THE PANATAG SHOAL SITUATION

What will be the result of the chinese taking over of a peripheral territory like Panatag Shoal to us filipinos in the future? 

Yet today, have we ever been alarmed by the fact that as of 2007, between 80,000 to 100,000 chinese have already been moving covertly inside our main homeland?  These do not include those who have already gained access to having legalized their status.  They have been able to continue taking over of our banking system, building construction system, rice distribution system, real estate development, airline industry, retail industry, etc..  They have been rendering us impotent in solving the chronic rice shortage for decades.  Henry Sy, Lucio Tan, including Danding Cojuangco, have been able to continue unchecked in displacing us filipinos of access to our own economic resources and control of our development.  Now they have been taking over development of our education thru Asia Pacific College, UE, Centro Escolar University, etc.?  What has been the result?

They have developed a situation where in our military, police, and political officials have been locked in under their social and economic influence to provide them protection and access to having legal status of control of our resources and development.

Lives of millions of us, filipino families have already been damaged caused by our having been displaced from access to economic resources and by their destruction of environment as a result of whatever mode of their operations to gain huge profits. We have been so unable to have access to our very own rich resources that while the chinese are gaining strength here and are the ones enjoying such resources, we are forced to leave our own country to work or migrate abroad and have our human resources benefit foreign countries

Compare this with the status of development of nations whose people are the ones in control of their own development like the israelis, french, germans, vietnamese, australians, and the japanese today.  How is the direction of their economic, political, defense, and educational development compared to that of ours?   Compare this with the defense system of these nations who are able to sustain and protect their own people.

Compare our developmental status today with that of ours when we were a newly born nation in 1898 up to the early 1900s when our national identity and our control of our political, economic, defense and educational system was still strong even when they were being wrested away from us by the most powerful nation in the world- the north americans of the United States.  Inspite of our being a newly born nation then, the invading forces of the U.S. were unable to catch, lock and control our defense system for years until they resorted to massive hostage taking and extermination of the civilians among us. 

Despite of these, our moves were still instructed by our organic national developmental code we inherited from the fathers of our nation.

The Father of the Philippine Army, Gen Artemio Ricarte and hero in the Filipino-American War, "...envisioned...the country divided into twelve 'confederate states', the islands of Guam included as well as Jolo 'and its adjacent islands'.  Manila, as soon as seized from the Americans, would be the federal capital; the official language would be Spanish; the death penalty and all prisoners would be abolished; the Chinese would be barred from business and banking;..."

We also inherited the code of Jose Rizal.  In 1895, while he was in exile in Dapitan in Mindanao, in the southern Philippines. Rizal was filled with righteous indignation at the “exploitation” of the natives by the Chinese traders, and appealed to the local residents to boycott the Chinese shops.  He also opened a small sari-sari store to compete against the Chinese.  (Wickberg, E. The Chinese in Philippine Life 1850-1898).  Nick Joaquin said: “And because Chinese financiers had a stranglehold on native agriculture, Rizal set up the Cooperative Association of Dapitan Farmers, a pioneer in economic nationalism…”

Compare our alarm level over the chinese in the Philippines today compared to that of ours in the 1900s when we conducted defense actions mostly at the developmental level against the chinese creeping invasion.  Unfortunately, the chinese government provided support in complement with the US government dismantling of the defense set-up we have established against the chinese invasion here and their taking over of our economy.

If even our fathers and heroes who were alarmed by the chinese creeping invasion of our nation already in the very centers of control of our development in our main homeland which stimulated an appropriate response of resistance then are not anymore stimulating any response from us today,  why should a chinese invasion of our peripheral territory like the Panatag Shoal stimulate an alarming response from us?

Before we get alarmed with the invasion of our peripheral territories in the near future, let us review our present situation today and examine if the chinese has not already applied to us today what the famous Chinese General Sun Tzu said something like, “Therefore, the skillful leader subdues the enemy's troops without any fighting; he captures their cities without laying siege to them; he overthrows their kingdom without lengthy operations in the field.”

It is the chinese invasion along our border like Spratly Islands that we get excited and scramble to engage them in heroic combat just like in Hollywood.  Yet we cannot even check our main homeland here with its rich natural resources and centers of control of our development already being overrun by the chinese.

If ever we have to commit lives for our fatherland, whose lives will we commit?  Then, let it be commited for a reason based not on Hollywood, but on our real situation and needs.We should not be manipulated into engaging a physical military confrontation with the chinese just because of their invasion of our peripheral territories like Spratly Islands or Panatag Shoal.  What benefit will this give us?

This will only give the north americans of the United States an even stronger justification and on whom we filipinos perceive to be our savior, for an even increase in extent and intensity of their presence here.  This will give them an excuse being a perceived ally of the Philippines, to engage China in a military confrontation for an opportunity to reduce the threat of a looming takeover from the U.S., world military dominance.  This seems inevitable as China is already overtaking U.S.A. from world economic dominance.

If ever we have to sacrifice lives for our fatherland, let it not be ours but those of who are invading our land and displacing us filipinos from our source of sustenance and control of development of our nation.

