July 2008 Archives

PRESIDENT Arroyo's tough defense of the expanded value-added tax (E-VAT) in her 8th State of the Nation Address is expected. The government's varied programs on providing popular but band-aid solutions to rising fuel, power and food prices largely depends on it, thus she cannot compromise the future of the country, lest her administration which is facing a hard and uphill battle come national and local elections in 2010. While the good news is that this fiscal policy was implemented at the time when single-digit inflation rate was recorded prior to the abnormal rise of fuel cost and the looming recession of the US economy. These have indeed helped government shore up the much needed money to finance ongoing programs and projects for the masses. The bad news is that majority of the people can no longer afford to shell out the 12 percent VAT for basic goods and services. Even the lowly ants gather food during sunny days while taking a break when storms come. One needs not be a degree-holder of economics to know what is out there. All he or she has to do is check the public markets and ask the stall owners about their day-to-day sales, and most likely he or she will get a curt reply, "Matumal." Why? Because many Filipino families would rather buy cooked food from their "suking carinderia" to save money and fuel. Same is true with jeepney drivers plying a short distance like here in Singalong. People would rather take a walk than shell out P8.50, if not argue with the driver to give them senior citizens' or student’s discount. Thus it would have been more relevant and substantial if she announced that she will immediately convene the Legislative-Executive Committee to study the effects of lowering the 12 percent VAT to a more realistic figure in view of the prevailing economic hardship that the people -- whom she profoundly cared for -- have been experiencing in the recent past. All is not lost, however. It is time to listen to the voice of the people and give them hope than totally isolating the Palace and its occupant in an ivory tower. Rhoniel Enrile Narca, Singalong, Manila, (via e-mail)

In her much ballyhooed State of the Nation Address (SONA), Arroyo did not hide the fact that she has done nothing during her term as President to alleviate the problems of the country when she proclaimed: "Our country and our people have never failed to be there for us. Let us be there for them." Now, “Why just now?” And while admitting that the Filipino people have been very patient with her scandal-ridden term, she adds insult to injury by continuing to put the burden of VAT on the shoulders of the masses. The very same people she acknowledges to have "footed the bill"....ang nag-salba sa bayan! Arroyo should step down, not because of her dipping popularity ratings, but because she has admittedly failed to lead the nation out of its doldrums! Jun Bauzon Odono, Wazir Akhbar Khan, Kabul, Afghanistan (via e-mail)

On July 19. 2008, Pope Benedict XVI finally apologized to the victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clerics in Australia and even called for evildoers to be punished. Apologies and forgiveness are pieces of the human condition. What the Pope did was the proper thing to do even if there is no way that the life of innumerable victims can be made fully whole again. Not even with hefty monetary compensation, on top of the apology, as that the Catholic Diocese of Los Angeles agreed under duress to make to the victims of sexual abuse by catholic clerics in that diocese. Cardinal Mahoney acknowledged that the scars could not be erased and life rewound by the $660 million payments to 508 victims of abuse and child molestation when he lamented: “Your life, I wish, were like VHS tapes.” The Archdiocese of Boston has had 80 priests accused of child molestation in the last 50 years. The Catholic Church of America has with the Los Angeles settlement already agreed to accumulated compensation of $2 billion for sexual victimization by Catholic priests. The pattern appears to disrespect borders. While predation is clearly not a monopoly of the Catholic Church, the cases of pedophilic and hebephilic abuse seem more rampant in the Catholic Church, where celibacy for priests is mandatory. One therefore is prompted to wonder whether one deviant rule (mandatory celibacy) begets the deviant behavior (sexual victimization of children) and whether one will ever be truly banished without the other. Catholic Church apologies are not confined to sexual victimization. In 1992, Pope John Paul II apologized for the 1,633 condemnation and subsequent imprisonment of the great Renaissance astronomer and scientist Galileo Galilee. Galileo held that the Ptolemaic and biblical account of the universe as geocentric (the earth as the center of the universe) was wrong and must give way to the Copernican account of the heliocentric (sun-centered) universe. The Catholic Church considered his views heretical