DECONGESTANT

The big RH swindle

2011-05-26T17:01:00.001-07:00

The big RH swindle

By Francisco S. Tatad

We can all probably agree that respect for the Constitution, the moral convictions, religious beliefs, human dignity and solidarity of our people is indispensable to the health and wellbeing of the nation. And that no democratic government ever enacts a law that is certain to divide its people.

Yet never before have we seen so many Filipino politicians trying to savage that view, and further divide an already divided nation. All in the name of a foreign-dictated Reproductive Health (RH) bill.

Many of the debates, arranged or sponsored by the RH patrons and funders, have been one big swindle. Often moderated by the uninstructed and uninformed, they have tried to discuss every tangential issue, while evading the central issue that will ultimately decide whether the bill, if enacted into law, could bind anyone in conscience.

They have tried to scare us with all sorts of doomsday scenario about our birth rate of 1.9 percent, and the country’s population density of 313 per square km, which are quite healthy, without ever mentioning the plunging birth rates and the rapid ageing and dying in the developed countries, which should terrify anyone living in this century.

They have tried to make us feel guilty that ten or so childbearing women are dying everyday for lack of proper obstetrics and maternal care, even though several times more women are dying everyday from cancer, heart disease, respiratory disease, diabetes, tuberculosis, and other diseases, without any medical or burial assistance from government.

Not every congressman or senator has read the RH bill. And not everyone who has read it has correctly understood its whys and wherefores. They say its purpose is “to protect the right” of women (and men) to decide whether or not to practice birth control and what method/s to use. But that is not true at all. It is patently false, a gross deception.

No law prohibits contraception or sterilization. Everyone is free to contracept or get sterilized on their own. No law distinguishes abortifacients from mere contraceptives either. A woman could commit abortion while ostensibly practicing contraception only. This has been so for the last 35 years.

Since the 1970s, the government has been funding what it now calls RH every year. At least P2 billion this year. Additionally, some LGUs are now implementing some foreign-funded RH programs. The constitutionality of these things has yet to be ruled on. But the nation’s contraceptive prevalence rate now stands at 51 percent and counting.

So what women’s “right” to contracept are they talking about? What need is there for this RH bill? We have the global population controllers and contraceptives and abortion providers to thank for.

At the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, there was a proposal that poor countries should assume at least two-thirds of the cost of their RH programs, which until then had been borne by the rich governments. This means two-thirds of $20.5 billion in 2010, and $21.7 billion in 2015, which were the cost estimates at the time. But even the ICPD document did not contemplate the totalitarian approach of the present RH bill.

The bill seeks to require all married couples to practice birth control as an integral part of marriage, regardless of their religious beliefs and moral convictions. This will revise the very nature and organic laws of marriage, an institution that precedes the State.

Indeed, the bill will allow individuals to choose what method/s of birth control to use, but it wants all married couples and even unmarried individuals to be part of a state-run program of population control. It also wants to impose a mandatory sex education program on schoolchildren from Grade V until fourth year High School, without parental consent.

However, these points have been muted in the debates. The proponents have tried to dance around the real issues, and many of those against have been lured into joining the dance too. Thus we have discussed the side issues, but left untouched the central issue, which is, Does the State have the right or duty to organize the intimate private lives of its citizens? Can Congress enact the RH bill into law without regard to the moral law and the Constitution?

The mandate of Sec. 12, Article II of the Constitution is clear and cannot be obscured. It needs no interpretation. “The State recognizes the sanctity of family life and shall protect and strengthen the family as a basic autonomous social institution. It shall equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception. The natural and primary right and duty of parents in the rearing of the youth for civic efficiency and the development of moral character shall receive the support of the Government.”

Some people, including some supposed theologians and constitutional experts, have tried to muddle this issue by asking, “when does life begin?” Is it upon “fertilization” of the egg, or upon “implantation”of the fertilized ovum? That would be quite relevant if we were discussing abortion, which we are not.

The only relevant issue here is this: If the duty of the State is to equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception, does it also have the right or the duty to run a program of contraception and sterilization whose purpose is to prevent the birth of children? Can the State be the protector and preventer of childbearing at the same time? Clearly, the State can be one or the other, but not both at the same time.

Likewise, it parents are the natural and primary educators of their children, the State can only support, but not replace them in that role. It cannot, therefore, impose a compulsory sex education program on schoolchildren, without parental consent.

Now, Article XV “recognizes the Filipino family as the foundation of the nation,” and marriage “as an inviolable social institution,” “the foundation of the family,” which “shall be protected by the State.” Sec. 3 provides: “The State shall defend: (1) The right of spouses to found a family in accordance with their religious convictions and the demands of responsible parenthood.”

This is where the Catholics and other religious believers come in. They have to defend their basic human right to their own respective religious beliefs. I am a Roman Catholic. I believe, with the Church, that contraception and sterilization are intrinsically evil, and I try to practice what I believe. My friend and neighbor is of a different faith; he believes that contraception and sterilization are good for his health. The absence of an RH law has not impaired, and will not impair, his “right” to practice contraception and sterilization. It will not hurt the practice of his faith. But the passage of an RH law will certainly hurt mine.

I do not want the State to act as the enforcer of my Catholic faith, and compel my friend and neighbor to believe what I believe. But I cannot allow the State to tell me to abandon my belief either and support with my tax payment a government program that attacks my religious belief. I would feel religiously persecuted, and I will have to respond accordingly.

I may or may not march against the government, I may or may not call or join any call for civil disobedience. But the so-called RH law would have no moral or constitutional basis and could not bind me or anyone else in conscience. It would simply further divide the nation. The law would have turned this country into a totalitarian state, and the government would, in the language of the February1986 CBCP statement, lose the moral authority to govern.

For these reasons, the House of Representatives would be well advised to simply archive the RH bill now, revoke the present RH program and appropriation, retool the Department of Health and the Population Commission, and begin to mind our more authentic and pressing national concerns.

The Top Ten Myths About Homosexuality

2010-08-13T19:26:00.000-07:00

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The Top Ten
Myths About Homosexuality
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the top ten myths about homosexuality
by peter sprigg
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printed in the united states
The Top Ten
Myths About Homosexuality
by peter sprigg
peter sprigg is Senior Fellow for Policy Studies at Family Research Council in Washington, D. C. and the co-author of Getting It Straight: What the Research Shows about Homosexuality and author of Outrage: How Gay Activists and Liberal Judges are Trashing Democracy to Redefine Marriage.
The homosexual activist movement is now over forty years old. Conservatives sometimes refer to the array of goals this movement has pursued—hate crime laws, employment “non-discrimination” laws, same-sex “marriage,” etc.—as “the homosexual agenda.”
Occasionally, we are mocked for the use of this term, as though we are suggesting that this movement represents some sinister and shadowy conspiracy. However, the term “agenda” is a perfectly neutral one. We in the pro-family movement certainly have our own “agenda.” Its elements include: protecting the safety and dignity of human life from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death; encouraging the practice of sexuality only within the context of marriage between one man and one woman; and promoting the natural family, headed by a married, biological mother and father, as the ideal setting for raising children. We are proud of this “agenda,” and will continue to vigorously pursue it.
By the same token, homosexual activists have a clear agenda as well. It is an agenda that demands the universal acceptance of homosexual acts and relationships—morally, socially, legally, religiously, politically and financially. Indeed, it
calls for not only acceptance, but affirmation and celebration of this behavior as normal, natural,
and even as desirable for those who desire it. There is nothing shadowy or secretive about this agenda—in fact, it has become nearly impossible to avoid encountering it.
There is at least one key difference between the “pro-family agenda” and the “pro-homosexual agenda.” In the case of the pro-family agenda, there is a growing and impressive body of social science research and other evidence confirming that the theoretical foundations of pro-family policies are sound, and that pro-family practices benefit society. New technologies like advanced ultrasound imaging and fetal surgery have confirmed the essential humanity of the unborn. Sexual relations outside of marriage have been shown to lead to an array of negative physical and psychological consequences. And social science research has clearly shown that children who are raised by their own, married, biological mother and father have a significant advantage in a broad range of outcome measures.
The same cannot be said of the homosexual agenda. In large measure, the pursuit of this agenda has involved an effort to define the benefits homosexuals seek as a matter of “civil rights,” comparable to that which African Americans fought for in the 1960’s; and to define disapproval of homosexual conduct as a form of “bigotry,” comparable to a racist ideology of white supremacy.
However, these themes only make sense if, in fact, a homosexual “orientation” is a characteristic that
1 Homosexual attractions may be involuntary (but they are not immutable); engaging in homosexual relations, however, is clearly voluntary.
3
2
is comparable to race. But racial discrimination is not wrong merely because a group of people complained loudly and long that it is wrong. Racial discrimination is irrational and invidious because of what I call the five “I’s”—the fact that, as a personal characteristic, race is inborn, involuntary, immutable, innocuous and in the Constitution.
Homosexual activists would have us believe that the same is true of their homosexuality. They want us to believe that their homosexual “orientation” is something they are born with, cannot choose whether to accept or reject, and cannot change; and that it does no harm (to themselves or to society), while being protected by the principles of the Constitution.
However, these are empirical questions, subject to being verified or refuted based on the evidence. And the evidence produced by research has simply not been kind to this theoretical underpinning of the homosexual movement. It has become more and more clear that none of the “five-I” criteria apply to the choice to engage in homosexual conduct.1
The homosexual movement is built, not on facts or research, but on mythology. Unfortunately, these myths have come to be widely accepted in society—particularly in schools, universities and the media. It is our hope that by understanding what these key myths are—and then reading a brief summary of the evidence against them—the reader will be empowered to challenge these myths when he or she encounters them.
4
Myth No. 1:
People are born gay.
Fact:
The research does not show that anyone is “born gay,” and suggests instead that homosexuality results from a complex mix of developmental factors.
The widespread, popular belief that science has proven a biological or genetic origin to homosexuality can be traced to the publicity which surrounded three studies published in the early 1990’s. In August of 1991, researcher Simon LeVay published a study based on post-mortem examinations of the brains of cadavers. He concluded that differences in a particular brain structure suggested “that sexual orientation has a biological substrate.”2 In December of 1991, researchers J. Michael Bailey and Richard C. Pillard published a study of identical and fraternal twins and adoptive brothers, and found that “the pattern of rates of homosexuality . . . was generally consistent with substantial genetic influence.”3 Finally, in 1993, researcher Dean Hamer claimed to have found a specific “chromosomal region” containing “a gene that contributes to homosexual orientation in males.”4
myth 1 - footnotes
2 Simon LeVay, “A Difference in Hypothalamic Structure Between Heterosexual and Homosexual Men,” Science, 253: 1034 (August 1991).
3 J. Michael Bailey and Richard C. Pillard, “A Genetic Study of Male Sexual Orientation,” Archives of General Psychiatry, 48: 1089 (December 1991).
5
These studies suffered from serious methodological weaknesses, such as small sample sizes, non-random samples and even possible mis-classification of their subjects. Other scientists have been unable to replicate these dramatic findings. These problems led two psychiatrists to conclude,
“Critical review shows the evidence favoring a biologic theory to be lacking. . . . In fact, the current trend may be to underrate the explanatory power of extant psychosocial models.”5
Subsequently, more rigorous studies of identical twin pairs have essentially made it impossible to argue for the genetic determination of homosexuality. Since identical (“monozygotic,” in the scientific literature) twins have identical genes, if homosexuality were genetically fixed at birth, we should expect that whenever one twin is ho4
Dean H. Hamer, et al., “A Linkage Between DNA Markers on the X Chromosome and Male Sexual Orientation,” Science 261 (1993): 325.
5 William Byne and Bruce Parsons, “Human Sexual Orientation: The Biologic Theories Reappraised,” Archives of General Psychiatry, 50 (March 1993): 228, 236.
mosexual, the other twin would be homosexual (a “concordance rate” of 100%). Even Michael Bailey himself, co-author of the landmark 1991 twins study (which supposedly found a concordance rate of about 50%), conducted a subsequent study on a larger sample of Australian twins. As summarized by other researchers, “They found twenty-seven identical male twin pairs where at least one of the twin brothers was gay, but in only three of the pairs was the second twin brother gay as well”6 (a “concordance rate” of only eleven percent).
Researchers Peter Bearman and Hannah Brückner, from Columbia and Yale respectively, studied data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, and found even lower concordance rates of only 6.7% for male and 5.3% for female identical twins. In fact, their study neatly refuted several of the biological theories for the origin of homosexuality, finding social experiences in childhood to be far more significant:
[T]he pattern of concordance (similarity across pairs) of same-sex preference for sibling pairs does not suggest genetic influence independent of social context. Our data falsify the hormone transfer hypothesis by isolating a single condi6
Stanton L. Jones and Mark A Yarhouse, Ex-gays? A Longitudinal Study of Religiously Mediated Change in Sexual Orientation (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2007), p. 124; summarizing findings of: J. Michael Bailey, Michael P. Dunne, and Nicholas G. Martin, “Genetic and environmental influences on sexual orientation and its correlates in an Australian twin sample,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 78(3), March 2000, 524-536.
6
tion that eliminates the opposite-sex twin effect we observe—the presence of an older same-sex sibling. We also consider and reject a speculative evolutionary theory that rests on observing birth-order effects on same-sex orientation. In contrast, our results support the hypothesis that less gendered socialization in early childhood and preadolescence shapes subsequent same-sex romantic preferences.7
If it was not clear in the 1990’s, it certainly is now—no one is “born gay.”
7
7 Peter S. Bearman and Hannah Brückner, “Opposite-Sex Twins and Adolescent Same-Sex Attraction,” American Journal of Sociology Vol. 107, No. 5, (March 2002), 1179-1205.
myth 2 - footnotes
8 See Edward O. Laumann, John H. Gagnon, Robert T. Michael, and Stuart Michaels, The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), pp. 290-301.
9 Calculated from Tables 2 and 3 in Robert E. Fay, Charles F. Turner, Albert D. Klassen, John H.
8
Myth No. 2:
Sexual orientation can never change.
Fact:
Thousands of men and women have testified to experiencing a change in their sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual. Research confirms that such change does occur—sometimes spontaneously, and sometimes as
a result of therapeutic interventions.
When talking about “sexual orientation,” one important clarification must be made. While most people assume that “sexual orientation” is one trait and clearly defined, this is not the case. “Sexual orientation” is actually an umbrella term for three quite different phenomena—a person’s sexual attractions or desires; a person’s sexual behavior; and a person’s self-identification, either publicly or internally (as “gay,” lesbian, “straight,” etc.). While we tend to assume that a person with homosexual attractions will also engage in homosexual relationships and self-identify as “gay” or “lesbian,” survey research on human sexuality clearly shows that this is not the case. An individual’s sexual attractions, sexual behavior and sexual self-identification are not always consistent with each other, let alone static over time.8
This understanding sheds new light on the question of whether “homosexuality is a choice.”
Homosexual attractions are clearly not a “choice” in the vast majority of cases. However, it would actually be insulting to people with same-sex attractions to suggest that they are compelled to act on those attractions. Homosexual conduct (if it is consensual) clearly is a choice—as is self-identifying as “gay” or “lesbian.” One’s self-identification can be changed at will, as can one’s sexual behavior (although perhaps with difficulty—just as other behavioral habits such as overeating can be changed).
Although much attention has been focused on counseling techniques or therapies for unwanted same-sex attractions and on the work of “ex-gay” ministries, there is startling evidence that considerable numbers of people experience significant change in some aspects of sexual orientation, particularly their behavior, quite spontaneously, without therapeutic intervention. For example, two studies have found that a large percentage (46% in one survey,9 and more than half in another10) of all men who have ever engaged in ho9
Gagnon, “Prevalence and Patterns of Same-Gender Sexual Contact among Men, Science, New Series, Vol. 243, Issue 4889 (20 January 1989): 341-42.
10 John H. Gagnon and William Simon, Sexual conduct: The social sources of human sexuality (Chicago: Aldine, 1993), pp. 131-32; cited in Laumann et al., p. 289, footnote 8.
11 At least four sources reporting such cases, published between 1969 and 1992, are cited in: James E. Phelan, Neil Whitehead, Philip M. Sutton, “What Research Shows: NARTH’s Response to the APA Claims on Homosexuality,” Journal of Human Sexuality Vol. 1 (National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, 2009), pp. 23, 30.
12 Stanton L. Jones and Mark A Yarhouse, Homosexuality: The use of scientific research in the church’s moral debate (Downer’s Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2000); cited in: James E. Phelan, Neil Whitehead, Philip M. Sutton, “What Research Shows: NARTH’s Response to the APA Claims on Ho10
11
mosexuality,” Journal of Human Sexuality Vol. 1 (National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, 2009), p. 32.
13 J. Nicolosi, A. D. Byrd, and R. W. Potts, “Retrospective self-reports of changes in homosexual orientation: A consumer survey of conversion therapy clients,” Psychological Reports 86, pp. 689-702. Cited in: Phelan et al., p. 12.
14 Stanton L. Jones and Mark A Yarhouse, Ex-gays? A Longitudinal Study of Religiously Mediated Change in Sexual Orientation (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2007), p. 369.
mosexual conduct did so only before age 15 and never since.
One’s internal sexual desires or attractions are undoubtedly the most difficult aspect of “sexual orientation” to change, but the evidence demonstrates that many people have experienced change in that way as well. Some people in therapy have experienced significant reductions in their same-sex attractions, even when that was not the goal of therapy, as a result of the resolution of other personal issues in their lives.11 One “meta-analysis” combining data from thirty studies on reorientation therapy, conducted between 1954 and 1994, showed that 33% of subjects had made some shift toward heterosexuality.12 Similarly, a survey of over 800 individuals who had participated in a variety of efforts to change from a homosexual orientation found that 34.3% had shifted “to an exclusively or almost exclusively heterosexual orientation.”13 The most methodologically rigorous (prospective and longitudinal) study yet conducted, on subjects who had sought change through religious ministries, which was published in a 414-page book, showed that 38% achieved success, defined as either “substantial conversion to heterosexual attraction” (15%) or “chastity” with homosexual attraction “either missing or present only incidentally.”14
One of the strongest pieces of evidence for the possibility of change came from an unlikely source—Dr. Robert Spitzer, a psychiatrist who was instrumental in the pivotal 1973 decision of the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from its official list of mental disorders. Spitzer studied two hundred people who had reported some measure of change from a ho15
Strictly speaking, “reparative therapy” describes a specific therapeutic technique which is not used by all therapists who treat unwanted same-sex attractions. “Change therapy” or “reorientation therapy” would be more inclusive terms. See Phelan et al., p. 6, footnote 1.
12
13
16 Robert L. Spitzer, M.D., “Can Some Gay Men and Lesbians Change Their Sexual Orientation? 200 Participants Reporting a Change from Homosexual to Heterosexual Orientation,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 32, no. 5 (October 2003): 413.
mosexual to a heterosexual orientation as a result of what is sometimes called “reparative therapy”15 for unwanted same-sex attractions. He concluded,
The changes following reparative therapy were not limited to sexual behavior and sexual orientation self-identity. The changes encompassed sexual attraction, arousal, fantasy, yearning, and being bothered by homosexual feelings. The changes encompassed the core aspects of sexual orientation.16
This is not to say that change is easy, that it is typically accomplished through prayer or willpower alone, or that the success of reorientation therapy can be guaranteed. However, personal testimonies, survey data and clinical research all make clear that change from a predominantly homosexual to a predominantly heterosexual orientation is possible.
myth 3 - footnotes
17 For example, see Finally Free: Personal Stories: How Love and Self-Acceptance Saved Us from “Ex-Gay” Ministries (Washington, DC: Human Rights Campaign Foundation, July 2000); online at: http://www.hrc.org/documents/finallyfree.pdf
18 For example, see Bob Davies with Lela Gilbert, Portraits of Freedom: 14 People Who Came Out of Homosexuality (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2001).
19 P. H. DeLeon, “Proceedings of the American Psychological Association . . .” for 1997, American Psychologist 53, pp. 882-939; cited in: James E. Phelan, Neil Whitehead, Philip M. Sutton, “What Research
14
Shows: NARTH’s Response to the APA Claims on Homosexuality,” Journal of Human Sexuality Vol. 1 (National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, 2009), p. 5.
20 Joseph Nicolosi, A. Dean Byrd, Richard W. Potts, “Retrospective self-reports of changes in homosexual orientation: A consumer survey of conversion therapy clients,” Psychological Reports 86, pp. 1071-88; cited in Phelan, et al., p. 42.
15
Myth No. 3:
Efforts to change someone’s sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual are harmful and unethical.
Fact :
There is no scientific evidence that change efforts create greater harm than the homosexual lifestyle itself. The real ethical violation is when clients are denied the opportunity to set their own goals for therapy.
Homosexual activists regularly present anecdotal evidence of the harms suffered by clients of reorientation therapists17—even while simultaneously denying the validity of anecdotal evidence in support of the benefits and effectiveness of such change therapies.18 Opponents of change therapies have largely succeeded in codifying their views in policy statements of the American Psychological Association, which has expressed concern about “the ethics, efficacy, benefits, and potential for harm of therapies that seek to reduce or eliminate same-gender sexual orientation.”19
However, the best scientific studies analyzing the outcome of such change therapies simply do not validate the claims of substantial harm. In one survey of over 800 clients of change therapies, participants were given a list of seventy potential negative consequences of therapy. Only 7.1% said they were worse in as many as three of the seventy categories.20 The authors of the most methodologically rigorous study ever conducted on persons seeking to change from a homosexual orientation looked for evidence of harm using standardized measures of “psychological dis21
Stanton L. Jones and Mark A Yarhouse, Ex-gays? A Longitudinal Study of Religiously Mediated Change in Sexual Orientation (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2007), 333-344.
22 Ibid., 344-349.
23 Ibid., 349-353.
24 Ibid., 359.
25 Robert L. Spitzer, M.D., “Can Some Gay Men and Lesbians Change Their Sexual Orientation? 200
16
Participants Reporting a Change from Homosexual to Heterosexual Orientation,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 32, no. 5 (October 2003): 414.
26 Ibid., 413.
27 Online at: http://www.narth.com/
28 Answers to your questions: For a better understanding of sexual orientation and homosexuality (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2008), p. 3. Online at: www.apa.org/topics/sorientation.pdf
17
tress,”21 “spiritual well-being,”22 and “faith maturity.”23 They concluded, “We found no empirical evidence in this study to support the claim that the attempt to change sexual orientation is harmful.”24 Even Robert Spitzer, a pro-“gay” psychiatrist who found that change therapies can be effective, also declared, “For the participants in our study, there was no evidence of harm.”25
In fact, even some who have failed in efforts to change their sexual orientation have nevertheless experienced benefits in other areas of their lives as a result of their participation in reorientation therapy. Spitzer also acknowledged this point, declaring:
Even participants who only made a limited change nevertheless regarded the therapy as extremely beneficial. Participants reported benefit from nonsexual changes, such as decreased depression, a greater sense of masculinity in males, and femininity in females, and developing intimate nonsexual relations with members of the same sex.26
It is important to note that responsible reorientation therapists, such as those affiliated with the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH),27 offer their services only to those who experience unwanted same-sex attractions and desire to change. No one supports forcing any adult into reorientation therapy against his or her will—and such coercion would be ineffective, since a client’s motivation to change is crucial to the success of therapy. It is actually the opponents of reparative therapy who are violating a long-standing ethical principle in the field of psychology—namely, the autonomy of the client to determine his or her own goals for therapy. Even the American Psychological Association, which is highly critical of reorientation therapy, has been forced to affirm, “Mental health professional organizations call on their members to respect a person’s (client’s) right to self-determination . . . .”28
Of course, any form of counseling or psychological therapy—like any surgery or pharmaceutical drug—may have unintended negative side effects for some clients or patients. The question is not whether some harm is possible. The real question is whether the potential benefits outweigh the potential for harm. Given the potential benefit of mitigating the significant harms associated with the homosexual lifestyle itself (see Myths 5 and 6), it seems clear that therapy to overcome a homosexual orientation easily meets that standard.
myth 4 - footnotes
29 For two book-length critiques of Kinsey’s research and his ethics—or lack thereof—see Judith A. Reisman and Edward W. Eichel, Kinsey, Sex and Fraud: The Indoctrination of a People (Lafayette, La.: Huntington House, 1990); and Judith A. Reisman, Kinsey: Crimes & Consequences: The Red Queen and the Grand Scheme (Arlington, Va.: Institute for Media Education, 1998).
30 Edward O. Laumann, John H. Gagnon, Robert T. Michael, and Stuart Michaels, The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), p. 35. See also Robert T. Michael, John H. Gagnon, Ed18
ward O. Laumann, and Gina Kolata, Sex in America: A Definitive Survey (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1994), pp. 17-19.
31 Alfred C. Kinsey, Wardell B. Pomeroy, and Clyde E. Martin, Sexual behavior in the human male (Philadelphia: Saunders, 1948), pp. 650-51; cited in: Laumann, et al., The Social Organization of Sexuality, p. 288.
32 See the website of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, online at: http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/research/ak-hhscale.html
19
Myth No. 4:
Ten percent of the population is gay.
Fact:
Less than three percent of American adults identify themselves as homosexual or bisexual.
The myth that ten percent of the population is homosexual arose from the work of the notorious early sex researcher Alfred Kinsey.29 His surveys of the sexual behaviors of Americans in the 1940’s have been thoroughly discredited, because he “failed to meet even the most elementary requirements for drawing a truly representative sample of the population at large.”30 And Kinsey did not claim that ten percent of the population was exclusively homosexual throughout their lifetimes—even among Kinsey’s subjects, only four percent met that standard. Instead, he claimed that “10 percent of the males are more or less exclusively homosexual for at least three years . . .” (emphasis added).31 Indeed, the famous “Kinsey Scale” classified sexual orientation on a continuum (from zero, for exclusively heterosexual, to six, for exclusively homosexual), based on the assumption that few people are exclusively homosexual or exclusively heterosexual.32
More modern survey data has modified even that claim. In fact, an overwhelming majority of the population are exclusively heterosexual. However, of the small number of people who have ever experienced homosexuality on any of the three measures of sexual orientation (attractions, behavior, and self-identification), the number who have been exclusively homosexual on all three measures
33 Laumann, et al., The Social Organization of Sexuality,
p. 312.
34 Lawrence v. Texas, Docket No. 02-102 (U.S. Supreme
Court), brief of amici curiae Human Rights Campaign
et al., 16 January 2003, p. 16 (footnote 42).
35 April 1, 2010.
20 21
and Social Life Survey (NHSLS). The NHSLS
found that 2.8% of the male, and 1.4% of the
female, population identify themselves as gay,
lesbian, or bisexual. See Laumann et al., The
Social Organization of Sex: Sexual Practices in
the United States (1994).34
1.4%
98.6%
The NHSLS found that 1.4% of the female population
identify themselves as gay, lesbian, or bisexual.
FEMALE POPULATION
2.8%
97.2%
The NHSLS found that 2.8% of the male population
identify themselves as gay, lesbian, or bisexual.
MALE POPULATION
The NHSLS found that 2.8%
of the male population identify
themselves as gay or bisexual.
The NHSLS found that 1.4%
of the female population identify
themselves as gay, lesbian, or bisexual.
So it’s fair to say that the “ten percent” myth has
been discredited even by pro-homosexual groups
themselves—yet a recent35 Google search for the
words “ten percent gay” still turned up 2,970,000
hits.
throughout their lives is vanishingly small—only
0.6% of men and 0.2% of women.33
Even if we go by the measure of self-identification
alone, the percentage of the population who
identify as homosexual or bisexual is quite small.
Convincing evidence of these has come from
an unlikely source—a consortium of 31 of the
leading homosexual rights groups in America.
In a friend-of-the-court brief they filed in the
Supreme Court’s Lawrence v. Texas sodomy case
in 2003, they admitted the following:
The most widely accepted study of sexual practices
in the United States is the National Health
myth 5 - footnotes
36 James E. Phelan, Neil Whitehead, Philip M. Sutton, “What Research Shows: NARTH’s Response to the APA Claims on Homosexuality,” Journal of Human Sexuality Vol. 1, p. 93 (National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, 2009).
37 See the very balanced account offered in Ronald Bayer, Homosexuality and American Psychiatry: The Politics of Diagnosis (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981).
38 Ibid., p. 167, citing “Sexual Survey #4: Current Thinking on Homosexuality,” Medical Aspects of Human Sexuality 11 (November 1977), pp. 110-11.
22
Myth No. 5:
Homosexuals do not experience a higher level of psychological disorders than heterosexuals.
Fact :
Homosexuals experience considerably higher levels of mental illness and substance abuse than heterosexuals. A detailed review of the research has shown that “no other group of comparable size in society experiences such intense and widespread pathology.”36
One of the first triumphs of the modern homosexual movement was the removal of homosexuality from the American Psychiatric Association’s official list of mental disorders in 1973. That decision was far more political than scientific in nature,37 and an actual survey of psychiatrists several years later showed that a large majority still believed homosexuality to be pathological.38� Nevertheless, regardless of whether one considers homosexuality itself to be a mental disorder, there can be no question that it is associated with higher levels of a whole range of mental disorders.
39 Ron Stall, Thomas C. Mills, John Williamson, Trevor Hart, Greg Greenwood, Jay Paul, Lance Pollack, Diane Binson, Dennis Osmond, Joseph A. Catania, “Association of Co-Occurring Psychosocial Health Problems and Increased Vulnerability to HIV/AIDS Among Urban Men Who Have Sex With Men,” American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 93, No. 6 (June 2003), p. 941.
40 Ibid., 940-42.
23
Ron Stall, one of the nation’s leading AIDS researchers, has been warning for years “that additive psychosocial health problems—otherwise known collectively as a ‘syndemic’—exist among urban MSM” 39 [men who have sex with men]. For example, in 2003, his research team reported in the American Journal of Public Health that homosexual conduct in this population is associated with higher rates of multiple drug use, depression, domestic violence and a history of having been sexually abused as a child.40
Findings released in 2005 from an on-going, population-based study of young people in New Zealand showed that homosexuality is
“ . . . associated with increasing rates of depression, anxiety, illicit drug dependence, suicidal thoughts and attempts. Gay males, the study shows, have mental health problems five times
41 “Study: Young Gay Men At Higher Risk Of Suicide,” 365Gay.com, August 2, 2005; online at: http://www.365gay.com/newscon05/08/080205suicide.htm (page not available February 13, 2010; on file with author).
42 Michael King, Joanna Semlyen, Sharon See Tai, Helen Killaspy, David Osborn, Dmitri Popelyuk and Irwin Nazareth, “A systematic review of mental disorder, suicide, and deliberate self harm in lesbian, gay and bisexual people,” BMC Psychiatry 2008, 8:70 (August 18, 2008); online at: http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-244X-8-70.pdf
43 Victor M. B. Silenzio, “Top 10 Things Gay Men Should Discuss with their Healthcare Provider” (San Francisco: Gay & Lesbian Medical Association); accessed April 1, 2010; online at: http://www.glma.org/_data/n_0001/resources/live/Top%20Ten%20Gay%20Men.pdf
44 Katherine A. O’Hanlan, “Top 10 Things Lesbians Should Discuss with their Healthcare Provider” (San Francisco: Gay & Lesbian Medical Association); accessed April 1, 2010; online at: http://www.glma.org/_data/n_0001/resources/live/Top%20Ten%20Lesbians.pdf
45 Theo G. M. Sandfort, Ron de Graaf, Rob V. Bijl, Paul Schnabel, “Same-Sex Sexual Behavior and Psychiatric Disorders: Findings From the Netherlands Mental Health Survey and Incidence Study (NEMESIS),” Archives of General Psychiatry 58 (January 2001), pp. 88-89.
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higher than young heterosexual males. Lesbians have mental health problems nearly twice those of exclusively heterosexual females.”41
A 2008 “meta-analysis” reviewed over 13,000 papers on this subject and compiled the data from the 28 most rigorous studies. Their conclusion was: “LGB [lesbian, gay, bisexual] people are at higher risk of mental disorder, suicidal ideation, substance misuse and deliberate self harm than heterosexual people.”42
Even the pro-homosexual Gay & Lesbian Medical Association (GLMA) acknowledges:
• “Gay men use substances at a higher rate than the general population . . .”
• “Depression and anxiety appear to affect gay men at a higher rate . . . .”
• “ . . . [G]ay men have higher rates of alcohol dependence and abuse . . . .”
• “ . . . [G]ay men use tobacco at much higher rates than straight men . . . .”
• “Problems with body image are more common among gay men . . . and gay men are much more likely to experience an eating disorder . . . .”43
The GLMA also confirms that:
• “ . . . [L]esbians may use tobacco and smoking products more often than heterosexual women use them.”
• “Alcohol use and abuse may be higher among lesbians.”
• “ . . . [L]esbians may use illicit drugs more often than heterosexual women.”44
Homosexual activists generally attempt to explain these problems as results of “homophobic discrimination.” However, there is a serious problem with that theory—there is no empirical evidence that such psychological problems are greater in areas where disapproval of homosexuality is more intense. On the contrary, even a study in the Netherlands—perhaps the most “gay-friendly” country in the world—showed “a higher prevalence of substance use disorders in homosexual women and a higher prevalence of mood and anxiety disorders in homosexual men.”45
Myth No. 6:
Homosexual conduct is not harmful to one’s physical health.
Fact:
Both because of high-risk behavior patterns, such as sexual promiscuity, and because of the harm to the body from specific sexual acts, homosexuals are at greater risk than heterosexuals for sexually transmitted diseases and other forms of illness and injury.
The most obvious and dramatic example of the negative consequences of homosexual conduct among men is the AIDS epidemic. In 2009, a gay newspaper reported, “Gay and bisexual men account for half of new HIV infections in the U.S. and have AIDS at a rate more than 50 times greater than other groups, according to Centers for Disease Control & Prevention data . . . .”46
Through 2007, 274,184 American men had died of AIDS whose only risk factor was sex with other men. When men who had sex with men and engaged in injection drug use are added to that total, we find that more than two thirds of the total male AIDS deaths in America (68%) have been among homosexual men.47
HIV/AIDS is not the only sexually transmitted disease for which homosexual men are at risk.
myth 6 - footnotes
46 Dyana Bagby, “Gay, bi men 50 times more likely to have HIV: CDC reports hard data at National HIV Prevention Conference,” Washington Blade, August 28, 2009.
47 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report, 2007. Vol. 19. Atlanta: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; 2009; p. 19. http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/resources/reports/
48 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Viral Hepatitis And Men Who Have Sex With Men,” online at: http://www.cdc.gov/hepatitis/Populations/msm.htm (accessed February 5, 2010).
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The CDC warns, “Men who have sex with men (MSM) are at elevated risk for certain sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, HIV/AIDS, syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia.”48
As early as 1976—even before the onset of the AIDS epidemic—doctors had identified a “clinical pattern of anorectal and colon diseases encountered with unusual frequency in . . . [male] homosexual patients,” resulting from the practice of anal intercourse, which they dubbed “the gay bowel syndrome.” An analysis of 260 medical records reported in the Annals of Clinical and Laboratory Science found:
The clinical diagnoses in decreasing order of frequency include condyloma acuminata, hemorrhoids, nonspecific proctitis, anal fistula, perirectal abscess, anal fissure, amebiasis, benign polyps, viral hepatitis, gonorrhea, syphilis, anorectal trauma and foreign bodies, shigellosis, rectal ulcers and lymphogranuloma venereum. . . . In evaluating proctologic problems in the gay male, all of the known sexually transmitted diseases should be considered. . . . Concurrent
49 H. L. Kazal, N. Sohn, J. I. Carrasco, J. G. Robilotti, and W. E. Delaney, “The gay bowel syndrome: clinico-pathologic correlation in 260 cases,” Annals of Clinical and Laboratory Science 1976, Vol 6, Issue 2, 184-192; abstract online at: http://www.annclinlabsci.org/cgi/content/abstract/6/2/184
50 Amy L. Evans, Andrew J. Scally, Sarah J. Wellard, Janet D. Wilson, “Prevalence of bacterial vaginosis in lesbians and heterosexual women in a community setting,” Sexually Transmitted Infections 2007; 83:470-475; abstract; online at: http://sti.bmj.com/content/83/6/470.abstract
51 Victor M. B. Silenzio, “Top 10 Things Gay Men Should Discuss with their Healthcare Provider” (San Francisco: Gay & Lesbian Medical Association); accessed April 1, 2010; online at: http://www.glma.org/_data/n_0001/resources/live/Top%20Ten%20Gay%20Men.pdf
52 Katherine A. O’Hanlan, “Top 10 Things Lesbians Should Discuss with their Healthcare Provider” (San Francisco: Gay & Lesbian Medical Association); accessed April 1, 2010; online at: http://www.glma.org/_data/n_0001/resources/live/Top%20Ten%20Lesbians.pdf
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29
infections with 2 or more pathogens should be anticipated.49
Although not as dramatic, similar problems are also found among lesbians. In 2007, a medical journal reported, “Women who identified as lesbians have a 2.5-fold increased likelihood of BV [bacterial vaginosis] compared with heterosexual women.”50
As with mental health problems (see Myth No.5), the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association has neatly summarized the elevated risks to physical health experienced by homosexuals:
• “That men who have sex with men are at an increased risk of HIV infection is well known . . . . However, the last few years have seen the return of many unsafe sex practices.”
• “Men who have sex with men are at an increased risk of sexually transmitted infection with the viruses that cause the serious condition of the liver known as hepatitis. These infections can be potentially fatal, and can lead to very serious long-term issues such as cirrhosis and liver cancer.”
• “Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) occur in sexually active gay men at a high rate. This includes STD infections for which effective treatment is available (syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, pubic lice, and others), and for which no cure is available (HIV, Hepatitis A, B, or C virus, Human Papilloma Virus, etc.).”
• “Of all the sexually transmitted infections gay men are at risk for, human papilloma virus —which cause anal and genital warts — is often thought to be little more than an unsightly inconvenience. However, these infections may play a role in the increased rates of anal cancers in gay men. . . . [R]ecurrences of the warts are very common, and the rate at which the infection can be spread between partners is very high.”51
Lesbians also face significant risks, according to the GLMA:
• “Lesbians have the richest concentration of risk factors for breast cancer than [sic] any subset of women in the world.”
• “Smoking and obesity are the most prevalent risk factors for heart disease among lesbians . . .”
• “Lesbians have higher risks for many of the gynecologic cancers.”
• “Research confirms that lesbians have higher body mass than heterosexual women. Obesity is associated with higher rates of heart disease, cancers, and premature death.”52
myth 7 - footnotes
53 Kristin Anderson Moore, et al., 2002. “Marriage from a Child’s Perspective: How Does Family Structure Affect Children and What Can We Do About It?”, Child Trends Research Brief (Washington, D.C.: Child Trends) (June): 1 (available at http://www.childtrends.org/PDF/MarriageRB602.pdf).
54 Kyle D. Pruett, Fatherneed: Why Father Care is as Essential as Mother Care for Your Child (New York: The Free Press, 2000).
55 Brenda Hunter, The Power of Mother Love: Transforming Both Mother and Child (Colorado Springs: Waterbrook Press, 1997).
56 Robert Lerner and Althea K. Nagai, No Basis: What the Studies Don’t Tell Us About Same Sex Parenting (Washington: Ethics and Public Policy Center, 2001).
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31
Myth No. 7:
Children raised by homosexuals are no different from children raised by heterosexuals, nor do they suffer harm.
Fact:
An overwhelming body of social science research shows that children do best when raised by their own biological mother and father who are committed to one another in a lifelong marriage. Research specifically on children of homosexuals has major methodological problems, but does show specific differences.
Few findings in the social sciences have been more definitively demonstrated than the fact that children do best when raised by their own married mother and father. The non-partisan research group Child Trends summarized the evidence this way:
Research clearly demonstrates that family structure matters for children, and the family structure that helps the most is a family headed by two biological parents who are in a low-conflict marriage.53
Homosexual activists say that having both a mother and a father does not matter—it is having two loving parents that counts. But social science research simply does not support this claim. Dr. Kyle Pruett of Yale Medical School, for example, has demonstrated in his book Fatherneed that fathers contribute to parenting in ways that mothers do not.54 On the other hand, Dr. Brenda Hunter has documented the unique contributions that mothers make in her book, The Power of Mother Love.55
The truth is that most research on “homosexual parents” thus far has been marred by serious methodological problems.56 However, even pro-
homosexual sociologists Judith Stacey and Timothy Biblarz report that the actual data from key studies show the “no differences” claim to be false.
Surveying the research (primarily regarding lesbians) in an American Sociological Review article in 2001, they found that:
• Children of lesbians are less likely to conform to traditional gender norms.
• Children of lesbians are more likely to engage in homosexual behavior.
• Daughters of lesbians are “more sexually adventurous and less chaste.”
• Lesbian “co-parent relationships” are more likely to break up than heterosexual marriages.57
Footnotes for Myth 7
57 Judith Stacey and Timothy J. Biblarz, “(How) Does the Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter,” American Sociological Review 66 (2001), pp. 159-83.
58 Sotirios Sarantakos, “Children in three contexts: Family, education and social development,” Children Australia 21, No. 3 (1996): 23-31.
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33
A 1996 study by an Australian sociologist compared children raised by heterosexual married couples, heterosexual cohabiting couples and homosexual cohabiting couples. It found that the children of heterosexual married couples did the best, and children of homosexual couples did the worst, in nine of the thirteen academic and social categories measured.58
The clear superiority (in outcomes for children) of households with a married, biological mother and father; the limited but revealing research on children raised by homosexual parents; and the inherent mental and physical health risks (see Myths 5 and 6) and dysfunctional behaviors (see Myths 8 and 10) associated with homosexual relationships—all of these combine to suggest that we should be exceedingly cautious about deliberately placing children in the care of homosexuals, whether through foster care, adoption, or the use of artificial reproductive technologies.
Myth No. 8:
Homosexuals are no more likely to molest children than heterosexuals.
Fact:
Sexual abuse of boys by adult men is many times more common than consensual sex between adult men, and most of those engaging in such molestation identify themselves as homosexual or bisexual.
If this myth were true, it would support the notion that homosexuals should be allowed to work with children as schoolteachers, Boy Scout leaders and Big Brothers or Big Sisters. However, it is not true. The research clearly shows that same-sex child sexual abuse (mostly men molesting boys) occurs at rates far higher than adult homosexual behavior, and it strongly suggests that many of those abusers are homosexual in their adult orientation as well.
As this is perhaps the most explosive claim about homosexuals, a couple of clarifications are in order. This does not mean that all homosexuals are child molesters—no one has ever claimed that. It does not even mean that most homosexuals are child molesters—there is no evidence to support that. But there is evidence that the relative rate of child sexual abuse among homosexuals is far higher than it is among heterosexuals.
myth 8 - footnotes
59 John Briere, et al., eds., The APSAC Handbook on Child Maltreatment (Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications, 1996), pp. 52, 53.
This conclusion rests on three key facts:
Pedophiles are invariably males: A report by the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children states: “In both clinical and non-clinical samples, the vast majority of offenders are male.”59 The book Sexual Offending Against Children reports that only 12 of 3,000 incarcerated pedophiles in England were women.”60
Significant numbers of victims are males: A study of 457 male sex offenders against children in Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy found that “approximately one-third of these sexual offenders directed their sexual activity against
60 Dawn Fisher, “Adult Sex Offenders: Who are They? Why and How Do They Do It?” in Tony Morrison, et al., eds., Sexual Offending Against Children (London: Routledge, 1994), p. 11.
34
35
61 Kurt Freund, et al., “Pedophilia and Heterosexuality vs. Homosexuality,” Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy 10 (1984): 197.
62 Kurt Freund, Robin Watson, and Douglas Rienzo, “Heterosexuality, Homosexuality, and Erotic Age Preference,” The Journal of Sex Research 26, No. 1 (February, 1989): 107.
63 W. D. Erickson, “Behavior Patterns of Child Molesters,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 17 (1988): 83.
64 Edward O. Laumann, John H. Gagnon, Robert T. Michael, and Stuart Michaels, The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), p. 293—“Altogether, 2.8 percent of the men and 1.4 percent of the women reported some level of homosexual (or bisexual) identity.”
65 See Bruce Rind, “Gay and bisexual adolescent boys’ sexual experiences with men: An empirical examination of psychological correlates in a nonclinical sample,” Archives of Sexual Behavior Vol. 30, Issue 4, August 1, 2001; also Jessica L. Stanley, Kim Bartholomew, Doug Oram, “Gay and Bisexual Men’s Age-Discrepant Childhood Sexual Experiences,” The Journal of Sex Research, Vol. 41, Number 4, November, 2004: pp. 381-389: online at: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2372/is_4_41/ai_n9488757/
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males.”61 A study in the Journal of Sex Research found that although heterosexuals outnumber homosexuals by a ratio of at least 20 to 1, homosexual pedophiles commit about one-third of the total number of child sex offenses.62
Many pedophiles consider themselves to be homosexual: Many people who write about the issue of pedophilia argue that most men who molest boys are merely attracted to children, not to adult males, but they do not cite any specific data to support that assertion. In fact, a study of 229 convicted child molesters in Archives of Sexual Behavior found that “eighty-six percent of offenders against males described themselves as homosexual or bisexual.”63
Since almost thirty percent of male-on-male child sexual abuse is committed by homosexual or bisexual men (one-third male-on-male abuse times 86% identifying as homosexual or bisexual), but less than 3% of American men identify themselves as homosexual or bisexual,64 we can infer that homosexual or bisexual men are approximately ten times more likely to molest children than heterosexual men.
In addition to the actual data on elevated rates of homosexual child abuse, there is clearly a sub-culture among homosexual men that openly celebrates the idea of sexual relationships between adult men and underage boys, whether pre-pubescent or adolescent. Such relationships are referred to in some research literature using neutral-sounding euphemisms such as “age-discrepant sexual relations (ADSRs)”65 or “intergenerational
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39
66 Gerald P. Jones, “The Study of Intergenerational Intimacy in North America: Beyond Politics and Pedophilia,” Journal of Homosexuality, Vol. 20, Issue 1 & 2 (February 1990), pp. 275 – 295. This entire journal of the Journal of Homosexuality—at least nineteen articles—was devoted to this topic.
67 Paula Martinac, “Do We Condone Pedophilia,” PlanetOut.com, February 27, 2002.
intimacy.”66 Lesbian writer Paula Martinac summarized this phenomenon:
. . . [S]ome gay men still maintain that an adult who has same-sex relations with someone under the legal age of consent is on some level doing the kid a favor by helping to bring him or her “out.” . . . [A]dult-youth sex is viewed as an important aspect of gay culture, with a history dating back to “Greek love” of ancient times. This romanticized vision of adult-youth sexual relations has been a staple of gay literature and has made appearances, too, in gay-themed films. . . .
Last summer, I attended a reading in which a gay poet read a long piece about being aroused by a flirtatious young boy in his charge. In response, the man went into the boy’s bedroom and [sexually abused the boy as he] slept. . . . Disturbingly, most of the gay audience gave the poet an appreciative round of applause. . . .
. . . The lesbian and gay community will never be successful in fighting the pedophile stereotype until we all stop condoning sex with young people.67
Myth No. 9:
Homosexuals are seriously disadvantaged by discrimination.
Fact:
Research shows that homosexuals actually have significantly higher levels of educational attainment than the general public, while
the findings on homosexual incomes are, at worst, mixed.
One obvious measure of social disadvantage in America is reduced educational attainment. For example, this is an area in which there are obvious racial differences. According to 2008 data from the Census Bureau, 21.1% of non-Hispanic whites over the age of 25 have at least a bachelor’s degree, while the same is true of only 13.6% of blacks and 9.4% of Hispanics.68
However, studies have uniformly shown that homosexuals have higher levels of education than heterosexuals, which hardly suggests that they are disadvantaged. The groundbreaking National Health and Social Life Survey found “that twice as many college-educated men identify themselves as homosexual as men with high-school educations. . . . For women the trend is even more striking. Women with college educations
myth 9 - footnotes
68 Calculated from tables in “Educational Attainment of the Population 18 Years and Over, by Age, Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin: 2008,” U.S. Census Bureau; online at: http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/education/cps2008.html
69 Robert T. Michael, John H. Gagnon, Edward O. Laumann, and Gina Kolata, Sex in America: A Definitive Survey (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1994), p. 182.
are eight times more likely to identify themselves as lesbians . . . .”69 One study of homosexual men, using data from the Urban Men’s Health Study, reported that “65.7 percent of the respondents fall within the relatively narrow range of having a B.A. or an M.A.”70
The data on the incomes of homosexuals tends to be more mixed. Some data, drawn primarily from marketing surveys, suggest that homosexuals have considerably higher incomes than heterosexuals. For example, a 2009 survey of over 20,000 readers of “gay” magazines and newspapers found that they had an average household income of about $80,000;71 whereas the Census Bureau re70
Donald C. Barrett, Lance M. Pollack, and Mary L. Tilden “Teenage Sexual Orientation, Adult Openness, and Status Attainment in Gay Males,” Sociological Perspectives, 45 (2002): 170.
71 Community Marketing, Inc., “Gay & Lesbian Consumer Index,” November 25, 2009: online at: http://www.communitymarketinginc.com/mkt_int_gld.php
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72 Carmen DeNavas-Walt, Bernadette D. Proctor, and Jessica C. Smith, U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports, P60-236, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2008 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2009), p. 5; online at: http://www.census.gov/prod/2009pubs/p60-236.pdf
73 For example, see M. V. Lee Badgett, Income Inflation: The Myth of Affluence Among Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Americans, Joint publication of NGLTF Policy Institute and Institute for Gay and Lesbian Strategic Studies, 1998; online at: http://www.thetaskforce.org/downloads/reports/reports/IncomeInflationMyth.pdf
74 Randy Albelda, M. V. Lee Badgett, Alyssa Schneebaum, and Gary Gates, Poverty in the Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Community, the Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law, March 2009, p. i; online at: http://www.law.ucla.edu/williamsinstitute/pdf/LGBPovertyReport.pdf
75 Heather Antecol, Anneke Jong, and Michael D. Steinberger, “Sexual Orientation Wage Gap: The Role of Occupational Sorting and Human Capital, Industrial & Labor Relations Review Vol. 61, Issue 4, p. 523: online at: http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1346&context=ilrreview
76 Marieka M. Klawitter and Victor Flatt, “The Effects of State and Local Antidiscrimination Policies on Earnings for Gays and Lesbians,” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 17 (4): 676 (1998).
ports that the average household income for all Americans in 2008 was only $50,303.72
Other researchers have argued that such surveys may not be reaching a truly representative sample of American homosexuals. Lesbian economist M. V. Lee Badgett has virtually made a career of debunking what she calls “the myth of gay and lesbian affluence.”73 But even Badgett finds the data are, at worst, mixed. A 2009 publication on “poverty in the lesbian, gay, and bisexual community” which she co-authored, found that according to one national study, both homosexual men and women were more likely to live in poverty than heterosexuals, but in one California study, both were less likely to do so. And census data which applies only to couples shows that same-sex female couples are more likely to be in poverty than opposite-sex married couples, but same-sex male couples are less likely to live in poverty than are opposite-sex married couples.74
A 2008 study using data on couples available from the 2000 census reported:
Lesbian women earned substantially more than both married and cohabiting women. . . . While gay men suffered a small wage penalty relative to their married counterparts (4.5%), they actually enjoyed a large wage advantage relative to their cohabiting counterparts (28.2%).75
Homosexual activists like to attribute the small disadvantage in income for some subpopulations of homosexuals to societal “discrimination,” and use that as an argument for employment “non-discrimination” laws. However, other explanations, such as different career choices, are also possible.
If “discrimination” presented serious limits to the economic opportunities available to homosexuals, one would expect “non-discrimination” laws to improve their economic standing. However, research has not shown such laws to have that effect. A journal article on the issue declared,
In contrast to studies of antidiscrimination laws for women and ethnic minorities, we have produced no evidence that employment protections for sexual orientation directly increase average earnings for members of same-sex households.76
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Myth No. 10:
Homosexual relationships are just the same as heterosexual ones, except for the gender of the partners.
Fact:
Homosexuals are less likely to enter into a committed relationship, less likely to be sexually faithful to a partner, even if they have one, and are less likely to remain committed for a lifetime, than are heterosexuals. They also experience higher rates of domestic violence than heterosexual married couples.
Homosexual men and women are far less likely to be in any kind of committed relationship than heterosexuals are. A 2006 study by researchers at UCLA concluded:
We found that lesbians, and particularly gay men, are less likely to be in a relationship compared to heterosexual women and men. Perhaps the most outstanding finding is also the most simple—that over half of gay men (51%) were not in a relationship. Compared to only 21% of heterosexual females and 15% of heterosexual males, this figure is quite striking.77
Secondly, even homosexuals (especially men) who are in a partnered relationship are much less likely to be sexually faithful to that partner.
myth 10 - footnotes
77 Charles Strohm, et al., “Couple Relationships among Lesbians, Gay Men, and Heterosexuals in California: A Social Demographic Perspective,” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, Montreal Convention Center, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, (Aug 10, 2006): 18. Accessed at: http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p104912_index.html
78 Maria Xiridou, et al, “The Contribution of Steady and Casual Partnerships to the Incidence of HIV Infection among Homosexual Men in Amsterdam,” AIDS 17 (2003): 1031.
79 Ryan Lee, “Gay Couples Likely to Try Non-monogamy, Study Shows,” Washington Blade (August 22, 2003): 18.
• A Dutch study of partnered homosexuals, which was published in the journal AIDS, found that men with a “steady partner” had an average of eight sexual partners per year.78
• A Canadian study of homosexual men who had been in committed relationships lasting longer than one year found that only 25 percent of those interviewed reported being monogamous. According to study author Barry Adam, “Gay culture allows men to explore different . . . forms of relationships besides the monogamy coveted by heterosexuals.”79
A 2005 study in the journal Sex Roles found that “40.3% of homosexual men in civil unions and 49.3% of homosexual men not in civil unions had ‘discussed and decided it is ok under some circumstances’ to have sex outside of the relation44
45
80 Sondra E. Solomon, Esther D. Rothblum, and Kimberly F. Balsam, “Money, Housework, Sex, and Conflict: Same-Sex Couples in Civil Unions, Those Not in Civil Unions, and Heterosexual Married Siblings,” Sex Roles 52 (May 2005): 569.
81 Lawrence Kurdek, “Are Gay and Lesbian Cohabiting Couples Really Different from Heterosexual Married Couples?” Journal of Marriage and Family 66 (November 2004): 893.
82 Ibid., 896.
83 P. A. Brand and A. H. Kidd, “Frequency of physical aggression in heterosexual and female homosexual dyads,” Psychological Reports 59, pp. 1307-1313; cited in James E. Phelan, Neil Whitehead, Philip M. Sutton, “What Research Shows: NARTH’s Response to the APA Claims on Homosexuality,” Journal of Human Sexuality Vol. 1, p. 85 (National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, 2009).
84 Bryan N. Cochran and Ana Mari Cauce, “Characteristics of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals entering substance abuse treatment,” Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment Vol. 30, Issue 2 (March 2006), pp. 135-146.
ship. By comparison, only 3.5% of heterosexual married men and their wives agreed that sex outside of the relationship was acceptable.”80
Finally, research shows that homosexual relationships tend to be of shorter duration and much less likely to last a lifetime than heterosexual ones (especially heterosexual marriages). A 2005 journal article cites one large-scale longitudinal study comparing the dissolution rates of heterosexual married couples, heterosexual cohabiting couples, homosexual couples, and lesbian couples:
On the basis of the responses to the follow-up survey, the percentage of dissolved couples was 4% (heterosexual married couples), 14% (heterosexual cohabiting couples), 13% (homosexual couples) and 18% (lesbian couples).81
In other words, the dissolution rate of homosexual couples during the period of this study was more than three times that of heterosexual married couples, and the dissolution rate of lesbian couples was more than four-fold that of heterosexual married couples.82
Since men are generally more likely to engage in acts of violence than women, it is not surprising that there would be differences in rates of domestic violence based on the gender of partners in a relationship. One might expect, for instance, that women with a female partner would be less likely to be abused than women with a male partner. However, one early study (1986) showed that women with female partners were nearly as likely to be abused (25%) as those with male partners (27%).83
Meanwhile, a 2002 study showed that the five-year prevalence of battering among urban homosexual men (22%) was nearly double the rate among heterosexual women living with men (11.6%)—despite the fact that one might expect men’s greater size and strength to be a deterrent against a would-be batterer. A 2006 study—one of the few with a direct homosexual/heterosexual comparison for both men and women—found that of persons entering substance abuse programs, 4.4% of homosexuals had been abused by a partner in the last month, as opposed to 2.9% of the heterosexuals. The lifetime prevalence rates for domestic violence were 55% for the homosexuals and 36% for heterosexuals.84
The myth that homosexual relationships in general are qualitatively the same as heterosexual relationship—a myth that is crucial to the current push for legalization of same-sex “marriage”—is simply not borne out by the evidence.
46
47
32
frc
FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL
The Family Research Council champions marriage
and family as the foundation of civilization, the
seedbed of virtue, and the wellspring of society. We
shape public debate and formulate public policy that
values human life and upholds the institutions of
marriage and the family. Believing that God is the
author of life, liberty, and the family, we promote the
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and stable society.
Located in the heart of Washington, D.C., the
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To order these resources or to see more FRC publications,
visit our website at www. frc.org or call 800-225-4008.
frc ADDITIONAL RESOURCES FROM
FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL
Outrage: How Gay Activists and Liberal
Judges are Trashing Democracy to Redefine
Marriage BK04H01
Here is the book America needs to
make sense of the debate over samesex
“marriage.” Author Peter Sprigg
demolishes stereotypes on this issue,
showing why homosexual civil marriage
should be opposed by libertarians,
Democrats, women, men, and even
homosexuals themselves. Sprigg
demonstrates that this “culture war” was
not started by conservatives, but by homosexual
activists and radical judges.
Washington Update 
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the latest pro-family take on Washington’s hottest issues. Complimentary
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values in Washington. Complimentary
Homosexuality Is Not a Civil Right BC07I01
This pamphlet clarifies certain misconceptions
about the meaning of “discrimination” and of “civil
rights” and explains why homosexual conduct is
not comparable to other characteristics usually
protected by civil rights laws. Protection against
private “discrimination” has historically been
offered only for characteristics that are inborn,
involuntary, immutable, innocuous, and/or in
the Constitution-yet none of these describe
homosexual behavior.

