Compilation of articles on the SOGI bill, LGBT 'rights', and same sex 'marriage'

For the convenience of those arguing in favor of the family and marriage, here are the articles or papers I've written on the matter so far:

- There is no such thing as SOGI rights, just human rights;
- The SOGI law will hurt business owners, schools, the military;
- House testimony on the SOGI anti-discrimination bill;
- Gay rights and marriage;
- Gay marriage not a human right;
- Still no right to gay marriage;
- Death and the transgender;
- Transgender policy: he or she as they want to be; and
- The continued womanization of men.

Inasmuch as LGBT activists are wont to rely on international law to override Philippine law to advance their agenda, here are my thoughts on international human rights (click here).

Feel free to copy, quote, or share with proper attribution.

Civics 101

my Trade Tripper column in the 15-16 October 2015 issue of BusinessWorld:

First off, we don’t do kings.

It says so right in the Constitution.

There’s no tribal elder or wise old man. There is no “father of the nation” benignly looking over us helpless children. We are a government of self-rule, embodying our will in a specific constitutional system.


This is what it means when we declare that we are a government of, by, and for the people. The people made government and government exists for the people (not the other way around).

The public servants we appointed (or elected) are servants in a peculiar way: their service is to make or implement rules over us. Their ability to “rule,” however, is not unrestrained, kinglike, or godlike. It is very narrow, timebound and limited.

The last means that public servants cannot exercise powers they do not have. Their powers are restricted to that stated in the Constitution or legislative enactments. That’s also why we broke up the major functions of government to three (and this is the important part) “equal” branches.

We did this so that not one person has greater power over the people. Final say and responsibility is always with the people.

What’s the measure by which pubic servants must comply? Aside from the expressed functions in the Constitution and laws, there’s also the overall standard of the “common good.”

The “common good” is that peculiar phrase found in the Constitution’s preamble. It means the flourishing of each and every human being towards a purpose and within an environment that the members of the society laid out or created by themselves.

How do we know this? Because we recognized each human being as a rational creature; i.e., blessed with an intellect. Also, because we recognize that all human beings are created equal, and imbued with dignity and rights. These are in the Constitution. Being so, a citizen must not be dictated upon and should be trusted to figure out for himself/herself what is good for him/her personally.

There is a further limit to the powers of government and that’s the concept of “subsidiarity.” This simply means that issues and problems that can be handled by the smallest political unit (i.e., the individual) should be handled by that individual; if unable, then the family, then the neighborhood, then the town, then the province; and only if such is unable, should the national government step in.

How do we know this? Because the dignity and rights of every single human being are to be respected in our Constitution; that our Constitution recognizes the family as a “basic autonomous social institution,” and that our Constitution encourages local governments towards “local autonomy.”

In practice, this means that with regard to education, formation of beliefs (including religion and values), health, welfare, employment, housing, commerce, and so on, the main responsibility lies with the parents and the family (specially), then the neighborhood parish, civic organizations, the businessman down the street.

The actual main job of government is to serve and protect the people, which include maintaining peace and order, and securing life, liberty, and property. All others are secondary and only as assistant to the people. This is in the Constitution.

The rationale behind it is that if the people abdicate their responsibilities and prefer government stepping in, the latter’s tendency is to want more power: soon, it will be telling people what to eat, work, buy, believe, travel, who to be with. Which requires more government personnel/resources, which demands a bigger budget, hence more taxes. Hence, lesser autonomy for the people: less money in the wallet, less choices, less exercise of free will. Thus, more dependency. And on and on.

People complain about democracy (and the rule of law) because it’s messy and slow. Here’s a shocker: it’s supposed to be messy and slow! The system is designed to protect us from our passing passions and the temptation of quick fixes.

It encourages people to study, debate, and ponder, and eventually come up with a deliberate solution for the common good because of the (wise) assumption that the government does not and cannot know and solve everything.

Our dignity and self-respect demand that we govern and rule ourselves.

When we say Philippines and common good, we’re not only talking of the 100 million living in our country right now. We also mean those that died before us, that fought and built this country they believed in (and its values and culture). We the living have a responsibility that they not die in vain.

The Philippines includes also those yet to be born, deserving to flourish as human beings, and thus our responsibility to bequeath to them a decent country they’d be proud of, to work for (and die for, if necessary) because they know that it stands for something bigger than the merely passing.

This is the Philippines embodied in our Constitution. It was a great idea. Too bad, it hasn’t been implemented.

The magical words: ‘international human rights’

my Trade Tripper column in the 27-28 August 2016 issue of BusinessWorld:

“International human rights law” always had this mystique. Regularly mentioned yet rarely understood. Like “sovereignty.” The moment someone utters it, like one would in an incantation, the expectation is of openings to lines of argument from which there can be no opposition. Hence, from entitling transgenders to use another name to the issue of Marcos’s burial site, international human rights law is invoked by earnest activist lawyers everywhere.

If only it were that simple.

The truth, however, is that international human rights has always been a contentious concept.

Hence why London School of Economics’ Susan Marks (“Human Rights Myths,” Oct. 2012) relevantly brought up the facts that the universality of international human rights shouldn’t be presumed, of its relative novelty, that the bulk of international human rights law are either ambiguously crafted or in the nature of “soft law”, and that it is not above ideological agendas.

