes also occur during the other periods of development:
childhood, adolescence, and adulthood... Although it is customary to divide
development into prenatal and postnatal periods, it is important to realize
that birth is merely a dramatic event during development resulting in a
distinct change in environment. Development does not stop at birth:
important developmental changes, in addition to growth, occur after birth...
Most developmental changes are completed by the age of 25. (Moore, 1982,
p. 1) (emphasis added)
And finally, Bedate and Cefalo have argued that the developing entity is not
predetermined to give rise to a human being, since it can give rise to
biological entities that are not human beings, i.e., hydatidiform moles and
teratomas. However, as Suarez (1990) correctly points out, the empirical
implication in that argument is that hydatidiform moles and teratomas
develop from biologically normal embryos - but that scientific implication is
apparently scientifically incorrect.
As Suarez argues, hydatidiform moles do not develop from something
which is normal, but from biological entities which carry gross
chromosomal aberrations, and thus possess no capacity at all to function
biologically as a human being or to develop into normal human beings.
Hydatidiform moles of the complete type (CHM) arise from androgenic
eggs (i.e., eggs with two paternal nuclei). The usual mechanism is the fusion
of an egg and sperm followed by duplication of the sperm genome and loss
of the female nucleus. Sometimes the mechanism is due to dispermy (i.e.,
two sperms enter the egg at fertilization) with the loss of the female nucleus.
Either way, Suarez explains, hydatidiform moles do not originate from
normal human embryos, but rather from entities containing either no
maternal chromosomes or from entities containing two paternal
chromosomes.
Suarez also points out that ovarian (gynogenic) teratomas can arise from
parthenogenesis. That is, without fertilization by a sperm, an egg in the
ovary can cleave spontaneously, and progress to form a morula and then a
blastocyst. But it then becomes disorganized and divides into a tumor. Male
(androgenic) teratomas can arise spontaneously from only the male germ
cells in the testes. The empirical point is that in neither the case of the
formation of a hydatidiform mole nor of a teratoma did these biological
13
entities arise from a genetically normal human embryo to begin with.
Grobstein and McCormick: These writers (Grobstein, 1985; McCormick,
1990) argue that a human person can be present only if there is a
"developmental" individual, rather than simply a "genetic" individual. The
5-6 day stage of embryological development is significant for them because
at this point they claim that they can demonstrate scientifically the presence
of "only a genetic individual" (i.e., not a "developmental" individual) - a
non-person. They will term this entity a "pre-embryo," implying it is a "preindividual,"
or a "pre-human being."
These writers state that at the 5-6 day stage, two cell layers are formed - the
trophoblast or outer cell layer, and the blastocyst or inner cell layer.
McCormick, following Grobstein, makes this empirical argument:
I contend in this paper that the moral status - and specifically the
controversial issue of personhood - is related to the attainment of
developmental individuality (being the source of one individual)... It should
be noted that at the zygote stage the genetic individual is not yet
developmentally single - a source of only one individual. As we will see,
that does not occur until a single body axis has begun to form, near the end
of the second week post fertilization when implantation is underway.
(McCormick, 1990) (emphasis added)
These early cells, they claim, are really only "loose collections" of
undifferentiated, "totipotent" cells, and they name them, or designate them
collectively, as only comprising a "pre-embryo" (a term which is not used
by other embryologists, but only by philosophers, theologians and
bioethicists).
The scientific facts which they give to support these claims are the
following. They state that only the cells from the inner layer, the blastocyst,
eventually become the adult human being. The cells from the trophoblast
layer, they write, are all discarded after birth as the sac and the umbilical
cord, etc. Thus, developmentally, the implication is that we are not dealing
with a developmental individual, or only with those important cells which
will become the adult human being, i.e., the blastocyst, but rather a mixture
of "essential" (blastocyst) and "non-essential" (trophoblast - will all be
discarded after birth) cells, i.e., a PRE-embryo. A pre-embryo, then, is not a
human being or a human person, yet:
This multicellular entity, called a blastocyst, has an outer cellular wall, a
central fluid-filled cavity and a small gathering of cells at one end known as
the inner cell mass. Developmental studies show that the cells of the outer
wall become the trophoblast (feeding layer) and are precursors to the later
placenta. Ultimately, all these cells are discarded at birth. (emphasis added)
14
These scientific facts would seem to be incorrect, and would necessarily
lead to incorrect philosophical concepts, as well as erroneous ethical
judgments. It is scientifically incorrect to state that all of the cells from the
trophoblast layer are discarded after birth. As can be found in virtually all
embryology texts, including Moore's text from which they quote, many of
the cells from this trophoblast layer become an integral and essential part of
the constitution of the fetus, newborn and adult human being. For example,
the cells from the trophoblast layer known as the yolk sac cells become part
of the adult gut. And cells known as the allantois cells become part of the
adult ligaments, blood cells and urinary bladder (Moore, 1982; Chada, 1986;
Migliaccio, 1986). Unless these latter sceintists are incorrect, empirically
these claims by Grobstein and McCormick cannot be scientifically
sustained, since many of the cells from the trophoblast layer are
developmentally and genetically continuous with the adult human being.
The 5-6 day stage human embryo, then, is both genetically and
developmentally individual and one with the future human adult. It would
seem that their term "pre-embryo" and what it implies can not be sustained
with the scientific information which they have stated to support their claim.
It would also seem that the moral status to which they refer should be the
same for the 5-6 day embryo as the adult - since they are both
developmentally individuals and in fact are literally the same individual
organism at different accidental stages of development.
It is interesting that they agree that the early cells up to the 14 day stage (the
"pre-embryo") do comprise an "individual" - albeit, only a "genetic"
individual. Why does this "genetic" individuality not suffice for
characterizing it as a "being" or substance? They simply posit that before a
human "being" can become a human "person," it must be the source of only
one individual, and developmentally that "oneness," they say, is not
guaranteed until after 14 days.
But why should "being the source of only one individual" be such a critical
criteria for moral status? One could argue that first there is one individual
worthy of moral status, and if twins or triplets result later, then there are two
or three individuals worthy of moral status. If it is an individual, it is an
individual. Also, since virtually all of the "developmental" stages are normal
processes programmed by the genetic information in the original human
zygote, what would make the developmental stage of "implantation" (which
they designate as that stage where the developing human embryo can now
be "the source of only one individual") any more significant than any other
developmental stage? Indeed, as others will argue below, why not call the
developmental stages of "sentience" or of "whole brain integration" the
morally relevant stage? Others have argued convincingly against
McCormick's and Grobstein's interpretation of and arguments for such a
concept of "developmental" individuality (Fisher, 1991; Howsepian, 1992).
15
But empirically, is implantation really in fact such a definitive
developmental stage such as to preclude "the source of more than one
individual"?
Grobstein and McCormick will provide more scientific evidence in order to
ground their claim that at 14 days a "developmental" individual, i.e., a
person, is finally present. It is impossible, they claim, for a human person to
be present until at least the 14 day marker event (implantation), at which
point the primitive streak forms in the embryo. The philosophical
significance of this marker, they state, is that until the formation of the
primitive streak it is possible for twinning to take place. The totipotent cells
"do not yet know whether to be one or two individuals." After 14 days, they
claim, twinning is not possible, and thus the organism is finally
determinantly one individual - an essential pre-requisite for "personhood"
(McCormick, 1990).
But again this science seems to be incorrect. As Karen Dawson (1990) and
Moore (1982) point out in these debates - and as is found in every human
genetics textbook (unless they are wrong) - it is possible for monozygotic
twinning to take place after 14 days and the formation of the primitive
streak. For example, fetus-in-fetu twins can be formed up to 2 and 3 months
after fertilization, and Siamese twins even later. It is also known that
"twinning" is sometimes genetically determined and coded in the original
single-cell human zygote (as, indeed, is totipotency, differentiation and
implantation).
And is it empirically true that these totipotent cells "do not yet know
whether to be one or two individuals" yet? Is it that they are traumatically so
"undecided"? Of course if a totipotent cell is teased apart (mechanically or
from natural circumstances) from the early developing human being, it can
develop into an adult-stage human being. But this phenomenon is normal!
That is, totipotency is programmed into the single-cell human zygote just as
all of the characteristically human developmental stages are. According to
nature, during totipotency these cells are supposed to be totipotent. It would
not seem to have anything to do with these cells being somehow
"unnatural," "unhuman" or confused and undecided.
Thus Grobstein and McCormick's scientific claims to ground both the
presence of a pre-human, pre-person, pre-developmental "pre-embryo" at 5-
6 days, as well as a 14 day implantation stage of "personhood," seem to be
scientifically incorrect. And so also must their philosophical and moral
claims about individuality and "personhood" which are grounded on the
science they used to support their claims.
Just as empirical data can impact on philosophical concepts and moral
judgments, such philosophical concepts and judgments (containing scientific
16
statements) can impact on theology. Specifically, many theologians require
"individuality" as a prerequisite for "ensoulment." Such, in fact is the case
with McCormick. In what follows I will address several other theologians
whose concepts and arguments for ensoulment have been grounded in what
seems to be incorrect scientific facts.
Suarez (1990), for example, argues that ensoulment must take place at the 2-
cell stage, when there is the completion of the first cell division, as well as
the completion of the genetic input. However, we know scientifically that
the completion of the genetic input is at the single-cell zygote stage, and that
that genetic imput is what directs cell division to begin with. Thus, based on
these scientific facts, Suarez should be arguing for ensoulment at the zygote
stage, rather than at the 2-cell stage.
Ford: Based on the science of Grobstein and McCormick, Ford (1988) also
argues for ensoulment at the 14 day stage (although, before the advent of
Grobstein and McCormick's scientific arguments, Ford had argued for
ensoulment at fertilization - Ford, 1987). Before 14 days, Ford explains,
there is only a biological individual; after 14 days there is an "ontological"
individual, i.e., when differentiation is completed and there is a "distinct
individuality." But aside from the apparent problems with the science of
Grobstein and McCormick, as well as their conclusions about
"individuality," we know scientifically that complete differentiation does not
actually take place until well after birth (Moore, 1982). Certainly a 14 day
embryo is definitely not completely differentiated.
Bole: Bole (1989, 1990), contra Suarez, accepts the scientific data as offered
by Bedate and Cefalo. He agrees that the zygote is not yet an individual, is
not specifically human, and is not responsible for developmental or
differential information. He also accepts their conclusion that the human
zygote cannot be a human being, and therefore it cannot be a human person.
Thus he makes a distinction between a mere "biologically integrated whole"
(a non-person) and a "psychologically integrated whole" (a person).
Ensoulment, for Bole, cannot take place until there is an appropriately
organized body - a criteria which is not met by a mere "biologically
integrated whole." Only a "psychologically integrated whole" can be an
ensouled human person (Bole, 1990). But what, for Bole, is a human
person?
To answer this, Bole (1990) moves into the philosophical arena, searching
historically for a philosophical system (or any parts of philosophical
systems) which would match the scientific arguments of Bedate and Cefalo.
I will not expand on his interesting historical search, other than to relay
Bole's conclusion, that a "person" is to be defined much as Engelhardt has
defined a "person," i.e., as that which can:
17
...unify experiences as its own and reason about connections not only
between experiences and their unifying self and between action and goals,
but also about the connections between actions, whether to or by this person,
and the personal agent to be morally blamed or lauded for them. Such a
person might begin to be instanced in a young child who can use "I" and can
blame those who would injure it. (Engelhardt, 1985) (emphasis added)
Thus, convinced of the scientific arguments of Bedate and Cefalo, and
finding a "match" with the rationalistic philosophy of Engelhardt, Bole
concludes that the term "person" would be applied to competent adults, and
younger human beings who can sufficiently use languages, i.e., "can unify
their experiences in self-consciousness as their own, and reason about
connections between actions and ends." A fetus or a normal young infant is
only a biologically integrated whole. They are not "persons." They are only
"substances." And a human zygote is not even a human substance -
although, he claims, that it is a human being (Bole, 1990).
Without going through all of the philosophical details, it is important at this
point for the scientific community to understand what is at stake, i.e., what
are the conceptual and very real consequences when a human "person" is
defined only in terms of reason or "rational attributes," such as is found in
Bole (1989, 1990), Engelhardt (1985), Singer (1981, 1985, 1989), Kuhse
(1985, 1986), and Tooley (1974). If only a "person" is due moral, social and
legal protections and priviledges, and if a "person" is defined only in terms
of the actual exercising of "rational attributes," then the majority of human
beings are not persons, and therefore are not protected. That is, the mentally
infirm, drunks, alcoholics, drug addicts, Alzheimers and Parkinsons patients,
stroke victims, the depressed, etc. are not "persons," and therefore bear no
moral, social or legal rights or protections of their own. Even the killing of
normal healthy human infants and young children (infanticide) is morally
acceptable to these writers. As Singer, the animal rights theorist, has put it:
Now it must be admitted that these arguments [about abortion] apply to the
newborn baby as much as to the fetus. A week-old baby is not a rational and
self-conscious being, and there are many non-human animals whose
rationality, self-consciousness, awareness, capacity to feel pain (sentience),
and so on, exceed that of a human baby a week, a month, or even a year old.
If the fetus does not have the same claim to life as a person, it appears that
the newborn baby is of less value than the life of a pig, a dog, or a
chimpanzee. (Singer, 1981)
Such are the very real and serious consequences of accepting this
rationalistic definition of a human person.
Finally, Bole will also redefine some important embryological terms, based
on the science of Bedate and Cefalo. By the term "zygote" he will now refer
18
to the product of fertilization to 14 days. Before 14 days the "zygote" is not
a human being, since it is not a "biologically integrated whole." The term
"embryo" he reserves for the entity from 2-8 weeks. I have to wonder how
many embryologists would agree with Bole's new biological nomenclature.
Given the apparent incorrectness of the scientific arguments of Bedate and
Cefalo, and the massive inadequacies in the "matching" rationalistic
philosophical definition of a human "person," can Bole's arguments or
distinctions hold up?
Wallace: "Based on recent research in reproductive biology, especially on
studies of cell division, twinning, recombination and implantation," Wallace
(1989), a physicist, also sees a need to up-date the scientific foundations of a
scholastic philosophy of nature which can account for ensoulment (often
placed at about 3 months). I would argue that Wallace sees a parallel
between McCormick's "pre-embryo" which seems to be in transition to
becoming a "person" at 14 days, and what the scholastics called a "being on
the way," or a "seed." I will present his scholastic philosophical concepts
and arguments only long enough to be able to pull out a few of the incorrect
scientific claims and invalid scientific analogies which he uses to make his
point. Wallace, who is a physicist and a scholastic philosopher, will attempt
his own redefinition of human embryogenesis.
One philosophical comment is in order to clarify Wallace's (and others')
concern about "ensoulment." If the "soul" is considered as a whole thing
itself (i.e., a substance or a being), then a theory of "delayed hominization"
(delayed "personhood") is necessary to explain how all the different and
separate component substances of a human being get put together serially
somewhere down the line (an example of a mind/body split). However, if
the "soul" is considered as only a principle, a power, or as a part of only one
whole thing, and if the vegetative and sensitive powers of the soul cannot be
separated from the rational powers but are contained in it virtually, then
there is simply no need for a theory of delayed hominization. Instead, a
theory of immediate hominization (immediate "personhood" at syngamy) is
necessary. I point this out because, interestingly, Wallace's and others'
rationalistic philosophical commitment requires the kind of "science" such
as reported by Bedate, Cefalo, Grobstein and McCormick. Is it possible that
these philosophical presuppositions are imposed on the scientific data? (The
subject of another paper.)
Wallace's project is roughly the following. First he will describe what he
calls stable natures: inorganic materials, plants, animals and finally human
beings. These descriptions, he says, are true only of the mature individuals -
not of those individuals as they were being generated. Second he will
describe what he calls transient natures, such as radioisotopes. It is the
model-concept of these immature transient natures which he will use to
redefine human embryogenesis. Each of the grades of stable natures will be
19
considered (invalidly) like a transient nature during the process of human
embryogenesis. They will be successively "educed" from the "protomatter"
of the previous transient nature (which has eventually become stablized).
This is how it works.
The "mature" stable natures are exemplified by the following. First, an
inorganic nature, (a chemical element, a compound, or a mineral) is an