Interesting Facts

2010-06-19T18:26:00.001-07:00

(Forwarded email)

About a dozen French people die as a result of landmines left from the last world war each year.
It snowed in the Sahara desert on February 18, 1979.
Sex is biochemically no different from eating large quantities of chocolate.
The great warrior Ghengis Khan died in bed while having sex.
Only one book has been distributed in more copies then the Bible; The IKEA catalog.
You can start a fire with ice.
Real diamonds can be made from peanut butter!
McDonald's salads contain up to 60% more fat than their burgers!
Coca-Cola's 'Super Pure' Dasani bottled water is just filtered tap water!
The Bank of America was originally the Bank of Italy!
A chance of a woman having twins is increased after the age of 35. About 1 in 27 women will give birth to twins after this age. After 50 the chances of having twins is 1 in 9
Each nostril of a human being register smell in a different way. Smells that are made from the right nostril are more pleasant than the left.
Girls have more tastebuds than boys
Karate actually originated in India, but was developed further in China
According to a recent survey, more than half of British adults have had sex in a public place!
Nazi leader Adolf Hitler had only one testicle
Leonardo da Vinci was dyslexic, and he often wrote backwards.
Tasmania is said to have the cleanest air in the world.
Next to Warsaw, Chicago has the largest Polish population in the world.
Research indicates that babies who suck on pacifiers are more prone to ear aches.
Left-handed people are better at sports that require good spatial judgment and fast reaction, compared to right-handed individuals.
The average office desk has 400 times more bacteria than a toilet.
Indoor pollution is 10 times more toxic than outdoor pollution.
King Kong was Adolf Hitler's favorite movie.
George Washington grew marijuana in his garden.
Canada is an Indian word meaning 'Big Village'.
In 1998, Sony accidently sold 700,000 camcorders that had the technology to see through people's clothes.
From the age of thirty, humans gradually begin to shrink in size.
All babies are color blind when they are born.
Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar were both epileptic.
Business.com is currently the most expensive domain name sold for $7.5 million.
Contrary to popular beliefs, chocolate does not cause acne.
To take an oath, ancient Romans put a hand on their testicles?that’s where the word “testimony” comes from.
In just about every species of mammal, the female lives longer than the male.
The most pushups ever performed in one day was 46,001.
Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people.
First four countries to have television: England, the U.S., the U.S.S.R., and Brazil.
There are more nutrients in the cornflake package itself than there are in the actual cornflakes.
Mosquitoes prefer children to adults, blondes to brunettes.
The Canary Islands were not named after a bird called the canary. They were named after a breed of dogs!
You have no sense of smell when you're sleeping!
If you put a raisin in a fresh glass of champagne, it will rise and fall continuously.
Koala Bears are not bears.
More people in China speak English than in the United States.
Onions have no flavor, only a smell.
Babies that are breastfed are more likely to be slimmer as adults than those that are not breastfed.
At birth, a panda bear is smaller than a mouse.
Female canaries cannot sing.
Flu shots only work about 70% of the time.
Halle Berry’s stunt double, in the movie “Catwoman”, is a man.
Most lipstick contains fish scales.
Alfred Hitchcock didn't have a belly button.
President George W. Bush was once a cheerleader!
Turkey's often look up at the sky during a rainstorm. Unfortunately some have been known to drown as a result
Anteaters prefer termites to ants.
Richard Nixon liked ketchup on his cottage cheese.
Elephants are the only animals that can't jump.
The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch procejt at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosnt mttaer waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe!
Most tropical marine fish could survive in a tank filled with human blood.
The name Joshua is Hebrew for 'Jesus'.
The streets of Victor, Colorado, once a gold rush town, are paved with low-grade gold.
Kilts are not native to Scotland. They originated in France.
On some Caribbean islands, the oysters can climb trees.
Medical studies show that intelligent people have more copper and zinc in their hair
Cleopatra wasn't Egyptian; she was Greek
Manhattan Island of New York City was purchased for $24 from the Algonquian Indians in 1624!
One in 500 humans has one blue eye and one brown eye
A woman's sense of smell is most sensitive during ovulation.
Some breeds of chickens lay colored eggs!
In Ancient Greece, if a woman watched even one Olympic event, she was executed.
If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.
Blue eyes are the most sensitive to light, dark brown the least sensitive.
The New York Stock Exchange started as a coffee shop!
97% of all paper money in the US contains traces of cocaine.
'Vodka' is Russian for 'little water'
The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as a substitute for blood plasma.
In its ancient form, the carrot was purple, not orange.
Crushed cockroaches can be applied to a stinging wound to help relieve the pain
Walt Disney, the creator of Mickey Mouse, was afraid of mice.
It is possible to go blind from smoking too heavily.
Women have a slightly higher average IQ than men.
Diamonds mined in Brazil are harder than those found in Africa.
Only 1 out of 700 identity thieves gets caught!
A rainbow can only be seen in the morning or late afternoon.
An egg will float if placed in water in which sugar has been added.
People with blue eyes are better able to see in the dark.
The fingerprints of koala bears are virtually indistinguishable from those of humans, so much so that they could be confused at a crime scene.
Mel Gibson has a horseshoe kidney (two kidneys fused into one)!
Muhammad is the most common name in the world.
'Jedi' is an official religion, with over 70,000 followers, in Australia.
Under extreme stress, some octopuses will eat their own arms
One quarter of the human brain is used to control the eyes.
Leonardo da Vinci invented scissors.
Only female bees work.
Keanu Reeves is afraid of the dark
Most cell phone antennas have no purpose other than to make people believe that flipping up a 2 inch antenna just gave them better reception. They are not connected to any circuitry.
Gloucestershire airport in England used to blast Tina Turner songs on the runways to scare birds away.
Lima beans contain cyanide!
If the population of China walked past you in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.
Children laugh about 400 times a day, while adults laugh on average only 15 times a day.
By raising your legs slowly and laying on your back, you can't sink in quicksand.
The Earth gets heavier each day by tons, as meteoric dust settles on it.
Rain contains vitamin B12
Dating back to the 1600's, thermometers were filled with Brandy instead of mercury.
During his or her lifetime, the average human will grow 590 miles of hair.
Grapes explode when you put them in the microwave.
More people are killed by donkeys annually than are killed in plane crashes.
A polar bear's skin is black. Its fur is not white, but actually clear
Bananas aren’t fruit! They are a type of herb.
Some lions mate over 50 times a day.
The penalty for masturbation in Indonesia is decapitation.
Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure.
Apples are more efficient than caffeine in keeping people awake in the morning.
Pierce Brosnan once worked with the circus as a fire eater!
Contrary to popular belief, putting sugar in a car's gas tank will NOT ruin its engine.
French was the official language of England for over 600 years.
In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak
Leonardo DiCaprio got his first "onscreen kiss’ from a man!
Peanuts are one of the ingredients in dynamite.
Even a small amount of alcohol placed on a scorpion will make it go crazy and sting itself to death.
Club Direct, a travel insurance company in Britain, provides insurance plans for protection from falling coconuts
In some parts of England, rum is used to wash a baby's head for good luck.
The average chocolate bar has 8 insects' legs in it.
SONY was originally called 'Totsuken'
Contrary to popular belief, lightning travels from the ground upwards not from the sky downwards.
In Australia, Burger King is called Hungry Jack's.
Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.
Marlboro cigarettes sold in New York contain more tar and nicotine than those sold in all other states!
According to U.S. laws, a beer commercial can never show a person actually drinking beer.
A queen bee uses her stinger only to sting another queen bee
All the swans in England are property of the Queen.
To escape the grip of a crocodile's jaws, push your thumbs into its eyeballs. It will let you go instantly.
President George W. Bush is related to all other U.S. Presidents!
According to studies, men change their minds two to three times more often than women.
Contrary to popular belief, there are almost no Buddhists in India, nor have there been for about a thousand years
President George W. Bush and Playboy founder Hugh Hefner are cousins!
Boys who have unusual first names are more likely to have mental problems than boys with conventional names. Girls don't seem to have this problem.
So that's how they cheat - a microwaved baseball will fly farther than a frozen baseball.
Strawberries have more vitamin c than oranges.
In Albania, nodding your head means 'no' and shaking your head means 'yes'
Panophobia is the fear of everything.
The Australian $5,$10,$20,$50 and $100 notes are made out of plastic.
Ancient Romans at one time used human urine as an ingredient in their toothpaste.
The Muppet Show was banned from Saudi Arabian TV becuase one if its stars was a pig.
In Tibet it is considered good manners to stick out your tongue at someone
Traces of cocaine were found on 99% of UK bank notes in a survey in London in 2000.
Phobatrivaphobia is fear of trivia about phobias.
The average person spends three years of his or her life on a toilet.
Pepsi-Cola was originally called 'Brad's drink'
Organized crime is estimated to account for 10% of the United States' national income.
Someone on Earth reports seeing a UFO every three minutes.
California has issued at least 6 drivers licenses to people named Jesus Christ
An American urologist once bought Napoleon's penis for $40,000.
In Idaho, You may not fish on a camel's back.
Justin Timberlake's half-eaten french toast sold for over $3,000 on eBay!
A fire in Australia has been burning for more than 5,000 years!
More than 20 million meteoroids enter Earth's atmosphere every day.
Each day, up to 150 species of life become extinct.
It is illegal to mispronounce 'Arkansas' while in the state of Arkansas!
The word 'gymnasium' comes from the Greek word gymnazein which means 'to exercise naked.'
It is possible to see a rainbow at night!
All bonobo chimpanzees are bisexual
Ingrown toenails are hereditary.
Is bottled water worth it? 'Evian' spelled backwards is 'naive'.
In Japan, condoms are commonly sold 'door to door'!
Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.
There is more real lemon juice in Lemon Pledge furniture polish than in Country Time Lemonade.
It is illegal NOT to smile in Pocatello, Idaho
The smallest human penis ever recorded was just 5/8 of an inch long!
Mothers pregnant with boys are less forgetful than those carrying girls!
In ancient Japan, public contests were held to see who could fart the loudest and longest!
You can't create a folder called 'con' in Microsoft Windows!
Oak trees are struck by lightning more than any other tree.
When gentlemen in medieval Japan wished to seal an agreement, they urinated together, crisscrossing their streams of urine.
There are more female than male millionaires in the United States.
More than 2 million documents will be lost by the IRS this year.
Turkeys can reproduce without having sex.
28.1% of people pee in the pool !
53% of women will not leave the house without makeup on.
Nicole Kidman has a morbid fear of butterflies
10% of us switch tags in the store to pay less for an item
Printer manufacturers print invisible yellow dots on consumer's prints that check to see if a person is printing counterfeit money. If you call your printer manufacturer and ask them to "please stop spying on you", they will send secret services to your address to find out why you care about your privacy. Upset? You should be. The more people who call their printer's manufacturers and make this request, the more likely secret services will refuse to investigate.
If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.
If you fart consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb.
A pig's orgasm lasts for 30 minutes.
Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.
Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure.
The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.
Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do.
The ant can lift 50 times its own weight, can pull 30 times its own weight and always falls over on its right side when intoxicated.
Polar bears are left handed.
The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds.
The flea can jump 350 times its body length.
A cockroach will live nine days without it's head, before it starves to death.
The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male's head off.
Some lions mate over 50 times a day.
Butterflies taste with their feet.
An ostrich's eye is bigger than it's brain.
Starfish don't have brains.
Mosquito repellents don't repel. They hide you. The spray blocks the mosquito's sensors so they don't know you're there.
Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least 6 feet away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush.
The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as substitute for blood plasma.
No piece of paper can be folded in half more than 7 times.
Donkeys kill more people annually than plane crashes.
You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television.
Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty years of age or older.
The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum.
The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache.
A Boeing 747s wingspan is longer than the Wright brother's first flight.
American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating 1 olive from each salad served in first-class.
Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.
Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning.
The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.
Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin.
The first owner of the Marlboro Company died of lung cancer.
Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
Marilyn Monroe had six toes. (rumor)
All US Presidents have worn glasses. Some just didn't like being seen wearing them in public.
Walt Disney was afraid of mice.
Pearls melt in vinegar.
Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.
The three most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.
It is possible to lead a cow upstairs...but not downstairs.
A duck's quack doesn't echo and no one knows why.
The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.
Richard Millhouse Nixon was the first US president whose name contains all the letters from the word 'criminal.' The second was William Jefferson Clinton.
Turtles can breathe through their butts.
Butterflies taste with their feet.
In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all of the world's nuclear weapons combined.
On average, 100 people choke to death on ball-point pens every year.
On average people fear spiders more than they do death.
Ninety percent of New York City cabbies are recently arrived immigrants.
Elephants are the only animals that can't jump.
Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
It's physically impossible for you to lick your elbow.
The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.
A snail can sleep for three years.
No word in the English language rhymes with 'MONTH.'
Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.
Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing. SCARY!!!
The electric chair was invented by a dentist.
All polar bears are left handed.
In ancient Egypt, priests plucked EVERY hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes.
An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.
'Go', is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
If Barbie were life-size, her measurements would be 39-23-33. She would stand seven feet, two inches tall. Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.
A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
Almost everyone who reads this will try to lick their elbow.
Dom Jolly out of Trigger TV went to school with Osama Bin Laden.

I Didn't Know Jack

2010-01-27T16:14:00.000-08:00

(Forwarded email)

I Didn't Know Jack

By Corey Beals

What did I know? Not much. I knew that I had a friend who just
shared with me that he struggled with same sex attraction. I knew I
was honored that he shared something that honest with me. I knew I
wanted to help him out however I could. But I didn't know how. I
didn't know what Jack really needed. I didn't really know Jack.

I didn't know that the desires he had were but one small part of his
identity and that he didn't identify himself as gay or homosexual.

I didn't know that what he really needed was a hug. I didn't know
how healing it could be for him to just have safe hugging and physical
touch.

I didn't know that getting `filled up' with safe, non-sexual physical
contact with men actually made it easier for him to not sexualize his same sex needs.

I didn't know that all boys have same sex needs. That is, all boys need
fatherly, loving physical touch and lots of it usually in the form of wrestling with
Dad, hugging Dad, piggy-back rides from Dad, etc.

I didn't know that if they don't get these needs met by Dad or some other fatherly figure in a non-sexual way, it's not uncommon for these neglected or abused boys to sexualize those needs and seek to fulfill them sexually.

I didn't know Jack.

I didn't know that my friend had been neglected and abused by his Dad
and smothered by his Mom.

I didn't know that my hugging him helped fill these core
needs for affection in a way that helped him get what he didn't get from his father.

I didn't know I could do more than wish him well and pray for him.

I didn't know Jack.

But there were some things I thought I knew which turned out to be
wrong. "If he's tempted by men, won't my hugging him just feed his
temptation? If for example, I have lustful thoughts for a woman,
hugging her would seem to make the problem worse not better.
Right?"

Well, that's where my ignorance was profound. My lust for
women is not the same as Jack's lust for men. His temptation was
coming from unmet needs for fatherly contact, and he had just
sexualized those core needs.

I had another question. If all he needed was some friendly non-
sexual physical contact with men why hasn't he got that someplace
else by now? Well once again, I didn't know Jack.

I didn't realize how hard it was to find such contact, since our American culture is
so quick to think that touch between men is sexual. I didn't realize how many men simply feared sharing these needs let alone getting them met by friends..

I didn't realize how `non-touching' we are and how toxic
this non-hugging environment is for men who didn't get their fatherly touch
needs met as a boy.

There remained one more question. What would others think about me
if I was seen hugging a man more than 1.25 seconds? I'll own that I
wondered what others would think. But once I realized that a friend was
dying of thirst and I was holding a glass of water, all those thoughts and
fears faded in importance.

"When I was thirsty, did you give me a drink or did you just
pray for me and send me on my way, still thirsty?"

My brothers, I beg you to get to know Jack. He is in your church.
You work with him. He's in your family. But he probably hasn't told you
for fear of what you'll think. Please give Jack a hug a long hug and help him get
what he never got as a boy. If your friend, coworker, brother-in-law, or
church brother gives you this and tells you, `I'm Jack,' please let him know that you
want to know more. And be a man. Help a brother. Give him a hug.

POSITION PAPER OF COURAGE PHILIPPINES ON HOUSE BILL 956 and SENATE BILL 11 and other similar bills

2009-12-16T18:26:00.001-08:00

POSITION PAPER OF COURAGE PHILIPPINES ON HOUSE BILL 956 and SENATE BILL 11 and other similar bills
“An Act Prohibiting Discrimination
On the Basis of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
And Providing Penalties Therefore”

1. Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity as Classification is Unreasonable and Against the “Equal Protection” clause

a. Unreasonable
In classifying persons or things, there should be a clear and distinct difference between two categories. This is because in legal terms, classification is defined as the grouping of persons or things similar to each other in certain particulars and different from all others in these same particulars (Constitutional Law by Justice Isagani Cruz, supra). There has to be what is called substantial distinction, as contrary to superficial difference. This is the reason why we could distinctively classify men from women (difference in reproductive roles), minors from adults (difference in age of consent), citizens from aliens (difference in nationality) etc. This distinction can be described with relative permanency in the characteristics of the distinction being made.

However when a person uses colors for vehicles or emotions and/or lifestyles for persons, they convey superficial differences in as much as these differences can change relatively in time – there exists no permanency in the distinctions being established.

That is why it is important to understand that sexual orientation is such a superficial difference since the attraction of a person to the same sex varies in degrees, and there are recorded cases of persons with diminished same-sex attractions, if not totally re-oriented into heterosexuals. In fact, there are a number of “ex-gay ministries” available for persons struggling with same-sex attractions, such as our group Courage, and Bagong Pag-Asa, who assist the individual in understanding the struggle and living a chaste life. So to classify individuals according to their sexual orientation (homosexuals and heterosexuals) is unreasonable.

It is also equally important to understand that gender identity is also a superficial difference. As defined, it refers to a personal sense of identity (making it a subjective concept) based on manners of clothing, inclinations and behavior in relation to masculine or feminine conventions. Notwithstanding the argument that sexual orientation can be changed, the indicators of gender identity – manners of clothing, inclinations and behavior – are also undeniably factors in social science that can change relatively in time. The subjectivity of the definition (“personal”) makes it so general that it is difficult for it to be considered as a substantial distinction.

b. Against the “Equal Protection” clause
HB956, SB11 was authored to address anti-discriminatory practices. However, by doing so it unjustly favors a group of individuals over the rest despite basic natural gender similarities. As the senate bill strikingly is the same in content with House Bill 956, it was also made in favor of gays and lesbians, as it is written in HB 956’s explanatory note.

In the earlier position paper of Courage Philippines (2005), there was an example of two factory workers who were both due for promotions – one a homosexual, while the other a “straight” person. Given two case illustrations of employer-bias, the homosexual can use HB956, SB11 against a homophobic employer, but the “straight” person cannot use HB956, SB11 against a biased homosexual employer. This proposed bill ironically permits and allows discrimination and inequality. And the inequality lies in the behavior and/or sexual lifestyle chosen by a person – through HB956, SB11 more protection will be given to individuals who embrace the active homosexual lifestyle, as oppose to those who reject or fight against it.

For the “straight” person may also be having same-sex attractions but chooses not to act upon it, and furthermore chooses to conceal his or her struggles from the public. Yet because of HB956, SB11, he or she is discriminated against in favor of individuals who choose to be openly in the active homosexual lifestyle – not unless he or she will also openly embrace the same lifestyle. And so we can see that HB956, SB11 may be used to trigger an influence upon people who are genuinely struggling against same-sex attractions to consider taking on the gay lifestyle, so as not to be discriminated against.

We then see that HB956, SB11 is gravely in violation of the constitutional guaranty of equal protection – requiring that all persons or things similarly situated should be treated alike, both as rights conferred and responsibilities imposed. Similar subjects, in other words, should not be treated differently, so as to give undue favor to some and unjustly discriminate against others (Constitutional Law by Justice Isagani Cruz, p.120, 1991 ed.)

2. The Danger of “Discrimination”

Section 3 (c) of HB956, SB11 defines “discrimination” on grounds that are either “actual or perceived”. Section 4 then lists down the different discriminatory practices that may be incurred under the said bill. Categorizing a discriminatory act as perceived is something relative – to the person being accused, to the person accusing and to the circumstances and other persons that surround the act itself. Therefore, defining “discrimination” with this phrase allows the law to be manipulated by scheming individuals, to which the law does not define protection over their possible victims.

A scheming individual may or may not be a homosexual. Upon slight provocation, this individual may just simply sue anyone through this bill whom he or she feels is discriminating him or her. This person may also be just pretending to be a homosexual (although his or her gender identity – as it is defined also in the bill – is heterosexual). Yet, in the like manner, he or she may use this bill to sue anyone whom he or she pleases – convinced that he or she was discriminated against.

It can also be used by individuals, who may perceive, by mere suspicion that he or she is being discriminated against.

Also, because gender identity is defined in terms of the individual’s inclinations or behavior, it is shortchanging the legitimacy of the behavior action being done. By virtue of this definition, a person may use the bill to incriminate individuals or institutions, even if his or her behavior is illegitimate – such as talking or laughing boisterously in places of worship, or making sexual advances to a person he or she is attracted to.