and clearly subversive of the foundational belief that the Bible is the source of God’s absolute truth. In the historic edict published on March 5 1616, the Holy Office stated that: “The view that the sun stands motionless at the center of the universe is foolish, philosophically false, and utterly heretical, because contrary to the Holy Scripture.” This view echoed the widespread belief among Catholic theologians that if Copernicus was right, the Bible would be wrong and would lose all its authority. Galileo’s retort was simple but unassailable: “I do not feel obliged to believe that that same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo of their use.” No matter. He was found guilty and sentenced to a life of house arrest. Galileo and Copernicus were of course right, and the Catholic Church in 1616 flat wrong. To uphold such error, the Italian Inquisition condemned Giordano Bruno, an ex-dominican monk also enthralled by the Copernican universe, to be burned at stake in 1600. Bruno taught beyond Copernicus that the universe is infinite, the sun is not its center and the earth is not unique. No apologies were issued for Bruno and others similarly dealt with but there should have been. The Catholic Church’s iron fist in the service of a false doctrine did for Italy what it did for Spain: destroyed the flowering of the Renaissance in Italy and sent all its pregnant and creative impulses to Northern and Protestant Europe where the seed of pluralism had been sown and given breathing space, if spasmodically, by the Reformation. Spain was even more interesting since the Catholicism planted in the Philippines was brought over by priests steeped in the Spanish Counter-Reformation. In 1483, Tomas de Torquemada was appointed the Grand Inquisitor of Spain by Isabella and Ferdinand and for 15 years ran a machinery of terror, which snapped the lives of, it is estimated, some 2,000 converted Jews (Maranos) in many an elaborate Catholic ritual called “auto-da-fe.” Jews were then expelled from the kingdom of Spain in 1492 (the same year Granada and Alhambra, then the most tolerant region in Europe, fell to Isabella and Ferdinand). The ferocity of the Catholic Inquisition in Spain first against Jews (expelled in 1492) and then against Spanish Muslims (Moriscos), the most economically dynamic and mercantile members of the population, effectively sent the Iberian Peninsula and its colonies, including the Philippines, back to the Dark Ages sustained only by gold plundered from the New World. The enormity of the cost to the victims of this moral failing was topped only by the enormity of the cost to the Catholic Church itself: It became synonymous with fanaticism, obscurantism and backwardness. Yet another moral failure involved the treatment of Jews in the Second World War. Pope John Paul II in 1994 issued the “Declaration of Repentance” for its clergy’s failure in its moral duty to protest the treatment of Jews in the dark days of the war. In October 1997, the French Catholic Church issued an apology for its deafening silence on the deportation of Jews from France. In 1964, the Second Vatican Council formally repudiated Jewish guilt for Christ’s death (which was the permanent undercurrent to Catholic anti-Jewish frenzy) as a way of atonement for a thousand years of mindless mayhem. All these apologies were called for because as the saying goes: “Humanum est errare.” Along the way, myriads were sacrificed upon the altar of egregious error paraded as universal truth. Finally, consider usury. Usury is one practice that for centuries was a sin perhaps due to its association with the Jewry. The Second Lateran Council in 1139 promulgated the following: “Furthermore, we condemn that practice accounted despicable and blameworthy by divine and human laws, denounced by Scripture in the old and new Testaments, namely, the ferocious greed of usurers; and we sever them from every comfort of the church.” Despite the vehemence maintained through centuries, in 1830, the Holy Office with leave from Pope Pius VIII sanctioned justifiable drawing of interest rate. Suddenly, what was sin no longer is. The indefectible and infallible had corrected it. This monumental about face on a doctrinal matter was however the right thing to do. Learning is a very human attribute. The taking of interest is the foundation of modern finance and of modern economic growth. Today, the Philippines is being torn asunder by the issue of responsible parenthood in view of the proposed bill: “An act providing national policy on reproductive health, responsible parenthood.” The Catholic hierarchy opposes this bill with the vehemence rooted in absolute certainty. This absolute certainty is blind to the predicament of millions of poor Filipino women. The prevalence of attempted and completed abortions among poor women is very high leading to many dead women and dead fetuses. Conception prevention among these poor women is thus tantamount to abortion