organizing field, a force which structures "protomatter" and gives it certain
qualities and powers. Second, a plant nature contains these inorganic
powers, as well as its own vegetative powers, such as, nutrition, growth,
reproduction and homeostasis. It is the growth power which is the
developmental power, controlling cell growth and differentiation. Third, an
animal nature contains the two previous powers, plus its own, like the
powers of sensation and emotion. All of these lower forms are educed from
"protomatter" by angelic activity and are material forms. Fourth, the human
form, being immaterial, is created by God, with the powers of intellect and
will. These human powers do not need any body organs through which to
operate.
The "transient" natures he will describe will "explain the efficient causality
we observe during fetal development." He likens these transient natures to
the "seeds" which so puzzled the medieval scholastics. He calls these
natures "transient" because they have only fleeting or transitory existence.
Also of importance is how these "transient natures" are generated (which he
will also liken to fetal development). "Transient natures" are generated
through an "eduction" of a form from something which contains many forms
potentially; then it will receed back into the "protomatter," and be replaced
by another form which will be "educed." When this happens, he explains,
substantial - not accidental -change has taken place. For example, there is
the generation of compounds from elements. Na and Cl combine to form
NaCl. When they so combine, Wallace claims, the Na and the Cl have
actually changed their natures, and have become a third nature - i.e., NaCl.
Thus in the formation of elemental compounds, "when the new nature is
generated the old nature ceases to be." He will use this "model" analogously
to argue for delayed hominization. That is, during early embryogenesis,
there is literally substantial change taking place - i.e., a change in natures.
First there develops a human "vegetative" substance or nature, replaced by a
human "sensitive" (or animal) substance or nature - which is finally replaced
by a human "rational" substance or nature.
However, when the reverse of such a process is explained - the
decomposition of water -Wallace himself is puzzled. Why does the
decomposition of water result in two hydrogens? This poses the probem of
"individuation" to him (Wallace is puzzled because his philosophical
definition of "natures" consists only of the universal "species" form, and
thus it can not explain the materiality of the individuals which comprise the
20
"species"). So he trys to liken the two hydrogens to identical twins - but
cannot resolve the puzzle, if theoretically what is generated is the universal
"species" only. He will not let this theoretical problem daunt him, however,
and takes refuge in what he considers to be a chemist's response. "For
chemists it is sufficient to consider the nature apart from the individual,
since in their view all hydrogen molecules are necessarily the same"
(emphasis added). So Wallace is free now to consider only the nature, apart
from the material individuals - a prerequisite, interestingly enough, for a
theory of delayed hominization.
Wallace's next example of a transient nature comes from radiochemistry. He
describes the radioactive decay of one element into another. And like the
human embryo, he claims, the parent isotope is "self-activating." Here, each
of the daughter isotopes is successively "educed" from within the potency of
the parent isotope. Although he thinks that this model of radiochemistry is
really descriptive of a stable nature, he states that he will "consider" it as a
transient nature anyway, because it is useful to explain human
embryogenesis.
And finally, Wallace will apply his model of "transient natures" - based on
recent research in reproductive biology - to describe his own theory of
human embryogenesis, or the serial generation of a plant, to an animal, and
finally to a human being. Wallace's description of human embryogenesis
involves a constant progression from a transient nature to the stable form of
that nature, from which is educed the next transient nature which likewise
persists until the stable form of that nature appears, etc.
First, then, human embryogenesis begins with the seeds (ovum and sperm)
of the human parents. These seeds combine to form an entity with a "plantlike"
transient nature [he means the human zygote]. "When material defects
are eliminated and twinning or recombination can no longer occur," a new
stable-like plant form is educed from the potentiality of the "protomatter,"
with its own proper "plant" powers. This stable plant form persists until a
new transient animal-like form is educed. Again, when material defects are
eliminated and twinning or recombination can no longer occur, the new
stable animal form with its proper powers is educed. Finally, when this
animal "matter" is appropriately organized by the animal form, God creates
the immaterial human form (i.e., the "rational" soul alone) with its own
proper powers - and we now have a human being with human ensoulment
completed (i.e., a human "person").
The problems with Wallace's redefinition of human embryogenesis are both
conceptual and scientific. I will list but a few.
1. Empirically there is no such thing as two kinds of natures of one and
the same specific kind of thing. That is, there is no such thing as a
21
"transient" nature and a "stable" nature of a plant or of an animal -
nor of a human being. One only has to check the chromosomes to
determine that. An acorn is genetically an oak - albeit a tiny one.
That is why it can grow into the stage of a large oak tree, instead of
becoming a pumpkin.
2. It is invalid for Wallace to claim that there is an analogy between
"stable" natures which are descriptive of mature individuals only,
and his serial "phases" of "transient" natures during the immature
stages of human embryogenesis. After going through his paradigm
example of a "transient" nature, Wallace will then admit that a
radioisotope is probably really an example of a "stable" nature -but
he will use it anyway as a "model" of his so-called "transient"
natures during human embryogenesis. If it is really a "stable" nature,
how can he legitimately use it as a substitute "transient" nature in his
model of human embryogenesis? He even admits the inconsistency,
but decides to use the analogy anyway, without any argument - other
than that it is "useful."
3. Relatedly, if the "rational" human nature which is infused at about 3
months is actually descriptive of a "mature" human nature, would
Wallace then agree that a three month fetus which was receiving this
mature human nature was actually a mature human being?
4. Simply because Wallace's "transient" natures (radioisotopes) have a
"brief" existence does not mean therefore that they are not stable
natures. An existent is an existent - no matter how briefly it exists.
5. As a chemist, I cannot imagine any other chemist who would agree
with Wallace that Na and Cl actually change their very natures when
they form a compound. There is only the sharing of electrons - not
protons. Nor would a chemist agree that all hydrogens are the same;
chemists know about natural isotopes. The atomic weights given in
the periodic chart are only an average weight for the elements. Nor
would they accept Wallace's analogy between the generation of
"daughter" isotopes from radioactive "parents," and the generation of
a human zygote from two human parents. The radioactive "daughter"
is a different "species" than the "parent"; the human zygote has the
same number of chromosomes as the human parents and is of the
same species.
6. Wallace invalidly compares and equates several different scientific
terms and processes. For example, the "nuclei" of a radioisotope and
that of a plant, an animal, or a human cell are hardly equivalent. Nor
is the "generation" of any of those entities equivalent. He also uses
an incorrect analogy between a plant "seed" and human "seeds" (the
ovum and the sperm). A plant seed already contains all of the
reproductive information it needs to develop; a human ovum or
sperm contains only half of the necessary information. Thus if only a
sperm or only an ovum were implanted in a womb, no human being
would ever result from it. The more correct empirical correlate,
22
actually, would be between the plant seed and the human zygote
after syngamy.
Wallace made a critical observation during his paper which might have kept
him out of the above difficulties. He noted one of the classic insights of both
bench research science and of a realistic philosophy of nature: "a quality is
an attribute through which we come to know a nature. A thing's actions and
reactions enable us to ascertain its powers and from these we judge its
nature." Every bench researcher, I would argue, is quite familiar with this
truth of basic research.
Had Wallace only adhered to his own astute observation it would have
precluded him from developing his model of "transient" natures which he
wanted to use to explain human embryogenesis. For if one looks hard at the
most agreed upon scientific evidence which we do have, Wallace would
have had to argue for immediate hominization. Biologically we know that at
syngamy there is already a human being with "46" chromosomes; that
immediately there are specifically human enzymes and proteins produced
(not tomato or frog enzymes); that all of the information for cleavage,
totipotency, implantation, etc., is already present; and that by "3 months"
specifically human functions, reactions, tissue and organ formations have
already taken place. Empirically, the formation of cabbages or giraffe
tissues and organs has not taken place. There is, then, no need biologically
for a "rational soul" to be infused at three months to make it specifically
human and direct human formation. That work has already been done by
"something" back at the human zygote stage. The 3 month fetus doesn't need
a rational "soul" (which for rationalists doesn't even contain a vegetative or
a sensitive "soul") to make it something it already is - a human being which
is functioning humanly. This biology would enable us to ascertain its human
nature and would argue for immediate hominization. It compells us to reject
a real mind/body split.
II. Philosophy/Theology/Biomedical Ethics: "Later" Fetal Development
Although the above writers have used scientific facts concerning cell
differentiation, implantation, twinning, etc., as either an argument against
syngamy or for the "earlier" marker events of "personhood," the remaining
commentators have abandoned these early stages as being insignificant.
Instead they will use scientific data to argue for some sort of brain-related
marker, based on the later stages of human embryogenesis. Regardless if
they will argue that "personhood" requires the presence of "rational
attributes," or sentience (the ability to feel pain), the focus of their
arguments is the physiological substrate which they claim is the precondition
for either of those characteristics of personhood.
All of these writers have several problems in common, so for brevity I will
23
state these beforehand, as they apply to all of the writers generally (see
Irving, 1991).
First, many will still actually define a human "person" in terms of "rational
attributes" only. But as pointed out above, this is a very rationalistic
definition drawn from a philosophical theory with a mind/body split. Thus
there can be no interaction between the physiological substrate for which
they argue and the "rational attributes" which those physiological substrates
are suppose to be supporting. Others will define a human "person" in terms
of "sentience" only. But this is a very materialistic definition drawn from a
philosophical school of thought which also has very serious theoretical
problems of its own. Nowhere do these writers either acknowledge their
own philosophical presuppositions or argue for their respective definitions
of a human being or a human person.
Second, the physiological substrate which is a precondition for the
physiological substrate for either "rational attributes" or for sentience is the
human zygote itself.
Third, in none of their markers is there any real "personal" functioning at all.
These stages are all immature stages, and as other writers have indicated,
"full consciousness" or "full physiological integration" or sentience is not
complete until well after birth. All of these arguments, then, are arguments
from "potential."
Fourth, the scientific evidence for these claims is still very sketchy, vague
and controversial. Many scientific critics indicate a reading into the
scientific evidence more than is either physiologically or conceptually
possible.
Fifth, conceptual parallels are often made on which to base distinctions, like
the evolution theory or the criteria of "brain death." None of these parallels
are argued for but are simply posited. Only the similarities are noted; the
differences, which could actually contradict the existence of any such
"parallels," are ignored.
As a quick survey of the literature reveals, one of the writers who argues for
brain-related criteria is MacKay (see Jones, 1989). The maturation of the
nervous system is the significant stage (before that point there is only a "no
one" there). Rahner, Ruff, and Haring (see Jones, 1989) claim that the
evolution of "persons" parallels the evolution of the cosmos. That is, there is
a major leap in embryogenesis with the "evolution" of the cerebral cortex at
about 20-45 days. Several British writers (see Jones, 1989) argue for 40
days with the functioning of the nerve net. This point, they state, parallels
"brain death," implying that "consciousness" is the defining characteristic of
a human person. Humans are to be defined in terms of a nature able to
24
exercise rational, moral and personal capacities. Since the first moments of
the conscious experience is the basis for later rational and moral thought,
they claim, these conscious experiences are dependent on the development
of a functioning nerve net. Sass (1989) argues for 54 days - what he calls
"brain birth," or Cortical Life I (his parallel to "brain death"). He bases his
position on its compatibility with the medical understanding and explanation
of the process of human embryonic development and gestation. Singer and
Wells (see Jones, 1989) argue for 6 weeks, because consciousness,
autonomy and rationality are morally relevant characteristics, consciousness
being the most minimal. At 6 weeks a being is capable of feeling pleasure or
pain (sentience), or of having experiences and preferring some kinds of
experience to others. At that point the being has special moral status. And
Tauer (1985) argues that a "person" emerges with brain activity at about 7
weeks.
Several writers argue for the 8 week biological marker. Lockwood (1988)
and Goldenring (1982, 1985) see this stage as the starting point for human
"personal" existence because this is the point at which there is integration of
the brain as a whole. Goldenring considers this view persuasive because of
the symmetrical view it offers of the beginning and end of human existence,
and because of its objective basis. Kushner (1984) argues that consciousness
depends on the functioning of the brain at 8 weeks. Shea (1985) considers
this the time when the newly developing body organs and systems begin to
function as a whole under the direction of a functioning brain. Grobstein
(1985), in another article, also argues that at 8 weeks there is a person. He
states that the beginning of "life" is not significant, but rather the
manifestation of "self" (pace Engelhardt). Until 8 weeks, he argues, the
human embryo lacks the two essential aspects of personhood: affective
recognizability by other people, and internal conscious awareness. And
Gertler (see Singer, 1981) argues that 5 months is the proper marker, when
"brain birth" begins. Human cognition, he claims, is distinctive of "persons,"
and is indicated by the beginning of the formation of EEG waves in the
neocortex around 5 months. Bennett (1989) also argues for "brain life."
There is, however, no scientific evidence which demonstrates the correlation
of "consciousness" and the organizing of the nervous system, as pointed out,
for example, by the Board for Social Responsibility (1985) in London. And
many writers, such as Jones (1989), have argued that the parallelism
between brain death and brain life is invalid. Brain death, he points out, is
the gradual or rapid cessation of function of a brain. Brain birth is the very
gradual acquisition of a function of a developing neural system. Jones
argues that this developing neural system is not a brain. He also questions
the entire assumption, and asks what neurological reasons there might be for
concluding that an incapacity for consciousness becomes a capacity for
consciousness once this point is passed. Also, the nervous system of the
eight-week old fetus is quite different from that of the seven or eighth month
25
old fetus, let alone that of the two-year old child. The nervous system of the
eight week old fetus, Jones argues, is not a miniature version of the young
child's brain. It is very incomplete, and its functioning is at a different level
from that of the late fetus or young child. What follows from this, Jones
adds, is that at present it is impossible to recognize a distinct point of
transition from a "non-brain" to a "brain," or from a non-functioning
nervous system to a functioning one. He also argues that it is impossible to
recognize a distinct point of transition from a "non-person" to a "person."
Indeed, as Jones points out, all of these sorts of arguments are in fact
arguments from "potential" - arguments which these very writers are
suppose to be arguing against:
The second theme for some of the writers is the crucial part played by the
appearance of the cerebral cortex. The rationale for this is that it is the
cortex which, in the postnatal human, is central to higher thought processes.
While there is no denying that this is the case later on in life, the issue
during early gestation is whether the first appearance of cortical progenitors
signifies that the fetus has personhood or a personal center of life. The
features associated with personhood in postnatal life are only potentially
present in the eight week fetus; and so this stance relies upon the potentiality
argument. Surprisingly, though, this is not brought out by these writers.
Jones also examines the parallel that is made between these early neural
structures and sentience, or the capacity to feel pain. The earliest that
immature EEG activity can be obtained in very limited areas of the cerebral
hemispheres is 14 weeks. Even this responsiveness to pain is poorly
localized at this stage. This is problematic in that the initial time of electrical
activity appearing in the fetal brain is of an amorphous nature and thus
difficult to determine with precision. And with regard to pain, there is no
way of knowing whether a behavioral response we would experience as pain
is experienced in the same way by an early fetus with a rudimentary nervous
system. In view of these data, Jones concludes, it is difficult to have any
assurance that specific developmental stages can be associated with
concepts such as "differentiation" or "integration." Neither can one assert
that "there is 'conscious awareness' from the eighth-week stage onward."
Jones, himself, will argue for "brain-birth" at 6-7 months, a position which
would seem to be problematic too, given all of his own criticisms of
arguments from potentiality, the immaturity of the biological systems and
the dis-symmetry between the concepts of "brain death" and "brain birth."
The situation calls to mind the remarks of a different Jones' (1987)
concerning the role of the scientist in these disputes about fetal
"personhood":
The reproductive biologist cannot assign moral status to the sperm or the
egg or the fertilized egg or any of the subsequent products that may result
26
from this fusion... The reproductive biologist can help, however, by assuring
