Solidarity: a moral lesson for my sons and my niece

My gay hairdresser and I were in deep discussion about the LGBT rally, when the call from the television station came.


Dear Boys and Diana,

A long time ago, when I used to join the drivers of faculty members of the UP College of Medicine for lunch, I noticed that they behaved very differently towards faculty members who drove their own cars.

Dr. Marita Reyes, beloved of her students and beloved of her ex-students such as myself, never needed to find an empty parking space in the perpetually crowded parking lot. The minute she drove up, several of the drivers would volunteer to park her car for her. Instant and free valet service.

On the other hand, another doctor professor whom we shall not name, was left to fend for herself.

Your grandmother was the same way. She would enter the phone company, the bank or the electrical company to pay her bills, and would have at least one teller waving at her so that she could be attended to quickly.

I knew your grandmother's secret because I asked her about it. She said that if you really wanted your life to be easy, befriend the little people who actually did the work. For example, the bank teller who had a flower in her cubicle, received an orchid from your grandmother's garden on the next visit.

Yesterday, still in the advocacy t-shirt I wore for the rally to protest the non-accreditation of our LGBT political party, I requested our office driver to leave me at the beauty parlor. I needed a haircut and decided that walking home would be good exercise.

My gay hairdresser and I were in deep discussion about the LGBT rally, when the call from the television station came, requesting an interview. I agreed on condition that the TV crew pick me up from the parlor to take me home. My hairdresser would not have me go on TV to fight for his rights sans make up! He and his assistant gave up their tip (I had brought just enough to pay for the haircut and tip)so I could pay for the make up.

Those friends who saw me last night, and who are used to seeing me with an unmade face with its full complement of spots and wrinkles, have been teasing me about this. I do hope they liked the make-over.

In the interview I spoke of the psychological studies, decades old and never falsified by succeeding studies, that gay people are normal human beings. Except, that like many other groups, society discriminates against them. Many of them are part of that group your grandmother called "the little people" and what activists call "the marginalized". As your grandmother said, it is the little people who we must treat with respect. They are the ones whose rights we must guard as jealously as we guard are own. The ones to whom we must show compassion, or as the activist say, whose struggles we must join.

Forgive your corny mother (aunt), because I have seen this in you and know that you continue the family tradition without the drama. But I do want to play the role of the repetitive older one--you will appreciate the values drill someday

I add to your grandmother's wisdom--sometimes there is such a thing as John Lennon's Instant Karma--do a good deed and end up looking good (looking better?) on TV.

Or maybe, we might channel the philosopher Spinoza: altruism and compassion are a really good idea even for your own bottom line.

All my love,

Mother (and Tita Guy)

Only the religious are free

Yet another bone-headed. white, liberal,sexist report from the know-it-alls in the US State Department.

The 2009 Report on International Religious Freedom, released in Washington, DC, in late October, said the Philippine government generally respected religious freedom in practice and that there was no change in the status of this respect during the period of the study, from July 1, 2008, to June 30, 2009.

The report lauds the fact that there are no forced religious conversions and no religious prisoners.

In the Philippines, we are free to believe--NOT!

The Philippines remains one of only two countries which does not allow divorce. The Philippines is also a country where abortion is illegal under all conditions . A reproductive health bill that merely protects accepted international standards of health cannot be passed despite nine years of advocacy because politicians who are Catholic insist on obeying the prescriptions of the Church and other Church-mandated bodies.1 What is pertinent here is that those against the bill state their religious beliefs as the basis for their objection without any attempt to reconcile their actions with provisions in the Philippine Constitution on secularism, non-establishment of religions and non-discrimination.

Last January 21, 2008 a case was filed in the Philippine Court of Appeals to invalidate Executive Order No. 003, a policy banning "artificial contraceptives" in all of Manila's public health facilities. This order was promulgated in February 2000 by then-mayor Jose "Lito" Atienza, Jr. The case was filed by 20 women directly affected by the Executive Order. Atienza repeatedly justifies this action as a way of advancing “morals” and as a result of his being “pro-life” and a member of the organization Couple's for Christ.

