On Spirituality and religion

Posted by Belarmino Dabalos Saguing
Rome, Italy 05 May 2015

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It’s true that there are valid distinctions between the two, but there are also a number of problematic distinctions which often and unnecessarily divide the two fields of thought. 

One principal problem with attempts to separate religion from spirituality is that the former is saddled with everything negative while the latter is exalted with everything positive.

Let us take into consideration these arguments 

  Religion is an institution established by man for various reasons. Exert control, instill morality, stroke egos, or whatever it does. Organized, structured religions all but remove god from the equation. You confess your sins to a clergy member, go to elaborate churches to worship, told what to pray and when to pray it. All those factors remove you from god.

·      Spirituality is born in a person and develops in the person. It may be kick started by a religion, or it may be kick started by a revelation. Spirituality extends to all facets of a person’s life. Spirituality is chosen while religion is often times forced. Being spiritual to me is more important and better than being religious.
 

·      True spirituality is something that is found deep within oneself. It is your way of loving, accepting and relating to the world and people around you. It cannot be found in a church or by believing in a certain way.

Consider the following in favor of the spiritual path:

·      There is not one religion, but hundreds

·      There is only one type of spirituality

·      Religion is for those who want to continue rituals and the formality

·      Spirituality is for those who want to reach the Spiritual Ascent without dogmas
 

·      Religion is for those who are asleep

·      Spirituality is for those who are awake

·      Religion is for those that require guidance from others

·      Spirituality is for those that lend ears to their inner voice

·      Religion has a dogmatic and unquestionable assembly of rules that need to be followed without question

·      Spirituality invites you to reason it all, to question it all and to decide your actions and assume the consequences

·      Religion threatens and terrifies

·      Spirituality gives you inner peace

·      Religion speaks of sin and of fault

·      Spirituality encourages "living in the present" and not to feel remorse for which has already passed - Lift your spirit and learn from errors

·      Religion represses humanity, and returns us to a false paradigm

·      Spirituality transcends it all and makes you true to yourself

·      Religion is instilled from childhood, like the soup you do not you want to take

·      Spirituality is the food that you you seek, that satisfies you and is pleasant to the senses

·      Religion is not God

·      Spirituality is infinite consciousness and all that is - It is God
 

·      Religion invents

·      Spirituality discovers

·      Religion does not investigate and does not question

·      Spirituality questions everything
 

·      Religion is based on humanity, an organization with rules

·      Spirituality is DIVINE, WITHOUT rules
 

·      Religion is cause for division

·      Spirituality is cause for union
 

·      Religion seeks you so that you create

·      Spirituality causes you to seek
 

·      Religion continues the teachings of a sacred book

·      Spirituality seeks the sacredness in all the books
 

·      Religion is fed fear

·      Spirituality is fed confidence
 

·      Religion lives you in your thoughts

·      Spirituality lives in your conscience
 

·      Religion is in charge of the "to do"

·      Spirituality is in charge of the "to BE"

·      Religion is a dialectic

·      Spirituality is logic
 

·      Religion feeds the ego

·      Spirituality makes you transcend
 

·      Religion makes you renounce yourself to the world

·      Spirituality makes you live with God, not to renounce him
 

·      Religion is adoration

·      Spirituality is meditation
 

·      Religion is to continue adapting to the psychology of a template

·      Spirituality is individuality. 
 

·      Religion dreams of glory and paradise

·      Spirituality makes you live it here and now

·      Religion lives in the past and in the future

·      Spirituality lives in the present, in the here and now

·      Religion lives in the confinement of your memory

·      Spirituality is LIBERTY in AWARENESS. 
 

·      Religion believes in the eternal life

·      Spirituality makes you conscious of all that is
 

·      Religion gives you promises for the after-life

·      Spirituality gives you the light to find God in your inner self, in this life, in the present, in the here and the now…

May peace, happiness and universal love continue growing in your heart.