that other scientists or those who wish to assign a moral status - and use a
biological term or concept to do so - know what they are talking about.
(emphasis added)
What I have attempted to do in this paper up to this point is to question,
frankly, what some scientists are talking about - sincere though they may be.
Which scientists are correct, or at least have the best scientific theory to
support the empirical facts? I certainly do not consider myself an expert at
all, but surely what I see are basic problems concerning scientific facts
which are generally known and generally accepted as the best scientific
explanation within the scientific community itself. Scientific inaccuracies
may be undesirable within the field of science itself. Yet much of this
scientific misinformation - if it is incorrect - has proliferated throughout the
literature of philosophy, theology and biomedical ethics for many years.
This incorrect literature, in turn, has been institutionalized in philosophical,
theological and biomedical journals, text books, encyclopedias, and
computer programs on college campuses, "think tanks" and libraries
nationally as well as internationally. It has also been institutionalized in
public policy development, the topic to which I will now very briefly turn.
III. Public Policy Development
Any number of "institutional" policy makers are influenced by the scientific
and the bioethics literature - in most cases, legitimately so (Wikler, 1991;
Capron, 1989). But many are also influenced by the above apparent
inaccurate scientific/bioethics arguments, and inevitably incorporate these
scientific inaccuracies and redefinitions into public policies. I will only
touch on but a very few examples here.
The Harvard Medical School's (1968) definition of "brain death" - although
probably a medically legitimate and useful concept - was based on
neurological data similar to that discussed above, and is often the standard
used by physicians to make a determination of the death of the patient
before the withdrawal of treatment. "Brain death" statutes have now become
law in many states.
Similar neurological data is also used to make a diagnosis of "permanent
vegetative state" (PVS), a process which either has already been or, it is
argued, should be adopted as a medical standard (Washington State, 1992;
Council on Scientific Affairs, etc., 1990; Capron, 1992). Yet PVS is still a
questionable diagnosis (Steinbock, 1989; Ross, 1992; Tassaeau, 1991),
which can lead to decisions to withdraw life-sustaining medical therapy.
Such decisions to withdraw therapy are often justified by the rationalistic
philosophical claim that there is no longer a human "person" present
27
(Robertson, 1991).
Parallels of "brain death" with "brain birth" are made, leading to demands to
forego medical treatment to defective neonates and newborns - since they
also are not "persons." This is especially true for newborns with
anencephaly (a diagnosis which is also difficult and questionable,
designating a cluster of symptoms which differ significantly). The parents of
these infants receive many requests to donate the fresh living organs of their
infants. Walters (1992) argues for the medical standard of "proximate
personhood" for making difficult treatment decisions involving imperiled
newborns. A developing individual's right to life, he claims, increases "as he
or she approaches the threshhold of undisputed human personhood."
Anencephalics, because of their nature, may be treated "primarily (but not
only) as a means" - especially when balanced against the good they may
bring to others - i.e., as donors of organs (Walters, 1989) - a non-neutral and
normative utilitarian theory of ethics. And in a different context,
reminescent of Descartes, many neonatal and pediatric surgeons have
withheld pain relief from neonates and infants during and after surgery
partly because of their belief that they cannot feel pain at those
developmental stages.
There are also charges growing that Roe v Wade was grounded in incorrect
science (Carberry and Kmiec,1992). Other legal commentators, (Annas -
1989-A; 1989-B), in defending Roe, follow the "symbolic personhood"
arguments of Robertson (1988, 1989, 1991) - (which in turn relies heavily
on the science of Grobstein). Annas agrees with the Roe decision which held
that "a State may not adopt one theory of when life begins to justify its
regulation of abortion," and so opposes the Webster decision, which stated
that "the life of each human being begins at conception." But legitimate
arguments can be made empirically that the life of each individual human
being does begin at fertilization. This is not a case of imposing one person's
or group's "theories" on the rest of us - it is an objective, empirical fact.
Scientifically, even the "best fit" theory has to go with fertilization. As
Moore has put it: "This cell [the zygote] results from fertilization of an
oocyte, or ovum, by a sperm, or spermatozoon, and is the beginning of a
human being" (Moore, 1982, p. 1; emphasis of the author). Is science
prepared to state that this is scientifically not true?
The advent of in vitro fertilization has led to other policy arguments and
policy decisions, on both the medical and the legal level. The American
Fertility Society has adopted the term "pre-embryo" in their professional
quidelines. Physicians have developed policies for the implantation, freezestorage
and experimental destruction of IVF human embryos - who, it is
often argued, are not human beings or human "persons." Legal precedent is
set in the courts in cases involving surrogate motherhood (Annas, 1991),
determination of decisions in the cases of the death of the "biological
28
parents, and "ownership" of unwanted frozen embryos (Robertson, 1989).
Robertson (1986) argues in legal journals for new public policy
determinations on IVF human embryos - quoting at length Grobstein's
theory of human embryogenesis. Robertson agrees with Grobstein that the
"pre-embryo" is not a "person" yet, and thus possesses no moral or legal
rights. Robertson (1986) considers the pre-embryo as only property and
having only "symbolic value" to the parents. In the following quote from
Robertson, arguing in the area of legal and public policy development, the
reliance on the science of Grobstein, as well as the very rationalistic
understanding of the philosophical term "potential" can be identified, and
are quite confusing:
... consideration of embryo status is essential if we are to think clearly about
and adopt appropriate policies concerning IVF and embryo manipulation...
To assign a moral and legal status to the extracorporeal embryo, we must
first examine the facts of early embryo development [which he then proceeds
to quote from Grobstein].
[The early human embryo is] clearly not a person in the usual sense that we
use the term person... [It] is similar to blood, bone marrow and other tissue
or even solid organs, though there are important differences.
...Does the potential to become a person confer a particular moral and legal
status on the embryo, a status that entails duties that limit what might be
done with extracorporeal embryos?... I argue that the embryo does not have
a moral status in and of itself.
...It is clear that there is no obligation to transfer embryos based on
obligations to the persons who might then be born. Future persons [i.e., IVF
human embryos] have no claim on us unless our present choices will affect
their well-being when they do come into being. If they never come into
being, they have not been harmed, since no person has ever existed to be
harmed. Thus there is no obligation to the person who might come into
being as a result of transfer, because there is no such person. No person
exists to whom an obligation can be owed... Nor is there an obligation to the
embryo in and of itself to be transferred, so that it might have the chance of
realizing its potential personhood. To say there is such a duty would be to
assume that the nontransferred pre-embryo is a rights-bearing entity in and
of itself. It might become such an entity if certain favorable conditions and
events occur. But the potential to become a person does not mean that an
entity should be treated as a person now, anymore than an acorn's potential
to become an oak tree means that it now be regarded as an oak tree... Indeed
such treatment would be very difficult in light of the biology of the embryo...
It has no interests, and thus cannot be the subject of moral duties at this
rudimentary stage [and thus can be used in experimental research].
29
(Robertson, 1986) (emphasis added)
The use of IVF human embryos for research purposes, of course, is a major
biomedical issue (Cefalo, 1991). Medical researchers lobby Congress and
federal regulatory committees to use "surplus" (Muggleton-Harris, 1991) or
produced-for-research IVF human embryos in a great number of basic
(destructive) research to perfect the IVF technique itself (see Aragona,
1991), improve embryonic cell biopsy, egg freezing techniques,
superovulation and chrorionic biopsy techniques, embryonic sex selection
and micro-injection techniques, as well as to screen viruses and bacteria.
IVF human embryos are also useful for research in fetal tissue transplants,
selective breeding of human beings, genome analysis and germ line gene
therapy, improvement of gene therapy techniques, nucleus substitition,
implantation and gestation of the human embryo in the uterus of another
animal and vice versa, production of new kinds of animals, creation of
human embryos from the sperm of two different individuals or the ova of
two different individuals, fusion of human embryos with other human
embryos or animals to create chimeras, and parthenogenesis experiments.
They are also useful for drug testing, product testing, commercial purposes
(hormones, blood proteins, anti-viral, anti-bacterial or anti-carcinogenic
agents, vaccines, recombinant DNA experiments, and biological warfare
experiments (Irving, 1991). Can such large scale medical research be
justified on the basis of the scientific and philosophical inaccuracies and
problem as addressed above?
Many of these scientific, medical and legal conclusions and policies find
their way to other national and international policy levels. For example, the
use of human embryos and fetuses in purely experimental research is often
justified on what at least the realist would consider the misperception of the
non-personhood of the human embryo and the human fetus, and the legal
reality of the Roe v Wade decision in the Supreme Court (NIH, 1988;
Annas, 1989, 1991; Robertson, 1989, 1991). International commissions pick
up on national policy precedents. Some Australian and French committees
argue for "produced for research IVF embryos." The Warnock Commission
in England (1984) concluded that only after 14 days should the human
embryo be afforded protection, because that is the limit of the period during
which it is possible for the human embryo to implant in the uterine wall,
after which the primitive streak is formed, and after which, they state,
twinning does not occur. Before 14 days the human embryo can be used for
experimental research, since it is not a human being or a human person. This
conclusion was reached even though there was a common ground among the
Warnock Committee members that at such time as it has become
indisputably a living human being or person, "it would be morally
unthinkable to carry out on the human organism, without consent,
experiments of a damaging or mutilating kind" (Lockwood, 1988). On the
issue of PVS, the CCNE (French National Ethics Committee, 1986)
30
affirmed that patients in a "permanent vegetative state" constitute
"intermediaries between human beings and animals" - a view perhaps
consonant with a Wallace-type scholastic philosophy - but one which is
contested by Verspieren (Tassaeau, 1991) of the Centre Sevres, Paris,
operating from a different philosophical definition of a human person.
DISCUSSION
Such are a few of the theoretical and practical influences which some of the
seemingly basic scientific inaccuracies have had on other fields. Perhaps
what I have naively perceived as "incorrect" science is actually an erroneous
judgment on my part. If such is the case, I am certainly not alone, and the
scientific community would well-serve those of us in other fields by
clarifying for us which theories of human biochemistry, human genetics,
human molecular biology and human embryological development "best fit"
the scientific data. The need for clarity is important, as complex decisions in
other fields can go one way or another, depending on which scientific theory
is perceived as the best explanation of the scientific facts.
To parlay this into the "if...then" language of philosophy, IF IT IS TRUE:
that the human zygote does not have all of the genetic information it needs
to develop; that it is not a human being; that information from the mother
determines the process of differentiation; that it does not possess the
information needed for developing past the blastocyst stage; that
hydatidiform moles and teratomas proceed from normal human zygotes; that
all of the cells from the trophoblast layer are discarded after birth; that no
twinning takes place after 14 days; that before that point there is no
individual; that all of the genetic input is complete only at the 2-cell stage;
that differentiation is completed by the 14-day stage; that analogies between
transient and stable natures, between the "nuclei" of radioisotopes, plants,
animals and humans, between the generations of radioisotopes, plants,
animals and humans, and between the causality of radioisotope "daughters"
and human gametes can be validly and soundly made; that chemists consider
all atoms of an element to be identical and that they don't consider the
individual atoms; that parallels between brain death and brain birth,
sentience and pain, consciousness or self-consciousness and "rational
attributes," immature nerve nets and adult whole brain integration can be
validly and soundly made ---------
THEN it is true that there is present no human organism, or human being, or
human "person" at syngamy or before certain biological "marker events of
personhood." If that is true, then there is no entity bearing any moral or legal
rights of its own. If that is true, then early human embryos and fetuses may
be used in a myriad of experimental research protocols, frozen and thawed
with no personal or legal concern for damages, declared as property in the
court rooms, aborted and harvested for organs or tissues. To be both
31
logically and "realistically" consistent, one would have to argue the same
fate for normal healthy infants and young children (not to mention those of
us who are not so "normal") - because both real "rational attributes" and real
sentience and full brain organization are not complete until well after
childhood.
This same logic must hold at the other end of the life-spectrum. The "souls"
or "properties" of persons disappear one by one in the reverse order from
whence they came: first the "rational," then the "sensitive" - and finally we
are left with a "something" which is senile or in a "permanent vegetative
state." If this "something" is now not a person, then it is probably ethical to
experiment on it, medical treatment should be removed and/or ceased - and
organ transplantation could begin.
If this science and logic is true, then it should certainly be compiled into
journal articles, text books, encyclopedias, encoded in professional medical
standards, become hospital policy, be translated into state and federal
statues, and be processed through Congressional hearings and court rooms.
Finally, it should be acted on "uniformly" by national commissions and
regulatory agencies - and once so institutionalized, it should be considered
as a "precedent" for other international bodies to adopt as well.
IF IT IS NOT TRUE: if the product of syngamy during human fertilization
is a living, individual human being who must simultaneously be a human
person; if specifically human functions, proteins and enzymes are observed
and produced from the zygote-stage on; if specifically human tissue and
organ systems are continuously produced from the zygote-stage on; if all of
the processes and stages of human embryogenesis are directly and
completely encoded in the original human zygote (including the 2-cell and
blastocyst stages, as well as totipotency, differentiation, nerve-net and whole
brain formation - sometimes even twinning); if methylation and the
cascading effect are properly documented and understood; if hydatidiform
moles and teratomas do not proceed from normal human embryos; if
twinning does take place after 14 days; if differentiation, the attainment of
"rational attributes" or of sentience is not complete until at least early
adulthood; if there are profound differences between the "nuclei" of
radioisotopes, plants animals and humans, between the generation of
radioisotopes, plants, animals and humans, and between the causality of
radioisotope "daughters" and human gametes; if there are natural isotopes of
most of the elements in the periodic table, and chemists are concerned with
individual atoms; if "models" of transient natures do not equal real human
embryogenesis; if there is no real scientifically demonstrated parallel
between brain death and brain life, nerve nets and whole brains,
consciousness, self-consciousness and sentience, and between immature and
mature capacities --------
32
THEN it is true that there is no distinction between a human being and a
human person which is empirically verifiable (or philosophically
defensable). If this is true, then a human zygote or a human fetus is a human
being and a human person which is the bearer of his or her own moral and
legal rights. If that is true, then should they be used in purely experimental
protocols, damaged by freezing and thawing, depicted as property in our
court rooms, harvested for organs or tissues? Infanticide, experimentation on
the senile or on patients in a "permanent vegetative state," and the
withholding and withdrawing of life-sustaining medical treatment (unless
for the direct benefit of that person) would be morally unacceptable. If this
science is correct, then it would be reasonable for it to be compiled into
journal articles, text books and encyclopedias, and different policies should
be adopted in professional medical codes, hospital policies, state and federal
statues; processed before Congressional hearings and court rooms; and
institutionalized in national and international regulations.
CONCLUSION
So which scientific data and theories of nuclear chemistry, human
biochemistry, human genetics, human molecular biology and human
embryology best explain the empirical data? Non-scientists cannot sort out
the accuracy and reliability of these contradictory scientific claims.
I have attempted in this paper to draw attention to the fact that scientific
inaccuracies - even in considering only one current issue - have apparently
"cascaded" throughout a number of other seemingly unrelated fields,
influencing their theoretical superstructures and at least partially
determining the development of public policy. Aristotle's addage rings true -
a small error in the beginning leads to a multitude of errors in the end. Both
kinds of scientific theories addressed here cannot both be correct and true.
Each one leads to a set of different conclusions when used by theorists in
other fields.
Perhaps most scientists have little time or interest to worry about such
things. Or perhaps he or she remains basically unaware of what happens to
the data and theories once they have been submitted - other than for
specifically scientific purposes. I hope that this discussion may to some
degree indicate how their data and theories can strongly influence other
fields, and I would encourage scientists to consider, investigate, and discuss
how they may help us sort it out.
NOTES
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35
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36
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The Vindication of Humanae Vitae