prevention and thus pro-life. But the great princes of the church, like Torquemada before them, will not hear the cries. Someday perhaps, the Catholic Church will once more issue an apology to those who needlessly died and those who were born in abject poverty. The Boston Globe reported on March 13, 2002 that "the scourge of clergy sexual abuse has afflicted virtually every religious denomination: In recent years rabbis, ministers, and gurus have all been charged with molesting children. But the Catholic Church has been hit with many more allegations of clergy sexual abuse than any other faith or denomination. Recent statistics on the Archdiocese of Boston show "at least 80 priests have been accused of child sexual abuse over the last 50 years, and scholars say as many as 2,000 priests have been accused nationwide. By contrast, Protestant and non-Christian denominations have had so few reported cases that their leaders can generally count them on one hand.” Raul V Fabella, University of the Philippines School of Economics

The report on the Pulse Asia survey on people's perception of the State of the Nation Address (SONA) brings to mind proverbial notions of rhetoric as mere embellishment or concealment of truth, as deception. The SONA, being a rhetorical act, has often been treated by those who oppose or are critical of the administration as a superfluous verbal activity that is far removed from reality. Manuel Martinez, in his book “A Political History of Our Times: Presidential Policies from Aquino to Ramos to Estrada,” comments that "all SONAs, regardless of which President was mouthing them, by their very nature, have suffered in many parts from banality, turgidity, superfluity and insipidity." While it is important to examine and understand whether the rhetoric of the SONA corresponds with the material reality experienced by Filipinos in their everyday struggle, it is also worthy to look into how rhetoric actually constitutes reality. Arguably, the SONA has been used to justify and legitimize (controversial) government policies pursued not only during the years before the annual delivery of the congressional speech but also in the years that come after. Before the passage of the contested Human Securities Act of 2007, for instance, the president, through her SONAs, had been flagging various articulations that tend to legitimize and rally public support for the passing of the law. She had, of course, made explicit calls for Congress to pass an anti-terrorism law in her SONAs from 2002 to 2004. But curiously her articulations also include the employment of more sophisticated rhetorical devices, such as the metaphor of "war on terror" as a curative to the "nation's ills." Thus we have heard her speak of the "global war on terror" as "a historical watershed" and of ensuring that criminals "of the common kind and the kind that kills in the name of political advocacies." Later, we realized through the Alston Report that the war on terror frame had been used to target not just these lumped criminals or "enemies of the state," but even members of legal organizations, journalists, and human rights advocates that the military considered as fronts of the armed rebels. Whether we listen to it delivered from the presidential podium via television, radio or the Internet or read its full text published in major dailies or on the web, the SONA – including the metaphors and frames it privileges – will find its way in other contexts and domains as it has been strategically designed to carry sound-bites ready to be embedded or alluded to in journalistic texts, news broadcasts, classroom discussions, political commentaries, and even in everyday small talks or conversations. More importantly, the speech carries passages apportioned to be re-contextualized or reformulated into more "authoritative, non-negotiable materialities" like the Human Securities Act and other statutes. A considerable number of people may not be aware of the SONA (the report on the recent Pulse Asia survey indicates that 40% of the respondents are not aware of the past editions of the congressional speech), and a considerable number of those who do may find it untruthful, but these facts do not erase nor reduce the truth that the SONAs like all policy speeches are implicated in our socio-political reality. Politics, according to rhetoric scholar Bruce Gronbeck, can be understood as a symbolic action and this demands that we analyze systematically the discourses of political ideology and valuation, of political visions and the places citizens occupy in such visions; of the means by which self-interests are converted into communal interests – into public policies. It may be, therefore, helpful for us to regard the SONA – including the spectacle that comes with it – with our critical minds. And it may do us well if we listen to it carefully, study it, write about it, and perhaps, investigate, challenge or negotiate the representations it offers us before they get reformulated by our legislators into authoritative texts and become non-negotiable. Gene Navera, Singapore (via e-mail)

