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| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| Sexual Morality 1
By Antonio C. Abaya Written April 15, 2007 For Standard Today, April 17 issue According to a 2006 United Nations estimate, the population of the world will likely increase to 9.2 billion by the year 2050, from the present 6.7 billion. (Manila Standard Today, March 15, 2007). To no one�s surprise, the additional 2.5 billion who will be born in the next 43 years will likely be born mostly in poor, underdeveloped countries. Meaning, largely in Black Africa, in predominantly Muslim countries from North Africa to South Asia, and in predominantly Roman Catholic countries like the Philippines and Latin America . The rich and developed countries in Western and Eastern Europe , Russia , Northeast Asia, Australia and Canada have either below-zero, zero or almost-zero population growth rates. The sole exception among industrialized countries is the US , which has a relatively high population growth rate, probably because of its large and fecund Black and Latino minority populations and unabated immigration, both legal and illegal. The additional 2.5 billion people who will be born between 2007 and 2050 are equivalent to the number of people who populated Planet Earth in the year 1950. So, in the 100 years from 1950 to 2050, the world�s population will have grown from 2.5 to 9.2 billion, or a growth of 268%. If one were to project this to the next 100 years or the year 2150, a 268% growth rate will bring the world�s population to 24.65 billion people, or an additional 15.45 billion people, most of them in Black Africa, in predominantly Muslim countries from North Africa to South Asia, and in predominantly Roman Catholic Latin America and the Philippines . Those global figures are probably difficult for us to visualize. So let�s keep our projections to Pilipinas Kong Mahal. The present Philippine population is estimated at 88 million, growing at 1.95% per annum, and currently doubling every 30 years. That means that we will be 176 million by the year 2037, 352 million by the year 2067, and 704 million by the year 2097. Under a more benign assumption of the growth rate going down to 1.3% per annum, we would still wind up with 424.6 million by the year 2100. (See my article Anim, Pito, Walo�Patay si Angelo, Sept. 01, 2004). Even if we were to bring down the growth rate to just 1.0% per annum after 2100, the population would still double every 100 years. The 424.6 million in 2100 would be 849 million by 2200, 3.2 billion by 2400, 12.8 billion by 2600, 51.2 billion by 2800, and 204.8 billion by the year 3000. I made these calculations in 1997 after then President Fidel Ramos announced with a straight face that, having achieved his goal of making the Philippines a NIC (newly industrialized country) by 2000 � which many will dispute � he was now gearing up the country for the year 3000. (See my article Philippines 3000 � Ready for 205 Billion Pinoys?, Feb. 17, 1997, Philippine Star.) Of course, neither the Philippines nor the rest of the world will ever reach this Standing Room Only situation. I am confident that common sense will prevail, long before the year 2050 is upon us. If not common sense, then Global Warming could drive home the point that there may not be enough food, not enough drinking water, not enough fuel, not enough fresh air, not enough dignified shelter, not enough jobs to meet the needs of the projected 9.2 billion people � including about 235 million Filipinos � in 2050. The second installment of the United Nations warning on Global Warming puts the blame on human activities for the warming of the planet�s atmosphere and oceans, resulting in the melting of the glaciers and polar ice caps and a disastrous rise in ocean levels, increasing desertification, catastrophic droughts, permanent flooding of major river deltas, more violent weather disturbances, and the disappearance of entire islands and groups of islands. For most underdeveloped countries, including the Philippines , the problems caused by a run-away population growth rate will be compounded by Global Warming. Long before the year 2050, it may dawn on more and more thinking people that reducing population growth rate to near-zero, as it already is in most of the land mass from Spain to Japan, may be one of the few options left to attain or preserve a decent standard of living. One of the stumbling blocks to this is the resistance of the Roman Catholic Church to the use of artificial methods of birth control. In answer to my article Let Them Eat Statistics (March 27, 2007), Jose Maria Alcasid wrote: �It�s mind boggling to me that a seasoned and well-informed journalist like you keep railing against the Catholic Bishops� position against artificial contraception and blaming this for the country�s poverty woes. Truth is immutable, hence the Church�s teachings on contraception will never change�..� My reply: �Mind boggling? Has your mind ever boggled at the fact that hundreds of millions of Roman Catholic couples use artificial methods of birth control, despite the �immutable truth� of the Church�s teachings on contraception?��.How do you think did/do these Catholic couples limit the number of their children? By solving crossword puzzles until they fell asleep?.