Justice for Jennifer

Politics and justice do not usually mix well. The courts of our justice system insulates itself from public sentiment for a reason.

Justice is not a spectrum. It is a compass direction that must always point to true north. Public sentiment always represents a much larger expression than this.

Politics on the other hand is usually served by tides of public sentiment and public sentiment only insofar as the public passion is at its flood.

Both serve as distinctive expressions of the enduring life of our national values. Apart, they are clear. But taken together, they represent a false choice.

The cause of justice for Jennifer should prepare itself for a difficult road ahead.

Because when politics and justice mix, it is often at the expense of the other. Which one depends on who is left believing and holding on at the turn of the tide.

I am for equal justice before the law.

No one deserves to be murdered in the way she was murdered.

This is a human being, let us remember - with human struggles, human hopes, human connections, and a citizenship which causes her to belong equally and equitably with all other citizens in our Republic. One could say the same of Pfc. Joseph Scott Pemberton.

All of these are equal considerations.

The unfortunate thing is that, due to the inescapable weight of larger issues beyond the context of this case, these individually human considerations might have inadvertently taken on a political spin.

Due process, custody and safety, correctional jurisdiction are inherently non-political issues. They belong to a sovereignty (of being) that is universally exclusive and imiscible to States.

To be honest, I am not privy to the details of the issue. I do not think this is a hate crime though. It might be more a crime of passion. There are certainly things that can and must be done to prevent and deter crimes like this from happening again in the future.

I do not think this must affect our friendship and treaty obligations with the United States. I am thinking much more of those US citizens who live in friendship with our people than with the politics of the matter here.

However, if we do not streamline and clarify the process of expediting justice in cases such as these, it might affect the overall effectiveness of our being able to carry it out as kindred Countries. Defense being always a matter carried out in the absolute.

We are both a democracy and should understand the weight of public sentiment and the vitality of national memory. Our governments alone can not sustain the potency of a national friendship and treaties alone can not effect a truly common defense of this vital friendship.

Good will must be displayed in the treatment of this case on both sides.

My sincerest sympathy goes out to the family and the friends of Jennifer Laude. It would be remiss of me not to extend my condolences to the bereaved - to those loved ones she left behind in our care.

May her soul find the peace that this world was not able or willing to offer her. May she find her way back to the God Who loves us all and gives us hope for our humanity.

Jennifer Laude is a victim. This is the bottom line. Let us not make more victims in her name.

Justice must be done.
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20141026: Apparently, there exists two other concurrent cases involving the murder of a transgender individual. When I began ruminating about the fate of Jennifer Laude, the first question that came to my mind was, "what was primary will driving the public outcry, the core sentiment as it were at the center of the outcry?"

Is it because Laude is a member of the LGBT minority sheltering under our Republic peace or is it because the alleged perpetrator just so happens to be a serving member of the US Armed Forces?

I was afraid it shall be the latter because it proves that much of the outcry is political - clamoring for an issue more than the human issue we should be dealing about in the immediate.

I understand Susselbeck is outraged. I do not wish to expound on his morality here. I sympathize with his loss of an intimate personal connection. He led one of  the protests in Aguinaldo, got into an unfortunate scuffle with one of our soldiers, apologized, and is now on his way back to Germany.

Should we make him into a persona non grata? I think we should have clearer guidelines on that too. This however, is a matter for our lawmakers and policy innovators.

No to Homophobia

"Some of the bravest people I know of are homosexuals." I stand by that personal anecdote.

I embrace our gay community. 

I am proud of their quiet contributions to this Republic. They pay their taxes, observe and obey our laws, and add to the richness of our diversity. I recognize the contribution of their community to the well-being of our sovereign freedoms.

They should have a voice - and they do. The same with all minorities in our Nation.

My politics regarding this matter is simple:

I shall not endorse the homosexual act as a legitimate act of conjugal love. I am not for gay marriage in the Catholic Church. I will defend the fundamental integrity of the Filipino family as a social institution in this Republic and preserve marriage as a sacred union before God between man and woman.

But that is all. 

From this point, it is all civics.

I am totally and utterly against homophobia and the misrepresentations that have led to or sustains the spirit and form of the persecutions pitted as an evil against the common humanity of the gay person in our society or in any human society.

I will recognize and uphold their humanity, their rights, and their intrinsic value.

Their adequacy as citizens is equal to all others in this Country.

I am for preserving and protecting their property rights (and its legal transmission), as citizens equally engaged in this Republic undertaking of Country, through specific life contracts in the civil sphere.

I am largely inclined to recognize their ability either to responsibly adopt or provide adequate foster care to orphaned, dispossessed, and underprivileged children and babies in this Country.

I am a believer in free will. As such, I recognize it as proper to the dignity of the human person to seek, to know and to choose for him or herself freely what is human and good - in the true self.

I do not think of homosexuality as a social disease. It is simply a crisis of person. As such, homosexuality per se has no negative social dimension whatsoever from my perspective.