Because of the contraception ban, public health centers in Manila City are prohibited from providing condoms, birth control pills, or other forms of "artificial" contraceptives and related information. The dire effects have been profound. Despite Atienza's having been voted out of office in 2007, the Executive Order remains.

The case has followed a difficult course in the Philippine courts and as finally dismissed by the Supreme Court on a technicality causing the Center for Reproductive Policy to comment, “the Philippine Supreme Court rules in favor of ideology”. At the moment there is a petition for urgent action on the matter to the CEDAW Committee.

About a week ago our Commission on Elections has refused to accredit a political party representing gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people. The petition for accreditation was denied on the grounds of religion. The decision of the Commissioners quotes the interpreters of the Koran and the Bible wit regards to homosexuality.

These violations of sexual and reproductive rights of Philippine women en masse is a result of an religious/ideological hegemony. This hegemony is established not so much by extremist politics but by the willing acquiescence of allegedly grown men and women for someone else, often the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, determine their morality for them.

The fault here is not in the inability to express faith. These definitions of religious freedom may be coming from populations unlike the Philippines, where religion and colonial subservience have had a long and incestuous relationship. The Spanish friars who governed and abused the Philippines during the centuries of colonial occupation kept their power over Filipinos because they did not allow the native population to engage in a direct appreciation of the Bible. Philippine Catholicism is burdened by this colonial legacy. Up to the present spirituality is mediated for the masses by powerful and power-hungry men who have valorized obedience to their teachings as part of Catholic morality.

Maybe they should do a study to see whether we are also free not to believe. In the meantime, we can test the waters by not believing in the BS indicators of yet another BS report from the US State Department.

Psychiatric Association of the Taliban

Dear Editor


Is there anyway to impeach the following Comelec Comisssioners: Nicodemo T. Ferrer, Lucinito N. Tagle and Elias R. Yusoph?

They must be impeached because they have openly decided to turn the country into a religious state instead of a secular one. I am referring of course to their decision to outlaw Ladlad on the basis of upholding religious beliefs. They quote the Bible and the Koran forgetting that they should consult the Philippine Constitution instead. Only in the Philippines would we have high government officials who state that obedience to religious beliefs trumps other more cogent legal provisions as a basis for policy.

If stupidity were a basis for impeachment, the proceedings would be quite short. Their display of ignorance of current scientific knowledge on sexuality is quite appalling. They should have taken the simple expedient of asking any psychiatrist or psychologist who upholds the standards of organizations like the World Health Organization or the American Psychiatric and Psychological Associations. They would have been told that homosexuality was delisted as a psychological pathology more than 30 years ago. They either did not bother to read for themselves or consulted the psychiatric association of the Taliban when they decided that homosexuality is an abnormality.

As a Filipino citizen who is neither Christian nor Muslim; as a practitioner and teacher in psychology and sexuality; as someone who cares that we do not look like backward bigots to the world community; I urge the impeachment of these men who have violated morals, scientific truths and our laws against discrimination.

I am so upset. I'm gay starting today and until Ladlad gets accredited.

Sylvia  Estrada Claudio, M.D. PhD.
Director, University Center for Women’s Studies
Professor of Women and Development Studies
University of the Philippines

I got a citation

Acceptance Speech for the Bayi Citation for the lifetime promotion and defense women’s and people’s rights, and vigilance for genuine democracy.

Sylvia Estrada-Claudio, MD, PhD

April 30, 2009



I am deeply grateful to the Barangay-Bayan Governance Consortium (BBGC) and the Institute of Politics and Governance (IPG) for this citation. I also wish to thank the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and One World Action for their support of the BBGC and the IPG in this and other endeavors.

It was difficult to think about and write my acceptance speech. I do not know how to say that I think my award is less about me and more about the people I work with, while at the same time say that I am honored to be a member of a select group of Bayi awardees whose individual achievements are impressive. I am feeling deeply validated and at the same time, feeling like a fraud for getting an award when I was simply doing my duty and having fun while I was at it.