Source: Wikipedia

THE QUESTION OF MIGRATION: DEATHS OF MIGRANTS IN THE SICILIAN CHANNEL

Posteed by Belarmino Dabalos Saguing

Rome, Italy 20 April 2015

This past week, an iestimated 800 migrants died in an incident when a ship carrying around 900 migrants and refugees sunk with only 28 survivors were rescued, and at the moment of writing, only 40 dead bodies were recovered,.

And at once, debates around Europe erupted where everyone point finger to everyone.The arguments are; Mare Nostrum must be carried out to blockade Europe from illegal immigration and possibly terrorists, or to patrol the sea more to soccour the would be immigrnts who fell victims to shipwrecks that inevitably happen.

But all this only serve to throw sands into the eyes of the truth. The real solution lies not in European  seas. It lies in the countries of origin of the unfortunte migrants who are only scaping the miseries in their own countries. Although there are remote possibility that terrorist may have mingled with the refugees, (Libyan IS in this case), not one Libyan has been found with the refugees, in the past, and even with this epecific instance. There in fact exists a very lucrative human trafficking as a result of this approach of total closure of Europe to migration.

One survivor from Banladesh in press interview, declared that the passengers are from Bangladesh (obviously) Somalia, Eritria, Syria, Iraq and Emen all refugees from those war-torned countries.

According to the Italian Parliament President Mrs Boldrini in a TV talk show this morning, let us not lie to our people. Instead of squandering million and billions of Euros in a naval blockage, let us spend it solving the roots of this unprecendented exodus of people by helping in a peaceful solution of wars in Middle East and of hunger and poverty in other countries.

Migration could only be stopped by creation of decent jobs in countries of origins and of helping to find a solution to the wars. Naval blockade of our seas will never solve the problem.

At the moment, Italy is alone in the frontline of this massive invasion of migrants, while governments of other European countries are closing their eyes and frontiers continue to commit the error of closed borders for migrants. It  will only worsen the situation.

Filipinos, though not involved in the  Sicilian Channel tragedies, are very much involved in forced migration of workers. There is also the question of life and death in Philippine migration. It is pure ignorance to say otherwise. The diaspora of Filipino workers cannot be stopped by foolish announcements of economic growth gained by the Filipino State. It never reched the people because it is based in the principles of gaining profits for the weathy and foreign multinational corporations and cartels. The rich only get richier and the poors crushed deeper in poverty. Philippines needs radical upheaval to change this situation. It cannot be ended with the so-called social aids to the poor. Philippine needs jobs with decent salaries that can support a family. And it could be achieved by creation of jobs through industrialization and livelihood by a just  agrarian reforms. Something that the Philippine institution has neglected since the outset of our independence which never was an independence since the country remained in the hands of a foreign power.

The question was thrown onto tha lap of European Union by the Pope. Where is the Christian foundation of Charity, Love for humanity… They men and women like anyone of us ignoring religion and politics. They are human beings created by God.

Broken hearts and broken homes -Stop forced migration of Filipino labor!

By Belarmino Dabalos Saguing

Rome, Italy 15 April 2015

The majority of people thaught that the Filipino migration exists because our nation is a nation of adventurers. This is reflected by a comment by an Embassy official in Rome a few years back: “Talagang mga adbenturero lang ang mga Pinoy kaya nagkalat na sila sa lahat ng sulok ng mundo”. This is a lie. He must be grossly mis-informed or just a plain ignorant of the facts.

Filipino migrant workers exists because they are refugees. They leave the country in search for an alternative means to make their family survive, something the Philippines, under the contemporary condition, is not in condition to offer to a big slice of its population. There is unemployment or underemployment, poverty, and as a result, hunger. So, they, having no better alternative left in the country, has to grit their teeth. The luckier ones who could afford or able to raise the required money leave for abroad. Their number, has reached almost 12 million or around 10 percent of the county’s total population representing more or less 20 percent of the total labor force of the country. They have sent a conservative estimate of remittances amounting around $ 22 billion last year, and, despite the global financial crisis, this remittances are expected to increase this year.

