There are many things that i wanted to see change, therefore i claim to remain an activist, even if no longer as by definition of the status quo left. Having been gone and back gave me the capacity to look introspectively on what makes us tick and not tick as a people. The level of our conservativeness utterly disgusts me as it hampers the growth of our nation. The Philippines is indeed one conservative hell hole, that is, foremost religiously conservative which seeps and interferes government decision making, overruling state policy and hijacking culture. Take for instance 5 issues that government has an awfully backward stance due to Catholic dogma/Christian monopoly on our culture -
Abortion, Population Control, LGBT rights, Divorce and the Separation of Religion and State.
Among the five, I strongly believe that
Population Control should be a top priority of the state. It's even outrageous to think that many activist of the left of center belie the urgency of overpopulation. What's more dumber to hear are the catholic and other christian fundamentalists quoting the bible, that god allegedly instructed man to populate the earth without limit...err something to that effect, hence control is against their moral bedrock, overriding reason and elementary mathematics of the
malthusian limit. Immigration (or diaspora), Urban decay, Water Crisis, Food Crisis, Poor School Facilities and many other conditions of our pathetic third world are directly and indirectly testaments to the unabated growth of our population as it outpaces the actual capacity of society in producing goods and creating services. Yet looking introspectively is something Filipinos almost always never do, as we see problems exist externally and with that our tenacity to fault someone or something else. Inversely proportional to that is also our collective denial of individual accountability to the bigger picture. For example, the current rice crisis in our country is due to many factors beyond the control of the individual. And yes true, such as government's irresponsibility and lack of foresight. However still, hypothetically a construction worker earns minimum wage (at Php5,000) and has 10 children to feed with a wife who washes clothes in daytime. The construction site's engineer on the other hand earns quadruple that and only has 2 children with a wife who probably works as a clerk. This disparity is undeniable existing yet we fail to see this as one of of the crux to our woes.
The other thing worthy of note is the state of Women's Rights and feminist attitude in our country. I can say that it is relatively more progressive compared to many Islamic countries and or Latin American countries even if machismo and male bravado is still the rule of thumb. But then again, because of our tight catholic upbringing and the "sanctity of life", our society has deprived women from their reproductive rights, specifically the right to
Abortion and Divorce. Although I do believe that it should be strictly regulated and highly restricted to cases such as rape and or endangerment of a woman's life, the bottom line is that we have a long way to go in emancipating our attitudes with regards to women's rights.
The Catholic Church in the Philippines remains a reactionary and backward force to reckon with. The absence of
Divorce and
Gay Rights in this country also reflects the entertwining of church and state. And unless the state can completely secularize herself and liberalize culture, we are basically choosing to be poor rather than immoral in the eyes of the pope.