The following are some scenarios that may occur following the approval and implementation of this bill:
a. Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of the Philippines will be apprehended if they will not admit individuals with active homosexual orientation as scout masters (Section 4 (b))
b. The parishes of the Catholic Church, despite of its moral stand on homosexual activities under the right to religious freedom, will be apprehended if they will not recognize gay militant organizations that would like to enter as parish-based organizations (Section 4(d))
c. Hospitals and clinics may be apprehended if they are not able to prioritize homosexual persons in admission to their facilities (Section 4(e))
d. Establishments, despite of their right to draw policies of dress code and conduct in their premises, will be apprehended if they will deny entrance to a homosexual person who exhibits dress code and/or behavior contrary to the policies of the establishment (Section 4(g))
e. The responsibility of parents over their minor children under the Family Code of the Philippines will be undermined (Section 4 (h))
f. Law enforcers who arrest persons caught in illicit behavior (such as sexual activity in a public place) will be apprehended for harassment (Section 4 (i))
g. Government officials who are tasked to prosecute because of this bill will be apprehended even if he judges that the discriminatory case at hand is irrelevant or invalid based on his or her own moral judgment. (Section 5)

The provision on Section 4 (j) on other analogous circumstances present a dangerous and vague concept, which can be used by ill-meaning individuals who wants to pursue their own selfish interests. Individuals with perversions, such as pedophiles and sadomasochists, can also use this provision to justify their actions and behavior as something in relation to their gender identity and sexual orientation.

3. Superceding Other Criminal Laws

Due to the repealing clause (Section 8) of the bill, it is not unlikely that it will undermine and consider useless the other criminal laws that are “inconsistent” with the provisions laid in the bill. It means it will supercede any law that is working contrary to the needs of homosexual persons.

For example, this bill may undermine the anti-harassment laws by allowing persons with homosexual inclinations and behavior to pursue other persons by making sexual advances to them, as it is warranted by their gender identity to do it because of their sexual orientation.

4. HB956, SB11 is Redundant of Existing Laws recognized in the Philippines

There are sufficient laws recognized in the Philippines: civil, administrative, criminal and political, that can be invoked for the protection of the rights anyone – including persons with same-sex attractions.

(The following are taken from the position paper of Courage Philippines on HB 634 (same content as HB956 and SB 11), dated and submitted to the House of Representatives, Committee on Civil, Political and Human Rights on May 19, 2005)

a. Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Article 1 – All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights

Article 7 – All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination

b. The 1987 Philippine Constitution

Section 11, Article II (State Policies) – The State values the dignity of every human person and guarantees full respect for human rights

Section 15, Article II – The State shall protect and promote the right to health of the people and instill health consciousness among them

Section 18, Article II – The State affirms labor as a primary social economic force. It shall protect the rights of workers and promote their welfare.

Section 26, Article II – The State shall guarantee equal access to opportunities for public service

Section 2 (2), Article IX-B (Civil Service Commission) – Appointments in the civil service shall be made only according to merit and fitness to be determined, as far as practicable, X X X, by competitive examinations

Section 3, Article XII (Labor) – The State shall afford full protection to labor, local and overseas, organized and unorganized, and promote full employment and equality of employment opportunities for all. It shall guarantee the rights of all workers to self-organization, collective bargaining and negotiations. X X X They shall be entitled to security of tenure, humane conditions of work, and a living wage. They shall also participate in policy and decision-making processes affecting their rights and benefits as may be provided by law.

Section 11, Article XII (Health) – The State shall adopt an integrated and comprehensive approach to health development which shall endeavor to make essential goods, health and other social services available to all the people at affordable costs.

Section 1, Article XIV (Education) – The State shall protect and promote the right of all citizens to quality education at all levels and shall take appropriate steps to make such education accessible to all.

Section 4, Article XVI (Military Service) – The Armed Forces of the Philippines shall be composed of a citizen armed force which shall undergo military training

c. The Labor Code of the Philippines

Article 3 – The State shall afford protection to labor, promote full employment, ensure equal work opportunities regardless of sex, race or creed

Article 6 – All rights and benefits granted to workers under this Code shall X X X apply alike to all workers X X X

(These provisions specially address Section 4b of HB956, SB11)

d. The Civil Code of the Philippines

Article 19 – Every person must, in the exercise of his rights and in the performance of his duties, act with justice, give everyone his due, and observe honesty and good faith.

Article 20 – Every person who, contrary to law, willfully or negligently causes damage to another, shall indemnify the latter for the same

Article 21 – Every person who willfully causes loss or injury to another in a manner that is contrary to morals, good customs, or public policy shall compensate the latter for the damage

Article 26 – Every person shall respect the dignity, personality, privacy and peace of mind of his neighbors and other persons. The following and similar acts X X X shall produce a cause of action for damages
(2) Meddling with or disturbing the private life or family relations of another
(4) Vexing or humiliating another on account of his religious beliefs, lowly station in life, place of birth, physical defect or other personal condition

Article 27 – Any person suffering material or moral loss because a public servant or employee refuses or neglects, without just cause, to perform his official duty may file an action for damages and other relief against the latter, without prejudice to any disciplinary administrative action that may be taken

Article 32 – Any public officer or employee, or any private individual, who directly or indirectly obstructs, defeats, violates or in any manner impedes or impairs any of the following rights and liberties of another shall be liable for damages:
(8) The right to equal protection of the laws

These Civil Code provisions alone can practically and sufficiently cover the entire concerns of HB956, SB11, specifically Section 4, paragraphs (a) to (i) of said bill

e. The Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act

Section 3 (e) – Causing any undue injury to any party, including the Government, or giving any private party any unwarranted benefits, advantage, or preference in the discharge of his official, administrative or judicial functions through manifest partiality, evident bad faith or gross inexcusable negligence.

This single special penal law practically covers the public sector applications of Section 4, paragraphs a to g of HB956, SB11, and provides a more stiffer penalty of six (6) years and one (1) month to fifteen (15) years imprisonment, as compared to the merely one (1) year imprisonment prescribed by HB956, SB11 in case of a second offense.

f. Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees (RA No. 6713)

Section 4 (c) Justness and Sincerity – Public officials and employees shall remain true to the people at all times. They must act with justness and sincerity and shall not discriminate against anyone X X X. They shall at all times respect the rights of others, and shall refrain from doing acts contrary to law, good morals, good customs, public policy, public order, public safety and public interest.

The violation of the foregoing provision, proven in a proper administrative proceeding, may cause the removal or dismissal of the offending public official or employee concerned. And this law sufficiently addresses the concerns covered by the above-mentioned RA No. 3019 vis-à-vis HB956, SB11

g. The Revised Penal Code

Article 287 on Unjust Vexation sufficiently covers the concerns of Section 4, paragraphs a, f, g and h.

Articles 282-287 on Threats and Coercion and Articles 353-362 on Libel and Slander and Article 364 on Intriguing Against Honor sufficiently cover the concerns Section 4 (h) of HB956, SB11 and provide for a stiffer penalty to as much as twelve (12) years imprisonment in the case of grave threats involving one’s sexual orientation.

h. The Anti-Sexual Harassment Act of 1995 (RA No. 7877)

Section 2 – The State shall value the dignity of every individual, enhance the development of its human resources, guarantee full respect for human rights, and uphold the dignity of workers, employees, applicants for employment, students or those undergoing training, instruction or education. Toward this end, all forms of sexual harassment in the employment, education or training environment are hereby declared unlawful.

Over and above the foregoing survey of pertinent constitutional, labor, civil and criminal law provisions, persons discriminated against due to sexual orientation by public officials and/or employees have the option of commencing administrative proceedings for the removal or dismissal of such erring public servants on the ground of grave misconduct, oppression or conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the service (Civil Service Commission Memorandum Circular No 19 series of 1998). This sufficiently covers the entire length and breadth of HB956, SB11’s concerns.

5. Causes versus Effects with Discriminatory Practices

The bill supposedly addresses discriminatory practices made on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. The introduction made by Hon. Rosales in then HB 634 recognizes that it is “because of misconceptions and ignorance” that discriminatory practices are committed. After the bill enumerates the different practices that may be incurred, which is discriminatory of individuals with homosexual orientation, it forthrightly states the sanctions and penalties for such actions. But does it really address the issue?

Why are there discriminatory practices? The bill itself suggests – misconceptions and ignorance. When this same bill penalizes those who discriminate – whether actual or perceived (predisposed to vague judgment), does it help correct the misconceptions and remove the ignorance? It only helps people not to discriminate because of blind fear and greater ignorance of the homosexual condition.

Misconceptions and ignorance are answered by education – that provides truth. When people are educated on what really is going on within a homosexual, then they begin to understand, and in understanding they begin to love, and in loving they begin to abandon their misconceptions and in effect, their discriminatory practices.

Nonetheless, we must evaluate which misconceptions are in fact misconceptions, and which ones are labeled only as such but are actually “myths”.

The following are the issues often raised on the topic of homosexuality and homosexual persons

Fact 1: There are a number of persons experiencing sexual attractions towards the same sex

It is known that there are persons that are attracted sexually towards the same sex. Even the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) recognizes this: “The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible.” (CCC, 2358) This number, which for some may be growing exponentially due to unexplainable causes, may be attributed as a product of a culture of individualism and moral relativism. Gay activists may view the increasing number of homosexuals as an effect of a society that is becoming more “open” to accepting the gay culture. Yet we can see that it is the gay culture that influences society to conform in its relativist ways – messages like “It’s ok being gay”, or “Gay is happy” inundates mass media and subconsciously enters the minds of people. This ever active advocacy to promote the gay lifestyle slowly seeps into society’s very moral fiber. This explains why more and more individuals experiment with a new found “alternative” lifestyle, and gets caught up by the gay culture. The Catholic Church maintains its stand that homosexual acts is “intrinsically disordered”. By this it does not mean a “mental disorder” but a “sexual identity disorder” – that stems from the fact that a person is only either a man or a woman, and any deviation from one’s identity with the same sex and one’s attraction to the opposite sex constitutes a disorder. This disorder is a product of a person’s total experience – with family, friends, institutions and society as a whole, and can be corrected with appropriate actions and therapy. The dynamics of persons with same-sex attractions is discussed further in this paper.

Fact 2: Persons with same-sex attractions experience discrimination

Because of a limited understanding of the nature and dynamics of homosexuality, persons who experience same-sex attractions experience discrimination from different institutions of society. Families may disown their members who have same-sex attractions. Friends may reject them. Employment, career and business opportunities may be closed to them. The academe, the government and the military may disdain them. Even church members may condemn them. Notwithstanding these, the Catholic Church remains sympathetic to them as a mother. As it states in the Catechism “They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.” (CCC, 2358)

Myth 1: There is such a class of persons termed as “third sex”

If there is a “third sex”, then there should be a “first” and a “second”. It is an inaccurate term, because the sexes should always be treated equal. And there are only two classifications of sex – based on one’s dominant physiological and reproductive make-up – either male or female. There are no other classifications that will qualify. And the male should not be seen as the dominant sex, and neither should the female. Both are complementary of each other, with specific roles that should be played in society, and in the building of its basic unit – which is the family. And the family is bounded by natural laws – especially that of union and procreation. The Catholic Church recognizes these laws and sees that sexual acts between persons of the same sex are disordered based on grounds against union and procreation – “They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. (Union) They close the sexual act to the gift of life. (Procreation)” (CCC, 2357). Therefore “under no circumstances can they be approved”. What is being condemned here is the sexual act, not the person having same-sex attraction. Homosexuals are not to be termed as the “third sex”, because their condition is a matter of personal conviction of their identity – which is not a sufficient ground to make them a separate class of persons. Discussion on this is found in the next section of this paper.

Myth 2: All homosexuals are alike

Homosexuals are stereotyped. Based on what is seen on the television, heard on the radio, read in the newspapers and magazines, modeled by gay persons either as personalities or someone from one’s neighborhood – people paint an image of what a homosexual is. They give them positive traits – creative and artistic, fashion trendsetters, life of the party, friendly. They give them negative traits – vulgar, attention-seeker, flirt, prissy, tactless, too loud, too touchy, too vocal. Some people love them, some people hate them – the way they dress up, the way they talk, the way they walk, the way they behave. And this image that people have of a homosexual is translated to every person with same-sex attractions that they come in contact with. But this should not be done. This practice of stereotyping, typecasting people based on a certain trait that they have bring about misunderstanding, conflict and yes – discrimination. Homosexuals are not alike in many ways. In fact, the only thing that they have in common is their experience of same-sex attractions, nothing else! The discussion of the differences of homosexuals is given at a latter part of this paper.

Myth 3: Homosexuals go to hell

The Church has been accused of condemning homosexuals to hell. But the Catholic Church has always seen the homosexual condition as a sharing of a person with the sufferings of Jesus, as the Catechism states – “this inclination… constitutes for most of them a trial… These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.” (CCC, 2358). The Catholic Church considers the condition of the homosexual as an instrument for them to attain salvation! How is that possible? The Catechism also provides us the answer.

“Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.” (CCC, 2359) Persons with same-sex attractions are called to holiness!

For it is not the person that experience same-sex attraction that the Church condemns but the sexual activity between persons of the same-sex. It is the action, not the person; it is the sin, not the sinner. And people inside and outside the Church should be able to understand how to distinguish them. The practice of loving the sinner and hating the sin should always be emphasized to the clergy and even to the lay persons.

Myth 4: Persons with same-sex attractions are born

The origin of homosexuality is a struggle between nature and nurture, between genetics and environmental factors. Several researches have been made to prove both sides. To prove that it is genetic means that persons with same-sex attractions are born – and thus they could be recognized as a separate class of persons, and it would just be logical to give them all the rights to fit their condition as a class of persons.

However, advocates of genetic-origin of homosexuality have yet to prove that it is so. From Alfred Kinsey’s studies that concluded “10 percent of males in the study are homosexual for at least three years during a portion of their lives”, to Bailey and Pillard’s twin studies, to Le Vay’s hypothalamus studies, to Hamer et al’s chromosome studies – they have committed one or more research flaws: 1) its researcher was biased if not qualified, 2) cases were taken from samples that were non-representative of the population being studied, and 3) cases from different studies are unable to replicate the results to make generalizations on the population being studied. Efforts of proving that there exists a gay gene are all non-conclusive.

Conversely, a type of psychotherapy, along with its proponents and advocates like Joseph Nicolosi and Gerard Van Den Aardweg, called Reparative Therapy, reveals that a person with same sex attractions is a product of intrinsic gender identity deficits that one has incurred in early childhood. And because gender identification happens as early as 0 to 3 years old, one may think that he or she was “born” that way, but was in fact just too young to remember it. The role of the same-sex parent and same-sex peers are crucial to the origins of one’s homosexual orientation. Several research studies (such as that of John Thorp, 1992 and John Boswell, 1989) support these views that homosexual attraction is due to the environment. An organization of psychologists called NARTH (National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality) strongly supports and practices this and similar therapeutic processes that enable a person to return to heterosexuality.

In fact, most recent studies cannot detect genetic factors in same sex attractions, and supports instead the importance of social factors (Hershberger, SL (1997): A twin registry study of male and female sexual orientation. Journal of Sex Research 34, 212-222.; Bailey, JM; Dunne, MP; Martin, NG (2000): Genetic and Environmental influences on sexual orientation and its correlates in an Australian twin sample. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 78, 524-536.). In 2002, a study by Peter Bearman found out that the genetic contribution to same-sex attraction was zero; and that parental influence plays a more critical role in SSA (Bearman, PS; Bruckner, H (2002): Opposite-sex twins and adolescent same-sex attraction. American Journal of Sociology 107, 1179-1205.).

Myth 5: Once a homosexual, always a homosexual

If people think that homosexuals are born, then naturally they will think that homosexuals will not and cannot change. Once a person has been hooked into the homosexual lifestyle, it cannot get out of it. It is much like saying that alcoholics and drug addicts cannot change, but with a greater weight since the homosexual condition is considered permanent as it is seen as an “inborn” trait.

However, several groups and programs challenge these beliefs. The existence of support groups such as Courage, Bagong Pag-asa, Exodus International, In His Likeness and Freedom Ministry make a statement that says “Change is possible!” Online self-help and mentoring websites such as Door of Hope of Setting Captives Free and People Can Change testify to the truth that there is hope for the person with same-sex attraction to change, and become the true men and true women that they are called to be. A number of these groups are not purely spiritual in their approach to homosexuality, but combines psychology, sociology and spirituality in understanding and addressing the homosexual condition. Using addiction counseling and reparative therapy, psychotherapists have helped a significant number of persons with same-sex attractions either to embrace a purely chaste life or to seek re-orientation and move on to a happy heterosexual married life.

More importantly, a very recent development just occurred with the American Psychological Association (APA), the professional organization that, in 1973, removed homosexuality from the list of psychological disorders. On an e-news posted by Focus on the Family (http://www.family.org/cforum/extras/a0041796.cfm) dated August 25, 2006, it featured APA’s President Gerald P. Koocher stating “APA has no conflict with psychologists who help those distressed by unwanted homosexual attraction.” This recent stand by APA was supported by a research by Dr. Robert Spitzer, a New York-based psychiatrist who helped to convince the APA in 1973 to remove homosexuality from the list of psychological disorders. In this study he found that some people who are highly motivated to leave homosexuality could return to heterosexuality.

If these international organizations are now re-thinking their idea about homosexuality and the possibility of change, why should our society, with our strong family values and spiritual convictions, deny these facts to our public? Why should we let the gay political agenda rule our legislature? Because of these facts and the legal/moral impediments outlined in SB 11, HB 956 and similar bills, we enjoin you not to support them and do every legal act possible to prevent these bills from being enacted into law. For if these bills become the law of the land, the effects to our society will be irreversible.

COUNTER-PROPOSAL OF COURAGE PHILIPPINES ON HOUSE BILL 956, SENATE BILL 11 and other similar bills

2009-12-16T18:22:00.000-08:00

COUNTER-PROPOSAL OF COURAGE PHILIPPINES ON HOUSE BILL 956, SENATE BILL 11 and other similar bills. “An Act Prohibiting Discrimination On the Basis of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity And Providing Penalties Therefore”

Our group has already submitted our position paper on this bill (and similar such bills), yet due to a deliberation during the Senate committee hearing last February 28, 2007 we have come up with a counter-proposal that will more effectively answer the issue of discrimination of homosexual persons, without the dangers and ambiguity of the current bills.

1. The Anti-Discrimination bills (HB956, SB11 and similar bills) is not the answer to discrimination

As we have outlined in our position paper, there are several reasons why HB956, SB11 and similar such bills do not answer the problem of discrimination. Such reasons are the following (details of which are found in the position paper)

a. Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity as Classification is Unreasonable and Against the “Equal Protection” clause
Classification of individuals according to law must have a clear and distinct difference between categories. It must go beyond a superficial difference to a substantial distinction. The terms “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” does not pass this criterion. Moreover, a law that is passed for persons using these classifications unjustly favors a group of individuals over the rest of similar nature, and therefore violates the constitutional guaranty of equal protection.

b. The Danger of “Discrimination”
As this bill defines “discrimination” as actual or perceived draws it into a relativistic point – depending upon the perception of an individual that cries for discrimination. Among many other “dangers” that this definition and its accompanying provisions bring, there can be four (4) major points:
- Scheming individuals, whether or not they are homosexuals, may manipulate the law and use “discrimination” to extort from persons and/or institutions that are not protected by this bill
- By mere suspicion and without any substantial evidence, any homosexual person may use “discrimination” against anyone whom he or she pleases
- The definition of sexual orientation and gender identity in this bill includes inclinations and behavior, to which the bill does not account for the legitimacy of the behavior done – such as public scandals & sexual activities
- Discrimination under other analogous circumstances may pave the way for other groups, such as pedophiles, sadomasochists, and exhibitionists, to justify their actions and behavior as being part of their sexuality.

c. Superceding Other Criminal Laws
The repealing clause of the bill will consider useless and numb all other criminal laws that are “inconsistent” to the agenda of the bill – that is protection of persons with a different sexual orientation. It will warranty any kind of behavior of homosexual persons – whether or not it is legal or moral in nature, or whether or not it undermines the rights of another human person.

d. Redundant of Existing Laws recognized in the Philippines
There are sufficient laws recognized in the Philippines that can be invoked for the protection of the rights of anyone – including homosexual persons. The common problem of these laws being practiced and conferred upon persons in the current situation of Philippine society is NOT a matter of the person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, but a matter of the person’s popularity, riches and/or power.

e. Causes versus Effects with Discriminatory Practices
Hon. Loreta Ann Rosales, in her introductory cover of HB 634, mentions that discrimination is caused primarily by “misconceptions and ignorance”. With this being said, is it justifiable to confer punishment to anyone who does not fully understand, much less define, sexual orientation and gender identity? Is it right to impose penalty on someone who is brought up by a society that misunderstands, makes fun of, and scoffs at homosexual persons? It is like training a dog to bite a person in red pants, and kills the dog when it does bite a person in red pants. It is best to properly educate the general public first, let this new learned concept be practiced, before imposing a law.

2. Learning about Homosexuality

We must ask ourselves – where does the Filipino public get their idea/s about homosexuality? There is a wide genre of information available about homosexuality, but let us examine those sources that are immediately available and are popularly presented in Philippine society:

a. Immediate environment – in the home, in the neighborhood, in school or in the office, are there self-confessed homosexual persons? How do they conduct themselves? What is their lifestyle? How are they perceived by family, friends and immediate environment? Are there issues of gossiping, extortions, falsehood or immoral acts such as public sexual acts attached to the homosexual person? Or is the news about being a good provider and defender of the family, or being a creative and responsible student or worker?

b. Direct experience with a homosexual – how does one describe his or her experience being with a homosexual person? What are the products of these experiences? Are they fond of homosexual persons, just because they are funny but because they are worth of friendship? Or are they despising of them because of experiences of sexual advances or betrayal of friendship?

c. Mass Communications – though it may be indirect information, one cannot deny the effects that media imposes upon its subscribers; particularly gay literature that presents an agenda to its recipients

- Books such as Skin, Voices, Faces (1991) by Danton Remoto, Closet Quivers (1992) by Neil Garcia, Cubao 1980 at iba pang Katha (1992) by Tony Perez, A Different Love: Being Gay in the Philippines (1993) by Margarity Go-Singco, Ang Lunes na Mahirap Bunuin (1993) by Nicolas B. Pichay, Ladlad: An Anthology of Philippine Gay Writing (1994) edited by Remoto and Garcia, Ladlad 2 (1995) edited by Remoto and Garcia, Woman to Woman: A Collection of Lesbian Reflections (1995) edited by Aida F. Santos and Ginay Villar, Seduction and Solitude (1995) by Remoto; mostly published by Anvil Publishers.

- Magazines such as Icon, L, Valentino and Generation Pink

- Television shows such as GMA-7’s OUT and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy

- Movies such as (international) Philadelphia, Broke Back Mountain and (local) Pusong Mamon, Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros, Markova and movies with sex themes such as Macho Dancers, Twilight Dancers, Sibak, Bathhouse, Duda, Bilog, Masahista, Ang Lalaki sa Parola, Day Break, Lihim ni Antonio

- Stage Plays such as ZsaZsa Zaturnah and M Butterfly

- Gay Icons such as Boy Abunda, John Lapus, IC Mendoza, Ricky Reyes, and Inday Garutay

Collectively, what do these sources tell us about homosexuality? Let us examine only those points that aim to provide a foundation for the gay agenda (see attached speech of Michael Swift, 1987).

• Homosexuality is a gift of nature
Gays are born, not made. It is a gift that must be celebrated and flaunted for everyone to see.

• Homosexual behavior cannot be controlled
Dressing up and having mannerisms of the opposite sex, desiring and engaging in sexual activities with persons of the same-sex, and other similar behaviors are innate with the homosexual person; if you are homosexual, then you behave as such

• Homosexuals are preoccupied seeking sexual relationships with the same-sex
Gay literature and websites would most often feature items which are sexual by nature – nude pictures, erotic stories, sex toys, cruising places, bars and meeting up places etc.

• The Church is homophobic and propagate a culture of hate against homosexual persons
Conservative (anti-liberal) movements such as the Church condemn homosexual persons as sinners and sick people, and thus contribute to hate crimes and acts of discrimination against gays.

• Homosexuals who are accepted for what they are AND for what they do live happy lives
If only people will accept homosexuals for who they are (including what they do like same-sex sexual activities and same-sex partnerships/marriages), they will be happy

• Once a homosexual, always a homosexual
This is a finality statement – that no matter what a homosexual do (having heterosexual marriage, being in therapy etc.), he or she will always remain a homosexual.

3. These ideas about homosexuality contribute to “misconceptions and ignorance” that leads to discrimination

Let us ask another question: are these ideas presenting the whole picture about homosexuality? Or are they contributing to the misconceptions and ignorance about homosexuality?

For a typical Filipino, if asked to describe a “bakla”, terms that will probably be enlisted are: “mukhang babae”, “malandi”, “maharot”, “kikay”, “nakikipag-sex sa kapwa lalaki”, “parlorista”, “chismosa”, “madaldal”, “maingay” – and if asked to describe a “tomboy”, terms that will probably come out are: “mukhang lalaki”, “brusko”, “matapang”, “security guard”, “bouncer”, “possessive”, “nakikipag-sex sa kapwa babae”…

One may say these are all stereotypical descriptions of homosexuals – but where do they get these descriptions? Where do homosexuals get information on the character and behavior of homosexuals? We have answered this already. Yet, despite of all the gay literature available, these notions about homosexuals still abound, and homosexuals still behave the same. And these ideas directly or indirectly contribute to discrimination of homosexuals.

For the homosexual: knowing that he or she is born gay, is pre-occupied with sex, his/her behavior cannot be controlled, and that he or she will forever be gay – this person will engage himself or herself into a lifestyle that seeks to integrate behaviors into the person, such that he or she will not be able to see himself or herself apart from the dressing up or the mannerisms or the sexual activities or the same-sex partnerships that he or she has.

For the person who is not homosexual: knowing that homosexuals are born, are pre-occupied with sex, with behaviors that cannot be controlled, and that they will never change – this person will relate with a homosexual as if the behavior is integrated with the person, and so if news reach him through media or through experiences of other persons (sometimes even his/her personal experience) that a homosexual behaved badly (e.g. involved in a financial scam or caught in sexual activities in public or harassing young men into having sex with him for a price or for fame), he or she will label this behavior upon all homosexuals, and thus develop a discriminating mindset against homosexuals.

The cases of discrimination or “hate crimes” against homosexuals are a by-product of the behaviors that homosexuals exhibit in either public or private affairs. People who have bad experiences with homosexual persons (e.g. molested or scammed or abused) tend to relate with hatred towards any homosexual. But people who have had good experiences with homosexual persons tend to relate with love towards any homosexual.

Yet, gay activists have always accused the Church of propagating a culture of hate. However, difficult as it may seem, the Church has always distinguished the person from the behavior – and continued to protect the dignity of the human person, whether homosexual or heterosexual, while disapproving of the behavior of sexual activity outside marriage, whether homosexual or heterosexual.

4. Better understanding of homosexuality leads to a better treatment of homosexual persons

In spite the proliferation of gay literature, gay films, gay lingo and ultimately the gay culture in Philippine society, homosexuals still cry out as being victims of discrimination. Why is this so?

Gay culture only presents WHAT homosexuals DO, and play down, if not totally avoid, the discussions on WHY.

It is one thing to present what gay people do, yet if we want people to understand homosexuality, we must go beyond definitions and behaviors and start answering the question: why does a person become gay?

To dismiss this question and state that society must just accept homosexuals for who they are AND what they do undermines the intelligence of the Filipino people – unless it is really part of the gay agenda to dismiss discussions on the origins of homosexuality.

If people will understand why a person becomes a homosexual, and what factors contribute to homosexuality; as well as the painful road that a homosexual undergoes in his or her growing up years, there will be no room for discrimination, only much room for love and affirmation.

Our group can testify as to how our family and friends have better understood and loved us knowing this.

5. Education is the answer to Discrimination!

There are hard facts that must be given to the Filipino public, and this is to be given through continuous education. We hope that our legislative bodies, instead of approving bills that are deceptive and are ultimately cloaked with the gay agenda, will develop and approve measures that will re-educate our people on the truths about homosexuality. Some of these truths are as follows:

a. A homosexual is a person with same-sex attractions
There are homosexuals in all walks of life – whether or not they fit into the stereotypes presented in society. They may be fashion designers or showbiz personalities or corporate managers or teachers or persons in high authority – the common characteristic is that they are sexually attracted to persons of the same-sex.

b. There is a difference between homosexual attraction and homosexual behavior
Being attracted to persons of the same-sex is something that one doesn’t have control – initially. But how do we respond to such attractions, and how do we conduct ourselves as a result of these attractions – our behavior, this is where we have control

c. Homosexuality is not all of genetics but more of environment
Gay research has for years been searching for a gay gene but has found no concrete, repeatable and reliable study to prove one. Though it may be uncertain that genetics may play a part in the development of homosexuality in a person, many studies (see those published in www.narth.com) suggest that it is more of environmental factors (family, peers, school, religion, media, society etc.) that determines the homosexual inclination of an individual.

d. Homosexuals have choices
Since behavior is a matter of choice, the homosexual can choose whether to dress and act like the same-sex or the opposite sex, whether to flaunt their homosexuality or to hide it “in the closet” or to deny it, whether to engage in same-sex activities or not, whether to look for a partner or not and similar such other choices

e. Change is difficult but possible for the homosexual
Since the homosexual has choices, then ultimately he or she has a choice whether or not to continue living in the homosexual lifestyle, or to break free from this lifestyle and live a chaste life, and furthermore to rediscover his manhood or her womanhood and be happily heterosexually married and bring up a family. Countless individuals can testify to the hope of change, and as such ministries have been developed and continue to reach our to persons with same-sex attractions who are now open to change (see www.peoplecanchange, www.gaytostraight.org, www.pureintimacy.org and Door of Hope ministry of www.settingcaptivesfree.com)

f. There are groups available to help homosexuals who decide to change
Individuals who were formerly gay are less known today – but they exist. Yet we could name some famous names such as Ansel Beluso (who was a screaming gay personality in the 1980’s, and who is now a loving husband and a father to three kids) and Vins Santiago (who is a transsexual under the classic statement “woman trapped in a man’s body”, and who is now a man dressing and acting like a man).

These individuals have decided to proclaim the message of hope that homosexuals can change, and have formed groups that help other men and women find their own unique roads to change. Such groups are:
- Bagong Pag-asa under the leadership of John Zulueta (www.bagongpagasa.org )
- Called to be Free Ministries under the leadership of Vins Santiago (www.called2bfree.com )
- Gentlemen of the Lord (Couples for Christ) under the leadership of Ansel Beluso and Myke Perfecto
- Courage under the leadership of Rollie delos Reyes II (www.couragerc.net )
- Ichtus Community under the leadership of Joe Garcia

g. God, through the Church, loves the homosexual person
The Catechism of the Catholic Church clearly states that homosexuals “…must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.” If only every Catholic know this teaching of the Church, as well as its other teachings on homosexuality such as Cardinal Ratzinger’s (now Pope Benedict XVI) Letter to the Bishops On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons (1986), we would understand how much the Church cares for its flock – even the homosexual person.

Through these hard truths we may educate our people on homosexuality, and thus end the discrimination that emanates from the incomplete and sometimes twisted ideas presented by the gay agenda to our society.
THE HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA
By Michael Swift,
"Gay Revolutionary." Reprinted from The Congressional Record. First printed in Gay Community News, February 15-21 1987

"We shall sodomize your sons, emblems of your feeble masculinity, of your shallow dreams and vulgar lies. We shall seduce them in your schools, in your dormitories, in your gymnasiums, in your locker rooms, in your sports arenas, in your seminaries, in your youth groups, in your movie theater bathrooms, in your army bunkhouses, in your truck stops, in your all male clubs, in your houses of Congress, wherever men are with men together. Your sons shall become our minions and do our bidding. They will be recast in our image. They will come to crave and adore us.

Women, you cry for freedom. You say you are no longer satisfied with men; they make you unhappy. We, connoisseurs of the masculine face, the masculine physique, shall take your men from you then. We will amuse them; we will instruct them; we will embrace them when they weep. Women, you say you wish to live with each other instead of with men. Then go and be with each other. We shall give your men pleasures they have never known because we are foremost men too, and only one man knows how to truly please another man; only one man can understand the depth and feeling, the mind and body of another man.

All laws banning homosexual activity will be revoked. Instead, legislation shall be passed which engenders love between men. All homosexuals must stand together as brothers; we must be united artistically, philosophically, socially, politically and financially. We will triumph only when we present a common face to the vicious heterosexual enemy.

If you dare to cry faggot, fairy, queer, at us, we will stab you in your cowardly hearts and defile your dead, puny bodies.

We shall write poems of the love between men; we shall stage plays in which man openly caresses man; we shall make films about the love between heroic men which will replace the cheap, superficial, sentimental, insipid, juvenile, heterosexual infatuations presently dominating your cinema screens. We shall sculpt statues of beautiful young men, of bold athletes which will be placed in your parks, your squares, your plazas. The museums of the world will be filled only with paintings of graceful, naked lads.
Our writers and artists will make love between men fashionable and de rigueur, and we will succeed because we are adept at setting styles. We will eliminate heterosexual liaisons through usage of the devices of wit and ridicule, devices which we are skilled in employing.

We will unmask the powerful homosexuals who masquerade as heterosexuals. You will be shocked and frightened when you find that your presidents and their sons, your industrialists, your senators, your mayors, your generals, your athletes, your film stars, your television personalities, your civic leaders, your priests are not the safe, familiar, bourgeois, heterosexual figures you assumed them to be. We are everywhere; we have infiltrated your ranks. Be careful when you speak of homosexuals because we are always among you; we may be sitting across the desk from you; we may be sleeping in the same bed with you.

There will be no compromises. We are not middle-class weaklings. Highly intelligent, we are the natural aristocrats of the human race, and steely-minded aristocrats never settle for less. Those who oppose us will be exiled. We shall raise vast private armies, as Mishima did, to defeat you. We shall conquer the world because warriors inspired by and banded together by homosexual love and honor are invincible as were the ancient Greek soldiers.

The family unit-spawning ground of lies, betrayals, mediocrity, hypocrisy and violence--will be abolished. The family unit, which only dampens imagination and curbs free will, must be eliminated. Perfect boys will be conceived and grown in the genetic laboratory. They will be bonded together in communal setting, under the control and instruction of homosexual savants.

All churches who condemn us will be closed. Our only gods are handsome young men. We adhere to a cult of beauty, moral and esthetic. All that is ugly and vulgar and banal will be annihilated. Since we are alienated from middle-class heterosexual conventions, we are free to live our lives according to the dictates of the pure imagination. For us too much is not enough.

The exquisite society to emerge will be governed by an elite comprised of gay poets. One of the major requirements for a position of power in the new society of homoeroticism will be indulgence in the Greek passion. Any man contaminated with heterosexual lust will be automatically barred from a position of influence. All males who insist on remaining stupidly heterosexual will be tried in homosexual courts of justice and will become invisible men.

We shall rewrite history, history filled and debased with your heterosexual lies and distortions. We shall portray the homosexuality of the great leaders and thinkers who have shaped the world. We will demonstrate that homosexuality and intelligence and imagination are inextricably linked, and that homosexuality is a requirement for true nobility, true beauty in a man.

We shall be victorious because we are fueled with the ferocious bitterness of the oppressed who have been forced to play seemingly bit parts in your dumb, heterosexual shows throughout the ages. We too are capable of firing guns and manning the barricades of the ultimate revolution.
Tremble, hetero swine, when we appear before you without our masks."

HOUSE BILL No. 956, Anti-Gay Discrimination Act

2009-12-16T18:20:00.000-08:00

Republic of the Philippines
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Quezon City, Metro Manila

FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
First Regular Session

HOUSE BILL No. 956

Introduced by: AKBAYAN Representative Ana Theresia Hontiveros-Baraquel

EXPLANATORY NOTE

The equal protection clause in this Bill of Rights proscribes discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or any other status in the enjoyment of rights. The equal protection clause, according to an eminent constitutionalist, “is the specific constitutional guarantee of the Equality of the Person.” (J. Bernas, S.J., Constitutional Rights & Social Demands: Notes and Cases, Vol.II 1991], p.48) This clause requires that “laws operate equally and uniformly on all persons under similar circumstances or that all persons must be treated in the same manner, the conditions not being different, both in the privileges conferred and the liabilities imposed.” (J.M. Tuason and Co. vs. The Land Tenure Administration, 31 SCRA 413)

The fundamental law also declares that the State values the dignity of every human person and guarantees full respect for human rights (Section 11, Article 11, 1987 Constitution). It also imposes on the State the duty to ensure the fundamental equality before the law of women and men (Sec.14, Id.).

In addition, the Philippines is a signatory to numerous international agreements that seek to ensure respect for the human rights of all persons regardless of sex, sexual orientation or any other condition. These international human rights instruments have consistently been interpreted by international institutions, such as the UN Human Rights Committee and the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, to include protection against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. In Toonen v. Australia, the Human Rights Committee interpreted Article 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which obliges States to “guarantee to all persons equal and effective protection against discrimination on any ground such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status,” to include a protection against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has also interpreted Article 2 of the ICESCR to include sexual orientation in the Covenant’s non-discrimination provisions.

Unfortunately, reality has still to catch up with the noble intentions of these numerous laws and international agreements. Lesbians and gays continue to be oppressed by the iniquitous treatment of society at large, primarily because of misconceptions and ignorance. Sadly for our democracy, gays and lesbians are still considered second class citizens when they try to exercise the rights to which they are rightfully entitled.

In schools, workplaces, commercial establishments, public service, police and military, prejudicial practices and policies based on sexual orientation and gender identity limit the exercise and enjoyment of basic human rights and fundamental freedoms. Lesbian or gay students, for instance, are refused admission or expelled from schools due to their sexual orientation or gender identity. Companies block the promotion of lesbian and gay employees due to the deeply embedded notion that homosexuality is an indication of weakness. Laws such as the anti-vagrancy law are also abused by the law enforcement agencies to harass gay men.

There is, therefore, an urgent need to define and penalize practices that unjustly discriminate against lesbians and gays. It should be emphasized that the list contained herein is not exhaustive as it focuses only on the most blatant instances of discrimination. Similar instances of discrimination should be deemed included among the prohibited practices by analogy.

In view of the foregoing, and of the need to correct the long-standing discrimination against lesbians and gats in Philippine society, the early passage of this bill is earnestly urged.

HON. ANA THERESIA HONTIVEROS-BARAQUEL
Akbayan Party-list Representative

Republic of the Philippines
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Quezon City, Metro Manila

FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
First Regular Session

HOUSE BILL No. 956

Introduced by: AKBAYAN Representative Ana Theresia Hontiveros-Baraquel

AN ACT PROHIBITING DISCRIMINATION ON THE BASIS OF SEXUAL ORIENTATION AND GENDER IDENTITY AND PROVIDING PENALTIES THEREFOR

Be it enacted by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the Philippines of the Congress assembled:

SECTION 1. Title. – This Act shall be known and cited as the “Anti-Discrimination Act.”

SEC. 2. Declaration of Policy .- It is the policy of the state to work actively for the elimination of all forms of discrimination that offends the equal protection clause of the Bill of Rights and the State obligations under human rights instruments acceded to by the Republic of the Philippines, particularly those discriminatory practices based on sex or sexual orientation. Towards this end, discriminatory practices as defined herein shall be proscribed and penalized.

SEC. 3. Definition of Terms. – For purposes of this act, the following terms shall be defined as follows:

a. Sexual Orientation refers to the direction of emotional sexual attraction or conduct. This
can be towards people of the same sex (homosexual orientation) or towards people of both
sexes (bisexual orientation) or towards people of the opposite sex (heterosexual
orientation)

b. Gender Identity refers to the personal sense of identity as characterized, among others, by
manners of clothing, inclinations, and behavior in relation to masculine or feminine
conventions. A person may have a male or female identity with the physiological
characteristics of the opposite sex.

c. Discrimination shall be understood to imply any distinction, exclusion, restriction, or
preference which is based on any ground such as sex, sexual orientation, gender identity,
whether actual or perceived and which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or
impairing the recognition, enjoyment, or exercise by all persons of an equal footing of all
rights and freedoms.