2010-11-29T03:38:00.000-08:00

by Mary Eberstadt

I

That Humanae Vitae and related Catholic teachings about sexual morality are laughingstocks in all the best places is not exactly news. Even in the benighted precincts of believers, where information from the outside world is known to travel exceedingly slowly, everybody grasps that this is one doctrine the world loves to hate. During Benedict XVI's April visit to the United States, hardly a story in the secular press failed to mention the teachings of Humanae Vitae, usually alongside adjectives like "divisive" and "controversial" and "outdated." In fact, if there's anything on earth that unites the Church's adversaries — all of them except for the Muslims, anyway — the teaching against contraception is probably it.

To many people, both today and when the encyclical was promulgated on July 25, 1968, the notion simply defies understanding. Consenting adults, told not to use birth control? Preposterous. Third World parents deprived access to contraception and abortion? Positively criminal. A ban on condoms when there's a risk of contracting AIDS? Beneath contempt.

"The execration of the world," in philosopher G.E.M. Anscombe's phrase, was what Paul VI incurred with that document — to which the years since 1968 have added plenty of just plain ridicule. Hasn't everyone heard Monty Python's send-up song "Every Sperm Is Sacred"? Or heard the jokes? "You no play-a the game, you no make-a the rules." And "What do you call the rhythm method? Vatican roulette." And "What do you call a woman who uses the rhythm method? Mommy."

As everyone also knows, it's not only the Church's self-declared adversaries who go in for this sort of sport. So, too, do many American and European Catholics — specifically, the ones often called dissenting or cafeteria Catholics, and who more accurately might be dubbed the "Catholic Otherwise Faithful." I may be Catholic, but I'm not a maniac about it, runs their unofficial subtext — meaning: I'm happy to take credit for enlightened Catholic positions on the death penalty/social justice/civil rights, but of course I don't believe in those archaic teachings about divorce/homosexuality/and above all birth control.

Thus FOX News host Sean Hannity, for example, describes himself to viewers as a "good" and "devout" Catholic — one who happens to believe, as he has also said on the air, that "contraception is good." He was challenged on his show in 2007 by Father Tom Euteneuer of Human Life International, who observed that such a position emanating from a public figure technically fulfilled the requirements for something called heresy. And Hannity reacted as many others have when stopped in the cafeteria line. He objected that the issue of contraception was "superfluous" compared to others; he asked what right the priest had to tell him what to do ("judge not lest you be judged," Hannity instructed); and he expressed shock at the thought that anyone might deprive him of taking Communion just because he was deciding for himself what it means to be Catholic.