Hence why a State would be foolish to indiscriminately bind itself to such.

International human rights -- which essentially arose after the two world wars but had its emergent heyday “out of the anti-totalitarianism and anti-authoritarianism of the 1970s” -- simply stands on “the ‘myth of presumptive universality”: that rights are uniform in form and substance for all. But such is far from the reality.

Another international human rights myth is its supposed apolitical nature: “the human rights movement’s claim to be engaged in a ‘pure defense of the innocent and powerless against power.’” But this is hogwash. As illustrated by Marks, “there is no such thing as a pure defense of the innocent and powerless, and that human rights are, in any event, not just defenses against power, but themselves significant forms of power.”

And perhaps because they know their advocacies are unacceptable in many countries, human rights activists picked on the tactic of preaching that international human rights laws are “sui generis.” But sui generis according to whom? Their fellow human rights activists?

It’s due to the forgoing that international human rights law has such a dismal record. As Eric Posner points out (The Case Against Human Rights, Dec. 2014): “The truth is that human rights law has failed to accomplish its objectives. There is little evidence that human rights treaties, on the whole, have improved the well-being of people. The reason is that human rights were never as universal as people hoped, and the belief that they could be forced upon countries as a matter of international law was shot through with misguided assumptions from the very beginning.”

“The central problem with human rights law is that it is hopelessly ambiguous. The ambiguity, which allows governments to rationalize almost anything they do, is not a result of sloppy draftsmanship but of the deliberate choice to overload the treaties with hundreds of poorly defined obligations. In most countries people formally have as many as 400 international human rights -- rights to work and leisure, to freedom of expression and religious worship, to nondiscrimination, to privacy, to pretty much anything you might think is worth protecting. The sheer quantity and variety of rights, which protect virtually all human interests, can provide no guidance to governments. Given that all governments have limited budgets, protecting one human right might prevent a government from protecting another.”

Finally, even assuming that international human rights -- at the specific level -- can be identified, determined, and enforced, the same cannot deviate from natural law. In short, any such rights should be based on a logical and reasoned appreciation of human nature.

As noted philosopher Jacques Maritain explains, human rights being based on natural law, then it can be fairly said that there can be no human right contrary to natural law: “The moral absolutes give legal reasoning its backbone. xxx These moral absolutes which are rationally determined and essentially determinate, constitute the most basic human rights.”

International law itself recognizes the connection of natural law to rights. One easily sees this in the creation of the United Nations (where Jacques Maritain played a not insignificant role), as well as important documents on international human rights such as the 1948 UN Declaration on Human Rights, the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, amongst others. Thus, one basis of international law is said to be the natural law, upon which our concepts of jus cogens (as well as erga omnes) is rooted.

Hence, this utterly relevant insight by our Supreme Court (from Ang Ladlad vs. Comelec, 2010): “not everything that society -- or a certain segment of society -- wants or demands is automatically a human right. This is not an arbitrary human intervention that may be added to or subtracted from at will. xxx [To do so will have] the effect of diluting real human rights.”

The point here is this: people are much better off relying on and having confidence in Philippine statutory law than the ambiguity that is international human rights.

The damage of liberal elitism to the Philippines

my Trade Tripper column in this 6-7 August 2016 issue of BusinessWorld:

And I’m not talking about the wealthy oligarchy, a completely different topic altogether. No. Am focusing on this country’s so-called “intelligentsia,” of the academe and the professions, particularly of law (which I’m most familiar with), from those exclusive few universities convinced only they are entitled to influence others and make the decisions simply because (so they believe) they’re smarter than all of us.

Which is really annoying considering how utterly without basis their thinking is.

I remember one former Supreme Court justice pointedly (but quite correctly) telling a graduating central Manila law school class (and I’m paraphrasing here): “Be proud of yourselves, don’t be intimidated by the elite universities. Remember, at least your school hasn’t produced corrupt leaders, plunderers, and traitors that plague this country.”

So when I hear the self-congratulatory prattle of academics, lawyers, policy makers from those hallowed halls of learning, the humble bragging about their progressiveness (and they usually do describe themselves as “progressives” or “liberals”) supposedly making a difference to the country, I get baffled: have you seen the Philippines lately?

However, in fairness to the present administration, let’s agree it’s really too early days to tell how Bedans fair in governance. Full disclosure, I’m a Bedan.

In any event, beyond the corruption and mismanagement our intellectual class brought down upon us, the greater danger is the thought homogeny permeating our top schools.

This leads to two distressing consequences, both observable priorly from the United States, which we’re seemingly determined to copy.

The first is hostility to dissenting opinions: anyone with a conservative viewpoint will surely be labeled as “medieval,” “racist,” “bigoted,” or “uninformed.” And these occur in a range of topics: from sexual ethics to immigration to national security.

Thus, if you dare question the concept of “the other” (the latest buzzword favored by progressives), you are “xenophobic.”

If you ask about the merit of allowing transgenders their choice of restrooms, you are “bigoted.”

And God help you if you ever utter the word “God” in an “intellectual” conversation.

All this renders learning inutile.