Nonetheless, I believe that awards are given to call attention to persons and their work so that others may be inspired.

So let me try to raise the stakes by talking to you not just about the people I work with, but also about the happiness that comes with the work. In other words, working with the oppressed in poor communities is not just noble work, it is also as the young say, pretty cool.

Where I work, there are many people who do not ask for recognition for doing their duty to their community and country. They expect no praise for coming to work on time, treating the public with courtesy and accounting for every centavo that they spend. These things are not a big deal and we take them for granted.

In the organizations I work with, people earn enough to meet their family's basic needs because those of us who could earn more tend to share their salaries with those whose work is valued less. In other words, I have met so many people who understand that beyond a very minimal threshold, happiness does not increase in proportion to income.

In my work the poor among us have an equal voice. We think and laugh and sit together in long and short meetings hatching plans of affirmation and subversion. We are not unaware of the inequities between us, but we have forgiven each other for the moment while we are trying to end the problem.

In my world we refuse to be twisted and amputated to fit conceptions of what is good for women and girls. We allow our waistlines to expand as we please and raise or lower our hemlines with impunity. We also raise our eyes to look deeply into the eyes of our lovers, our children and our friends.

In my world women and girls are not ashamed to be smart. We study the world around us in order to change it and mold it closer to our visions. Medicine and math; cooking and contraceptives; disruption and democracy---all the things under the sun and beyond the sun are our areas of interest.

In my world we are rarely afraid when we are together. Together we have ended criminal control of water and electricity in poor communities, faced down abusive husbands and confronted our lack of self esteem and feelings of inadequacy.

In my world the pleasures of the body are welcomed with joy. We rejoice in our strength and revel in our sensuality. We eat and sleep without worry. We dance and sing with abandon. We make love or refuse to make love without guile or guilt. We also expect to bear just the number of children we choose. In other words, we are not afraid of our desires, our passions our loves and our choices.

In my world we demand that justice triumphs in our intimate relationships and that caring thrives in our working ones.

In my world the atheist lives happily with the believer because when we allow ourselves to think and feel deeply we realize that we cannot really tell who are the heretics and who are not. In my world, we refuse allegiance to religious authorities that give no value women's capacity to discern for themselves.

In my world, we stay in the Philippines because of the overwhelming poverty. We do so because in the face of iniquity, a simple act of decency is an act of heroism, a small act of compassion an act of renewal, and everyday we witness the tremendous productivity and creativity of the poor.

In my world we view call the for the universal enjoyment of human rights as a serious and achievable proposal.

And here is the really inspiring thing, this world really does exist. It has existed for a long, long time and will continue to do so. It exists as anything would—full of contradictions and human frailty. But it is there nonetheless. And it is neither small nor narrow nor exclusive. We must tell people about it lest the cynical, the overly-pragmatic and those who do not understand what they are missing succeed in hiding it from view.


Thank you, for this citation and the chance to tell you all about how lucky some of us are to be able to live our dreams now.

Coming Home Part 2

They put me on their blogroll these Filipino Free Thinkers---- deists, secular humanists, agnostics and atheists.

So now, I need to ensure that the blogpost you get when you click on the link at their website at http://filipinofreethinkers.org/, is about freethinking. My last one had nothing to do with my agnosticism.

So I might as well write up what I have been blabbing to all my friends about.

It all begins with a link my eldest son sent me. It leads to a site where I applied to join the egroup of the Filipino Freethinkers. I sign up after repeatedly having to edit my short description. I tried to put too many justifications because I thought they needed much convincing about: 1) my worthiness; 2) my not being a security threat.

I feel like a spy the first week or two after I am accepted into the egroup. I have been an agnostic all my life so I should feel right at home. But I am silent because for one thing, I noticed most of the group is young(er). It is also not a grassroots organization (yet). This is not a criticism as much as self-reflexivity about what my comfort zones are when it comes to issue-based groups.

