Do Away With "Inappropriate Exchange of Generosity"

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The government as a State of people, and the Church as God's people are the two sides of the coin of humanity. They are both established and instituted by God himself.

But while the leaderships of secular governments have their own mandates from the people to fulfill, the Church's leaderships have their Great Commission from the Lord to carry out. Wherever and whenever the different paths of these two types of leaderships cross, let the following verse provide wisdom:

"Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." (Mark 12:17)

And as the Church leaderships pursue the course of their path in the direction that is in accordance with the Church's mission, may the following verse keep them consistent on their track:

"No man, being a soldier to God, entangles himself with secular affairs: that he may be able to sanctify himself to Him to whom he has dedicated himself in service. Therefore for this reason you must endure hardship, as a good soldier of Christ." (2 Timothy 2:3-4)

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People of God: It is our obligation to support the Church and provide for Her needs. When we neglect this solemn obligation, the other side of the coin of humanity could (or would) fill the vacuum and slowly the moral authority of the Church could be held hostage by some debt of gratitude that might develop in the inappropriate exchange of generosity.

Instead of sowing your seeds in the field of gambling, why not prove the faithfulness of God by sowing your seeds in the Lord's field? Here is a practical challenge from God to anyone:

"Bring the whole tithe into the store-house, that there may be food in my house, and test me now in this,” says the Lord, “if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough for." (Malachi 3:10)

It's yet two years since I started to actually took this challenge from God, and to my delightful and thankful amazement, God is faithful with his promise! True tithing is honoring God with the tenth part of the whole blessing of your material substance in a regular periodic manner (I do it monthly). For Catholics, it is hard for most of us to do tithing because we have not practiced it aggressively. But when I decided to myself that I will honor the Lord with my tithe, I prayed this simple prayer: "Lord, like the others, I also wanted to honor you with the tenth of the blessings you give me regularly, help me do this."

There are no poor church congregations, there are only poor faith in taking God's promise.

Executing goats instead of wolves

"Am I going to die today?"

They were told they were to die only Wednesday morning.

“I was the first one to see her,” Sally Villanueva’s younger sister Mylene Ordinario told radio dzBB from Xiamen, China. “We locked eyes and we both cried. She said, ‘What are you doing here, why are you all crying, am I going to die?’ She tried to console us. She said, ‘It’s okay. I have accepted my fate. I will be your angel and watch over you.’”

China normally does not announce executions. Amnesty International says China is the world’s biggest executioner, with thousands of convicts killed every year.

Batain, Credo and Villanueva were allowed to meet with their families for an hour before they were executed by lethal injection, in what turned out to be devastatingly emotional encounters.

“She was crying, she was partly incoherent. She had a lot of things to say,” Villanueva’s brother Jason Ordinario told dzBB. “She asked us to take care of her two children and make sure they finish their studies.”

Mylene Ordinario said that her sister was blessed by a priest, and “she said she wants to be forgiven for all her sins, but she insisted that she was a victim.”

Read the whole story at: "Am I going to die today?"

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“Death cancels everything but truth." --Proverbs

Pondering on the execution of our three OFW kababayans in China who were convicted of drug trafficking. They were made to carry something by their supposed job recruiters, but unjustly instead, that thing carried them to their untimely death.

Between goats and wolves, I think those three OFWs that were executed may be consider as helpless sacrificial goats slaughtered in the altar of the wolves of drug criminals, and in the name of "law". Unless the efforts to fight international drug syndicates are intensified and focused more on the wolves, goats after goats will continue to fall like dead flies on the altar of what would become in time a grave injustice to humanity.