� The key phrase here is �immutable truth�. Alcasid�s position rests on his belief that the Church�s teachings never change. But morality changes with time and place. The Church�s teachings on many issues have changed over the centuries, and it is not inconceivable (pun intended) that its teachings on contraception will also change. After all, social and sexual morality is no longer dictated by senile old men handing down edicts from their ivory towers. In an era of universal education and fast and easy communication, social and sexual morality is now determined by common usage, what society as a whole determines is beneficial or not beneficial to itself. Lending money with interest used to be a mortal sin in Medieval Europe. If you collected interest on a loan and you were struck by lightning, you went straight to Hell. That was how the Jews became established in banking,; they had no religious hang-ups about lending money with interest. The stricture against lending with money with interest was based on the Aristotelian logic that it was un-natural for inanimate objects (like money) to have offspring (like interest earnings), and was turned into a Church doctrine by, if memory serves, St. Thomas Aquinas. Since then, of course, the Church has not only changed its teachings on lending money with interest, it has itself gone, in a big way, into banking. To this day, Muslims are not allowed by their religion to lend money with interest. But this has not prevented the sheiks from depositing their humongous stash of petrodollars with the (often Jewish) mega-banks in Zurich , London , New York and Hong Kong , at substantial interest. When the crossbow was introduced in Europe , Pope Urban II banned its use against other Christians. But it was permissible to use it against non-Christians, such as the Muslim Saracens, against whom Urban II launched the First Crusade in 1088. Since then, or course, humankind has invented even more effective ways for killing each other � gunpowder, cannons, the machinegun, poison gas, airplanes, flame-throwers, submarines, land mines, biological agents, nuclear bombs � with hardly a murmur from the Church, which no one would have paid any attention to, anyway. Christian and Catholic sexual morality was formulated when Medieval Europe was still feudal and pastoral, when most people lived in their lords� estates, where living space and food cultivation were not a problem, where people got married at 13 or 15, where populations were routinely decimated by disease, wars and pestilences, so having ten to 15 or 20 children were an insurance against short-handedness at work and loneliness in old age. In this milieu, the biblical admonition to �go forth and multiply� was accepted at face value and without question. But in an urbanized and industrialized society, this morality no longer resonates. City apartments are too small for large families. Urban dwellers cannot grow their own food, so they have to take part in the money economy in order to survive. But to earn money, one has first to get an education and acquire a marketable skill before marriage, thus pushing the marrying age to 25, 30, 35, in an environment suffused with sexual stimuli. In addition, bearing and rearing children in the city is expensive and time-consuming, and frequent childbirths prevent women from pursuing their own careers and/or developing their own personalities. In this urbanized and industrialized milieu, the sexual morality of feudal, medieval Europe is readily abandoned by common consent, a decision made easier by the availability of the condom and the pill to prevent unwanted pregnancies, no matter what senile old me in their ivory towers think. ***** Reactions to [email protected]. Other articles in www.tapatt.org and in acabaya.blogspot.com OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Reactions to �Sexual Morality 1� More Reactions to �Idiot Candidates� More Reactions to �Casualties of War� More Reactions to � Vietnam Surges Ahead� Yes, Tony Abaya I agree with your position. The Phiippine Catholic hierarchy's stand on birth control is outmoded. Even when I was in Diliman, the female students coming from the elite religious schools.were avid readers of Cheeser�s, Love Without Fear. The book was passed from hand to hand, that quickly. My point, birth control though prohibited, is practiced daily. I am sure they do not all practice "coitus interruptus." I even get the feeling, that the Philippine Church, wants to keep the people ignorant, poor, docile and.....but that is just a feeling. Maximo Fabella, (by email), Florida , April 17, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Mr. Abaya, Does my short reaction to your article "Let Them Eat Stats" really warrant undeserved space in your column? Or is it my blog article or position paper that hit a sore spot and served as a pretext to your most recent article (I have not read your blog. ACA) "Sexual Morality," a classic rehash of the population explosion myth. With all due respect but forgive me for taking notice that you have your moral theology all mixed up. May I repeat what I cited in my blog article, In his pastoral letter In Obedience to Christ: A Pastoral Letter to Catholic Couples and Physicians on the Issue of Contraception, Bishop Glennon P. Flavin, then bishop of Lincoln, Nebraska in the United States, shed light on the matter, "The ban on contraception IS NOT A DISCIPLINARY LAW of the Church, like abstinence of Friday, which the Church can enact and which the Church can dispense for good reasons. Rather, IT IS A DIVINE LAW which the Church cannot change any more than it can change the law of God forbidding murder.. BECAUSE CONTRACEPTION IS INTRINSICALLY EVIL, it may never be practiced for any reason." (But who is Glennon P. Flavin that I or anyone else must accept what he says or writes as the Final Word on anything? It is you who has his moral theology all mixed up. ACA) You can rant and rail till kingdom come but I seriously doubt it if the Catholic Church will change her teaching on artificial contraception. Even medieval and senile men in their ivory towers could grasp that simple fact. Too bad, modern men with their feet of clay keep sinking in the quicksand of relativism and error and the passions that feed them, pride and sensuality. (You can also rant and rail