Reforms started by Robredo crucial for nation-building

By DILG-Office of Public Affairs and MYLES JOSEPH COLASITO
August 21, 2012

Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Jesse Robredo has advanced reforms in local government and the interior sector that are crucial for the country’s “matuwid na daan”, government officials, lawmakers, civil society organizations, the academe, urban poor groups, and other supporters said on Sunday.

Sec. Robredo’s body has been found this morning by search and rescue teams in Masbate City, ending almost three days of waiting. He was on his way home to Naga City after two speaking engagements in Cebu City, when the twin-engine Piper Seneca aircraft he was on crash-landed off Bgy. Obingay, Masbate City around 500 meters away from the airport runway.

Fishermen rescued Sr. Police Inspector Jun Abrazado after he lost consciousness trying to protect the secretary, but Sec. Robredo and the two pilots unfortunately still perished.

Movement for Good Governance chairperson Solita Monsod said it was crucial that the reforms Sec. Robredo has begun be continued and that his replacement would make sure that the ideals he fought for be protected.

Up until the night before his departure for Cebu, Sec. Robredo had been pushing his management team to find more effective ways to advance reforms in local governance and the interior sector. He was particularly focused on drumming up public support for the Full Disclosure Policy (FDP), an instrument that he hoped would advance transparency and accountability in local governance.

The FDP, the crown jewel of Sec. Jesse’s work in local governance, requires LGUs to disclose in public places 12 key financial documents that show how funds are spent. As of June 2012, 1,697 or 99% of LGUs have complied with the policy. This is validated by latest Pulse Asia and Social Weather Stations surveys that show more Filipinos now observe transparency and accountability in their localities.

The FDP is a requirement in the conferment of the Seal of Good Housekeeping, which is awarded to LGUs every year. The Seal of Good Housekeeping rewards honesty and excellence in local governance. As of June 2012, 856 LGUs who have qualified for the SGH have been granted P1.1 billion from the Performance Challenge Fund – money that based on the guidelines are spent for the poorest of the poor.

“Lagi ko pong sinabi na itinaas na natin ang antas o sukat ng paglilingkod. Hindi na sapat na tayo ay matino lamang. Hindi rin sapat na tayo at mahusay lamang. Hindi lahat ng matino ay mahusay, at lalo namang hindi lahat ng mahusay ay matino. Ang dapat ay matino at mahusay upang karapat dapat tayong pagkatiwalaan ng pera ng bayan,” the Secretary is fond of saying.

Last Friday, he wanted to start an advocacy campaign so that ordinary citizens would use the maximum benefits from the tool to demand good governance and transparency from their local leaders.

In Eastern Visayas, DILG-8 Regional Director Pedro A. Noval Jr. said the office will offer a mass for Robredo and his two companions. The DILG in its regional and field offices will also fly its flag at half-mast in honor of the deceased DILG Secretary.

“We grieve with the family of Secretary Robredo. His death is a big loss to the DILG and the cause of good governance,” said Dir. Noval. Secretary Robredo is credited with initiating more participation, accountability, responsiveness and transparency in both LGUs and in the Department itself.

In response to Secretary Robredo’s prime advocacy, the FDP, DILG field personnel and local officials in Region VIII collaborated in achieving 100% compliance to FDP by all towns, cities and provinces in the region in the first semester of 2012, up from a low compliance in 2011.

He also gave instructions that illegal logging be stopped, and those involved be made accountable.

Sec. Robredo had also been tirelessly improving disaster risk reduction and mitigation capabilities of local government units across the country. He has introduced the Seal of Disaster Preparedness, another incentive mechanism to help LGUs deal with disasters and calamities. “The important thing here is reducing casualties to zero,” he said.

As of the first semester of this year, 8,504 LGUs already have functional disaster management councils. Exactly 1,539 have command centers and alarm systems. They now have emergency response, rescue, and medical teams, and evacuation centers.

Having been a Mayor in Naga City for 19 years, Sec. Robredo was strict about ensuring that each LGU’s business process licensing system are streamlined and highly effective. The Department committed to the Millennium Challenge Corp. to streamline the BPLS of 120 LGUs in four years. As of June 2012, 748 LGUs have already streamlined their BPLS within a two-year period. This has raised revenue collection by as much as 7% in Lapu-Lapu City and 18% in Butuan City.