Insofar as it is a crisis of individuals, homosexuality per se has no ability whatsoever to corrupt or negate the free will of others in the human domain.

Homophobia on the other hand is an adverse (misanthrophic) social reaction to a purely individuated crises of persons. I will see it for what it is - a social evil.

When people argue that homosexuality is a sin of being, we forget that being simply is. The real sin here is the sin of denial and so we can see - it is precisely these types of denials that breeds those cultures of division and misanthropy that places us ever in the dark with each other.

Not our differences.

I am for prosecuting hate crimes in this Country. I am prosecuting war crimes in this Country.

I never allow this Republic to retrograde in its ages in time back into barbarisms of the past age. We will live in a civilized society held together by a peace worthy of the quality of our present times born of the maturity of our living remembrances - no more, no less.

I will recognize and uphold the value of human life in all our citizens.
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Differences make us the same

Defeating Homophobia

IGNORANCE breeds fear for lack of understanding. What's strange about it all is that people seem to fear the understanding more than the ignorance itself.

Now we come to a complex issue - gay rights.

Some people find this issue too difficult hence, homophobia. What is it?

ho·mo·pho·bi·a [hoh-muh-foh-bee-uh] –noun: unreasoning fear of or antipathy toward homosexuals and homosexuality.

Take note, homophobia is an unreasoning fear or antipathy toward homosexuals and homosexuality.

Like I said, it is a complex issue and herein lies its difficulties. It is simply too unreal to say one is pro-gay or anti-gay.

I myself consider my convictions about the issue to be centrist because I find myself advocating both liberal as well as conservative positions. My main argument though and one that I will not compromise with is the issue of human rights for gay people.

First of all, let me put this argument in the proper context -

The last great age of War thrives on a mindset of division. Where these mindsets have become firmly entrenched in the people, some cultures of persecution will persist.

Here in the Philippines, my honorable compatriots, we shall make every effort to successfully enter into the door that will lead our nation to promise in this new age.

We shall, as one nation, work to prosper our peace. This means we shall both clearly define and continually safeguard individual human rights as a vital element requisite to our integral sense of a national common good.

Because, honorable Filipino brothers and sisters of the Promise, without the real development of individuals there can be no true national development and there can be no real development of individuals without individual rights.

- selah -

In this sense, speaking for myself as a citizen, I am more concerned about the fear and ignorance that feed the phenomenon of homophobia than of homosexuals per se as a minority segment of our common humanity.

It is easier to reject than to respect and to forsake love rather than to embrace it. Hate blinds the faith that causes our reason to see further than it normally could, by the grace of God.

This is why in the case of minority human rights issues, above all other considerations, force of law is a requirement we can never do without.

This means that - especially in the case of the weaker segments of any society - the force of free human choice must be augmented by the prevailing law of the land.

But we can not have law without resort to reason and we can not use our reason (naked or otherwise illuminated by faith) without first accepting that homosexuality is not the problem, the phenomenon of homophobia is.

As a Roman Catholic Christian, though my stance on the matter is the traditional one and is well known to all, I am also additionally concerned about the abuse of my Christian faith by those who seek to use it to persecute my fellow human beings (homosexual or not) first of all, and the protection of my faith tradition from the excess of those who for selfish reasons, seek to make it more or less than what it should be (homosexual or not).

I do not believe in same-sex marriages. As far as I am concerned, we should just politely leave church weddings out of it.

But I do believe in the equality of homosexuals (and all human beings) before the law - specific civil contracts should be fine. And I mean this primarily to protect their property rights as fellow citizens equally engaged in our one Republic undertaking.

I believe in the dignity and the promise of the homosexual person as a fellow human being upon this earth but I will never endorse the homosexual act as a legitimate act of conjugal love.

I do not believe in legislating conformity as regards to anybody's private personal preferences as long as both the integrity of the human community and the common good of the nation are not threatened by it.

I am of the religious opinion that the homosexual state is a unique calling to serve in the chaste single state and must be explored in that context. Homosexuality is not a disease. It is a distinct calling to serve. That's my religious opinion.

Furthermore, I believe not in judging homosexuals but in helping them realize also their God-given right to be happy not by a false freedom that will consume them but by the freedom that will liberate them in the truth - that their lives too have purpose and meaning from God if only they shall seek to avoid conformity with the spirit of the world and fall in love with the Spirit of Jesus Christ the Lord.

Besides, how can one help those one has already, in his or her heart, condemned to be beyond help? And the homosexual person is never beyond help - no one is.

"Above all, let your love for one another be intense, because love covers a multitude of sins." (2 Peter 4: 8)

Absolutely speaking, I do not believe in using my religion as a weapon against other people.

My honorable compatriots, the future we are choosing to bring forward today belong to all Filipinos - it shall belong to all Filipinos or none at all.

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Within the week, I shall be issuing our next monthly challenge for this month of August 2011.

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. (Ayn Rand)

Others Like Yourself

A Just Equality