SEC. 4. Discriminatory Practices. - It shall be unlawful for any person, natural or juridical, to:

(a) Deny access to public service, including military service, to any person on the basis of sexual
orientation and/or gender identity;

(b) Include sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as the disclosure of sexual orientation,
in the criteria for hiring, promotion and dismissal of workers, and in the determination of
employee compensation, training, incentives, privileges, benefits or allowances, and other
terms and conditions of employment;

This prohibition on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity shall also include the
contracting and engaging of services of juridical persons.

(c) Refuse admission or expel a person from educational institutions on the basis of sexual
orientation and gender identity, without prejudice to the right of educational institutions to
determine the academic qualifications of their students;

This prohibition shall include the imposition of (i) disciplinary sanctions solely on the basis
of sexual orientation and gender identity; (ii) penalties harsher that customary primarily due
to sexual orientation and gender identity; or (iii) similar punishments and prohibitions.

(d) Refuse or revoke the accreditation, formal recognition, and/or registration of any
organization, group, political party, institution or establishment, in educational institutions,
workplaces, communities, and other settings, solely on the basis of the sexual orientation or
gender identity of their members or of their target constituencies;

This prohibition shall also include the prevention of and prohibitions on attempts to
organize;

(e) Deny a person access to medical and other health services open to the general public on the
basis of such person’s sexual orientation or gender identity;

(f) Deny an application for or revoke a professional license issued by the government due to
the applicant’s sexual orientation or gender identity;

(g) Deny a person access to or the use of establishments, facilities, utilities or services, including
housing, open to the general public on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity;
There is a denial when a person is given inferior accommodations or services;

This prohibition includes the discrimination of juridical persons solely on the basis of the
sexual orientation or gender identity of their members or of their target constituencies;

(h) Subject or force any person to any medical or psychological examination to determine and/or
alter the person’s sexual orientation or gender identity without the expressed approval of the
person involved, except in cases where the person involved is a minor under the age of
discernment in which case prior approval of the appropriate Family Court shall be required.
In the latter case, the child shall be represented in the proceeding by the Solicitor General or
the latter’s authorized representative;

(i) Harassment by members of institutions involved in the enforcement of law and the
protection of rights, such as the Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the
Philippines, of any person on the basis of his or her sexual orientation or gender identity.
Among other cases, harassment occurs when a person is arrested or otherwise placed in the

custody and extortion, physical or verbal abuse takes place, regardless of whether such arrest
has legal or factual basis. Harassment of juridical persons on the basis of the sexual
orientation or gender identity of their members, stockholders, benefactors, clients, or
patrons is likewise covered by this provision.

(j) Other analogous circumstances.

SEC. 5. Administrative sanctions. – Refusal of a government official whose duty is to investigate, prosecute or otherwise act on a complaint for a violation of this Act to perform such a duty without a valid ground shall constitute gross negligence on the part of such official who shall suffer the appropriate penalty under civil service laws, rules, and regulations.

SEC. 6. Penalties. – (a) Persons found guilty of any of the discriminatory practices enumerated in the preceding Section shall be penalized with a fine of not less than One Hundred Thousand Pesos (P100,000) but not to exceed Five Hundred Thousand Pesos (P500,000) or imprisonment of not less than one (1) year but not more than six (6) years, or both at the discretion of the court. In addition, community service in terms of human rights education to the perpetrator and exposure to the plight of the victims can be imposed at the discretion of the court.

(b) The officials directly involved shall be liable for violations committed by corporations, organizations or similar entities.

SEC. 7. Separability clause. – If any provision of this Act is declared unconstitutional or otherwise invalid, the validity of the other provisions shall not be affected thereby.

SEC. 8. Repealing clause. – All laws, decrees, orders, rules and regulations or parts thereof inconsistent with this Act are hereby repealed or modified accordingly.

SEC. 9. Effectivity. – This Act shall take effect fifteen (15) days after its publication in the Official Gazette or in at least two (2) newspapers of general circulation.

Approved,

Richard Cohen's Outline of "After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90’s"

2009-12-09T18:23:00.000-08:00

After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90’s
By Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen, Plume Books, 1989

Marshall Kirk (researcher in neuropsychiatry, logician, poet, graduated Harvard in 1980) Hunter Madsen (expert in public persuasion tactics and social marketing, designed commercial advertising on Madison Avenue, Ph.D. in Politics, graduated Harvard 1985)

This outline was compiled by Richard Cohen, MA,
International Healing Foundation, www.comingoutstraight.com

Codes:
( ) = page numbers
H = homosexual or homosexuality
Underline and bold are my emphasis
SSA = Same-Sex Attractions

1. This is a campaign of unabashed propaganda, firmly grounded in long-established principles of psychology and advertising. (xxviii)

2. Address hostile public opinion about homosexuality. (xxviii)

3. List of prejudice and harmful actions is the specific agenda for change. (4)

4. Distinguish between the causes and symptoms of homo-hatred. Essential for agenda and strategies. (4)

5. What straights think about homosexuals?

a. Know very little about homosexuality and would prefer to know less. (5)
b. Info from myths, rumors, jokes, stories, Bible. (6)
c. Avoidance of events with homosexuals. (6)
d. Reluctance to discuss the issue in public.(7)
e. Willful perpetuation of ignorance about homosexuality. (7)
f. Don’t care to read serious treatment of homosexual life. (8)
g. Neglect H in mass culture. Change attitude from problem to condition to be tolerated and permanently accepted. (9-10)
h. There are no H heroes. (11)
i. There aren’t many H in America—spread the 10% myth. If we must draw the line somewhere and pick a specific percentage for propaganda purposes, we may well stick with the solidly conservative figure suggested by Kinsey decades ago; taking men and women together, at least 10% of the populace has demonstrated its homosexual proclivities so extensively that that proportion may reasonably be called ‘gay.’ This means that 25 million are H and 50 million parents, plus siblings, relatives, etc. (14-16)
j. When it comes to fighting the charge that H is statistically abnormal hence immoral, there is strength in numbers. (17)
k. Easy to recognize H, stereotype images, effeminate males, masculine females (fags and dykes). (18)
l. Signs of being H: Unusual intelligence, speaks certain way, dress a particular way, move specific ways, fail designated tests of manly courage, artistic (21)
m. Why are they H? Promote the innate, immutable theory. (26-27)
n. Behind theories of H is hatred and fear (black heart). Willful ignorance that is mean spirited. (28)
1. Caused by sinfulness – against natural law, voluntary and deliberate, unnatural, social contrariness
2. Caused by mental illness – confusion over one’s gender identity, fear of opposite sex, result of masturbation, pathological, against culture norms, traced to Dr. Richard von Krafft-Ebing, 1886, “Psychopathia Sexualis,” case histories of H. Karl Ulrichs, Edward Carpenter and other sexologists in late 1800s that H due to gender confusion. Due to parental influence (33-38)
3. Caused by recruitment – older H recruit innocent young straights, like vampires or werewolves. Rev. Falwell said, “H do not reproduce, they recruit.” Sexually depraved, mentally unstable, not to be trusted with our kids, disproportionately involved in child molestation, H and pederast interchangeable. (42) Parents beware, if recruitment is true, your kids might turn out H. Protect your kids from shameful contagion, avoid H.(44)
o. Debunk theories of the causes of H, even if they are true. Purpose is to debunk such theories so straights cannot blame H as sexually deviant. (45)
p. H are kinky, loathsome sex addicts. (48)
q. H are unproductive and untrustworthy members of society. Suicidal, sick, unhappy. (52)

6. Homosexuality portrayed as either 1) a permanent condition, or 2) a temporary problem that can be fixed. This distinction between problem and condition is crucial to the way straights think about homosexuality. A problem has a solution. A condition doesn’t need to be fixed. It is simply an aspect of life that must be accommodated. It requires permanent tolerance and you must come to terms with it psychologically, practically, and morally. We must therefore change public opinion, from problem to condition. (10-11)

7. How straights treat H: (64)

a. Actions that prevent H behavior
b. Actions which deny H their fundamental civil rights (not allowed to speak on TV, radio, newsprint). (77)
c. Actions which vent public disapproval of H “Though your tissues gel, and you rot in hell, don’t feel gloomy friend, it will never end, happy death, faggot fool.” From death threat Christmas cards sent to H in 1987 by Iron Fist, hate group at Univ of Chicago. (98)
8. Our Field Trip Concludes: An Agenda for Change (107-109)

1. H don’t warrant or deserve much attention from straights.
Preferred: H are valuable part of American society; we should be familiar with their nature, culture, news and heroes.
2. H are few in number; I don’t know any H.
Preferred: H constitute a large minority of our society; and some of my friends/family are H.
3. H are easy to spot.
Preferred: They are not: most of them look just like anyone else.
4. H become H because of sin, insanity, seduction.
Preferred: Sexual feelings are not really chosen by anybody; H is just as healthy and natural for some persons as heterosexuality is for others.
5. H are kinky sex addicts.
Preferred: The sex and love lives of most H and straights today are both similar and conventional.
6 – H are unproductive, untrustworthy members of society.
Preferred: H are hardworking, patriotic Americans.
7 – H are suicidally unhappy.
Preferred: H would be as happy as anyone else, if we’d just treat them fairly.
8 – H acts, and intimate public contact, are outlawed across roughly one half of the nation.
Preferred: All sex acts among consenting adults are decriminalized; no discrimination is permitted between straights and H in content and application of laws.
9 – Freedoms of speech and assembly by H are impeded by public intolerance.
Preferred: H are provided, by special law if necessary, the same opportunity to speak (including access to mass media) and gather as straights currently enjoy.
10 – Rights of H to work, shelter, and public accommodations are limited by public intolerance.
Preferred: H are assured, by affirmative action if necessary, equal opportunity in these regards.
11 – H couples cannot legally marry (nor enjoy property rights there from): nor are their rights to parent natural or adoptive children secure.
Preferred: H are permitted all the standard rights of marriage and parenthood.
12 – H are often taunted, harassed and brutalized.
Preferred: The public no longer sanctions this behavior, which becomes as socially incorrect, discreditable, and repugnant as overt racism or anti-Semitism.

9. Understanding Prejudice: (112)

a. Prejudice is not logical. Cannot be overcome by facts and logic.
b. Prejudice is deep, automatic, prelogical, product of emotional conditioning unassailable by any appeal to the intellect. And so is homohatred impervious to argument.
c. To solve the problem, you must first understand it through and through.
10. Tactics that won’t work to overcome prejudice:

a. You can’t inform or argue it away
b. It’s not “evil”’ so burning our enemies at the stake won’t work
c. Not illness so it can’t be cured by therapy
d. Not a conspiracy by sick or wicked people
e. Conscious raising won’t work
f. H parades where H looks extreme won’t work
g. Learning to love and respect others won’t work
h. Storming the barricades or picketing won’t work
i. Having sex in public won’t work (113-114)

11. How prejudice works:

a. Seat of emotion is in the limbic system, a set of six or eight organs located in the center of the brain. (115)
b. Three specific and unmixed emotions: 1) septal region causes pure pleasure, 2) locus ceruleus causes fear, and 3) amygdala causes anger.
c. Emotions serve as internal drive states that motivate a mammal to do the right thing, at the right time, in order to survive and reproduce. Appropriate emotions, appropriately timed, motivate appropriate behavior. (115)
d. Emotions fall into two major categories: 1) trophic emotions—which are pleasant, feel good, induce an animal to approach that which elicitis them; driven by dopamine-containing nerve fibers, pleasure circuits of the mid-brain, which activate the septal region, feels good, and 2) countertrophic emotions, which are unpleasant, feel bad and induce an animal to avoid that which elicits them; driven by norepinephrine-containing nerve fibers, pain circuits of mid-brain, subdivide into two categories (located in separate brain-organs) and motivate two separate behavioral functions (both feel bad):
1. Anxiety/Fear: activated in the locus ceruleus and causes flight response. Caused by situations that are dangerous (discretion is better than valor).
2. Anger/Rage/Hate: activated in the amygdala and induces fight response, attempt to kill enemy. It is solicited by other creatures, rather than situations, that are dangerous or weaker, and more feasibly dealt with by aggression than flight. (116)
e. Evolutionary function of Prejudice—for survival and reproduction. Agnatic selection: “survival of the fittest.” This means that strong, clever animals survive and reproduce passing on their offspring the genes for strength and cleverness, thus, over time, making their species as a whole stronger and more clever. And so it goes with the strongest, cleverest tribes and societies. All baboon tribes are hostile to one another, and fight viciously upon contact; the best tribe wins, gains greater land-space and food, and so reproduces in greater numbers. This process concentrates successful genes. (118)
f. In order for agnatic selection to work, individual baboons come equipped with the ability to discriminate at a glance, or perhaps sniff, between members of their own tribe and members of other tribes. Make snap judgments on the basis of superficial characteristics—nee-jerk reactions—without thinking. Here we see prejudice unfolding!
g. Having discerned the stranger at a glance, the baboon must react immediately, so as to jump the gun on his enemy. This automatic response has two stages: 1) unpleasant emotion—countertrophic fear and/or anger, which motivates 2) a behavior, either fight or flight: “see the stranger, fear the stranger; hate the stranger, kill the stranger.” (119)
h. Humans feel similar to baboons when they experience prejudice: rewarding a sense of fear and anger when they avoid or destroy outsiders, and an equally rewarding sense of pride and self-righteousness, and the respect and approval of their own tribe (parents, family, neighbors, their “set,” class, nation, race). (119)

12. How homohatred arises in men:

a. Prejudice with humans: How homohatred arises in man—have added intellectual abilities than other primates. Two highly developed abilities: 1) learn patterns of behavior, instead of being limited to those instinctive patterns with which one is born; and 2) form mental patterns, or concepts—like little models of things inside the head. (120)
b. Therefore, what was learned can be unlearned. Connections made in the brain can be broken and new connections can be learned that will counteract and nullify the effects of the old. It’s comparatively easy to train a relatively flexible human being if not to like then to feel and react neutrally to previously hated minority groups, like H! (121)
c. How mechanism of prejudice develops in children: 1) learn to hate, 2) learn anger/fear toward H, 3) learn emotional reactions towards H by
1. Associative Conditioning: link between two things so one evokes the other (homosexuals and hatred)
2. Direct Emotional Modeling: learn to hate/love/fear as our parents/others do. Not through reasoning, but by example we learn to hate or fear others. (122)
d. Emotions motivate biologically necessary behaviors, including fight or flight; when social mammals, living in herds, are confronted by enemies of their own or other species. A child has learned, as a conditioned emotional reaction, to hate the things his parents hate. (124)
e. Kinsey said one in three males have homosexual tendencies [this is a mischaracterization of Kinsey’s findings]. So, many will experience H feelings. (125) He will learn to hate in others what he denies in himself:
1. Pattern One: Rage—repression and reaction formation—horrified by his SSA, represses them immediately. Has a subconscious need to seek out and destroy in others (through violence, murder, hurtful behaviors), what he cannot tolerate in himself. Ex., Roy Cohn, Joe McCarthy
2. Pattern Two: Terror—strives to appear straight (acting and appearance). Lifelong self-hatred, avoidance of H.
3. Pattern Three: Wretched Excess—go overboard with exaggerated effeminate behaviors, shock tactics, etc. (126-127)
f. Picture-Label Pair: group images and labels together in the mind, e.g., fag and specific behaviors. (129)

13. How homohatred works in adults: (130)

Step 1: Bigot either sees or hears, or thinks about, an instance of the picture/label pair.
Step 2: His sighting, or thinking about, the instance evokes, from his limbic system, a conditioned response or countertrophic emotion—that is, fear and/or hate. If the emotion is sufficiently intense, he may
Step 3: Run away (by trying to ignore the instance, or by crossing the street), or attack (verbally or physically)—which discharges the fear and/or hate, and thus
Step 4: Rewards the behavior.
Step 5: Steps 2 and, if present, Step 3 are interpreted (perhaps automatically and unconsciously) by the rest of the brain as ‘being like Mom and Dad’—meaning, ‘those from whom I get my love and respect.’ This notion evokes
Step 6: A conditioned response of trophic emotions—felt subjectively as ‘being loved,’ and labeled ‘pride and solidarity.’ This once again
Step 7: Rewards the whole sequence.
Step 8: Rationalization: Rationalization is learned after hatred, so you cannot persuade someone to stop being prejudice by reason!!! (131)

Rationalization is the last in the above sequence, which is why rationalization doesn’t work to change bigotry. Therefore, rationalization isn’t fruitful in the war on homohatred / not useful in the campaign of propaganda to change opinions. (131)

14. Three tactics that don’t work:

1. Conscious raising:
a. Trying to argue people out of their homohatred doesn’t work. Prejudice is not a belief, it’s a feeling. Arguments cannot change feelings, only beliefs. It’s not useful in the treatment of homohatred. Arguments with facts is a waste of time. (136)
b. Actions/behavior help us outgrow/overcome fear/hatred. Experience the feared thing in small increments over time, then the fear peters out. Reason won’t persuade. Emotional appeal works. [Perfect love casts out fear / Love covers a multitude of sins] (137)
c. 90% of people have low intelligence. 10% fairly/highly intelligent. Can never alter the 90% through beliefs or arguments, only through emotions. Highly intelligent can step outside themselves and analyze their feelings, the causes of their feelings, and modulate them. Sometimes, arguments directed at the 10% can trickle down to the 90%. (138)
d. Argument creates negative reaction and reinforces their prejudice (negative emotion when feel threatened). (139)
e. Cannot disprove the Bible, validity of the Bible, or other authoritative sources of moral judgment. (139)
2. Storming the Barricades
a. Fighting won’t/doesn’t work. (140)
b. Solving problems with fists is ill advised.
c. Acts of violence reinforce prejudice. (141)
3. Gender Bending
a. We’ve been shut out of the majority culture; made to feel worthless and wicked.
b. By demonstrating differences, it strengthens prejudice with picture/label pairing, creating hostility and anxiety. (144-145)

15. “First you get your foot in the door, by being as similar as possible; then, and only then—when your one little difference is finally accepted—can you start dragging in your other peculiarities, one by one. You hammer in the wedge narrow end first. As the saying goes, ‘Allow the camel’s nose beneath your tent, and his whole body will soon follow.’” (146)

16. How to Halt, Derail and/or Reverse the Engine of Prejudice:

1. Desensitization:
a. Prejudice = Alerting Signal. Warns tribal mammals that a potential alien mammal is in the vicinity and should be fought or fled. Two things can happen: 1) Strong or Weak Stimulus: fight it or flee from it; and 2) Low Grade Stimulus: don’t take action against it, irrelevancy, get used to it. (148)
b. If H present themselves as different and threatening, then straights go on alert and fight against them.
c. To desensitize straights, H inundate them with conscious flood of H related advertising, presented in the least offensive fashion. If straights can’t shut the shower off, they may at least eventually get used to being wet. (149)

2. Jamming:
a. Insertion of incompatible emotion into the pre-existing system. Like sprinkling sand into a pocket watch.
b. Jamming is more active and aggressive than desensitization.
c. Jamming uses the rules of Associative Conditioning (when two things are repeatedly juxtaposed, one’s feelings about one thing are transferred to the other) and Direct Emotional Modeling (the inborn tendency of human beings to feel what they perceive others to be feelings). (150)
d. Consequent internal confusion has two effects: Unpleasant/Emotional Dissonance will tend to result in an alteration of previous beliefs and feelings so as to resolve the internal conflict. And second, the Internal Dissonance will tend to inhibit over expression of the prejudicial emotion—which is, in itself, useful and relieving. (151)
e. All normal people feel shame when they perceive that they are not thinking, feeling, or acting like one of the pack. The trick is to get the bigot into the position of feeling a conflicting twinge of shame, along with his reward, whenever his homohatred surfaces, so that his reward will be diluted or spoiled. (151)
f. Propagandistic advertising can depict homophobic and homohating bigots as crude loudmouths and assholes—people who say not only “faggot” but “nigger,” “kike,” and other shameful epithets—who are “not Christian.” It can show them being criticized, hated, shunned. It can depict H experiencing horrific suffering as the direct result of homohatred—suffering of which even most bigots would be ashamed to be the cause. It can, in short, link homohating bigotry with all sorts of attributes the bigot would be ashamed to possess, and with social consequences he would find unpleasant and scary. The attack, therefore, is on self-image and on the pleasure in hating. (151-152)
g. When our ads show a bigot—just like the members of the target audience—being criticized, hated, and shunned, we make use of Direct Emotional Modeling as well. Remember, a bigot seeks approval and liking from ‘his crowd.’ When he sees someone like himself being disapproved of and disliked by ordinary Joes, Direct Emotional Modeling ensures that he will feel just what they feel—and transfer it to himself. This wrinkle effectively elicits shame and doubt; Jamming any pleasure he might normally feel. In a very real sense, every time a bigot sees such a thing, he is unlearning a little bit of the lesson of prejudice taught him by his parents and peers. (152)
h. Effect of Jamming, is achieved without reference to facts, logic or proof. Through repeated infralogical emotional conditioning, his bigotry can be alloyed in exactly the same way, whether he is conscious of the attack or not. Indeed, the more he is distracted by any incidental, even specious, surface arguments, the less conscious he’ll be of the true nature of the process – which is all to the good. (153)
i. In short, Jamming succeeds insofar as it inserts even a slight frisson of doubt and shame into the previously unalloyed, self-righteous pleasure. Need massive public exposure of the message to succeed. (153)

3. Conversion
a. Desensitization aims at lowering the intensity of antiH emotional reactions to a level approximating sheer indifference. Jamming attempts to blockade or counteract the rewarding ‘pride in prejudice’ by attaching to homohaterd a pre-existing, and punishing, sense of shame in being a bigot, a horse’s ass, and a beater and murderer. Both of these techniques are preludes to our highest—though necessarily very long-range—goal, which is conversion. (153)
b. Conversion of the average American’s emotions, mind, and will, through a planned psychological attack, in the form of propaganda fed to the nation via the media. We mean ‘subverting’ the mechanism of prejudice to our own ends—using the very process that made America hate us to turn their hatred into warm regard—whether they like it or not. (153-154)
c. If Desensitization lets the watch run down, and Jamming throws sand in the works, Conversion reverses the spring so that the hands run backward. (154)
d. In conversion, the bigot, who holds a very negative stereotypic picture, is repeatedly exposed to literal picture/label pairs, in magazines, and on billboards and TV, of H—explicitly labeled as such – who not only don’t look like his picture of H, but are carefully selected to look either like the bigot and his friends, or like any one of his other stereotypes of all-right guys—the kind of people he already likes and admires. This image must, of necessity, be carefully tailored to be free of absolutely every element of the widely held stereotypes of how ‘faggots’ look, dress, and sound. He or she must not be too well or fashionably dressed; must not be too handsome, that is mustn’t look like a model, or well groomed. The image must be that of an icon or normality—a good beginning would be to take a long look at Coors beer and Three Musketeers candy commercials. Subsequent ads can branch out from that solid basis to include really adorable, athletic teenagers, kindly grandmothers, avuncular policemen, ad infinitem. (154)
e. But it makes no difference that the ads are lies; not to us, because we’re using them to ethically good effect, to counter negative stereotypes that are every bit as much lies, and far more wicked ones; not be bigots, because the ads will have their effect on them whether they believe them or not. (154)
f. When a bigot is presented with an image of the sort of person of whom he already has a positive stereotype, he experiences an involuntary rush of positive emotion, of good feeling; he’s been conditioned to experience it. But, here, the good picture has the bad label—H! (The ad may say something rather like ‘Beauregard Smith-beer drinker, Good Ole Boy, pillar of the community, 100% American, and H as a mongoose.’) The bigot will feel two incompatible emotions: a good response to the picture, a bad response to the label. At worst, the two will cancel one another, and we will have successfully Jammed, as above. At best, Associative Conditioning will, to however small an extent, transfer the positive emotion associated with the picture to the label itself, not immediately replacing the negative response, but definitely weakening it. (155)
g. You may wonder why the transfer wouldn’t proceed in the opposite direction. The reason is simple: pictures are stronger than words and evoke emotional responses more powerfully. The bigot is presented with an actual picture, its label will evoke in his mind his own stereotypic picture, but what he sees in his mind’s eye will be weaker than what he actually sees in front of him with the eyes in his face. The more carefully selected the advertised image is to reflect his ideal of the sort of person who just couldn’t be H, the more effective it will be. Moreover, he will, by virtue of logical necessity, see the positive picture in the ad before it can arouse his negative picture, and first impressions have an advantage over second. (155)
h. In Conversion, we mimic the natural process of stereotype-learning, with the following effect: we take the bigot’s good feelings about all-right guys, and attach them to the label ‘gay,’ either weakening or, eventually, replacing his bad feelings toward the label and the prior stereotype. (155)
i. Understanding Direct Emotional Modeling, you’ll readily foresee its application to Conversion; whereas in Jamming the target is shown a bigot being rejected by his crowd for his prejudice against H, in Conversion the target is shown his crowd actually associating with H in good fellowship. Once again, it’s very difficult for the average person, who, by nature and training, almost invariably feels what he sees his fellows feeling, not to respond in this knee-jerk fashion to a sufficiently calculated advertisement. In a way, most advertisement is founded upon an answer of Yes, definitely! To Mother’s sarcastic question: I suppose if all the other kids jumped off a bridge and killed themselves, you would too? (155-156)

17. Success depends on flooding the media, and that, in turn means money, man hours, and unifying the H community for a concerted effort. (157)

18. Learn from Madison Avenue, to roll out the big guns! H must launch a large-scale campaign—we’ve called it the Waging Peace Campaign—to reach straights through the mainstream media. We’re talking about propaganda. (161)

19. The term propaganda applies to any deliberate attempt to persuade the masses via public communications media. Its function is not to perpetrate, but to propagate; to propagate, that is, to spread new ideas and feelings (or reinforce old ones) which may themselves be either evil or good depending on their purpose and effect. The purpose and effect of progay propaganda is to promote a climate of increased tolerance for H. (162)

20. Three characteristics distinguish propaganda from other modes of communication and contribute to its sinister reputation: 1) Relies on emotional manipulation—through desensitization, jamming and conversion; 2) Use lies, and 3) Subjective and one-sided. Tell our side of the story as movingly as possible. In the battle for hearts and minds, effective propaganda knows enough to put its best foot forward. This is what our own media campaign must do. (162-163)
21. Must train leaders, national workshops for full acceptance in America. Begin a national “Positive Images Campaign.” Recognition is dawning that antigay discrimination begins, like war, in the minds of men, and must be stopped there with the help of propaganda. (163)
22. Principle goal of the campaign is to gain tolerance and acceptance by straight community. (165)
23. Show, in the media, that H community lives by an ethical code in order to achieve our goal of tolerance and acceptance. (166)
24. Publicly “Come Out” to desensitize, jam and convert straight America. Jamming means interrupting the smooth workings of bigotry by inducing inconsistent feelings in the bigot. Extreme bigots become less confident that their incitements will generate applause and are further inhibited by the majority of ‘mild bigots, who now become uneasy that a fag slur might provoke an unpleasant scene. Once these dynamics get going, displays of homohatred suddenly become off-color and boorish. Thus, when H come out, they help transform the social climate from one that support prejudice to one that shuts homohaters up. Coming out is critical catalyst for the all-important ‘conversion’ process. To make straights actually like and accept H as a group, enabling straights to identify with them. Coming out is the key to sociopolitical empowerment, the ability of the gay community to control its own destiny. (167-168)
25. Coming out process is too slow so we also need a national media campaign. After meeting enough likeable H on TV, Jane Doe may begin to feel she knows H as a group, even if none has ever introduced himself to her personally. Thwart bigotry. (169)
26. Carefully crafted, repeatedly displayed mass-media images of H could conceivably do even more to reverse negative stereotypes than could the incremental coming out of one person to another. (169)
27. The wide range of favorably sanitized images that might be shown in the media could eventually have a more positive impact on the H stereotype than could exposure to H friends, since straights will otherwise generalize a suboptimal impression of gays from the idiosyncratic admixture of good and bad traits possessed by their one or two H acquaintances. Portray only the most favorable side of gays, thereby counterbalancing the already unfairly negative stereotype in the public’s mind. (170)
28. The media campaign will work well in tandem with the Everyone Comes Out strategy because it is actually a catalyst to coming out. (170)
29. Two different avenues to gay liberation: Education (i.e., propaganda) and Politics. (170) Politicians must be responsive to public sentiment on sensational issues if they value their careers. (171) But this often happens in politics, especially on the H issue where, as Yeasts would say, “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” Our political success could be greatly advanced by media campaign conducted prior to, or simultaneously with, political initiatives. (172)
30. WAGING PEACE CAMPAIGN: 8 Practical Principles For The Persuasion Of Straights:
a. “Those who have supreme skill use Strategy to bond others without coming to conflict.” Sun Tzu, The Art of War
b. Three points of effective propaganda:
1) Employ images that desensitize, jam and/or convert bigots on an emotional level. This is, by far, the most important task;
2) Challenge homohating beliefs and actions on a (not too) intellectual level. Remember, the rational message serves to camouflage our underlying emotional appeal, even as it pares away the surrounding latticework of beliefs that rationalize bigotry; and
3) Gain access to the kinds of public media that would automatically confer legitimacy upon these messages and, therefore, upon their gay sponsors. To be accepted by the most prestigious media, such as network TV, or messages themselves will have to be—at least initially—both subtle in purpose and crafty in construction. (173)

Principle 1: Don’t’ just express yourself, communicate!

a. Genuine public outreach requires careful communication. Key: Put yourself in the listeners shoes. “If I were straight and felt the hostility most straights feel towards gays, what would it take to get me to change my antigay feelings?” (174)
b. Don’t start by deciding what you most ardently wish to tell straights: start by determining what they most need to hear from you. (174)
c. Straights must be helped to believe that you and they speak the same language. (174)
d. Dress and speak like them. (175)

Principle 2: Seek ye not the saved nor the damned: Appeal to the skeptics

a. Intransigents (Core) 30-35% / Ambivalent Skeptics (Swing) 35-45% / Friends (Pansexual) 25-30% (175)
b. Silence those that oppose homosexuality (Intransigents) because of their religious beliefs.
c. Ambivalent skeptics are our most promising targets (176).
d. Ambivalent skeptics are more or less passively negative toward H (176).
e. Focus the media campaign on the ambivalent skeptics: Desensitize/Jam/Convert them.
f. Silence the Intransigents (Core).
g. Mobilize the Friends (Pansexuals). (177)

Principle 3: Keep Talking

a. Help straights view homosexuality with neutrality rather than keen hostility. In the beginning, seek desensitization and nothing more. (177)
b. “You can forget about trying right up front to persuade folks that homosexuality is a good thing. But if you can get them to think it is just another thing—meriting no more than a shrug of the shoulders – then your battle for legal and social rights is virtually won.” (177)
c. “Application of the keep-talking principle can get people to the shoulder-shrug stage. The free and frequent discussion of gay rights by a variety of persons in a variety of places gives the impression that homosexuality is commonplace. That impression is essential, because, as noted in the previous chapter, the acceptability of any new behavior ultimately hinges on the proportion of one’s fellow accepting or doing it.” (177)
d. “The fastest way to convince straights that homosexuality is commonplace is to get a lot of people taking about the subject in a neutral or supportive way.” (178)
e. “Talk about gayness until the issue becomes thoroughly tiresome.” (178)
f. “In the early stages of the campaign, the public should not be shocked and repelled by premature exposure to homosexual behavior itself. Instead, the imagery of sex per se should be downplayed, and the issue of gay rights reduced, as far as possible, to an abstract social question.” (178)
g. “As it happens, the AIDS epidemic—ever a course and boon for the gay movement—provides ample opportunity to emphasize the civil rights/discrimination side of things, but unfortunately it also permits our enemies to draw attention to gay sex habits that provoke revulsion.” (178)
h. Accuse religious people: “Gays can use talk to muddy the moral waters, that is, to undercut the rationalizations that ‘justify’ religious bigotry and to jam some of its psychic rewards.” “Portray such institutions as antiquated backwaters, badly out of step with the times and with the latest findings of psychology.” (179)
i. “Where we talk is critical.” TV, films, magazines—most powerful image makers in the Western civilization. (179) Marshall McLuhan said, “Where desensitization is concerned, the medium is the message…of normalcy.” (179)

Principle 4: Keep the message focused: You’re a homosexual, not a whale.

a. Talk about gay rights issues and nothing more: be single minded. (180)
b. Michael Denneny said, “We have no natural allies and therefore cannot rely on the assistance of any group; we have only tactical allies—people who do not want barbarous things done to us because they fear the same thing may someday be done to them.” (181)
c. Be focused in your efforts to reach the public via mass media. Talk, talk, talk about gay rights, and leave it at that. (182)

Principle 5: Portray gays as victims, not as aggressive challengers.

a. “Gays must be portrayed as victims in need of protection so that straights will be inclined by reflex to adopt the role of protector. If gays present themselves instead, as a strong and arrogant tribe promoting a defiantly nonconformist lifestyle, they are most likely to be seen as a public menace that warrants resistance and oppression.” (183)
b. KEY: “The purpose of victim imagery is to make straights feel very uncomfortable; that is, to jam with shame the self-righteous pride that would ordinarily accompany and reward their antigay belligerence, and to lay groundwork for the process of conversion by helping straights identify with gays and sympathize with their underdog status.” (183)
c. “Persons featured in the media campaign should be wholesome and admirable by straight standards, and completely unexceptional in appearance; in a word, they should be indistinguishable from the straights we’d like to reach.” (183)
d. “Conventional young people, middle-aged women, and older folks of all races would be featured, not to mention the parents and straight friends of gays. One could also argue that lesbians should be featured more prominently than gay men in the early stages of the media campaign.” (183-184)
e. Two different messages about gay victims:
1. Public persuaded that gays are victims of circumstance, that they no more chose their sexual orientation than they did, say, their height, skin color, talents, or limitations. “To suggest in public that homosexuality might be chosen is to open the can of worms labeled ‘moral choice’ and ‘sin’ and give the religious intransigents a stick to beat us with. Straights must be taught that it is as natural for some persons to be homosexual as it is for others to be heterosexual: wickedness and seduction have nothing to do with it. And since no choice is involved, gayness can be no more blameworthy than straightness. In fact, it is simply a matter of the odds—one in ten—as to who turns out gay, and who straight. Each heterosexual must be led to realize that he might easily have been born homosexual himself.” (184)
2. Gays should be portrayed as VICTIMS OF PREJUDICE. Straights don’t fully realize the suffering they bring upon gays, and must be shown: graphic pictures of brutalized gays, dramatizations of job and housing insecurity, loss of child custody, public humiliation, etc. (184)
f. Help straights become homosexual protectors. (185)
g. Play for sympathy and tolerance. (186)
h. March if you must, but don’t parade (look good for the camera/newspaper). Look ordinary, not disenfranchised drag queens, bull dykes, exotic elements of the gay community. (186)
i. Desensitization works gradually or not at all. (186)

Principle 6: Give potential protectors a just cause.

a. Use anti-discrimination as the campaign, not homosexual behavior. (187)
b. “Our campaign should not demand explicit support for homosexual practices, but should instead take antidiscrimination as its theme. Fundamental freedoms, constitutional rights, due process and equal protection of laws, basic fairness and decency toward all of humanity – these should be the concerns brought to mind by our campaign.” (187)

Principle 7: Make gays look good.

a. In order to make a gay victim sympathetic to straights, you have to portray him as Everyman. (187)
b. Paint gay men and lesbians as superior, veritable pillars of society. (188)
c. Use famous historical homosexual figures
d. Use celebrity endorsements of homosexuals because people like celebrities so they will like homosexuals. (188-189)

Principle 8: Make victimizers look bad.

a. “The objective is to make homohating beliefs and actions look so nasty that average Americans will want to dissociate themselves from them.” (189)
b. “The best way to make homohatred look bad is to vilify those, who victimize gays. The public should be shown images of ranting homohaters whose associated traits and attitudes appall and anger Middle America.” (189)
c. In TV and print, images of victimizers can be combined with those of their gay victims by a method propagandists call the ‘bracket technique’, e.g. Rev. Fred Phelps picketing at Matthew Shepards funeral saying “God hates gays.” Then people are disgusted by him, so they dissociate from him and his hateful attitude. (189)
d. “Every time a viewer runs through this comparative self-appraisal, he reinforces a self-definition that consciously rejects homohatred and validates sympathy for gay victims. Exactly what we want.” (190)

31. Tactics for eating the media alive:

A. Three main ways: 1. Public Relations, 2. News Reporting, and 3. Advertising. (193)
B. Make a big noise. People love scandals, gossip. Cultivate liaisons with broadcast companies and newsrooms in hope of seeing issues important to the gay community receive some coverage. (194)
C. Public disturbances: 1. Look light a mass event, 2. Behavior must be nonviolent, 3. Disobedient acts must be portrayed as a last resort, 4. Viewing public must be helped to understand that gay protestors accept and expect arrest, they’re not just out to break laws, 5. Public must understand the logical connection between the gay rights issue and the particular act of civil disobedience adopted. (196-197)
D. Public relations tactics:
1) Creative formatting: need fresh angle, way to make gay rights argument more topical,
2) Use news to make news—gay persons can respond to a new law, court case, death, or scandal,
3) Human interest—people more interested in the human personal side of your story,
4) Celebrity spokespersons—a celebrity does not simply make news—she is news—she can get on the air and tout the gay cause relatively easily, without further pretext. (198)
E. TV is OK, but advertising campaign is necessary to be successful, in order to desensitize, jam and convert people. (199)
F. Advertising tactics / five big media outlets:
1. TV best because it teaches the widest amount of people. It’s the most intrusive medium. Change picture/label pair, best on TV.
2. Radio: reaches millions daily, intimate medium.
3. Magazines: good vehicle for the gay message. More affordable than TV blitz, less intrusive and packs less punch.
4. Newspapers: do even less to build legitimacy than magazines.
5. Outdoors: billboards, display ads in public areas, subway placards, etc. Excellent job of reaching a broad audience over and over again. Message must be simple and benefit from being seen over and over again.
Goal is to desensitize straights to homosexuality. (204)
G. Over long term, TV and Magazines are probably the two media of choice. TV is more persuasive and magazines are the most affordable. (204)
H. Fairness doctrine by FCC to get on shows, etc. Personal Attack Rule by FCC, get on shows. Equal Time Rule of FCC—equal time for each office. (206)
I. How to get on TV, radio, newsprint:
1. Make ads like white bread, completely unobjectionable. go after middlebrow or upper-middlebrow publications and then work your way down.
2. Use free access—Public Service Announcements (PSA).
3. Run symbolic gay candidates for every high political office. (212) Through such political campaigns, mainstream America would get over the initial shock of seeing gay ads.
4. Waging Peace Campaign: Launch media messages of open support for the civil rights of gay people in ads that work directly to jam homohatred and convert straight to feelings of greater tolerance. (213)

32. Create One Unified National Gay Organization for tactical purposes. (249)

A. “We’re more willing to attack one another than to go after our common enemy.” Jeff Levi, Executive director of NGLTF.
B. AFL-CIO learned many years ago there is tremendous strength in unification under a single run organization. (249)
C. Fund Raising: two phases:

PHASE ONE: Name, mission, tax-deductibility, good ladder (continue all tactics after campaign is launched):
1. Trademark name of the campaign
2. Statement of mission: prioritize objectives, make measurable milestone goals, working plan
3. Funding: Government grants, foundation grants, business contributions, individual contributions. (265)
4. The more directly personal your contact with donors, the more funds your will raise. (266) Fundraisers ladder chart.
5. Lion’s share of individual donations usually come from a few wealthy individuals and business executives who must be wooed in person. (267)
6. List of fundraising ideas for phase one (268-269):
a. Cultivate gay upper class
b. Conduct direct mail appeals
c. Place fundraising ads in the gay press
d. Develop dedicated fundraising events
e. Introduce an affinity credit card for the campaign.
7. Exposed-root appeals (269):
1. Let other gay organizations contribute directly to the campaign
2. Persuade gay bars and other gay-patronized businesses to donate regularly to the campaign.

