The Filipino Freethinkers podcast has decided to, uh, relax its tone AND its hosts attempt to speak the real national language — Taglish!
Here, Red, Pepe and Margie talk about the bill by Mr. Mong Palatino recently filed and withdrawn which calls to ban religious rites from government offices.
What are you guys up to on April 1? We’re having the annual Filipino Freethinkers Forum in the afternoon, at the UP-Ayalaland Technohub (registration is free and starts at 1.30pm). We’ll be talking about the reproductive health bill, freedom of expression, LGBT rights, science, and freedom of religion. SPIT (Silly People’s Improv Theater) will be performing. We will be announcing the winners of the Reason Award, the Science Award and the Secularism Award. And giving away a special Bigot Award (a cash prize of PhP 10,000 will be given to the organization or cause the awardee has p*ssed off the most — everybody wins!).
“Just because we are a predominantly Catholic country doesn’t mean we can impose Catholic dogma on every Filipino. That is the job of the clergy and they can do as they please in the Church and its activities with their flock. But, in the halls of Congress, the Constitution is clear, – – there must be a separation of Church and State. If for the sake of argument, 99.9% of Filipinos were Catholic and every single one expressed a certain view, I would still be standing here today to fight for the rights of that 1 Filipino who is entitled to choices based on his religion and not the religion of the majority … because that is the mandate of our Constitution — that we make laws respecting the freedom of religion of all without the Church interfering with matters that should be left with the State.”
Apparently, it only takes feminist rage for me to get off my ass and write something for our org’s website. From FilipinoFreethinkers.org — National misogynist hero:
An undisputed national hero and distinguished gentleman representative from Sarangani, Manny Pacquiao was staunchly against the RH Bill. He quoted the Bible, and said, in effect, that any attempts to curb reproduction was against the will of his god. While we’re not sure how the personal religious beliefs of this pregnancy-challenged man have to do with us uterus-carrying citizens, people pointed out that his wife Jinkee has admitted to being on the pill. Now he’s bragging that he made his wife Jinkee stop taking pills and have more kids.
Read the full article here.
