8:50
pm | Sunday, April 28th, 2013
The picture in the Inquirer (Across the Nation, 4/27/13) showing
Team PNoy senatorial candidate Sonny Angara bowing and kissing the hand of
Catholic Archbishop Paciano Aniceto, while pledging not to support a divorce
bill in Congress, shows why the Philippines is among the social and economic
laggards in Asia and the world.
The Philippines is still living in the Dark Ages when the state
was subordinate to the Church. Historians characterize the Dark Ages as the
period from the conversion of Roman Emperor Constantine to Christianity in 313
AD to the Renaissance. It was a period of stagnation during which the Roman
empire broke down, and civilization was crushed by the barbarians. “The ideals,
law, language and prosperity of Rome were absorbed by the Catholic Church,”
according to Destination Europa on the Web.
Today, however, all modern states are secular. The Philippine
Constitution mandates the “separation of church and state.” This is different
from the Spanish regime in which Catholicism was a state religion. Catholic
doctrines governed the law from birth to marriage to death. Thus, “marriages
are made in heaven,” as preached by the Church.
Now birth certificates must be issued by the state to be valid,
and also marriages must be licensed by the state to be legal. Marriages that
break down in violence, hatred and family discord are certainly not made in
heaven.
The right to choose one’s partner or to change him or her is an
individual right, and no other entity, not even the state, has the right to
tamper with it. The Philippines is backward economically because it is backward
mentally.
—MANUEL F. ALMARIO,
spokesman, Movement for Truth in History
(Rizal’s
Moth), mfalmario@yahoo.com
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