till kingdom come against artificial methods of birth control but the undeniable fact is that hundreds of millions of Roman Catholics around the world disregard the Church�s teachings against it. A law that is ignored by the overwhelming majority becomes a dead law and will in time be buried. ACA) Sure, it will change. Pagputi ng uwak, pagitim ng tagak! (This is not an argument. It is an attempt at humor to bolster a self-proclaimed, but not self-evident, absolute truth. ACA) Sincerely, Dr. Jose Maria P. Alcasid, (by email), April 18, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony, You hit it right on the head again. So, it points out that as one society develops (material development) the tendency of that society is to limit their own population growth, perhaps with the exception of that country, the Vatican . As you have pointed out, the industrialized countries, having entered into the machine age. relied on their human population to keep on producing machines that produces other machines thereby multiplying their labor force a million times than those poor Third World country is experiencing (because they simply stayed to become an agricultural country and kept on believing that it is that method of production that will save them from poverty). I wonder if this issue is being tackled by our candidates on how they are going to tackle the humungous problem of poverty. The government pins lack of job to be one of the number one problem of the country. This is the reason why we have the modern Filipino diaspora (which is one of our evolutionary adapation techniques to survive). We simply can't produce jobs that is not linked to any vibrant program of industrialization. Not light industrialization but heavy industrialization as what Japan , China , Korea have realized. Can you tell me a candidate for the Senate or Congressional representatives, or a political party that is carrying industrialization as its main campaign agenda? (Not a one. ACA) AL Jose Leonidas, (by email), April 18, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Mr. Abaya, I completely agree with you. The problem with the Church is that they want to talk the Talk, but they don't want to walk the Walk. The world would be a little bit better if the Church and the Vatican would use their vast resources and wealth in helping the poor. Mass housing, education, health and nutrition, orphanages, home for the aged, etc. It would surely resonate better than their empty sermons on Sundays. I'm sure the poor amongst us are more concerned in the here and now, rather than the afterlife. Auggie Surtida, (by email), April 18, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony, I wanted to share my thoughts on population growth with you. But I wanted to learn more of your reasons for your stand on the issue. However, with your recent article on "Sexual Morality", I feel more compelled to share with you my stand on the issue. I agree that in some instances the Church has changed with time. But there are principles that do not change with time and I believe that the stand against artificial birth control is one of them. Most if not all contraceptives are abortifacients, i.e., they kill the developing human life. I believe that killing human life is accepted to be wrong by our religion because it is God's most precious creation and it is a temple of God . It is so precious that Jesus suffered and died just to save it. (I am not in favor of abortion, but I do not see how condoms, most pills, IUDs and vasectomy can be considered abortifacients. Since they prevent pregnancy, there is no killing of human life involved. ACA) But the secular reason for not blaming the Catholic Church for population explosion in the Philippines is based on statistics as well as common observation that I mentioned in my article that I am sending you as an attachment. But I still regard you as the best one to lead our country. (Thank you, Bart, but as I have told you, I am not a candidate for president or any other office. ACA) Bart Saucelo, M.D., (by email), South Bend , Indiana , April 18, 2007\ wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Hello Tony, I agree with the need for population control, particularly in the countries mentioned in your article. However, I did not know that there was a White Africa. Where is it? Thanks. Ruth McArthur, (by email), April 20, 2007 MY REPLY. I never mentioned a White Africa, but now that you mentioned it, White Africa refers to South Africa and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe ) before black majority rule took over. The Arab Bedouins and Tuaregs in North Africa could also be classified as Whites since they are not considered Blacks. Since you are presumably American, you would know more about these racial distinctions. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Thanks for your quick response. Ruth wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww "Has your mind ever boggled at the fact that hundreds of millions of Roman Catholic couples use artificial methods of birth control, despite the 'immutable truth' of the Church's teachings on contraception?... Good argument for the irrelevancy of the Catholic Church to modern times!! Alexander Po, (by email), April 20, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Mr. Abaya, Before when I read your articles, I appreciate your truthfulness, but here in this article, there is a misconception on your part that morality starts in the Middle Ages, actually being morally correct starts with Jesus in the Bible. There is no change where morality is concerned. (With all due respect, Morality did not begin with Jesus Christ. Thousands of years before Jesus was born, sophisticated civilizations in Egypt , Greece , Mesopotamia , Persia , India , China , Japan , etc had developed