I agree that the confessed Eagle killer should be punished but I feel that he hunted out of extreme necessity and that is not a mitigating circumstance. We must be compassionate and allow him to do time for the propagation of that eagle species. At the same time, he will be able to be productive to feed his family. His acceptance of the guilt and not knowing that the bird is endangered bothers his conscience, a part of punishment. Is his crime more serious than the ones committed by some politicians stealing millions? Arnold Salvosa, Tujunga, California (via e-mail)

In this time of crisis, it behooves us as a nation to close ranks and, in the spirit of compassion, strive to alleviate the sufferings of the worst hit of our brothers. The government by its nature is expected to lead this endeavor and is thrashing about for ways and wherewithal to respond. There are disagreements as to the adequacy and the appropriateness of the adopted modalities and their delivery. For example, the one time 500-peso direct subsidy to Meralco lifeline users disbursed via a limited number of Landbank outlets is very inefficient and costly for its intended beneficiaries. Other sectors, therefore, have proposed specific alternative approaches to the problem. In particular, the Catholic Bishops” Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) has proposed the lifting of the VAT on oil and the review of the oil deregulation law as ways to deliver alleviation to the poor. Senator Mar Roxas has been especially scathing in his criticism of the take-and-give stratagem of the government, reading this as politically motivated. Embattled Meralco’s proposal that NAPOCOR reduce its charges and government it tax take belong to the same category. The logic is very simple: government forgoes its tax take; prices will fall or will rise, less to reflect the reduced impost; the public at large experiences some price relief. This is the suspend-for-price-relief stance. This stance contrasts with the government’s stand to date: to continue collecting the taxes and use the proceeds to partly finance the provision of targeted safety nets for the most vulnerable in society. Thus far, these have come in the form of the 500 peso one time subsidy to lifeline customers of Meralco, the 2 billion pesos conditional cash transfer, the income tax exemption for minimum wage earners and provision of subsidized rice for the most vulnerable in society. We will call this the collect-for-targeted subsidy stance. The Consumer and Oil Price Watch (COPW) proposals are in general agreement with this latter stance except on the extent and size of safety net program. For example, COPW favors the earmarking specific revenues for specific subsidies, such as the use of VAT on petroleum for food and electricity and the royalty proceeds from Malampaya for LPG purchased by lifeline users of electricity. These contrasting stances all come under the rubric of government safety net provision. Within this rubric, the cost of safety net provision is born by the government and financed by taxes whether collected or foregone. The viewpoint here is: “Ang gobyerno ang yuyuko habang umiikli ang kumot.” The debate is between the collect-plus stance and the suspend-plus stance. The second of the CBCP’s proposal calling for a review of the oil price deregulation law hints that the 1998 deregulation law is somehow to blame for the high price of fossil fuels at the pump and that re-regulation (government-administered pump prices?) will somehow reverse this. This proposal comes under the rubric of administered price provision. Proposals under this rubric are financed not by the government and general taxes but by some or other private groups operating in a given market. To the same category belongs the earlier floated proposal for government mandated reduction in prices outside the normal regulatory framework (SMS messaging and NLEX access fees), which fortunately has so far failed to gain traction. The divide here is whether administered pricing with the view to help the poor do in fact help the poor. While these proposals are all driven by compassion, they do have the different impacts on the poor and the economy both in the short and in the long run. We will analyze each of these debates and confront them with the imperative of common sense. Should the government collect the tax to finance safety nets or should it forego the tax for price relief? The collect-for-targeted subsidy stance favored by the government and COPW better serves the safety net provision ideal than does the suspend tax stance. Safety net provision entails the concentration of relief on the poorest to ensure the minimum number of people falling below some accepted standards ( MDG’s $1 a day person, say). When government holds on to its tax revenue, say from VAT on