One can admire the way Filipino “activists” vigorously campaigned for the boycott of Filipino food conglomerate NutriAsia. NutriAsia manufactures products marketed under iconic Filipino brands such as Mang Tomas, UFC, and Datu Puti among others. These brands are not just ordinary brands. They are ingrained in the Filipino tradition and, as such, the average Filipino faces a tough decision with regard to a recent leftist “activist” campaign. NutriAsia is currently embroiled in a labour dispute and leftist “activists” have jumped on an opportunity to demonise the business and emotionally-blackmail Filipino consumers into choosing between their lofty “workers’ rights” ideal and their cherished culinary tradition.
It is interesting to note the the amount of vitriol NutriAsia is copping from these Filipino “activists” and how little attention that big elephant in the room, the Roman Catholic Church, is attracting. The Roman Catholic Church is governed by officers who owe a vow of obedience not to the Filipino (who no less than former President Benigno Simeon ‘BS’ Aquino III referred to as his “boss”), not to the Philippine State but to the supreme ruler of a sovereign state on the other side of the world. What is particularly disturbing about this is the sorts of rulings that emanate from that state, the Vatican City also referred to as the “Holy See”…
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While priests in many countries are mandated both by the church and civil law to report sexual abuse to church commissions and legal authorities, there has been a culture of denial and secrecy that has prevented allegations from being fully investigated. A 1962 Vatican document instructed bishops to observe the strictest secrecy in sexual abuse cases and to address sexual abuse, or “solicitation,” as an internal church matter, not as an offense that should be reported to local authorities.
In light of how positions such as the above are cascaded down a governing hierarchy of clerics bound by their infamous vow of obedience, it is easy to see why the Church remains the formidable ethical black box that it is today…
In all these cases, the hierarchical structure of the church made it difficult to bring high-ranking figures to justice. Superiors are given nearly absolute obedience, which makes the threshold for acting against them high. By the same token, superiors can often protect offending priests.
Even more appalling…
The other issue is that a presumption of integrity goes with a high position in the Catholic Church. It is often difficult to believe that a bishop could commit or cover up a terrible crime such as rape or sexual abuse. Also, if the Catholic Church is a divine institution necessary for salvation, then there are those who will protect its reputation at all costs.
It is quite baffling the way the Philippines’ foremost “activists” would routinely ignore the impunity with which the Roman Catholic Church applies an insidious modern flavour of imperialism in the Philippines with impunity and, worse, tolerates hideous crimes perpetrated by its officials protected under the very same ancient governance framework it uses to effect this imperialism. Surely, the alleged “oppression” of workers at least ranks up there with sexual violation of children as causes worthy of the virulent “activism” these leftists subject NutriAsia to. And yet we hear nothing but relative silence from these “activists”. No “trending” hashtag taken up by their allies in Big Corporate Media, and certainly no nuns and priests marching on the streets denouncing the crimes of their colleagues and Roman overlords.
It is no wonder these “activists” have become irrelevant. Their so-called “feminist” advocacies, their railing against “tyranny”, the tears they shed for so-called Martial Law “victims”, the shrill cries for “justice” for “victims” of alleged “extra-judicial killings”, blah blah blah… All these have become mere selective noise coming from a bunch of incoherent whiners.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
Don’t expect the opposition to bite the hand that feeds them.
I don’t think the “never mind X, what about Y?” argument has ever been accepted as a logically-sound criticism.
Why not critique the protests in their own context? For example, you could write about the fact that Filipinos seem to treat their employers as a surrogate parent, and employers tend to respond in kind (by treating them like children). You could write about the perverse reactions of Filipinos to employers who treat them well (they steal from them, shirk their responsibilities, and generally behave like idiots) compared to employers who treat them like dirt (they bow and scrape and do as they’re told).
Employer-employee relationships here are a goldmine of social failure. No need to bring the CCCP or Martial Law into it.
Sorry, typo, that’s the CCP. Not the same thing as the Soviet Union, of course.
Filipino activists, who call themselves: “do gooders”, are biased in their activism. They are mostly paid political agitators, paid by crooked politicians, to further their political agendas.
