I’d originally posted this as a comment to the CBCP article, RH bill deprives Filipinos of Constitution-guaranteed freedom — lawyer (9 February 2012), which was a curiously twisted read to wrap my head around. And a bleepingly irritating read, at that.
Your friend, the lawyer Gatdula presumes too much, that the “tenets of our lawmakers’ faith” should hold primacy in deciding a moral path in the matter of the RH Bill. The moral path along which you are guiding your flock is a dangerous one, not least for the sophistry it engenders in your advocates. The argument Gatdula wishes to promote pushes, through our fallible politicians, the entire nation toward an ecologically, not to mention quite possibly economically, precarious future.
Consider the impact of your pro-death position, which leads to loosing bounds on population growth. If you succeed in blocking this RH bill in it’s entirety – and, likely, others to follow it – you will have removed an important instrument with which to contain the growth of the Philippine population. This will have effects several generations down the line, far removed from the political climate which surrounds the present debate.
Now consider this: Have you thought out what it takes to sustain a population of 250M people? Three hundred million? Five? Does your spiritual technology provide for the kind of ecological and social strains that will create? Do you imagine that the faithful OCW flock can expand to fill a global niche? Or are you hoping for the best? The phrase “pro-death” I’ve used is quite precisely chosen: An unsupportable population size teems with lives which potential will not be realized. What is that, but a living death, to exist in that way?
Be mindful of how you wield your influence in this society – it is a far ranging power, to wield minds and attitudes. The longer you persist in maintaining this stance, the greater of a danger you are becoming in the eyes of more and more in the Filipino nation, including,
Yours truly,
Antonio A Hilario