As Nicholas Kristof (New York Times, “A Confession of Liberal Intolerance”, Nicholas Kristof, May 7, 2016) puts it, “the stakes involve not just fairness to conservatives or evangelical Christians, not just whether progressives will be true to their own values, not just the benefits that come from diversity (and diversity of thought is arguably among the most important kinds), but also the quality of education itself. When perspectives are unrepresented in discussions, when some kinds of thinkers aren’t at the table, classrooms become echo chambers rather than sounding boards -- and we all lose.”

Finally, we seem to be aping the US’ obsession (at least from the academic standpoint) with national guilt. In their case, it’s about race and slavery. In ours, the alleged historical baggage the Philippines has vis-à-vis the Bangsamoro concept.

There’s also the academic and social media “thought leaders” fashionable passion to seek out and help (again to use those words) “the other” (usually minority refugees), with nary a nod to national security or economic viability.

But intellectual elite actions also led to the (likely intended) consequence Janet Daley (The Telegraph; “The US elite abandoned the American dream -- Trump is the terrifying result”, March 12, 2016) decried as where “love of country is no longer instilled in the children of every generation as it once was.”

So with the Philippines.

Most of our so-called intelligentsia took post-graduate studies from foreign universities, many from the Ivy League, again usually “progressive,” and it’s interesting how naively oblivious they are about the damage the ideas coming from those schools wrought upon the rest of the world.

For example, the liberal freak-out over “Brexit”: “Over the past decade, elites broke the world, and were unrepentant about their failure. They created the conditions for the worst economic crisis in nearly a century, and made sure that their elite friends at the top would scoop up the post-crisis gains, stranding the vast majority of people. They decided their project of globalization and liberalization mattered more than democracy.” (The American Prospect, David Dayen, “Who’s to Blame for ‘Brexit?’ The Elites,” June 24, 2016)

Another: elites at the IMF fostering “groupthink and intellectual capture” resulted in unmindful cheerleading “for the euro project, ignored warning signs of impending crisis, and collectively failed to grasp an elemental concept of currency theory.” (The Telegraph, “IMF admits disastrous love affair with the euro and apologizes for the immolation of Greece,” July 29, 2016)

This article, make no mistake, is not a call against experts. Rather, it’s a plea for people to be accepting of dissenting ideas and to be more democratic in the sourcing of varying thoughts.

For the Philippines, certainly expanding the bench from where we get our analytical input could only be helpful.

We know that because our continued insistence in narrow intellectual sourcing from an exclusive set of families and schools has definitely not worked for the country.

We must elect a pro-family president

my Trade Tripper column in the 29-30 April 2016 issue of BusinessWorld:

This election campaign season unfortunately neglected the family.

Distractions (some necessary, some not) prevented the nation from putting in the needed time to discuss two really important issues.

And while debates abounded on national security, crime, unemployment, and inequality, the most important issues, one that actually encompasses all others due to their fundamental nature, were never raised.

Am referring, of course, to human dignity and the traditional family.

Princeton professor Robert George famously said there are three pillars to a decent and dynamic society. The third was about having “fair and effective system of law and government.”

This is a matter commonly known to most Filipinos.

However, what we disastrously fail to realize is how important the first two pillars are to the rule of law. These are “respect for the human person” and “the family” (i.e., that based on the commitment of a husband and a wife).

Regarding the human person, George notes that a “society that does not nurture respect for the human person -- beginning with the child in the womb, and including the mentally and physically impaired and the frail elderly -- will sooner or later (probably sooner, rather than later) come to regard human beings as mere cogs in the larger social wheel whose dignity and well-being may legitimately be sacrificed for the sake of the collective.”

Measures such as euthanasia and abortion (as well as the extrajudicial killing of criminals) obviously do not help in advancing respect for the human person.

Regarding the family, without it “there is no transmission of the virtues which underpin society and which also ensure respect for human dignity. Political and legal institutions cannot function without people who respect the fundamental virtues that bind society.”

The importance of the family cannot be overestimated.

Research by Wilcox, Lerman, and Price for the Institute for Family Studies “shows that states with higher levels of married parenthood enjoy higher levels of growth, economic mobility for children growing up poor, and median family income, along with markedly lower levels of child poverty.”

The impact of the family on the economy is so strong, in fact, that it is a better predictor of economic health than the population’s “educational attainment.”

Harvard economist Raj Chetty backs this up, saying that “the strongest predictors of upward mobility are measures of family structure.”

Family Research Council’s Patrick Fagan was more direct: “No matter which way you look at it -- through the lens of income, savings, or poverty -- marriage is the great engine of the economy, with every household a building block that either contributes or takes away, millions of times over. Put all these families together, and we have the team that runs the American economy.”

Even more direct: “The foundation for a productive household begins with marriage”. “Cohabitation does not take the place of marriage, and there are very strong indications that cohabitation may rival single parenthood as the largest generator of child poverty, while divorce is the cause of most women and children entering poverty in any given year.”

Much was made this election season regarding crime. What was incredibly missed was how taking care of the traditional family structure could go a long way towards a solution.

The Atlantic’s Kay Hymowitz pointed out that 70% of youths in prison “did not grow up with both parents.” An even starker study found that only 13% of criminal juveniles “grew up with their married parents.”

Finally, referencing a study by Cynthia Harper and Sara McLanahan: “The bottom line is that there is a large body of literature showing that children of single mothers are more likely to commit crimes than children who grow up with their married parents. This is true not just in the United States, but wherever the issue has been researched.”

