By REV. LUNA DINGAYAN
www.nordis.net

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GOD’S ABIDING PRESENCE

Finally, to fulfill our prophetic task is to realize God’s abiding presence even as we do God’s mission in the world.

When Moses said to God: “I am nobody. How can I go to the King of Egypt and bring the Israelites out of Egypt? “,God answered him saying, “I will be with you “.When Jesus Christ our Lord gave the Great Commission to his disciples, he also concluded saying, “I will be with you always to the end of the age” (Mt.28: 16-20).

The God we believe in is not only a God who calls, but also a God who provides. When God calls us to fulfill a particular task, God in wondrous ways will also provide the necessary resources to fulfill that task. I am saying this not only as a cold doctrinal belief, but as a testimony of my own personal experience as a servant of God.

The fulfillment of God’s mission in the world does not depend upon us. It does not depend upon our own strength and resources, not even the help of our mission partners. Rather it depends ultimately upon God’s abiding presence. God said, “I will be with you.”

In his letter to the Romans, the great missionary of the Early Church, Apostle Paul, said, “If God is with us, who can be against us? Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can trouble do it, or hardship or persecution or hunger or poverty or danger or death? No, in all these things we have complete victory through him who loved us. There is nothing in all creation that will ever be able to separate us from the love of God which is ours through Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:31-39).

God’s abiding presence transforms our fears and anxieties into courage and faith. Moses knows that doing God’s mission in the world is not an easy task. He knows that he has to face the powers-that-be in Egypt. He knows that he has to convince the people that their genuine aspirations as a people are also God’s own aspirations for them. He has to convince the people that there is more to life than slavery and oppression. As a matter of fact, in Moses’ experience it is far more difficult to convince the people who are slaves about their need to be free than to break the hardened heart of the Pharaoh and let the people go.

Moses knows that in doing his prophetic task, he would be treated harshly by his own people, that he would be criticized by those whom he loved, that he would be charged with all sorts of things, that he would be betrayed by those for whom he would risked his own life. Moses has realized that he could not do his prophetic task in the world by his own strength alone. But with God’s abiding presence he knows that he can do something in order that his own people who have been slaves for so long will be free.

At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus Christ our Lord knows that in fulfilling his prophetic task he would ultimately face the cruel cross. But nevertheless, he said to the Tempter in the wilderness, “Worship the Lord your God, and him alone you shall serve “(Mt 4:10). And to those who would like to be his followers, he also said, “If anyone wants to come with me, he must forget himself, carry his cross, and follow me “(Mk.8:34).

But God’s promise is so great to those who remain faithful in their prophetic task in the world, “I will be with you”. Prophet Isaiah reminds us that “they who wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint” (Isa. 40:31). # nordis.net

By INNABUYOG-GABRIELA
www.nordis.net

Philippine society despite claims to cultural and ethnic diversity is reeking with bigotry and discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression — the dark legacy of our brutal colonial past. Colonizers labeled people who were formerly not regarded minorities or classes to be looked down on. The communal Filipino were taught to distinguish people either as homosexual and heterosexual, to be Christianized or perish as pagan, hate themselves for having darker skin, and be classified as loyal to foreigners to be part of wealthier classes against the masses of low-income slaves or laborers.

Bakla, bayot, tomboy, gay, lesbian… Discriminatory terms that are originally alien and non-existent in the early Filipino society, and now our community eventually borrowed the looking glass of its colonizers and learned to judge people according to their categories. And historically, these cultural curses are now developed enough and used to discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBTs) Filipinos.

Discrimination and violence against LGBT are real and deliberate realities, past and present, affecting communities both on the national level and in the Cordillera region. They are not imagined finger pointing in a plea for special rights. We attempted to condense this broad historical catalogue of violations of our human rights in the Shadow Report (http://lib.ohchr.org/HRBodies/UPR/Documents/session13/PH/JS17_UPR_PHL_S13_2012_JointSubmission17_E.pdf) we submitted in December 2011 to the Universal Periodic Review of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC/UPR).

