DAY 12 (October 15): Let us again pray for all groups and organizations working for the good of all…
Triune God, help our movements, NGOs, communication centers and all groups that work for the common good, to develop a spirituality of global solidarity which flows from the mystery of who you are, an interconnected community of love.
Society is also enriched by a countless array of organizations which work to promote the common good and to defend the environment, whether natural or urban. Some, for example, show concern for a public place (a building, a fountain, an abandoned monument, a landscape, a square), and strive to protect, restore, improve or beautify it as something belonging to everyone. Around these community actions, relationships develop or are recovered and a new social fabric emerges. Thus, a community can break out of the indifference induced by consumerism. These actions cultivate a shared identity, with a story which can be remembered and handed on. In this way, the world, and the quality of life of the poorest, are cared for, with a sense of solidarity which is at the same time aware that we live in a common home which God has entrusted to us. These community actions, when they express self-giving love, can also become intense spiritual experiences.
Per CBCP Circular No. 19-15 dated September 19, 2019, this prayer is to be recited in Sunday Masses on October 3, 2021 and on Tuesday, October 5, 2021, National Teachers’ Day .
God of wisdom, greatest Teacher of all, look with love and kindness on teachers everywhere.
Give them strength of body,
largeness of hearts
and soundness of mind
so that they may perform
their task with vigor, competence,
compassion and patience.
Help them to be committed
to their mission
to shape the tender minds
of the young in the knowledge
of the truth, the love for your creation
and the value of peace in this world.
We, the undersigned convenors of pro-democracy coalition 1SAMBAYAN, strongly denounce the recent order of President Duterte barring his Cabinet and other executive officials from attending legislative investigations in the Senate on the anomalous transactions of Pharmally with the government, specifically with PS-DBM, involving overpriced medical supplies in 2020 and 2021 at the height of the pandemic.
We see traces of the dark days of Martial Law in the president’s recent pronouncements: no respect for the rule of law, no separation of powers between branches of government, and no regard for due process, all done to protect the interest of a private company, his Chinese friends and their friends in government. It is the same heavy-handed, dictatorial, and authoritarian despotic rule employed by the late President Ferdinand Marcos.
We appeal to the PNP and the AFP to remain loyal to the country and the people and ignore this illegal and unconstitutional order, even if it came from their commander-in-chief, who is certainly not acting like the father of a nation. It is an abuse of his commander-in-chief powers, and it does not give him carte blanche to use it to prevent other agencies of government from performing their mandates.
We also appeal to the people to put an end to this regime, to always be vigilant and alert and see the signs of a return of Marcosian authoritarian tactics: the closure of ABS-CBN, widespread graft and corruption, economic recession, and numerous tales of extrajudicial killings and violations of human rights.
We also encourage everyone, especially those who will cast their votes come May 2022, let us unite in choosing leaders who will put the people first above their own interests and those of their friends, who will restore democracy and strengthen our democratic institutions, and who will steer our country to recovery from this pandemic and economic decline.
The Philippine Senate has finally approved the final draft of the Philippine Senate Bill (SB) 2332 or An Act Increasing the Age for Determining Statutory Rape and other Acts of Sexual Abuse and Exploitation to Protect Children.
This law is historic and vital to the protection of children and the prosecution of the child rapists that are abusing children every day with impunity. It has repealed the penal code that said it was legal to have sex with a 12-year-old and older. Now it is a criminal act of statutory rape to have sex with a 16-year-old child or younger. A convicted offender faces a possible sentence of life in prison on the credible testimony of the child victim. This law is a powerful deterrent and provides greater protection for vulnerable children. Child rights advocates have been campaigning for this change for decades, Preda Foundation among them, and finally a day of victory for children.
There are many child protection laws in the Philippines and worldwide. US laws cover crimes against children committed by US citizens in the Philippines or any country abroad. The EU countries need to have a similar law.
We need to ask ourselves, why are such laws necessary? While the vast majority of humans love and respect children, millions don’t. As said before, it seems humans, the species with intelligence, are the only species that sexually abuse their own children. There is a deep moral flaw and inclination to evil in human nature and awareness about it among adults and children. It is the first important line of protection. We all have to watch out for them and know that pedophiles and abusers are abusing their own children because they can. It is so easy for a family member to intimidate and abuse a child and then get a child to say she “consented’ with the words, “yes po.”
