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Introduction

State terrorism and use of all its resources, Marcos stolen wealth and influence, decades of well-oiled and systematic disinformation and misinformation, and electoral fraud guaranteed sham victory to the Ferdinand Marcos, Jr.-Sara Duterte tandem. In particular, these include red-tagging, harassment, extrajudicial killings; failure to seriously  implement various Court decisions on the Marcoses; wholesale vote-buying, faulty and pre-programmed Vote Counting Machines (VCMs), voter disenfranchisement; and unchecked historical distortion re the Marcos dictatorship and their rehabilitation.

The impressive, volunteer-driven people’s campaign led by de facto opposition leader Vice-President Leni Robredo stood beaten by the traditional guns, goons and gold employed by the Marcoses using stolen wealth and the support of other oligarchs. The latter has been led by main enabler Pres. Rodrigo Duterte, who gains from this unity of thieves and liars with his daughter Sara as incoming Vice-President.This, despite broad support gained by the Leni campaign including youth, basic sectors, academe, Church, progressive organizations, former government officials, a section of retired military officers, business and others.

Meantime,  imperialist masters US and China are quick to congratulate  Marcos Jr. to further their own economic and geopolitical interests in the region. Despite glaring US 9th District Court in Hawaii’s conviction of the Marcoses re stolen wealth and even contempt order, the US has turned a blind eye with empty references to long-standing strategic  (read: neo-colonial) relations to foil the continued influence of China. China, more direct in expressing joy in the Marcos victory, is expected to pursue its soft debt diplomacy and encroachment into the West Philippine Sea, among others.

Fraud

The Commission on Elections (Comelec), as main government agency in charge of the polls, is composed of Duterte appointees whose independence is highly doubted. Cheating has been more ‘efficient’ under the Automated Election System (AES) based on reports of various independent poll watchdogs such as Kontra Daya, Vote Report PH and International Observers Mission. Kontra Daya deems the 2022 elections as among the ‘dirtiest’ and ‘most shameless when it comes to cheating.’ The group citied the 1,800 malfunctioning VCMs which affected at least 1.4 million voters; 152 reports of illegal campaigning; 109 reports of vote-buying and 55 reports of red tagging on election day.

The AES law provides for an ‘unbroken chains and processes’ to safeguard results but these were not followed. According to poll watchdog AES Watch (1),  among these is non-issuance of digital signatures (passcodes) to three election inspectors per precinct whereas three passcodes must be keyed in to boot each of the 106,000 VCMs and transmit election returns (ERs). Comelec issued these only in very few areas as majority only had passcodes issued to chairpersons. The Supreme Court (SC) was petitioned to direct the Comelec but no such order was done.

Using pandemic restrictions as excuse, Comelec likewise disallowed the monitoring of ballot printing and SD (secure digital) card formatting and only did so until after 70 percent of ballots already were printed. Comelec also did not release six findings (2) as regards documented results 90 days before election day as required by law. There was no source code review of central, backup and transparency servers by a reputable international body 90 days before election day. These gaps prevented a thorough check of the ERs versus the transparency servers. The 1.6% difference in tally between Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting and Comelec  represents 1,696 precinct VCMs or 1,356,800 votes.(3)

Very limited Random manual audit (RMA) in one per district was done through an untransparent Automated Selection Program, with no review of the source code at all. The entire elections logistics have also been awarded to Duterte funder Dennis Uy’s  F2 logistics. All these and more show that Marcos and Duterte cheated their way to power.

Reject

But beyond electoral fraud, the rejection of the Marcos-Duterte rule harks back to deep historical injustices on the Filipino people. The Marcoses have sought to return to power when Imelda Marcos ran but lost for president in 1992, a mere six years after they were ousted by the Filipino people in 1986, with the US giving them an escape pass to Hawaii. The Marcoses have never been made to seriously account for their crimes despite the 2003 final Supreme Court ruling on stolen wealth and numerous other court decisions, as well as laws, demonstrating the atrocities of martial law.

The elites have played a key role in the restoration of the Marcoses to power because of their own gains from this ghastly arrangement. Outgoing Pres. Duterte enjoyed the Marcoses’ support during his presidential campaign and gave a Heroes’ Burial to the late dictator. This 2022, former Pres. Gloria Arroyo – herself winning through electoral fraud in 2004 as exposed in the Hello Garci tapes — is believed to have brokered the tandem of what should otherwise be strategic political rivals Marcos and Duterte. 

By Hannah Brockhaus
Catholic News Agency
July 1, 2022

VATICAN— Pope Francis has asked the Catholic Church to pray in a special way for the elderly during the month of July.

The prayer intention follows requests to pray for families in June and for young people in May, and coincides with the celebration of the World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly on July 24.

“We cannot speak about family without talking about the importance of the elderly among us,” Pope Francis said in a video message released June 30.

“We elderly people often have a special sensitivity for care, for reflection, and affection,” he noted. “We are, or we can become, teachers of tenderness.”

The video is part of a series created by the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network in collaboration with the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life.