PHASE TWO: Solicit additional funds from gays and straights via straight media, through ads themselves.

33. Motivation over the long haul is to sustain emotional steam which comes from rage, not love:

“You may discount what the pious tell you, because it is actually rage, not love, that lay behind all those progressive events.”

“Like all emotions, rage has its purpose. And its time and place. When a situation becomes intolerable, an oppression unbearable, when millions do not even dare to cry out beneath the heel of injustice, rage is the appropriate response.” (382)

_____________________

Endnote:

For a solution to this present situation, please contact the International Healing Foundation. See the Special Projects page on our web site:
www.ComingOutStraight.com

Steve Jobs Commencement Address, Stanford University, 2005

2008-03-28T18:01:00.001-07:00

(Steve Jobs is CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios)

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5Â¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something â€” your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky â€” I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation â€” the Macintosh â€” a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me â€” I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything â€” all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma â€” which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

Baz Luhrmann, film director, graduation speech

2008-03-28T17:59:00.000-07:00

(Speech based on a column by Chicago newspaper columnist, Mary Schmich)

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of â€™99, wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experienceâ€¦I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh never mind; you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years youâ€™ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you canâ€™t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really lookedâ€¦.Youâ€™re not as fat as you
imagine.

Donâ€™t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing everyday that scares you.

Sing.

Donâ€™t be reckless with other peopleâ€™s hearts, donâ€™t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Donâ€™t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes youâ€™re ahead, sometimes youâ€™re behindâ€¦the race is long, and in the end, itâ€™s only with yourself.

Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Donâ€™t feel guilty if you donâ€™t know what you want to do with your lifeâ€¦the most interesting people I know didnâ€™t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still donâ€™t.

Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees, youâ€™ll miss them when theyâ€™re gone.

Maybe youâ€™ll marry, maybe you wonâ€™t, maybe youâ€™ll have children, maybe you wonâ€™t, maybe youâ€™ll divorce at 40, maybe youâ€™ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversaryâ€¦what ever you do, donâ€™t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either â€“ your choices are half chance, so are everybody elseâ€™s.

Enjoy your body, use it every way you canâ€¦donâ€™t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, itâ€™s the greatest instrument youâ€™ll ever own..

Danceâ€¦even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.

Read the directions, even if you donâ€™t follow them. Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents, you never know when theyâ€™ll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings; they are the best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future. Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do youâ€™ll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders. Respect your elders.

Donâ€™t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out.

Donâ€™t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than itâ€™s worth.

But trust me on the sunscreenâ€¦

Conan O'Brien, TV Host, Commencement Speech, Harvard, 2000

2008-03-28T17:58:00.000-07:00

I'd like to thank the Class Marshals for inviting me here today. The last time I was invited to Harvard it cost me $110,000, so you'll forgive me if I'm a bit suspicious. I'd like to announce up front that I have one goal this afternoon: to be half as funny as tomorrow's Commencement Speaker, Moral Philosopher and Economist, Amartya Sen. Must get more laughs than seminal wage/price theoretician.

Students of the Harvard Class of 2000, fifteen years ago I sat where you sit now and I thought exactly what you are now thinking: What's going to happen to me? Will I find my place in the world? Am I really graduating a virgin? I still have 24 hours and my roommate's Mom is hot. I swear she was checking me out. Being here today is very special for me. I miss this place. I especially miss Harvard Square - it's so unique. No where else in the world will you find a man with a turban wearing a Red Sox jacket and working in a lesbian bookstore. Hey, I'm just glad my dad's working.

It's particularly sweet for me to be here today because when I graduated, I wanted very badly to be a Class Day Speaker. Unfortunately, my speech was rejected. So, if you'll indulge me, I'd like to read a portion of that speech from fifteen years ago: "Fellow students, as we sit here today listening to that classic Ah-ha tune which will definitely stand the test of time, I would like to make several predictions about what the future will hold: "I believe that one day a simple Governor from a small Southern state will rise to the highest office in the land. He will lack political skill, but will lead on the sheer strength of his moral authority." "I believe that Justice will prevail and, one day, the Berlin Wall will crumble, uniting East and West Berlin forever under Communist rule." "I believe that one day, a high speed network of interconnected computers will spring up world-wide, so enriching people that they will lose their interest in idle chit chat and pornography." "And finally, I believe that one day I will have a television show on a major network, seen by millions of people a night, which I will use to re-enact crimes and help catch at-large criminals." And then there's some stuff about the death of Wall Street which I don't think we need to get into....

The point is that, although you see me as a celebrity, a member of the cultural elite, a kind of demigod, I was actually a student here once much like you. I came here in the fall of 1981 and lived in Holworthy. I was, without exaggeration, the ugliest picture in the Freshman Face book. When Harvard asked me for a picture the previous summer, I thought it was just for their records, so I literally jogged in the August heat to a passport photo office and sat for a morgue photo. To make matters worse, when the Face Book came out they put my picture next to Catherine Oxenberg, a stunning blonde actress who was accepted to the class of '85 but decided to defer admission so she could join the cast of "Dynasty." My photo would have looked bad on any page, but next to Catherine Oxenberg, I looked like a mackerel that had been in a car accident. You see, in those days I was six feet four inches tall and I weighed 150 pounds. Recently, I had some structural engineers run those numbers into a computer model and, according to the computer, I collapsed in 1987, killing hundreds in Taiwan.

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After freshman year I moved to Mather House. Mather House, incidentally, was designed by the same firm that built Hitler's bunker. In fact, if Hitler had conducted the war from Mather House, he'd have shot himself a year earlier. 1985 seems like a long time ago now. When I had my Class Day, you students would have been seven years old. Seven years old. Do you know what that means? Back then I could have beaten any of you in a fight. And I mean bad. It would be no contest. If any one here has a time machine, seriously, let's get it on, I will whip your seven year old butt. When I was here, they sold diapers at the Coop that said "Harvard Class of 2000." At the time, it was kind of a joke, but now I realize you wore those diapers. How embarrassing for you. A lot has happened in fifteen years. When you think about it, we come from completely different worlds. When I graduated, we watched movies starring Tom Cruise and listened to music by Madonna. I come from a time when we huddled around our TV sets and watched "The Cosby Show" on NBC, never imagining that there would one day be a show called "Cosby" on CBS. In 1985 we drove cars with driver's side airbags, but if you told us that one day there'd be passenger side airbags, we'd have burned you for witchcraft.

But of course, I think there is some common ground between us. I remember well the great uncertainty of this day. Many of you are justifiably nervous about leaving the safe, comfortable world of Harvard Yard and hurling yourself headlong into the cold, harsh world of Harvard Grad School, a plum job at your father's firm, or a year abroad with a gold Amex card and then a plum job in your father's firm. But let me assure you that the knowledge you've gained here at Harvard is a precious gift that will never leave you. Take it from me, your education is yours to keep forever. Why, many of you have read the Merchant of Florence, and that will inspire you when you travel to the island of Spain. Your knowledge of that problem they had with those people in Russia, or that guy in South America-you know, that guy-will enrich you for the rest of your life.

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There is also sadness today, a feeling of loss that you're leaving Harvard forever. Well, let me assure you that you never really leave Harvard. The Harvard Fundraising Committee will be on your ass until the day you die. Right now, a member of the Alumni Association is at the Mt. Auburn Cemetery shaking down the corpse of Henry Adams. They heard he had a brass toe ring and they aims to get it. Imagine: These people just raised 2.5 billion dollars and they only got through the B's in the alumni directory. Here's how it works. Your phone rings, usually after a big meal when you're tired and most vulnerable. A voice asks you for money. Knowing they just raised 2.5 billion dollars you ask, "What do you need it for?" Then there's a long pause and the voice on the other end of the line says, "We don't need it, we just want it." It's chilling.

What else can you expect? Let me see, by your applause, who here wrote a thesis. (APPLAUSE) A lot of hard work, a lot of your blood went into that thesis... and no one is ever going to care. I wrote a thesis: Literary Progeria in the works of Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner. Let's just say that, during my discussions with Pauly Shore, it doesn't come up much. For three years after graduation I kept my thesis in the glove compartment of my car so I could show it to a policeman in case I was pulled over. (ACT OUT) License, registration, cultural exploration of the Man Child in the Sound and the Fury...

So what can you expect out there in the real world? Let me tell you. As you leave these gates and re-enter society, one thing is certain: Everyone out there is going to hate you. Never tell anyone in a roadside diner that you went to Harvard. In most situations the correct response to where did you to school is, "School? Why, I never had much in the way of book larnin' and such." Then, get in your BMW and get the hell out of there.

You see, you're in for a lifetime of "And you went to Harvard?" Accidentally give the wrong amount of change in a transaction and it's, "And you went to Harvard?" Ask the guy at the hardware store how these jumper cables work and hear, "And you went to Harvard?" Forget just once that your underwear goes inside your pants and it's "and you went to Harvard." Get your head stuck in your niece's dollhouse because you wanted to see what it was like to be a giant and it's "Uncle Conan, you went to Harvard!?"

But to really know what's in store for you after Harvard, I have to tell you what happened to me after graduation. I'm going to tell you my story because, first of all, my perspective may give many of you hope, and, secondly, it's an amazing rush to stand in front of six thousand people and talk about yourself.

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After graduating in May, I moved to Los Angeles and got a three week contract at a small cable show. I got a $380 a month apartment and bought a 1977 Isuzu Opel, a car Isuzu only manufactured for a year because they found out that, technically, it's not a car. Here's a quick tip, graduates: no four cylinder vehicle should have a racing stripe. I worked at that show for over a year, feeling pretty good about myself, when one day they told me they were letting me go. I was fired and, I hadn't saved a lot of money. I tried to get another job in television but I couldn't find one.

So, with nowhere else to turn, I went to a temp agency and filled out a questionnaire. I made damn sure they knew I had been to Harvard and that I expected the very best treatment. And so, the next day, I was sent to the Santa Monica branch of Wilson's House of Suede and Leather. When you have a Harvard degree and you're working at Wilson's House of Suede and Leather, you are haunted by the ghostly images of your classmates who chose Graduate School. You see their faces everywhere: in coffee cups, in fish tanks, and they're always laughing at you as you stack suede shirts no man, in good conscience, would ever wear. I tried a lot of things during this period: acting in corporate infomercials, serving drinks in a non-equity theatre, I even took a job entertaining at a seven year olds' birthday party. In desperate need of work, I put together some sketches and scored a job at the fledgling Fox Network as a writer and performer for a new show called "The Wilton North Report." I was finally on a network and really excited. The producer told me the show was going to revolutionize television. And, in a way, it did. The show was so hated and did so badly that when, four weeks later, news of its cancellation was announced to the Fox affiliates, they burst into applause.

Eventually, though, I got a huge break. I had submitted, along with my writing partner, a batch of sketches to Saturday Night Live and, after a year and a half, they read it and gave us a two week tryout. The two weeks turned into two seasons and I felt successful. Successful enough to write a TV pilot for an original sitcom and, when the network decided to make it, I left Saturday Night Live. This TV show was going to be groundbreaking. It was going to resurrect the career of TV's Batman, Adam West. It was going to be a comedy without a laugh track or a studio audience. It was going to change all the rules. And here's what happened: When the pilot aired it was the second lowest-rated television show of all time. It's tied with a test pattern they show in Nova Scotia.

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So, I was 28 and, once again, I had no job. I had good writing credits in New York, but I was filled with disappointment and didn't know what to do next. I started smelling suede on my fingertips. And that's when The Simpsons saved me. I got a job there and started writing episodes about Springfield getting a Monorail and Homer going to College. I was finally putting my Harvard education to good use, writing dialogue for a man who's so stupid that in one episode he forgot to make his own heart beat. Life was good.

And then, an insane, inexplicable opportunity came my way . A chance to audition for host of the new Late Night Show. I took the opportunity seriously but, at the same time, I had the relaxed confidence of someone who knew he had no real shot. I couldn't fear losing a great job I had never had. And, I think that attitude made the difference. I'll never forget being in the Simpson's recording basement that morning when the phone rang. It was for me. My car was blocking a fire lane. But a week later I got another call: I got the job.

So, this was undeniably the it: the truly life-altering break I had always dreamed of. And, I went to work. I gathered all my funny friends and poured all my years of comedy experience into building that show over the summer, gathering the talent and figuring out the sensibility. We debuted on September 13, 1993 and I was happy with our effort. I felt like I had seized the moment and put my very best foot forward. And this is what the most respected and widely read television critic, Tom Shales, wrote in the Washington Post: "O'Brien is a living collage of annoying nervous habits. He giggles and titters, jiggles about and fiddles with his cuffs. He had dark, beady little eyes like a rabbit. He's one of the whitest white men ever. O'Brien is a switch on the guest who won't leave: he's the host who should never have come. Let the Late show with Conan O'Brien become the late, Late Show and may the host return to Conan O'Blivion whence he came." There's more but it gets kind of mean.

Needless to say, I took a lot of criticism, some of it deserved, some of it excessive. And it hurt like you wouldn't believe. But I'm telling you all this for a reason. I've had a lot of success and I've had a lot of failure. I've looked good and I've looked bad. I've been praised and I've been criticized. But my mistakes have been necessary. Except for Wilson's House of Suede and Leather. That was just stupid.

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I've dwelled on my failures today because, as graduates of Harvard, your biggest liability is your need to succeed. Your need to always find yourself on the sweet side of the bell curve. Because success is a lot like a bright, white tuxedo. You feel terrific when you get it, but then you're desperately afraid of getting it dirty, of spoiling it in any way.

I left the cocoon of Harvard, I left the cocoon of Saturday Night Live, I left the cocoon of The Simpsons. And each time it was bruising and tumultuous. And yet, every failure was freeing, and today I'm as nostalgic for the bad as I am for the good.

So, that's what I wish for all of you: the bad as well as the good. Fall down, make a mess, break something occasionally. And remember that the story is never over. If it's all right, I'd like to read a little something from just this year: "Somehow, Conan O'Brien has transformed himself into the brightest star in the Late Night firmament. His comedy is the gold standard and Conan himself is not only the quickest and most inventive wit of his generation, but quite possible the greatest host ever."

Ladies and Gentlemen, Class of 2000, I wrote that this morning, as proof that, when all else fails, there's always delusion.

I'll go now, to make bigger mistakes and to embarrass this fine institution even more. But let me leave you with one last thought: If you can laugh at yourself loud and hard every time you fall, people will think you're drunk.

Thank you.

The perks of being congressman

2007-10-22T20:05:00.001-07:00

DAYS before the 14th Congress opened, Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya Jr. had
humored the neophyte members of the House of Representatives about the enviable
perks enjoyed by lawmakers. The former representative of Camarines Sur who once
chaired the powerful House appropriations committee was invited to orient the
first-term legislators on the budgeting process. During his talk, he remarked
how wonderful it is to be a congressman: "You have flexible time. Pwede kang
pumasok, pwedeng hindi (You may or may not go to work) yet still get your
salary."

Then, he warned them not to make the mistake of paying for meals and drinks at
the Batasan Pambansa's South Lounge as it is their privilege to be served free
food.

Andaya may have meant everything as a joke, only that speaking of the privileges
that legislators enjoy in such manner was hardly amusing, especially given a
quorum-challenged legislature that has been passing fewer and fewer laws each
year despite the ever increasing budgetary allocation to lawmaking. When the
13th Congress formally closed last June 30, it managed to pass only 148 laws ,
setting a new record-low in the history of the Philippine legislature. That is
no laughing matter.

Yet apparently, the mention of perks was the very cue Jose de Venecia Jr. had
also waited for. When came his turn to give the freshman legislators a briefing,
the just elected House Speaker announced even more entitlements for members of
the Lower House, in particular, an annual P1-million foreign travel allotment,
and allocations for additional staff and maintenance of their respective
district offices. There's even a new building in the works to house new offices
for the congressmen.

What the public commonly knows is that his or her district representative gets a
monthly salary of P35,000, plus, of course, yearly pork-barrel allocations
amounting to P70 million -- P20 million in Priority Development Assistance Fund
(PDAF) and P50 million as congressional allocation for public works projects.

What is seldom known are the amounts corresponding to their other entitlements,
apart from salary and pork barrel. As gleaned from the Commission on Audit 's
annual published itemized lists, these include expenses for district staff
allocation, contractual consultants, research, consultative local travel,
communication, and supplies. There are also allocations for a public affairs
fund, central office staff, equipment/furniture and fixtures, and other
maintenance and operating expenses (MOE).

COSTLY CONGRESSMEN
What the Public Spent for the Upkeep of Each Member
of the House of Representatives in 2005
EXPENSE ITEMS* AMOUNT
Basic Salary420,000.00
Foreign Travel220,867.70
District Staff Allocation650,000.04
Contractual Consultants120,000.00
Research396,000.00
Consultative Local Travel788,763.71
Communication129,600.00
Supplies120,000.00
Public Affairs Fund308,400.00
Central Office Staff1,982,033.58
Equipment/Furniture and Fixtures21,537.84
Other MOE600,000.00

Source: Commission on Audit
*Figures for Foreign Travel, Consultative Local Travel, Central Office Staff and
Equipment/Furniture and Fixtures are average amounts. The rest are uniform for
all congressmen.

The COA lists are not at all comprehensive and do not even include expenses of
legislators as committee members and officers which, in 2005, amounted to over
P92 million. In 2004, the House spent about P77 million on these expenses.

Data from the PCIJ book, The Rulemakers , show that the annual upkeep of each
congressman had almost doubled from P2.83 million in 1994 to P5.16 million in
2002. Latest data culled from the published expenses of the 13th House point to
a continuing trend, with the annual upkeep pegged at P5.7 million each
congressman in 2005, or P480, 880.36 a month -- the highest to date.

COSTLY CONGRESSMEN - 2
Annual and Monthly Upkeep of Each Member of the House of Representatives
YEAR ANNUAL UPKEEP MONTHLY UPKEEP
19942,830,608.48235,884.04
19952,588,929.44215,744.12
19963,235,886.71269,657.23
19973,496,225.83291,352.15
19982,827,975.56235,664.63
19994,537,482.57378,123.55
20004,562,446.31380,203.86
20013,917,321.63326,443.47
20025,155,221.54429,601.79
20044,112,520.42342,710.04
20055,770,564.32480,880.36

Source: Commission on Audit

While there has not been any increase in their basic salary since 1999, and most
of the other entitlements have remained at their 2001 levels, each House
member's district staff allocation has been increased to P650,000 annually. MOE
also ballooned to P600,000 in 2005 from the previous year's P411,000. Meanwhile,
expenses on consultative local travel and central office staff were at their
highest in the same year at over P788,000 and close to P2 million, respectively,
per congressman.

Foreign travel expenses in 2005 also was double the 2004 amount at an average of
P221,000 each House member. The total bill paid for by the government for the
overseas trips of 170 congressmen was P59,413,412. 82.

COSTLY CONGRESSMEN - 3
Annual Average Amounts Paid to Foreign Travel of Members
of the House of Representatives
YEAR AMOUNT
199498,444.80
199589,948.98
1996187,176.33
1997184,458.69
1998156,475.83
1999372,988.06
2000432,950.16
2001254,395.86
2002316,201.67
2004110,129.44
2005220,867.70

Source: Commission on Audit

THE HOUSE JETSET*
Top 10 Spenders on Foreign Travel Among Members
of the House of Representatives in 2005
CONGRESSMAN EXPENSES
Antonio Cuenco1,294,058.05
Roque Ablan Jr.1,014,006.90
Monico Puentevella960,789.66
Emilio Espinosa Jr.806,904.43
Ernesto Nieva795,350.89
Juan Miguel Zubiri787,582.99
Abdullah Dimaporo777,886.88
Hermilando Mandanas741,172.72
Arnulfo Fuentebella733,777.65
Reylina Nicolas731,196.5

Source: Commission on Audit

* List does not declare the foreign travel expenses of House Speaker Jose de
Venecia.
Because maintenance, operating, and other expenses of House members are
consolidated with their basic salary in the payroll and classified as "outright
expenses," these are no longer subject to liquidation, which means that
congressmen do not have to account for these funds.

What's more, as reported in The Rulemakers:
They are not expected to submit a payroll of their district staff or report
their function, salaries and withholding taxes. No one starts asking if they do
not produce a report on the research their offices should supposedly undertake.
There is no demand for them to produce the list of consultants they have hired,
as well as the contracts they draw up for those whose services they need. As fas
as the current (lack of) rules go, how the legislators spend their public
affairs fund is their business and business alone.

The generous perks do not end there. The House Speaker is himself a source of
funds with a vast discretionary largesse at his disposal. From this are mostly
drawn the representatives' monthly allowances (which can range from P50,000 to
P100,000), Christmas bonuses (P100,000 to 200,000), as well as the "payoffs" for
votes during speakership contests and "appearance fees" (P50,000 as minimum) for
attending plenary sessions to vote on crucial national bills.

Under de Venecia, who has won an unprecedented fifth term as Speaker, the 14th
House is not likely to veer away from the usual practice. Isn't it high time
that the public demanded greater financial accountability from their
representatives?

ON THE CENSORSHIP OF RIGHTS: 13 Film Artists Statement

2007-10-17T00:21:00.000-07:00

ON THE CENSORSHIP OF RIGHTS: 13 Film Artists Statement

"For it is the supreme duty of the artist to investigate the truth, no matter what forces attempt to hide it. And then to report it to the people, to confront them with it, like a whiplash that will cause wounds but will free the mind from the various fantasies and escapist fare that the Establishment pollutes our minds with." - Lino Brocka

Two decades and people power revolutions after National Artist Lino Brocka uttered these words as part of his speech entitled “Artist as Citizen”, the need for Filipino artists to wield their pens, brushes and cameras as instruments in support of social and political movements that take the side of the “violated, abused, opressed, dehumanized” remains.

In June 2007, film artists involved with the Free Jonas Burgos Movement and Cinekatipunan conceptualized a project that aims to engage filmmakers to independently produce public service advertisements that delve on human rights issues including enforced disappearances, extra-judicial killings, curtailment of press freedom and the plight of political detainees. By September, 13 independent filmmakers, namely, Pam Miras, Mike Dagnalan, Sunshine Matutina, Kiri Dalena, King Catoy, RJ Mabilin, Jon Red, Paolo Villaluna, Sigrid Andrea Bernardo, Nino Tagaro, John Torres, JL Burgos and Sigfreid Barros Sanchez, have produced 17 public service advertisements and short works that are now known as the omnibus film titled RIGHTS.

On September 20, the filmmakers received news from the Independent Filmmakers Cooperative (IFC) that the Movie, Television Review Classification Board (MTRCB) exercised full censorial powers and declared RIGHTS not for public viewing ("X”). In a letter dated September 19 addressed to the representative of the IFC and signed by the Chairperson of the MTRCB, Ma.Consoliza Laguardia, the MTRCB reasoned that "scenes in the film are presented unfairly, one-sided and undermines the faith and confidence of the government and duly constituted authorities, thus, not for public exhibition."

That a regulatory body such as the MTRCB possesses the power to lawfully censure political films such as “RIGHTS” and prohibit its public exhibition presents a problem that concerns not only the independent filmmakers but the general public. The criterion in Section 3 of Presidential Decree No. 1986 empowers the MTRCB to arbitrarily quell dissenting opinion and
criticism towards government and duly constituted authorities. It violates freedom of speech, artistic and intellectual expression and the right of the people to access information on matters of public concern, a basic right that is protected in the 1987 Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines.

That RIGHTS was censured on the eve of the 35th Anniversary of the official Proclamation of Martial Law is a disturbing affirmation that remnants of a dictatorship that prevailed and forcibly silenced scores of artists and journalists during one of the darkest chapters of our country’s history have not fully and truly been exorcised. It is a reminder for artists to be vigilant in upholding the freedoms that earlier generations of artists and cultural activists fought for.

We, as filmmakers call upon all artists continue to work with integrity, independence and love for the Filipino people. As citizens it is our responsibility to criticize and point our cameras at people in government, elements of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Philippine National Police, and other duly constituted authorities who have abused their power and failed in their duty to serve and protect the Filipino people. We will not bend to the will of those who wish to censor our artworks for the convenience of the few and the powerful.

An appeal to the Senate to reject the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA)

2007-10-17T00:20:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

Below is a petition against the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement, which is being deliberated in the Senate for ratification.

Please sign up with your name and organization and email it to no.unequal.deals@ gmail.com on or before November 3.

Thank you!

An appeal to the Senate to reject the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA)

We, the undersigned individuals and organizations call on our Senators to uphold national interest and reject the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement or JPEPA.

After several public hearings in the Senate, we have yet to see credible studies to back up the fantastic claims of the Arroyo administration that the JPEPA will result in economic prosperity for the Filipino people. Rather than economic growth, the agreement is poised to further damage the already crisis-ridden Philippine economy.

We believe that the agreement is grossly lopsided in favor of Japan. The provisions of JPEPA will further reinforce the historically unequal economic relations between the two countries. For example, while removing tariffs for all but two Philippine products (salt and rice), Japan will continue to protect 239 of its own products.

Japan will also gain unhampered access to our nation's wealth, including our human resources, at the expense of the Filipino people.

Job losses are foreseen in the manufacturing and automobile sectors
Farmers and agricultural workers stand to suffer even more from contract-growing arrangements with transnational agri-business corporations. Land use conversion will also affect domestic food production.
Domestic fisheries sector will have no protection from the entry of Japanese fishing vessels which will be allowed to fish in our waters.
The claim that the Philippines will benefit from the agreement via the entry of more Filipino nurses and caregivers to Japan is misleading since the professional standards imposed by Japan are very difficult to achieve. The export of nurses and caregivers also betrays a lack of initiative on the part of the Philippine government to provide domestic employment for its own people.

The JPEPA will not industrialize the Philippine economy because provisions in the agreement limit or do not require technology transfer, local content in products as well as the hiring of Filipinos. On the other hand, special privileges will be given to Japanese investors to the extent of undermining whatever little is left of the country's sovereignty and patrimony. This includes requiring the Philippine government to virtually insure Japanese firms from any damages that may result from civil unrest.

The JPEPA accords Japan a Most Favored Nation status and gives National Treatment to Japanese investors. Such provisions set a dangerous precedent for bilateral trade agreements with other countries. Surely, other countries would seek the same treatment as Japan, thereby further exposing the Philippine economy to plunder by other foreign powers.

The JPEPA is tantamount to a second "Japanese Invasion" of the Philippines, this time in the sphere of economics. For our own survival, we say "No deal!" with the Japanese government.

Uphold national interest! REJECT JPEPA!

SIGNED:

Winners and Losers : From Kris to Ruffa to Gretchen (Desperate Housewives, Philippine Edition)

2007-06-27T23:02:00.000-07:00

(Or are we reaping some sort of a negative karma to deserve them?)

The month of June is a good time to review what transpired for the first six months of 2007. For this edition, Conventional Wisdom is focusing on showbiz-related matters instead of the usual politics (which in a way is also show-biz but for ugly people). Read on.

Kris Aquino. Loser. While she is the innocent one in the whole James-Hope brouhaha, Conventional Wisdom thinks that she could have handled the incident with more dignity and privacy. One wonders why this drama queen wants to inflict her day-to-day saga with the whole planet. From exaggerating her "life-threatening" pregnancy, to lambasting her husband in public ("O magsalita ka? Totoo naming pina-palayas na kita sa bahay a?"), to actually using Ninoy to promote a cake in her latest commercial. Kris' next endorsement should neither be beer nor pastries but laundry detergent for her unquenchable desire to always wash
her very dirty underwear in public.

James Yap. Loser. One word: cad. As one writer succinctly said: "What do you expect from a provincial boy who suddenly became famous and wealthy?" The last time we witnessed a showbiz cad was during Gabby Concepcion's time. James is now second in our list. Conventional Wisdom is giving them maximum of 3 years as a couple. Kris is starting to look more and more mature and matronic. James is still young. Give James sometime, and after Hope - - Faith and Charity will spring forth.

Moral of the story. Smoking is bad for marriage: Kris had Philip, James had Hope. Conventional Wisdom can't take any more of this!!!

Ruffa Gutierrez / Annabelle Rama : The mother and daughter (MAD) team strikes again. From a filmfest scam that made it to CNN, to Brunie-yuki scandal that merited a senate hearing, and now, the falling out with Ylmaz - - which is desperately being peddled out as Philippines vs. Turkey. Oppressor vs. Victim.

Ruffa Gutierrez: Loser. A desperate act from a has-been, middle-aged B-actress who is trying to make a come-back by capitalizing on whatever publicity that can be squeezed out from this split. From caterwauling one minute "Hindi ko na kaya Kuya Boy!", to coyly saying the following week "Ligawan nya (Ylmaz) ulit ako" to having her born again baptism rites captured on cam and then heading off to Las Vegas the following week to relax and do damage control (about his marriage five years ago in Las Vegas). Ruffa, you're act is getting stale. You have become so predictable and boring.

Annabelle Rama. Winner. For always a character that she is. For being consistent in her act and for being our constant source of amusement. Conventional Wisdom almost fell off its chair when this motor-mouth fish-wife asked Dolly Ann to return the cosmetics she gave her and then, proceeded on by actually naming two unknown women on national television to pay their debts to her since she now has to take care of Ruffa and her grandchildren: "Hoy, so and so magbayad na kayo ng utang nyo sa akin dahil marami na akong papalamunin ngayon" or something to that effect.

Panalo talaga si Bisaya. I strongly suggest to PGMA that we give this woman a postion in the government preferably as Head of our National Defense. Asap.

Dolly Ann Carvajal. Winner and Loser. A lot of people don't like this woman. For one, she is not pleasing to the eye. Her gay son looks a lot better than she. And admit it or not, she became a writer thru her connections - mom and aunt. But being objective about the whole thing, Conventional Wisdom thinks that Dolly Ann is on the right this time. Why can't the mother and daughter (MAD) tandem just answer the questions posed by Dolly Ann? Why can't Annabelle stick to the issues instead of pointing out something we already know: how ugly Dolly Ann is.

What makes Dolly Ann a loser is her constant use of her departed mom's legacy and memory whenever someone would diss her out. Honey, stop hiding under the skirt of your mom. You are not a sacred cow.

Pia Guanio. Loser. What a lousy lousy interviewer. The depth of her talent as a host is as long as her irritating mini skirts. Do us a favor Pia, ask Bossing to marry you already and then fade into oblivion.

Gretchen Baretto. Loser. One word: Wow. The affectations of La Greta can only be matched by her delusions of grandeur. From the looks of it, she is experiencing the early on-set of a mid-life crisis. She has been picking fights left and right with Lani Mercado, and then with Dawn Zulueta. From her classic statement about the looks of her own daughter: "Naaawa nga ako dahil karamihan ng tao ang sabi kay Dominique, kamukha sya ng tatay nya?". And now the "friendly
beso-beso" lip-lock with John Estrada. Please explain to Conventional Wisdom - - "How can this be a friendly kiss when you and John looked so orgasmic in that shot?

Gretchen is a classic example of "langaw na nakatungtong sa kalabaw, pero feeling mataas pa sa kalabaw." Someone should already tell this woman to seek professional help. Sober up and clean your act sister. You are no Paris Hilton. More like Plaster of Paris Hilton.

Cesar Montano, Richard Gomez, Manny Pacquiao, etc. - Losers. No further explanations needed.

Borgy Manotoc. Loser. Please. Please. From one scandal to the next. From one basag-ulo to the next. We have enough of you and your sap-sap mouth face. Will someone already put this psycho behind bars?

Butch Francisco and Dolly Ann as writers. Losers. Please don't waste precious newspaper space writing about personal stories that nobody (repeat, nobody!) finds interesting at all. From your maid's antics to your experience as a judge of Slimmers World Mr. and Ms. Ek ek, to a current love who inspires you. Please! A tree gave up ts life to have these newspaper printed. Have I mentioned that nobody is interested?

Belo's Billboards. Loser. Hideous. Plain hideous. Whoever is advising Vicky (I can't call her Doctora Vicky because as Osang said, she was a mere aerobics instructor before) to put out all those monstrosities should be charged with Human Rights violations. From the disturbing Chrismas billboard last December, to Richard Gomez's billboard pre-campaign period, to Ai-ai's scary shot. Conventional Wisdom would rather stare at the billboards of Ellen's Beauty Salon (with Ellen as the model herself) than see these Belo ads.

Nora Aunor. Loser. To be a has-been superstar drug dependent in your fifties is bad enough. To be caught doing drugs in another country is worse. To be found-out to have married another woman many years ago for a US green-card is worst. Ate Guy is a classic example of a person blessed with so much talent and opportunity gone to waste.

Regine Velasquez & Ogie Alcasid. Losers. Regine is what ..... .nearing 40? As someone said "from her demeanor to her utterance, Regine is trying very, very, very hard to hold on to youth." And if I may add, failing miserably. This home-wrecker who speaks with an American sleng-sleng should act her age. Seeing her kilig-reaction about the admission of Ogie made me lose my appetite for dinner. Conventional Wisdom is really worried that anytime soon, Regine's face and body will collapse. From her hair extension, her fake long eyelashes, her fake nose, her man-made eye slits, her tooth-caps with gums, and her Gluthathioned skin, her fake boobs. Last we heard, her movie with Piolo flopped big time. Nobody wants to see a May/December love story anymore. Or more correctly, a May 1960/ December 2007 love affair story anymore.

These are the people that are giving Conventional Wisdom constant migraine the past months. If this trend continues until December, aneurysm can't be far behind.

Pass this on until it reaches the following: Ylmaz Bektas, Mother-in-law of Gretchen, Hope, Vic Sotto, PGMA, Michelle Van Something, Letty Magsanoc, and Gov. Vi.

Rachel Bugia
Studio 23 Creative On-Air

- clear your mind of can't -

Discovering your primary 'love language'

2007-06-17T22:29:00.000-07:00

You will be presented with 30 pairs of statements. Read each pair with this question in mind: Which of these would I prefer to receive from the significant people in my life (my siblings, parents or friends)? You may enjoy both expressions of love, but if you could only have one, which would you choose?

To simplify the questionnaire, the term "friends" is used to refer to the significant people in your life. After you have made your choice, circle the letter at the end of the statement. Be sure to circle only one letter for each set of statements.

I like to receive notes of affirmation from my friends. A
I like it when my friends hug me or embrace me. E

I like to spend one-to-one time with my friends. B
I feel loved when my friends give practical help to me. D

I like it when my friends give me gifts. C
I like taking long walks with my friends. B

I feel loved when my friends do things to help me. D
I feel loved when my friends touch (pat me on my shoulder, embrace of hug) me. E

I feel loved when my friends hold me in their arms. C
I feel loved when I receive a gift from my friends. E

I like to go places with my friends. B
I like to hold hands with my friends. E

Visible symbols of love (gifts) are very important to me. C
I feel loved when my friends affirm me. A

I like to sit close to my friends. E
I like my friends to tell me I am attractive/handsome. A

I like to spend time with my friends. B
I like to receive little gifts from my friends. C

Words of acceptance are important to me. A
I know my friends love me when they help me. D

I like to do things together with my friends. B
I like the kind words my friends say to me. A

What my friends do affects me more than what they say. D
I feel whole when I am hugged. E

I value praise and try to avoid criticism. A
Several inexpensive gifts from my friends mean more to me than one large gift. C

I feel close when my friends and I are talking or doing something together. B
I feel closer to my friends when they touch (pat) me often. E

I like my friends to compliment my achievements. A
I know my friends love me when they do things for me that they don’t enjoy doing. D

I like my friends to touch me when they walk by. B
I like it when my friends listen to me sympathetically. E

I feel loved when my friends help me with my work. C
I really enjoy receiving gifts from my friends. D

I like my friends to compliment my appearance. A
I feel loved when they take time to understand my feelings. B

I feel secure when they pat me on the back or touch me. E
Acts of service make me feel loved. D

I appreciate the many things my friends do for me. C
I like receiving gifts that my friends make. D

I really enjoy the feeling I get when my friends give me their undivided attention. B
I really enjoy the feeling I get when my friends do some acts of service for me. D

I feel loved when my friends celebrate my birthday with meaningful words (written or spoken). A
I feel loved when they celebrate my birthday with a gift. C

I feel loved when my friends help me out with my work. D
I know they are thinking of me when they give me a gift. C

I appreciate it when my friends listen patiently and don’t interrupt me. B
I appreciate it when they remember special days with a gift. C

I like to know my friends are concerned enough to help with my daily tasks. D
I enjoy extended trips with my friends. B

A peck, a buzz or a kiss is a sign of affection for me. D
Receiving a gift for no special occasion excites me. C

I like to be told that my friends appreciate me. A
I like for them to look at me when we are talking. B

Gifts are always special to me. C
I feel good when my friends touch me or hug me. E

I feel loved when my friends enthusiastically do some tasks I have requested. D
I feel loved when they tell me how much they appreciate me. A

I need to be touched (hugged, embraced) every day. E
I need words of affirmation daily. A

Final instruction: Count the number of times you have encircled each of the five letters. The total for the 5 categories should be 30.

A. Words of Affirmation
B. Quality Time
C. Receiving Gifts
D. Acts of Service
E. Physical Touch

"Like Wine in the River, Like Citizens of the World"

2007-06-13T19:36:00.000-07:00

(Harvard Law School 2007 Student Commencement Address)
by Oscar Franklin Barcelona Tan (Philippines)

Dean Kagan, Vice-Dean Alford, professors, classmates, families, and
friends. Let me first thank our tireless graduate program staff. They
were the first friendly faces who greeted me, told me which functions
offered free food, and what to do if you faint during your final
exams. Assistant Dean Jeanne Tai, Nancy Pinn, Heather Wallick, Curtis
Morrow, Jane Bestor, Chris Nepple, April Stockfleet: This year would
not have been possible without you.

But this goes to everyone: Thank you all for truly making us feel part
of this community. We LLMs became your fellow students after your
Salsa Party, Chinese and Korean New Year, African Night, and our
International Party. To honor you, we took Europe by storm, winning in
the inaurgural Negotiation Challenge, in the European Law Moot Court ,
and in the Willem Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot Court .
Of course, you truly become part of Harvard Law School when you're
featured in the Parody.

Not so long ago, Cambridge seemed a strange, unfriendly place "especially
when I first saw Gropius. I went to John Harvard's with the
British, who began chittering in an alien language. I later discovered
it was actually English" the real English. I complained I was not
used to cold, but a Saudi Arabian reminded me that you can fry eggs on
a sidewalk in Riyadh . An Italian gave me tips on women because Italian
men are the world's greatest lovers, with the disclaimer that their
style does not work on American women. A Malaysian was asked to
explain the religious significance of the color of her hijab, or
headscarf. She would answer: It had to match her blouse.

Soon, we found that great substance that keeps any law school
together: alcohol. On New Year's Eve, a Belarusian handed me a glass
of vodka, but scolded me when I began to sip it. Sipping, he
emphasized, was not the Slavic way. I shared a Frenchman's champagne,
a Peruvian's pisco sour, a Costa Rican's pina colada, a Brazilian's
caipirinha, a Mexican's tequila, and a Japanese's sake. And apologies
to the Germans, but I learned how even weak American beer enlivens an
evening when you drink it with the Irish.

We found greater common ground: The Swiss complained about American
chocolate, the New Zealanders complained about American cheese, the
Sri Lankans complained about American tea, the Indians complained
about the lack of vegetarian food, and everyone complained that
American food makes you fat. An Austrian made homemade apfelstrudel. A
Nigerian made homemade fried plantains. The Pakistanis made a
non-spicy version of keema, and I only needed eight glasses of water
during the meal. All the Americans had was Three Aces pizza.