The desperation caused by the breakup of the traditional family structure was famously summed up -- ironically -- by Barack Obama:

“We know the statistics -- that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison. They are more likely to have behavioral problems, or run away from home or become teenage parents themselves. And the foundations of our community are weaker because of it.

More than corruption and more than any other issue, to protect the family is a matter of national survival.

Unfortunately, we have candidates who, unknown to many, have filed bills or advocated measures that experience taught are extremely damaging to the traditional family structure.

These involve contraceptives, euthanasia, same sex marriage, divorce, and the not so well thought through Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity.

In the remaining days of this campaign, Filipinos are urged to grab the opportunity to make its vote one that protects human dignity and the traditional family.

Now, more than any other time in our history, we desperately need a pro-family president.

Stop using natural law wrongly!

my Trade Tripper column in the 19-20 February 2016 issue of BusinessWorld:

(This article was co-written with Atty. Cristina Montes, LLM Navarre, a specialist on globalization and constitutional issues, and cofounder of the Philippine Principles Institute)

That the Philippine legal system is substantially founded on natural law -- an objective standard of right and wrong based on a correct understanding of human nature and discoverable by reason, transcending positive laws and to which the latter must conform -- should be uncontroversial. Many important events in world history, such as the movements against slavery and racial segregation in the United States and the prosecution of war criminals at Nuremberg, depended on it.

In fact, the seeming local unfamiliarity with natural law is ironic considering our strong affinity to the Bill of Rights. These rights (e.g., to life, liberty, and property, etc.) exist independent of the Constitution precisely because such are considered inalienable and inherent (“natural”) to man.

One can clearly discern natural law clearly in our history, with figures such as Jose Rizal and Apolinario Mabini intellectually relying on the same: the former recommending natural law be taught to “form and educate young men of good family”; the latter believing that determining good and evil is done through one’s conscience and man’s ability to reason.

However, since natural law theory is given a superficial treatment in law schools -- if ever it is taught at all -- many lawyers either reject the natural law theory on mistaken beliefs about it, or apply it erroneously.

For example, many criticize natural law theory on the belief that it is a theological or philosophical notion that has (or should not have) any bearing at all on society, or that it is a Catholic notion that has no place in a pluralistic society.

The first position is absurd as it assumes that laws do not have any philosophical foundation whatsoever. And contradictory as well because to posit that laws have no philosophical foundations is itself a philosophical foundation.

As for the second position, while it is true that the influence of the Enlightenment and the Judeo-Christian philosophy in our Constitution is undeniable, it’s wrong to assume that only Catholics are capable of arriving at a notion of a universal human nature or immutable human rights.

The Judeo-Christian philosophical structure is heavily reliant on reason (rather than mere Scriptural or “revealed truths”) and such reason itself is available to all regardless of one’s faith.

There is also the diversity of natural law thinkers throughout history, including pre-Christian Greeks and Romans like Sophocles, Aristotle, and Cicero; some Islamic scholars like the Mutazilites; and Protestants like Hugo Grotius, among many others.

Another criticism of natural law theory is that it breeds instability by encouraging judges to resort to extra-legal criteria in deciding cases.

Unfortunately, this criticism is not totally unfounded as the notion of natural law has been abused by those citing it as an excuse to deviate from the law or even the Constitution to suit a particular agenda.

One example would be those who espouse the “living Constitution” theory, or the notion that the Constitution is fluid and can be given any interpretation -- no matter how obviously strained -- in order to accommodate any government action that clashes with the literal meaning of the Constitution.

Another example would be those who advocate deviating from the literal text of the law out of pity for a class deemed to be deserving of pity -- such as foundlings with presidential ambitions.

These abuses of natural law arise not from the notion of natural law, correctly understood, but from misunderstandings of what natural law is.

Such misunderstandings forget that while natural law transcends positive law, it is also objective. It is based on universal human nature, not on the whims of whoever is in power. They also mistakenly assume that the essence of natural law is in being opposed to positive law.

It is true that natural law is usually invoked in opposition to positive law where the positive law that applies to a given situation is unclear, or where a strict application of the positive law will yield an absurd or patently unjust result that will defeat the purpose behind the legal provision in question.

But in general, natural law theory itself demands obedience to legitimate human authority as a necessary element of the common good. Natural law also grants authorities the flexibility to enact measures that, though not essential to achieving human flourishing, are necessary to pursue inherent human goods. An example of such would be traffic rules.

Disseminating more information about natural law theory is an immediate solution to such misunderstandings. But truer remedies lie deeper.

We must rid ourselves of preconceived liberal prejudices and instead assign value and reward efforts to learning correctly about human nature, of truth, and objective moral standards. Otherwise, laws -- and the words that make up those laws -- will not mean anything.

Esoteric as these issues may seem, how we respond to them will profoundly impact our society

God’s plants: SC and Bt ‘talong’ case

Cristina Montes' and me writing on the Supreme Court's contradictory legal positions:

"It's curious that the Court ignored the precautionary principle in the RH Law case when contraceptives’ threaten human life or health, as well as the environment."

Article can be read here.

