For my part, as a senior citizen (75 years old), I say old age, like any other age, is the time to struggle against lies and deceptions that keep us Filipinos spiritually poor as a people, and that keep the Philippines morally bankrupt as a nation.
President Aquino may be chuckling behind his hand at the way in which his remark about “responsible parenthood” put a cat in the chicken coop. Amid the excited cackling that followed the President’s remark, it took Prof. Bernardo Villegas of Opus Dei to remind listeners on Radio Veritas that responsible parenthood is part of the Catholic moral tradition. Popes and bishops around the world as well as Philippine bishops have many times used it in insisting that, while a new life is a gift from God, parents should not procreate indiscriminately. Rather, they should strive, using natural family planning (NFP) if called for, to have only the number of children that they can provide for properly.
In March of this year, five high school seniors were banned from marching in the graduation rites of St. Theresa’s College, Cebu for “engaging in immoral, indecent, obscene or lewd acts.” The indecency, it was later explained, included photos of the girls wearing bikinis posted on the social network site Facebook. The outrage over what appeared to be overreaction on the part of the school forced it to defend itself.
Not altogether surprisingly, the Philippines topped the world in faith. Fully 94 percent of us said we had always believed in God. We were followed by Chileans (88 percent) and Americans (81 percent).
The perennial morality problem that continues to beset our nation is being addressed only through curative measures. Instead of getting rid of this menace, it is getting worse. Proposed solutions fail to consider the advantage of a bilateral approach in order to attain success: that is through curative and preventive measures. We have to admit [...]
THE BISHOPS are skeptical. “That’s a tall order,” says Bishop Carlito Cenzon about P-Noy’s vow to wipe out corruption by the end of his term. “First he must prove his competency.” “That’s not attainable,” says Bishop Dinualdo Gutierrez. “Maybe a 10-percent reduction in five years. But he must fire and not protect his friends if [...]
“IF I were to call you a ‘cultured individual,’ would I be praising or insulting you?” This is one of the first questions I pose to college students in my Introduction to Sociology-Anthropology classes at the Ateneo de Manila University. Most students, of course, correctly identify this as a compliment to their education and refinement. [...]
