Philippines slaps ban on child marriage

New legislation carries up to 12 years in prison for those who flout the law

UCANews | Joseph Peter Calleja 
Manila | January 07, 2022

A young actress takes part in a campaign by Amnesty International to denounce child marriage in October 2016 in Rome, Italy. (Photo: AFP)

The Philippines has enacted a new law banning child marriage and cohabitation with minors.

It is hoped the bill, signed by President Rodrigo Duterte on Jan. 6, will end practices that see one in six Filipino girls married before they turn 18.

Children’s rights advocates welcomed the new law, saying it marked a major advancement in protecting young girls.

“This is a major victory in our campaign to end child marriage in the Philippines. This law will help protect children, especially young girls, and hopefully change the trajectory of their lives,” the law’s author, lawmaker Bernadette Herrera, told The Inquirer newspaper on Jan. 6.

The new law not only criminalizes marrying someone under 18 years old but also outlaws cohabitating with a minor as husband and wife and punishes those who facilitate such unions.

It carries a jail term up to 12 years and a fine of at least 40,000 pesos (US$800).

Thus, the law views that child marriage as a practice is a form of child abuse because it violates and degrades the dignity of our children

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Ending the year with a blow against the Environment

The lifting of the ban on copper, gold, silver, and complex ores open-pit mining is another blow against an already gasping state of our Philippine environment. To this government, and particularly the DENR, the many incidents of landslides and flooding wrought by Typhoon Odette, seem not enough reminder that a big shift in policies and development projects would give due protection to the environment is imperative now, more than ever.

For PMPI, the lifting of the ban signals yet another flip-flopping of the DENR, giving high priority to the opening-up of mining operations for income or revenues and on the one hand public propaganda by President Duterte of ensuring the protection of the environment against mining industries which destroys and earn big bucks from it. The DENR as a government agency’s task is not only to manage the use of our natural resources but also its conservation and protection. But clearly, the lifting of the ban shows the biased of DENR to favor the destruction of watersheds, forests, culture, and biodiversity – under a skewed and vague assumption that these are but necessary trade-offs for a better future.

PMPI and our Sites of Struggles (SoS), partner communities struggling against mining operations across the archipelago strongly believe that mining is not and can never be a strategic vehicle towards economic recovery. The mining sector’s historical performance in terms of revenue and job generation was never significant – an average of 205,000 jobs per year and less than 2% contribution of the total national revenue (Mines and Geosciences Bureau and Bureau of Internal Revenue data).

Our partner communities affected by mining operations are living testimonies of the lies peddled by this government and the mining corporations on the so called “Sustainable Mining” and “Globally accepted method” on mining operations. The islands of Manicani in Guiuan, Eastern Samar and Rapu-Rapu in Albay bear the scars of mining corporations’ bad practices and the DENR’s incapacity to enforce existing environmental safety standards and policies. Both islands have yet to be rehabilitated to this day.

Further, PMPI does not share the glossy assumption of DENR and MGB that stiffer monitoring and stricter implementation of environmental safety standards will be imposed as part of the new DAO 2021-14. DENR. From our communities’ experience, MGB does not have the capacity to monitor all fifty (50) active mining operations in the country, more so, additional mining operations once the lifting of the moratorium on Open-pit mining takes effect.

Threats to indigenous peoples’ ancestral domains, lowland communities, irrigators, fishers, and farmers in the four provinces of South Cotabato continue. The conglomerate Indophil and Sagittarius Mining Corporation is aggressively pushing to dismantle the Environmental Code of the province to finally start the biggest copper and gold mining in Asia. But incidentally, the projected trade-offs are the destruction of the Marbel-Buluan Watershed, the irrigation systems of the productive, jobs and revenue-generating agriculture of the Province of South Cotabato.

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Mary, Mother of God (Lk 2:16-21)

God is love. The God who is love wanted to be loved. This God wanted to be loved with a human love, with the love of a mother. This God wanted a woman to receive God-Love into her womb, to bring God-Love into this world as a child, to nourish the human God-Love, to cuddle the human God-Love, to teach the human God-Love to talk, to walk, to work. The human God-Love put complete confidence in her. That is why she was preserved from everything that could make her less loving and less lovable, from the very beginning of her exist-ence.

God-love had a tender affection for Mary, the Mother of God-love. ‘Hail Mary, most graceful, most beautiful, blessed are you among women’. 

We could look at the great panorama of history: it is a fresco of salvation. It goes from creation to fullness. It goes even further back than creation since we were chosen in Christ be-fore the creation of the world. Chosen in Christ to be human love-people. We can look forward beyond even the fullness of creation, and we will still, in Christ, be human love-people.

At the beginning of creation, there is a man and a woman.  We call them Adam and Eve. We read how they compromised the image of God-love by what they did. What they did was not love. In the fullness of time, there is again a woman and a man. We call them Mary and Jesus. They have restored the image of God-love by what they did. What they did was love. The book of Revelation says that in the fullness of time there will be once again a woman and her son, and the woman will be crowned with twelve stars and her son will reign on the throne of love forever. 