As for me, I come from the Philippines , a former American colony best
known for Imelda Marcos's shoe collection. I remember being a six-year
old watching my parents walk out of our house to join the crowds
gathering to depose the dictator Ferdinand Marcos and form human walls
against tanks. I remember being a twenty-year old in a different crowd
deposing a different but equally corrupt president.

It was liberating to hear how a Chilean danced with crowds in the
streets when Pinochet was arrested. How the Chinese come to grips with
Tiananmen Square , while convinced that one cannot transplant
American-style government wholesale to Beijing . How life changed in
the former Soviet Union ; how it was like growing up in a fledgling
Eastern European country. How a Pakistani discussed Musharraf's
assault on judicial independence with a South African worried about
Mugabe's own acts in Zimbabwe .

It was even more liberating to hear from a Korean prosecutor how his
country sent two former presidents to jail. How the Swiss have
preserved their tradition of independence and referendum. How Ghana
threw off its colonial fetters and inspired a conscious African
solidarity. How a Bhutanese wants to help shape her constitution after
her king voluntarily gave up absolute power.

I cannot deny that our generation's issues will be complex, but I can
guarantee that they will never be abstract, not after having a
classmate who was an Israeli army drill sergeant, not after having a
Chinese classmate with a Taiwanese girlfriend, nor after having a
classmate chased by gunmen out of Afghanistan . In fact, when George W.
Bush's speechwriter visited, my Iranian classmate introduced himself,
"Hi, I'm from an Axis of Evil country."

Friends, my most uplifting thought this year has been that the more we
learn about each other, the more we realize that we are all alike, and
the more we inspire each other to realize our most heartfelt
yearnings. My single most memorable moment here came when I met South
African Justice Albie Sachs, left with only one arm after an
assassination attempt during apartheid. My classmate stood up and
said: " South Africa is the world's second most unequal country. I come
from Brazil , the world's most unequal country, and I admire how the
South African Constitutional Court has inspired the progress of human
rights throughout the world."

And this is how Harvard has changed us. We recall struggling with
English to keep pace with the world's most brilliant professors,
especially with Elizabeth Warren's Socratic blitzkriegs, and we thank
Harvard for raising our thinking to a higher, broader level. But even
the most powerful ideas demand passion to set them aflame. The passion
we ignite today is fueled by a collage of vignettes that will remind
us in this crucible of life that our peers in faraway lands face the
same frustrations, the same nation building ordeals, the same sorrows,
and ultimately, the same shared joys and triumphs.

How do a mere 700 change the world, even with overpriced Harvard
diplomas? Before a great battle in China 's Spring and Autumn Period,
the legendary King Gou Jian of Yue was presented with fine wine. He
ordered his troops to stand beside a river, and poured the wine into
it. He ordered them to drink from the river and share his gift. A
bottle of wine cannot flavor a river, but the gesture so emboldened
his army that they won a great victory. We of the Class of 2007 shall
flavor this earth, whether we be vodka, wine, champagne, pisco sour,
pina colada, caipirinha, tequila, sake, jagermeister, raki, Irish
stout, Ugandan Warabi, or Philippine lambanog.

Thus, my friends - and this includes our American classmates who will
soon lead the world's lone superpower,let us transcend our
individual nationalities and affirm that we are citizens of the world.
Maraming salamat po, at mabuhay kayong lahat.* Thank you and long live
you all.
____________

* Traditional Filipino closing, literally, "Thank you, sirs, and long
live you all."

Ceres Doyo on God's love

2007-04-09T20:34:00.000-07:00

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view_article.php?article_id=59120

Stunned by God’s fierce, passionate love

By Ma. Ceres P. Doyo
Inquirer
Last updated 01:51am (Mla time) 04/08/2007

MANILA, Philippines -- “God is a fierce lover who will never let go,” says popular Catholic lay preacher Bo Sanchez of his experience.

“Being in love with God is capturing and being seized by God’s eros—God is in love with us,” says Fr. Percy Bacani of the Missionaries of Jesus.

During the seasons of Lent and Easter “God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son…” will be an oft-quoted line from the Bible. If the Holy Book has not driven this home strongly enough for today’s distracted, multi-tasking faithful, Mel Gibson’s movie “The Passion of the Christ” at least tried to do the job.

But faith and intimacy with God are not nurtured in the movies. God offers His love to individual persons in a more real way. Real not reel. Stronger than the human heart could feel or the mind could intuit. For, as the Bible reminds, God loved us first. And continues to do so in season and out of season.

This holy season, a special few, the called and the chosen, spoke to the Inquirer about God’s eros at work, “God loving with eros” or with a passion that consumes and makes the beloved “like the deer that panteth for flowing streams.”

Carmelite contemplative nun Sr. Teresa Joseph Patrick of Jesus and Mary (aka Josefina Constantino, writer and former professor) describes it thus: “It is an unquenchable thirst. Yet too, in the stillness, in the repose of the abyss where He dwells, finding rest in His embrace…” Sister Teresa, 87, has been a nun for 33 years. She joined Carmel in Gilmore, Quezon City, in 1974 when she was 54.

It is real, it is personal; it is felt in the body, in the soul. The touched, the called, the chosen—many are able to articulate the real-ness of God’s love and presence and, as in all relationships, even God’s sometimes seeming absence in the divine romance.

A love affair with God, falling in love with God and staying in love, seeking out the divine and being consumed by the longing is a love plot that has played itself out in the lives of special individuals in different contexts throughout history and in this present time.

Words fail in describing this divine love play and often gets stuck in human comparisons. A 10th-century Hindu mystic pleads to her Lord, “Make of my body the beam of a lute … Clutch me close and play your thirty-two songs, O lord of the meeting rivers.” The psalmist waxes, “Deep calls to deep in the roar of your torrents.”

For some, it was a slow but steady wooing, for others, it was a swift and sudden leap to God’s overpowering call and pull and then responding with a love so human, so clumsy. The experience could be initially draining as the uninitiated soul gets inexorably drawn toward an incomprehensible force.

Eros and agapé

Sister Marie (who wishes to remain anonymous) of Carmel in Lipa City gives a glimpse of her love affair with God: “Many a time, God made me experience His love in a very human way since I am a creature of flesh and blood. As Richard Hardy, a doctor of theology, said in a conference on St. John of the Cross, God loves us with an erotic love, with passion. In God, eros and agapé become one. How true! So I experience God’s love not only in the mind, not only in the spirit, but as passion.”

Sister Mary has had her “dark nights” when God seemed to be lost. “God hiding so that I might search for Him with greater longing, then God manifesting Himself as pure delight. No wonder the saints speak of marriage in the mystical life.”

As an Indian mystic had written, “You hide, lest I seek and find. Give me a clue, O lord, white as jasmine, to your hiding places.”

Grace upon grace

Sr. Victricia Pascasio, a Holy Spirit sister felt God’s generous love and faithfulness when she was in college. She was a student leader at that time. “That day was crystal clear to me. God had been so faithful, so generous. The whole of me for a lifetime was the only fitting gift I could offer.” Looking back Sister Victricia says that was God’s way and “initiative” to draw her to Himself. “Many years later,” she reflects, “I could only say, how foolish of me to feel so generous toward God when it had been God who was most generous and faithful. Since then, it has been grace upon grace upon grace.”

A religious missionary for 47 years now, Sister Victricia, is involved in her congregation’s socio-pastoral apostolates in the Philippines and is immersed in the issues affecting indigenous communities. She sees her work “as Christ’s, not mine.”

Into an inner clearing

“How can I really thank you?” Sr. Edith Olaguer, a Good Shepherd contemplative sister, recalls asking God in prayer. She was in college then. “Hundreds of images flit through my mind. They left in their wake a clearing so empty, so still, I was jerked clean of all thoughts. Then I do not know how to explain it because I heard no voice, saw nothing, was not thinking but I simply understood.” God was drawing, wooing her. She would be brought to that “inner clearing” again and again and there would say her “Yes.”

The 2004 Ramon Magsaysay awardee for emergent leadership, Ben Abadiano, was about to get married when the religious call made itself heard. He had reached a crossroad.

“How could I offer my life,” Ben asked God. He had, at that time, already worked among indigenous peoples (IP) for almost a decade. He wanted to give more. “While thinking of that I was shedding tears of joy. I felt as if grace was raining down on me.” It was a watershed moment.

He joined the Jesuit novitiate and stayed on for four years, did studies in philosophy at the Ateneo, even pronounced his vows as a Jesuit. Ordination to the priesthood was still far down the road.

But God beckoned yet again and lured him back to his first love—the IP. Ben left the Jesuits in 1997 for a new path. He had nothing with him except dreams and a song in his heart. And the memory of that watershed God experience long ago.

As a wise French nun once told an enamored young seeker: “You must hold on to the memory of that moment. Many, many years from now, no matter where you will be, you will need that to give you strength to go on, to convince yourself that God’s love call was real.”

Stunned, embraced, gripped

Bo Sanchez says: “I believe that the first step of the Christian life is not to work, to do, to strive or even to love—but to first be loved. I have to first be stunned, moved, embraced, gripped by God’s passionate love. And when my soul is overwhelmed, yes, overpowered by God’s generosity, I cannot help but love the Lover with my all. Many times I left God, but God kept waiting for my return. God is a fierce lover that will never let go.”

God chases, like Francis Thompson’s “The Hound of Heaven,” and the object of this fierce love flees. “I fled him, down the nights and down the days, I fled him … Down the labyrinthine ways of my own mind…”

Sister Marie remembers how she fled. “I just plugged my ears, hoping that God would call someone else. At about that time, I fell in love with a man of great simplicity and integrity, and I thought then that I was destined for married life. At a certain point though, I realized the immensity of God’s love for me, and it was so overwhelming that I felt that love could only be repaid by love. Only a total surrender of myself could match the greatness of that love. I heard a clear voice within me, a voice so clear there was no use denying it.” To Carmel she went.

There are peaks and valleys, moments of consolation as well as desolation, bright mornings and dark nights of the soul. Great saints had their share of triumphs and turbulence, agonies and ecstasies.

Their written works about their love affair with God leave ordinary mortals in awe. It could be so saccharine like Therese of Lisieux’s, or earthy and forest-green like Francis of Assisi’s. Trappist monk Thomas Merton’s “The Seven Storey Mountain” is a classic. Rabindranath Tagore’s “Gitanjali” (song offerings to God) endures, rivaling in passion and depth the Bible’s “Song of Songs” that drips divine eros.

Gratitude

“Passion for God is not fear-based and is not sacrifice-driven,” Father Percy speaks from experience. “It is being filled with the superabundance of God’s love and the only response is gratitude. I become mindful of the ordinariness and the giftedness of everything. This is my mid-life discovery in my God-quest. Being in love with God is capturing and being seized by God’s eros-God is in love with us. St. Augustine says it better: God is closer to our hearts than we to our own.”

God’s face in every star

Sr. Mary Edith has glimpsed that too. “I had been given a glimpse of how good God is. This hollowed in me a cavernous thirst that has never been quenched. And so I hold fast to the dream that one day, I will be allowed, even while on this earth, to see God’s face in every star, in every human face and in every quivering tear. I want to know in my heart that I belong to everyone and everything, and that everything and everyone is part of me. When others suffer, when one is disgraced, it is to my shame. I want to live out in everyday life the fact that all I want to be, I already am.”

The search, chase

The search, the chase, continues. There could be bewilderment. A modern-day seeker asks: “Are you the symphony, are you the silent river that runs through my thoughts, that floods the cave of my heart, that breaks open the soul to an unknown wilderness?”

Most likely, the answer is “Yes.”

The late Sr. Christine Tan, RGS, told the Inquirer seven years ago, “Encountering God is a passionate experience. Violent but also tender. In prayer, when you go deep into the silence, you could actually feel God. You and God are merged as one. In that utter stillness you could feel the light, and the fire and the tight embrace, and the tenderness enfolding you. Then you become strong like a bull. You go straight like an arrow.”

Copyright 2007 Inquirer. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Interesting facts

2007-04-01T17:45:00.000-07:00

1. Look at your zipper. See the initials YKK? It stands for Yoshida Kogyo Kabushibibaisha, the world's largest zipper manufacturer.
2. A raisin dropped in a glass of freshchampagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top.
3. A duck's quack doesn't echo. No one knows why.
4. 40 percent of McDonald's profits come from the sales of Happy Meals.
5. 315 entries in Webster's 1996 Dictionary were misspelled.
6. On the average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily.
7. Chocolate kills dogs! True, chocolate affects a dog's heart and nervous system. A few ounces is enough to kill a small sized dog.
8. Most lipstick contains fish scales.
9. Ketchup was sold in the 1830's as a medicine.
10. Leonardo da Vinci could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time.
11. Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of wood.
12. There are no clocks in Las Vegas g@mbling casin0s.
13. Leonardo da Vinci invented scissors. Also, it took him 10 years to paint Mona Lisa's lips.
14. Bruce Lee was so fast that they actually had to slow a film down so you could see his moves. That's the opposite of the norm.
15. The original name for the butterfly was "flutterby"!
16. By raising your legs slowly and lying on your back, you can't sink in quicksand.
17. Mosquito repellents don't repel. They hide you. The spray blocks the mosquito's sensors so they don't know you're there.
18. Dentists recommend that a toothbrush be kept at least six feet away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush.
19. The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum.
20. The first owner of the Marlboro Company died of lung cancer.
21. Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than the entire Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
22. Adolf Hitler's mother seriously considered having an abortion but was talked out of it by her doctor.
23. The three most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.
24. "Stewardesses" is the longest word that can be typed with only the left hand.
25. To escape the grip of a crocodile's jaws, prick your fingers into its eyeballs. It will let you go instantly.
26. A mathematical wonder: 111,111,111 multiplied by 111,111,111 gives the result 12, 345, 678, 987, 654, 321.
27. The most common name in the world is Mohammed.
28. The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.
29. The "pound" (#) key on your keyboard is called an octothorp.
30. The only domestic animal not mentioned in the Bible is the cat.
31. Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
32. The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.
33. "Dreamt" is the only word in the English language that ends in "mt".
34. It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
35. In Chinese, the KFC slogan "finger lickin' good" comes out as "eat your fingers off".
36. A cockroach can live for 10 days without a head.
37. We shed 40 pounds of skin a lifetime.
38. Yo-Yos were once used as weapons in the Philippines .
39. Coca-Cola can be used as car oil.
40. Mexico City sinks abut 10 inches a year.
41. Brains are more active sleeping than watching TV.
42. Blue is the favorite color of 80 percent of Americans.
43. When a person shakes their head from side to side, he is saying "yes" in Sri Lanka.
44. There are more chickens than people in the world.
45. It's against the law in Iceland to have a dog.
46. The thumbnail grows the slowest, and the middle nail grows the fastest.
47. The only word in the English Language with all vowels in reverse order is "s ub c ont in ent al".
48. There are more telephones than people in Washington, D.C.

From Ninoy to Noynoy

2007-03-30T00:36:00.001-07:00

August 25, 1973
Fort Bonifacio
11:30pm

Mr. Benigno S. Aquino III

P E R S O N A L

My dearest Son:

One of these days , when you have completed your studies I am sure you will have the opportunity to visit many countries. And in your travels you will witness a bullfight.

In Spanish bullfighting as you know, a man – the matador – is pitted against an angry bull. The man goads the bull to extreme anger and madness. Then a moment comes when the bull, maddened, bleeding and covered with darts, feeling his last moment has come, stops rushing about and grimly turns his face on the man with the scarlet "muleta" and sword. The Spaniards call this "the moment of truth." This is the climax of the bullfight.

This afternoon, I have arrived at my own moment of truth. After a lengthy conference with my lawyers, Senators Jovito R. Salonga and Lorenzo M. Tanada I made a very crucial and vital decision that will surely affect all our lives: mommie's, your sisters', yours and all our loved ones as well as mine.

I have decided not to participate in the proceedings of the Military Commission assigned to try the charges filed against me by the army prosecution staff. As you know, I've been charged with illegal possession of firearms, violation of RA 1700 otherwise known as the "Anti-Subversion Act" and murder.

You are still too young to grasp the full impact of my decision. Briefly: by not participating in the proceedings, I will not be represented by counsel, the prosecution will present its witnesses without any cross examinations, I will not put up any defense, I will remain passive and quiet through the entire trial and I will merely await the verdict. Inasmuch as it will be a completely one-sided affair, I suppose it is reasonable to expect the maximum penalty will be given to me. I expect to be sentenced to imprisonment the rest of my natural life, or possibly be sent to stand before a firing squad. By adopting the course of action I decided upon this afternoon, I have literally decided to walk into the very jaws of death.

You may ask: why did you do it?

Son, my decision is an act of conscience. It is an act of protest against the structures of injustice that have been imposed upon our hapless countrymen. Futile and puny, as it will surely appear to many, it is my last act of defiance against tyranny and dictatorship.

You are my only son. You carry my name and the name of my father. I have no material wealth to leave you. I never had time to make money while I was in the hire of our people. For this I am very sorry. I had hopes of building a little nest egg for you. I bought a ranch in Masbate in the hope that after ten or fifteen years, the coconut trees I planted there would be yielding enough to assure you a modest but comfortable existence. Unfortunately, I had to sell all our properties as I fought battle after political battle as a beleaguered member of the opposition. And after the last battle, I had more obligations than assets.

The only valuable asset I can bequeath to you now is the name you carry. I have tried my best during my years of public service to keep that name untarnished and respected, unmarked by sorry compromises for expediency. I now pass it on to you, as good, I pray, as when my father, your grandfather passed it on to me.

I prepared a statement which I intend to read before the military commission on Monday at the opening of my trial. I hope the commission members will be understanding and kind enough to allow me to read my statement into the record. This may well be my first and only participation in the entire proceedings.

In this statement, I said: Some people suggested that I beg for mercy from the present powers that be. Son, this I cannot do in conscience. I would rather die on my feet with honor, than live on bended knees in shame.

Your great grandfather, Gen. Servilliano Aquino was twice condemned to death by both the Spaniards and the American colonizers. Fortunately, he survived both by a twist of fate. Your grandfather, my father was also imprisoned by the Americans because he loved his people more than the Americans who colonized us. He was finally vindicated. Our ancestors have shared the pains, the sorrows and the anguish of Mother Filipinas when she was in bondage.

It is a rare privilege for me to join the Motherland in the dark dungeon where she was led back by one of her own sons whom she lavished with love and glory.

I ended my statement thus: I have chosen to follow my conscience and accept the tyrant's revenge.

It takes little effort to stop a tyrant. I have no doubt in the ultimate victory of right over wrong, of evil over good, in the awakening of the Filipino.

Forgive me for passing unto your young shoulders the great responsibility for our family. I trust you will love your mother and your sisters and lavish them with the care and protection I would have given them.

I was barely fifteen years old when my father died. His death was my most traumatic experience. I loved and hero-worshipped him so much, I wanted to join him in his grave when he passed away. But as in all sorrows, eventually they are washed away by the rains of time.

In the coming years, I hope you will study very hard so that you will have a solid foundation on which to build your future. I may no longer be around to give you my fatherly advice. I have asked many of your uncles to help you along should the need arise and I pray you will have the humility to drink from their fountain of experiences.

Look after your two younger sisters with understanding and affection. Viel and Krissy will need your umbrella of protection for a long time. Krissy is still very young and fate has been most unkind to both of us. Our parting came too soon. Please make up for me. Take care of her as I would have taken care of her with patience and warm affection.

Finally, stand by your mother as she stood beside me through the buffeting winds of crisis and uncertainties firm and resolute and uncowed. I pray to God, you inherit her indomitable spirit and her rare brand of silent courage.

I had hopes of introducing you to my friends, showing you the world and guide you through the maze of survival. I am afraid, you will now have to go it alone without your guide.

The only advice I can give you: Live with honor and follow your conscience.

There is no greater nation on earth than our Motherland. No greater people than our own. Serve them with all your heart, with all your might and with all your strength.

Son, the ball is now in your hands.

Lovingly,

Dad

The Filipino Family in an Age of Complexity

2007-03-28T23:53:00.001-07:00

The Filipino Family in an Age of Complexity

(Professor Randolf S. David’s acceptance speech upon being conferred the Doctor of Humanities degree, honoris causa by the Ateneo de Naga University, March 24, 2007)

My dream as a young boy growing up in Pampanga was to study in Ateneo someday. But, although my father was a lawyer (himself an Ateneo alumnus), what he earned was not enough to send any of his children to high school in Manila . Since there was no Ateneo in my province, the next best thing he could do was to send all of us to a Catholic high school in Pampanga.
Ateneo was still on my mind when I was about to enter college. But as the eldest child in a brood of 13, I was conscious at an early age that I should not be a burden to my parents. The free tuition that UP offered to high school valedictorians at that time made up my mind for me. That is how my life at the University of the Philippines began. But my yearning for an Ateneo affiliation persisted. So, one summer in my undergraduate years, I commuted every day to the old Ateneo campus on Padre Faura to work as a student assistant to the legendary Ateneo teacher Onofre Pagsanghan in a short term course on Filipino culture for foreign missionaries and executives. In exchange, I was given free tuition that summer at the school’s English language laboratory.

I hope you can imagine how fulfilled I am today. With this honor you have conferred on me, I can now call myself, finally, an Atenean. I thank you, Fr. Joel Tabora, and I thank the Board of Trustees of the Ateneo de Naga University, for this great and rare honor. I do not mind telling you that, despite the awards and recognition I have received over the years from various organizations, today is the first time I have been honored in this manner by an academic institution. For this reason alone, I felt entitled to ask my wife Karina and our only granddaughter, Julia, to come with me to witness this precious moment. I will treasure this day for the rest of my life.

Fellow graduates of 2007, and dear parents, honored guests, ladies and gentlemen – thank you for welcoming us to this great institution. As a sociologist and public commentator, I am expected to have an opinion on almost every issue deemed important. One question that I am often asked is particularly not easy to answer: What’s happening to our country, and how do we begin to get out of the rut in which we find ourselves?

This question is usually asked in a tone of vague uneasiness, of somehow being caught in the eye of a storm, where nothing moves despite the turbulence outside. Our fears, born of past encounters with disaster, prod us to take action, to brace ourselves for the worst, to hang on to our faith.

It is difficult to know what is happening to our country, or what we should do, unless we can answer a prior question: Who are we who belong to this country? This is a question of identity and of values – the very things that are rapidly changing in an age of complexity. Like the rest of humanity, we Filipinos find ourselves having to embrace the modern, whether we like it or not, in response to the challenge of complexity and globality. In the process, we give up so much of what is familiar to us. We lose our bearings, and in our desperate attempt to navigate our way in an increasingly complex environment, we draw strength from our inherited instincts and find ourselves falling back on the most basic of our institutions – the family.

For, above anything else, we Filipinos belong to families. We may change our citizenship, our religion, our occupation, and trade in the language of our ancestors for something globally spoken. But we remain first and foremost loyal members of our families. If there is one stabilizing institution that has kept Philippine society more or less coherent through its successive crises, it is the Filipino family.

It is this concern for the future of their families that drives millions of our people to leave their loved ones and seek employment in strange lands. Ironically, this trend is also what is dramatically transforming the Filipino family, and, by extension, Philippine society. Allow me to elaborate.

Modern communications and extensive travel in the last 30 years have made it possible for today’s Filipinos to experience a world that previous generations, except those who lived and studied abroad, never encountered. This global experience has allowed them, as it were, to step out of the skin of their culture, and to view their own society through the prism of another culture. Precisely for this reason, it is easy to understand why the single most important development that has shaped Philippine society over the last 30 years is the OFW phenomenon. But, of course, it is not the first time Filipinos have left their country to live abroad.
In the 1880s, scores of Filipino students went to Europe to study. A number of them, like Jose Rizal, were sent abroad by their parents to keep them from getting into trouble with the Spanish government in Manila . But most of these young Filipinos went abroad to obtain professional training they could not get in Manila because higher learning was reserved to the Spanish elite and members of the clergy.

What these Filipino expatriates acquired in their adopted countries turned out to be more than just a university education. There, in Europe , in a climate of freedom and tolerance, they imbibed the Enlightenment values of liberalism and equality, of belief in reason and scientific progress. They became the first Filipino moderns – young intellectuals who consciously thought of themselves as the nervous system of a new nation being born. In this self-assigned role, they became obsessed with showing the world that Filipinos were the equal of any race.

When they returned to the Philippines, these Indios Bravos, as they proudly called themselves, brought home not only new skills and new knowledge, but an entire world-view that enabled them to see their society from the standpoint of what it could be if it had the freedom to decide its own destiny. It was natural that they would become the leaders of the new nation, and the agents of a new way of life. Rizal became the model of this first generation of modern Filipinos.
From the start, Rizal decided that Europe would not be his permanent home. He was in a hurry to return home, where he felt he had a mission to achieve. He had great ambitions for his people. He became a curious observer of everything European and modern, and his encounter with 19th century Europe allowed him to frame his concept of what Filipinos could be if they were given the same opportunity to develop themselves. He envisioned a nation that was as progressive, as disciplined, and as confident as Europe – but one where the nurturing gift of tenderness for which our people are famous would survive.

In the 1970s, roughly a century after the generation of Rizal, Filipinos began to leave their motherland for destinations in Europe, the Middle East, North America, and East Asia . They left not just by the hundreds but by the tens of thousands. Unlike the ilustrado generation of the 19th century, these 20th century Filipinos were not escaping political persecution; they were fleeing from poverty and lack of opportunity. They went abroad not to study, for indeed many of them were already highly educated, but to earn a living and to start a new life. But like those first Filipino travelers of the 1880s, they too remain loyal to the country -- regularly sending money to their loved ones, and avidly watching the nation’s journey from turmoil to turmoil, as if they never left home. With modern communication, they are able to witness the political and economic storms that hit the country of their birth, applying to the nation’s politicians the same criteria of accountable governance by which Europeans measure their leaders. In more ways than they can imagine, they have become influential agents of change in the nation they left behind.

They download the electronic version of Manila ’s major dailies, and watch the early evening news beamed across continents from our local television networks. They comment on issues, publicize their views, grumble about corruption and incompetence, and instruct their relatives to reject unfit candidates during elections. They are often more informed about events taking place in our country and certainly in the rest of the world than the average middle class Filipino living in the Philippines . Like Rizal, they tell their families at home what life is like in modern societies governed by accountable leaders. They form a view of what states in mature democracies are like, how citizens behave when their freedoms are threatened, and what civil liberties mean when people have the capacity to assert them. Their prolonged separation from their families and culture gives them an insight into their own personal needs and inner selves, which modern culture allows them to recognize and express.

The net effect of all this is that Filipinos living abroad have become the most demanding constituency of the Filipino nation. They know how the nation’s economy has become very dependent on their remittances. Like Rizal’s generation of émigrés, today’s OFWs know their power, even if they are still groping for effective ways to use it.

Overseas work has become the most powerful stimulant to the economic life of our country. OFW remittances have funded the education of millions of young people from poor families who would otherwise be excluded from our society’s obsolete structure of opportunity. Consumption patterns throughout the country have changed overnight because of the steady flow of remittances. Television sets, DVD players, mobile phones, and personal computers have become ordinary fixtures in many Filipino homes, serving as channels for new and varied forms of information. Truly, the OFW phenomenon is revolutionizing our way of life beyond our imagination. Its overall impact, I believe, is to pull our political system toward greater democracy, greater transparency in governance, and more accountability in public life.

Our people are changing, but our leaders have remained the same. That is the reason we have a crisis. The crisis is telling us that the old is dying, and something new is being born. Undoubtedly, this transition has been stretched too long, and is far from smooth. Yet, we can read in the growing disaffection with traditional politicians and political dynasties positive signs of new values and new expectations at work.

Our politicians, rooted in the old ways of patronage and corruption, are finding it increasingly difficult to win popular support in this emerging society. As a result, they now have to spend more money to get elected. In some places in the country today, political clans are desperately agreeing to divide public offices among themselves instead of running against each other. This development is anti-democratic, and comes from the same instinct to retain power by the easy resort to large-scale cheating during elections.

The transition is thus far from ideal. From a politics based on patronage, the country is moving towards a politics based on mass media charisma. This is not exactly how we imagine democracy to be. But this too is a passing phenomenon. Things will be different as more and more of our people become educated.

As in Rizal’s time, mass education and the spread of literacy among our people are bound to change the conduct of governance and the rules of political competition. The change may not be visible at the level of our national politics. But it is already being felt at the local level, where a new breed of politicians who have won as mayors and as governors are uprooting the old ways of patronage and introducing innovative practices. They are re-inventing local governance and re-establishing democratic practice on the ground.

That is the good news. There is however a side to the OFW phenomenon that is disturbing.
At present, an estimated 8 million Filipinos live and work in about 192 countries. We are the third largest labor exporter in the world – after Mexico and India – but our workers are dispersed in more countries in the world and are found in more varied occupations and professions. Altogether they send back to their families an estimated US$12-15 billion every year.

We may say that the OFW is to the Philippines as oil is to Indonesia . There is however a big difference between selling people and selling oil. On the positive side, while Indonesia may run out of oil in the next 25 years, the Philippines will never run out of people, since we keep producing them at a rate faster than most other countries. The downside is that a society that exports its own people on a scale that our country does today undercuts its own way of life. At the rate we are exporting our medical personnel, we will run out of health professionals in just a few years. Two hundred hospitals all over the country have already closed down because they have run out of nurses. Another 600 are severely understaffed. Today it is the hospitals, tomorrow it will be the schools, the government agencies, and the rest of the corporate system. It is not to say that we are not adjusting to the increased demand. Indeed we are. But at what cost?

Sending out people almost always means wrenching them away from their loved ones. The effects of such separations on the psyche of children and on the consciousness of the nation are hard to assess. But, more important, sending out its young educated population means that the Philippines is prevented from linking its own progress with the growth of its people.

We are a resilient nation because we have strong families. We have parents who literally give up their personal happiness so that their children may live with hope. What is sad however is that when we offer entire generations in sacrifice at the altar of overseas work so that the nation may live, we are also giving up the very resource that makes us strong. I believe there is something wrong and perverse in making the export of people a major pillar of a nation’s economic policy.

Thank God, in general, our people thrive well abroad. They work hard, are loyal and dependable, they value their jobs, and are much appreciated. The foreign companies and institutions they serve sometimes wonder how any country can foolishly dispense with the services of such a gifted people. But that’s precisely what makes us a unique nation – a hard-working people governed by unworthy leaders.

It is my belief that this bleak picture is changing, and that the political crisis we are going through is nothing but a symptom that the obsolete feudal social order is finally crumbling, and that a new, brighter future is upon us. The transition has begun, it is irreversible, but, as I said, it is far from painless. We have seen how the Filipino family is bearing much of the cost.
I am aware that many of you here today may be among those who are preparing to leave the country and build their lives abroad. My remarks are not meant to dissuade you or to make you feel guilty. I offer them only as a reminder that even as we all have personal dreams to fulfill, and families to serve and secure, we also have a nation to build. Whether we like it or not, our personal visions are intertwined with what happens to our country. It is the only country we have. We must take care of it, and learn to take pride in it. For no nation can reform itself unless it takes pride in itself.

Thank you, and once more, goodluck to all of you!

Speech: Christian S. Monsod

2007-03-28T23:44:00.001-07:00

Speech of Christian S. Monsod, One Voice chairman, at the joint general membership meeting of the Makati Business Club, Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry, and Management Association of the Philippines on 8 March 2007, 12 noon, at the Dusit Nikko Hotel, Makati City)

You asked me to address four questions:
(1) What is the importance of the 2007 elections?
(2) Is there hope for the elections to be credible?
(3) What is the status of the citizen effort?
(4) How can each of us contribute to that effort?

The elections are important because for the first time since our democracy was restored in 1986, we are faced with the problem of damaged or weakened democratic institutions, of processes, i.e. electoral and justice system, or of offices or agencies such as the Senate and the House, the Office of the Ombudsman, the Commission on Elections, or even of the Constitution itself.

Most businessmen appear to be happy with the developments on the economy, but you are clearly concerned about the credibility of the 2007 elections. You are here because your concern goes beyond the successful delivery of credible elections. You care enough to know that we must also address the broader crisis of the people?s trust in the political system, and in democracy itself, as a means to a better life. The repeated attempts to test the constitutional limits of executive powers, the attempt to change the Constitution for political gain, and the politics-as-usual environment of the election campaign, must concern you. All of us know the far-reaching consequences of a growing alienation and disengagement of people from democratic processes, especially the youth and the poor.

If democracy has not changed the social, economic, and political landscape of the country, it should occur to us that maybe the problem is not that democracy is not suitable for developing countries, but that we have not nurtured it or are not practicing it, neither the administration nor the opposition, but more importantly, not by civil society itself.

It is the privilege of age to recall images that make sense of his surroundings. Mine is the image of businessmen and the most ordinary citizens guarding ballot boxes together, with utter disregard for their safety, with no thought of reward or benefit, protecting the ballot as if it was the most sacred blessing of their lives. Whether locking arms together or raising fists defiantly in the air, or singing the impassioned cry of the imprisoned, there was an army that was invincible for the whole world to see.

But the fact is that after we brought our nation to glory in EDSA and accomplished the first peaceful transfer of power in 27 years in 1992, we folded up our banners, we put away the t-shirts with the imaginative slogans that brought humor to the seriousness of the time, and we went back to wearing our business suits and to monitoring the stock prices of our companies or focusing on our narrow sectoral advocacies. And as we went our separate ways with our separate causes, we lost something of the dream of a nation and the significance of our interconnected lives.

Perhaps it is time to go back to our beginnings for the 2007 elections.

Every election is critical for its own reasons. If the 1986 elections, as once noted by a writer, were a test of our courage, and the 1992 and subsequent elections tests of our maturity, then the 2007 elections are surely a test of our vision for democracy.

That vision cannot include the weakening of democratic institutions that would justify what is sometimes euphemistically called a strong republic to fill the void, in which the ubiquitous presence and increasing power of the military and police in government affairs is a troubling trend. The military gambit is not new to our politics, but we thought we had addressed it permanently by the overwhelming aversion of our people to any kind of military dominance in our national life. Surely the business community remembers how the Marcos regime, propped up by the military, set back our economy by 10 years, a gap we still have not closed after 20 years.

If we are agreed that a functioning democracy is a part of our future and that credible election is its fundamental building block, the obvious question is?is there hope that the 2007 elections will be credible?

My answer is YES, if we all play our part in its making.

It seems simple enough, delivering free and fair elections. There are only three principles to observe:

(1) one-man, one-vote;
(2) allow people to freely exercise their right to vote; and
(3) count correctly what?s in the ballot.

We had thought that, by this time, we would be closer to the norm of democratic elections. But somewhere along the way, this was derailed. Automation is nine years behind the original schedule and full automation will not happen until 2013 at the earliest. The latest automation law is seriously flawed and was enacted too late to even enable pilot testing in 2007.

What of the Comelec? It is disappointing that the President has chosen not to fill the last vacancy. But we should at least be grateful that she did not fill it with somebody like Mr. Garcillano. And that the three latest appointees are persons of competence with a record of integrity who are well aware of the need to restore the credibility of the Commission and are unlikely to allow themselves to be part of any cheating. So far, the Comelec has generally been even-handed in the enforcement of the rules, but continued vigilance is obviously called for. Monitoring the resolutions and moves of the Commission is the specific mission of one of the NGOs, the Consortium for Electoral Reforms.

The pity of it is that, by and large, even when it is not in its best behavior, our democracy works, even in 2004, to the credit of the field officers of the COMELEC, if we judge the process and the results by the totality of some 17,000 positions at stake in the elections. Of course, the question of cheating in the presidential elections casts a long shadow on the entire elections. That the President really won, I believe, the elections, albeit by a much smaller margin, is not enough to mute the clamor and the campaign to finally settle the issue of legitimacy by treating the coming mid-term elections as an indirect referendum. There are those among you who would say we are past that and must move on. Maybe so, but the high distrust level of the government cannot be ignored with perceptions that, to stay in power, the government is disposed to misuse government resources (pork barrel allocations, the passing of campaign vouchers to government-owned and -controlled corporations, ?intelligence? funds), or commit wholesale fraud in canvassing , or use the military and police for partisan politics. Hence, the criticality of citizens’ groups protecting the ballot and validating the process and the results of the elections.

There is one important assumption in mobilizing this effort, that the church-based groups will do within the church community what they ask of the nation?unite for a more lofty purpose. That NASSA of the CBCP, which comprise the core of volunteers especially in the provinces, PPCRV, and Namfrel will adopt a unified approach with the least overlap and at the least cost to address the two biggest constraints to this kind of effort?(1) enough volunteers to do the job and (2) resource mobilization. The numbers are formidable. Forty-four million voters, over 250,000 precincts, and 1,600 canvassing points, which imply mobilizing over 500,000 volunteers, including some 3,500 lawyers to monitor the canvassing, and raising total resources of up to P50
million in cash and in kind, partly by local chapters.

As of today, the only missing ingredient is the accreditation of the citizen arm for the unofficial count. Both NASSA, with an interfaith coalition, and Namfrel, which counts with over 150 multisectoral organizations, have applied for accreditation, with the final decision ironically being entrusted to the Comelec.

The good news is that, regardless of the competition for accreditation, all the groups have agreed to take substantive steps towards a unified effort by the following:

(1) NASSA and Namfrel have agreed to form a joint technical group to develop the systems that will be used by whoever gets the accreditation, which, incidentally, could be joint. This committee is already operational and has already agreed on the basic program. The objective is accuracy more than speed, where the quick count for the first two days covering some 10% of the votes will be done by the media groups and the citizen arm count will build up from the third
day. While the target is 100% coverage, it should be noted that the highest coverage in the past in 2004 has been 83% based on precinct election returns and 97% in 1992 using certificates of canvass. Since wholesale fraud in canvassing is a serious problem now, the citizen arm count will be based solely on precinct election returns. And there will be no texting. It’s the basic count from the precinct.

(2) There is already agreement on assignment of tasks, with PPCRV undertaking voter education and pollwatching. Although it is included in its manual, PPCRV has agreed not to do a count. The grassroots mobilization is to be done principally by the social action and basic ecclesial communities of NASSA. The NASSA national conference of social action directors has already taken place last weekend and the PPCRV national conference begins tomorrow. In short, mobilization has started. The focal point of organizing and counting centers will be the 85 dioceses all over the country, in coordination with other religious, evangelical, and Muslim groups in each area.

(3) A national coalition of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines , law schools, NGO legal groups, association of law students, and so on has already been formed, with the Ateneo Human Rights Center as secretariat. The objective is to cover all 1,600 canvassing points, which neither government nor the opposition has been able to do all these years, with about 3,500 lawyers and paralegal volunteers. They will also provide legal services throughout the election period. This
is a very difficult task because lawyers are in great demand during elections, probably the only time they are in demand, with huge fees. So we would appreciate if you can volunteer your legal departments to help out in this project.

(4) A master activity blueprint or menu of options for citizen involvement has been developed by the Simbahang Lingkod ng Bayan and the Pugadlawin group of Ateneo de Manila University, which we will circulate shortly after my talk for you to see. And we are also circulating all the contact persons for each of these activities for your choice. I have asked Prof. Benjie Tolosa to join us this afternoon to answer any questions;

(5) The church groups have agreed to undertake a mobilization campaign based on a generic communications program being developed by Campaigns and Grey, Yoly Ong and her group, pro bono, that will have a unifying theme for the various campaigns of the group. All of us will be meeting on Tuesday, March 13, to review the program.

(6) Special projects have been launched, among them a Comelec Watch, as I mentioned, by the Consortium on Electoral Reforms, the Pera?t Pulitika project of the Consortium, Libertas, Transparency and Accountability Network, and the Political Science Association to pilot-test campaign finance monitoring. We also have a nationwide candidates’ fora and local covenant signing by the Simbahang Lingkod ng Bayan and PPCRV.