“We pray for the elderly, who represent the roots and memory of a people, that their experience and wisdom will help those who are younger to look to the future with hope and responsibility,” the pope said.

The video shows images of an elderly man and woman baking a cake together, which they then share with their grandchildren.

“In this world accustomed to war, we need a true revolution of tenderness,” he said. “We have a great responsibility towards new generations about this.”

Pope Francis said: “let us remember: grandparents and the elderly are the bread that nourishes our lives, the hidden wisdom of a people. That is why we must celebrate them, and I have established a day dedicated to them.”

“Let us pray for the elderly, that they may become teachers of tenderness so that their experience and wisdom may help young people to look towards the future with hope and responsibility,” he said.

In a June 30 press release from the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, Ciro Intino, director of the Alberto Sordi Foundation, commented on the pope’s July prayer intention.

“Our society is getting older and older, and yet it tends to exclude and isolate elderly people, putting their identity and social role in crisis, especially regarding their relations with younger generations,” he said.

“Unfortunately,” he added, “there is a lack of adequate responses to elderly people’s care requirements and existential needs. There is still a long road ahead in terms of social and sociomedical policies aimed at senior citizens, with the goal of limiting the condition of isolation which constrains too many elderly people today.”

Cardinal Kevin Farrell, prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life, said, “the Holy Father invites us to become aware of the relevance of the elderly in the life of society and of our communities, and to do so not sporadically, but structurally, with a regular pastoral outreach.”

“That is to say, it’s not about rushing to deal with an emergency, but laying the foundations for long-term pastoral work that will require our involvement for decades to come. Beyond reaffirming the importance of fighting the throwaway culture, the Pope also seems to want to offer reference points for those who are experiencing the bewilderment of finding themselves getting along in years,” he said.

PATMOS Online
June 23, 2022

Catholic Culture
June 24, 2022

Today we celebrate The Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The Sacred Heart of Jesus is a devotional with long and historic provenance within Christianity, and in modern times has been established as a Solemnity for the universal Church.

The Solemnity was first celebrated in France. The liturgy was approved by the local bishop at the behest of St. John Eudes, who celebrated the Mass on August 31, 1670. The celebration was quickly adopted in other places in France. In 1856, Pope Pius IX established the Feast of the Sacred Heart as obligatory for the whole Church.

But the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is much older. The beginnings of a devotion of the love of God symbolized by the heart of Jesus are found in the fathers of the Church, including Origen, St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, St. Augustine of Hippo, St. Hippolytus of Rome, St. Irenaeus, St. Justin Martyr, and St. Cyprian. In the 11th century this devotion found a renewal in the writings of Benedictine and Cistercian monasteries. In the 13th century, the Franciscan St. Bonaventure’s work “With You is the Source of Life” (which is the reading for the Divine Office on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart) began to point to the heart as the fountain from which God’s love poured into our lives. Also in the 13th century, there was the “Vitis Mystica” (the mystical vine) a lengthy devotional to Jesus, which vividly describes the “Sacred Heart” of Jesus as the font and fullness of love poured into the world. This work is anonymous, but most often attributed to St. Bonaventure.

At the end of the 13th century, St. Gertrude, on the feast of St. John the Evangelist, had a vision in which she was allowed to rest her head near the wound in the Savior’s side. She heard the beating of the Divine Heart and asked John if, on the night of the Last Supper, he too had felt this beating heart, why then had he never spoken of the fact. John replied that this revelation had been reserved for subsequent ages when the world, having grown cold, would have need to rekindle its love.

In the late 17th century the devotion was renewed and adopted elsewhere, especially following the revelations to St. Marguerite Marie Alacoque. The saint, a cloistered nun of the Visitation Order, received several private revelations of the Sacred Heart, the first on December 27, 1673, and the final one 18 months later. The stained glass window centered in the sanctuary dome recalls the Saint and her vision.

Initially discouraged in her efforts to follow the instruction she had received in her visions, Alacoque was eventually able to convince her superior of the authenticity of her visions. She was unable, however, to convince a group of theologians of the validity of her apparitions, nor was she any more successful with many of the members of her own community. She eventually received the support of the community’s confessor who declared that the visions were genuine. Alacoque’s short devotional writing, “La Devotion au Sacré-Coeur de Jesus” (Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus), was published posthumously in 1698. The devotion was fostered by the Jesuits and Franciscans, but it was not until the 1928 encyclical “Miserentissimus Redemptor” by Pope Pius XI that the Church validated the credibility of Alacoque’s visions of Jesus Christ in having “promised her [Alacoque] that all those who rendered this honor to His Heart would be endowed with an abundance of heavenly graces.”

In the late 19th century, Sr. Mary of the Divine Heart received a message from Christ. This eventually led the 1899 encyclical letter Annum Sacrum in which Leo XIII decreed that the consecration of the entire human race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus should take place on June 11, 1899.