The child would be unable, without help, to testify in court against her family about the incest rape. Family intimidation would traumatize the child. Few cases are reported, fewer come to court. That is why child sexual abuse has almost become the norm but most people have a mental block to admitting that fact.
We must remember that in a 2015 National Baseline Study on Violence Against Children, one in every five children in the Philippines in the age group of 13 to 17 said they experienced sexual violence while one in 25 suffered from forced consummated sex during childhood.
Child abuse is common everywhere throughout the world. Surveys show that one in three children worldwide are victims of sexual abuse and one in six boys are abused and raped. The majority of victims bury that anger and pain inside all their lives. It can and does distort a normal life and lead to many psychological traumas and even pours out in anger and violence.
Parents and guardians must never leave their child alone with an outsider no matter how kind, helpful, generous and caring he is or appears to be. At all times, they must follow that rule. Wise men will never be alone with a child not their own.
When you see the emotional pain and hurt endured by child victims, you will understand how much they suffer, most without relief. In the Preda Emotional Release Therapy, it can be seen here: Visit https://youtu.be/G0fFNmHSYic
Paula was a 14-year-old girl, vulnerable, helpless and in the control of her family. When her father and brother and a drinking partner of her father began to sexually abuse her, she was overwhelmed by them and could not escape or run away. She could not fight back and they persuaded her it was normal, that they loved her. It’s okay, let us do it,” they said. They presumed that by her silence she was giving consent to the abuse so much so that they also sexually abused her sister, Maria. They had a homegrown brothel- for free. They presumed the sisters were giving consent by their silence but it’s from fear of punishment and they had no way to complain. They never did give consent. They hated every act. Years later, when Paula was allowed to become a domestic helper, she told her employer about what she had endured.
That good woman contacted Preda Foundation and an investigation was begun and Paula and Maria were rescued and joined the Preda family. They are now free from their abusers and having therapy and education. They are empowered enough to file charges, with the help of the Preda paralegal officer, against their abusive family members. Now, the abusers will pay the consequences if justice is done and seen to be done. The change in the age of consent law will put many more abusers behind bars where they cannot abuse any more children.
Inexplicably, we ask why in 90 years of a male-dominated congress, the congressmen never considered changing the penal law that made children as young as 12 vulnerable, in constant danger of abuse and gave impunity to the pedophiles?
The people’s resounding call did not start yesterday. Decades ago, this was the same battle cry against the Marcos dictatorship, originating from one of the most legendary feats of the workers’ movement: the La Tondeña strike.
Only three years after Marcos imposed Martial Law, thousands of people, including about 800 workers of the largest distillery in Asia at that time, braved the wrath of state fascism and picketed to assert their rights. Workers were hired for eight weeks, thereafter terminated, and then rehired as contractuals. They went to the National Labor Relations Commissions (NLRC) – 30 times to be exact – to no avail. Justifiably, it was in the middle of this massive strike where student activist Edgar Jopson called, “Tama na! Sobra na! Welga na!”
After the La Tondeña strike, more than 200 other strikes broke out nationwide. More than 70,000 workers were involved and were supported by the church, youth, women, and other sectors. Their protests took many forms – silent strikes, sit-down strikes, slowdowns, mass leaves, stretching of the break period, among others.
Rattled with the resounding call for ouster and justice, the Marcos dictatorship devised means to curtail workers’ rights, ending up with the pro-capitalist Labor Code of the Philippines, an ingrained labor policy that the country hails up to this day, a labor disputes commission marred with bribery and corruption, and undue restriction over the workers’ strongest weapons – the right to strike, and the right to form unions.
The Marcos dictatorship’s labor policy
Prior to the declaration of Martial Law, the Philippine economy was already struck in a spiraling crisis. The National Census and Statistics Office (NCSO; now the Philippine Statistics Authority or PSA) recorded almost a 20-percent rate of unemployment in 1931. According to the 1977 Yearbook of Labor Statistics, 78 percent of the total 6.347 million families in the Philippines in 1971 earned below P3,000 annually, and 41 percent of families earned P2,000 per year. Consequently, a Filipino family would have had to subsist on P5-P8 per day.