Money can’t buy you happy

my Trade Tripper column in the 5-6 February 2016 issue of BusinessWorld:

In last week’s Republican primary debate, Marco Rubio made this interesting comment: “Why are we some of the most generous people in the world? Why do Americans contribute millions of dollars to charity? It is not because of the tax write off. It is because in this nation we are influenced by Judeo-Christian values that teach us to care for the less fortunate, to reach out to the needy, to love our neighbor.”

This very fundamental and should be obvious aspect of Senator Rubio’s statement, that the US was influenced by “Judeo-Christian” values, will be taken up in another article. Primarily because the Philippine constitutional system is quite similar to, and in fact was learned from, the US.

This column will take a break this week from constitutional or international trade issues, and take up instead more important matters: human happiness. And the effect wealth has on it. And no surprises: more money doesn’t make one truly happy.

The Philippines certainly has the lowest suicide rate in ASEAN but the number is unfortunately increasing.

In “Suicide in the Philippines: time trend analysis (1974-2005) and literature review” (Maria Theresa Redaniel, May Antonnette Lebanan-Dalida, and David Gunnella; 2011), the “incidence of suicide in males increased from 0.23 to 3.59 per 100,000 between 1984 and 2005. Similarly, rates rose from 0.12 to 1.09 per 100,000 in females.”

This must be read within the reality that the Filipino (according to the World Health Organization) is apparently the most depressed in Southeast Asia, with a reported 4.5 million Filipinos suffering from depression.

Contextually, this is interesting considering the improving economic situation (if you believe this government). And with social media, everybody can now be a celebrity in their own world, a wise political pundit, or an expert on gourmet restaurants.

And yet the sadness is there and one likely reason science tells us is self-indulgence.

Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton (“Don’t Indulge. Be Happy”, July 2012, New York Times) point out that: “We usually think of having more money as allowing us to buy more and more of the stuff we like for ourselves, from bigger houses to fancier cars to better wine to more finely pixilated televisions. But these typical spending tendencies -- buying more, and buying for ourselves -- are ineffective at turning money into happiness. A decade of research has demonstrated that if you insist on spending money on yourself, you should shift from buying stuff (TVs and cars) to experiences (trips and special evenings out). Our own recent research shows that in addition to buying more experiences, you’re better served in many cases by simply buying less -- and buying for others.”

Admittedly, those who say poverty is not exactly the situation that can bring out happiness are right.

But as Dunn and Norton clarifies: “People with a comfortable living standard are happier than people living in poverty. The catch is that additional income doesn’t buy us any additional happiness on a typical day once we reach that comfortable standard.”

Just accept that the new glamorous job you have, the new shiny gadget, that impressive looking car, that smart looking crowd in that sophisticated cocktail party, will just depress you, leave you feeling empty, in the long run. Because eventually, after the novelty wears off, it will all be ordinary, leaving you with yourself to contend with.

Some people’s reaction to this is to escape from the sadness by plunging into new activities, which in reality merely creates a manic circle that cannot stave off the inevitable.

“The effects of changes in people’s circumstances wear off as they get used to them -- a phenomenon economists call ‘hedonic adaptation,’” so says The Economist (reporting on the effect of wealth on people’s happiness; “Keeping up with the Karumes”; October 2015). Essentially, “We are never satisfied, since we quickly become accustomed to our own achievements.”

Admittedly, that lack of satisfaction could also spur more economic activity and the generation of further wealth. But that is beside the point because what’s the use of all that wealth if sadness becomes your constant overbearing companion?

We should encourage a society that devalues self-indulgence and immediate gratification. We must teach other the importance of thinking for the long term, of charity to others, and the strength and will to do one’s duty.

And with a Philippine demographic where 70% of the population is below 30 years of age, we really have to exert effort to ensure that the youth grow up with proper values and forego materialism, particularly the “if it feels good, do it” mentality of the 1960’s.

One good suggestion was made by Quartz’s Jenny Anderson (“Parents: let your kids fail. You’ll be doing them a favor”; October 2015) and that is to push children to stick “with tasks, even when they got frustrated,” as doing so will make them learn “focus, study, organize, and otherwise run their own lives.”

Heraclitus puts it best: character is destiny.

The People have spoken: Read the Constitution

my Trade Tripper column in the 22-23 January 2016 issue of BusinessWorld:

Perhaps the error starts way back in law school. There, the unsuspecting law student becomes brainwashed with the notion of the “living constitution,” the idea that the words of the fundamental law can “evolve,” it not being “static,” and is supposed to “keep up with the times.” And this had always been partnered with the idea that the venerable Supreme Court is the final defender of the Constitution. If only such were true. And thankfully, they’re not.

But because of this myth (yes, it’s a myth) of the living constitution (actually a legal theory propagated by liberal law professors in the US), we accepted the quite undemocratic idea that the Constitution (or any law) for that matter is “what the Supreme Court says it to be.”

Which brings us -- amidst all the pressing problems facing the country -- to today’s divisive distractions: Who qualifies to run for president (despite the fact that the qualifications are expressed in declarative sentences)? Can the country have another autonomous region (when the Constitution expressly enumerated them already)? Who can get married? Can fetuses be aborted? And on and on.

The answers to the foregoing, which are commonsensically clear, are being muddled to advance a political agenda. And you can bet that the one with the confused argument will say that the Constitution should be read “flexibly” and “in keeping with the demands of justice,” of which “justice” is defined to be what would agree with their position.