petroleum, in order to help finance the targeted safety net expansion, the relief is concentrated to very poorest where it has the greatest bang. It will keep more people from falling below the net. By contrast, the price relief due to tax suspension benefits both rich and poor alike and the portion going to the very poorest quickly dissipate to insignificance. Thus while lifting VAT on petroleum will lower the pump price of diesel and gasoline which will comfort both SUV owners as well as jeepney and tricycle riders, a targeted subsidy program for public utility conveyance (perhaps with the use of vouchers) would lower the pump price for public conveyance users more than would the lifting of VAT for the same fiscal drain. It will not benefit the more affluent private conveyance owners where relief is less needed. Thus there is effectively a redistribution of resources from richer to poorer. It thus serves better the Rawlsian criterion of minimized disparity in the allocation of resources. In a society where poverty incidence is already very high and resources limited, keeping the poor above starvation requires all available resources and then some. The classic brickbat against targeted subsidy provision is the “leaky bucket problem” (in current controversy parlance “systems loss”): the pipelines of delivery can be very leaky and result in the diminution of relief to the intended beneficiaries. This is a very old problem and is especially acute in weak states where larceny and theft is rampant. Fortunately, the technology of targeting has become smarter with the use of technically sophisticated identifiers, such as electronic IDs, geography-based access and verifiable markers, such as Meralco lifeline receipts to reduce if not eliminate collateral damage. A brickbat that is more difficult to parry concerns this government: it may not be smart or apolitical enough to employ such technical advances; it may not be competent enough to prevent the hijacking of, and/or it may not be honest enough to itself keep from stealing, the provision in transit. Corruption and venality in a soft state teaches us to be naturally wary. The government comforts its critics when the one-time 500 pesos subsidy for lifeline customers is mandated to be collected from a few Landbank branches. This can be so easily corrected by a simple reimbursement to Meralco for reductions in lifeline rates. On the other hand, the subsidized rice scheme and the conditional transfer seem less problematic although their reach is still largely urban. Transitory emergency employment programs (such as tree planting, irrigation maintenance and yes, even like those funded by the road maintenance tax during the last presidential election) will not be out of order. These will need to be provided as well in the regions and may need reprogramming of government budget over and above “unprogrammed funds” which cover only the urban poor. Funds for the likes of the Panglao International Airport, a project which is wrong environmentally and economically, should be rechannelled. The government may consider replacing the laughably feckless mandatory drug test for drivers and emission test for motor vehicles with random testing with very high penalties. Mandatory testing punishes all for the sins of a few and effectively transfer resources from poor jeepney and tricycle drivers to the lucky testing franchise holders. In the net, the safety net upside of the government’s approach seems to dominate its the leaky bucket downside .When government needs even more resources to expand direct and targeted subsidies, the better part of prudence is for government to hold on to its tax revenues. The proposals under administered price provision are the most dangerous. Most salient among the examples is the call to re-regulate the oil industry. First of all, there is no evidence whatsoever that administered pricing in the oil industry will prevent world petroleum price escalation from getting reflected in the pumps. Even oil rich countries (Indonesia and Malaysia) have been forced to reflect world prices in the pump to stem the fiscal hemorrhage. Before 1998, pump price was administered through the OPSF and yet world price increases had to be reflected if with a lag in the pump prices. The foot-dragging on the adjustment of oil prices under OPSF led to the chronic near-bankruptcy of the Philippine government and the Philippine central bank, a principal source of long-term anemic growth. That is why administered pricing in oil had to be abandoned in 1998. Foot-dragging on the adjustment in the pricing of Napocor generated power resulted in near-fiscal crisis in 2003. Only after we bit the bullet on Napocor rates did the fiscal consolidation and economic rebound become possible. Administered pricing is like a cocaine fix: a temporary relief paid for by a permanent disability. The Roman emperor Diocletian in 300 AD in a well-meaning attempt to deal with the escalation in food