With prevailing economic conditions pushing the Filipino people further into poverty, strikes and uprisings became inevitable. Thus, towards the goal of curtailing the freedom of speech, of organization, and other fundamental human rights, Marcos orchestrated events building up to the imposition of Martial Law.
To control the spike of strikes and workers’ movements, Marcos made it a point to codify all existing labor laws of the Philippines. Showing utmost subservience to the United States, he welcomed the Rannis Mission with open arms and adopted their recommendations to the labor code – the same labor code we have up to this day.
The late Marxist political economist Edberto Villegas explained in his book, “The Political Economy of Philippine Labor Laws” that the Rannis Mission ‘pushed for an export-oriented industrialization and liberalization of imports in the Philippines, advising against trade protectionism and import-substitution.’ The mission was named after Gustav Rannis, its head, and was sponsored by the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the World Bank (WB).
Consequently, the Rannis Mission laid the foundations for labor policies that prevail even up to this day.
1. Heightened export of labor and the OFW phenomenon
The Labor Code then created the Overseas Employment Development Board (OEDB) and National Seaman Board (NSB) to take care of recruitment for overseas jobs. OEDB looked for employment for Filipinos abroad. Annually, 112,191 workers are deployed abroad, the Middle East being the most common destination.
Benefitting from these, a journal of the National Manpower and Youth Council (NMYC) cited how much host countries gained from the Filipinos’ cheap labor: US$50.9 billion.
On September 21, the whole world will observe the annual International Day of Peace. This year’s theme for the global observance is “Recovering Better for an Equitable and Sustainable World.”[1] The theme underscores the need for the global community to heal from the COVID-19 pandemic, “to think creatively and collectively about how to help everyone recover better, how to build resilience, and how to transform our world into one that is more equal, more just, equitable, inclusive, sustainable, and healthier.” The UN also wants us to direct our attention to people caught in conflict-affected areas because they are especially vulnerable as they lack access to healthcare.
The Philippines is one of the countries that are hardest hit by the pandemic. The country is also in the midst of a heightened armed conflict. Unfortunately, September 21 is also the anniversary of the imposition of Martial Law by the late dictator, Ferdinand Marcos. During this time, Marcos grossly trampled on human rights and the armed conflict between the government and the New People’s Army (NPA) intensified.
Today, the quest for peace to end the decades-old armed conflict between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) has become elusive again. Since last year, the government of President Rodrigo Duterte has closed its door to the principled peace negotiations with the NDFP. It rejected the results of the backchannel talks that Sec. Silvestre Bello had commenced with his NDFP counterparts in December 2019 to restart the peace negotiations after Duterte unilaterally terminated the peace talks in 2017. Then, it promulgated the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020, which became a law that enables the Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC) to designate the NDFP as a terrorist group. This effectively buried years of laborious and painstaking agreements and gradual steps toward peace. Such actions of the government go against the calls of the International Day of Peace.
With the breakdown of the peace negotiations, record shows there had been significant increases in armed encounters between the AFP and the NPA. There were many recorded violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, even in the midst of a debilitating health crisis.
Various sectors, even lawmakers are calling on the government to focus its attention and resources on the fight against COVID-19, rather than further intensifying its counter-insurgency campaign. These calls came on the heels of the proposed 2022 budget where a big chunk goes to the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) while slashing the education and health budget, including the budget of the University of the Philippines and consequently that of the Philippine General Hospital. This act definitely goes against our people’s right to peace.
In this light, the Philippine Ecumenical Peace Platform (PEPP) enjoins the Filipino people to commemorate the International Day of Peace. Let us call on the government to prioritize the country’s need for transformative healing. Let us also call on the GRP and the NDFP to join the whole world in this important remembrance day by returning to the negotiating table, and together putting an end to further rights violations and the loss of life that result from the conflict.
Let the “…tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.” (Luke 1:78-79 NIV)
[1] All references to this year’s theme about the International Day of Peace can be found at https://www.un.org/en/observances/international-day-peace
Issued and signed on this 21st day of September 2021.