Good for the nation? Perhaps to the State, yes. The BSP has remarked that these remittances sent by the migrant workers is a big factor that saved the Philippines from the total financial collapse suffered by some countries and helped in the development of the country. In fact, our government is one of the biggest proponent of using migration as a tool for development.

But not to the migrant workers’ families. The Filipino migrant workers and their family was not touched by the ‘progress in the development of the country’. They are instead became the sacrificial lamb with their broken hearts and broken homes which is the negative effect of forced separation. The so called economic salvation was paid for by enslavement, rapes and maltreatment of many Ofws in the Middle East and elsewhere, and many broken homes in the country. They have literally paid for it with their blood, sweat and tears, while unscrupulous people covet their funds, turned them into commodities for sale while the government just consider them as ‘tools for development’ and closed their eyes to the sufferings of the Ofws abroad and their family at home.

But what really is needed to stop this bleeding out of our labor force?

It is not simple because the root lies in the negligence of the powers be. Their love for easy profit. the ruling class love of money and power. Instead of the creation of basic industries to give the workers jobs that would give salaries to make them live decently, the powers be considered importation because it creates easier profits for the compradors. Instead of just agrarian reforms, they created sham reforms that favour the big landlords who dominates the politics of the country.

***

What the System of Justice should be

By Belarmino Dabalos Saguing

Rome Italy 15 April 2015

The functioning of the country’s institutions, by virtue

of reason, is an agreement by the people who have come together to protect their shared interest: humanity. A system of justice was built and in the local context of the Philippines it is called the “Five pillars of the Criminal Justice System”(composed of the police, prosecution, judiciary, prisons and the community). The reason for its existence is not solely to protect and maintain the institutions; but for individuals who are part of this group of people--by birth, nationality or habitation--that is called the Philippines. 

All the Filipinos who compose this nation are subject to its rules. It is the protection and preservation of the rights of this individual and the group he is part of that is the reason for the existence of the system.

But when the system of justice no longer functions for the protection of each individual, but rather an exclusive small group of people who are part of these institutions; and to protect the institution that they work for, the purpose of its existence has lost its meaning. The institutions may still survive but not for the reason for which they were originally built, but only to protect the interests of the people who are part of the system. Those who protect these systems are the very people who themselves do not feel protected and secured; thus, being part of it gives them protection so they protect its status quo.

Therefore, the neglect and abandonment of the country’s system is felt hard by people who are not within the system, but who were part of the original reason for its creation. But in reality, the system which they once had can no longer protect them unless they are within it. The system thrives not because it satisfies the individual or the group but rather because their physical existence justifies its need. An individual cannot create and subject himself to his own system and be a nation unto himself. ---

The people has the right to change the set up of the system in the situation when it no longer function for the majority of the people. More than just a right, it is even a duty for all Filipinos to rise up and remedy the situation  Justice must never be exclusively for a few. It must be rule fof the majority that must prevail.

.

Good paying jobs at home is another unreachable dream

Posted by Belarmino Dabalos Saguing 

Rome, Italy 13 April 2015

a repost of note by Bill Saguing on 27 Dec. 2011

THE Department of Labor and Employment on Tuesday urged Filipinos working in Syria to come home, saying that there are high-paying jobs awaiting them. She added that the government will assist overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) repatriated from Syria.

“If they remained in the country, we could better protect them. It will also minimize the social cost of being away from their homeland which could be higher in vulnerable occupations like domestic work,” she added.

DOLE Secretary Baldoz enumerated the government programes that could be availed by the returning OFWs.

Under the Balik-Pinay, Balik-Hanap-buhay Program, the National Reintegration Center for OFWs (NRCO) of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, an attached agency of the DOLE, a P10,000 livelihood/business development assistance is given to returning women workers.