(7) Finally, as you already know, the Makati Business Club has agreed to help in raising contributions towards a democracy fund that will be available to all groups as soon as the unified effort is formalized.

(8) The initiative for many of these projects, I?d like to add, is being done by convenors of One Voice, Benjie Tolosa, Atty. Medina of Ateneo, Mon Casiple of CER, Atty. Guia of Libertas, Vince Lazatin of Transparency and Accountability Network, and Bro. Javy S.J. of
Simbahang Lingkod ng Bayan and others.

I mention these initiatives to assure you that cooperation is happening and that many people are already at work in this huge national effort. But they urgently need volunteers and funding for each of the activities, the most important of which are pollwatching, the parallel count, and the canvassing watch. Free and fair elections after all is the cumulative effect of many safeguards, and it is the efficient and effective handling of the minutest details that can make or unmake elections.

It is said that the mind is the athlete, the body is merely the means for us to jump higher, run faster, or lengthen our reach beyond our grasp. After each of us has thought deeply about the stake in this coming elections, after we have thought together on how to address them, let us, dare our courage to follow our thoughts. We don’t have much time. The day of reckoning is barely two months away.

If democracy, according to Vaclav Havel, is the unfinished story of human aspirations, let us continue the journey in the coming elections by helping restore the trustworthiness of the election process, and on the strength of that foundation, move on to other institutions. Each of us must put down his piece in this giant jigsaw puzzle called nation-building, for only then can we say that we are truly deserving of this blessed nation.

Not Very Careful Selection of Domain Names

2007-03-21T03:09:00.000-07:00

December 6, 2006

All of these are legitimate companies that didn't spend quite enough time considering how their online names might appear ... and be misread! These are not made up. Check them out yourself!

1. Who Represents is where you can find the name of the agent that represents any celebrity. Their web site is www.whorepresents.com

2. Experts Exchange is a knowledge base where programmers can exchange advice and views at www.expertsexchange.com

3. Looking for a pen? Look no further than Pen Island at www.penisland.net

4. Need a therapist? Try Therapist Finder at www.therapistfinder.com

5. There's the Italian Power Generator company, www.powergenitalia.com - under construction

6. And don't forget the Mole Station Native Nursery in New South Wales, www.molestationnursery.com

7. If you're looking for IP computer software, there's always www.ipanywhere.com

8. The First Cumming Methodist Church web site is www.cummingfirst.com

9. And the designers at Speed of Art await you at their wacky Web site, www.speedofart.com - ERROR message

MRT-3: The daily commute is the destination

2007-02-22T19:53:00.000-08:00

The first time I took the MRT, I had this feeling I wasn’t in the danged P.I. All that gleaming metal, newly manufactured rubber, squeaky escalators… It was like putting a new car to a test drive - it's a novelty that would stay with me for a very long time. I felt like the robot character in the movie Short Circuit where, the moment he's trundled out of the lab and into the great wide open, he is overwhelmed by what he sees that all he could say is an ecstatic, “Input!,” “Input!,” as his digital eyes record everything in sight.

I would seldom take the MRT after that. There was no need to, except when I had to be in Cubao from Ayala in split seconds. It was years later, when I would leave my job in the comfort zone of Makati and find a new one in faraway Q.C. that I became an MRT regular. Becoming a regular would eventually mean becoming what you might call an MRT addict. That meant taking the train twice a day. That meant regarding the MRT experience in a whole new way.

The two-way ride, needless to say, soon ceased to be a novelty. It turned into something familiar which, as familiarity goes, I anticipated to view with contempt. Yet, strangely, so far, after about two months’ commute, I couldn’t bring myself to being my old contemptuous self. For a born pessimist, that’s a lot. My five-day-a-week MRT commute would prove to be something I am grateful of as a much-needed improvement, a breath of fresh air, in my Third World existence as a commuter.

Day to day, I step into coach after coach with this cocktail of oft-clashing, sometimes-cryptic feelings. But whichever the case, the result is always something delicate. First, there’s the nostalgia I associate with the whole thing. I happen to have personally known this PR guy assigned to handle the public affairs side of this monstrous to-do that was this behemoth’s construction at the time. I remember how all of us who used EDSA went through months, even years, of hell for it that, we thought, “It better be damn serviceable, or else, there'd be hell to pay…”

Thank goodness there soon arose in this corner of EDSA (Pasay Rd./Aranaiz Ave.) this giant billboard to allay our inner suicide bomber. “Cubao to Makati in 15 minutes!” said the poster, my friend the PR guy’s brainchild, no doubt. It employed a generic-looking, street-smart construction guy as an MRT poster boy. This, in between the neon lights at night blinking, “Safety First!,” if not “Please bear with us” or “Your taxes are working for you.” I'm not sure which part worked, but the PR gimmick would in no time receive recognition in an international PR awards ceremony in Finland a year or so after.

Far from inspiring contempt, this giant caterpillar ride soon made me regard it with fondness, the way I would have for an extended ride in the roller caosters at Enchanted Kingdom (our local version of Disneyland, in Sta. Rosa, Laguna). I thought they might as well install a 360-degree loop in the middle of Magallanes, overlooking the Skyway on the SLEX or in Cubao where the MRT intersects LRT2. To complete the circus feel, they could add a series of horror trains perhaps at the Buendia and Ayala stations, which are actually tunnels or practically the closest we could ever get to a subway. For someone given to thinking exquisitely pompous thoughts and spectacularly implausible scenarios at lucid intervals, the MRT ride is such a welcome opportunity.

It’s also something that offers a little complexity to my embarrassingly simple, regular life, even as I am transported with ease from point A to point B. I could be catching myself between paraphrasing Pico Iyer thoughts (“To travel is to taste hardship.”) and faintly anticipating someone in the crowd yelling “Emergency!” Or I could be testing the effect of viewing the entire length of EDSA with this and that techno or punk rock accompaniment, as played in my brother’s iPod. As I meditate deep stuff, I am forced to multi-task: Often, it's all about getting myself stuck between not just two interesting people but also equally exquisite dilemmas. For example: (a) getting irked by a seatmate who coughs nonstop and smells of freshly pounded garlic and (b) repositioning my eye sockets to avoid staring directly at the vicinity of people’s knees. The thing is, there is great unpredictability amid all that regularity, and this is what probably keeps the MRT ride from ever becoming boring, at least for me.

Soon enough, as the train moves you along its track with First-World regularity, you will be forced to notice a lot of other things outside the window, too, that you had taken for granted before. Oftentimes you find yourself both being literally and figuratively taken for an MRT ride. You notice that those hotels painted in Day-Glo colors are the gaudiest buildings in the Metro, and also its ugliest. You also notice those chintzy, glinting tiled roofs of Corinthian Garden and Blue Ridge mansions, and wonder whether everybody, each and every Filipino, would ever afford to have one such in their lifetime. You notice how, with Imee Marcos’ smirk (or is that a pout? or is that a British stiff upper lip?), Borgy Manotoc’s giant mug in a Swatch billboard on the Robinson’s Galleria mall’s façade is staring down at the brass statue of Our Lady of EDSA with impunity.

If weirder thoughts assault you without any warning, it’s because you can afford all that luxury. One time, from out of the blue, it occurs to me that the solution to the constant traffic in EDSA is a very simple one: Let those who go to Makati and Pasay for their jobs swap houses and apartments with those coming from Quezon City and its environs. Makes a lot of sense to me.

An MRT ride also means disorientation in minutes, which closely resembles the effect one feels traveling by plane. Working in Quezon City these days is a culture shock for someone who has worked in Makati all his life. Q.C., though home of the biggest TV media players ABS-CBN and GMA7, seems to be more of an NGO and bureaucrat haven to me, so far removed from the glass-tower realities I’ve known and gotten used to. Now, I’m no longer certain which of the two nerve centers of the metro has more…er, character.

It’s a difference in the look-and-feel that I didn’t notice much before, which I notice now because I perceive what's supposed to be a subtle change in just a matter of minutes instead of the usual time gap you get (hours and hours!) by traveling by car or bus. That familiar time gap is suddenly bridged by the efficacious speed of the trains. You discern something that’s indefinably lost behind all that efficiency.

Before the MRT, it took an entire desert caravan-paced expedition for one to reach Novaliches from Taft Ave., Pasay City. The hours-long time lag that mentally and physically prepares the traveler that he/she is going to another, different place is lost, together with the psychological presumption that one is traveling from one place that’s very familiar and contemptible to another that’s far and a bit strange and perhaps much more inviting.

An MRT ride engenders that unique vision of this slice of city life, something which cannot be replicated by any other experience, I’m afraid, unless perhaps they build new lines like this. (Phase 2 will reportedly extend this line to Monumento, in Caloocan.) I wonder what happens if everything moved this fast; will all the necessary changes soon follow and make the whole megalopolis melt in a bland uniformity?

As a lot of people know, the Metro Rail Transit was built by a consortium under a build-operate-transfer scheme during President Fidel V. Ramos’s administration to the tune of $655-million. MRTC is led by Fil-Estate and composed of Ayala Land Inc., Anglo-Philippine Holdings, Ramcar Greenfield Development, Allante Realty and DBH Inc. The MRT-3 Blue Line, also known as Metrostar Express, spans 6.4 km. of EDSA, punctuated at irregular intervals by 13 stations that offer vantage points that vary, not the least in height and the views available. There’s the treetop-level (Annapolis-Santolan), the street-level (Pasay-Taft), the subterranean (Ayala Ave.), the mangy and grungy (Cubao), the billboard-choked (Guadalupe). It was reported that the roughly 30-minute ride has a present "ridership" of about 400,000 per day.

At this point, it might be interesting to compare and contrast the MRT with the LRT if only to further point out something I missed so far: While LRT1 cuts right through the middle of all that Old World civilization, with its horrors of postcolonial decay and patches of hopeful rebirth and awful remodeling, MRT gives a more comprehensive picture of, say, the New World, albeit in a little more distant, a little less in-your-face manner. Cruising the city on the more intimate level of the LRT ride, you get to meet the earthiest urban characters at odd hours, intimate enough for you to exchange your face with somebody else, like this ambulant vendor I had met who had this intrusive prerecorded sales pitch that played, “Mura lang, mura lang, piso isa, piso isa…,” the tape being in an unending repeat mode. That sort of visceral thing. I once gave a man-on-the-street LRT tour guide to a visitor from California a cousin asked me to show around, and his reaction was all of a nervous, wide-eyed, and diplomatic “It’s pretty packed!”

You won’t hear that kind of social commentary with MRT travel, even when the rush-hour traffic slams you with a tsunami of warm bodies getting ready for coffee and perhaps a nasty inter-office memo. At the maximum cost of P14 (one-way), you get an entire panorama of a grimy, topsy-turvy, unplaceable, fairly cosmopolitan metropolis, one that’s strangely capable of summoning the entire gamut of emotions from you.

This relatively new slithering landmark of the city does all these things I just told you about -- and perhaps more. Well, for instance, it also makes you assess -- from some sort of a rarefied vantage point -- how life in the P.I. is, after those four fateful days of February 1986 that stunned the whole world, the longest days this country ever had.

_______________________

Sidebar: Some tips to maximize the benefits of your MRT trip:

1. Don’t wear a miniskirt. If you’re a guy, always be sure you didn’t leave your fly open.

2. For the best deal, buy the P100 ‘stored-value’ card. It saves time, and you get to avail of bonus rides.

3. Bring no bags or anything that could invite suspicion.

4. Never take a seat if you are given to being attacked by pangs of guilt.

5. Avoid the rush hours: 8-9AM and 6-7 PM and these chokepoints as point of entry: Guadalupe, Cubao, Pasay Rotunda and North Ave. stations.

6. Avoid the doors at all costs to avoid the onrush and in case of stampede.

7. But if you ‘travel’ for the pain and inconvenience, go park yourself right at the door.

8. If you must take a seat, be sure not to sit next to someone who had just eaten fresh garlic and who could have a bird flu.

9. There are a variety of food stalls, phone card stalls, etc., just in case the need arises.

10. The MRT is not the best place to catch sleep. Read instead. Bring a pocketbook If you want, there’s a copy of Libre, the free tabloid, or its equivalents, at every station.

11. In the event of a coach conking out on you, there’s always the next form of hardship on hand: the bus.

Makabagong salawikain

2007-01-31T21:16:00.000-08:00

~Ang buhay ay parang bato, it's hard.

~Better late than pregnant.

~Behind the clouds are the other clouds.

~It's better to cheat than to repeat!

~Do unto others ... then run!!!

~Kapag puno na ang salop, kumuha na ng ibang salop.

~Magbiro ka na sa lasing, magbiro ka na sa bagong gising, huwag lang sa lasing na bagong gising.

~When all else fails, follow instructions.

~Ang hindi marunong magmahal sa sariling wika, lumaki
sa ibang bansa.

~To err is human, to errs is humans.

~Ang taong nagigipit ... sa bumbay kumakapit

~Pag may usok ... may nag-iihaw

~Ang taong naglalakad nang matulin ... may utang.

~No guts, no glory... no ID, no entry.

~Birds of the same feather that prays together ... stays together.

~Kapag may sinuksok at walang madukot, may nandukot.

~Walang matigas na tinapay sa gutom na tao.

~Ang taong di marunong lumingon sa kanyang pinanggalingan .... ay may stiff neck.

~Birds of the same feather make a good feather duster.

~Kapag may tiyaga, may nilaga. Kapag may taga, may tahi.

~Huli man daw at magaling, undertime pa rin.

~Ang naglalakad ng matulin, late na sa appointment

~Matalino man ang matsing, matsing pa rin.

~Better late than later.

~Aanhin ang palasyo kung ang nakatira ay kuwago, mabuti pa ang bahay kubo, sa paligid puno ng linga.

~Kapag maikli ang kumot, tumangkad ka na!

~No man is an island because time is gold.

~Hindi lahat ng kumikinang ay ginto ... muta lang yan.

~Kapag ang puno mabunga ... mataba ang lupa!

~When it rains ... it floods.

~Pagkahaba haba man ng prusisyon ... mauubusan din ng kandila.

~Ang buhay ay parang gulong, minsan nasa ibabaw, minsan nasa vulcanizing shop.

~Batu-bato sa langit, ang tamaan ... sapul.

~Try and try until you succeed... or else try another.

~Huwag magbilang ng manok kung alaga mo ay itik.

~Kapag maiksi na ang kumot, bumili ka na ng bago.

~An apple a day is too expensive.

~An apple a day makes seven apples a week. (really expensive)

~Ako ang nagsaing ... iba ang kumain. Diet ako eh.

Latest updates:

Kapag maiksi ang kumot..., sa baby ipagamit.

Papunta ka pa lang..., Sige, ingat!

And taong naglalakad ng mabilis, tumatakas.

Laging nasa huli... ang pinakamatangkad.

Pag may usok..., kawawa ang may hika.

When the cat is away..., sabihin mo lang, wiss, wiss, wiss, para lumapit.

Laughs in translation

2007-01-22T18:36:00.000-08:00

English movie titles you DEFINITELY should NOT translate in
Filipino =)

(as plundered from Plaridel Papers; by Rayvi Sunico?)

1. black hawk down - ibong maitim sa ibaba
2. dead man's chest - dodo ng patay
3. i know what you did last summer - uyy... aminin!
4. love, actually - sa totoo lang, pag-ibig
5. million dollar baby - 50 million pisong sanggol (it depends on the
exchange rate of the country)
6. the blair witch project - ang proyekto ng bruhang si blair
7. mary poppins - si mariang may putok
8. snakes on a plane - nag-ahasan sa ere
9. the postman always rings twice - ang kartero kapag dumutdot laging
dalawang beses
10. sum of all fears - takot mo, takot ko, takot nating lahat
11. swordfish - talakitok
12. pretty woman - ganda ng lola mo
13. robin hood, men in tights - si robin hood at ang mga felix bakat
14. 4 weddings & a funeral - kahit 4 na beses ka pang magpakasal,
mamamatay ka rin
15. the good, the bad and the ugly - ako, ikaw, kayong lahat
16. harry potter and the sorcerer's stone - adik si harry, tumira
ng shabu
17. click - isang pindot ka lang
18. brokeback mountain - may nawasak sa likod ng bundok ng tralala
/bumigay sa bundok
19. the day of the death - ayaw tumayo (ng mga patay)
20. waterworld - basang-basa
21. there's something about mary - may kwan sa ano ni maria
22. employee of the month - ang sipsip
23. resident evil - ang biyenan
24. kill bill - kilitiin sa bilbil
25. the grudge - lintik lang ang walang ganti
26. nightmare before christmas - binangungot sa noche buena
27. never been kissed - pangit kasi
28. gone in 60 seconds - 1 round, tulog
29. the fast and the furious - ang bitin, galit
30. too fast, too furious - kapag sobrang bitin, sobrang galit
31. dude, where's my car - dong, anong level ulit tayo nag-park?
32. beauty and the beast - ang asawa ko at ang nanay nya
33. the lord of the rings - ang alahero

Anti-Arroyo TV shows taken off air

2007-01-22T18:35:00.000-08:00

Fri Jan 19, 2007 8:04 am (PST)

Anti-Arroyo TV shows taken off air

Two current affairs shows on ABC 5 that were allegedly anti-Arroyo
administration were taken off the air after the television network's
owner was implicated in the attempted coup d'etat last year, TV
Patrol World reported Thursday.

The ABC 5 staff was surprised to learn that network boss
Antonio "Tonyboy" Cojuangco had ordered the cancellation of "Dokyu"
and "Frontlines," programs known for their sometimes hard-hitting
comments against the administration.

Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez, however, denied that the government
influenced Cojuangco's decision.

"Frankly I have not sat in any discussion where this particular
thing has been talked about," Gonzalez said in an interview.

He, however, added: "Mr. Cojuangco is involved in all
destabilization attempts especially in the February 24-25 [coup
attempt], down the line funding and his direct connections with
General [Danilo] Lim... [and] the video on the supposed withdrawal
of support."

Gonzalez was referring to the video where Lim, a former chief of the
Army's elite Scout Rangers, was seen and heard calling on fellow
soldiers to withdraw support for President Arroyo.

Investigators had said that ABC 5 facilities were used in making the
video.

Gonzalez said that if Cojuangco indeed ordered the cancellation of
the shows to lessen friction between him and the Arroyo
administration, then he might succeed.

"The case of the pudding is in the eating. We'll find out," the
justice chief said.

A source, meanwhile, told ABS-CBN that the reason behind the shows'
cancellations is the network's financial losses. The same source
said the network loses about P40 million monthly.

At the same time the two current affairs show were
cancelled, "Newsbreak," an investigative magazine financed by
Cojuangco, was also closed down.

Malacañang had condemned the magazine for its exposés against
alleged government irregularities.

Maritess Vitug, the magazine's editor-in-chief, confirmed in a text
message to ABS-CBN that Cojuangco might have been forced to stop
financing the magazine.

She said that in a way, Cojuangco financed the magazine's operations
by putting in seed money and by placing advertisements.

ABS-CBN tried to get a statement from Cojuangco but the calls were
unanswered. ABC 5 management declined to issue a statement. With a
report from Ricky Carandang

Movies I wish to see this year

2007-01-18T18:56:00.000-08:00

~~“The 400 Blows” (1959) Francois Truffaut~~
“8 1/2″ (1963) Federico Fellini
“Aguirre, the Wrath of God” (1972) Werner Herzog
“Annie Hall” (1977) Woody Allen
~~“Apocalypse Now” (1979) Francis Ford Coppola~~
~~“The Battleship Potemkin” (1925) Sergei Eisenstein~~
“The Best Years of Our Lives” (1946) William Wyler
“The Big Red One” (1980) Samuel Fuller
“The Big Sleep” (1946) Howard Hawks
“Blade Runner” (1982) Ridley Scott
“Blowup” (1966) Michelangelo Antonioni
“Blue Velvet” (1986) David Lynch
“Bonnie and Clyde” (1967) Arthur Penn
“Bringing Up Baby” (1938) Howard Hawks
“Un Chien Andalou” (1928) Luis Bunuel & Salvador Dali
“Chinatown” (1974) Roman Polanski
“The Day the Earth Stood Still” (1951) Robert Wise
“Days of Heaven” (1978) Terence Malick
“Dirty Harry” (1971) Don Siegel
“The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” (1972) Luis Bunuel
“Do the Right Thing” (1989) Spike Lee
“La Dolce Vita” (1960) Federico Fellini
“Double Indemnity” (1944) Billy Wilder
“Dr. Strangelove” (1964) Stanley Kubrick
“Duck Soup” (1933) Leo McCarey
“Easy Rider” (1969) Dennis Hopper
“Fargo” (1995) Joel & Ethan Coen
“The General” (1927) Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman
“GoodFellas” (1990) Martin Scorsese
“Halloween” (1978) John Carpenter
“A Hard Day’s Night” (1964) Richard Lester
“Intolerance” (1916) D.W. Griffith
“It’s a Gift” (1934) Norman Z. McLeod
~~“It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946) Frank Capra~~
“The Lady Eve” (1941) Preston Sturges
“M” (1931) Fritz Lang
“Mad Max 2″ / “The Road Warrior” (1981) George Miller
~~“The Maltese Falcon” (1941) John Huston~~
“The Manchurian Candidate” (1962) John Frankenheimer
“Modern Times” (1936) Charles Chaplin
“Monty Python and the Holy Grail” (1975) Terry Jones & Terry Gilliam
“Nashville” (1975) Robert Altman
“The Night of the Hunter” (1955) Charles Laughton
“Night of the Living Dead” (1968) George Romero
~~“North by Northwest” (1959) Alfred Hitchcock~~
“Nosferatu” (1922) F.W. Murnau
“Once Upon a Time in the West” (1968) Sergio Leone
“Out of the Past” (1947) Jacques Tournier
“Persona” (1966) Ingmar Bergman
“Pink Flamingos” (1972) John Waters
~~“Psycho” (1960) Alfred Hitchcock~~
~~“Rashomon” (1950) Akira Kurosawa~~
“Rear Window” (1954) Alfred Hitchcock
“Red River” (1948) Howard Hawks
“Repulsion” (1965) Roman Polanski
“The Rules of the Game” (1939) Jean Renoir
“Scarface” (1932) Howard Hawks
“The Scarlet Empress” (1934) Josef von Sternberg
“The Searchers” (1956) John Ford
“A Star Is Born” (1954) George Cukor
“Sunset Boulevard” (1950) Billy Wilder
“The Third Man” (1949) Carol Reed
“Touch of Evil” (1958) Orson Welles
“The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” (1948) John Huston
“Trouble in Paradise” (1932) Ernst Lubitsch
“The Wild Bunch” (1969) Sam Peckinpah

Also, I forgot:

“Princess Mononoke” (1997, anime) by Hayao Miyazaki
“Ten” (2002) by Abbas Kiarostami
Krysztof Kieslowski’s "Ten Commandments"/"Dekalog" (1989) (I only saw One, hehe)
Marcel Camus's "Black Orpheus" (1959) ("Orfeu Negra")
Life of Pi
Babette's Feast
Fitzcarraldo
Jesus of Montreal

2007-01-18T18:37:00.000-08:00

I also like to catch up on reading the ff. novels (which I’ve been intending to read for the longest time) to see why they are considered “successful” (at least according to the Modern American Library’s “100 best English-language novels published since 1900,” as of 2003, that is):

1984, George Orwell
Absalom, Absalom, William Faulkner
The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton --> seen its movie version
All the King’s Men, Robert Penn Warren --> seen its movie version
~~Animal Farm, Georgo Orwell~~
As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner
Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
~~Babbitt, Sinclair Lewis~~
~~Beloved, Toni Morrison~~
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
Catch-22, Joseph Heller --> saw the movie; annoying!
~~The Call of the Wild, Jack London~~
~~The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger~~
Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White --> saw the movie
~~A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess~~
~~The Color Purple, Alice Walker~~
Dune, Frank Herbert
Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
Fifth Business, Robertson Davies
For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway
The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
The French Lieutenant’s Woman, John Fowles
~~Go Tell It on the Mountain, James Baldwin~~
~~Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell~~
The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck --> seen its movie version
Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
~~The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald~~
The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
~~Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad~~
~~A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams~~ --> seen its movie version too
~~Howards End, E.M. Forster~~ --> seen its movie version too
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
~~The Jungle, Upton Sinclair~~
Light in August, William Faulkner
~~Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov~~
~~Lord of the Flies, William Golding~~
~~The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien~~ --> first part only; seen its movie version too
The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett --> saw the movie! enjoyable
Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie
~~My Antonia, Willa Cather~~
~~Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs~~
Native Son, Richard Wright
Of Human Bondage, W. Somerset Maugham
~~Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck~~
On the Road, Jack Kerouac
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey --> saw the movie
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce
~~A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving~~
Rabbit Run, John Updike
The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
~~A Separate Peace, John Knowles~~
The Sheltering Sky, Paul Bowles --> seen its movie version
~~Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut~~
Sometimes a Great Notion, Ken Kesey
Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison
Sons and Lovers, D.H. Lawrence
Sophie’s Choice, William Styron
The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
The Stand, Stephen King
The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
~~Their Eyes were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston~~
Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe --> have read its summary, which is such a spoiler
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee --> started it, but couldn't finish because of the prose style
To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
Ulysses, James Joyce
~~The World According to Garp, John Irving~~ --> seen its movie version too

Crucial test on religious freedom in Lina Joy's case

2007-01-14T20:18:00.000-08:00

Crucial test on religious freedom in Lina Joy's case
An AFP report, Jan 12, by Elisia Yeo.

Malaysia's status as a moderate Muslim country is being put to the test in a milestone court decision that may allow Muslims to renounce their faith, a move considered one of Islam's greatest sins.

The nation's highest court is to rule on an appeal by Lina Joy, a convert from Islam to Christianity who for a decade has been locked in a battle with the government to have her decision legally recognised.

The appeal brings to a head passionate arguments about whether Muslims can renounce Islam at will and, ultimately, whether Malaysia is a secular country or is morphing into a conservative Islamic state under religious Sharia law.

"Our country is at a crossroads pending the outcome of this landmark case," Joy's counsel, Benjamin Dawson, told AFP.

"This decision is pivotal to the direction the country will take."

The 42-year-old woman at the centre of the case is a member of Malaysia's majority ethnic Malay community, who make up 60 percent of the population of more than 26 million.

Born a Muslim and called Azlina Jailani, she says her introduction to Christianity in 1990 changed her life for the better.

But it has left her fighting the authorities since 1997, first for her new name to be put on her identity card, then to have her former religion removed.

"Although I have been brought up as a Muslim, I have, from the beginning, not believed in the practices and teachings of Islam," Joy, who rarely speaks to the media, said in a 2000 affidavit to a high court.

"I find more peace in my spirit and soul after having become a Christian.

"As such, I am of the opinion that I would be unfaithful, untrue and unfair to myself and to others should I carry on projecting myself as Muslim."

Resolve a paradox

Her appeal to the federal court centres on whether she must go to a Sharia court to have her renunciation recognised before authorities strike the word "Islam" off her identity card.

The court's ruling is seen as pivotal because it could resolve a paradox in the constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion but defines Malays as Muslims.

Malaysia's civil courts operate parallel to Sharia courts for Muslims in areas of personal law such as divorce, child custody and inheritance.

The question of which takes precedence, however, is increasingly murky in cases that involve both Muslims and non-Muslims, who have little say in Sharia courts.

Lower courts have so far rebuffed Joy's efforts, ruling that only Islamic courts can recognise her conversion.

However, the Islamic courts are loath to approve apostasy - renouncing Islam, which some Muslim scholars say is punishable by death - setting up a Catch-22 situation for would-be converts.

Several high-profile cases have underlined the strain. Last year, an ethnic Indian mountaineering hero was buried as a Muslim despite the protests of his Hindu wife, who insisted he never converted. Creeping 'Islamisation'

The debate has grown increasingly fierce as Malays have become more openly pious, a phenomenon non-Muslim communities see as a worrying "Islamisation" of the country.

Analysts say the resurgence is fueled by a decades-old fight between the ruling United Malays National Organisation party and its Islamic opposition to prove their religious credentials and "out-Islamise" each other.

While rights campaigners argue that Malays have a right to renounce Islam, Muslim groups have denounced Joy's legal challenge as a ploy to undermine the religion's status.

"The process amounts to an attempt to deconstruct, to change radically the position of Islam as it is in the constitutional legal set-up of the country," said Yusri Mohammed, the president of the influential Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia.

"We see this as something which is unacceptable, something which is a threat to the socio-religious harmony of the country."

Harussani Zakaria, the mufti of Perak state, recently cited a report that 100,000 Malays had renounced Islam and more were lining up to do so, although he has not provided details.

While Yusri said any social unrest over the Joy case would be "manageable," emotions are frayed in a country which rarely sees demonstrations or acts of political violence.

Threats against her lawyers have been released on websites and in August, posters were circulated anonymously calling for the death of lawyer and rights activist Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, who has argued in Joy's case.

"It is a symptom of the breakdown of civilised dialogue in this country. It is a sign of the reactionary times ahead," he wrote in a newspaper article on the threats.

Worsening relationship

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who admits race relations have hit a "fragile" point, has described the worsening relationship between the Muslim Malays and the minority ethnic Chinese and Indian communities as a "disease".

A year ago, all 10 non-Muslim cabinet members sent a petition to the prime minister asking him to safeguard the rights of religious minorities, but were reprimanded by Abdullah and forced to retract it.

Meanwhile, Joy's battle continues. She is forced to keep a low profile for fear of retaliation from Muslim groups, and although she is now engaged to a Christian man, she cannot marry him.

Under Malaysian law, non-Muslims must convert to Islam if they want to marry a Muslim.

Ivy Josiah of the Women's Aid Organisation, part of a coalition of groups watching over Joy's case, said it was about a woman's right to live her life freely.

"At a very personal level, here is a woman who's been for the past 16 years saying 'I'm a Christian. I want to get married, I want to have children' and no one is hearing her.

"And the state is saying, 'You are not allowed to do this'," she said.

Dawson, Joy's lawyer, said he expects a decision in the first half of 2007, and lawyers say decisions in similar cases in lower courts are being held over until the federal judges rule on her appeal

Cancer: All you need to know

2006-11-12T22:12:00.000-08:00

Useful Information on one of the deadliest diseases of our time: CANCER

1. Every person has cancer cells in the body. These cancer cells do not show up
in the standard tests until they have multiplied to a few billion. When doctors
tell cancer patients that there are no more cancer cells in their bodies after
treatment, it just means the tests are unable to detect the cancer cells because
they have not reached the detectable size.

2. Cancer cells occur between 6 to more than 10 times in a person's lifetime.

3. When the person's immune system is strong the cancer cells will be destroyed
and prevented from multiplying and forming tumours.

4. When a person has cancer it indicates the person has multiple nutritional
deficiencies. These could be due to genetic, environmental, food and lifestyle
factors.

5. To overcome the multiple nutritional deficiencies, changing diet and
including supplements will strengthen the immune system.

6. Chemotherapy involves poisoning the rapidly-growing cancer cells and also
destroys rapidly-growing healthy cells in the bone marrow, gastro-intestinal
tract etc, and can cause organ damage, like liver, kidneys, heart, lungs etc.

7. Radiation while destroying cancer cells also burns, scars and damages healthy
cells, tissues and organs.

8. Initial treatment with chemotherapy and radiation will often reduce tumor
size. However prolonged use of chemotherapy and radiation do not result in more
tumor destruction.

9. When the body has too much toxic burden from chemotherapy and radiation the
immune system is either compromised or destroyed, hence the person can succumb
to various kinds of infections and complications.

10. Chemotherapy and radiation can cause cancer cells to mutate and become
resistant and difficult to destroy. Surgery can also cause cancer cells to
spread to other sites.

11. An effective way to battle cancer is to starve the cancer cells by not
feeding it with the foods it needs to multiply.

CANCER CELLS FEED ON:

a. Sugar is a cancer-feeder. By cutting off sugar it cuts off one important food
supply to the cancer cells. Sugar substitutes like NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful,
etc are made with Aspartame and it is harmful. A better natural substitute would
be Manuka honey or molasses but only in very small amounts. Table salt has a
chemical added to make it white in colour. Better alternative is Bragg's aminos
or sea salt.

b. Milk causes the body to produce mucus, especially in the
gastro-intestinal tract. Cancer feeds on mucus. By cutting off milk and
substituting with unsweetened soya milk cancer cells are being starved.

c. Cancer cells thrive in an acid environment. A meat-based diet is acidic and
it is best to eat fish, and a little chicken rather than beefor pork. Meat also
contains livestock antibiotics, growth hormones and parasites, which are all
harmful, especially to people with cancer.

d. A diet made of 80% fresh vegetables and juice, whole grains,
seeds, nuts and a little fruits help put the body into an alkaline environment.
About 20% can be from cooked food including beans. Fresh vegetable juices
provide live enzymes that are easily absorbed and reach down to cellular levels
within 15 minutes to nourish and enhance growth of healthy cells. To obtain live
enzymes for building healthy cells try and drink fresh vegetable juice (most
vegetables including bean sprouts)and eat some raw vegetables 2 or 3 times a
day. Enzymes are destroyed at temperatures of 104 degrees F (40 degrees C).

e. Avoid coffee, tea, and chocolate, which have high caffeine.
Green tea is a better alternative and has cancer-fighting properties. Water-best
to drink purified water, or filtered, to avoid known toxins and heavy metals in
tap water. Distilled water is acidic, avoid it.

12. Meat protein is difficult to digest and requires a lot of digestive enzymes.
Undigested meat remaining in the intestines become putrefied and leads to more
toxic buildup.

13. Cancer cell walls have a tough protein covering. By refraining from or
eating less meat it frees more enzymes to attack the protein walls of cancer
cells and allows the body's killer cells to destroy the cancer cells.

14. Some supplements build up the immune system (IP6, Flor-ssence, Essiac,
anti-oxidants, vitamins, minerals, EFAs etc.) to enable the body's own killer
cells to destroy cancer cells. Other supplements like vitamin E are known to
cause apoptosis, or programmed cell death, the body's
normal method of disposing of damaged, unwanted, or unneeded cells.

15. Cancer is a disease of the mind, body, and spirit. A proactive and positive
spirit will help the cancer warrior be a survivor. Anger,unforgiveness and
bitterness put the body into a stressful and acidic environment. Learn to have a
loving and forgiving spirit. Learn to relax and enjoy life.

16. Cancer cells cannot thrive in an oxygenated environment.
Exercising daily, and deep breathing help to get more oxygen
down to the cellular level. Oxygen therapy is another means
employed to destroy cancer cells.

Yoga-Breathing is easily managed programme where one concentrates in providing
the body with enough oxygen to enable every cell in the body to function at its
optimum. The breathing exercises are easy and can be done where ever and when
ever. Just try breathing exercises for two weeks...say allocating just 15 min a
day to breathing deeply see and feel the difference it makes to you.

Kapalbhati (Cleansing Breath):
Sit comfortably in any meditative posture. Sit erect. Exhale through both
nostrils, contracting the middle and lower abdomen portions. Release the
contractions quickly and immediately follow with another forceful exhalation .
Inhale passively and effortlessly. Gradually increase the frequency to about 100
strokes/minute. After the round take a deep breath and gradually exhale.

What good can this do?

Cleans capillaries of the remotest part of the body.

Purifies the frontal portion of the brain.

Aid in combating asthma, diabetes, and chronic bronchitis besides other nervous
disorders.

Cleans the nasal passages.

Anuloma Viloma is also called the Alternate Nostril Breathing Technique. In this
Breathing Technique, you inhale through one nostril, retain the breath, and
exhale through the other nostril in a ratio of 2:8:4. The left nostril is the
path of the Nadi called Ida and the right nostril is the path of the Nadi called
Pingala. If you are really healthy, you will breathe predominantly through the
Ida nostril about one hour and fifty minutes, then through the Pingala nostril.
But in many people, this natural rhythm is disturbed. Anuloma Viloma restores,
equalizes and balances the flow of Prana in the body.

One round of Anuloma Viloma is made up of six steps, as shown below.. Start by
practicing three rounds and build up slowly to twenty rounds, extending the
count within the given ratio.

The Vishnu Mudra

In Anuloma Viloma, you adopt the Vishnu Mudra with your right hand to close your
nostrils. Tuck your index and middle finger into your nose. Place the thumb by
your right nostril and your ring and little fingers by your left.

One Round of Anuloma Viloma (Alternate Nostril Breathing)

Inhale through the left nostril, closing the right with the thumb, to the count
of four.

Hold the breath, closing both nostrils, to the count of sixteen.

Exhale through the right nostril, closing the left with the ring and little
fingers, to the count of eight.

Inhale through the right nostril, keeping the left nostril closed with the ring
and little fingers, to the count of four.

Hold the breath, closing both nostrils, to the count of sixteen.

Exhale through the left nostril, keeping the right closed with the thumb, to the
count of eight.

Benefits of Anuloma Viloma

The exercise of the Anuloma Viloma produces optimum function to both sides of
the brain: that is optimum creativity and optimum logical verbal activity. This
will make both sides of the brain, the left side which is responsible for
logical thinking and the right side which is responsible for creative thinking
to function properly. This will lead to a balance between a person's creative
and logical thinking. The Yogis consider this to be the best technique to calm
the mind and the Nervous System.
Anuloma Viloma: The Scientific Confirmation

Medical science has recently discovered the nasal cycle, something that was
already discovered by the Yogis thousands of years ago. Modern scientists found
out that we do not breathe equally on both nostrils, that is one nostril is much
easier to breathe through than the other at any particular time. Each nostril
alternates about every three hours. The Yogis claim that the natural period is
every two hours, but we must remember these studies were done on people who do
not have an optimum Health level.

Scientists also discovered that the nasal cycle corresponds with brain function.
The electrical activity of the brain was found to be greater on the side
opposite the less congested nostril. The right side of the brain controls
creative activity, while the left side controls logical verbal activity. The
research showed that when the left nostril was less obstructed, the right side
of the brain was predominant. Test subjects were indeed found to do better on
creative tests. Similarly when the right nostril was less obstructed the left
side of the brain was predominant. Test subjects did better on verbal skills.

Medical science has not quite caught up with the ancient Yogis yet. The Ancient
Yogis even went one step further. They observed that a lot of diseases were due
to disturbances of the nasal cycle or if a person breathe for too long through
one nostril. To prevent and correct this condition, they developed the Alternate
Nostril Breathing Technique. This clears any blockage the airflow in the
nostrils and reestablishes the natural nasal cycle. For example, the Yogis have
known for a long time that prolonged breathing through the left nostril only
(over a period of years) will cause Asthma. They also know that this so-called
incurable disease can be easily treated by teaching the patient to breathe
through the right nostril until the Asthma is cured and prevent it from
recurring by doing the Alternate Nostril Breathing Technique. The Yogis also
believe that Diabetes is caused, to a large extent, by breathing mainly through
the right nostril

Rowell G. Agustin

Sanchez Malaya De Leon Agustin Law Offices
Unit 335, Union Square Condominium,
145 15th Avenue, Cubao, Quezon City
0920-6674088, Tel/Fax(02)9958932

"The close mind has no place in this open society"
Ynot vs IAC, 148 SCRA 659

"The 10 paradoxes of the writing life"

2006-11-07T22:23:00.000-08:00

(Another old, old - what's that again - chestnut.)

By Chip Scanlan

1. Writing is magical, but it's not magic.
I reread Youngblood Hawke recently and discovered it's not a literary
masterpiece. But at 12 the experience of consuming that story was a
magical experience. And this Herman guy who wrote it was clearly a
magician, a genius. I mean, 783 pages and every word was spelled right. I
couldn't stop reading. Clearly I was screwed because I was neither a
magician nor a genius. It took me more years than I'd like to count to
learn that writing may be magical, but it's not magic. It's a process, a
series of rational steps and decisions that every writer, no matter the
deadline or genre, must make. Most of all, it's a process of discovery.
You don't know what you're going to write until you write it down and then
read it and see how it has to be rewritten.

