Kudos to the Filipinos!!

Voters to go for candidates who promote contraceptives –surveys

---

by Lilita Balane, Newsbreak | 03/12/2010 7:03 PM

MANILA, Philippines – Most Filipino voters would choose presidential candidates who openly support a national family planning law, according to surveys released on Friday by 2 major polling firms.

The surveys were commissioned by 2 different groups advocating family planning.

In the survey on family planning conducted by Pulse Asia, more than 6 out 10 (or 64%) of respondents said they would vote for candidates who promote the use of contraceptives.

In Congress, the provision for government funding for contraceptives has been the most divisive part of the reproductive health bill, which lawmakers failed to put to vote in almost a decade.

Now, an election year, Pulse Asia’s survey also shows that about 75% of the voters  deem important that family planning be included in a candidate’s program of action.

Only 6% of the respondents in the February 21-25 survey, said that they will not support candidates backing modern family planning; 30% are undecided. The survey interviewed 1,800 respondents, and has ± 2% nationwide margin of error.

via Voters to go for candidates who promote contraceptives –surveys | ABS-CBN News Online Beta.

You know what their arguments sound like? The arguments of The Best And The Brightest against letting Vietnam fall. Letting Vietnam fall would lead to the fall of most Asian nations to communism. This reeks of the small mindedness and ultimately wrong headed infallibility approach to policy making.

Mind your own business

via Mind your own business | Filipino Voices.

March 2nd, 2010 by Manuel Buencamino

“The ratio of tolerance of our bishops towards the excesses of the Arroyo regime is directly proportional to their intolerance for condoms and contraceptives.” – Philip Gilmore

Health secretary Esperanza Cabral decided to distribute free condoms “to those who cannot afford it” because HIV/AIDS cases are spreading at an alarming rate. That earned her the ire of the Catholic Church.

One bishop denounced her timely intervention as immoral and warned her that, “she already has one foot in hell and many more might suffer the same fate” if she did not stop what she was doing.

“It’s very immoral for someone in a government position to support the distribution of condoms which we know, do not really reduce or stop the spread of HIV-AIDS. It’s scary because it’s the morality of our society, especially of our youth, that is at stake. We only wish that Cabral would change because she already has one foot in hell. People might suffer the same fate,” the bishop said.

Another bishop refused to accept the fact that Cabral’s primary duty as the secretary of health is to safeguard the public’s physical wellbeing, not their spiritual health and salvation. He wanted her fired for reasons that would make sense only if the Philippines were a theocratic state like Iran or an Afghanistan under Taliban rule.

“Secretary Cabral should not continue serving until June because the culture and morality of society will be endangered under her. First, she does not respect the big number of Catholics in the country who oppose the distribution of condoms. Second, is she Catholic? I doubt that she is. Because if you are a Catholic and in the government, you should be living the teachings of the Church. But she is doing the opposite.”

Read the whole thing!

This past is littered with the detritus of contradictions, some of them very sad because they expose a dangerous fault in our character. Our loyalties circumscribed by ethnicity, family and ego obstruct the making of a nation. And this is what we still are this very day — Caviteños, Warays, Ilokanos — we are yet to be a nation. Our institutions of nationhood in themselves are hollow as evidenced in the corruption in the highest precincts of power, in our continuing poverty, not only the physical kind but the most damning of all — which is the poverty of the spirit.

In that tumultuous event in Tejeros, General Artemio Ricarte turned his back on his former leader. If Bonifacio was betrayed at Tejeros, Aguinaldo himself was, in turn, betrayed later on in Palanan when the Macabebe collaborators tricked him into his capture by the Americans.

This is all water under the bridge; now we must realize how our leaders today have betrayed us, too; they used the slogans of nationalism, the enduring ties of kinship, of patronage to assume power and colonize us.

Aside from these painful contradictions, our past also informs us how empty our country is of the hoary civilizations of Asia, the great temples, the classical arts and particularly literature, which our part of the world has in abundance.

Must we then, particularly those of us who write, feel inferior to our neighbors with their ancient cultural achievements, their great pre-colonial art?

via To the young writers of Cavite – HINDSIGHT By F Sionil Jose | The Philippine Star >> Lifestyle Features >> Arts and Culture.

Whilst the whole media is happily covering the election fever, the suffering that our countrymen in the north is experiencing is heart wrenching. This is why countries like the US and Japan have extensive agricultural insurance. The practice of agriculture is especially dependent on many factors that are beyon the control of the farmers. This is a humanitarian problem in the making. This may not end well. I pray my fear are just that fears.

READ THE WHOLE THING.

The current ENSO and its agricultural effects has environmental scientists worried. On the human health side, many Filipinos have no experience of prolonged hot and dry weather. This is revealed that for many of us, the experience of extremely hot weather is limited to “Holy Week” and that really only lasts for 4 days! Extended periods of having 38 C or more temps in Metro Manila may result in a higher death rate among the elderly and those with cardiovascular health problems similar to what was experienced in the European summer heat wave of 2005, when an estimated 10,000 people or more died. The Europeans were not used to having prolonged spells of temperatures above 33 C. While PAGASA may forecast Manila to have 34-35 C temps, our heat island research points out that the real temps due to the effects of a built -up environment can be 3-4 C more than the forecast temperature. So we can have extended periods of having 39-40 C temperature. People living in desert climates are used to this and have behavioral adaptations to cope with this, but I doubt if we Filipinos have these adaptations.

But as a wag told me, we Filipinos are particularly adapted to talking about politics. (FV posts are a supreme example!)

But seriously, the food security situation is beginning to look dire and it is just the end of February. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo may turn over the presidential palace to her successor on June 30 with a famine on her train. Ask any of your grandparents who lived through World War II. They would tell you that the Filipino people experienced famine within the last century only during the Japanese occupation and that was not due to climate change but to colonial master change!

