Here is an idiotic article from Gordon Chang of Forbes Magazine
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Thank you, Mari Lim, for suggesting Carlos Celdran as a name we need to know in 2011. [A name we should not mention! We should say He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named!] The multi-talented, much-accomplished [Wah? You just knew the guy and he accomplished a lot? Really? Is this the standard of Forbes magazine?] activist in the Philippines deserves book-length treatment, [Civil and Canon Law books that is. Hah!] but this posting will have to do for the moment.
Want to find Mr. Celdran? Head to Intramuros, the 16th century section of Manila, where he conducts popular walking tours. As he guides you through the walled city, he passes out condoms and birth control pills to the poor. Contraception is one of Celdran’s passions. [You don't want to wonder why...]
And he is certainly passionate. In September, for instance, he was jailed for a flamboyant act that rocked the nation. Clad in a black coat and top hat like that worn [sic] by Philippine national hero Jose Rizal, he stormed into Manila Cathedral during a mass. Then Celdran shouted anti-Church slogans in English and his native Tagalog while holding up a placard emblazoned with “Damaso,” a reference to a reviled friar in a Rizal novel.
And why did Celdran do that? He has been conducting a long-standing campaign against the Catholic Church to stop it from blocking family-planning legislation in the Philippine Congress. [campaign? during his tours. ok got it. I have to redefine the syntax of the word "campaign" according to Chang.] So far, threats of excommunication have persuaded legislators from approving a comprehensive reproductive health bill, which would fund contraception programs. The Church favors abstinence as a method of birth control. [What a load of bull. Not just that but natural methods only!]
In a country where 80.9% of the population is Catholic, the prospect of eternal damnation is a powerful threat. [See where this crappy article is heading? He now draws the line between one's faith and how one runs his family. HEY GORDON! They cannot be separated! We are both Filipino Citizens and Catholic Christians! Deal with it!] Thanks in large part to the Church, the Philippines is the 12th most populous country in the world, with an estimated 99.9 million people as of the middle of this year. In thirty years, there will be 140 million Filipinos. [I have heard this accusation about the Church being guilty of overpopulating the country. Has this guy even been to a slum in Manila or to a village in Mindanao? Because I have been and they are a mix of religions. Some call themselves Catholics but don't go to Mass. Go to Mindanao and the family with the most children are either tribal Filipinos who are not Catholics and Muslims Filipino families. So where this nut got his facts is a mystery to me.]
That’s way too many according to the United Nations and the World Bank. Both these institutions have backed strict population-control measures in the Philippines so that the nation can meet the 2015 Millennium Development Goals. “We’re being left behind by our Southeast Asian neighbors because our population has been growing faster than our economy,” Benjamin de Leon told Reuters. [Ahhh. The Carrot on a Stick project! You want money! Use contraceptives which you can buy using THE MONEY WE LENT YOU!]
The family planning advocate is right. The Philippines has the highest fertility rate in the region, a whopping 3.23 births per female. Only Laos is close.
East Asia is becoming a demographic disaster zone. Japan, the fastest shrinking country in the world, has been getting smaller since 2005. It now has a population of 126.8 million. In less than a century, there will be only 45 million Japanese. In the countryside, whole villages are disappearing at this moment as the elderly die off and the young head to the cities. Japan’s fertility rate is an abysmal 1.20 (a nation will have a stable population if its rate is 2.1).
Other countries are following Japan into a demographic sinkhole. South Korea has a fertility rate of 1.22—and Singapore’s is a catastrophic 1.10. Population giant China claims a fertility rate of 1.2. In fifteen years, and perhaps as few as ten, its population will peak and then rapidly fall off.
It will take a long time for the Philippines to shrink. But, Mari Lim, you’re right that we need to keep our eye on the famous Carlos Celdran. If he gets his way, his country will stop growing at its roaring pace, joining the trend in a region that will soon get smaller.
Demography may not be destiny, but it does, as Nicholas Eberstadt notes, set the limit of what is possible. For Asia, the horizons will narrow as its leading societies shrivel.
Demography, the “relentless maker and breaker of civilizations,” is the next big trend in Asia to watch.
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Hey, Gordon! Wake up call!
The Malthusian Theory is a...T-H-E-O-R-Y!
And get this...It has been debunked by Simon Kuznets. And OH Gordon! He won a Nobel for THAT work!
Don't throw your trash in our backyard! Back off from our lives, Gordon!
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Here are more articles debunking what these maniacs are purporting as Bible truths in population control.
FYI. Dona Consolacion was so happy when Forbes wrote about him. Was it really about the advocacy or about him?