their own codes of moral conduct. Even primitive tribes, both then and now, who have never heard of Jesus Christ, have their own concepts of what is right and what is wrong. ACA) Money cannot be compared to morality because money is finite, it is man-made, but morality is not, it is not only connected with our body, but more so with our soul (if you believe you have a soul) (Look again. I never compared Money with Morality. What I did was show that the Church has in the past changed its moral positions. For example, I wrote, it was once a Mortal Sin to lend money with interest. Now it is no longer a Mortal Sin. How do you explain that? There are other historical instances too many to list here. ACA) We cannot force you to change your mind, because that is the free will God has given to you, but upright Christians who does not believe in contraceptives and particularly the Roman Catholic Church should not be mocked because of their beliefs. That is why Jesus is revealing Himself to chosen people these days to remind us of what we are going into nowadays. It is hard for us to educate our people because we cannot influence their minds to our way of thinking (as you said that Catholics are still using contraceptives despite the stand of the Church), that's the price to pay for the free will God granted us. Anyway, if we are concerned, I believe God is more concerned with His people. We don't even know what our future will be, or what God plans for us. Let us just hope that people will really be influenced to be responsible parents. Ely Lerio, (by email), April 20, 20, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony, As long as the Catholic Church expresses opposition to population control, the Philippines will produce more babies. Maybe a more drastic approach should be considered such as making pregnancy a luxury. For instance, raising the cost of all baby products and all pediatric care prohibitive. Furthermore, reward married couples for delaying the creation of a family and punish parents for bringing in all illegitimate children. I guess Ramon Revilla will cry FOUL! Dr. Nestor P. Baylan, (by email), New York City , April 20, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww (Unedited) Dear Tony, Blaming the "senile old men in ivory towers" or a church institution is a sweeping malicious, biased statement. I wish you will also make a research why the first world countries like Japan, Australia, and some countries in Europe with againg population are now encouraging "baby boom" and even giving financial incentives to parents who produce more babies. In those countries there's a problem of young workers supporting the older ones. Italy , for instance, relied much on the million of migrant workers who are in a way supporting the retired people with their tax deduction. In other words, migrants (from populated countries) in the first world countries (with aging populations) are assets in those countries. (This is actually an argument in favor of artificial methods of birth control, which give couples control over how many children they want to have and when. Modern countries with ageing populations do not really want to go back to Vatican Roulette to increase their population growth rates. They plan everything in advance. Birth control gives them the tool to plan in advance. ACA) Moreover, economy or "pursuing their own carreers and/or developing their own personalities", presumably for personal happiness, should not be the main basis why there's a need to drastically curve the growing population. It's self-serving. I've been to "rat race" countries like Italy , other parts of Europe, and now in Australia , and I can say that in spite of their wealth you can't see real happiness in their faces compared to Filipinos living in their day-to-day means. (I have also been to North America, Europe, Japan, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Australia, and I will argue that you cannot accurately judge the degree of personal happiness of individuals just by looking at their faces, much less jump to conclusions that one ethnic group is happier than others. ACA) I'm not endorsing poverty or misery, but there's simply creed in the heart of many (not all) rich people who simply want to accumulate more and more wealth with indifference to their needy brothers and sisters. The wealth of top 10 Filipino multi-billionaires is unimaginable versus millions of souls living in just $1 per day. If they share some of their million dollars/pesos to uplift the lives of those living only with $1 a day, they are still very rich. Population or birth control, therefore, is not the sole solution. (I never said that it is the SOLE solution. ACA) And economy or getting rich or acquiring more wealth (which gives false hope of true happiness) shouldn't be the reason in curving (You mean �curbing� ACA) the population. Lino Balinte, (by email), Australia , April 19, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony: In the abstract. statistically a doubling of the Philippine population every 30 years from the present 88 million to 176 million by 2037, to 352 million by 2067, to 704 million by 2097, and to 1.408 billion by 2127 appears possible But is this inexorable linear progression actually possible--and if possible, sustainable? I don't think so. (Neither do I. That is why I argued that long before 2050, even the Catholic Church will realize that its position against artificial methods of birth control will no longer be tenable, if only because no one will pay any more attention to it. For any religion, the worst fate is to become irrelevant. ACA) The Philippines is already hard-pressed to take care of its present population of 88 million. At least approximately half of this number live lives of extreme deprivation and poverty. With the country's