Doubtless, jurists can wax poetic in saying the Constitution should “grow,” for it is a “living organism,” it must be “broad” and “flexible,” a “dynamic document,” as the drafters could not possibly anticipate the future.

All that sounds plausible. After all, if the Constitution is not “living” then it has to be dead. But on closer analysis, the idea is misleading.

To say a constitution’s words can just evolve presents huge difficulties: Who is to say it evolved? What would be the proofs required? To what extent it evolved? When did it evolve?

Note that whether it be the framers of the 1935, 1973, or 1987 Constitutions, they all took months of hard work carefully choosing the words (and their arrangement) of the Constitution. Why bother if the Constitution would just evolve anyway? They could have just written “ketchup” and say the word will evolve. And why bother drafting a new constitution? Just get the old one and say it evolved.

If indeed the Constitution becomes outmoded or needs to be kept up with the times, then that’s what the Constitution’s amendatory provisions are for. Some will complain that to change the Constitution is too difficult. And yet, it’s so difficult that the Americans amended theirs 27 times.

The inherent problem with the “living constitution” theory is that it is an excuse (usually made by leftist progressives) to deviously circumvent the will of the People, pushing their ideological agenda through the academe and the courts what they can’t successfully do through democratic elections.

In the end, after all, what is the Constitution except the written will of the People? It is the People that wrote the Constitution. They are the authors. Not government officials or academics, no matter how powerful or learned.

And since the People authored the Constitution, they are the only ones with the power to change it. Certainly, it can’t be altered by unelected officials. That’s grossly undemocratic. But even elected ones can’t as well. Congress’ authority is to make laws that comply with the Constitution. The president’s job is to apply the constitutionally compliant law.

Leading us back to the Supreme Court, whose mandate is simply to look at a law’s cons-titutionality. And most of the Constitution’s provisions are pretty clear-cut. Granted, there are the “majestic generalities,” as Holmes would put it. Also the unfortunate “grave abuse of discretion” clause, which allows an unelected judiciary to substitute its preferences over that of the people’s elected legislature.

Nevertheless, the Supreme Court’s function remains merely to uphold the Constitution, in accordance with the People’s intent, beliefs, and values at the time they authored it. Not the justice’s personal views or wisdom. And surely such intent, beliefs, and values, with all the media, official records and technology available, can be gleamed from a document (the 1987 Constitution) made less than 30 years ago.

As to being “the defender of the Constitution”? Nowhere in the Constitution is that title given to the Supreme Court.

Like any man-made institution, any supreme court will be fallible. Roe vs Wade, Dred Scott, and our very own Martial Law cases attest to that. No. The final and true defender of the Constitution is its author: the People.

Finally, shallow politicians make much of the argument: “let the people be heard.” Well, the People created a system where it is heard: through the Constitution and every time there is an election.

Outside of that is just the noise of the mob.

The budget as instrument for effective governance

my Trade Tripper column in the 15-16 January 2016 issue of BusinessWorld:

The budget for 2016 was signed into law last Dec. 22, 2015 and -- at P3.002 trillion -- it unabashedly is the costliest one for our Republic to date. By practical consideration, this makes the size of our government equal to 25% of our economy (the humongous US government merely hovers around the 20% mark). And all this amidst the fact that our domestic debt is at P3.896 trillion, with external debt at P2.057 trillion (roughly totaling P5.9 trillion as of Nov. 2015).

This column is the first (at least in so many years) to encourage Filipinos to look at the budget as an instrument for pushing a coherent and effective governance philosophy. And, to put it with all the intricate subtlety of a battering ram, our budgets in the past decades have been quite socialistic.

This article will not dwell on the different strands of socialism. I don’t think even socialists themselves agree on what they are. Many don’t probably even realize they’re adhering to socialistic beliefs. So let’s simplify it for now as the thinking that the State should, under the guise of equality and social justice, dictate people’s lives through coercive measures such as high taxes, more regulations, and by an all-powerful government bureaucracy.

But as I pointed out in my article Disconnect: Paying for the Philippines’ New Normal (9-10 October 2015), to adhere to such a policy goes against the philosophy and intent of our Constitution, which seeks to promote a specific idea of the “common good” and “subsidiarity.”

In other words, government was not designed under our Constitution to be the be-all and do all for the people. The running and welfare of the State is actually the responsibility of the people themselves.

Because despite tons of graduate school gibberish and regardless of what Picketty says: socialism doesn’t work and our Constitution was wise to reject it. It caused poverty in Cuba, Greece, much of Europe, even China. And, unless they reverse course, promises to do the same for the US.

Unfortunately, we seemed to have forgotten this little detail and gleefully dumped so many responsibilities on government that we let it bloat to the size it is today, with the logically resulting budget and debt.

Using the 2015 General Appropriations Act as benchmark, 64% are on welfare matters: socialized housing, climate change, social protection such as the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT), health care, and employment. These are matters better left to the people themselves, exercising personal discretion and self-responsibility.

And yet on the one job our government is supposed to do under the Constitution: “to serve and protect the people,” was met with a pittance of a 4.4% of the budget for 2015.

Fortunately, all that hullaballoo about the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), alongside the noble sacrifice of the SAF 44 in Mamasapano, have led (very much relatively speaking) to an improvement on the budget (from that initially proposed).

