Decent sex education in Philippine public schools. Long overdue. But then how can this become a reality with the Philippine Taliban making sure that “offensive” material is being kept off public school textbooks…
Education officials insist that the bishops [of the Philippine Roman Catholic Church] have nothing to worry about because the [Department of Education] is open to deleting portions of the teaching modules that the Church finds offensive.
Excuse me, but since when does a state institution such as the Department of Education answer to the Roman Catholic Church? This almost seems to me to be an issue of sovereignity, considering that these “Catholic Bishops” are modern-day vassals of Rome.
Perhaps we should now start considering the Pope and his Cardinals as the new overlords of the Filipino people.
Stepping back a bit and thinking about it in broader terms, it seems to me that we Filipinos do indeed have a fundamental flaw in the intellectual underpinnings of our regard for sovereignity. For one thing, sovereignity in the modern sense can only be a reality in the context of the current world order that recognises such a state. The alternative would be the older, rawer, more primitive world order where the sovereignity of any state is sustained by the sword. In such a world, there is no concept of, say, a “United Nations” in whose premises a sovereign state’s flag flies alongside those of other similarly recognised states to endorse its “official” existence.
Indeed, the Philippines’ sovereignity owes its endurance to the more recent world order. Seen against the bigger scheme of the history of human civilisation, it is a world order in which even states with no real means to defend their claim to the territory their people occupy are allowed to exist by those who have the means to overrun them in bloody battle. The irony here is that the “Independence” Day we celebrate on the 12th of June marks a day in 1898 in which we fancied ourselves as having “won” something by the sword — a win not recognised by the powerful keepers of the prevailing world order of the time and most likely recognised with calm bemusement by those of today.
The underlying logic that is at best dysfunctionally inconsistent and at worst downright flawed in our claim to being a legitimate nation, accounts for much of the moronic way we Filipinos have been known to respond to the question of our sovereign nature. Perhaps it is this fundamental glitch that was at work underneath the DepEd’s Freudian slip when confronted with the issue of the content of our textbooks — an incident where a state agency deferred to dogma that originates from a foreign state rather than to the secular government it is supposed to be answerable to.
The fact of the rickety house of cards that is Philippine “sovereignity” is what also keeps things like this year’s “Independence” Day commemorative rights from being immune to politicisation. In the same way that the Aquinos engaged in an emo feud on top of the tradition of the State Funeral back in mid-2009 when former President Cory Aquino died, today the Aquinoists and their leader take an emo response to “Independence” Day rites which out-going President Gloria Arroyo presides over…
Was Noynoy Aquino wrong to snub the Independence Day celebrations last Saturday?
Not at all.
At the very least, why attend a celebration whose purpose is not to celebrate the country’s freedom (or spirit thereof) for the last 112 years but its enslavement over the last nine?
Arroyo’s officials had been announcing it beforehand last week—the Independence Day celebrations would be a testament to her rule, a showcase of her accomplishments during her interminable term. It was obviously going to be a culmination of her (expensive) “legacy campaign,” a campaign dedicated to showing how much this country owes her. Ferdinand Marcos of course had beaten her to quite literally building a monument to himself with a bust in Agoo; she would settle for the next best thing, which was mount an extravaganza for herself.
Again (at the risk of wasting effort puting forth ideas that might simply sail over the heads of the average Inquirer.net reader), I offer an alternative perspective that serves as a reality check on the shallow emotions ellicited by moronisms like the one above, so here is what is real:
All this simply highlights the weakness of character of in-coming President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III and his Yellow Mob. It seems to me that Noynoy would be so small as to opt out of attending an event presided over by outgoing President Gloria Arroyo lest the Yellow Mob see their leader in a position of awkward subordination to the out-going President. It takes a lot of effort for a man of small stature to look stately in the company of a nine-year presidential veteran, you see. So avoiding every opportunity to look awkward is always a prudent course to take.
Indeed:
If Noynoy were truly a man of naturally impressive stature and statesmanship, this is something he would not have needed to worry about.
What I would worry about as Presdient of our excellent Republic is where the producers of our kids’ schoolbooks are deriving editorial license from. Apparently a deep-seated personal insecurity trumps matters of public interest anytime. The trend remains frighteningly consistent.
Somebody needs to be taught
to sit still through a state function…
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