GNP growing at the anaemic rate of anywhere from 5 to 6% annually and population exploding at the annual rate of 1.95%, very little is left in terms of savings and investments. One can say that the Philippines will find it very difficult if not impossible to get out of the hole in which it has found itself all these many years since 1946. Millions are bound to be mired in poverty all their miserable lives. Filipino politicians who blithely say that soon the Philippines will join the ranks of those Asian economic "tigers" like Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and Malaysia are either grossly ignorant or if not are deluding themselves and the Filipino people. It is rather late in the day for the Philippines to launch and aggressively implement a sound, sane and effective Population Control Program. This is a program which necessarily has to make use of all the scientific and artificial means of birth control if it expects to make a real dent over time on the country's exploding population. The Catholic Church's unyielding opposition to such a program has effectively thwarted all past efforts at population control. There is no indication that the Catholic Church will ever change its stand on this very crucial issue. It may have been forced eventually to move from the Ptolemaic to the Copernican and Galilean conception of the Cosmos--but even here the change took hundreds of years to take place. The Roman Catholic Church for centuries was unyielding in its belief that the Earth was the center of the universe! It is bound to be unyielding on its long-held position on population control--perhaps forever! Mariano Patalinjug, (by email), Yonkers , NY , April 20, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww You confuse me, Mr. Abaya. You say Roman Catholics don't follow the church anyway yet you blame the same Church for population growth (But why are you confused? I was referring to Roman Catholics in Europe and the Anglo-Saxon countries, who no longer obey the Church on birth control. On the other hand, I was referring to the institutional Church � especially in the Philippines and Latin America � which still teaches against birth control. Can you not make that distinction? ACA). ".How do you think did/do these Catholic couples limit the number of their children? By solving crossword puzzles until they fell asleep?." "....with hardly a murmur from the Church, which no one would have paid any attention to, anyway" Also, you seem to know much about how the Catholic Church changes teachings with the times yet you are hard pressed on saying that the church teachings on sexual morality is outdated. (Again, why are you confused? I wrote that the Church changes its teachings over time. I also wrote that the Church has not yet changed its teachings on birth control, but I am sure that it will in the future, because it has done so in the past. Why can you not understand that? ACA) Please Mr. Abaya, stick on what you really know and not deal on things such as religion and morality which seems you hardly had an inkling of. (If you believe that you know more about religion and morality than I do �as you obviously do � then explain to me why it used to be a Mortal Sin to lend money with interest, and now it isn�t. Explain to me why the Church used to jail, punish, torture and burn at the stake people who taught or believed that the Earth revolved around the Sun, but now it doesn�t. Presumption of superior knowledge is not an argument unless you can show it with facts and logic. ACA) Serafin Dudeo, (by email), April 21, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Thanks Tony, Do you intend to stay around for the year 2050? What is your objective in telling us all about what the population will be in the Philippines in 2067, as well as 2097? Looks lie an excercise in futility. (This is a dumb response, Jaime, and you know it. I didn�t think that anyone with your education would come up with such a dumb statement. In case you have not guessed, I have children and grandchildren as well as nephews and nieces with their own children, who will be around in 2037 when the population of this country will be 176 million, and 2067 when the population will be 352 million, based on current population growth rates. Is it not only natural that I am concerned about their future? If your family tree begins and ends with you, I can understand your indifference. But in Logic as well as in Science, it is valid to project into the future to demonstrate the fallacy or absurdity of the present conventional wisdom. ACA) The present young Filipino population is an asset. The Overseas Workers are lately an asset of over 12 Billion Pesos to the Nation. (At what social costs? Broken families, juvenile delinquency, marital infidelity, homosexuality, etc. I thought you guys were upset by these things. I thought you guys believed that man does not live by 12 billion pesos alone. ACA) Modern society has decided that earning a living is their priority and have reduced their populations to O% growrh. The poor farmer and his family consider their children as an asset to development and growth of the nation. It looks like some of the elite Filipino want to decide the what is good for Juan de la Cruz. They even want them to vote only for candidates with diploms/degrees. Thanks God the Filipino people have decided their own future and have stopped listening to the establishmnet on what is supposed to be for their own good. MOre power to them. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Do you recall that there was an Ice Age and the Land bridges that sprouted out of the receding waters of the world? From what I have read Global Warning is not as predictable, nor black or white as is being claimed. I understand that research by a Freeburg, Germany professor, Ernest-George Beck of the Merian-Schule, shows that the IPCC, Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change construed and concoted the pre-1957 CO2 record from mesurments on recently drilled ice cores, ignoring more than 90,000 direct mesurments by chemical methods from 1857 to 1957. "The IPCC's hooked-up record attempts tp prove that CO2 concentrations have been steadily increasing with the progress of human industrial civilization. Beck's work confirms a wealth of previous investigtions which demonstrate that the IPCC cherry-picked its data in an attempt to prove that we must stop industrial development and return to the horse-and-buggy age, or face oppressive heat and melting of the polar ice caps. It shows that the Kyoto Treaty on reduction of green- house gases was based on a scientific fraud which violates the laws of the universe, denying the well-established determination of climate by cyclical variations in the Earth-Sun orbital relationships and in the Sun's heat output. "In a through review of 175 scientific papers, Professor Beck found that the fathers of the greenhouse theory, Guy Stewart Callendar and charles David Healing, had completely ignored careful and systematic measurments by some of the most famous names of physical chemestry, among them several Nobel Prize winners. Measurements by these chemist showed that today's atmospheric CO2, concentration of about 380 parts per million (ppm) has been exceded in the past, including a period from 1936 to 1944, when the CO2 levels varied from 393 to454.7 ppm. "Ironically, although the 1940s increase corelated with a period of avrage atmospheric warming. Beck and others have shown that the warming preceded actual historical CO2 concentrations. "The data reviewed by Beck came mainly from the Northern Hemisphere. geographically spread from Alaska over Europe to Poona , India , nearly all taken from rural areas or the periphery of towns without contamination by industry, at a measuring height of approximately two meter above ground. Evaluation of chemical methods revealed a maximum error of 3% down to 1% in the best case. "By contrast, the measurements hooked up from ice cores, show a rather steady increase in C2 levels, convieniently corresponding to the preconceived idea that increasing industrial activity has produced a steady CO2 increase. As Beck's colaborator, Dr. Zbigniew Joaworowski, former senior adviser of the Polish radiation monitoring service and a veteran mountaineer who has excavted ice from 17 glaciers on six continents, has shown, the gaseous inclusions in ice cores have no validity as historical proxies for atmospheric concentrations. The continual freezing, and refreezing and pressurization of ice columns drastically atlers the original atmospheric concentrations of the gas bubbles. Abrazos , Jaime Calero, (by email), Sydney , Australia , April 21, 2007 MY REPLY. If you are going to copy, word for word, someone else�s writings, make sure, at least, that the spellings and punctuations are correct because you are, in effect, assigning your mistakes to the original author.. Of course, not everyone believes in Global Warming. But just because Ernest George-Beck does not believe in it does not mean he is right or that I have to believe him. To this day, millions of Americans do not believe in Evolution There are states in the US South (for example, Georgia ) where it is illegal to teach Evolution even in Biology class. I am sure there are tribes in the Amazon rain forest who believe that the world is flat. Each one to his own fantasy. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony, Thank you for sharing your thoughts on different issues. I have a question regarding your statement that lending money (with interest) used to be a mortal sin in Medieval Europe, I am interested to know what was your basis for it? Also, can you kindly cite a church or magisterium document to support your statement? Thank you for your kind attention. Regards, Henry Siy , (by email), April 21, 2007 MY REPLY. We took this up briefly in Moral Theology at the Ateneo. But was 50 years ago. I do not recall the references used. But you can look it up in the Catholic Encyclopedia., as well as in the search engines of Yahoo and Google. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Mr. Tony, I couldn't agree with you more. With all due respect to these "senile old men in their ivory towers", espousing an unattainable natural method of birth control is just plain arrogance. They don't have the faintest idea how difficult it is to practice withdrawal, rhythm or abstinence. Even banks frown on too much withdrawal (pun intended) how much more one's sexual partner? Not now, honey, next month. Tell it to the marines!!! Tell it to the guys with raging hormones!!! Tell it to the "senile old men in their ivory towers." I was taught that God gave every human being an intelligent mind. My God we must use it by all means. Regards, Napoleon P. Serrano - a Catholic, (by email) Dhahran , Saudi Arabia , April 21, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww I am a Roman Catholic but on the issue of birth control I am on the other side of the fence in relation to the Catholic Church. Here in Tacloban City , I have heard so many priests rant against artificial birth control and family planning in general. But I have not heard a single, clearly outlined argument against it from any priest. I have heard one priest talk about it in an entertaining manner, comical but nonsensical. Obviously, a priest's lack of true experience in relation to family life sets them apart from the rest of us mere mortals on the street. Sometimes I feel that the Catholic Church in the Philippines is intent on telling us how to live our lives - always looking at everyone else's backyard but never in their own. One