And so we have a microcosm of the current fate of Humanae Vitae and all it represents in the American Church — and, for that matter, in what is left of the advanced Western one, too. With each passing year, it seems safe to assume, fewer priests can be found to explain the teaching, fewer parishioners to obey it, and fewer educated people to avoid rolling their eyes at the idea that anyone in 2008 could possibly be so antiquarian as to hold any opinion about contraceptive sex — any, that is, other than its full-throttle celebration as the chief liberation of our time.

And in just that apparent consensus about the ridiculousness of it all, amid all those ashes scattered over a Christian teaching stretching back two millennia, arises a fascinating and in fact exceedingly amusing modern morality tale — amusing, at least, to those who take their humor dark.

"He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh," the Psalmist promises, specifically in a passage about enjoying vindication over one's adversaries. If that is so, then the racket on this fortieth anniversary must be prodigious. Four decades later, not only have the document's signature predictions been ratified in empirical force, but they have been ratified as few predictions ever are: in ways its authors could not possibly have foreseen, including by information that did not exist when the document was written, by scholars and others with no interest whatever in its teaching, and indeed even inadvertently, and in more ways than one, by many proud public adversaries of the Church.

Forty years later, there are more than enough ironies, both secular and religious, to make one swear there's a humorist in heaven.

II

Let's begin by meditating upon what might be called the first of the secular ironies now evident: Humanae Vitae's specific predictions about what the world would look like if artificial contraception became widespread. The encyclical warned of four resulting trends: a general lowering of moral standards throughout society; a rise in infidelity; a lessening of respect for women by men; and the coercive use of reproductive technologies by governments.

In the years since Humanae Vitae's appearance, numerous distinguished Catholic thinkers have argued, using a variety of evidence, that each of these predictions has been borne out by the social facts. One thinks, for example, of Monsignor George A. Kelly in his 1978 "Bitter Pill the Catholic Community Swallowed" and of the many contributions of Janet E. Smith, including Humanae Vitae: A Generation Later and the edited volume Why Humanae Vitae Was Right: A Reader.

And therein lies an irony within an irony. Although it is largely Catholic thinkers who have connected the latest empirical evidence to the defense of Humanae Vitae's predictions, during those same forty years most of the experts actually producing the empirical evidence have been social scientists operating in the secular realm. As sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox emphasized in a 2005 essay: "The leading scholars who have tackled these topics are not Christians, and most of them are not political or social conservatives. They are, rather, honest social scientists willing to follow the data wherever it may lead."

Consider, as Wilcox does, the Nobel Prize-winning economist George Akerlof. In a well-known 1996 article in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Akerlof explained in the language of modern economics why the sexual revolution — contrary to common prediction, especially prediction by those in and out of the Church who wanted the teaching on birth control changed — had led to an increase in both illegitimacy and abortion. In another work published in the Economic Journal ten years ago, he traced the empirical connections between the decrease in marriage and married fatherhood for men — both clear consequences of the contraceptive revolution — and the simultaneous increase in behaviors to which single men appear more prone: substance abuse, incarceration, and arrests, to name just three.

Along the way, Akerlof found a strong connection between the diminishment of marriage on the one hand and the rise in poverty and social pathology on the other. He explained his findings in nontechnical terms in Slate magazine: "Although doubt will always remain about what causes a change in social custom, the technology-shock theory does fit the facts. The new reproductive technology was adopted quickly, and on a massive scale. Marital and fertility patterns changed with similar drama, at about the same time."

To these examples of secular social science confirming what Catholic thinkers had predicted, one might add many more demonstrating the negative effects on children and society. The groundbreaking work that Daniel Patrick Moynihan did in 1965, on the black family, is an example — along with the critical research of psychologist Judith Wallerstein over several decades on the impact of divorce on children; Barbara Dafoe Whitehead's well-known work on the outcomes of single parenthood for children; Sara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur's seminal book, Growing Up with a Single Parent; and David Blankenhorn's Fatherless America, another lengthy summarization of the bad empirical news about family breakup.

Numerous other books followed this path of analyzing the benefits of marriage, including James Q. Wilson's The Marriage Problem, Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher's The Case for Marriage, Kay Hymowitz's Marriage and Caste in America, and Elizabeth Marquardt's recent Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce. To this list could be added many more examples of how the data have grown and grown to support the proposition that the sexual revolution has been resulting in disaster for large swaths of the country — a proposition further honed by whole decades of examination of the relation between public welfare and family dysfunction (particularly in the pages of the decidedly not-Catholic Public Interest magazine). Still other seminal works have observed that private actions, notably post-revolution sexual habits, were having massive public consequences; Charles Murray's Losing Ground and Francis Fukuyama's The Great Disruption come especially to mind.

All this is to say that, beginning just before the appearance of Humanae Vitae, an academic and intellectual rethinking began that can no longer be ignored — one whose accumulation of empirical evidence points to the deleterious effects of the sexual revolution on many adults and children. And even in the occasional effort to draw a happy face on current trends, there is no glossing over what are still historically high rates of family breakup and unwed motherhood. For example, in "Crime, Drugs, Welfare — and Other Good News," a recent and somewhat contrarian article in Commentary, Peter Wehner and Yuval Levin applauded the fact that various measures of social disaster and dysfunction seem to be improving from previous lows, including, among others, violent crime and property crime, and teen alcohol and tobacco use. Even they had to note that "some of the most vital social indicators of all — those regarding the condition and strength of the American family — have so far refused to turn upward."

In sum, although a few apologists such as Stephanie Coontz still insist otherwise, just about everyone else in possession of the evidence acknowledges that the sexual revolution has weakened family ties, and that family ties (the presence of a biologically related mother and father in the home) have turned out to be important indicators of child well-being — and more, that the broken home is not just a problem for individuals but also for society. Some scholars, moreover, further link these problems to the contraceptive revolution itself.

Consider the work of maverick sociobiologist Lionel Tiger. Hardly a cat's-paw of the pope — he describes religion as "a toxic issue" — Tiger has repeatedly emphasized the centrality of the sexual revolution to today's unique problems. The Decline of Males, his 1999 book, was particularly controversial among feminists for its argument that female contraceptives had altered the balance between the sexes in disturbing new ways (especially by taking from men any say in whether they could have children).

Equally eyebrow-raising is his linking of contraception to the breakdown of families, female impoverishment, trouble in the relationship between the sexes, and single motherhood. Tiger has further argued — as Humanae Vitae did not explicitly, though other works of Catholic theology have — for a causal link between contraception and abortion, stating outright that "with effective contraception controlled by women, there are still more abortions than ever. . . . Contraception causes abortion."

Who could deny that the predictions of Humanae Vitae and, by extension, of Catholic moral theology have been ratified with data and arguments that did not even exist in 1968? But now comes the question that just keeps on giving. Has this dramatic reappraisal of the empirically known universe led to any secular reappraisals, however grudging, that Paul VI may have gotten something right after all? The answer is manifestly that it has not. And this is only the beginning of the dissonance that surrounds us in 2008.

III

Just as empirical evidence has proved that the sexual revolution has had disastrous effects on children and families, so the past forty years have destroyed the mantle called "science" that Humanae Vitae's detractors once wrapped round themselves. In particular, the doomsday population science so popular and influential during the era in which Humanae Vitae appeared has been repeatedly demolished.

Born from Thomas Robert Malthus' famous late-eighteenth-century Essay on Population, this was the novel view that humanity itself amounted to a kind of scourge or pollution whose pressure on fellow members would lead to catastrophe. Though rooted in other times and places, Malthusianism of one particular variety was fully in bloom in America by the early 1960s. In fact, Humanae Vitae appeared two months before the most successful popularization of Malthusian thinking yet, Paul R. Ehrlich's The Population Bomb — which opened with the words: "The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now."

If, as George Weigel has suggested, 1968 was absolutely the worst moment for Humanae Vitae to appear, it could not have been a better one for Ehrlich to advance his apocalyptic thesis. An entomologist who specialized in butterflies, Ehrlich found an American public, including a generation of Catholics, extraordinarily receptive to his direst thoughts about humanity.

This was the wave that The Population Bomb caught on its way to becoming one of the bestsellers of recent times. Of course, many people with no metaphysics whatsoever were drawn to Ehrlich's doom-mongering. But for restless Catholics, in particular, the overpopulation scare was attractive — for if overpopulation were the problem, the solution was obvious: Tell the Church to lift the ban on birth control.

It is less than coincidental that the high-mindedness of saving the planet dovetailed perfectly with a more self-interested outcome, the freer pursuit of sexuality via the Pill. Dissenting Catholics had special reasons to stress the "science of overpopulation," and so they did. In the name of a higher morality, their argument went, birth control could be defended as the lesser of two evils (a position argued by the dissenter Charles Curran, among others).

Less than half a century later, these preoccupations with overwhelming birth rates appear as pseudo-scientific as phrenology. Actually, that may be unfair to phrenology. For the overpopulation literature has not only been abandoned by thinkers for more improved science; it has actually been so thoroughly proved false that today's cutting-edge theory worries about precisely the opposite: a "dearth birth" that is "graying" the advanced world.

In fact, so discredited has the overpopulation science become that this year Columbia University historian Matthew Connelly could publish Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population and garner a starred review in Publishers Weekly — all in service of what is probably the single best demolition of the population arguments that some hoped would undermine church teaching. This is all the more satisfying a ratification because Connelly is so conscientious in establishing his own personal antagonism toward the Catholic Church (at one point asserting without even a footnote that natural family planning "still fails most couples who try it").

Fatal Misconception is decisive proof that the spectacle of overpopulation, which was used to browbeat the Vatican in the name of science, was a grotesque error all along. First, Connelly argues, the population-control movement was wrong as a matter of fact: "The two strongest claims population controllers make for their long-term historical contribution" are "that they raised Asia out of poverty and helped keep our planet habitable." Both of these, he demonstrates, are false.

Even more devastating is Connelly's demolition of the claim to moral high ground that the overpopulation alarmists made. For population science was not only failing to help people, Connelly argues, but also actively harming some of them — and in a way that summoned some of the baser episodes of recent historical memory:

The great tragedy of population control, the fatal misconception, was to think that one could know other people's interests better than they knew it themselves. . . . The essence of population control, whether it targeted migrants, the "unfit," or families that seemed either too big or too small, was to make rules for other people without having to answer to them. It appealed to people with power because, with the spread of emancipatory movements, it began to appear easier and more profitable to control populations than to control territory. That is why opponents were essentially correct in viewing it as another chapter in the unfinished business of imperialism.

The forty years since Humanae Vitae appeared have also vindicated the encyclical's fear that governments would use the new contraceptive technology coercively. The outstanding example, of course, is the Chinese government's long-running "one-child policy," replete with forced abortions, public trackings of menstrual cycles, family flight, increased female infanticide, sterilization, and other assaults too numerous even to begin cataloguing here — in fact, so numerous that they are now widely, if often grudgingly, acknowledged as wrongs even by international human-rights bureaucracies. Lesser-known examples include the Indian government's foray into coercive use of contraception in the "emergency" of 1976 and 1977, and the Indonesian government's practice in the 1970s and 1980s of the bullying implantation of IUDs and Norplant.

Should governments come to "regard this as necessary," Humanae Vitae warned, "they may even impose their use on everyone." As with the unintended affirmation by social science, will anyone within the ranks of the population revisionists now give credit where credit is due?

IV

Perhaps the most mocked of Humanae Vitae's predictions was its claim that separating sex from procreation would deform relations between the sexes and "open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards." Today, when advertisements for sex scream from every billboard and webpage, and every teen idol is sooner or later revealed topless or worse online, some might wonder what further proof could possibly be offered.

But to leave matters there would be to miss something important. The critical point is, one might say, not so much the proof as the pudding it's in. And it would be hard to get more ironic than having these particular predictions of Humanae Vitae vindicated by perhaps the most unlikely — to say nothing of unwilling — witness of all: modern feminism.

Yet that is exactly what has happened since 1968. From Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem to Andrea Dworkin and Germaine Greer on up through Susan Faludi and Naomi Wolf, feminist literature has been a remarkably consistent and uninterrupted cacophony of grievance, recrimination, and sexual discontent. In that forty-year record, we find, as nowhere else, personal testimony of what the sexual revolution has done to womankind.

Consider just what we have been told by the endless books on the topic over the years. If feminists married and had children, they lamented it. If they failed to marry or have children, they lamented that, too. If they worked outside the home and also tended their children, they complained about how hard that was. If they worked outside the home and didn't tend their children, they excoriated anyone who thought they should. And running through all this literature is a more or less constant invective about the unreliability and disrespect of men.