2. To become a better writer, you must lower your standards.
I know it sounds strange. Hey, what did you learn at the National Writers
Workshop? Oh, this guy from Poynter gave a tip. Lower your standards. But
there's nothing wrong with that, especially if you make sure to put the
bar way up high before you publish. It's a way to avoid writer's block,
though I like what columnist Roger Simon had to say on the subject:
"Funny, my father never had truck driver's block." Perfect is the enemy of
good. Accept the faults of your first draft; it contains the promise of
the final one

3. To write well, you may have to write badly.
At first. Writing is about one thing: revision. I
never could find an editor who liked this one.

4. The power of a story comes from what's not in it.
Powerful writing demonstrates the "iceberg" effect: What is below the
surface â€“ the interviews, drafts, false starts â€“ is the hidden source of
strength. Collect an abundance of material.

We write best from an abundance of material. I used to say I over-reported
every story. When I left The Providence Journal, the systems people
cheered. I filled two rolling dumpsters of material when I cleaned out my
files in Washington. My editors would say I tried to turn every story into
a project. Well, at least a book. But now I see it differently. I wasn't
over-reporting. I was underthinking. I try to live by the iceberg
principle now. The best stories are those that have a mountain of evidence
below the surface. The challenge for the writer is to decide which is the
best quote, the more salient theme, the dramatic scene.

5. The more personal you are, the more universal you become.
The writer who uses herself as a source and resource has the greatest
chance of connecting with the largest audience. First, ask yourself: What
do I think about this story? What do I know about it? My first impulse is
to tap into the 'Net or Lexis Nexis, but there we find only information
and language that's already in the public domain. The smart writers I know
start out by tapping into their own private stock first.

6. To become an original, imitate others.
You can discover your own voice by listening to other writers. Listen best
by copying out their words. This practice horrifies some respected writers
and teachers--write your own damn stories, they say--but if we were visual
artists no one would look askance at us copying the paintings of the
masters to see how they use color and shadow and contrast. By taking
literary modeling lessons, I learned how leads and scenes are constructed,
discover that writers like Rick Bragg rarely choose the default ending of
the newspaper story â€“ a quote. The study, I'm convinced, got me on a cover
story in The Washington Post, where I landed after copying out the leads
of published stories by Walt Harrington, Madelaine Blais, Peter Perl.

7. It takes the greatest courage to admit you are afraid.
Writer's block is caused and reinforced by fear--fear of success as much
as fear of failure. Compelling writing draws its strength from honesty
about one's limitations.

8. To tell a story of 1,000 words (or 100,000) you must be able to tell it
in one word.
Every story needs a single dominant message--a theme, defined as "meaning
in a word." To find it, I follow the advice of David von Drehele, a
brilliant writer for The Washington Post:

"At a time like that, you have to fall back on the basics: Sit down and
tell a story.

"What happened?

"What did it look like, sound like, feel like? Who said what? Who did
what?

"And why does it matter?

"What's the point? Why is this story being told? What does it say about
life, about the world, about the times we live in?"

Newspaper writing, especially on deadline, is so hectic and
complicated--the fact-gathering, the phrase-finding, the inconvenience,
the pressure--that it's easy to forget the basics of storytelling. Namely,
what happened, and why does it matter?

9. The way to write a lot is to write a little.
How do you climb a mountain? One step at a time. Brief daily sessions are
the key to writing productivity. Revision requires energy and hope. The
writer who binges, whether with alcohol or writing, ends up tired. This
spring and summer during one of the busiest periods in my life, I made a
commitment to write two pages a day on my novel. Notice I didn't say good
pages. But after 155 days, I had a draft that was more than 100,000 words
long. And now I'm revising it, again two pages a day. Louise DeSalvo, a
writer and teacher, says writers have to develop a new relationship with
time if they're going to write long form. That's especially difficult for
reporters addicted to daily bylines. But if you do it in brief daily
sessions, you start stacking up the pages.

10. To be a success you must seek failure.
The greatest rewards demand the greatest risks.

Am I movie-literate?

2006-05-04T23:05:00.000-07:00

(via ClickMoMukhaMo)

Movies I’ve seen are highlighted.

“2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968) Stanley Kubrick
“The 400 Blows” (1959) Francois Truffaut
“8 1/2″ (1963) Federico Fellini
“Aguirre, the Wrath of God” (1972) Werner Herzog
“Alien” (1979) Ridley Scott
“All About Eve” (1950) Joseph L. Mankiewicz ---> I tried, but couldn't finish it.
“Annie Hall” (1977) Woody Allen -- I think I was too young and dumb to get this or anything Woody.
“Apocalypse Now” (1979) Francis Ford Coppola ---> I realize I missed this one. Wait, where was I? No, wait, I think I saw it, after all. Oh, no, that's "Platoon" or "The Killing Fields."
“Bambi” (1942) Disney
“The Battleship Potemkin” (1925) Sergei Eisenstein
“The Best Years of Our Lives” (1946) William Wyler
“The Big Red One” (1980) Samuel Fuller
“The Bicycle Thief” (1949) Vittorio De Sica
“The Big Sleep” (1946) Howard Hawks
“Blade Runner” (1982) Ridley Scott --->Aaaargh. Why can't I find a copy?
“Blowup” (1966) Michelangelo Antonioni
“Blue Velvet” (1986) David Lynch
“Bonnie and Clyde” (1967) Arthur Penn
“Breathless” (1959 Jean-Luc Godard
“Bringing Up Baby” (1938) Howard Hawks
“Carrie” (1975) Brian DePalma ---> I refused to see this one for, uh, health reasons. :)
“Casablanca” (1942) Michael Curtiz
“Un Chien Andalou” (1928) Luis Bunuel & Salvador Dali
“Children of Paradise” / “Les Enfants du Paradis” (1945) Marcel Carne
“Chinatown” (1974) Roman Polanski
“Citizen Kane” (1941) Orson Welles
“A Clockwork Orange” (1971) Stanley Kubrick
“The Crying Game” (1992) Neil Jordan
“The Day the Earth Stood Still” (1951) Robert Wise
“Days of Heaven” (1978) Terence Malick
“Dirty Harry” (1971) Don Siegel
“The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” (1972) Luis Bunuel
“Do the Right Thing” (1989) Spike Lee
“La Dolce Vita” (1960) Federico Fellini ---> I needed to attend to an urgent office work or something every time this is shown in the filmfests.
“Double Indemnity” (1944) Billy Wilder
“Dr. Strangelove” (1964) Stanley Kubrick
“Duck Soup” (1933) Leo McCarey
“E.T. — The Extra-Terrestrial” (1982) Steven Spielberg
“Easy Rider” (1969) Dennis Hopper
“The Empire Strikes Back” (1980) Irvin Kershner
“The Exorcist” (1973) William Friedkin
“Fargo” (1995) Joel & Ethan Coen ---> Missed it.
“Fight Club” (1999) David Fincher
“Frankenstein” (1931) James Whale
“The General” (1927) Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman
“The Godfather,” “The Godfather, Part II” (1972, 1974) Francis Ford Coppola
“Gone With the Wind” (1939) Victor Fleming
“GoodFellas” (1990) Martin Scorsese
“The Graduate” (1967) Mike Nichols
“Halloween” (1978) John Carpenter
“A Hard Day’s Night” (1964) Richard Lester
“Intolerance” (1916) D.W. Griffith
“It’s a Gift” (1934) Norman Z. McLeod
“It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946) Frank Capra
“Jaws” (1975) Steven Spielberg
“The Lady Eve” (1941) Preston Sturges
“Lawrence of Arabia” (1962) David Lean
“M” (1931) Fritz Lang
“Mad Max 2″ / “The Road Warrior” (1981) George Miller -- I think I saw this. Not so sure.
“The Maltese Falcon” (1941) John Huston
“The Manchurian Candidate” (1962) John Frankenheimer
“Metropolis” (1926) Fritz Lang
“Modern Times” (1936) Charles Chaplin ---> I think I've seen this. Not sure.
“Monty Python and the Holy Grail” (1975) Terry Jones & Terry Gilliam
“Nashville” (1975) Robert Altman
“The Night of the Hunter” (1955) Charles Laughton
“Night of the Living Dead” (1968) George Romero
“North by Northwest” (1959) Alfred Hitchcock
“Nosferatu” (1922) F.W. Murnau
“On the Waterfront” (1954) Elia Kazan
“Once Upon a Time in the West” (1968) Sergio Leone
“Out of the Past” (1947) Jacques Tournier
“Persona” (1966) Ingmar Bergman
“Pink Flamingos” (1972) John Waters
“Psycho” (1960) Alfred Hitchcock
“Pulp Fiction” (1994) Quentin Tarantino
“Rashomon” (1950) Akira Kurosawa
“Rear Window” (1954) Alfred Hitchcock
“Rebel Without a Cause” (1955) Nicholas Ray
“Red River” (1948) Howard Hawks
“Repulsion” (1965) Roman Polanski
“The Rules of the Game” (1939) Jean Renoir
“Scarface” (1932) Howard Hawks ---Is this the one with Al Pacino? Nah.
“The Scarlet Empress” (1934) Josef von Sternberg
“Schindler’s List” (1993) Steven Spielberg
“The Searchers” (1956) John Ford
“The Seven Samurai” (1954) Akira Kurosawa
“Singin’ in the Rain” (1952) Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly
“Some Like It Hot” (1959) Billy Wilder
“A Star Is Born” (1954) George Cukor
“A Streetcar Named Desire” (1951) Elia Kazan
“Sunset Boulevard” (1950) Billy Wilder
“Taxi Driver” (1976) Martin Scorsese
“The Third Man” (1949) Carol Reed
“Tokyo Story” (1953) Yasujiro Ozu
“Touch of Evil” (1958) Orson Welles
“The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” (1948) John Huston
“Trouble in Paradise” (1932) Ernst Lubitsch
“Vertigo” (1958) Alfred Hitchcock
“West Side Story” (1961) Jerome Robbins/Robert Wise
“The Wild Bunch” (1969) Sam Peckinpah
“The Wizard of Oz” (1939) Victor Fleming

People Power

2006-04-19T22:20:00.000-07:00

NYT Editorial April 12, 2006

The marchers in white T-shirts poured out of the subway doors and merged into a stream, flowing like blood cells through the tubular innards of the Washington Metro, past turnstiles and up escalators and out into the delicate brilliance of a fine spring day. On the street, they met up
with the others - young parents, old people, toddlers in strollers, teenagers in jeans and jewelry - and headed to the Mall, where they and their American flags dissolved into a shimmering sea of white, red and blue.

The immigration rallies of recent weeks have drawn an astounding number of people around the country: Monday's "national day of action" was attended by an estimated 180,000 in Washington, 100,000 each in Phoenix and New York City, 50,000 each in Atlanta and Houston, and tens of thousands more in other cities.

Adding in the immense marches last month in Los Angeles and Chicago, the immigrants and their allies have carried off an amazing achievement in mass political action, even though many of them are here illegally and have no right to vote. Whether the rallies leave you inspired or
unnerved, they are impossible to ignore.

This nation is deeply divided and undecided about illegal immigration.

The ambivalence runs deep. Americans can hardly even agree on whom they are talking about. Listen to debates from talk radio to the Senate, and you will hear utterly incompatible descriptions of the same group of people. The nation's 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants are either an occupying army of thieves, snatching jobs and subverting our laws, or they are a wholesome community of strivers, eager to build families and chase the American dream.

Monday's rallies were a decisive victory for the more positive vision. In Washington, as elsewhere, the mood was as mellow as the crowd, which was dominated by parents of young children. (You can shout all the fiery slogans you want, but you will never be threatening with a baby in your arms.) An 86-year-old Salvadoran, Maria Guevara, sat in a folding chair and waved a plastic American flag as a friend, Ana Santos, held a placard to keep the sun out of her eyes. Ms. Guevara was as placid as if sitting beside a pond, though all around her it was noisier than a baseball stadium.

A recurrent complaint against new immigrants - particularly Latinos, the overwhelming majority at most rallies - is that they are slow to assimilate. But these crowds clearly had internalized at least one pillar of the American way: that peaceful dissent can spur a government to action.

Though recent immigration developments in Washington had been a discouraging mix of stalemate and cold political maneuvering, the marchers seemed motivated less by a sense of grievance than by hope, and the pure joy of seeing others like themselves rallying for a precious
cause. They were venturing boldly from the shadows and daring the country to change its laws, but were doing so out of a desire to participate in the system, not to undermine it.

This became especially clear when the thousands on the Mall recited the Pledge of Allegiance, reading from yellow sheets printed in English and in a crude phonetic spelling to help Spanish speakers pronounce the unfamiliar words. Something about the latter version - with its strange
sense of ineloquent desire - was enough to provoke tears.

Ai pledch aliyens to di fleg
Of d Yunaited Esteits of America
An tu di republic for wich it estands
Uan naishion, ander Gad
Indivisibol
Wit liberti an yostis
For oll.

The Risk

2006-04-10T00:57:00.000-07:00

Here's Adrian's column which came out in Philippine Graphic magazine:

By Adrian Cristobal

If I were to ape Kundera, I would write a novel entitled The Risk
with a writer as the protagonist.
I would use a quotation from Claude Lefort's book, "Writing: the
political test," which goes this way:
Writing involves risks—the risks that one will be misunderstood, the
risk of being persecuted, the risk of being made a champion in which
one does not believe, the risk of inadvertently supporting a reader's
prejudices, to name a few. In trying to give expression to what is
true, the writer must 'clear a passage within the agitated world of
passions,' an undertaking that always to some extent fails: writers
are never the masters of their own speech.

"Never the masters of their own speech"? Is this compatible with the
writer's stance that he stands by everything—well, most
everything—that he has written? However, if one lives long enough, one
can reconcile this contradiction, in fact, many other contradictions.
One must accept that life offers many instances of disenchantments,
betrayals, and disappointments (as well as triumphs and inspirations,
of course), that in the end one can only endure. It's so difficult as
Albert Camus once advised, to maintain an allegiance to the ideals of
one's youth.

These thoughts struck me when a good friend, Krip Yuson, a fine
writer, was denounced by colleagues and academics when he wrote that
another writer, Bienvenido Lumbera, was the candidate of the
communists for the National Artist award for literature. Not a
communist but a candidate of the communists, or as some people would
say, "leftist" or sympathizer. It's not a question of evidence or
testimony (for which there's none, unless one chooses to "ideologize"
literature of protest), and even so, it seems to me beside the point.

Look at the Nobel Prize for Literature. Pablo Neruda, Nobel awardee in
1971, was a communist, also a recipient of the Lenin Peace Prize
(1953). Jaroslav Seifert (1984) broke with the communist party.
Octavio Paz (1990) broke with the communist party but remained a
Marxist. Halder Laxness (1955) and Mikhail Sholokov (1985) also got
the Order of Lenin (1955) and the Stalin Prize (1941). Closer to home,
Pramedja Ananta Toer got the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Literature
(1995), although another awardee turned in his statue without the cash
because Toer was a communist, but Mochtar Lubis, despite his
identification (probably false) with the CIA also got the same prize:
two ideologically opposed writers but recognized for their merits as
writers. It's true, of course, that some writers are thought by other
writers as unworthy of awards, but on literary not political or
"moral" grounds. As Thomas Mann once said, writing is not virtue but
virtuosity.

Krip Yuson made enemies because of his denunciation of Lumbera on
extraneous grounds, dangerously so, for in this time of witch-hunting,
he puts Lumbera in a precarious position with the government and the
military by his "testimony." It's a throwback to the denunciations
made by writers of the unlamented Stalinist era, on the one hand, and,
on the other, a revival of McCarthyism. And all because, as his
detractors pointed out, his favored candidate for National Artist,
Cirilo F. Bautista, won't make it. Because of what he did and its
consequences, Yuson has resigned as chairman of UMPIL, the writers'
union.

The question in his friends' minds is whether or not he fully
considered the consequences of his denunciation. When asked by another
friend, Virgilio Almario, a National Artist himself, Yuson simply said
(I was told)" Gago kasi ako!" This self-deprecation is neither an
apology nor a withdrawal of his denunciation. It doesn't put Lumbera
in the clear with witch-hunters in these perilous times,
notwithstanding the fact that Amado V. Hernandez, accused and jailed
for 10 years as a communist under the nullified charge of "rebellion
complex with murder," was given the National Artist Award for
Literature during Martial Law.

Both Bienvenido Lumbera and Krip Yuson now know the risks of writing,
albeit differently, since one is in more real danger than the other,
if you consider losing one's friends and admirers to be less dangerous
than risking your freedom.

But a single act should not forever mark a person even if Andres
Malraux once said that every act is immortal. We should judge writers
by their works alone, lest we consider Ezra Pound and Carlos Bulosan
to be bad writers because one was a fascist and the other a communist.
That risk belongs to the philistine. May their tribe decrease! #

A language for nationalism?

2006-04-10T00:56:00.000-07:00

(for April 4, 2006)

by Alfred A. Yuson

Of course friends called, texted, e-mailed their support. Some, not all,
agreed with the points I raised in that column a fortnight ago. Most were
privileged to read the pig Latin in my flak vest, so their offers of
assistance stayed private. Some actually said: Hey, own up, you’re playing
rope-a-dope, right?
Well... Okay, let’s be a tad bit serious. A lot of hackles have been
raised, for which I’m sorry. No intention there to raise the rage level on
this
planet. But I should have known better than to provoke a bit of a
firestorm over “nationalism.” So here’s clarifying some points, in
response to those raised.
A pity that poet Joi Barrios’ intended letter-to-the-editor didn’t see
print. Not sure she did send it, but it got first play on the Internet.
Basically, Joi took umbrage over my apparently reckless endangerment of
Bien Lumbera’s person, given the recent crackdown on perceived enemies of
the state.
I’d like to make this clear. I didn’t label Bien a communist.
Even if he
were, which I don’t know, nothing wrong there. It’s legal to be a commie
in this country. In any case, I’m not into that sort of vintage labeling.
What I more than inferred, and decried, was the “nationalist” posturing
(being careful now to employ quotation marks, as an indication of both
eyebrows raised) of his fan base.
The passages in my column that quoted what I’ve heard in beerhouses and
then some (about “communist candidate” and nothing really memorable in his
works, something like that) were meant to add some flavor of reportage. Oh
yeah? What kind of reportage is that when it doesn’t identify the
speakers? Tsismis reportage, that’s what. Hearsay, firsthand.
No need to reveal the identities of those from whose lips I heard those
views, to which I must confess a level of tacit agreement on my part.
But Joi may have been in her rights to raise the alarm. As for
“red-baiting,” no, I assured her by SMS, I’m not into that either. Just as
I don’t have “patrons” whose desires or policies I could’ve been carrying
out. Why, I don’t even dislike communists. What I didn’t text Joi was that
I found them rather funny at best.
The Left, with its wide gamut of ideological predilections, I
respect as a
whole, albeit not entire. I told Joi that I’m with her and “them” when it
comes to mounting any civil struggle against the “pang-gigiit” against
Reps. Beltran, Ocampo and company.
Okey naman kami ni Joi matapos ng mahabang diyalogo sa
selfon. Sa wari ko.
She said I better clarify all of that. I agreed. So here it is: I wasn’t
red-baiting — which would be an even funnier proposition than any
perceived goals of the intended prey. And I’m not a Commie-hater, since
hardly any gander gets up to ever replace bemusement.
As for the reported comments on Bien’s candidacy for the
National Artist
award, to relate these to any Commie witchhunt was a stretch, I thought.
Maybe I’m not given to paranoia where I sit or stand. But if it alarms
friends and colleagues alike, then I regret having included those remarks.
What I found admirable in Joi’s heartfelt communication, in
private, was
her loyalty to her mentor Bien, whose influence she acknowledges with
great appreciation. In gist, she said she couldn’t allow anyone to attack
Bien and get away with it.
Again, I assured her I hadn’t been on attack mode. It was her rejoinder
that was “banat,” I said, before adding facetious remarks like “buti na
lang banat na’ng mukha ko” — to which she replied something about “Botox.”
And that’s how our SMS dialectics ended.

Next came a diatribe from Gary Devilles of Ateneo something or other, in
very angry Filipino. I can’t comment on his protest over what I wrote on
the National Artist awards, as I sense from his language that he’s so used
to denounce anything in high dudgeon. Aba’y palengkero daw ako, eh siya
yung nag-gagalaiti at halos makita na’ng tumiklop ang mga litid sa leeg.
Rosario “Chari” Lucero’s letter, published in this space last
week, I can
appreciate for its relative elegance and elements of humor, irony, sarcasm
and hyperbole. The valid points raised are marred somewhat by academically
liberal — in more ways than one — leaps of deconstruction. I never equated
“nationalist” with “communist.” That inference she made on her own.
Neither have I ever put myself “forth as a spokesperson for Philippine
literature.” Maybe for beerhouses, even as I favor whisky.
I agree that Dr. Lumbera enjoys a “primary position”
in “Philippine culture and literature.” Never mind the academic “canon”
to the left and right of us. Her proposal to thresh out matters of
literary evaluation in a conference would be welcome had it not betrayed
unfair terms of engagement, as well an assumption that a rep from the lush
life can’t partake of an educated exchange.
Jonathan Chua was most civil, for which I am thankful. He too
raised valid
points that can be properly addressed, most soberly indeed. He credits Dr.
Lumbera with having co-pioneered the “Bagay” poetry movement together with
the multi-genre genius Rolando Tinio. All I know, in my semi-illiteracy,
is that some lines of Tinio’s “Valedictory sa Hillcrest” are still recited
from memory by lushes like myself. I’m sorry, but I can’t recall a single
poem title by Bien. True, he still qualifies as an artist, because he has
written exemplary librettos, some early poetry, and voluminous critical
work.
I don’t dismiss all that. Bien deserves to be a National
Artist all right,
but for his art and not for his perceived “nationalism.” (More on this
later.) What I maintain is that if the choice should be between Cirilo
Bautista’s and Bienvenido Lumbera’s totality of artistic merits, the
former would undoubtedly be more formidable. Bien has been a
scholar-critic more than a literary artist. But his lifework and influence
have also been formidable, for which he also deserves the highest award
imaginable. And yet, to my mind, not over Cirilo. The problem, as I saw
it, is that ideological accommodation played a part in the choice.

I would’ve been very surprised if Paolo Manalo hadn’t joined the Internet
critics. This fellow has long had it in for me, for reasons we both know
but which would be irrelevant to mention here. I just wish that as
literary editor of Philippines Free Press, Manalo makes a better effort at
ensuring that contributors receive their fees, for it is a more
fundamental responsibility than writing precipitate poetics.
Reuel Aguila was right. I made dabog. Naiintindihan ko rin
kung saan siya
nanggagaling. Nirerespeto ko ang kanyang kakayahan at mga akda, at ang
bunga ng kanyang batikos ay isa na rin sa aking pinagsisisihan. Hindi ko
naman gustong makipag-away sa mga Filipinista. Dapat nga tayong
magtulungan.
As expected, the most sophisticated and enlightening take on
the brouhaha
has been Adrian Cristobal’s. He intelligently takes me to task, but seems
to exonerate me even before he engages in subtle excoriation. Whee! And I
can only agree with his closure:
“We should judge writers by their works alone, lest we
consider Ezra Pound
and Carlos Bulosan to be bad writers because one was a fascist and the
other a communist.
“That risk belongs to the philistine. May their tribe decrease!”
Others have joined the fray in strange ways, like e-mail-baiting in
private and then sharing the exchange in public, while masking themselves
with pseudo-addy-nyms. Oh, well. Blithe as blithe goes, to each his
perverse pleasure.

Now, for more provocation, possibly, owing to the sensitivity that has
only led to token politeness, and, well, tokenism.
But let’s get “nationalism” out of the way muna. The reason I
place that
term within quotation marks is that I find the manner in which it is
commonly claimed credit for as unbearably proprietary. The trouble with
“nationalists” is that they love to proclaim themselves as such, as if
everyone else who doesn’t cannot be a nationalist.
It’s become a matter of seething too much, denouncing too much, bearing
too much of a humongous chip on the shoulder for too long, while taking
too much credit for being the only lovers of country.
I agree with Jimmy Abad. (I hope his letter to the editor appears
somewhere on this page.) There’s no monopoly on nationalism, which is not
gauged by the language one uses or where one lives. I love our country for
all its faults, our faults, and our own brand of occasional idiocy. But I
do not have to proclaim myself a “nationalist” to the exclusion of most
everyone else. And I’m tired of having to walk on eggshells due to PC
awareness of sensitivity.
Ma. Luisa Igloria, recent winner of the highly prestigious Stephen Dunn
Award for Poetry, is no less of a nationalist for writing in English, let
alone for choosing to teach literature out there in Virginia, USA. By the
by, she competes in a much larger, more challenging arena. And yet she
does us all proud with her Filipino poetry in English. Heck, make that
poetry, period.
When Eric Gamalinda gets a story accepted by Harper’s, it’s
an honor for
all Filipinos, whether they write in Filipino, English, or Spanish. Heck,
whether they write at all.
I am not advocating that we all write in English. I try to write in
Filipino, but am better trained in English, as was most of my generation
that grew up in Manila. Let us strengthen Filipino, and all other
languages in our regions. Let us not however equate writing in Filipino
(or Tagalog), or favoring the writing of Filipino (or Tagalog), with
stronger or more authentic nationalism.
The demographics alone are against that sort of reckoning. We
still have
more Cebuano speakers. Ilocano writers write in Ilocano, Ilonggos in
Ilonggo or Hiligaynon, Bicolanos in Bicolano. Sure, there are exceptions:
a few Ilocanos, Ilonggos and Bicolanos write or also write in Filipino.
But more of the same can and do write in English.
Contrary to doomsayers for English literary use at the height of the
bilingualism debate of the ’70s, greater numbers of Filipino poets and
writers are writing in English, I believe so much more than the increasing
numbers of writers in Filipino. That’s because Filipinos outside the
Tagalog region have not yet reached any proficiency in Filipino. Someday
it’ll happen, when the electronic media — radio, TV and film — manage to
eventually improve that proficiency.
For now, there are hardly any venues for literature in Filipino. Hardly
anyone even engages in travel writing in Filipino, or creative non-fiction
in Filipino. Which is not saying that it’s an inferior language. It’s just
younger than major literary languages of the world.
When a Filipino writes in English, he necessarily takes on a tougher
challenge — that of participation in the continuing evolution of a
language that has been used for centuries, by the likes of Chaucer and
Shakespeare and Oliver Wendell Holmes and Salman Rushdie and Michael
Ondaatje.
When a Filipino writes in Filipino, yes, he is writing in the
language of
his blood, and yet — and this is no invidious comparison — he is
upholding, enhancing and reinventing a much younger tradition that “only”
goes back to Balagtas and Lazaro Francisco and Amado Hernandez and
Virgilio Almario.
When Cirilo Bautista writes in English, he vies against the
standards of
excellence that continue to be set in that yet dynamic language. When
Bienvenido Lumbera champions Filipino literature almost to the exclusion
of the merits gained by Filipinos in literary English, I believe he does a
bit of disservice to scholarship and criticism.

Three years ago, I formally argued for a National Artist award for
Virgilio Almario because I believed in the total creative worth of his
literature in Filipino. I even said it was high time another NA award went
to a writer in Filipino, after Amado Hernandez. I would have argued the
same for Dr. Lumbera, but not at the expense of Dr. Bautista.
Of course all this has been moot, even when I first wrote on the matter
(which is why Reuel is right in saying na nagdabog lang si ako) — given
the fact that Lumbera was already chosen as the sole finalist for
Literature. Even as this is being written, he could well be on his way to
gaining the award. I cannot begrudge him or any other writer or Lotto
winner any prize.
On an aside, as I texted Jonathan, bigyan naman sana ko ng
konsiderasyon
na sa tanda kong ito, alam ko namang ang nakikitang pagbatikos ko kay Bien
ay malamang na mag-garantiya na maging NA nga siya. Alam naman natin ang
sikolohiyang bumabalot sa mga nagdedesisyon.
No claiming of any credit, however, in hindsight or with
foresight. I just
had to say what I believed in, maybe because I have the guts, or chutzpah,
or moxie, or apog. Na magdabog.
But again, at the risk of offending sensibilities, even those of my
ka-barkadang mga Filipinista, uulitin ko ang aking paniniwala na mas
mahigpit pa rin ang hamon ng pagsusulat sa Ingles. Kayat ang dapat ay
galingan pa ang pagsulat sa Filipino. Mas madaling mangyari ito kung
ilalapag na lang muna ang bagahe ng ideolohiya.
Sa ganun ay dadami ang magsusulat ng mga kaakit-akit na kakaibang mga
tula tulad ng mga gawa ni Freddie Salanga, Pete Lacaba, RayVi Sunico, Beni
Santos at Allan Popa — na siyang mga aral din sa Ingles at nagamit ang
kanilang natutunan dito. O mga akdang pang-awit tulad ng mga hinahangaan
natin mula kina Heber Bartolome at Joey Ayala — at panibagong hinahangaan
kong si Israfel Fagela ng sisikat na bandang Los Chupacabras.
To my calumnists, please understand that not everyone can
have a regular
newspaper column. Some of us are asked to fulfill the role. I try to
popularize literature, mostly Philippine — more often those in English
because there are more works in English. I am not a critic but a reviewer
and a tsismoso. I also try to be light, which is why I dub someone like
the young Angelo Suarez “the Kobe Bryant of Philippine Literature.” Sorry
if I can’t similarly laud efforts to tack on to a topical-trendy term like
“jologs” for perishable poetry.
I am so sorry to Bien and Shayne for the hurt I caused.
Couldn’t help it;
it couldn’t be helped.
Let me end with gravity and flippancy: two sides of the same coin of
eloquence (ahem). “The language of nationalism is in the heart, while the
art of literature is in the mastery of universal craft.” That is mine.
“Thanks for the intellectual discussion. It’s always hard to defend a
losing argument. But you did a decent job of it.” — From the Cleveland
Cavaliers message boards, and which we’re all free to say to one another.

* * *

The Editor,
Philippine Star

Letter to the Editor

National / Nationalist Artist Award

I’ve been mentioned in Alfred A. Yuson’s column and in Joi Barrios’
response to it. I wish to contribute a thought on the matter.
All Filipino writers in whatever language are nationalists,
unless it can
be proved beyond reasonable doubt that, following the definition of
“nationalism” in the document on National Artist Awards, a writer does NOT
“promote national cultural identity and the dignity of the Filipino people
through the content and form of their works.” As Sir Walter Scott has so
well put it, “Breathes there the man with soul so dead, / Who never to
himself hath said, / This is my own, my native land!” I believe that
“nationalism” is what is meant by the word “National” in the title of the
Awards.
Yet “nationalism,” as defined for the Awards, is hardly an artistic
criterion. There are many nationalists who, not being writers or artists,
cannot be given the Award. The key word is Artist. The Award then is to be
conferred on the sole ground of a nominee’s inimitable achievement in Art
as a rich and distinctive contribution to our national cultural heritage.
In that light, if by literature as Art we mean “literary
works” or “works
of imagination” (poetry, fiction, drama), I believe Cirilo F. Bautista
fully deserves the National Artist Award in Literature. Since 1963 to the
very present, he has wrought a considerable body of works in Literature,
in English and in Tagalog-Filipino – epic and lyric poetry, the short
story, the novel – all of exceptional worth and quality. I make no
invidious comparisons. I only insist on Art and artistic merit.
Incidentally, I cannot see why, in a given year for the
Awards, there may
not be two or even three, National Artists in one or the other artistic
field. On artistic merit alone is the decision based, not on budgetary
allotment.

Gémino H. Abad
U.P. Department of English
March 22, 2006

The Twilight of Objectivity

2006-04-10T00:54:00.000-07:00

How opinion journalism could change the face of the news.
By Michael Kinsley
Posted Friday, March 31, 2006, at 6:08 AM ET

CNN says it is just thrilled by the transformation of Lou Dobbs—formerly a
mild-mannered news anchor noted for his palsy-walsy interviews with
corporate CEOs—into a raving populist xenophobe. Ratings are up. It's like
watching one of those "makeover" shows that turn nerds into fops or
bathrooms into ballrooms. According to the New York Times, this demonstrates
"that what works in cable television news is not an objective analysis of
the day's events," but "a specific point of view on a sizzling-hot topic."
Nicholas Lemann, dean of Columbia Journalism School, made the same point in
a recent New Yorker profile of Fox News' Bill O'Reilly. Cable, Lemann wrote,
"is increasingly a medium of outsize, super-opinionated franchise
personalities."

The head of CNN/US, Jonathan Klein, told the Times that Lou Dobbs' license
to emote is "sui generis" among CNN anchors, but that is obviously not true.
Consider Anderson Cooper, CNN's rising star. His career was made when he
exploded in self-righteous anger while interviewing Louisiana Sen. Mary
Landrieu after Hurricane Katrina and gave her an emotional tongue-lashing
over the inadequacy of the relief effort. Klein said Cooper has "that
magical something … a refreshing way of being the anti-anchor … getting
involved the way you might." In short, he's acting like a human being,
albeit a somewhat overwrought one. And now on CNN and elsewhere you can see
other anchors struggling to act like human beings, with varying degrees of
success.

Klein is a man who goes with the flow. Only five months before anointing
Cooper CNN's new messiah (nothing human is alien to Anderson Cooper; nothing
alien is human to Lou Dobbs), he killed CNN's long-running debate show
Crossfire, on the grounds that viewers wanted information and not opinions.
He said he agreed "wholeheartedly" with Jon Stewart's widely discussed and
uncharacteristically stuffy remark that Crossfire and similar shows were
"hurting America" with their occasionally raucous displays of emotional
commitment to a political point of view.

But that's just a personal gripe (I worked at Crossfire for six years),
easily resolved by a slavish apology. More important is that Klein is right
in sensing, on second thought, that objectivity is not a horse to bet the
network on. Or the newspaper, either. The newspaper industry is in the midst
of a psychic meltdown over the threat posed by the Internet. Internet panic
is a rolling contagion among the established media. It started with
newspapers, now it's spreading to magazines, and within a year book
publishers will be in one of their recurring solipsistic frenzies.

No one seriously doubts anymore that the Internet will fundamentally change
the news business. The uncertainty is whether it will only change the method
of delivering the product, or whether it will change the nature of the
product as well. Will people want, in any form—and will they pay for—a
collection of articles, written by professional journalists from a detached
and purportedly objective point of view? The television industry is panicky
as well. Will anyone sit through a half-hour newscast invented back when
everyone had to watch the same thing at the same time? Or are blogs and
podcasts the cutting edge of a new model for both print and video—more
personalized, more interactive, more opinionated, more communal, less
objective?

Objectivity—the faith professed by American journalism and by its critics—is
less an ideal than a conceit. It's not that all journalists are secretly
biased, or even that perfect objectivity is an admirable but unachievable
goal. In fact, most reporters work hard to be objective and the best come
very close. The trouble is that objectivity is a muddled concept. Many of
the world's most highly opinionated people believe with a passion that it is
wrong for reporters to have any opinions at all about what they cover. These
critics are people who could shed their own skins more easily than they
could shed their opinions. But they expect it of journalists. It can't be
done. Journalists who claim to have developed no opinions about what they
cover are either lying or deeply incurious and unreflective about the world
around them. In either case, they might be happier in another line of work.

Or perhaps objectivity is supposed to be a shimmering, unreachable
destination, but the journey itself is purifying, as you mentally pick up
your biases and put them aside, one-by-one. Is that the idea? It has a
pleasing, Buddhist flavor. But that's no substitute for sense. Nobody
believes in objectivity, if that means neutrality on any question about
which two people somewhere on the planet might disagree. May a reporter take
as a given that two plus two is four? Should a newspaper strive to be
open-minded about Osama Bin Laden? To reveal—to have!—no preference between
the United States and Iran? Is it permissible for a news story to take as a
given that the Holocaust not only happened, but was a bad thing—or is that
an expression of opinion that belongs on the op-ed page? Even those who
think objectivity can be turned on and off like a light switch don't want it
switched on all the time. But short of that, there is no objective answer to
when the switch needs to be on and when it can safely be turned off.

Would it be the end of the world if American newspapers abandoned the cult
of objectivity? In intellectual fields other than journalism, the notion of
an objective reality that words are capable of describing has been going
ever more deeply out of fashion for decades. Maybe it doesn't matter what
linguists think. But even within journalism, there are reassuring models of
what a post-objective press might look like.

Most of the world's newspapers, in fact, already make no pretense of
anything close to objectivity in the American sense. But readers of the good
ones (such as the Guardian or Financial Times of London, to name the most
obvious English-language examples) come away as well-informed as the readers
of any "objective" American newspaper. Another model, right here in America,
is the newsmagazine. Time long ago abandoned the extreme partisanship and
arch style of its founder, Henry Luce, but all the newsmags produce
outstanding journalism with little pretense to objectivity.

Opinion journalism can be more honest than objective-style journalism
because it doesn't have to hide its point of view. It doesn't have to follow
a trail of evidence or line of reasoning until one step before the
conclusion and then slam on the brakes for fear of falling into the gulch of
subjectivity. All observations are subjective. Writers freed of artificial
objectivity can try to determine the whole truth about their subject and
then tell it whole to the world. Their "objective" counterparts have to sort
their subjective observations into two arbitrary piles: truths that are
objective as well, and truths that are just an opinion. That second pile of
truths then gets tossed out, or perhaps put in quotes and attributed to
someone else. That is a common trick used by objective-style journalists in
order to tell their readers what they believe to be true without inciting
the wrath of the Objectivity cops.

Abandoning the pretense of objectivity does not mean abandoning the
journalist's most important obligation, which is factual accuracy. In fact,
the practice of opinion journalism brings additional ethical obligations.
These can be summarized in two words: intellectual honesty. Are you writing
or saying what you really think? Have you tested it against the available
counterarguments? Will you stand by an expressed principle in different
situations, when it leads to an unpleasing conclusion? Are you open to new
evidence or argument that might change your mind? Do you retain at least a
tiny, healthy sliver of a doubt about the argument you choose to make?

Much of today's opinion journalism, especially on TV, is not a great
advertisement for the notion that American journalism could be improved by
more opinion and less effort at objectivity. But that's because the
conditions under which much opinion journalism is practiced today make
honesty harder and doubt practically impossible. Like the mopey vicar in
Evelyn Waugh's novel Decline and Fall, who loses a cushy parish when struck
by a case of "Doubts," TV pundits need to radiate certainty for the sake of
their careers. As Lou Dobbs has demonstrated, this doesn't mean you can't
change your mind, as long as you are as certain in your opinion today as you
were of the opposite opinion a couple of days ago.

But if opinion journalism became the norm, rather than a somewhat
discredited exception to the norm, it might not be so often reduced to a
parody of itself. Unless, of course, I am completely wrong.

Nothing Personal Here

2006-04-10T00:48:00.000-07:00

Paolo Manalo reacts to Yuson's 2nd column.

Original entry here.

I've been a busy fellow at the 45th UP National Writers Workshop but thanks to e-mails and text messages, it was hard not to miss "A Language for Nationalism?", Alfred Yuson's reply to the various responses to his recent rant.

In this recent column Yuson wrote: "I would've been very surprised if Paolo Manalo hadn't
joined the Internet critics. This fellow has long had it in for me, for reasons we both know
but which would be irrelevant to mention here. I just wish that as literary editor of Philippines Free Press, Manalo makes a better effort at ensuring that contributors receive their fees, for it is a more fundamental responsibility than writing precipitate poetics."

For those who keep asking, sorry but I do not "have it in" for Alfred Yuson. If we go back
to my response, I was soberly objecting to: 1) Ian Casocot's reaction; 2) the binary oppositions in Philippine literature that Yuson's column was suggesting; and 3) the ad hominem statements and name dropping that Yuson practices in his column.

And that's that.

(via Plaridel Papers)