Rightly, education was given high priority, with the Department of Education getting P435.8 billion (representing a 15.4% increase from last year). The crucial thing, of course, is in the details.

And gratifyingly, the funds supposed to be spent for possible abortifacients was slashed from the Department of Health’s budget. This was the correct thing to do: RA 10354 (the RH Law) was a Congressional act that could be repealed or amended anytime by another law. And the 2016 GAA was such a law. But it’s ultimately better if the contraceptive provisions of the RH Law be repealed completely.

Unfortunately, despite a laudable Senate attempt to cut the quite misguided, ineffective, and self-entitlement encouraging CCT program by P8 billion, Welfare was able to retain its proposed P64 billion.

But a quite definite improvement was the P117.521 billion allocation for Defense. This represents an increase of P18.6 billion from last year, with bulk of the increase going to modernizing the air force. Having said that, Defense -- in this election year -- is seemingly only 5th in priority for the Aquino government (behind Education, Public Works, Local Government, and Health).

Indeed, while on the subject of defense, the next administration is strongly encouraged to commit thoroughly to reviving the Self-Reliant Defense Posture of the Marcos years, which was “conceptualized and implemented through the enactment of Presidential Decree 415”: “The underlying concept of the program was to produce locally, when feasible, material for our defense forces through partnership between the military and civilian establishments, while importing those that cannot be locally produced with the ultimate objective of acquiring the technology for the production of these material.” (see GlobalSecurity.org)

Put it this way: with China encroaching and Islamic radicals plotting, as well as local thuggish political families and communists desperately seeking to be relevant, the Philippines would be foolish to bet the lives of its citizens solely on mutual defense treaties with foreign governments.

And besides, all this talk of social justice and the rule of law are useless if we can’t even protect what’s ours.

Mocha Uson on Duterte, morality, and hypocrisy

my Trade Tripper column in the 18-19 December 2015 issue of BusinessWorld:

The past few weeks saw an interesting development in popular discourse: rather than the pettiness of who slaps who, it was a practical discussion on the proper role of morality in political debate and of hypocrisy. Interestingly, it was raised by singer/dancer Mocha Uson.

Ms. Uson, it seems, supports Davao City Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte for president and was defending the latter against charges of immorality raised by some other celebrities. In response, Ms. Uson had this to say:

“Moral standards mean different things to different people according to their belief. What is morally right to you might be morally wrong to me, and what is morally wrong to you might be morally right to me.”

She actually presents an internally coherent argument, which riffs off the secular progressive position of morality being relative to one’s individual circumstances and choices. This places emphasis on the Left’s definition of “freedom” or individual autonomy.

Accordingly, if I, as an individual, believe for example that pre-marital sex or any form of consensual sex or contraception or divorce or gay “marriage” or assisted suicide to be right, then who are you to tell me otherwise?

So as to charges that Mr. Duterte allegedly killed, had adulterous relationships, and so on, Uson puts forward a consistent thought: who are you to say that Duterte was wrong to do what he did, given the circumstances and choices that were specific to him and not to you?

Put another way: if you’re a “progressive” who believes in profanity (as freedom of expression), most forms of consensual sex, contraceptives, gay “marriage”, divorce, abortion, and assisted suicide, then you can’t criticize Duterte for immorality without being a hypocrite.

This is because Duterte is simply and logically following through on the progressive relativistic morality founded on individual autonomy.

The point here is that if the ethic is based on individual choice, then the proscription against killing or adultery becomes ultimately a random thing when set alongside “gay marriage”, divorce, or euthanasia.

Of course, one can say that the people Duterte allegedly killed did not consent to be killed.

But one can counter-argue on two grounds: first, by committing crimes in Davao, then they did consent to be killed (since Duterte allegedly warned them beforehand). And, finally, because many in Davao (and apparently so do many others in the rest of the Philippines) seemingly agree with Duterte’s acts.

So, again, if you’re for profanity, contraceptives, gay “marriage”, divorce, abortion, and euthasia, then what would be your rationale against Duterte’s alleged killings, adulteries, or cussing? Because you say so? But Uson and Duterte think otherwise. Because contraceptives, gay “marriage”, etc., are allegedly accepted by a majority? Well, many apparently agree with Uson and Duterte.

The ethical framework of conservatives and generally religious folk, of course, reject the relativism of progressives.

Morality cannot be anchored on individual autonomy or even by will of majority because such will necessarily be arbitrary or changeable.

Instead, reference is made to a comprehensive and consistent set of objective moral standards independent of human decision based on reason and experience, a “natural law” proceeding from a specific understanding of human nature as being both a physical body and intellect.

As such, Aristotelian thought would then tell us that humans are geared for a purpose: succinctly termed as “eudaimonia” or “happiness” (or “human flourishing”).

Accordingly, certain acts, from the use of contraceptives to extrajudicial killings are deemed “immoral” for being against human goods that ultimately prevent an individual from achieving “human flourishing” and society the “common good.”

Hence, why Duterte -- who says he extrajudicially kills, is for contraception and gay marriage -- should be anathema to conservatives, particularly Christians.

Progressives, on the other hand, except for clear-minded people like Ms. Uson (and there is absolutely no sarcasm here), have painted themselves into a corner -- confronted as they are with the logical conclusion of their thinking that is Duterte (whom many progressives seemingly detest).