HOW THE NEW REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH BILL PROVIDES PROTECTION

WHO DOES SECTION 3 PARAGRAPH 13 OF THE CONSOLIDATED RH BILL PROTECT?

LIMITED RESOURCES

Sec 3 on Guiding Principles of “The Responsible Parenthood, Reproductive Health and Population and Development Act of 2011” stated at paragraph 13: The limited resources of the country cannot be suffered to, be spread so thinly to service a burgeoning multitude that makes the allocations grossly inadequate and effectively meaningless.

Is it because the rate of increase of number of lives to be sustained, is faster than the rate of increase of amount of resources that could provide sustenance?

I agree that our material resources are finite as all materials in this world are finite. 

Back to thousands of years earlier than 2000 years ago, did the people live in a situation of abundance of material resources for sustenance?  Sustenance for material resources was derived merely from gathering and hunting.  Was that abundance compared to today?  Even during the later period, when agriculture became the technology for material resources sustenance, there was no such mass movements to suppress population growth.  There were those who lived with enough.  But there were those like the rich and powerful kingdoms who conquered other territories of other kingdoms and slaughtered or enslaved the vanquished and looted their resources as a means to sustain the conqueror kingdom.  They lived then, as if resources for them were limited.  From those events, was there actually a shortage of material resources at that time?  Or was it more of fear due to greed?  Was the behavior of people then, towards the share of material resources any different from that of now?  The technology then, was mass murder of the living.

TOMORROW- WHAT YESTERDAY AND TODAY FEAR

Today, the same fear of limited resources is gripping us.  Yet, despite of all the supposedly more advanced technology for material resources sustenance of the world, why is it that not all families can have food available for them?  How is it that today, we can have one family who, aside from owning long chain of supermarkets and large tracks of lands, could very well afford to feed each member of that family of say 12, the quantity equivalent of more than one hundred meals at three times a day if they could accommodate that much in their stomach?  Is this amount, not more than the equivalent of three good meals a day for 70 families with 12 children each?  Is this amount of food not excess?  Yet how is it that today, there are families who could afford to eat that much quantity of food, while there are families of 3 children who could not eat three adequate meals a day?  Is this not greed causing hunger? 

WHAT DOES RESPONSIBLE PARENTHOOD REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH AND POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT ACT OF 2011 DEVELOP?

Some of those who belong to such families who could well afford to be fed more than a hundred meals in one mealtime if their stomach could accommodate that much, have blamed families who could not afford to have three meals a day to be lazy but high in offspring productivity.  Have they not seen family members with 3 children who had to labor 12 hours a day to be able to eat two times a day everyday because that is the only capability they have as a result of the business of this well-fed family members which: control markets; have contractual policies; have oppressive compensation policies; or which have been displacing small retailers from the areas they have established their own giant businesses?  Is this hunger the general result of laziness or too many mouths to feed?  Is not the RPRHPD Act of 2011, promoting greed for blaming high population growth as cause of hunger while ignoring greed as the cause?  Or is it sustaining lust by providing artificial technology to an imbalance of nature which can be corrected by a long and hard working natural behavioral developmental process?

Is the fear that drove the technology for material resources sustenance of many of the powerful people back in the period of more than 2000 years ago, any different from that of the fear that drives the guiding principles in the RPRHPD Act of 2011 today?  Is the technology being pushed not just that of a more subtle technology to block others from opportunities to life so that those who have the capacity to satisfy their greed can have all the opportunities of pursuing it without any hindrance?


CONDOMIZATION OF LIFE

Do we really think that this material world we live in, can be exempted from the universal material process of wear and tear, and from a finite existence?  If we believe in this, then if human population existence in it is extended to infinity, this world may be able to sustain it.

But if we think as we have seen from the universal process, that this material world we live in can not be exempted from a finite existence, then why do we attempt to extend human population existence to infinity?  Moreover, if we extend material world to infinity assuming we are able to, how are we again to take population management into our hands before a situation where there will be more elderly who by that time again have decreased capacity to carry the burden of the world but by them, increased the load to be carried by the young?  Such a burden definitely hampers our life of pleasure.

We are already laying the foundation for a culture of condomization of life reproductive parts or putting in our hands alone, when life of another human being should start.  This is based on our life of pleasure.  What should stop as now from developing towards condomization of life sustaining parts like the nose or mouth, or putting in our hands alone, when life of another human being should end?  This is based on our life of unhampered pleasure.

Is the culture of condomization, the culture of taking life from others so that we may live, the meaning of our life?

Based on scriptures, God our maker taught us to give our life so that others may live.  Based on scriptures, he sent his only Son Jesus Christ to pay with his own life here for the damage of our life which we, in our ignorance, indulged into here in this material world.  If we do not believe in God, this guide to the meaning of our life can only be validated thru experience.  I am not a good person.  But in a number of times in my own experiences, I have seen that having given a little of my life so that others may live have given me more than just a little joy seeing what amount of life, recipients around me have received.

José Miguel García

Nationalism and Industrial Development in Finland