While Philippine Commentary takes a contemptuous view of the document (Banketa Republique is more positive), his entry has an illuminating extract from the writings of Pope Benedict XVI.  The present pontiff presents a clear, and dare I say, exceedingly Teutonic, defense of the separation of Church and State.My own views on the pastoral statement:In its letter to the bishops, the Black & White Movement (of which I am a convenor) pointed to the story of Jesus asking Peter thrice if he loved him, and when Peter would say yes, Jesus would reply, “feed my sheep.”…  If Bishop Teodoro Bacani is any guide, we may all have to wait for a third message from the bishops.Boying Pimentel releases part two and part three of his podcast on yours truly.In the punditocracy, Juan Mercado has a brilliant column on the dangers of military messiahs.And former UP President Jose Abueva takes exception to one of my columns.Connie Veneracion renounces writing about politics -but really only wants to abandon writing about politicians.

I tend to agree with the observation that Powerpoint is evil.But after viewing the presentations of Steve Jobs, and articles such as, I changed my mind.My column for today isAnd, as I told the teachers in Baguio and mentioned in my column, here’s a rundown of the websites and blogs I mentioned during my talk:The definition of critical thinking that I used came from the Public Speaking Glossary…. I pointed to Wikipedia as the source of the definition of ICT I used.Research examples: these were examples I used to illustrate the vast research potential of the Internet:Bonifacio PapersPhilippine Photographs Digital ArchiveThe Philippine Revolution by Apolinario Mabini (the Leon Ma. Guerrero translation); there is also a Tagalog translation, Himagsikang Pilipino.For the use of information technology for collaborative work, I pointed to Writely (which I discovered via The New Web).Examples of sharing:The Edsa Revolution WebsiteRizal: His MasterpiecesChris Sundita’s Salita BlogFor examples of adding to the knowledge base:The Philippine Presidency ProjectExamples of “unleashed thinkers”:Filipino LibrarianMga Turo ni Tito RollyAng Tambayan ni PaengHow ICT can make you a better teacher:I gave them the example of Mila Aguilar and her blog for her Students of English.

There’s a famous painting titled The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolas Tulp, which first frightened, then fascinated me, as a boy.Here’s the painting, from the link above:Recently I got to watch two documentaries, featuring Gunther von Hagens (read his colorful official biography), who invented Plastination.His plastination exhibits have been popular, but controversial….  Our culture, which does not shrink from death, and which includes visits to the dead as part of the cycle of the living, owes much to the Catholic conception of the Memento Mori as it does Asian concepts of ancestor worship or respect to the departed.The big questions, of course, revolve around life and death; between science and faith, technology and nature.  The more we know about what we can really know -the biology, the science of it all- the more we can properly determine if the things we really can’t know, spirituality, philosophy, and so on, matter to us or not.Interesting weekend readings:Farewell to the pandaca pygmaea.Are comments necessary?

Diaz in Mindanao asks, Where lie the solutions?Even as the fallout from the Council of State has been confusing: Jove Francisco reports on the conflicting statements from the President’s people, which has been echoed in reports that alternate between blind optimism, suggestions of disagreements, and even more involved speculation, the President’s visit to Camp Aguinaldo has helped fan the flames of speculation concerning the loyalty of the armed forces (scuttlebutt was, the head of the Presidential Guards quit; instead, reports are he’s asked to be reassigned, or that he has been axed).  Tony Abaya takes a hard, and skeptical look, at possible military motivations (even as Lito Banayo reminds readers the military is just like civilians in their concerns):What do this repeated rumors of coups and their repeated postponement tell us?  They tell us that a) the same group of people are behind these persistent efforts; b) the coups are continuously being postponed because the plotters cannot recruit a critical mass of military officers to carry it out; and c) there is no public outcry from among the middle class in support of such an enterprise.Individually, the Magdalo officers may be motivated by the purest and the most patriotic of intentions to bring about substantive changes and reforms in the Philippine military and in Philippine society as a whole.

Face of the opposition By Manuel L. Quezon III IT HAS often been pointed out that while the administration has two clearly identifiable faces — the President and the Vice President — the opposition, up to now, doesn’t have one. While efforts have been made to bring the different opposition groups together and to project [...]