The experience of OFWs who returned from Libia gives a discouraging note: the jobs referred to by the DOLE is hard to have if there is one available or not available at all. Dole explained that they are not placement bureau and the worker has to avail what is there, otherwise one has to wait (or to look somewhere else) . the P10,000 assistance is not even enough to get the preliminary necessities to start a small sarisari store and won't last a few weeks.

It seems that DOLE is doing a leg pull or has gone nuts. Protect the workers when they cannot even guarantee the protection of the rights of the workers in the Philippines who has to vie with each other for a job. Where locallly employed workers is losing whatever right left for them which they are losing one by one due to corruption and contractualization of employers in the Philippines

No!. It appears that Sec. Baldoz is talking out of realities. Promising something that recent history has proven to be unreachavle under the present conditions. The only alternative for returning OFWs is to look for another job abroad.

Good paying jobs in the Philippines is as an unreachable dream. So the diaspora continue.

Open Letter To Pope Francis: Message of the US-based National Ecumenical Forum for Filipino Concerns

Reposted by Belarmino Dabalos Saguing

Rome, Italy 17Jan2015

 Forwarded Message  

Media Release

Contact Person:

Nerissa N. Allegretti

Mobile No. (1) 773.931.0891

Email: allegrettineris@yahoo.com

 

National Ecumenical Forum for Filipino Concerns logo

14th January 2015

Open Letter To Pope Francis:

Message of the US-based National Ecumenical Forum for Filipino Concerns

Your Holiness,

Greetings of Peace!

We, friends and members of the National Ecumenical Forum for Filipino Concerns-NEFFC (Midwest Organizing Committee), wholeheartedly welcome you in the Philippines even as we ourselves are far away from home.

It is our great joy to see you visit the Philippines and blessed the Filipino people with your presence and positive intervention at a time when our people are facing innumerable challenges.

Indeed, as you wrote in Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), you have proven once again that the Church ought to be Church for the poor. And as you said, "Christians, with the help of their pastors, are called to hear the cry of the poor... The need to resolve the structural causes of poverty cannot be delayed... Welfare projects, which meet certain urgent needs, should be considered merely as temporary responses. As long as problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world's needy... Inequality is the root of social ills."

In the Philippines, this inequality and concentration of the vast wealth of the nation in the hands of the few forced more than 10 million of the more than 101 million Filipinos to migrate. More than 5,000 Filipinos leave the country everyday seeking jobs and greener pastures in almost all corners of the world.

We urge you to help us pressure the Government of the Philippines (GPH) to heed the cry of the Filipino people: the unconditional release of more than 490 political prisoners who were imprisoned for their political beliefs; and the immediate resumption of the formal peace negotiations with the revolutionary National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) in order to resolve the decades-old armed conflict and achieve a just and lasting peace.

We also urge you to support the indigenous people of the Philippines in their struggle to defend their ancestral land and assert their rights to self determination. Corporate greed, especially in mining and energy, threatens the survival of indigenous people all over the Philippines. They are the sacrificial lambs to the altar of false development and the super profit of a few. Under the mining liberalization programs of the present Aquino administration, an estimated 100,000 indigenous peoples from 39 tribal groups all over the country will be dislocated. Counter-insurgency program of the Aquino administration have already victimized tens of thousands of indigenous peoples in a nationwide scale. Forced evacuations, bombings, hamletings, and food blockades of indigenous communities have been going on and have worsened through the years.

We appeal to you to call on the US Government to stop intervening in the internal affairs of the Philippines through unequal treaties like the "Visiting Forces Agreement" and the "Enhance Defense Cooperation Agreement" and thereby convert hundreds of millions of US dollars of military aid to the Philippines into basic social services for the welfare of the American people.

It saddens us that our hard earned tax dollars are being used as military aid in the Philippines and witness at the same time the poverty and suffering of the American working class as they struggle to live decently day by day.