prices mandated a reduction in the price of staples proclaiming death penalty for violators. The good news was that the price inflation in staples stopped; the bad news was that staples disappeared from the market. Our own experience with rent control should serve as a cautionary tale. Rent control in Metro-Manila offered relief for those already domiciled. But for the ever increasing number of families subsequently entering the shelter market, it became a real burden. The supply of new rentable apartments dried up as investors shunned them. Young families paying 12,000 pesos a month lived side-by-side with old tenants paying 3,000 pesos a month in the same apartment row. It had to be abandoned. Before the privatization of water services in Metro-Manila in 1997, piped water tariff was very low. The only problem was that cheap piped water seldom flowed, long queues were the order of the day and the poor bought trucked water at exorbitant prices. In the end, it was the poorest who bore the tremendous cost of administered pricing. The stories that go on and on have all one lesson: administered pricing violates hard-nosed common sense. A mortgaged future is the harvest of such short-run expediency. And so anti-poor a future to boot, the. CBCP has to reconsider which side of the poor it really wants to be. These are clearly difficult times but there opportunities here as well. The executive and the legislative should find common ground especially in the reprogramming of spending not only towards mitigation but even more importantly towards the seeding of a future marked by ever smaller carbon footprint: incentives for increased use of and investment in renewable energy. It is now high time we make allies rather than enemies of the two energy sources abundant in the tropics: wind and solar. A small but meaningful start is making our streets bicycle-friendly. In the case of food, we need to enable more public-private partnerships and seriously pursue the potential in corporate farming to modernize our food sector. The government is duty-bound to provide adequate and timely safety nets in the name of compassion. It is also its duty-bound to parlay common sense to safeguard the future. Just as compassion should not sanction boorish behavior, it should not rule out common sense. Raul V Fabella of the School of Economics, University of the Philippines

Statements made by Cebu Representative Eduardo Gullas that two oil companies have raked in P70 billion over the last 10 years reflect the utter ignorance or rather the brutal imbecility of politicians in this country when it comes to economic matters and the proper functioning of the price system in a free market. Do politicians think that businesses will ever get into business without the promise of a fair return on capital. For one thing, oil companies operate on a free market basis. Unlike public utilities like Meralco, consumers have a choice in buying from any of the oil players large or small. Consumers can actually by-pass oil companies by forming cooperatives and importing petroleum products themselves. But why don't you think this is happening? The answer is pretty obvious -- the risk on capital, Mr. Congressman. The oil business is a very risky business. Imagine if you stocked up on oil last week and the price dropped (as it did) by $10. Not to mention the risk of shipping oil from overseas in these huge tankers, storing them in depots and moving them to the gas stations. Are you aware of how much pilfering happens in the distribution system? Please realize that if we did not have free enterprise to facilitate that process, we would not have oil products available to us at reasonable prices; yes, even at P60, petroleum prices are reasonable. Have you ever heard of scarce resources, Mr. Congressman? Of course, there is no scarcity of politicians running for office. If you ask me, I would rather live with petroleum prices at this level because I have a choice of using my cars or taking public transport or even walking (which, by the way, I have been doing to save money). However, when I look at the prices the citizens of this country has to pay for maintaining congressmen and senators and all politician for that matter, I can see the real place where the Filipino people is really being ripped off. And it is not at the gas pump. Gus Cosio, Quezon City (via e-mail)