The latest National Competitiveness Survey results showed that 70% of businessmen respondents received permits in three days or less. In fact, 17% did so and less than two hours.

Sec. Robredo believed that measuring outcomes lead to improvement. He enhanced the Local Governance Performance Management System (LGPMS), a tool to measure LGU performance, by turning it into an assessment tool validated by third-party assessment. This is a departure from the old system of self-assessment.

Consolidated results of the LGPMS shows that there has been a consistent increase in the number of LGUs with high overall performance ratings, from 913 in 2009 to 1,050 in 2010, to 1,261 in 2011.

There has also been a 200% leap in the number of LGUs that allow civil society organizations, public organizations, the academe and religious groups to participate in local governance. A concrete example of this is the DILG’s partnership with the Ugnayan ng mga Barangay at Simbahan (UBAS) to monitor LGU budgets and with Ateneo School of Government and De La Salle University’s monitoring of public services in the local governments.

In ARMM, Sec. Robredo was instrumental in the promotion of transparency and accountability among local governments through the Seal of Good Housekeeping in ARMM. The DILG is also on top of the reform program in ARMM with funding of P8.59 billion.

In the interior sector, Sec. Robredo batted for a vision that every Filipino can walk the streets unafraid 24x7. In 2011, crime rate went down 23.8%. Financial reforms in the Philippine National Policy also led to the 54% increase in the budget for field units to P1,000 per capital from P650. This means the police have more funds for uniform, shoes, bullets and other needs. Police visibility has also increased with the field deployment of 90% of the police force, as opposed to 85% previously.

Through the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), the DILG initiated investigations and formally filed charges against individuals involved in spurious procurement contracts.

“Tatapatin ko po sainyo, minsan mabigat sa dibdib ko ang gawaing ito. Subalit pag nakikita ko po yung ordinaryong pulis sa kaduluduluhang istasyon, sinasabi ko po sa aking sarili kailangan ko pong gawin ito para sa kanya. Ito na lang po ang kaniyang pag-asa at magsilbing huwaran din na dapat ang matuwid na daan ang syang dapat nating tahakin,” Sec. Robredo told officials of the interior sector during his New Year’s Call early this year.

Sec. Robredo declared just last week that he intended to pursue all these reforms at whatever cost, to ensure that the “matuwid na daan” of the President is well lighted and easy to traverse for every citizen.

“Pinapangako ko po na marami pa tayong pakikinabangan sa mga repormang pinalakas natin sa DILG. Paiigtingin pa natin ang pagbabago sa lokal na pamahalaan at sa interior sector upang suportahan ang ginagawa nyo sa national. Sa tulog ng opisyal at kawani ng DILG, gagawin ko ang lahat ng aking makakaya para maabot natin ang pangarap ng isang bansang matuwid at maayos ang daan,” reads his prepared statement for his upcoming Commission on Appointments hearing.

Open Letter to President Benigno

“Look Them Straight in the Eye”

By CHANDU CLAVER
July 31, 2012

Your much-acclaimed State of the Nation Address, “Report Kay Boss,” last July 23 was a big disappointment. On your third SONA, you never even mentioned the white elephant in the room – the human rights situation in the Philippines.

Human rights violation data (Karapatan) show that during the Arroyo administration, there were 1,205 extra-judicial killings and 206 enforced disappearances. The data also show that in the two years of your administration, there were an additional documented 99 extra-judicial killings and 11 enforced disappearances.

These cases do not include the countless number of victims of threats, political vilification, evacuations, torture, rape, and illegal detention. International human rights bodies have similarly documented these violations. And there was not a word of mention in that address. What does this mean, Mr. President? Does this mean that the concerns of the families of these victims of human rights violations are not important enough to merit attention? Does this not fit your scenario of “where a citizen is oppressed, he will find (you) an ally”? From your speech, I am guessing that it does not. Does this mean that you are now tacitly in agreement with these military terror tactics?

After two years of inaction on your part, the families of the victims of the killings and disappearances are now drawing that conclusion. In her 2006 SONA, then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo declared this sentiment when she publicly praised General Jovito Palparan, a notorious human rights violator. Right after your last SONA, you did a similar thing – you designated the Morong 43 torturer Col. Aurelio Balabad to a division command post. I am guessing that you are indeed encouraging these terror tactics.