But I am thrilled because: 1)FINALLY there is a group I can relate to; 2) I am learning a new method of organizing. I am as a happy as a vampire who as found her coven. I learn that there will be a first-ever forum. I wanna go, I wanna go. Should I? Shouldn't I?

Then, someone starts a thread about the reproductive health bill and I cannot help myself. I answer. For that, I get invited to do a 10 minute talk about practical freethinking in politics and particularly about the reproductive health bill. I cancel everything for that Saturday afternoon and commit to go.

I am like a kid in a candy shop with this group. When my turn to speak comes, I need to ask something I have been asking now for decades: "Are my sister and I the only two Filipinas who were born into a household where both parents were agnostic (or atheist)? Could we possibly be the only 2 who did not have a religious education with our baby bottle? Amazingly, a young man says he too is like us. More amazingly, instead of getting the awkward or curious responses---they clap! Here I do not have to explain myself or justify my upbringing or defend my parents.

I had learned not to bring my beliefs up because, growing up in the 60's and 70's, people reacted to me as if I was insulting their religion for not having one. I had learned to just be quiet when in government and other secular events I am not told there will be a mass before the actual forum or I am asked to "stand for an invocation". I have learned because no matter how hard I try to explain, seek a little sensitivity or have a civilized debate--I get nothing. At most I get, "its ok, its ecumenical." When I answer "but I don't pray. It is against my spirituality to pray," I get no further answers.

Those of us who have felt any form of marginalization on the basis of our sexual orientation, race, class, ethnicity, religion or disability, know what it is like to have to deal with repeated and unwitting slights. It wears you down. It does not help when those who are not discriminated against trivialize these things (e.g. "the invocation is only for 10 minutes"; "she did not mean to be insensitive"). Sometimes too, being misunderstood is not about day-to-day slights but major hurts. My mother-in-law, a truly wonderful Catholic woman of profound faith, died without learning about my agnosticism because I loved her too much to upset her.


So this group, just being there--I did not care if I was the older-one-flowing-over-at the-mouth. I was home again, in a group of 60 or so people I had just met.

What is more, I am happy with how these young people are using the internet to fight their struggles. I am elated to find people who are a natural constituency for the RH bill. I am thrilled at the thought that one does not have to come from my socialist background to care about the rights of people.I am over-the-moon at seeing their committment to reaching out to the marginalized. I am overjoyed that they are committed to a better country (and world).

I am also glad to meet such a bright set of people. No anti-intellectualism here--unleash your inner geek or nerd. And, despite my teasing at the forum, not all of us geeks or nerds are socially inept.

In my political circles and with my NGOs, I have long suggested that we start a "coalition against moral tyranny". No takers. Perhaps I was talking to the wrong set of people. Perhaps my words were too negative. Anyway, I think I will stop nagging now.

I have a new place to be when I want sanctuary from the mindless religiosity of the insensitive majority or the sanctimonious malice of the moral police.

A Bad End to a Good Start

Friends of mine who also work in the University of the Philippines (UP) and live near it (in fact they live on campus)tipped me off the other day to a breakfast place in the newly opened Ayala-UP technohub.

They know that my husband and I go out for Sunday breakfast to get away from the household and the kids so that we can actually have a conversation---even if the conversation is about who gets to call the plumber.

Flapjacks, a 24-hour breakfast restaurant, is a pleasant place. It's got this airy, open feel. The huge glass windows allow the sunlight in and the orange chairs and yellow walls keep things happy. As newcomers, we did not realize that it was a self-service restaurant, but the waitress gladly brought us menus, took our orders and even brought us the bill. She also suggested that we share my "endless cup of coffee" as it was obvious that I did not understand that to mean that a big insulated jug of coffee would be brought to our table. I have not seen eggs benedict on a breakfast menu for a long time, and I so had that. It was..eggs benedict. I don't think breakfasts need to be complicated in order to be good. So when I say, "ok", I mean it as an endorsement. Indeed the menu covers generally what I look for in a breakfast menu when I am not having my usual oatmeal--rice, tocino, tapa, longganisa, ham, bacon, eggs, bread and hotcakes.