The signature metaphors of feminism say everything we need to know about how happy liberation has been making these women: the suburban home as concentration camp, men as rapists, children as intolerable burdens, fetuses as parasites, and so on. These are the sounds of liberation? Even the vaunted right to abortion, both claimed and exercised at extraordinary rates, did not seem to mitigate the misery of millions of these women after the sexual revolution.

Coming full circle, feminist and Vanity Fair contributor Leslie Bennetts recently published a book urging women to protect themselves financially and otherwise from dependence on men, including from men deserting them later in life. Mothers cannot afford to stay home with their children, she argues, because they cannot trust their men not to leave them. (One of her subjects calls desertion and divorce "the slaughter of the lambs.") Like-minded feminist Linda Hirschman penned a ferocious and widely read manifesto in 2005 urging, among other bitter "solutions," that women protect themselves by adopting — in effect — a voluntary one-child policy. (She argued that a second child often necessitates a move to the suburbs, which puts the office and work-friendly conveniences further away).

Beneath all the pathos, the subtext remains the same: Woman's chief adversary is Unreliable Man, who does not understand her sexual and romantic needs and who walks off time and again at the first sashay of a younger thing. What are all these but the generic cries of a woman who thinks that men are "disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium" and "no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection"?

Perhaps the most compelling case made for traditional marriage lately was not on the cover of, say, Catholic World Report but in the devoutly secular Atlantic. The 2008 article "Marry Him!" by Lori Gottlieb — a single mother who conceived her only child with donor sperm rather than miss out on motherhood as she has on marriage — is a frank and excruciatingly personal look into some of the sexual revolution's lonelier venues, including the creation of children by anonymous or absent sperm donors, the utter corrosiveness of taking a consumerist approach to romance, and the miserable effects of advancing age on one's sexual marketability.

Gottlieb writes as one who played by all the feminist rules, only to realize too late that she'd been had. Beneath the zippy language, the article runs on an engine of mourning. Admitting how much she covets the husbands of her friends, if only for the wistful relief of having someone else help with the childcare, Gottlieb advises: "Those of us who choose not to settle in hopes of finding a soul mate later are almost like teenagers who believe they're invulnerable to dying in a drunk-driving accident. We lose sight of our mortality. We forget that we, too, will age and become less alluring. And even if some men do find us engaging, and they're ready to have a family, they'll likely decide to marry someone younger with whom they can have their own biological children. Which is all the more reason to settle before settling is no longer an option."

To these and other examples of how feminist-minded writers have become inadvertent witnesses for the prosecution of the sexual revolution, we might add recent public reflection on the Pill's bastard child, ubiquitous pornography.

"The onslaught of porn," one social observer wrote, "is responsible for deadening male libido in relation to real women, and leading men to see fewer and fewer women as 'porn-worthy.'" Further, "sexual appetite has become like the relationship between agribusiness, processed foods, supersize portions, and obesity. . . . If your appetite is stimulated and fed by poor-quality material, it takes more junk to fill you up. People are not closer because of porn but further apart; people are not more turned on in their daily lives but less so." And perhaps most shocking of all, this — which with just a little tweaking could easily have appeared in Humanae Vitae itself: "The power and charge of sex are maintained when there is some sacredness to it, when it is not on tap all the time."

This was not some religious antiquarian. It was Naomi Wolf — Third Wave feminist and author of such works as The Beauty Myth and Promiscuities, which are apparently dedicated to proving that women can tomcat, too. Yet she is now just one of many out there giving testimony, unconscious though it may be, to some of the funny things that happened after the Pill freed everybody from sexual slavery once and for all.

That there is no auxiliary literature of grievance for men — who, for the most part, just don't seem to feel they have as much to grieve about in this new world order — is something else that Humanae Vitae and a few other retrograde types saw coming in the wake of the revolution. As the saying goes, and as many people did not stop to ask at the time, cui bono? Forty years later, the evidence is in. As Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver observed on Humanae Vitae's thirtieth anniversary in 1998, "Contraception has released males — to a historically unprecedented degree — from responsibility for their sexual aggression." Will any feminist who by 2008 disagrees with that statement please stand up?

V

The adversaries of Humanae Vitae also could not have foreseen one important historical development that in retrospect would appear to undermine their demands that the Catholic Church change with the times: the widespread Protestant collapse, particularly the continuing implosion of the Episcopal Church and the other branches of Anglicanism. It is about as clear as any historical chain can get that this implosion is a direct consequence of the famous Lambeth Conference in 1930, at which the Anglicans abandoned the longstanding Christian position on contraception. If a church cannot tell its flock "what to do with my body," as the saying goes, with regard to contraception, then other uses of that body will quickly prove to be similarly off-limits to ecclesiastical authority.

It makes perfect if unfortunate sense, then, that the Anglicans are today imploding over the issue of homosexuality. To quote Anscombe again:

If contraceptive intercourse is permissible, then what objection could there be after all to mutual masturbation, or copulation in vase indebito, sodomy, buggery (I should perhaps remark that I am using a legal term here — not indulging in bad language), when normal copulation is impossible or inadvisable (or in any case, according to taste)? It can't be the mere pattern of bodily behavior in which the stimulation is procured that makes all the difference! But if such things are all right, it becomes perfectly impossible to see anything wrong with homosexual intercourse, for example. I am not saying: if you think contraception all right you will do these other things; not at all. The habit of respectability persists and old prejudices die hard. But I am saying: you will have no solid reason against these things. You will have no answer to someone who proclaims as many do that they are good too. You cannot point to the known fact that Christianity drew people out of the pagan world, always saying no to these things. Because, if you are defending contraception, you will have rejected Christian tradition.

By giving benediction in 1930 to its married heterosexual members purposely seeking sterile sex, the Anglican Church lost, bit by bit, any authority to tell her other members — married or unmarried, homosexual or heterosexual — not to do the same. To put the point another way, once heterosexuals start claiming the right to act as homosexuals, it would not be long before homosexuals start claiming the rights of heterosexuals.

Thus in a bizarre but real sense did Lambeth's attempt to show compassion to married heterosexuals inadvertently give rise to the modern gay-rights movement — and consequently, to the issues that have divided their church ever since. It is hard to believe that anyone seeking a similar change in Catholic teaching on the subject would want the Catholic Church to follow suit into the moral and theological confusion at the center of today's Anglican Church — yet such is the purposeful ignorance of so many who oppose Rome on birth control that they refuse to connect these cautionary historical dots.

The years since Humanae Vitae have seen something else that neither traditionalist nor dissenting Catholics could have seen coming, one other development shedding retrospective credit on the Church: a serious reappraisal of Christian sexuality from Protestants outside the liberal orbit.

Thus, for instance, Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, observed in First Things in 1998 that "in an ironic turn, American evangelicals are rethinking birth control even as a majority of the nation's Roman Catholics indicate a rejection of their Church's teaching." Later, when interviewed in a 2006 article in the New York Times Sunday magazine about current religious thinking on artificial contraception, Mohler elaborated: "I cannot imagine any development in human history, after the Fall, that has had a greater impact on human beings than the Pill. . . . The entire horizon of the sexual act changes. I think there can be no question that the Pill gave incredible license to everything from adultery and affairs to premarital sex and within marriage to a separation of the sex act and procreation."

Mohler also observed that this legacy of damage was affecting the younger generation of evangelicals. "I detect a huge shift. Students on our campus are intensely concerned. Not a week goes by that I do not get contacted by pastors about the issue. There are active debates going on. It's one of the things that may serve to divide evangelicalism." Part of that division includes Quiverfull, the anti-contraception Protestant movement now thought to number in the tens of thousands that further prohibits (as the Catholic Church does not) natural family planning or any other conscious interference with conception. Such second thoughts among evangelicals are the premise of a 2002 book titled Open Embrace: A Protestant Couple Re-Thinks Contraception.

As a corollary to this rethinking by Protestants, experience seems to have taught a similar lesson to at least some young Catholics — the generation to grow up under divorce, widespread contraception, fatherless households, and all the other emancipatory fallout. As Naomi Schaefer Riley noted in the Wall Street Journal about events this year at Notre Dame: "About thirty students walked out of The Vagina Monologues in protest after the first scene. And people familiar with the university are not surprised that it was the kids, not the grownups, who registered the strongest objections. The students are probably the most religious part of the Notre Dame . . . Younger Catholics tend to be among the more conservative ones." It is hard to imagine that something like the traditionalist Anscombe Society at Princeton University, started in 2004, could have been founded in 1968.

One thing making traditionalists of these young Americans, at least according to some of them, is the fact of their having grown up in a world characterized by abortion on demand. And that brings us to yet another irony worth contemplating on this fortieth anniversary: what widespread rejection of Humanae Vitae has done to the character of American Catholicism.

As with the other ironies, it helps here to have a soft spot for absurdity. In their simultaneous desire to jettison the distasteful parts of Catholicism and keep the more palatable ones, American Catholics have done something novel and truly amusing: They have created a specific catalogue of complaints that resembles nothing so much as a Catholic version of the orphan with chutzpah.

Thus many Catholics complain about the dearth of priests, all the while ignoring their own responsibility for that outcome — the fact that few have children in numbers large enough to send one son to the priesthood while the others marry and carry on the family name. They mourn the closing of Catholic churches and schools — never mind that whole parishes, claiming the rights of individual conscience, have contracepted themselves out of existence. They point to the priest sex scandals as proof positive that chastity is too much to ask of people — completely ignoring that it was the randy absence of chastity that created the scandals in the first place.

In fact, the disgrace of contemporary American Catholicism — the many recent scandals involving priests and underage boys — is traceable to the collusion between a large Catholic laity that wanted a different birth-control doctrine, on the one hand, and a new generation of priests cutting themselves a different kind of slack, on the other. "I won't tattle on my gay priest if you'll give me absolution for contraception" seems to have been the unspoken deal in many parishes since Humanae Vitae.

A more obedient laity might have wondered aloud about the fact that a significant number of priests post-Vatican II seemed more or less openly gay. A more obedient clergy might have noticed that plenty of Catholics using artificial contraception were also taking Communion. It is hard to believe that either new development — the widespread open rebellion against church sexual teachings by the laity, or the concomitant quiet rebellion against church sexual teachings by a significant number of priests — could have existed without the other.

During Benedict's recent visit to the United States, one heard a thousand times the insistence that Humanae Vitae somehow sparked a rebellion or was something new under the sun. As Peter Steinfels once put the over-familiar party line, "The pope's 1968 encyclical and the furor it created continue to polarize the American church." On this account, everything was somehow fine until Paul VI refused to bend with the times — at which point all hell broke loose.

Of course, all that Paul VI did, as Anscombe among many other unapologetic Catholics then and since have pointed out, was reiterate what just about everyone in the history of Christendom had ever said on the subject. In asking Catholics to be more like contraceptive-accepting Protestants, critics have been forgetting what Christian theologians across centuries had to say about contraception until practically the day before yesterday.

It was, in a word, No. Exactly one hundred years ago, for example, the Lambeth Conference of 1908 affirmed its opposition to artificial contraception in words harsher than anything appearing in Humanae Vitae: "demoralizing to character and hostile to national welfare." In another historical twist that must have someone laughing somewhere, pronouncements of the founding fathers of Protestantism make the Catholic traditionalists of 1968 look positively diffident. Martin Luther in a commentary on Genesis declared contraception to be worse than incest or adultery. John Calvin called it an "unforgivable crime." This unanimity was not abandoned until the year 1930, when the Anglicans voted to allow married couples to use birth control in extreme cases, and one denomination after another over the years came to follow suit.

Seen in the light of actual Christian tradition, the question is not after all why the Catholic Church refused to collapse on the point. It is rather why just about everyone else in the Judeo-Christian tradition did. Whatever the answer, the Catholic Church took, and continues to take, the public fall for causing a collapse — when actually it was the only one not collapsing.

VI

From time to time since 1968, some of the Catholics who accepted "the only doctrine that had ever appeared as the teaching of the Church on these things," in Anscombe's words, have puzzled over why, exactly, Humanae Vitae has been so poorly received by the rest of the world. Surely part of it is timing, as George Weigel observed. Others have cited an implacably secular media and the absence of a national pulpit for Catholics as contributing factors. Still others have floated the idea that John Paul II's theology of the body, an elaborate and highly positive explication of Christian moral teaching, might have taken some of the sting out of Humanae Vitae and better won the obedience of the flock.