Not a few of us doubt that the former Speaker has plenty of beans to spill. But we likewise doubt his willingness or courage to face the consequences of surfacing in the Senate as witness against the President. I think it would be more self benefiting for him to paint a pragmatic excuse to stay in safe waters far from pressures that may be worse than those that Jun Lozada went through. A wise politician and businessman formerly allied with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo would be better off playing ball with Malacanang's occupants than turning against them, because the process could be ugly and painful in the immediate and long term. However, if, as the congressman says, his revelations may "bring down the presidency" because of the enormity of evidence he can show, then let it be so -- if that would be finally good for the country. De Venecia would be a credible witness considering his affiliations and affinity to those who were and are in power. But if in his heart De Venecia discerns that he is only motivated by vengeance and his subconscious desire to wrest back his great political powers, then I think he should take back his words humbly and sink into a peaceful state of ignonimity. On the other hand, if he truthfully believes that he has what would make this country take the path of moral revival and recover from its sinful and corrupt governance (as is seemingly the commonly accepted impression or nationwide belief) then, unfortunately for him or not, the moral responsibility rests on his shoulders to cooperate with the Senate and give all that he has to give in an objective, fair, and just volume of information. De Venecia's situation is like that of an officer in Mel Gibson's "We Were Soldiers" -- he called in a "Broken Arrow" condition and had bombs dropped a few meters from his own lines, placing even his own self at risk of getting napalmed but in the end saving the battalion from certain annihilation. Such is the call that would need courage and true patriotism. because the officer believed he was fighting for a good cause. Now, for De Venecia, he would have to ask himself if he has the same kind of cause. If not, then the Senate better forget his appearance and submit its report "finished or not finished." Victor Manalac, Taytay, Rizal (via e-mail)

Mr. Montelibano, your article in today's Inquirer put this country's history and forward direction into perspective, and may I add a brief reply to it. What expert would have predicted a year ago that the world would be going through such a wringer experience, brought on by the double whammy of food and fuel? Certainly the "First World" (and "Second" like Canada and Australia) had no inkling, and although Australia has had a long acquaintance with drought, it was manageable as long as inflation was. But certainly it's in countries like Philippines where the worst of the brunt is being felt right now. It seems that it's noticeable even here in Cagayan de Oro, with traffic thinning and the air clearing occasionally. The only true riches this nation has are its people and the faith they have in their own future. Sweden was in a similar position in the late '50s, yet they somehow re-invented themselves successfully. Wasn't it Thomas Paine who said, "These are the times that try men's souls." We are being tested as never before in our past, and we owe it to our future ancestors to get it right, to invest in our own future, and not just everyone else's. Paul Komarnicki, Kauswagan, Cagayan de Oro City (via e-mail)

I find it painfully hypocritical that the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) would suggest not giving communion to members of the church simply because of their stance on family planning. What about other members guilty of other "sins?" What about the politicos who steal from the people and still have the gall to show their faces at church every Sunday? That's been going on for decades, and yet they pick this as a reason to kick somebody out? Why not also refuse to give communion to Gloria's entourage who flew overseas just to watch Pacquiao's bout, even as we were still reeling from Typhoon Frank's aftermath? Talk about double standards. While I don't agree with Gabriela on many matters, I will side with their point that abortion happens simply because many women here have neither the financial nor the emotional means to care for their child. There are probably more reasons, but given our level of poverty, this is the most likely cause. If the church is so against abortion, then why don't they care for the unwanted child? Or would they rather he or she grow in "a situation of sin," where starvation and neglect will push them to resort to drastic actions just to stay alive? I am angered especially because I am also a practicing Catholic. Since when did we end up with leaders with this backward thinking. Family planning does not equal anti-life. If anything, it ensures that the couple will have the means to properly care for their offspring. As for the argument that sex education would lead to immoral acts, this flow of logic implies that reading about lock picking will also encourage us to commit thefts, or that reading about serial killers will turn us into murderers. Except that this doesn't happen normally, unless the one reading is already mentally disturbed. This only reveals that the CBCP is selling their pulpit's common sense and integrity short. We are smarter than that, and we certainly deserve better leaders than that. -Antonio Yang III, Sta. Mesa, Metro Manila (via e-mail)