of these days, I would love to hear or read about a priest who publishes balance sheets, income-expense accounts of his parish and lets the Parish Pastoral Council handle funds of the parish. In fact, they should all post a schedule of fees for the paid services that they render. Patrick de los Reyes, (by email), Tacloban City , April 21, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww The Church�s teachings change over time. A proof of this is the recent action taken by Pope Benedict (formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger). In writings before his election as Pope in 2005, he made it clear he believed the concept of limbo should be abandoned because it was "only a theological hypothesis" and "never a defined truth of faith." Today, the Roman Catholic Church has effectively buried the concept of limbo, the place where centuries of tradition and teaching held that babies who die without baptism went. More of this can be read in the article �Catholic Church buries limbo after centuries� (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070420/ts_nm/pope_limbo_dc). I agree with you that the Church�s teachings on contraception will change in due time. The Church has to accept the reality that Catholics use contraception even though the teachings of the Catholic Church is against such. [email protected], April 21, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww More Reactions to �Idiot Candidates� (Feb. 04, 2007) Dear Mr Abaya, The only way to end government corruption is by educating its victims. There is no guiding principle in taking the easy quick fix, there is only expediency.. Thank you and good day, Rudy Asercion, (by email), April 09, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwww I'm one with you in what you think could change the wind of spoiled politics here. In addition, I think, if we should give qualifying exams to aspiring politicians, it should also cover psychological and best of all "loyalty to the country and to the people" exam. And if they fail even once, they shall not be allowed to run on any public position... for their entire life, so as to send them a simple message that they should have what it takes to hold a public position and that it is not a "toy" nor a crowning glory for their profoundness. [email protected], April 15, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww More Reaction to �Casualties of War� (Feb. 25, 2007) It is hard to react when what you are reacting to might evoke unpleasant feelings. Because there was little that I can remember even in 1945 at age 4, or refuse to remember, I tried not to absorb everything you have written or what two recent books (one by Chitang Nakpil) on the war and its after-effects have exposed. I felt that there is now a new generation of Japanese and I should not let effects of war affect how I feel towards them, but the recent write up on the aging "comfort women" (PDI's Sunday magazine 3/8/07) who continue to fight for their rights awaken feelings that should have been left untouched. It is hard to forgive them even during Easter time. But then Jesus extended His arms to show how much He loved me and died on the cross. Maybe this thought will help me forgive the way He did. Or maybe someday you will write something pleasant about the Japanese that will help me do just that. Or maybe when the Japanese Prime Minister admits the crime and does something about it. I now know how much my parents went through during that period, and it made me love them more deeply. They never talked much about it. Thank you for that. Pura Flor Isleta, (by email), April 09, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww More Reaction to � Vietnam Surges Ahead� (Nov. 28, 2006) Mr. Abaya, With respect to your articles about the economic miracle in Vietnam this past decade, I�d like to share my personal observations. These may explain the quality these people had which ultimately led to their success and what others may have lacked that caused continuous struggle. I hope this piece will incite the reader to reflect and induce changes to benefit Philippine society. To demonstrate my case, allow me to share my experience. I�m a government representative in a major aerospace company in the Los Angeles area. The company is about a dozen miles from Little Saigon and there are a good number of Vietnamese working there. Although these people remain a minority, they made quite an impact. What I�m referring here transcends their work ethic and professionalism; it extends to their unity and organization. In this occasion, the workers had a grievance. When the worker�s strong union failed in its attempt to help, the Vietnamese organized and imposed upon themselves a work slow-down. This action impacted production and schedule such that management capitulated. While this in itself was commendable, what followed showed the strength and core of their character . Instead of gloating, boasting, or bragging, they simply went back to work. No inflated egos as a result of their triumph and empowerment . Thanks to your articles about the phenomenal growth in Vietnam , I contemplated on what sets this people apart, the essence to their accomplishments. By observing my Vietnamese friends and associates, I found they�re not into bragging, boasting, or �ethnic pride�. Instead, these people preferred to let their achievements speak for themselves. I believe this underlying trait stems from humility. Freed from ego, they were able to concentrate their energy on what is important and ignore the superficial. With humility they managed to raise the bar. In business, management, mass media, education and especially politics, they�ve made great strides. In Orange County where Little Saigon is located, there are at least 10 Vietnamese currently holding elected