There are parallels and contrasts between the beginning and the end; between the serpent who deceives and the angel who has a message of salvation; between malediction and benediction; between fear and self-justification, and trust and abandonment. 

It is all a hymn to the God-love. It is all a hymn to humanity and what it will be. God-love created humans to be love-people. 

But the peculiar beauty of their created being, of their way of being love-people, is their fragility. They are not gods.  They are limited and vulnerable. As such they are open to the forc-es of evil and nothingness. Their existence, and their quality as love-people, seems compromised. They keep on seeming to lose the battle. But the Living Woman and the loving Mother of all who live remains faithful to the God-love and does not let the forces of death and nothingness win out. There is too much life in her for that. And too much love. 

She is the Mother of Life. She is the mother of Life that is stronger than death. She is fully Alive. She makes all living things fully Alive. The feast we celebrate today is the feast of the Mother of all the living. It is the feast of humanity, come alive.  In another year of life.

After the annunciation scene, in Luke’s words, ‘the angel left her’. Angels don’t understand these things, they don’t have mothers. Mary remains alone with her secret. But not for long.  She must share it, and her life, and her love, with her Son and with us. 

‘Holy Mary, Mother of God-love, pray for us all, now, and at the hour when your Life is stronger than death for each of us.  Amen.’

Fr. Kevin O’Shea, CSsR
2010

Appeal from Surigao

Our CBCP General Secretariat office just got the text below from Bishop Antonieto Cabajog of Surigao. (The all-caps text could only indicate a sense of urgency and a cry for help for the people of Surigao.)

Perhaps instead of spending a lot on lavish Christmas parties and exchange gifts, we can put together whatever we can and contribute it to relief operations.

His Excellency Pablo Virgilio David
Bishop of Kalookan
CBCP President

Aerial picture shows damage caused by Super Typhoon Rai after the storm crossed over Surigao City in Surigao del Norte province of Philippines.–AFP

Typhoon Odette manifested its super- strength starting a few minutes past one o’clock in the afternoon of December 16, 2o21. It gradually unleashed more strength and peaked between 3:00-4:00 p.m. Blinding torrential rains and howling winds no man could take standing up hammered us for more than three hours. 

Not only were trees uprooted and rooftops ripped from homes battered like doll-houses, electric power and all forms of communication were cut off literally isolating us from the rest of the world.  It was only in the afternoon of Dec. 18 were we able to clear fallen trees and debris around the bishop’s house and allowing  cautious opportunity to move around areas of the city cleared enough of fallen trees, landslides, fallen electric posts, G.I. sheets crumpled like papers, wires and other debris. The cathedral and rectory suffered sizeable damaged.  Two parish churches in the city  suffered broken glasses, blown roofings and flooding.

Never in my entire life have I encountered such typhoon to say “super” is an understatement. Throughout the ordeal we had the blessed sacrament exposed and the statue of Our Lady of Fatima on one side. 

As of this writing  communications from all parishes are yet to be received.  This report is written on my way to Butuan City to post this report. 

Please continue to pray for the Diocese of Surigao.

Mainland parishes seem to have suffered lesser damage but Surigao City.  Aside from the city and surrounding areas Siargao Island and Dinagat province are worst hit with unofficial reports of many casualties.

Food and water are priority needs in badly hit areas. Inspite of all these the strong faith of the people stands out as their pillar of comfort and support.

We thank all of you for your prayers as we move on in synodality and celebrate Christmas in this “new normal”.  “Cum Infirmor Potens Sum.”

+Antonieto D. Cabajog, D.D.
Bishop of Surigao
Dec. 20, 2021

Urgent Call for Assistance

In this handout photo provided by the Philippine Coast Guard, rescuers assist residents over floodwaters caused by Typhoon Odette as they are evacuated to higher ground in Cagayan de Oro City on Thursday, Dec. 16, 2021. (ONE News)

December 17, 2021

To ALL DIOCESAN COUNCILS PRESIDENTS AND NATIONAL LAY LEADERS

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

In the light of the sudden and unexpected intensification of Typhoon Odette and its massive impact on the towns and cities along its path, calls for immediate disaster response are being made. The Sangguniang Laiko ng Pilipinas is appealing to our member organizations in the NCR and those nearby areas to initiate among their members, friends and relatives an emergency appeal for goods-in-kind which can be brought straight to the Disaster Response Center of the Office of the Vice President, which has launched an organized transportation and distribution plan with the AFP and other responsive government agencies. (Please watch the announcement below)

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1350228692077903

For those in other Dioceses who can also help, please do the same and coordinate with your Diocesan Social Action Centers. They might have similar plans to respond to this.

Let us also pray for the safety and recovery of our countrymen from this disaster and ask the Lord to continue to put peace and joy in their hearts during the Christmas season.

Please, we ask you to exert the effort to respond swiftly to this national emergency.

For the Sangguniang Laiko ng Pilipinas,

(Sgd)Jun Cruz
National President

10 things that Pope Francis wants us to learn from the nativity scene

Pope Francis celebrates Christmas Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica Dec. 24, 2020. | Vatican Media.