Or does this also mean that you are so afraid of the military that you dare not mention their dark deeds? You talked tough against corrupt police officials coddled by illegal loggers, but you were meek as a mouse about the bloody acts arising from the military’s Oplans Bantay Laya and Bayanihan. I am guessing that you do not truly believe that the people are your “bosses” because, as I see it, you have higher bosses.

As one of the families of the victims of extra-judicial killings, and on the anniversary of the killing of my wife, I challenge you to “look (us) in the eye” and tell us that my guesses are wrong.

Chandu Claver
Husband of Alice Claver
Extra-judicial Killing Victim (July 31, 2006)
chandu_claver@yahoo.com

The challenge of adolescence

By Fr. ROY CIMAGALA
July 30, 2012

Parents of teen-aged children or those still in high school and early college are really up to some tricky and difficult challenge these days. I am sure they would prefer to tackle other kinds of problems than dealing with their adolescent boys and girls who are in the middle of a dizzying process of transformation in their lives.

All of a sudden they discover that their children are becoming independent-minded and even rebellious, who like to stay out of the house most of the time to be with their friends, and many times unmindful of schedules and other responsibilities.

Given the temper of the times and the increasingly distracting character of the environment, the challenge parents face with respect to these children has become complex and complicated indeed.

It’s imperative that parents be adequately prepared to handle this situation. They should not take this responsibility for granted. It certainly does no harm to them if they attend regular parenting formative classes, since there’s always need for reminders of basic things, let alone, keeping abreast with pertinent current developments.

For example, they need to study the implications of the new things that are the common elements in the adolescents’ lives today – the internet, other gadgets, malls, fashions, the use of money and free time, etc.

Dealing with the adolescents is definitely not a matter of controlling them. That is not the way to bring them up properly. It is more a matter of guiding them, of being with them to give them those timely pieces of advice, reminders, suggestions and, yes, corrections. It’s a matter of motivating them to use their freedom and their other talents and endowments correctly.

Everyone passes through this difficult stage, and so parents should readily understand what their children are going through at this stage. Yes, they can draw from their own experience, but they should also deeply realize that there are new things that they really need to know so as to learn how to handle them.

In this regard, parents should always make it a point to create an atmosphere of harmony at home. The idea is to make the home bright and cheerful, never gloomy and tense. Regular and naturally established moments of dialogue and family conversation, in meals and family get-togethers for example, are a must.

It is in these moments that the parents can closely monitor their children and listen to them so as to understand them as well as to teach them. As much as possible, these practices should become normal daily family activities, already in place while the children are still young and very moldable. This will prevent conflicts and war in the family when the children become adolescents.

Very crucial for the children to understand as early as possible is the value of faith and religion, the need for prayer, the sacraments and virtues, the development of the proper sense of rights, duties and responsibilities, etc.

Children have to know the value of time, the vital and intrinsic relation between work, study and rest. They have to learn how to deal with their emotions and passions. They have to realize the organic connection between freedom and responsibility.

These have to be taught, of course, in a gradual way, as in an inclined plane, always considering the concrete conditions of the children and the circumstances of time and place. In this regard, parents should be pro-active, taking the initiative to plan the formative program of their children and not wait for problems to arise before they move.

This is all worth the effort. There’s no bigger concern to the parents than the proper upbringing of their children.

Parents, of course, should set good example first before they talk. Adolescents are most sensitive and resentful when given lectures. But when they see their parents walking their talk, they readily obey and follow. Actions speaks louder than words.

Parents have to know how to tackle the relevant issues affecting their children – pornography, laziness and idleness, complacency, consumerism and materialism, affections and affairs of the heart, human sexuality, the ‘barkada,’ etc.

In this regard, a certain firmness and clarity has to be exercised even if affection and understanding should never be lacking.

That’s why a good degree of intimacy between parents and children should always be maintained and developed. Parents should take the lead in this, always coming up with initiatives – like planning excursions, eat-outs, fiestas, birthday celebrations, etc., plus continuing personal chats. These things should not be taken for granted.

The art of motivating children should be mastered. Children need constant affirmations of parental love.

The making of a rampage killer

By Fr. ROY CIMAGALA, roycimagala@gmail.com
July 26, 2012

I find it intriguing that the latest rampage killer in the US was described as a loner. Someone commented that the other rampage killers before him were invariably loners too.

We now wonder why the US and many other supposedly rich and developed countries in the West and Australia seem to be breeding loners who turn out to be rampage killers.

It doesn’t mean that Asia, Africa and the East in the general don’t have this kind of individuals. There are many of them too in these places. But they are usually described as ignorant fanatics, or at worst, religious or political terrorists. Not so with their Western counterparts, who are known to be educated and all that.

Is there anything wrong then with Western culture, or is it their current difficult social and economic condition, that turns loners into rampage killers? I suppose there are many reasons and factors that can enter into the explanation of this very disturbing phenomenon.

But we cannot discount the fact that in these places, many broken and dysfunctional families, children raised by single parents, and a good number of adults who remain single and live alone, must contribute to the making of many loners. They provide the elements that lead to horrible sicknesses, mental, emotional, psychological, etc., that loners are most prone to.

The unavoidable relations made among them are hardly of the deep and enduring type. They are most of the time just casual flings, made for merely practical purposes and not anchored on any stable basis, principle or spirit.

It’s really a pity that the relations of people have turned out this way. But this could be because many people do not know anymore what it is to be a person who is supposed to be vitally connected with God and with others.

That a person is a rational, intelligent individual meant to enter into relationship with God first, his creator, and then with everybody else, his equal partners in life, is lost on many people. A person is by definition meant for love – to love God and others.

For them, to be a person is just to enjoy freedom without realizing where it comes from and how it should be used. To be a person is simply to enjoy oneself, unmindful of any external and objective law to govern him. They make themselves their own law, or their own lawgiver, their own God. Selfish in character, it’s a freedom that does feel the need for prayer, for faith, etc.

Freedom has become a captive of a purely subjective interpretation, detached from its objective source and not oriented to its proper goal. It most likely gets entangled in the realm of the material and carnal, the pragmatic considerations, etc. It hardly goes beyond that level. The spiritual, the supernatural, the religious aspects are ignored.

This is often the sickness of liberalism that allows freedom to run wild on its own. It’s a terrible disease because it gives the heady sensation that everything is all right as long as one doesn’t inconvenience another. Any problem can just be solved by some practical means that in themselves are also very prone to manipulations and deceptions.

One of the architects of liberalism and its relative of utilitarianism – the attitude of valuing things according to their usefulness to an individual – was John Stuart Mill, a 19th century British philosopher who actively batted for extreme individualism and even eccentricism.

He certainly had a confused understanding of how a person can be at the same time an individual person and a social being, meant to enter into communion with God and with others. He not only distinguished these two aspects of man’s life, but rather separated them.

In his book, “On Liberty,” he wrote: “It is desirable that in things which do not primarily concern others, individuality should assert itself.” These words already show his tendency to contrast individuality and community.

This attitude is reinforced when he said in the same book, “Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable that people should be eccentric.

“Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded...That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.”

This is a terrifying thought that seems to enter into the ethos of Western culture. There is no mention about God. It is just pure eccentricity that can be based on anything.

This, I believe, is how loners who can turn to be rampage killers are made.

Basic argument for the elimination of police torture

A speech by Basil Fernando, Director for Policy and Programme Development at the Asian Human Rights Commission, Hong Kong. The speech was delivered at the Meeting of Asian Parliamentarians in Hong Kong on the 22 July 2012, as part of the Asian Alliance against Torture and Ill-treatment.

What does police torture mean?

If we were to ask this question, and then proceed to answer it, someone may ask in turn, “Wait, how do you know?” It would take us into realms of epistemology: “how do we know anything?”

Such a question been asked through the ages. And, one answer that has emerged in the last few centuries is that one knows by the collection and observation of data. Our age is symbolized by the images of the telescope and the microscope. And today, we answer questions about what something means through observation and analysis of data.

What about the data on torture?

This data is present in the actual stories of victims of torture. The approach of studying torture through the stories of victims differs from the study of mere statistics. Through stories accurately recorded, we can know what torture is, why it happens, and answer all other associated questions.