positions; from state assembly to school board. These are significant achievements for a group that arrived mostly after the fall of South Vietnam in 1975. To make this observation a possible lesson in cultural re-engineering, allow me to compare and contrast the Vietnamese experience to another country on the wrong end of the �humility spectrum". As reported in two articles, New York Times (2001) and Los Angeles Times (2006), this country�s people were known for their arrogance. What was alarming about this story was this nation�s eerie similarities with the Philippines . Both were former colonies of Spain , Catholic, educational leaders in their respective regions, richly endowed in natural resources, and yet so poorly managed by its human resources. Both suffered constantly from economic, social and political upheavals in their modern hi story. The only major difference is geography. Setting political correctness aside, the country I�m referring is Argentina . The parallels between Argentina and the Philippines are too numerous to let this escape without mention. The contrasting lessons from the Vietnamese and Argentines may be vital in resetting the Philippine�s cultural compass in the right direction. I believe the reason for the Philippine�s corruption and dysfunction lies in its culture. This culture is what�s preventing the country from achieving its full potential. In order to right-the-course, mass media and history need to be re-examined. I believe the negative messages unwittingly transmitted by both led to the path of cultural corruption and dysfunction. Starting with mass media, after watching Philippine television or reading newspapers, I noticed the word �pride� frequently mentioned or inferred. After giving it some thought, I realized that pride had become a Filipino mantra of sorts. The intent may be right, but consider �the road to hell is fraught with good intentions�. Pride had led the country to hell. The other culprit, history, is not bad in itself; rather due to the omissions, misinterpretations or half truths of historical teachings. The resulting lessons turned into erroneous examples or bad role models. Such messages corrupted the thinking of subsequent generations. No wonder the country has a trend of recycling the same mistakes. Allow me to argue two historical examples where pride played indirect roles in confounding Filipinos problems while faced against foreign aggressors. The first was in 1570, when Spanish forces under Martin de Goiti threatened Rajah Sulayman and the Tagalogs of Tondo, Manila . A neighboring tribe encouraged Sulayman to battle the Spaniards and promised aid to the threatened rajah in the war. Unbeknownst to Sulayman, this tribe already made a deal with the enemy to throw the fight. Their motive in this charade was to gain �bragging rights�. The tribe had to participate in a battle in order to appear �brave� before surrendering to Spain . The consequence of this treachery and swindle was lost trust. In my opinion, this duplicity resulted in a �domino effect� of defeats to most of the tribes in Luzon Island . Inter-tribal assistance and cooperation went out the window. An atmosphere of mistrust set in paving the way for Spanish conquest. Incidentally, the descendants of this group will repeat a similar act in the capture of General Emilio Aguinaldo in Palanan, Isabela in 1901. The next incident occurred during the revolution against Spain . This time it was the arrogant founder of the organization. He was described as "parang Dios" (suffers from god complex). He continued to exhibit this trait even after accomplishing his �perfect� battle record of 27 losses and zero (0) win. As a result of his "sterling achievement�, the man naturally lost the leadership in an election. After getting voted out, he refused to relinquish power. Instead, he decided to create a splinter group; essentially choosing civil war in the midst of revolution against Spain . His pride prevented him from subordinating selfish interest to the greater good of the cause. This villain was justifiably executed for treason. Yet the Philippine Congress would later turn around and vote him to be among the national heroes. This act made him a role model to be imitated by succeeding generations. Around here in LA, I�ve observed Filipino organizations (University of the Philippines and Ateneo University Alumni associations among them) with internal disagreements who followed this hero�s example. Instead of finding a common ground and patching their differences, these groups would rather split and turn into rivals. I believe it�s just appropriate to give this unique Filipino trait the name �Andres Bonifacio complex�, in honor of the originator. On the world stage, a similar story happened in WW 2 when two axis powers that preached racial pride and superiority suffered humiliating defeats and major destruction. There�s a saying, �Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make proud�. Pride had cost the Philippines a cruel price of division, dysfunction and self-destruction. This was the case then and this is still happening today. Before it�s too late, consider the heavy price pride had cost the Filipino people. Drop the pride, the bragging and the boasting; for these are purely superficial trappings. If the people can get these out of their system, the nation can unite and start heading in the right direction. Take it from the Vietnamese, they showed how subordinating self interest to the greater good can benefit the nation. They proved that in humility, unity and progress are possible. For a better Philippines , consider humility for a change. Dante G. Balacanao, (by email), Los Angeles , April 15, 2007 �Teaching pride to the oversensitive is like throwing fuel to the fire� OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |