Sunday, June 19, 2011

R.H. Bill Destroys Culture?

                Recently, the church has made an argument that attacks how the Reproductive Health Bill destroys the culture of the Filipinos. One of the archbishops pointed out that when the R.H. Bill is put into play it will ruin our culture and make people unhappy.

Pampanga Archbishop Paciano Aniceto said Filipinos should learn from the Americans where a policy on reproductive health resulted in a “culture of death.”

                First of all, how will the R.H. Bill destroy the culture of the Philippines? Is it because people can have sex all they want and not be as afraid of getting an unwanted pregnancy? Is that what he meant by culture being destroyed – that people can have sex before marriage? But the problem here is that people here aren’t as “religious” as the church claims. In fact, one hypocritical aspect of this culture is that its people’s sex life is closeted. People here claim that pre-marital sex is taboo and is not accepted and all that crap but in reality, people have sex all the time. And who can really blame them? It’s a natural instinct. Telling people to stop doing it is like telling people to stop eating or sleeping.

“We don’t have to be like the first-world countries. They’re rich but they’re unhappy. We must instead remain God-loving and peaceful Christians,” Aniceto said in a press conference at the opening of the congress at the Dusit Hotel in Makati last November 6.

                Here’s another question: Can people really be happy if they’re ignorant? Maybe yes but is it true happiness? I’ve always believed that the only time you can consider yourself happy is when you can actually acknowledge it. And the only people in this country who can afford to be happy are those who can afford to eat. Answer me this: How can you be happy if you have to struggle every day to feed your ten kids?

“Ours is an agricultural country, how much of the budget is dedicated to agriculture?” Odchimar asked.
He said it was ironic that despite the fact that the International Rice Research Institute is based in the Philippines, the country is a major importer of rice.
“Now, Vietnam, despite being devastated by war, is one of the top rice-producing countries after modernizing the agriculture sector. That is a sort of [proof of the] lopsided utilization of our resources,” Odchimar said.

The closing statement given by Archbishop Odchimar is actually a form of statement that some people will consider as a deflection. When you read it again it actually is a deflection. He slowly moves away from the point of the conversation and then brings up another problem that he can comfortably discuss. Talking about the agriculture of the country is actually convenient for him because it doesn’t contain any sensitive information for him. He then slowly manipulates that conversation by moving even further by providing a solution to the deflected problem.

All these arguments about the R.H. Bill is getting us nowhere because the arguments being created are not even making sense anymore. Isn’t it tiring to read about articles when the statements are getting dumber and dumber?


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