Treading the Avenue known as "Epifanio De los Santos"

Remembering EDSA I
By Fr. Joaquin G. Bernas, S.J.
Sounding Board - Philippine Daily Inquirer

February 25 is a day for recalling February 1986 and the times that preceded it. My own thoughts about what transpired have not changed:

“There is a tendency to attribute the rebirth of democracy to the events of the four days of February 1986. Those days will forever be remembered as a shining moment in a people’s history; but the four days do not tell all. EDSA was but a part of a process, albeit the most memorable both for the intensity of its emotion and its dramatically eye-catching and infectious symbolism. But the long process of which it was a part includes both the struggles that precipitated the imposition of martial law as well as the struggles during the long dark nights that followed.

“There was never a moment, starting on Sept. 21, 1972, when the nation was not moving toward EDSA. The underground struggle, the bloody encounters, the groans of torture victims, the pamphleteering, the rallies, both political and religious, the silent storming of heaven by contemplative nuns, the whir of fax machines, the electoral struggle under the most adverse circumstances and, yes, even the ‘collaboration’ with the enemy—each in its own way contributed to the assurance of rebirth. In the end, Divine Providence, which the Filipino people had first formally invoked in its 1935 Constitution, put the pieces together and let them explode into the celebration that was EDSA.

“When I reflect on the events of 20 years ago, I see hubris as divine Providence’s triggering weapon for the final downfall of the ruler. Feeling that he bestrode the world like an unconquerable colossus, President Marcos dared all challengers to a ‘snap election.’ That was November 1985. The events that followed brought out a multiplicity of heroes no one of whom could have achieved the result alone.

“First, presidential hopefuls sacrificed their ambition (realistic or not) in favor of one presidential candidate supported by all. They anointed a housewife inexperienced in governance, derisively branded by the ‘wise’ as walang alam, to become the ‘foolish’ instrument through whom Providence would confound the proud. Her battle cry of tama na, sobra na captured the public imagination.

“Next, in the early weeks of February, whether by free choice or by desperate necessity, new heroes emerged. The computer operators unmasked the conspiracy to cheat the ‘foolish’ woman of her electoral victory. Government intelligence officers discovered a RAM plot for a coup d’etat. Trapped, the soldiers made a defiant stand. To the death, they said.

“Then followed the call of the Cardinal and of Butz Aquino for the populace to rescue the beleaguered soldiers. The people came in massed brigades of all ages and sexes to shield the soldiers from the threatening mortars of the President.

“The mortars were never fired. Fundamental humanity overcame the soldiery. Loyalty to the sovereign people conquered, and the soldiers turned their back on the Commander-in-Chief. In that fact too there was heroism. And the dramatic encounter between civilian and soldiers, bound together by the bonds of love of the same country and of the same people, is what is celebrated as salubong, symbolic of a people determined to join hands and work for a new future.”

Today the lament is sometimes heard that nothing has really changed since 1986. What a waste EDSA I was. That obviously is not true.

The government structure under the 1987 Constitution, though by no means perfect, is better than the government that evolved from the 1973 Constitution. Imperfect as it is as a protest against the Marcos Constitution, in more ways than one it is truly democratic.

Congress today is structurally almost the same as that of the 1935 Constitution even if, in terms of the quality of membership, it suffers by comparison with those of the 1935 Constitution. But at least it is different from the Batasang Pambansa.

As in the 1935 Constitution, the office of President is not free from the temptation toward authoritarianism. Much depends on who holds the power. For the moment, we seem to be safe.

The Supreme Court membership today does not go through the same rigid screening as the members of the Court under the 1935 Constitution. But collectively it is an improvement on the Marcos Constitution.

The emotion and drama of February 1986 have died down and I do not see “people power” like that of EDSA I emerging. Nor do I see hubris precipitating radical reform. Not yet, anyway. What I see is an emerging people power in the form of energized local governments, unfortunately not yet nationwide but hitherto only here and there. But I also see corruption and popular indifference of a people lulled by economic and technological advances as major obstacles to progress. In the end, there is truth to the dictum that a people get the government they deserve. How can everyone be awakened to the realization that the future depends not on government but on all of us?

Beyond the shadow of doubt?

