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Category: Frontiers

Basic Communities Can Fight Corruption

People power – the peaceful uprising of a country’s citizens against an oppressive government – is generally admitted to have started in the Philippines. So we Filipinos are being asked today if we have lost that collective power to eliminate evil. For evil, there is in the Philippines great evil. Corruption in government seems to be at an all time high, people are wondering why there is no real groundswell against it in the general perception that it is even more corrupt than the one overthrown in the first people power rebellion. And they ask if corruption is so systemic and hopeless that any effort to correct it ends in futility. Further, if in the people power revolution of 1986 the Church played a vital role, why is it not doing so now? It seems the Church has lost the vibrancy it had in the ‘70s and ‘80s.

Msgr. Francisco Claver | Retired Bishop

How We Can Help Save the Planet

Huge fire balls from massive bush fires engulfed homes and incinerated unfortunate people in South Australia, the result of prolonged drought while massive floods swamped the North Territories. In the Caribbean, massive storms, greater than previously experienced, created havoc and loss of life and property. Europe and North America have been hit with ice and snowstorms greater than previous years. Climatic extremes are on the increase and they are not a natural occurrence these days unlike 12,000-and-a-half-million years ago. Then, climate change came slowly and the earth and plants and animals had time to adapt, change and survive.

Shay Cullen | PREDA Foundation
Frontiers

The Hope of Small Farmers

Thousands of small farmers in the Philippines face a bleak 2009. A small group of them representing thousands more marched, demonstrated, staged a sit-in, shaved their heads, and went on hunger strike in a desperate last-minute effort to win their land due to them under the Comprehensive Land Reform Act of the Philippines and the Constitution. They got nothing but were arrested and jailed for trespassing. From behind prison bars, they called for help and with the help of some church people and a bishop fighting for social justice, they were freed.

Shay Cullen | PREDA Foundation

Moses and Kashmir

One of the greatest deficiencies of modern secular education is the history of the human ideas in their cultural, religious and political expressions. The result is especially confusing and distorted as far as Islam is concerned.

Faranaz Keshavjee | Researcher of Islamic Issues

Churches Must Be Lifestyle Witnesses

In recent months, market-run media have been distracting the public with an array of tumbling market digits. Investors wonder how their money was squandered, and we ordinary people wonder how funds unavailable to feed starving billions suddenly surfaced to bail out big business. The billions of dollars pumped in to re-capitalize cash-strapped banks and whining industrialists did not come from fat cats or government leaders. Bail-out funds came from resources stacked away, while the poor were denied basic needs. Such surpluses could have been better used to fight poverty, disease, ignorance and injustice worldwide. A global sharing of resources also may have helped evolve an alternative economic system based on equity and justice, not on “greed,” the euphemism now used to blame bankers and entrepreneurs.

Hector Welgampola | Journalist

A Renewed World

Christmas and all it represents and stands for has to be redeemed. With the turning away of the western world from Christ and all He lived and died for, the spiritual meaning and value of Christmas has been lost to commercialism. Now, children value more what they find in holiday socks than what they see in the Christmas manger, if they ever see one. They admire the twinkling lights more than understand the family that brought change and challenge to the world. A challenge to renew all humankind, bring dignity and equality to all, an end to hunger and disease, a world built on justice and truth. The festival that once celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, now celebrates the sum of all our possessions.

Shay Cullen | PREDA Foundation
Frontiers

The Selfless Commitment Of Christians

The selfless commitment of Christians of all denominations to live, risk their lives and suffer for the Gospel values, human rights and to live out the mission of Jesus Christ to save the poor and the oppressed from pain and exploitation inflicted on them by the irresponsible rich and powerful, is at the heart of Christianity. Hundreds of thousands of Christians are living this idea by serving the poor, the sick, defending human rights and taking a stand for social justice all around the world. They have given their lives throughout history and do so today for these sublime goals that raise humans to a level of nobility and spirituality.

Shay Cullen | PREDA Foundation
Frontiers

Priest, Prophet And President

Retired Catholic Bishop Fernando Lugo laid aside his miter and took up the sash of the presidency of Paraguay last April 20. He is the first bishop of modern times to be elected to high office and he ended the dictatorial 61-year rule of the Colorado party of the former dictator and tyrant Alfredo Stroessner who drove three of Bishop Lugo’s brothers into exile in fear of their lives.

Shay Cullen | PREDA Foundation
Frontiers

End Sex Tourism

While a young girl was recovering from a horrific life of sexual abuse and trafficking, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo gave the state-of-the-nation-address to the Philippine Congress and enumerated the many achievements of her government for the past year; curtailing the trafficking of women and children is not among them. She is the most politically powerful women in the country and could deal a deadly blow to the pimps and pedophiles, the sex traffickers and foreign mafia that enslave the children in their sex bars and clubs. However, the politicians behind the sex industry are powerful allies. The rich property owners that rent the buildings housing the sex dens, bars and clubs are influential. The hotel owners fill their double beds with sex tourists and the emaciated bodies of impoverished children and women. They have influence and the Department of Tourism goes along with them. Sex, even sex with children, is big business and the laws are ignored and not enforced. Even police own clubs and bars.

Shay Cullen | PREDA Foundation
Frontiers

A Terrible Man-Made Tragedy

The storm clouds were dark and threatening, weather stations had raised and broadcast danger signals, the radio was announcing the approaching onslaught of “Frank,” or by its official international name “God of the Winds,” a massive typhoon packing 150 kilometer-an-hour wind. And yet, the ill-fated ferry MV Princess of the Stars put to sea with 862 passengers and crew amid treacherous waters from Manila to Cebu City last 21 June.

Shay Cullen | PREDA Foundation
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