They are silent on: DAP ; on the 2016 HOCUS PCOS election cheating; on the PDAF; on the missing Typhoon Yolanda Fund; on the Dengvaxia vaccine scam; on the Hacienda Luisita scam; etc…
Who are paying these “agitators” ? This is a good question. Why is it that they are aggressive on one issue, and are silent on other issues ? This is another question.
The Roman Catholic Church is headed by a Roman Catholic Church Pope, who is a foreigner. It has no business on the decisions of the President in our country. We are not under the Roman Catholic Church Pope. Priests, Nuns, Bishops, Cardinals, etc…should never dictate what our leaders do. They are accountable only to the Filipino people; not the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy.
Why not put your own house in order ? The Roman Catholic Church is covering the abuse of Pedophile Priests, As ordered by their Bishops. They are paying a hefty fines, ordered by the courts on their victims of sexual abuses. So, the money you contribute to the Church, may go to the funds that pay the fines of sexual predator priests.
The Roman Catholic Church needs a thorough cleaning. There are sexual predators inside their ranks of priests !
So in the future like this, Roman Catholic Church and its devotees will diminish for next decades.
The problem is that Roman Catholic Church did not help improve lives of our Filipinos. Problem is that they multiply like flies and more poverty. It forced Filipinos to go abroad.
Should we see a real separation of state, government and Church someday like this?
@Propaganda Boy:
We don’t know the future of the Roman Catholic Church. It seems , it is being destroyed by its sexual predatory priests. There was a financial scandal in the Vatican Bank several years ago. There is still an unsolved murder that was connected on this bank scandal… Now, there is a coverup of these sexual predators in its hierarchy.
It also involve itself in politics; minding the way our government is being run. Instead of preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ; they do “selective activism” in politics. I don’t believe, they do it for free. Remember our politicians are the worst crooks , that ever walk on this Planet Earth. They will use religion to further their political agendas.
We wait and see, if the Roman Catholic Church, will “implode” itself. Religions came and go in our human history.
If these “social activist” are really concern about the welfare of the workers, why don’t they just try helping the workers get organize and establish their own school, industry, and market even if it’s only on a smaller scale. If the workers can have their own school, industry, and market, then they may no longer ask for higher wages and benefits from their Capitalist employers since they already have another source of income.
But I know it’s not about that, it’s all about the idea of hero-martyr-saint, they just want to be seen as the savior of the poor.
Good point, sarda. If people would just stop whining and recognise that they have quite a lot of power over their own lives, things would get better fast.
“Stop the killing!”
Then they should also stop calling on people to be a hero, a martyr, and a saint and sacrifice their lives because that call is also the same as murder.
STOP THE KILLING !!! Save the drug lords, drug addicts, drug peddlers, crooks and thieves so they can kill UPRIGHT LAW ABIDING CITIZENS !!!
“BETTER THAT TEN GUILTY PERSONS ESCAPE THAN THAT ONE INNOCENT SUFFER” – Blackstone Ratio criminal law
Translation: Better Ten Guilty Murderers make innocents suffer than innocent kill Ten Guilty drug addicts – ORATIO IMPERATA human rights law
Are you shitposting like this, trollfag?
Look who’s talking…
I’m referring to you.
The highest attainable career of fake-American Filipinos is a nurse …
Successful Filipino entrepreneur runs a Sari-Sari Variety Store …
While hated Chinese and Colonist entrepreneurs made it to Forbes richest in their lifetime. Repeat IN THEIR LIFETIME !!!
Stop blaming colonists and colonial mentality !!! PLEASE !!!
Because if colonial mentality is bad why are the remaining colonists were never charged of shenanigans, corruption, bribery, smuggling? BECAUSE COLONISTS AND THE REMAINING COLONISTS ARE EXTREMELY INDUSTRIOUS AND HONEST !!!
If Filipinos had colonial mentality they could have been extremely industrious and honest. But they are not, therefore, their brains are not colonized. So, people, stop blaming the colonial mentality of the colonists. COLONIAL MENTALITY IS GOOD !!! FILIPINO MENTALITY IS NOT !!!
Usually, boycotts sometimes don’t really accomplish anything besides the fact that one shows that they don’t agree with what’s going on.