At the end of the day, though, it is hard to believe that the fundamental force behind the execration by the world amounts to a phrase here and there in Humanae Vitae — or in Augustine, or in Thomas Aquinas, or in anywhere else in the long history of Christian teaching on the subject. More likely, the fundamental issue is rather what Archbishop Chaput explained ten years ago: "If Paul VI was right about so many of the consequences deriving from contraception, it is because he was right about contraception itself."

This is exactly the connection few people in 2008 want to make, because contraceptive sex — as commentators from all over, religious or not, agree — is the fundamental social fact of our time. And the fierce and widespread desire to keep it so is responsible for a great many perverse outcomes. Despite an empirical record that is unmistakably on Paul VI's side by now, there is extraordinary resistance to crediting Catholic moral teaching with having been right about anything, no matter how detailed the record.

Considering the human spectacle today, forty years after the document whose widespread rejection reportedly broke Paul VI's heart, one can't help but wonder how he might have felt if he had glimpsed only a fraction of the evidence now available — whether any of it might have provoked just the smallest wry smile.

After all, it would take a heart of stone not to find at least some of what's now out there funny as hell. There is the ongoing empirical vindication in one arena after another of the most unwanted, ignored, and ubiquitously mocked global teaching of the past fifty years. There is the fact that the Pill, which was supposed to erase all consequences of sex once and for all, turned out to have huge consequences of its own. There is the way that so many Catholics, embarrassed by accusations of archaism and driven by their own desires to be as free for sex as everyone around them, went racing for the theological exit signs after Humanae Vitae — all this just as the world with its wicked old ways began stockpiling more evidence for the Church's doctrine than anyone living in previous centuries could have imagined, and while still other people were actually being brought closer to the Church because she stood exactly as that "sign of contradiction" when so many in the world wanted otherwise.

Yet instead of vindication for the Church, there is demoralization; instead of clarity, mass confusion; instead of more obedience, ever less. Really, the perversity is, well, perverse. In what other area does humanity operate at this level of extreme, daily, constant contradiction? Where is the Boccaccio for this post-Pill Decameron? It really is all very funny, when you stop to think about it. So why isn't everybody down here laughing?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mary Eberstadt is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, author of Home-Alone America, and editor of Why I Turned Right: Leading Baby Boom Conservatives Chronicle Their Political Journeys.

© Institute on Religion and Public Life

This item 8380 digitally provided courtesy of CatholicCulture.org

available at http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=8380

accessed 21 November 2010

Unoriginal

2010-11-23T19:42:00.000-08:00

Opinion
By: Alex Magno
(The Philippine Star)
Updated November 20, 2010 12:00 AM

Links: http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=631761&publicationSubCategoryId=64

The Department of Tourism (DOT) says it will conduct public consultations regarding its controversial campaign logo. That is quite unnecessary.

The world of social media has spoken. The ad has been trashed. It is not only uninspiring; it is also unoriginal.

Trust the world of social media to uncover what might have been thought to be undiscoverable. The new DOT logo has been found to be “plagiarized” — it uses the same font and basically the same colors as Poland’s tourism campaign logo.

Tourism Secretary Bertie Lim tries to play down the obvious unoriginality by saying the Pilipinas Kay Ganda logo has more colors. Yes, just one more color. Okay, there is a tarsier there to help clutter that logo along with the dictionary entry.

That is such a lame defense. He could have gone on the offensive by proclaiming that the controversial logo, by being as cluttered as a jeepney’s hood, is truly Filipino.

The font, however, is still Poland’s. With all the visual art talent we have around, couldn’t the DOT have found someone to render the logo manually?

Aren’t we the design and advertising powerhouse of the region? We are now told Filipinos designed and executed the “Malaysia Truly Asia” campaign. That is a classic in messaging.

Why did we have to drastically shift our advertising logo anyway? There is value in using the same logo or tagline over a long period. Retention takes time; familiarity produces value. If we keep on changing our campaign motif, it will not be remembered. There will be no accrual of value. The icon will not stick.

There is nothing wrong with the old tourism campaign logo. The DOT, it appears, wants to change it simply because there has been a change of administration. But it adopted an inferior campaign motif whose design is uninspired and whose message is unclear.

Any ad executive will tell you that the success of a promotional campaign rests on having a unique selling proposition. The new motif does not have that.

The Polish icon from which DOT copied its proposed one has only one word. So is the tourism promotional logo from many other countries. Spain’s colorful promotional logo comes to mind. Why did the DOT choose this one?

Using computer-assisted design is simply too lazy. The logo will, after all, be the centerpiece of a multi-million dollar global campaign to lift our tourism industry from the dustbin. It deserved greater effort in design and messaging.

Because the DOT did not invest due diligence in reissuing the tourism promotional campaign, the entire administration pay the political price of ineradicable impressions formed through the social media networks. That political price is being compounded with every careless incident like this one.

The hostage fiasco inflicted on this administration the impression that it is callous and incompetent. The Mislang affair inflicted the impression that it is petty. Now this small thing about a campaign logo inflicts the impression that this administration is indolent and unimaginative.

That is the truly damaging thing. The impressions build upon each other, reinforce the other.

In this age of social media pervasiveness, a consensus could be formed in the public mind within hours. That consensus is freely arrived at by all the participants in the sum of all blogs and tweets on a particular matter. It is, therefore, a consensus that can no longer be reversed.

We were made to understand that the “strategic communications group” — or at least part of it — was organized to manage the social media environment. That was, as we now see, probably and erroneous premise. Indeed, how could the social media be managed? How could this administration even dare aspire to manage the social media environment?

When the hostage tragedy happened, government portals were flooded with hate mail. Some portals were actually taken down by the sheer volume of mail coming in.

When Mislang made that casual comment about the quality of wine served by the Vietnamese, the outrage over the sheer lack of manners and pure pettiness of the comment flooded the blogs. Special websites were set up as impromptu public billboards to accommodate all the indignation expressed.

This week, the provocation is that completely unoriginal DOT campaign logo. This is a controversy that ought to have been avoidable. Before making that logo public, the DOT might have quietly conducted focus group discussions. They did not. They simply threw out that logo to the public to be feasted upon by the bloggers.

Today, for all intents and purposes, the public resoundingly rejected that logo. No need to do “public consultations.” That is so 20th century. The public review is done. It was accomplished in the world of social media. Traditional media can only echo the consensus that only social media can forge at such speed.

In all the previous encounters between this administration and the social media world, the administration response is late by what could be a lifetime. Ironically, this is an administration among whose first acts was to set up an apparatus to preempt if not overwhelm the social media.

There is much to learn about this latest encounter — and it’s not primarily about logo design or the brass tacks of mounting an advertising campaign. It is about the swiftness with which a constituency could respond to a slip or an act of utter carelessness. That swiftness will make any effort to “manage” social media futile.

Funding a “strategic communications group” will very likely be futile. What this administration must do is build an ethic of due diligence among the cadre it has chosen to run this government.

‘Twisting in the wind’

2010-11-23T19:31:00.000-08:00

Opinion

By Ramon J. Farolan
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 05:13:00 11/15/2010
p. A15

http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20101115-303313/Twisting-in-the-wind

LAST SEPTEMBER, in the wake of the hostage crisis at the Luneta, I mentioned that Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse M. Robredo, Undersecretary Rico Puno and PNP chief Jesus Verzosa had to go if we are to maintain the respect and confidence of the international community.

Well, Robredo and Puno are still around while Verzosa retired from the service earlier.

More than two months after the fiasco, three things have become quite clear to our people:

First, the level of respect and confidence of our neighbors is best reflected in the recent travel advisory of Japan. While the advisory did not mention the possibility of a terror attack in the Philippines, Japanese Ambassador Makoto Katsura explained that it was a reminder for their nationals “to take safety measures against any security concerns like robbery and kidnapping.” That was a mouthful and says a lot about their confidence in the ability of police agencies to maintain peace and order in the country.

Second, Undersecretary Puno is going to be around for some time regardless of what he does or fails to do in his job as chief of the PNP chief. All policemen from the lowliest private, to the director general of the organization, now know who will be calling the shots when it comes to police matters regardless of who is the interior and local government secretary. After all, with Puno touting himself as one of the few individuals capable of “taming” the President, who in his right mind would dare cross swords with him?

Third, Secretary Robredo remains in limbo as the Palace tries its very best to explain why he remains in the Cabinet as interior and local government secretary.

Consider the following presidential statements or announcements regarding Robredo’s status:

In an interview on ABS-CBN’s “TV Patrol,” P-Noy declared that Interior and Local Government Secretary Robredo and Environment Secretary Ramon Paje would soon be replaced. In particular, he said “I still do not have clear plans for Robredo ... We have programs for informal settlers so a new group may help out on this subject which is really along Robredo’s expertise.”

The following day he seemed to backpedal a bit, denying that a Cabinet revamp was in the offing. He clarified earlier remarks that suggested that Robredo was being transferred to head another agency. “Jesse Robredo can head that agency but as of now, there are no plans to transfer him because the matter is still being studied.” This was followed up by Deputy Presidential Spokesperson Abigail Valte, saying that the Palace was “exploring other possibilities” for Robredo.

Perhaps, it would have been more prudent and less humiliating for people if the proposed agency was in place before announcing any possible personnel movements.

The last word on Robredo is that President Aquino did not submit his name to the Commission on Appointments for confirmation.

So, is Robredo staying or going? All indications point to his departure and this may be only a question of time. Until then, he remains in his post, “twisting in the wind.”

Let me repeat what I said earlier. Jesse Robredo, a 2000 Ramon Magsaysay awardee for Government Service, has much to offer in terms of serving his country. It does not have to be in a government position. A Cabinet post involves having the complete trust and confidence of the appointing power. It was obvious from the start of the hostage crisis that Robredo did not possess this vital requirement.

* * *

On the amnesty issue.

In early August of this year, President Benigno Aquino III publicly declared that “Trillanes may have been a victim of injustice.” My reaction was that in his own time he would do what is right to correct the injustice.

Last month, the President signed Proclamation No. 50 “granting amnesty to active and former personnel of the Armed Forces and their supporters who may have committed acts or omissions punishable under the Revised Penal Code, the Articles of War, or other special laws committed in connection with the Oakwood mutiny, the Marines’ stand-off and the Manila Pen incident, and related incidents.”

One of the reasons cited by the President for the amnesty proclamation was to “promote an atmosphere conducive to the attainment of a just, comprehensive and enduring peace, and in line with the government’s peace and reconciliation initiatives, there is a need to declare amnesty in favor of the said personnel of the AFP.”

Concurrence by both houses of Congress is expected shortly. Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, along with 16 other senators, has expressed support for the proclamation. In the House of Representatives, House Resolution No. 524 is expected to push through with the majority supporting the presidential proclamation. Rep. Rodolfo Biazon, chair of the House Defense Committee, proposed returning the proclamation to Malacañang for corrections.

Incidentally, Armed Forces spokesperson Brig. Gen. Jose Mabanta Jr. said the military was consulted before President Aquino issued the amnesty proclamation. He went on to say that “the military through Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin had recommended amnesty for the officers and soldiers...”

With regard to Biazon’s proposal to return the proclamation to the Palace, Senate President Enrile declared that although the House has the right to study the problem, he believes Congress should “respect the policy established by the President. The President has issued a proclamation and it will be impolite for the allies in the house to negate his proposal. I believe in the end they will have to approve it.”

Personally, as I have indicated in the past, I support the amnesty move of the President. I believe these officers have already paid a high price for their idealism and opposition to a government they believed was corrupt and illegal. In the case of Sen. Antonio Trillanes, he has been in jail for seven years, four months—just three months short of the imprisonment of Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. who was detained for seven years and seven months before being allowed to leave the country. Let me also remind our people that Trillanes was elected by the votes of more than 11 million Filipinos in the 2007 elections, besting some of the most powerful candidates of the Arroyo administration. It is time for their elected official to be heard in the halls of the Senate.

In the case of Jose Ma. Sison and his cohorts, they were granted amnesty and one of the justifications given for the amnesty is that they supported the movement to overthrow President Marcos.

Let’s not kid ourselves. Their main objective was to abolish our democratic way of life, replacing it with a communist dictatorship and if the fall of Marcos was necessary to attain this objective, they were only too happy to lend a helping hand.

Army won’t buck release of Morong 43

2010-11-12T22:12:00.001-08:00

By Cynthia Balana
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 04:45:00 10/29/2010

Filed Under: insurgency, Healthcare Providers
MANILA, Philippines—The Army said it will not oppose the release of the “Morong 43” if that is what President Benigno Aquino III wishes, despite the “strong evidence” that they are members of the outlawed communist New People’s Army (NPA).