We are one with you in working for a just and better world where the poor will hunger no more; where they become free from all tyrants and from all forms of oppression as they organize, mobilize and empower themselves; and where the poor in their long and arduous journey can finally arrive at and rejoice in the promise land, the Kingdom of God on earth in a land filled with milk and honey.

Your Holiness, we are in solidarity with you!

Thank You! 

   

In Christ We Remain,

Sincerely Yours,

Signed By:

1.

Bishop Robert Ilay

Diocesan Bishop

Diocese of Tampa-Eastern USA and Eastern Canada

Philippine Independent Church (PIC)

Tampa, Florida, USA

2.

Bishop Valentin Lorejo

Coadjutor Bishop

Diocese of Tampa-Eastern USA and Eastern Canada

Philippine Independent Church (PIC)

Tampa, Florida, USA

and

Pastor, Good Shepherd Congregation

Philippine Independent Church (PIC)

Lincolnwood, Illinois, USA

3.

Bishop Joshua Cuarteros

Bishop of Isabela

Diocese of Isabela

Philippine Independent Church (PIC)

Isabela, Philippines

and

Visiting Bishop, Diocese of Tampa

Philippine Independent Church (PIC)

Tampa, Florida, USA

4.

Bishop Eliezer Pascua

Former General Secretary, United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP)

and

Administrative Pastor

Philippine American Ecumenical Church-United Church of Christ (PAEC-UCC)

Chicago, Illinois, USA

5.

Rev. Fr. Primitivo Racimo

Priest-in-Charge

St. Margaret of Scotland Episcopal Church

Episcopalian Diocese of Chicago

Chicago, Illinois, USA

6.

Rev. Fr. Lito Capeding

Member, North American Maritime Ministry Association

Pastor, Shrine of the Holy cross Parish, Daphne, Alabama

Pastor, St. John's Catholic Church, Bromley, Alabama

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Mobile

Mobile, Alabama, USA

7.

Rev. Fr. Julian Jagudilla, OFM

Director, Migrant Center

St. Francis of Assisi Church

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York

New York City, New York, USA

8.

Rev. Fr. Rex Familar

Ministry to the Filipinos

Roman Catholic Diocese of Orlando

Orlando, Florida, USA

and

Pastor, Holy Family Catholic Church

Roman Catholic Diocese of Orlando

Orlando, Florida, USA

9.

Rev. Fr. Florentino Santiago

St. Eloi Catholic Church, Theriot, Louisiana

Roman Catholic Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux

Houma, Louisiana, USA

10.

Sr. Rodita Rogador, mscs

Secretary, Our Lady of Fatima Province

Missionary Sisters of St. Charles Borromeo-Scalabrini

Melrose Park, Illinois, USA

11.

Nerissa Nabua- Allegretti

Midwest Regional Coordinator 

National Alliance for Filipino Concerns (NAFCON)

and

General Councilor for Missionary Expansion in the East

Lay Scalabrinian Missionary Movement

Melrose Park, Illinois, USA

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines <icchrp@gmail.com>
To: "philconcerns@humanrightsphilippines.net" <philconcerns@humanrightsphilippines.net>
Cc: 
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 13:19:37 +0100
Subject: [PhilConcerns] News clips : Rights lawyers to sue BJMP for barring visits of political prisoners on hunger strike

Apologies for any cross-posting. Thank you for understanding.