What does the known data on torture tell us? What it tells us is of the contradictions in our institutions. Observation and analysis of this data reveals to us the malfunctioning of institutions, which defeat the possibility of achieving rule of law. The study of torture thereby becomes a study of the basic structure of key institutions in our societies, and their peculiar defects.

The data garnered from the stories of victims reveals to us the utter stupidity of the way our major institutions function. It follows that torture is not simply a study of cruelty. Rather, it is more a study about the stupidity that has become a part of the way our institutions function.

Thus, asking a question like “what is the meaning of torture?” is like asking the meaning of pneumonia, malaria, or any other disease. Today, the methods of studying such diseases have been well-established. The same principles can be used to study the diseases that afflict our basic institutions.

Democracy, without functioning institutions, is a meaningless expression, an empty balloon floating through space. Democracy, if it is to be meaningful, is about functioning public institutions. The measure of well-functioning institutions is the way such institutions are capable of functioning under the rule of law. When a public institution is dysfunctional, from the point of view of rule of law, it means that such an institution has ceased to be an institution of democracy, and has transformed into something else.

In our societies, where police torture is widespread, what we are experiencing are public institutions which have become "something else." This "something else" may have gone as far as totalitarianism, or it may be along the path to such an "ism", but what we can be sure of is that such institutions have not only become non-democratic, they have become an obstacle to democracy.

In countries where there is widespread use of torture, there is also a belief, particularly among the leaders and operators of public institutions, that policing without torture is impossible. However, the opposite is a more direct reflection of reality. When torture is a widespread practice, policing, in its democratic sense, becomes impossible.

The above reflections are on the very basics of the discussions we have had yesterday.

As for AHRC, such discussions started almost fifteen years back. We have answered questions by stubbornly continuing with the methodology of studying torture via accurately recording stories of victims, day in and day out. Our documentation is testimony to the pursuit of finding-out the meaning of torture through such study of stories. Our maxim in our early days was "go from micro to macro”, which meant “to know through individual stories of torture the problems of the basic structure of society."

When we know about these stories, the knowledge we have about the basic structure of our societies is explained in a very different way to what it is normally believed or declared to be.

This is why the study of the widespread practice of torture and the exposure of it is a vital part of undoing what is wrong with the basic structure of our societies. It is from this point of view that dealing with the issue of police torture becomes an unavoidable task for anyone who is committed to the pursuit of democracy in our societies.

Elimination of police torture is one of the most essential tasks in working towards democratization of our societies. It is a practical way of getting about undoing the institutional obstacles to democracy.

It is this approach that the Asian Human Rights Commission is presenting to the participants in this meeting. And, in particular, AHRC is asking the legislators to take this approach seriously in the strategies that they develop to fight for the establishment of democracy.

The elimination of torture and the enabling of the freedom of speech are inseparably linked. When the possibility of the practice of torture is reduced, if not fully eliminated, the psychological conditions for the freedom of speech are thereby created. And the core element of democracy is the freedom of speech. It is through the freedom of speech that we are able to get the views of many, if not all, and thereby develop a collective consciousness with the participation of all. Thus, in the development of civic sense and in the development of people’s participation, the elimination of torture is an essential component.

Remove the yoke of injustice for political prisoners; Bishops support hunger strike
A press statement by the United Church of Christ in the Philippines
July 19, 2012

The kind of fasting that I want is this: remove the chains of oppression and the yoke of injustice, and let the oppressed go free. (Isaiah 58:6, Good News)

We, Bishops of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines, express our appreciation and support for the on-going fasting/hunger strike by political prisoners in the Philippines. In solidarity with the Filipino people who hunger and thirst for justice and righteousness in our nation, we urge President Benigno (Noynoy) Aquino III to consider the plight of political detainees under his administration and their call for a general, unconditional and omnibus amnesty.

We find it deplorable that presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda has even been published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer (8 October 2011) saying, “we have no political prisoners.” A mere glance at the list of 385 political prisoners in the Philippines as provided by the Samahan ng Ex-Detainees Laban sa Detensyon at Aresto (SELDA) makes it clear that scores of people assert themselves as political prisoners in the Philippines. In fact, 107 of these were newly detained during the Aquino Administration. In the face of such callous dismissal by the Aquino Administration, we are compelled to amplify the on-going hunger strike of political prisoners.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights-Article 7 declares, “All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law;” yet, these political prisoners uphold that they have been illegally arrested, detained, and slapped with trumped-up criminal charges. Some have executed affidavits of torture, inhumane treatment, and of being forced to sign confessions under duress.