On the 100th anniversary of the Feast of the Sacred Heart in a landmark encyclical, Haurietis aquas (Latin: “You will draw waters”; written May 15, 1956), Pope Pius XII began his reflection by drawing from Isaiah 12:3, a verse which alludes to the abundance of the supernatural graces which flow from the heart of Christ. Haurietis aquas called the whole Church to recognize the Sacred Heart as an important dimension of Christian spirituality. Pius XII gave two reasons why the Church gives the highest form of worship to the Heart of Jesus. The first rests on the principle whereby the believers recognize that Jesus’ Heart is hypostatically united to the “Person of the Incarnate Son of God Himself.” The second reason is derived from the fact that the Heart is the natural sign and symbol of Jesus’ boundless love for humans. The encyclical recalls that for human souls the wound in Christ’s side and the marks left by the nails have been “the chief sign and symbol of that love” that ever more incisively shaped their life from within.

by Fr. Pete Montallana(June21, 2022)

“Natalo o nanalo” – what is important now is how to uplift the Filipinos belonging to Class  E and D – the big majority of the people who live in  hunger and depravity burdened with the P13 Trillion debt.

Sri Lanka, where I was a missionary,  is now in deep financial crisis; Pakistan is  in turmoil; there are predictions of more developing  countries will be facing instability.

How will the present administration fulfill its avowed P20/a kilo rice in a world still recovering   in the midst of the effects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

We need to be united but with sincere efforts to restore the credibility of the COMELEC and its Smartmatic computers that churned  super fast result compounded  by massive vote buying.

Is democracy still a reality or has it  been made obsolete by the manipulative technological advances? Whatever, we have to move on and our Faith has to face the challenge.

The social action  arm  of the bishops has articulated a strategy: “principled collaboration” on areas that benefit the people.

Will the present administration – to bolster its credibility – come out with legal safeguards to  prevent  the ordinary people from being bombarded with  untruths?

A systematic annihilation of the monster of “vote buying” has to be  institutionalized to prevent government from falling into the hands of the highest bidder. 

“Peracracia” not “Democracia” is what we have  in the Pilippines with a past president  even justifying that: “vote buying”  is part of our culture. I strongly disagree with this rationalization. I still  believe that the Flipino is basically honest and “makatao”. It is embedded in the lives of our katutubo and the  simple provinciano and has been re-inforced by  the  four  centuries of exposure to  the teachings of Jesus.

Yes, deep inside the Filipino can distinguish what is right or  wrong but unfortunately perhaps we have been  been demonized by mesmerizing social media 

Finally, will the present administration fully respect the dignity of the human person by ensuring that  the genuine  will of the people surface in the upcoming  coming barangay election this coming December 2022 or, as in the past,  will it also utilize its political power to solidify its  future?

“Nanalo o natalo”  God wants that all his creatures enjoy the benefits of the Philippine Archipelago – not only those who have amassed wealth and power by hook or by crook. May this God empower us,   believers, to be undounted  despite crucifixion to attain that overwhelming power of the Resurrection. Let us start  laying down the solid foundation of a democratized Philippines  making vote buying and deceptive labelling  events of the past. We move on for  the poor wait for us – nanalo o natalo. We are one Big Force to reckon with because LOVE  promised to be with us till the end of time.  

(Fr. Pete Montallana is the Coordinator of the Indigenous Peoples’ Apostolate of the Diocese of Infanta)  

Quezon City, Philippines – Pollution watchdog EcoWaste Coalition raises alarm on the proposed  Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) bill on plastic packaging waste and asks President Rodrigo Duterte to scrap said proposed bill.

“Institutionalizing EPR mechanisms is a welcome development in our push for a plastic-free Philippines. Sadly, the proposed EPR bill by congress promotes greenwashing and false solutions allowing plastic polluters to just continue their wasteful business practices at the expense of the environment and our communities,” said  Coleen Salamat, Plastic Solutions Campaigner of EcoWaste Coalition.

According to the group, a genuine EPR follows the concept of ‘polluters’ pay principle’ that  puts greater responsibility on those who pollute more, such as the plastic industry and producers of fast-moving consumer goods.

“The current trend on the initiatives of consistent top polluters like Nestle, Procter and Gamble, Unilever, Coca-Cola, still heavily rely on cement kilns, chemical recycling, and other false solutions that burn or melt single-use plastics. These false solutions are not just a threat to the environment but also a public health concern. Schemes like these do not reduce or prevent waste but also contribute to worsening of air pollution,” said Salamat.

“The current EPR bill is not a precedent that polluters will be held accountable since it does not penalize producers for prohibited acts on the production, use, distribution, and importation of non-environmentally acceptable products and packaging,” added Salamat.

In 2019, a research by Nature Climate Change found that if plastic was a country, it would be the fifth largest emitter in the world.

“We urge President Duterte to stay true to the Philippines commitment of 75% reduction of domestic emission by 2030. We are in a defining moment for our climate, we need lasting zero waste solutions that do not further contribute to the warming of our planet,” said Salamat.

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For more information, please contact:
EcoWaste Coalition
info@ecowastecoalition.org