Do Americans Realize the Growth of Anti-US Alliance? Manuel L. Quezon III   It boggles the mind that Osama Bin Laden has had the time and resources to catch up on his reading. And yet this is precisely what his most recent, recorded, statement suggests. A Reuters report says that after Bin Laden endorsed “Rogue [...]

The meeting of the Council of State was blogged about by journalists Jove Francisco (who thinks former President Ramos came out ahead) and RG Cruz (who carries useful snippets from the statements of some participants).  The papers have different views on what the meeting actually accomplished:Senators say Council of State meet disappointing (Malaya)Ramos: no-poll ‘disaster waiting to happen’ (Manila Times)Council rejects plan to defer ’07 election (Standard-Today)Council scraps ‘No-Election’ proposal: Charter change advocacy commission formed (Inquirer)ChaCha promotional arm gets P5m outlay (Standard-Today)Dean Jorge Bocobo will be tickled by this news item: Davide rewarded with Palace post.An article in Slate that will appeal to Filipinos: “As I Was Saying to the President …” Washington and the art of the “glory wall.”In the punditocracy, my Arab News column for this week is Do Americans Realize the Growth of Anti-US Alliance?The Inquirer editorial suggests the President’s cabinet members are engaging in Suicidal provocation….  Carmen Guerrero Nakpil has a gloriously venomous column on the silly season last week.

The people rallied to that call, in which others like Butz Aquino joined in. Cory Aquino kept her distance, among other things, to see how the situation would evolve, and to avoid being dragged into the preferred scenario of Enrile and friends, which was a junta in which Cory Aquino would have a token participation.Marcos made a show of not wanting to hurt people, going as far as to publicly scold Gen. Fabian Ver, while continuously ordering, in private, the quick elimination of Enrile and the suppression of the crowd.  This put the armed forces in the uncomfortable situation of having to contemplate massacring civilians, which, if they were composed of Communists would have been OK with them, but since the crowd included the middle class, nuns, priests, and so forth, all of them unarmed and offering flowers and sandwiches to the soldiers, was something they weren’t used to….  Thus was People Power born.In January 2001, the armed forces had been lobbied by the opposition, and the armed forces itself, after the traumas of 1986 and the coups of 1987 and 1989, was not interested in the possibility of soldiers having to fire on fellow soldiers.

Two ideas from the past months have regained their former currency: the tactic of brinkmanship, and the idea of an autogolpe.  After all, it’s been clear that a Constitutional crisis of sorts is virtually certain; at the rate things are going, it’s unclear how anyone can expect the existing political order to hold.  The past months have led many, including myself, to argue that we need a resolution to the question of legitimacy, and that the Center must hold; while the National Democratic line is that there is no such thing as a Center.The inability of the political system to either heal itself or move forward out of the rut it’s in, has fostered the belief that the only way out may involve force of arms.

In other words, they could write their own shopping list and spend our money as they pleased though their pleasure was somewhat restrained by an overbearing president-for-life who used the prime minister out of parliament as his footstool.And we have had bicameral legislatures thrice: from 1916-1935; from 1946 to 1972; and from 1987 to the present—where the lower house is aptly that and almost consistently ignored and derided, and the upper house is aptly uppity, self-serving, gratuitously obstructionist, and thickly larded….  As we all know, neither surfeit or hunger are conducive to clear thought and rational act.The common thread that binds these legislatures together, and ties them closely to our history, is the Filipino propensity to treat the executive power as suspiciously alien and prone to do harm, while holding our representatives in contempt as ever inclined to debasement while holding them up to the highest duty of checking executive abuse, which they cannot do without enjoying a measure of public support….  Pardo de Tavera to play a role as “people’s advocate,” a role that would be played in later years by Osmena, then Quezon, Rodriguez as leaders and by Sumulong, Recto, and Aquino, Sr., as dissenters.In her essay “origins of National Politics,” historian Ruby Paredes has this to say of Pardo de Tavera: “In Manila’s colonial politics, [he] was better suited than any other Filipino for the role of people’s advocate.”