Ehhhh, you know the answer.
The blog of a group of Filipino Catholics and their frank commentary on anything that affects their lives as a citizen of the Philippines and as a Roman Catholics.
Sir,
ReplyDeleteI am a Stranger but as your Comment Mat reads welcome, I'd like to express an opinion.
Perhaps we need to exercise some Christian forebearance in the matter of the Forbes article. It is after all, our Hierarchy's doing that Carlos Celdran has gained such fame or notoriety. It is the Catholic Church that has dragged him into court for offending the religious feelings of the faithful --and thereby dragged itself--and Jose Rizal and Padre Damaso and all that colonial history -- back into the limelight.
If we didn't like this tiny spotlight on Carlos Celdran, we will have nightmares over the Big Spotlight that is about to fall on the Philippine Catholic Church over this Manila Cathedral incident as a tragicomical footnote to the huge clerical paedophilia scandals in America and Europe. God forbid that some local pedophilia case should arise to add insult to injury!
I sympathize with your very apparent and vituperative sense of frustration over what is only bound to grow in fame and notoriety throughout this Free World of ours. It wasn't like this not so long ago, when the Catholic Church wasn't just some Non-Government Organization. Not when she was the Government!
In 1896, by now we would've shot down this cur, Carlos Celdran! Fuego!
That's a really lame way of trying to make an argument against the post. I only got irritated reading your comments, especially the part where you point out non-catholics as the cause of the overpopulation. They only make up a small percentage of the population, so most of the people born are Catholic. The point her was making in saying that the Church carries some blame in the matter is that the Church has been opposing any form of education on human sexuality as well as contraception methods. Since PNoy assuming office, more than 600,000 babies have already been born. How many of them are unwanted and unplanned? If the bill was passed much earlier, some of the babies might have been planned and prepared for much better.
ReplyDeleteThe Malthusian theory may just be a theory, but the hunger and suffering in our country is a reality.
I agree with your little side note that we are both Filipinos and Catholics, and I personally think the separation of Church and State is a little overrated. Nevertheless, I still believe that the population control is necessary. We need to inform and educate our population.
The church should let the bill pass, and then conduct widespread campaigns informing and encouraging people to use natural family planning instead of artificial. Then, they would even help the government address the problems of overpopulation instead of attracting the ire of many Catholic Filipinos for what they are doing.
The church should respect people's choices, and it seems clear that Filipinos strongly support the RH Bill.
I can't decide whether to LOL (laugh out loud) or to puke.
ReplyDeleteThese people, including the writer of that Forbes article, calls themselves as "intellectuals" but fails to to use their common sense.
I am truly disgusted with them. They have PhD, wrote many theses. Supposedly, they should espouse objectivity. But no, because of their bigotry, they promote wrong theories that was debunked a long time ago.
They chant...objectivity objectivity...science science...but they continue to ignore the scientific facts that contradicts their beliefs.
This is only shows that wisdom can only come from God. Those who rebel against God will not only lose wisdom but also common sense.
@Dean Bocobo - I agree with your views that what happened at the cathedral is but the wrongdoings of our bishops. I have blogged about this in the past and I have expressed my frustration with the dilly dallying that our bishops have shown towards doctrinal and moral issues. I am also not surprised that some priests, like the Jesuits of Ateneo, have downplayed Humane Vitae and Evangelium Vitae in determining the right course in this debate. I am still waiting for more concrete steps from the CBCP to address this issue.
ReplyDelete@Turn a Blind I - You wrote that majority of Catholics are for the RH Bill. Ok, so you posit that if the majority wants anything, then we must yield. So what's next? Murder? Abortion? If the majority wants it, then we get it? And you expect the Church, clergy and laity, to sit down and shut up, while the whole world goes up in flames?
No, the Church will not turn a blind eye (pun not intended) and fiddle.
The Church is NOT, I repeat, NOT against family planning. It is against artificial means!
The hunger and poverty in our country is not caused by overpopulation. It is caused by social structures that prevent people from advancing.
I have been all over the Philippines and our country is not lacking in able bodies who are willing to till the land in order to grow their own food. How can our simple farmers make both ends meet when middlemen and loan sharks make a living out of their desperation? How can farmers make a living out of their harvests when the government allows imported produce to come into the country.
I have worked in the government sector and I have witnessed first hand how these people siphon government funds in the name of "civil service eligibility".
No, Turn A Blind I, the country is not poor because of too many Filipinos. It is poor because we deserve the government that we have.
We have 99 million souls who have the will to toil and earn a decent living. If only we are given the opportunity, then we can be like India and China.