In the four page Shadow Report, LGBT groups took to task the government of the Philippines for the hundreds of cases of violations against the civil, political, economic, cultural and social rights of LGBTs in the Philippines that included killings, the deliberate segregations, the relentless gay bashing, the labeling, ignorance, bigotry, homophobia, and prejudice. We demanded that the Aquino administration take action for the unsolved deaths of 156 LGBTs that have been murdered to date due to homophobia, including our city’s own “Berta” and Dr. Andres Guimban.

Invoking the Yogyakarta Principles, we asked for protection of our human rights to freedom of expression and freedom to establish our families, against the oppressive public demonstrations of religious zealots who called on the City Council to declare lesbian and couples persona non grata. We demanded equal pay for equal work for lesbian workers at the Baguio Export Processing Zone in accordance to the conventions of the International Labor Organization.

Yet on May 22nd in Geneva, when the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNCHR) grilled the government of the Philippines for the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process, the delegation led by Secretary Leila Delima totally ignored our report and recommendations to respect, protect and promote LGBT human rights. Even the basic recommendations from the representative of Argentina for the passage of the antidiscrimination bill was shelved, amidst the government’s pompous official report that covered up its bloody record of killings, political repression and anti-poor economic programs.

Realizing how the Aquino administration remains blind and deaf to the plight of LGBT, we the misjudged and the victims of homophobia in the Cordillera region resolve to press forward with our just demands. We continue to forge alliances with our straight allies. We assert our rightful existence. We invoke our inalienable right to life and liberty afforded to every man irrespective of categories.

We extend our hands to LGBT teenagers who commit suicide after incessant bullying, the many who were fired or disqualified from employment, and who suffer from lower pay and other forms of workplace discrimination. We continue to organize among transgender students who are banned from expressing their innate gender and lesbians who continue to be denied appropriate and affordable health care.

Today, the Baguio Pride Network marches to educate and mobilize the community of Metro Baguio and show support to all legal, economic and social forms of struggle to realize equal application of human rights. Henceforth, we collectively implore reinforcement of such covenant to which our country has committed to uphold. We will fight for the ratification of HB 1483, the Anti-Discrimination Bill authored by Bayan Muna Representative Teddy CasiHo , which will finally define discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity and providing penalty thereof. We aspire for a society free from any form of hostility brought about by discrimination and prejudice.

In this light, united with all the other oppressed and exploited sectors of society, in the campaign and continuous call for the immediate passage of the RH Bill that will provide reproductive health security concerning not only the LGBT community but especially the Filipino women. Moreover, the campaign to stop the corporatization of Public Hospitals including the Baguio General Hospital that is seemingly a pro-elite program of the Aquino Regime.

We challenge the government and all its agencies to do their part in fulfilling their responsibilities, in integrity with policy and practice to really serve the people. We challenge institutions, organizations, schools, families and, yes, we dare churches, we dare people who preach about love and acceptance, we challenge you most especially, to look at the real meaning of what it is to love in every sense of it and stand beside us and be part of this long, difficult but colorful struggle for gender equality. We will never stop at knocking on the doors of congress and the government until our rights are secured and exercised. Today we celebrate our diversity – PROUD, UNITED and STRONG! # nordis.net

The following organizations compose the Baguio Pride Network: Lesbians for National Democracy (Lesbond), Progressive Organization of Gays Metro Baguio (Progay-MB), Thunderbirds Association of the Cordillera and Suburbs, Inc. (TACSI), Ikatlong Lahi • Metropolitan Community Church Metro Baguio (MCC-MB), Front Row Dragon.Magnum Artistry, Cordillera Women’s Education Action Research Center (CWEARC), Gabriela Women’s Party (GWP), Innabuyog-Gabriela, UP Baguio Kasarian Gender Studies Program, UP Baguio Student Council Gender Desk, LGBT Individuals, LGBT Families, Friends and Advocates.