SC acquits Webb, 6 others in Vizconde massacre
By Edu Punay
The Philippine Star

MANILA, Philippines – Hubert Webb and six others convicted for the highly publicized Vizconde massacre almost two decades ago walked off the national penitentiary as free men after the Supreme Court acquitted them based primarily on inconsistent testimonies of state witness Jessica Alfaro during trial.

Voting 7-4, the High Court ruled that the Paranaque regional trial court erred when it handing down in Jan. 2000 the guilty verdict on Webb, Hospicio "Pyke" Fernandez, Antonio "Tony Boy" Lejano, Michael Gatchalian, Peter Estrada, Miguel "Ging" Rodriguez and Gerardo Biong for the crime of rape with homicide.

The High Court overturned the verdict of Paranaque RTC Branch 274 Judge and now CA Justice Amelita Tolentino, which was upheld by the Court of Appeals on Dec. 15, 2005 and had sentenced the primary accused to life imprisonment.

Biong, who was convicted as accessory for destroying evidence, was released last month after serving his sentence of 12 years.

“There is no more motion for reconsideration can be filed. That would be tantamount to double jeopardy,² Court Administrator and SC spokesman Jose Midas Marquez told a press conference, citing a rule in criminal procedures prohibiting a second prosecution against the same person under the same offense after acquittal or conviction by court.

But Marquez stressed that declaring the guilt was not proven beyond reasonable doubt is not tantamount to establishing innocence of the accused.

The 38-page decision penned by Associate Justice Roberto Abad cited "reasonable and lingering doubt on the guilt of the accused" and "failure of prosecution to establish the guilt beyond reasonable doubt."

"In our criminal justice system, what is important is, not whether the court entertains doubts about the innocence of the accused since an open mind is willing to explore all possibilities, but whether it entertains a reasonable, lingering doubt as to his guilt. For, it would be a serious mistake to send an innocent man to jail where such kind of doubt hangs on to one's inner being, like a piece of meat lodged immovable between teeth," the SC stressed. [...]

Click here to read full text.

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The final decision of the Supreme Court of the Philippines on this case as released in the media, basically boils down to and focuses on the credibility of the testimony of the "star witness" versus the alibi of the accused.

Here is a summary of the decision as reported by ABS-CBN:

1.) Quality of witness - Jessica Alfaro was a National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) asset, not really an eye witness. At first, she told the NBI she would bring in a witness to the commission of the crime, but when she couldn't do so, she said she would play the role of eye witness.

2.) Suspicious details in some testimonies;

3.) Quality of testimony (inherent inconsistencies);

4.) Supposed corroborations which are unreliable.

For those interested, you can grasp more understanding of the case's decision by reading a copy of the full text of the decision which may also be found at the following link:

Supreme Court decision on Webb et al re Vizconde Massacre

Now, if we take a look at how the justices voted on the case, the Supreme Court en banc voted: 7-4-4 (7 in favor, 4 dissented, 4 abstained).

The reasons why the four Associate Justices abstained were:

1.) Antonio Carpio (because he testified during the hearings at the Regional Trial Court);

2.) Mariano del Castillo - (because one of the accused is a client of the law firm of his wife);

3.) Presbitero Velasco - (close relation to a party);

4.) Antonio Nachura - (who signed as former Solicitor-General before his appointment to the court).

In other words, not half (but almost very close to half) of the number of justices deemed that there are reasonable shadows of doubt in the credibility of the testimony of the prosecution's star witness.

In the imperfect world full of mistakes and uncertainties, one desperate proverb says: "It is better to wrongfully free a guilty person than to wrongfully punish an innocent man."

Because of the inherent imperfections of the man-made system of justice, democratic governments presume any accused person to be innocent unless proven guilty beyond any reasonable shadow of doubt.

So in my personal opinion, the en banc voting of 7-4-4 is not convincing enough. The final decision of the Supreme Court of the Philippines on this particular case is not very solid, thus perhaps leaving a reasonable shadow of doubt in the minds of many people.