“We are a very professional organization. Whatever the President’s desire on this, of course we will support that. We are a team player,” said Army spokesperson Col. Antonio Parlade.

After he issued an amnesty to all the officers and soldiers being tried for repeated attempts to bring down the previous Arroyo government, Mr. Aquino has been besieged with demands that he extend the same magnanimity to the group of 43 health workers who were arrested on suspicion of being NPA members in Morong, Rizal, last February.

However, not everyone in the Armed Forces would be “happy” if the Morong 43 are granted amnesty, Parlade said.

Giving them a reprieve would affect the morale of troops, he said.

“We are not saying that everybody will be happy. We would be hypocrites if we say they are happy but just the same, like I said we will support whatever the decision of the President,” he said.

Parlade said it would not be necessary for the Armed Forces to appeal to the President and dissuade him from granting the amnesty.

President knows

“He was properly apprised of the updates on this case. So the President knows, so we don’t have to make any appeal to the President,” he said.

Parlade said the military would rather let the court decide the case, adding that the Armed Forces owed it to the people to let them know that these were actually NPAs before they are granted amnesty.

He claimed that five of the 43 had already admitted to being NPAs. He expected the others to do the same in time, he said.

Authorities have claimed that the 43 were conducting a seminar on the making of explosives when they were arrested in the Morong resthouse. They said the raiding team recovered a variety of firearms and substances used in the making of bombs as well as subversive documents.

According to Parlade, most of the 43 belonged to the national health bureau of the NPA while the others played secondary roles such as that of medics and logisticians.

The group’s supporters claim, however, that they were indeed health workers who were attending a medical lecture. They have accused the military of subjecting the Morong 43 to torture and harassment.

“It doesn’t change the fact that they are NPA medics. Definitely, they are not health workers,” Parlade stressed.

He said the arrest was done legally, and that the soldiers were armed with the proper warrants.

Parlade denied that the detainees had been tortured or that some of the women were raped, insisting that their civil rights were respected.

P10-b Peace bonds mature next year at P35b, admits Code-NGO

2010-11-12T22:10:00.000-08:00

by Christine F. Herrera

Manila's Standard Today – October 29, 2010

THE government will pay investors P35 billion in 2011 for the P10 billion in Peace bonds that it floated nine years ago, officials of the Caucus of Development NGO Networks said Thursday.

Code-NGO and the Peace and Equity Foundation said the 10-year zero-coupon Poverty Eradication and Alleviation Certificate Bonds that were issued on Oct. 16, 2001, would earn for investors 12.75 percent in compounded interest when the government securities matured next year.

“The government did not lose money but actually saved some P2.7 billion because the 12.75- percent interest rate was lower than the 16.93- percent prevailing rate of similar notes in the market at the time of the sale of the Peace Bonds,” Sixto Donato Macasaet, Code-NGO executive director, told reporters.

He said Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman, who used to head Code-NGO, ceased to have anything to do with the bonds when she left the group to join the Arroyo administration as Social Welfare secretary.

Soliman is accused of having been involved in the float that resulted in Code-NGO earning P1.4-billion in commissions.

Macasaet said at least 30 bids were submitted by 15 local and five foreign banks during the auction, with Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. winning with the lowest offered interest rate.

“With 10-year zero-coupon bonds, the government does not pay the semi-annual interest but instead makes a lump-sum payment of the face value of P35 billion when the bonds mature,” he said.

“The P10.169 billion, the amount that the government borrowed, earned for investors an interest of 12.75 percent per year compounded semi-annually over 10 years. The total to be paid back to investors would be P35 billion, the face value of the bonds.”

The zero-coupon bonds were a better way for the government to finance its development projects because it would not have to pay semi-annual interest, Macasaet said.

The interest on the 10-year bonds would come to P25 billion, while the principal was P10 billion, for a total of P35 billion.

When the bonds were floated, Code-NGO, the Treasury, and RCBC already knew that, after 10 years, the government would have to pay out P35 billion, Macasaet said.

“But Code-NGO never had a say on where the government would bring the P10 billion,” he said.

“The money was turned over to the National Treasury. We thought if Code-NGO would not enter into such transaction, others would do so anyway, so we just made sure that the profit from it would go directly to poverty-reduction projects and funding for these projects are continuing up to now.”

Macasaet admitted that the bond float earned for Code-NGO some P1.4 billion in commissions, and of that P1.3 billion was turned over to the Peace and Equity Foundation for various livelihood and anti-poverty projects.

Veronica Villavicencio, the foundation’s director, said Code-NGO established the PEF, led by Cagayan de Oro Archbishop Antonio Ledesma, to preserve and manage the endowment fund of P1.318 billion raised from the sale of the Peace Bonds.

Of the P1.318 billion, some P404 million was allocated to several projects in Mindanao, P238.21 million went to the Visayas, P267.45 million was spent on Luzon, and P154.73 million went to the National Capital Region, Villavicencio said.

Macasaet said RCBC bought the bonds for P10.169 billion through a public auction, and was able to sell them in the secondary market for P11.995 billion and remitted a profit of P1.826 billion to Code-NGO.

“Code-NGO paid fees of P340 million to its agent and financial advisers from the profit. Thus, it made a net profit of P1.486 billion through this private transaction,” Macasaet said.

Code-NGO retained P168 million for its network members and transferred the endowment fund of P1.318 billion to PEF, Macasaet said.

He said Code-NGO needed an innovative way to finance its poverty alleviation programs because its main source of funding from foreign grants was shrinking.

Neither Soliman nor peace adviser Teresita Deles had anything to do with the bond float.

“Dinky [Soliman] and Ging Deles were never involved in the meetings, conceptualization, negotiations and bidding related to the zero-coupon bonds,” Macasaet said.

Soliman resigned as Code-NGO chairman in January 2001, when she was appointed Social Welfare secretary by then President Gloria Arroyo, he said. Deles was never a member of Code-NGO.

On March 3, 2001, Marissa Camacho, who took over as chairman from Soliman, presented to then Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo a request for the issuance of the zero-coupon bonds, Macasaet said.

It was under Camacho’s leadership that the Peace Bonds were conceptualized and designed.

“When her brother Jose Isidro Camacho became Finance Secretary in June 2001, he inhibited himself in writing from transactions connected with the Peace bonds. Marissa also inhibited herself from such transactions from that point,” Macasaet said.

Ghost of Ate Glue haunts us still

2010-11-11T21:23:00.000-08:00

DEMAND AND SUPPLY By Boo Chanco (The Philippine Star) Updated November 01, 2010 12:00 AM Comments (5)
I cringe every time P-Noy says something that Ate Glue used to say. The ghost of Ate Glue just won’t leave us alone. And it seems P-Noy had been haunted by this ghost. Or what would possess P-Noy to say what he did while he was in Hanoi about the implications of a strong peso?
According to our reporter who covered P-Noy in his visit to Hanoi last week, “Mr. Aquino gladly interpreted the stronger peso against the dollar as an indication of a booming economy, or what he called an ‘emerging market or emerging economy,’ which means a better standard of living for all.” P-Noy, according to our reporter, “assuaged fears of not just overseas Filipino workers here but in other parts of the world as well that the strengthening of the peso means that the Philippines is now an ‘emerging economy’.”
Ano daw? NEDA Secretary Dondon Paderanga is sleeping on the job. He must realize that even if P-Noy has an undergraduate degree in Economics, his teacher was Ate Glue. No wonder it seems like the ghost of Ate Glue continues to haunt us still through P-Noy’s appreciation of economics. This is not a good sign at all.
We can understand some of the twisted principles of Glorianomics during Ate Glue’s watch. She was desperate to show she was a good economic manager and she had to sustain the illusion she was delivering results. Hence, every time she insisted that a strong peso is a sign of economic accomplishment, we just sighed and said “Whateverrrr!”
But P-Noy? Okay, it was good ego trip for P-Noy to keep on hearing from those eager to win his approval such things like the bullish stock market is on account of confidence he generated. That is anyway, partly true. The bigger part of the truth, however, is that investors are just fleeing the American and European markets and flocking to emerging markets like ours.
Sa bagay, if it was still Ate Glue at the Palace rather than P-Noy, the bullish sentiment for emerging markets could have passed us by. Even the Americans withheld the Millennium Development grant because they didn’t trust Ate Glue with their $500 million. But P-Noy must not totally believe all the bulls—t he is told by people who want contracts or appointments.
The peso is strong basically because OFW remittances have been strong even at the height of the world economic crisis. Of course, there is also no denying hot money looking for emerging market profits is part of the reason too.
P-Noy should sit down and have a long talk with Dondon P. who will have to tutor him on economics to banish the ghost of Ate Glue’s class lectures from his consciousness. The NEDA Chief should also start discussing with P-Noy the priorities in a long list of things to do in order to get the economy humming. The time for the ego trips about inspiring confidence from investors is over. Investors have served notice that unless deliverables are delivered soon enough, their confidence in P-Noy will be increasingly eroded.
In fact, that was the mood last week when the foreign chambers of commerce sat down to talk about what to do with the economy. Sure, the businessmen were pretty optimistic not just because of P-Noy’s credibility but also because what looks like a global pickup is about to make them end this year with some amount of respectable growth.
But everybody expressed worry about bottlenecks that may derail their fondest hopes and dreams for the economy. Among problems cited include: the strengthening peso, dwindling productivity, inadequate infrastructure and unclear government policies.
“We need more than 1,000 kilometers of toll roads just like Thailand,” Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. President Ramoncito S. Fernandez said, noting that the Philippines has only 300 kilometers in comparison. “If we can double this in five years, that’s a noble achievement already,” Mr. Fernandez said, adding that the government needs to “fast track the right of way process.”
Yes, also mentioned are: inadequate agriculture infrastructure, need for a roadmap to develop manufacturing, and a fresh marketing campaign to attract tourists to come in the face of our rather challenging international reputation for personal safety. Government is also being urged to address the big disincentive of high power rates. We have heard these all before.
There is also increasing impatience on the slow pace of P-Noy’s administration in securing low hanging fruits like NAIA 3. That terminal had been idle for over ten years now. I asked the German Ambassador last Thursday evening what was going on in the case and he could only shrug as if to say that nothing much is happening. Indeed, Piatco has sent eviction notices to the airlines and other merchants doing business in NAIA 3 who are there under the auspices of government.
I heard from another source that German Chancellor Angela Merkel sent a collection letter to then President Arroyo in connection with NAIA 3. Apparently, the German government had paid Fraport’s insurance claim for the failed project. Now, they are collecting from our government. So it is now a government-to-government dispute. We cannot afford to alienate Germany much longer.
Another low hanging fruit that is turning out to be more difficult to secure has to do with our aviation sector’s international safety rating. I heard from the grapevine that we flunked the European aviation agency’s evaluation again. I understand we only passed one of the many criteria in their checklist. A ghost of Ate Glue is still there at the CAAP… no wonder!
That means we cannot have a tourism drive in Europe because European tourists will not be able to get travel insurance if they want to come here. And if we cannot gain the nod of the Europeans, we aren’t likely to gain the approval of the US FAA. That means Philippine Airlines still cannot use their brand new fleet of long range aircrafts that are more fuel efficient.
In fairness, the administration was able to complete the LRT extension project from Balintawak to Trinoma. We haven’t heard much about the need to upgrade and add to the MRT coaches for the benefit of an increasing number of riders. NorthRail is still quite dead. And all we have heard about the LRT from Trinoma to San Jose del Monte in Bulacan are press releases from proponents.
Of utmost urgency is the power situation in the country and even in the main Luzon Grid. P-Noy has to be heard how he plans to handle what his own Energy department is saying about a 300-MW deficiency by next year. Power blackouts so early in P-Noy’s term will generate glee from political enemies who will call it an Aquino curse, by way of recalling the massive blackouts during his mother’s watch. If only for the sake of family honor, P-Noy must make sure nothing like that happens.
In the meantime, it is important for the nation to see a hardworking President and Cabinet. We may call Ate Glue a lot of names but she is undoubtedly a hardworking President. If only she worked hard for the country’s welfare rather than to merely preserve her precarious hold on power, we wouldn’t be in this dire situation now.
But the first order of business for P-Noy is to exorcise the ghost of Ate Glue. I refuse to believe I voted Ate Glue out of office only to have her continue to haunt the country through P-Noy. If I wanted an Ate Glue groupie, I would have voted for Gibo.
Dondon Paderanga hopefully will work harder in the Cabinet than he did at the PSE, CIBI and the other sideline jobs he had at that time. He has to straighten out our P-Noy, or we can forget hoping for anything in the next six years.