By IVAN LABAYNE

Last Thursday, while my friend and I were walking from the city market and going up the footbridge at Maharlika, she was helplessly victimized by a pickpocket who worked, as I assume, so nonchalantly, so deftly, in order for both my friend and I to be hardly aware of what he was just doing. Suddenly gone were my friend’s favorite Dinosaurman purse which included inside it some bills totaling to nearly a thousand pesos, her school ID and ATM card.

It was sort of funny, how in a matter of seconds, we can become poorer by a thousand pesos, and also temporarily disabled to enter the school library and full of anxiety and regret after just losing valuables in a busy, crowded place. In a society where every day we find it more difficult to survive and cope with the price of living, incidents like this are just sufficient to make us judge a day to be a bad one and make us learn a lesson the hard way.

At the beginning, it was easy to get mad at the poor stealer. Especially when after what he has done, you felt like you have just been a bad child to your parents who break their backs in the day and hardly get rest in the night just to send you to school and send cash allowance that you need in order to live in a far city. It was easy to blame the thief and others like him who turn to doing things like that instead of doing something more decent and lawful in order to cope with their own lives.

Then there could be a phase of self-blaming too. How, for instance, we could have been more careful with our belongings, more watchful and guarded of seemingly naïve pickpockets who are just waiting for the perfect timing while we are all rushing through the unsleeping parts of the city. How we could have tucked our wallets and gadgets inside our pockets where they are less likely to be taken by people with wrong intentions. How we could have refrained from withdrawing money from the ATM and hence, give away a lesser amount to a thief who is an expert of his “craft” when all is said and done.

However, a clearer thought can allow us to look at the roots of incidents like that and might keep us from blaming either the thief or ourselves and our carelessness. We all know how widespread and how countless are the thieves lurking in the streets we pass by every day. The fact that they have devised ways to make themselves appear less suspicious requires us to be even more cautious and careful. For all we know, that stranger sitting beside in a jeepney or that person behind us in a grocery counter is planning to steal something from us. Not even the fact that we are in a public place can assure us that we are completely shielded from those who have intents of stealing something from us.

In our society where poverty reeks at every corner, where people struggle to feed themselves, and much more send their children to school or their sick relatives to the hospital, we have all learned a variety of ways just to get through every day and find ways to live. Unluckily, stealing, among other crimes like kidnapping for ransom, smuggling goods and gambling, are just some of the means we have utilized for the sake of providing for our needs. In that sense, we are not inherently to blame at all; resorting to lawless tactics just to survive is not entirely unforgivable given the circumstances that always pressure us to do the things we do.

What we must pay more attention to is this pervading social condition that breeds thieves, smugglers, kidnappers among others. It is a social condition where people can hardly afford the things they need because they do not have jobs that can enable them to pay for what they need. We are all in a society where even having a job does not secure us to obtain all our basic needs. For in this society, most of the jobs do not provide payments commensurate to the work done by the individuals and likewise to the expenses entailed by a daily, decent living. For the record, the 426 peso minimum wage in Metro Manila is not even half of the 993 peso cost of daily living allowance for a family of six members. Given these conditions, how can we be so surprised when a lot of people turn to stealing and other lawless acts just to provide for themselves.

In the end, this is not to condone what the pickpockets do. This is just a reminder that behind these acts are larger conditions and operations in the society that force them to resort to such acts and make anyone of us all prone to be victimized. Hence, more than cursing these criminals, we must rage against and strive to adjust the social setting where these kinds of people are bred.

As for my friend, both of us just opt to think in more humane terms: Isipin na lang natin, may sakit ‘yung nanay nung magnanakaw tapos kailangan niya ng pambili ng gamot.

This is how we succumb to funny tragedies. And unless the conditions that can force us to resort to lawlessness are terminated, we cannot stop from consoling ourselves with such humane thoughts. # nordis.net