The next President of the Philippines should now be aware that even as a candidate poverty or corruption are not the immediate problems but food security. Surely these are problems but their solutions will take more than one presidential term. Food security can be immediately addressed at the start of the term.

via It’s really bad and frightening | Filipino Voices.

In a discussion of insurance market reforms, President Obama asks Republican Senator John Kyl to move away from talking points and focus on finding common areas of agreement. The President responds to Kyl: “Any time the question is phrased as ‘Does Washington know better?’ I think we’re kind of tipping the scales a little bit there, since we all know that everybody is angry at Washington right now it’s a good talking point, but it doesn’t actually answer the underlying question, which is do we want to make sure that people have a baseline of protection?’”

angol here: I believe that what’s mostly said in Presidential forums can be classified as ”

“It’s a good talking point, but it doesn’t actually answer the underlying question”

“

I can guess that we probably have a high coverage rate in the Philippines. This is because unlike the US in the Philippines if you have work you have PhilHealth,SSS and GSIS. This leaves two groups of people out. The rich people who don’t “work” (own business , etc), and the very poor who can’t but it. Of the rich, they obviously have cash to burn but I suspect if in the USA one of the major causes of bankruptcy is medical emergency/conditions then the rich of the Philippines may not have it any much better. The poorest of the poor have healthcare if they live in Makati and Muntinlupa and during elections government officials such as the soon to be former president distribute PhilHealth Cards.

What I’m trying to say is that during the happy moments that my mind wanders towards the Philippine Government I see PhilHealth, SSS and GSIS, without the same kind of fight that the US encountered in trying to enact them. What I see is a Davao where I saw less people smoking because of too many restrictions (that I agree with). What I see is a Makati where Jejomar Binay is showing the Philippines what can be done by the local government for it’s constituents. What I see is a President (GMA) who has shown just how powerful the presidency can be with the right incentives.  We have a people whose trying to learn about the candidates.  We have the BIR harrassing Shell which shows we aren’t as controlled by corporations as the US (Although I don’t agree with what they are doing, this is almost extortion).

There is hope. The Philippines is not that far away from where it could be!!!

Senator Tom Harkin reminded those at the meeting that while it’s easy to get caught up in the debate over numbers and policy details, it’s ultimately about making progress to help ordinary folks across the country struggling under today’s broken system. Senator Harkin said, “I keep thinking we have got to bring it back home to what this is all about. We all have our stories. I got a letter yesterday from a farmer in Iowa that really encapsulates it. [He said] ‘I’m a 57-year-old Iowa farmer. I’m writing to voice my concern regarding my family’s rapidly escalating health care costs. On Saturday, February 20th, I received a noticeinforming me that our health insurance premium will be increasing $193.90 per month to a monthly total of $1,516.20. This is a 14.6% increase.’”

pointer from here: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/doc/2010/02/25/what-you-see-is-what-they-buy/

this is nice , hope we advance enough to be able to do this!! Manny Villar (Vista Land) ,  Noynoy Aquino (ABS-CBN, Ayala Group of Companies), Gilbert Teodoro  (Government???), Eddie Villanueva ( His followers?) , Jamby (Meron ba?)

Excellent read. This was a letter written by Yunus defending his bank on accusations of below board practices. Loved reading this.

A Counter-Culture

Grameen had to create a banking counter-culture of its own. Grameen's central focus is to help poor borrower move out of poverty, not making money. Making profit is always recognised as a necessary condition of success to show that we are covering costs. Volume of profit is not important in Grameen in money-making sense, but important as an indicator of efficiency. We would like to make more profit so that we can reduce interest rate — and pass on the benefits to the borrowers. In Grameen system when a borrower cannot pay back we try to activate our system to help her overcome her problems, rather than go in a punishing mode.

We consider credit as a human right. We built our system on the faith that the poor always pay back. Some times they take longer than the originally scheduled time period, sometimes natural disasters like flood, drought, cyclone, etc and political unrest, rules and procedures of the bank, make it difficult or impossible to pay back; but given the opportunity they pay back. Non-repayment is not a problem created by the borrowers, it is created by factors external to them.

We have always carefully avoided the practices of the conventional banks to make sure we do not fall into the same logical loop which kept the poor out from financial institutions. Grameen had to create new systems to balance financial and human considerations. For example, it presents loan information separately for women and men, lists meticulously every single business of the borrowers in its annual report, and recognizes that a house is not just a house, but a workplace for the poor women, something that is categorised as a 'consumption' loan by the conventional banks is actually a 'production' loan for the poor. Grameen is a system based on human-relationships, not on threats of penalty imposed by legal system or any other agency. Grameen required new style of business, new banking culture of its own.

Sometimes people who are used to conventional banking become suspicious of Grameen because it is different. It is a conflict of two different banking cultures. Just because they do not understand us, they think we are wrong. When they spend some time with us with patience they start enjoying the exciting world of Grameen banking.

via Grameen Bank – Response to Wall Street Journal article.

Watch this video.

from Experimental Theology

For years, acclaimed author and speaker Tim Wise has been electrifying audiences on the college lecture circuit with his deeply personal take on whiteness and white privilege. In this spellbinding lecture, the author of White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son offers a unique, inside-out view of race and racism in America. Expertly overcoming the defensiveness that often surrounds these issues, Wise provides a non-confrontational explanation of white privilege and the damage it does not only to people of color, but to white people as well. This is an invaluable classroom resource: an ideal introduction to the social construction of racial identities, and a critical new tool for exploring the often invoked – but seldom explained – concept of white privilege.