Leaving us with Uson’s final point: on the nature of hypocrisy.

Again, she’s right. Albeit, safe to say, inadvertently.

Only a person with moral standards can be called a hypocrite. People without standards can never be hypocrites. Duterte cannot be considered one. For the simple reason that he appears to have no moral standards. Except himself. And that is no standard at all.

Note, however, that those with moral standards will, without exception, by ignorance or weakness, repeatedly fall short. That is why for Christians, as example, to keep up with moral standards is a daily (even hourly) struggle. To stumble or fall is not hypocrisy. That is being human.

Instead, hypocrites are those that uncompassionately demand others to do something that they deliberately and consciously don’t require of themselves.

True hypocrites include “progressives” that preach for a society of ostensible individual freedoms and yet condemn or insult a person for having different beliefs. Or because that person doesn’t come from the right family, school, social class. Or just because.

People speak and righting English good. So can you!

my Trade Tripper column in the 28-29 August issue of BusinessWorld:

Probably it was inevitable.

By which I mean the world turning into half mad, half insane lunatics.

And this thought was precipitated because a friend was correcting her Business course students’ test answers.

From a contract law question, this literary gem came out and is hereby quoted word per word: “Mark have to have case against to Pete because they have contract that 3 car garage on Mark’s house and Pete have not do for it Pete will payed damages and the obligation of Pete They will repair the garage of Mark house to have not do any case for Pete.”

But perhaps we can’t blame students if the people they look up to have developed new modes of thinking and rules regarding language.

Which leads me to Katrina Stuart Santiago’s marvelous piece (in another newspaper) on Senator Grace Poe’s International Youth Day speech given just a few weeks ago. The best part of which reads:

“Sino sa inyo, dahil sa mga baha, sa ulan, maramingmake-up classes hindi ba? Kahit na Sabado na kasama ninyo ang boyfriend ninyo o girlfriend ninyo o kaya tumutulong kayo sa inyong mga magulang na maglaba, magplantsa... Nagme-make-up classes kayo, kaya nga ang sabi ko ganito, dahil nga hindi pa natin kaya bigyan ang lahat ng estudyante ng tablet at ng computer at hindi pa mabilis ang ating Internet. Siguro sa DepEd mayroon nangstandard na libro lahat para kahit na kayo ay nasa bahay may workbook kayo na pini-fill out para pagpasok ninyo wala nang make-up classes.”

However, I must admit that my own profession, law, shares substantial blame for making gibberish the new intellectual currency.

Consider these random passages culled together from the writings of local “legal scholars”: “Scrutinizing the visual description in the curvature within the democratic framework makes a comparative grounding from a liberal perspective furnishing a metaphorical area for normative advocacies. Such problematique acquires an expanding accretion, broad prescience, and juristic clarification of institutional dynamics that categorizes the dualist character from the perspective of conceptual and practical progression.”

Journal after legal journal are full of this rubbish.

But, again, it’s hard to blame the younger lawyers when their teachers weirdly rhapsodize about gobbledygook like “penumbras” and “emanations” (see Griswold case).

Or this piece of sheer nonsense: “at the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life” (see Casey).

Which makes the fortune cookie “reasoning” of Obergefell almost unsurprising.

And all complicit in teaching future lawyers the grand manner of confusion.

San Beda’s Fr. Rannie Aquino blames it on “a bad national habit: intellectual sloth”. Perhaps.

It could also be the descending national IQ levels that I pointed out in my massively unpopular 2012 BusinessWorld article “It’s more dumb in the Philippines”.

In any event, I’m reminded of Mark Judge’s article (“America has changed, but God hasn’t”; 2012), whose description of a deteriorating country is spot on -- just change the word “America” with “Philippines”:

“The truth is that America is now a leftist country. It’s Rachel Maddow and Jeremiah Wright’s country. You know that divorced fortysomething female neighbor of yours? The one who’s not half as bright as she thinks she is, and doesn’t know much about Libya or the national debt, but watches Katie Couric’s new show and just kind of didn’t like Romney because she, well, just kind of didn’t like him? America is now her country. It’s Dingbatville.”

But more than intellectual sloth is the turning of people’s backs on truth, with the latter’s un-hipster demands for logic and reason and their tiresome consequences and duties.

No wonder then why many today find the idea of defining “one’s own concept of existence” irresistible.

So, ultimately, I blame the Progressive Left for making idiocy the new normal.

This was laconically illustrated by Carl R. Trueman (“Welcome to the Age of Gibberish”, July 2015): Language needs to be anchored on a reality that is more than a linguistic or societal “construct”.

By determinedly detaching itself from truth (particularly about human nature, gender, family, and religion), which the Progressive Left considers hateful or bigoted, they end up making language “lose all of its rhetorical power and simply looks... well, ridiculous.”

Thus explaining why the language of the Progressive Left is either overly verbose or pseudo-sophisticatedly showered with F&$%! bombs -- a means of hiding the lack of coherence and logic, and instead uses words to target emotions, insult opposing views, or convey threats to shut down discussions.

And if you think that coherent language and thought have no real world implications, just remember the overwhelming damage done to the country when it elected president a person capable of writing this utter piece of daftness: “To be understood or misunderstood is not so much a struggle as it is to understand or misunderstand the longing for inner peace in each man’s heart.”