It’s all the fault of the British

Newspaper columnist Conrado de Quiros (Philippine Daily Inquirer, May 15 2008) takes up the issue of "the Church" and "Gays." From this he goes onto a discussion of the attitude of the "Church" towards marriage and sex and the teaching that "Marriage and sex… are solely for reproduction."

The act of being gay says the "Church" is not sinful rather it is the acting out of a same sex relationship that is, because by definition such a relationship is outside of marriage. The answer he says (I assume tongue in cheek) is to "shop around for another religion."

Mr. de Quiros always has something interesting to say although oftentimes I find him a tad too radical in his thinking; but this time he struck a chord with me. What struck me the most as a foreigner living in the Philippines is the manner in which the Roman Catholic Church in this country has been able to masterfully appropriate the brand. Christianity for most Filipinos is synonymous with being a Roman Catholic. Any other form of Christianity and celebration of the Eucharist is an "aberration" that possibly ranks along with the practice of sodomy in the eyes of many. How sad that I cannot break bread with my fellow Rotarians with whom I enjoy fellowship each week. My Church allows it but theirs does not.

It is a great pity because it confines the Philippines to a pre-reformation time warp of its own making. As a Christian - but not a Roman Catholic Christian - the "Church" in the Philippines comes across as being firmly rooted in the sixteenth century unlike the Roman Catholic Church in other places which has moved forward and accommodated others while still retaining its own core values. How else can you explain the attitude of the "Church" here towards sex and to human relationships? Indeed as Mr. de Quiros says "whatever happened to love? Whatever happened to ecstasy?" Well Sir, both are alive and well but it seems many in the Philippines—even heterosexuals—have to enjoy closet love and closet ecstasy because the "apple pie" type seems to be the only kind naively allowed by the powers that be.What a pity! What a travesty! Where is the celebration of the joy of life that sexual experience can bring?

It reminds me of another item from the same newspaper, this time a cartoon. The cartoon was written in Tagalog so I may have missed some of the salient points but the gist of the storyboard was an academic claiming that in order to move forward and get the country out of poverty, we needed to practice population control in this country. To which poor old Juan dela Cruz replied to the effect "No, the problem is corruption." So easy to ignore another inconvenient truth and deflect reason when of course the Philippines needs to make progress on both population control AND corruption.

Well Mr. de Quiros, the Anglican Church (Church of England or Episcopalian in the United States) is both Catholic and Protestant at the same time.  To many it offers the best of both worlds: Catholic forms of worship but tempered with a level of rationalism that comes from knowledge and understanding. It is a small church in the Philippines but claims adherence of more than 77 million people globally. After Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox it is the largest branch of the Christian faith. Of course, the Roman Catholic Church does not accept the view that it is a "branch" of Christianity at all but rather that adherence to the Roman tradition defines the Christian faith. To those outside, this is a dangerous proposition and shackles any attempt at reasoned debate. "I am right and you are wrong" has never been a good means of handling dissenting opinions. People, even churches, that cannot accept that they may be not be the sole repository of truth have never moved humanity forward. Often they have held us back.

Anglicanism follows many of the rites of the Roman Church but has also embraced many of the reforms of the age of enlightenment, most notably that both faith and works are the pathway to salvation and that while accepting the "sufficiency of scripture," scripture has to be interpreted in the light of reason and knowledge. Mankind moves forward; so does our understanding. Actually the Vatican embraces a very similar approach nowadays to some issues of faith but from the silence of many in "the Church" on the social ills of this country you would never know it. "Sin all you like during the week just as long as you attend Mass on a Sunday" appears to inform the approach of many (although I would be the first to admit, not all. I have many wonderful Catholic friends). No wonder there is little incentive to change attitudes. To those who have lived outside of the Philippines, some of the practices of the "Church" do appear to fly in the face of rationalism and at times borders on irresponsibility.

Yes, the Anglican Church does have women priests, even women bishops and—shock and horror—in the United States it has also ordained a gay bishop. Gay relationships are accepted. So what? Perhaps to some this may be overly progressive but it is as well to remember that it was the Anglican Church that has time and again taken the lead in defining social justice, be it the abolition of the slave trade, the abolition of child labour, the right to a decent wage and working conditions (a century before the ILO took up the same issue) and the universal right to education even among the very poor. More recently it was Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Anglican Archbishop of Capetown and Primate of South Africa who was instrumental in leading the fight against apartheid. Time and again, in the U.K. and America it was the Anglican Church which directly as a Church and indirectly through its adherents, that influenced the course of participatory democracy.

I mean no disrespect to my Filipino friends, but where was their "Church" on these issues? Where is their "Church" today? Yes, Mr. de Quiros, social justice seems to be of little concern to many clerics in the Philippines. "You cannot be pro-mining and also a Christian" rants one bishop. What poppycock. Does the "Church" have a vested interest in keeping people in ignorance?

What happened to the spirit of Oscar Romero, the late Roman Catholic Archbishop of El Salvador who was assassinated in 1980 for his social stand against oppression of the poor by the right-wing government of the day? Who fights for social justice in the Philippines? Sadly too often, in spite of its infallibility, the "Church" has been found on the wrong side of history.

Back in 1762 a British invasion force briefly occupied Manila during the European "Seven Years War" which Britain had entered earlier that year with a declaration of war on Spain. In 1763, the Treaty of Paris ended the war although bereft of internet and cell phones, the news did not reach Manila until the following year. The British, so the history books tell us, were farewelled with much banqueting and fanfare by the Spanish. It was not until the arrival of the Americans that the Anglican Church gained a toehold in the Philippines with missionary work among the un-Christianized mountain people of Northern Luzon. In the Philippines today it remains regarded as a church of the poor and the marginalized. 