I am excited too about the possibilities of this part of the technohub. Only a third of the establishments are open, and I am looking forward to the opening of more food outlets and a drugstore. I did not get to go to the bookstore, but I will next time.

Today was the kind of Sunday that convinced me that I am almost over the intense mothering years. My eldest son woke up at 2 pm---his usual; my middle child was off to a debate tournament; and my youngest did not get in until about 4 pm as he had slept over at a cousin's house.

We almost had dinner at home, except that Sundays have been family day since forever. So we decided to have a quick dinner out just to keep the habit going. Both my middle child and my youngest wanted to get home early though, to do some final bits of homework before knocking off. They were both exhausted.


We haul off to the technohub again. At night, the center court features a lighted set of fountains--pretty. We have come to expect some prettiness from Ayala developments. I might add that there is sufficient green in this large commercial/business area. I haven't seen it all though. I wonder whether old trees were cut as the only trees I saw were young ones.

Then the nightmare began. We decided to eat at the Old Spaghetti House. It took some time before they could clean the table we took over from people who had just left; some time before someone came to give us menus; and some time before we could place our orders. We were still good-humored at this point because it did look like a busy night. (My entire family suffers from liberal, middle class guilt. We are very rarely mean to waiters.) But it got worse and worse. We practically had to beg the waiters for water. The food came in dribbles. After repeated follow ups, my husband finally went over to the counter only to come back with our youngest son's food platter in hand. (I jokingly asked if he had volunteered his services out of love for his family.)My husband's order never came, even if it was the same order as that of our middle child, who had finished his food way beforehand. In exasperation we asked that all the rest of our orders (desserts and my husband's oh-so-absent meal) be canceled and we be given the bill. Guess what? The bill comes, after follow ups, only they were still charging us for everything.

So my husband gets up to talk to the manager (poor man was getting a work-out instead of a meal) and she turns out to be the owner who turns out to be unable to do anything about anything. It's a pity I did not know this, as I had earlier vetoed a suggestion that we just walk out because I was afraid that the waiters would have to pay for our bill out of their salaries. (It's that liberal middle-class guilt thing again.)

We ended up at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf beside the nightmare of an Old Spaghetti House. The sympathetic people there brought my husband a tuna sandwich real quick and some soothing tea for me. It was there when we realized that this was the first time ever that we walked out of a restaurant with one of us being unfed. The second worst experience was at the soft opening of another restaurant, but the manager was so apologetic he did not charge us and had us take home some cake. That made us less miserable.

We are home now and the kids are upset about having to sleep much later than expected because dinner took so long. As for me, I had hoped to go to bed early too, but I just needed to write this down.

Anyway folks, do the serving staff, the cook and the owner a favor and lessen the load on the Old Spaghetti House at the UP-Ayala technohub---avoid the place.

Greetings

I would like to greet my Christian friends a Marry Christmas and my non-Christian friends Happy Holidays.

I like Christmas carols actually, even if I am not a Christian. In the same way that I like religious classical music from Europe, Handel's Messiah, for example. In fact I listen to my copy of the Messiah during the Christmas season.

For me it's the traditional songs, Filipino and English, plus a few new good ones. "New" means to me something written in the 20th century. A choir please. I hate jazz, samba or stars-on-45 versions. The most contemporary I can get is Celtic Woman's Christmas album..released a few years ago. They're good, they sing mostly traditional English carols and I believe most of them are classically trained.

I have not blogged in ages. After my wild abandon of watching birds instead of working, I have had to learn more about not working because of a recent illness that has left me slightly disabled. I discovered during my first visit to the gym in months that my left triceps is now a "noceps" or maybe just a "slightceps". My rehab doctor and I will have a few moments of excitement when I see her in January.

In any case, like many others my illness has helped me realize that I must re-order my life around my essentials and that the world does not crumble when I do. So like December, I will chill...

Picture above shows me descended upon by my sons, several nieces and a nephew. Kids, you gotta love them.