Free all political prisoners

Press Statement : Human Rights Day: “No land, No life”, Land grabbing is a human rights violatio

Posted by Belarmino Dabalos Saguing
 Rome, Italy Dec. 13 2014

Human Rights Day: “No land, No life”, Land grabbing is a human rights violation

Statement

10 December 2014

Statement to mark the International Human Rights Day collectively issued by the PAN Asia Pacific (PANAP); Aliansi Gerakan Reforma Agraria (AGRA) of Indonesia, National Fisheries Solidarity Movement (NAFSO) of Sri Lanka; Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) of the Philippines; Human Development Organization (HDO) of Sri Lanka; Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA) of the Philippines; Society for Rural Education and Development (SRED) of India; General Agricultural Workers Union (GAWU) of Ghana; Farm Worker Association of Florida (FWAF) of the US; Coalition of Agricultural Workers International (CAWI)

As the world marks the International Human Rights Day today, 10 December, we wish to highlight a form of human rights violation that does not get as much attention but nonetheless deeply impacts millions of people around the world, especially in the poor countries. Land grabbing, often accompanied by the grabbing away of resources such as water, represents a worsening threat to the economic, social and cultural rights of countless local communities, including the indigenous peoples. This systemic violation of human rights, including the right to food, right to self-determination of peoples and right to development, must be stopped.

Data from the Land Portal’s Land Matrix show that worldwide land grabbing involves around 36 million hectares, as of March 2014. Most land grabbing deals are concentrated in Africa and the Asia Pacific region, accounting for about 41% and 38%, respectively of about 942 land deals monitored by the Land Matrix. Within Asia Pacific, land deals are heavily concentrated in Southeast Asia, comprising 83% of the regional total and 32% of the global total. Estimates on the extent of land grabbing vary widely but it could not be denied that it is a daily reality confronting rural and indigenous communities.

In many cases, large-scale land investments for export-oriented plantations, logging, mining, biofuel production and power production among others result to the eviction of small food producers and indigenous peoples, many of whom are without formal security of tenure despite tilling, enriching and occupying the land for decades. National and local governments often negotiate with foreign and domestic investors behind close doors and in patent disregard for the participation of local communities that will be impacted by such investments, including their access to land and productive resources. These investments are also made and promoted without due consideration to the actual development needs of affected local communities that lead to their further marginalization and oppression.

Worse, the human rights violations against the people even go beyond the actual land grabbing and also involve atrocities that blatantly attack the political and civil rights of those who challenge these land-grabbing deals and investments. There are numerous cases and many of them remain undocumented and unreported, and most are unresolved due to the involvement of state security forces themselves as well as private armed groups hired by the companies. This has been the case in the Philippines, Indonesia, Pakistan, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and many others where anti-land grabbing activists, local community leaders, and their supporters face human rights atrocities ranging from extrajudicial killings, abduction, legal persecution and harassment, among others. Impunity reigns in many rural communities that have been heavily militarized to protect corporate investments.

We call on governments and private corporations to respect and implement existing human rights principles enshrined in national laws and international instruments, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. We demand that the right to free, prior and informed consent of communities be upheld before any land investments are made. We demand to respect the customary rights of the people who do not have legal ownership of the land and water bodies. We demand the demilitarization of rural communities and the prosecution of all those who have committed human rights atrocities against people who are justly defending their legitimate right to land and resources. We demand the implementation of genuine agrarian reform to promote the rights and welfare of small food producers and to promote long-term rural and economic development that serves the interests of the people and not the just the elite few.

We welcome recent developments that aim to provide people an opportunity to make corporations that violate their human rights accountable. In particular, we take note of the United Nations Human Rights Council’s (UNHRC) resolution this year calling for the establishment of “an open-ended intergovernmental working group on a legally binding instrument on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights”. Amid continuing trends of free trade and investment agreements that allow TNCs to sue governments, the UNHRC resolution is positive move towards regulating TNCs and their activities in the context of human rights.

We emphasize, however, that the best prospects for the promotion of human rights, including the right to land and resources, lie not in any legal instrument but in the relentless struggle of the affected communities to defend their human rights. Thus, working with those directly affected and violated, we vow to continue the fight to oppose land grabbing and defend the human rights of rural and indigenous communities.

Land is life for these communities, and depriving them of land and resources is depriving them of their basic human right to live. Fight for land, fight for life! ###