We challenge President Aquino to consider the release of political prisoners in the Philippines, especially those with conspicuously trumped-up charges, those with health ailments requiring medical care, and the elderly. All of these may be accomplished through a general, unconditional and omnibus amnesty. Then, it could truly be said that there are no political prisoners in the Philippines.

Likewise, we appeal for President Aquino to consider the release of 14 National Democratic Front Consultants, covered by JASIG. Their release was also agreed upon by both the GPH and NDFP peace panels during the resumption of talks in February 2011. As Church advocates committed to the peace process, we view such action as a significant step in bringing forward and revitalizing the GPH-NDFP peace talks.

We hunger and thirst for righteousness and we pray that the world will hear the plight of Filipino political prisoners through their nation-wide fasting/hunger strike.

Unmet need for family planning?

By Fr. ROY CIMAGALA, roycimagala@gmail.com
July 16, 2012

This is another expression coined by population controllers busy working in influential institutions like the UN. They define it as “percentage of currently married women aged 15-49 who want to stop having children or postpone the next pregnancy for at least two years, but who are not using contraception.”

Yes, it is just as cold as that. No further distinction is made, much less, any mention of moral, ethical or cultural considerations. It makes the illegal and automatic equation that women who don’t want to get pregnant are the same women who want or should want to have contraception. That’s foul!

In short, it is all about unmet need for contraception, whether wanted or not. Thus, this concept of unmet need is a license for population controllers to indiscriminately spread the virus of the contraceptive mentality all over the world.

While many countries are suffering from all sorts of economic problems and many other more basic needs, population controllers just focus on making contraception available or actively pushing it, branding it as the panacea for poverty and other women-related problems.

And it is the so-called rich countries (we have to qualify it that way, since many of them are actually now having tremendous economic problems) that want to control the population of poor but bustling countries, that are financing for this unmet need. These rich countries seem threatened by the poor countries.

They say that “contraceptives are one of the best investments a country can make in its future.” They still talk about the so-called “demographic dividend” that illegitimately equates fewer people with higher development. Everyone knows that this is not necessarily so and that, in fact, the reverse can be true.

Some reports claim that the rich and famous of the world have donated $2.6 billion recently in a summit in London to meet the “unmet need” of 120 million women in the developing world for family planning.

This looks to me like a lot of moolah just going down the sinkhole, a pure waste of precious resources, when there are many other more important needs that require both immediate help and sustained support.

For example, Austin Ruse, the president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM), a non-profit institute that closely follows the United Nations and other organizations on family and population issues, claims that the real needs of women in many places are still unmet: basic medical care, skilled birth attendants, education, clean water, and nutrition.”

He also claims that many countries are now facing a demographic winter where there is already a notable population decline, where older people are outnumbering the younger population, where deaths are getting higher than births.

He noted that even in Muslim countries that are long known to have big population, a significant fertility decline is already taking place. It seems they also are succumbing to the contraceptive mentality.

Here in our country a CNN report recently observed that while many other Asian countries are experiencing some economic slowdown, we are having an economic surge instead.

Economists attribute it to many factors, like a recovery of electronics exports after a decline in demand last year, a strong domestic consumption due to the money sent home to the Philippines by its overseas workers, and the rise of outsourced call centers that serve as the long-term stabilizers relatively unhindered by a sagging global economy.

According to Haz Narvaez, Manila-based head of research for the Philippines at the Credit-Suisse, it is estimated that 11% of the 92 million Filipinos work overseas, and their remittances account for about 10% of the country’s GDP, totaling $225 billion in 1991.

Since these Filipino overseas work often as domestic workers, nurses or skilled technicians or in jobs that are less vulnerable during global economic slumps, they can continue working and sending money to our country.

Narvaez said, “You have an aging population in the West, and you have a young population here in the Philippines waiting to do jobs that some people in the West are not willing to do.” This must explain why our overseas workers continue to find jobs abroad and support our country significantly and rather stably.

We should be wary when we hear some political leaders talk about the RH Bill because this is pure baloney. The RH Bill has no other purpose than to integrate the contraceptive mentality and the population control program into our country.

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