Marvin Isidore "Sid" Macatol Weblog

Regarding Duterte's term as President, I hear people say, "Honeymoon is over". Oh really? What honeymoon? Detractors didn't want him to sit from Day 1 and unceasingly mocked him and exerted efforts to unseat him. What honeymoon? The truth is, there was no honeymoon... at all!

My wife and I took a bus from Melbourne to Canberra in early July. It was an 8-hour overnight bus ride, which taught me lessons about how law-abiding citizens of a first world country behave. Trust me this isn't boring. The driver was a lady. She was wearing overalls and was a bit chubby. Not that it mattered, but it would help you visualize the driver. All by herself she inspected each one's tickets, which were mostly just SMS messages with numbers from the bus line. Then she assigned seat numbers to each one, which everyone followed without question. She was nice and helpful.

The level of discourse at the Senate hearing was frustrating. The President already signed the law to increase penalty against false news (RA 10951, amending penalties in RA 3815 Art 154). So, why not just charge Mocha, Nieto (Thinking Pinoy), etc. in court if the yellows actually have solid issues against them? Huh? Tell me.

There's a nasty exchange between President Duterte and Bishop Bacani lately. You must have read about it already, so let me go straight to my thoughts. As a Catholic who avidly supports Duterte, I can see where each of them comes from. But who's right? or who's wrong? We can argue all day long about that. One thing for sure, such a debate won't help the country reach its goals. Neither will it help the Church. Jesus argued with Scribes and Pharisees, never with local authorities who lived during His time. I'd rather keep my eyes on Jesus on this issue.

Logic is good (we see this in arguments all the time) . . . but we need a greater appreciation of human nature. How are we designed by our Creator, really? It's an unending question, for who can fathom the mind of our God? To me, at the end of every argument, is the question, does this please God? We don't like the answer most of the time. Still, it's a question I ask every time I pause and watch whatever is in front of me... and, trust me, it reduces me, each time, to a round-eyed toddler.

I'm writing this as a reaction to this article, which I saw float in my Facebook Newsfeed... For many Catholics there is no conflict between their faith and their support for President Duterte. Prove me wrong.

When Filipinos of my age were the "millennials" of the country we whined and rallied on issues that were happening almost in real time and under real threat from an army ready to pounce ... Although Marcos lifted Martial law 5 years earlier, a lot of political detainees were still in prison and the New People's Army was at their peak! Ninoy Aquino was assassinated 3 years earlier and caused an uproar that were fresh to us like yesterday Marcos called for a Snap Election months earlier Election fraud was exposed by the media days earlier Protests were happening in the news while we studied our lessons in the dormitory Everyone was nervous. Everyone was wondering what was going to happen. Then all of a sudden Enrile and Ramos defected to Cory and Cardinal Sin called on radio for everyone "to protect" these freedom fighters The millennials, along with the rest of the concerned citizens of that generation, filled EDSA to the brim under some real threat of a...