By CNA Staff

Greccio, Italy, Dec 17, 2021 / 04:00 am

In 2019, Pope Francis issued an apostolic letter on the meaning and importance of the Christmas nativity scene. He signed the document, Admirabile signum (“Enchanting image”), on Dec. 1 that year, at the Shrine of the Nativity in Greccio, a hilltown in the Italian region of Lazio.

The choice of Greccio was significant, because it was there in 1223 that St. Francis of Assisi created history’s first nativity scene.

In the apostolic letter, widely regarded as one of the most moving documents of Francis’ pontificate, the pope sets out “to encourage the beautiful family tradition of preparing the nativity scene in the days before Christmas.”

Here are 10 things that Pope Francis wants us to learn from the nativity scene, drawn from Admirabile signum.

1. The nativity scene is like a living Gospel. The depiction of Jesus’ birth is “a simple and joyful proclamation of the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God,” the pope writes. The nativity scene invites everyone who contemplates it “on a spiritual journey, drawn by the humility of the God who became man in order to encounter every man and woman.”

The Vatican Nativity scene. Agencia Andina

2. The custom is rooted in the Bible. The pope underlines that the nativity scene rises from “the pages of sacred Scripture.” St. Luke’s Gospel says that Mary “gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn” (2:7). The manger is the focus of nativity scenes. Indeed, the Italian word for nativity scene is “presepe,” from the Latin word “praesepium,” meaning “manger.”

Pope Francis visits the site of the first nativity scene in Greccio, Italy, on Jan. 4, 2015. Vatican Media.

3. The tradition was born in an unassuming Italian town. St. Francis of Assisi stopped in Greccio in November 1223, probably on his way back from Rome after receiving papal approval for the Rule of his religious order. Fifteen days before Christmas, he asked a local man named John to help him “bring to life the memory of that babe born in Bethlehem, to see as much as possible with my own bodily eyes the discomfort of his infant needs, how he lay in a manger, and how, with an ox and an ass standing by, he was laid upon a bed of hay.” On Christmas Day, St. Francis was joined by his friars and people from the surrounding area before a manger full of hay, watched over an ox and a donkey.

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CWS Statement on International Human Rights Day 2021

“Defending fundamental human rights demands courage and determination… Let us pray for those who risk their lives while fighting for fundamental rights under dictatorships, authoritarian regimes and even in democracies in crisis…”

– Pope Francis, April 2021 Prayer Intention-

The Filipino people can sympathize with these words of Pope Francis especially under President Duterte administration. In his almost six years in power, the Philippines has increasingly become a dangerous place particularly for human rights defenders. Human rights group International Federation for Human Rights reported that at least 25 human rights defenders (HRDs) were killed in 2020 in the country, and in the first 6 months of 2021 alone, 15 HRDs have been murdered. Added to these are the unsolved cases of hundreds of activists, union leaders, community organizers, including 61 lawyers killed since 2016.

The relentless attacks against civil, political, economic, and cultural rights of the Filipino people intensified months before President Duterte will step down from his office. He, who once boasted that he is “happy” to go to jail for killing human rights defenders must be held accountable for the multiple cases of human rights violations around the country.

The National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTFELCAC) is notorious for the series of attacks against political dissenters and innocent civilians. Earlier this month, a series of aerial bombing in a forested area in Brgy. Alimodas, Miag-ao, Iloilo led to the death of dozens of people. Similar scorched-earth tactics happened a few months ago in Las Navas, Northern Samar where a 500-pound bomb was dropped. On October 30 and November 2, farmers had to evacuate their lands in Bukidnon province in Mindanao when military forces bombed their communities, allegedly to flush out or finish off the group of slain communist leader Jorge “Ka Oris” Madlos. Most affected by these series of aerial bombings are peasant and indigenous communities. These series of attacks resulted to forced displacement and loss of livelihoods. Furthermore, these intensified violence destroys the environment and traumatizes women and children.

CWS believes that a militarist approach will not solve the five-decade insurgency problem. CWS reiterates its stand that a negotiated socioeconomic- political reform program that addresses the roots of the armed conflict remains the only viable option.

Days before International Human Rights Day, the Supreme Court is set to make a decision on the constitutionality of the dreaded Anti-Terrorism Law (ATL). The said law has weaponized the State in intensifying its crackdown against those it identified as terrorists or political rebels. However, most of those arrested and/or killed are defenseless civilians, innocent mass leaders and community organizers. CWS is hopeful that the Supreme Court justices will stand by the Filipino people in calling for the abolition of the ATL.

As we move closer towards the National Elections in 2022, we appeal to all Presidential aspirants to include in their electoral agenda the protection of human dignity and the promotion of basic human rights of the Filipino people, especially the poor, the voiceless, and the marginalized. Likewise, we appeal to all voters to choose candidates who have a profound respect for human life, a genuine desire to serve, and a passion for truth, freedom, and justice. Lastly, echoing the words of Pope Francis, we remind church people to play his or her part “with courage and determination” to defend human rights of every person “especially those who are ‘invisible’, those who are hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, foreign or detained, those who live on the margins of society or are rejected… even when it goes against the tide.”