Had the British decided to stay back in 1764 and, with an enlightened and reformist church following them, the story of this country might have been written somewhat differently. You can blame the present state of affairs on the British. 

Mr. de Quiros' article may be found here.

http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20080515-136597/Natural

The consequence of consequences

In dealing with Climate Change, adaptation as well as mitigation is needed in order to protect human activity and develop social resilience

Our Executive Forum meeting last month (April 2008) looked at the issue of climate change. The record of that meeting has already been circulated to members. Our meeting was followed in quick succession by a second meeting on a similar subject hosted this time by the Asian Institute of Management as part of its globalization lecture series.

That meeting gave an entirely different—but equally valid—perspective, to the issues confronting humankind.

Whereas our own meeting took the traditional path and looked at climate change from the standpoint of mitigation efforts needed to slow, and eventually reverse, the rate at which anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are changing climate patterns, the AIM meeting took a rather more radical approach and looked at adaptive patterns of behaviour needed now in order to address change already upon us. It was an interesting contrast and in the interest of providing a holistic and balanced perspective to the issue, needs to be reported.

The A.I.M. meeting, which was sponsored by the Konrad Adenauer Institute, took as its own reference point the report "A climate of conflict—the links between climate change, peace and war" produced by London-based think-tank, International Alert (IA). IA is an independent peace-building organization that works to lay the foundations of lasting peace and security in communities affected by violent conflict. According to its website the organization works "…in over 20 countries and territories around the world, both directly with people affected by violent conflict as well as at government, EU and UN levels to shape both policy and practice in building sustainable peace."

The proposition examined was that climate change was already upon us and that the physical consequences of these changes have started to unfold. The consequences will be both physical—in terms of more extreme weather patterns, melting glaciers and shorter growing seasons, and social—in that the added uncertainty will heighten the risks of conflict and political instability, both within communities as between the "haves" and "have nots" and internationally between those responsible for climate change and those suffering the consequences. Change will come in the form of both sudden shocks as well as slow and incremental shifts but one thing is certain, the past cannot be used to predict the future.

Hardest hit will be people living in poverty in under-developed and unstable states and those under poor governance. Extreme weather events will cause drought, floods, reduce land fertility, create drastic changes to the crop output, rising sea levels, famine, displacement of communities, disease and pestilence. And these are just the start. Climate change has the potential to become a "threat multiplier" if the consequences are not addressed through appropriate policy and attitudinal shifts.

Thus alongside mitigation strategies (which are now the focus of growing political attention) we also need adaptive strategies to allow us to survive as cohesive societies. Adaptation has so far failed to attract serious advocacy, yet the need is the more urgent one. The key risks to be addressed through adaptation include (a) increased political instability, (b) economic weakness, (c) food insecurity and (d) demographic shifts.

This proposition is of particular importance to the Philippines as it is one of 46 countries—home to 2.7 billion people—considered to be most at risk. A total of twenty provinces in the Philippines are vulnerable to a one-metre rise in sea level and these are in those regions with both the highest poverty incidence and greatest food insecurity. Naga City in Albay province would be among the first to suffer and would all but disappear with a one-metre rise in sea-level.

The IA report puts forward the proposition that climate change needs to be treated as an opportunity and become the occasion for enhanced interational, national and local cooperation. It has to engage governments, the private sector and community organizations within the process. Although adaptation is starting to feature on the international agenda, it is mitigation that takes the lion's share of the headlines and the focus of funding and policy initiatives. A more balanced approach is necessary.

Two central motives should drive the international debate on adaptation: the need to maintain international peace and security as well as support for sustainable development. With cataclysmic events within the bounds of possibility, demographic shifts may be sudden and dramatic—remember the Vietnamese boat people of the 1970s? That sudden demograhic shift took more than a decade to address.

But while there is a need to direct international attention towards the adaptation aspects of climate change, the community is the vital level for action to take hold since at the end of the day; adaptation and conflict resolution has to take place within the communities themselves. Elsewhere it is called "stakeholder engagement." In this case, most communities are not aware that they are yet stakeholders.

International companies operating in at-risk countries have both an interest and a responsibility in safeguarding their investments by working together with governments and communities on climate adaptation. Business practices need to be climate sensitive. This is not a problem to be addressed in the future but needs to be integrated into corporate planning as of now—both as a contingency and as a further aspect of community engagement.

The key take-away from this meeting was that that there is a real and immediate risk that climate change will compound the propensity for violent conflict and that the Philippines is especially vulnerable. It is not poverty alone that drives the risk but the uncertainty and the perceived risk of future insecurity that amplifies current problems.

While the Philippines contributes only one half of one percent to global pollution and is not among those causing global climate change, it is certainly a country that will be among those suffering the most devastating consequences as a result of it.

Any programme—government or private sector—focused on adaptation has to be a bottom-up, rather than a top-down, approach starting at the community level; because community buy-in is essential to the process. A study of conflict dynamics shows this lesson very clearly. Now in dealing with conflict management and resolution, an additional variable needs to be factored into the equation or the risk of ultimate failure is heightened.

As an under-developed country, the Philippines faces an especially high risk of violent conflict created by climate change interacting with and compounding persistent economic, social and political concerns. On the other hand, as one speaker at the meeting noted, the Philippines was also known for its "adaptive" capacity. Sadly, however, the capacity for adaptation in this particular case is constrained by a number of factors: weak institutions and limited technology, poor resource bases and inequality of income. For government to address these problems, it will require some long-term strategic planning that goes beyond the next election. As Congress starts to debate Charter Change yet again, that may be too much to hope for.

Clearly there is opportunity here for the private sector and especially those which operate in rural areas to include these issues in their own planning and community consultations. Government is unlikely to take the lead but the issues are too important to ignore.