Re-evaluating my Beliefs: Abortion

Note:I started this piece thinking I'd tackle several topics in one post and decided halfway through my first issue that I should probably make this a series of posts. So here's the first one.

I can be very vocal about my views which can sometimes be my very own undoing. Though I learn from them and keep on putting out my thoughts on certain issues. I would like to share how my views have evolved through time. The college version of myself and the person I am today would argue more than hang out probably. Between college and today, I did decide to evaluate my beliefs and I continue to re-evaluate them whenever I can.

Back when Nikki and I started dating, I had a realization. I became very concerned with truth. The reason for this was simple. I could see myself marrying this woman and if we were to start a family, I knew I had to make sure I get the values right. And so I questioned everything and I would follow the arguments wherever they lead even if I didn't like them.

One of the things that changed from 10 years ago is my stand on abortion. I would personally always try to convince people that it was wrong but I didn't see any danger in making it legal and available as a choice for those who wanted it. I always made reservations for cases like rape, incest, or cases where the mother's life is in danger. I also could sympathize to women who are financially incapable to bring a child into the world but I drew the line at the 1st trimester. After that point, you must've made up your mind to either keep the child or abort it.

So I had a few conditions which made me think abortion could be fine.

1. Rape
2. Incest
3. Mother's life is in danger
4. For whatever reason as long as it's within the first trimester

Most people who are unaware of the issue will nod their heads and say these are reasonable conditions - a reasonable compromise between the pro-life and the pro-choice sides of the debate. If you would ask me back then, I'd say I was pro-life for sure.

The Catholic Church's position did not allow for any exceptions. I thought this was very radical and unwelcoming to women. So I started asking the question of why the Church would think this.

Every single science book will say that a new human life starts at conception. This isn't one of the things under contention. Pro-choicers who say it's a clump of cells or just a part of a woman or a parasite are deluding themselves. The most defensible argument the pro-choice side will say, however, is "Does this human being have rights?"

Human being at 8 weeks

It's a valid point to ask. When does a human being have any rights? People draw the line at different times. The most common would be at birth, at the point of viability, before the first trimester, at implantation and at conception. Then I realized that most of these are arbitrary points in the development of the child. Essentially, nothing changes from one point to the next. There is only one point at which we can draw the line where there is a substantial change in the child's development and that is at conception.

Birth is simply the change in location. Viability is not something you can test before an abortion. Between the first and second trimester, the child simply grows a bit larger in size. Implantation is also a change in location. But before the point of conception, there was no child - only sperm and egg. Both human but not a complete human being. After conception, however, it goes from no life to something living. Again, I refer back to any science textbook.

The reason why I'm very iffy about allowing arbitrary traits like, level of development, location and viability is because this is exactly how things like genocide and slavery start out. Arbitrary things like, skin color, race, or religion were once used to justify genocide and slavery. So why should we allow things like, what their father did (in cases of rape and incest), or stage of development (1st trimester only) determine the person-hood of a child.

Let's face facts, abortion doesn't stop the rape. It doesn't stop the incest. The only thing it does, is allow the mother to be complicit in her own child's death. I personally don't want any woman to go through an abortion and then realize later that she was in fact involved in the death of her child.

The only remaining possible exemption would be in the case of the mother's life being in danger. This was the last one that I let go as I truly believed it. The simplest way to look at the issue would be to see two people who are in danger of dying - the mother and the child. In cases like this, we try to save whoever we can.

A parallel situation would be this moral dilemma. Two people are drowning in the sea and you can only save. In an ideal situation, you would save one, get them to safety, and then try to go back for the other. This is what we should do. What abortion proposes, however, is that we drown one of the people to make sure we don't have to go back to them when we save the one we chose.

I'm no medical expert but you can do a quick google search on former abortionist, Dr. Anthony Levatino. Since becoming pro-life in the 1980s, he has not once needed to perform an abortion to save the mother's life even in extreme cases of cancer, rampant toxemia, diabetes and other dangerous cases. And his method is very simple. He simply delivers the baby. He does admit that not all babies make it out alive but every single one at the very least had a chance of surviving.

He treats the case as two patients - the child and the mother and he tries to save both. Now, if the child doesn't live, it's sad for sure but it was an unintended ill effect and not the end in and of itself. It's the case of trying to go back to save the other drowning person only to find they've already drowned. What he usually does in these extreme cases is very simple. He terminates their pregnancy ... by delivering the baby, even when the baby is normally not able to survive outside the womb.

People have retorted to me that it doesn't sound any different than abortion. But here's the main difference. If abortion is the path being chosen and for some reason, the child lives, it would be considered a failed abortion. However, if the baby is delivered to save the mother's life and for some reason the baby survives, it would be met with celebration and would be called a miracle.

The main difference is that it dignifies human life throughout all stages of development - from conception to natural death.

One of the other objections the pro-choice side will throw out is that making abortion illegal won't stop abortion, it will stop safe abortions. This objection is usually accompanied by the idea of coat hanger abortions or women throwing themselves off staircases. The most gruesome form of back alley abortion I've heard about is where a woman gets a "massage" and the masseuse presses on the belly hard enough to induce the abortion. (As I'm writing this, I'm literally getting chills).

US statistics show that the women who undergo abortion have a lower risk of death than most other medical procedures. I can't remember the figure off the bat but it was less than one tenth of a percent. At first glance, the numbers seem promising. However, you soon realize all successful abortions always end in the death of a child and you can easily change up the statistic. In all abortions, 50% of the people who go into the operating room (when you count the mother and the child), don't come out alive. Add that to the fact the before most abortions, both mother and child are perfectly healthy (~92% of abortions are done not because of health problems or rape/incest. See: https://abort73.com/abortion_facts/us_abortion_statistics/).

If you want to defend safe abortion, know that it's an oxymoron. Unless abortionists can make abortion as safe for the child as it is for the mother, we cannot even fathom the idea of a "safe abortion".

The last one, which I also hear is that making abortion illegal will not stop it. This idea totally misses the point. Murders, theft, terrorism, slavery, and rape are illegal but the law does not stop things from happening. The law, when enforced, punishes these acts when they're done. We shouldn't allow society to let evil things happen just so people have the choice to do them. We don't allow people to rape women without repercussions. We don't allow people to own other people without repercussions.

We're lucky we don't allow abortion here in the Philippines though I foresee in the next few years, this issue will rear its ugly head in our local scene again. We have to be prepared. Let's not forget that abortion is not a woman's rights issue as the politicians would claim. It's a human rights issue.

Arguing about abortion

In a previous post, I've mentioned that abortion is a human rights issue, not a woman's issue. I had recently got sucked into a comment box debate about abortion and it did get frustrating. However, after a few more back and forth, I decided that I was simply wasting my time and I shifted to writing some articles on here.

What struck me the most is that people seemed to take offense that I was a man giving my opinion on abortion. There was a bunch more personal attacks on there which I'd much rather not relive. But what really bothered me was that people tried to invalidate my opinion because I was a man, or because I wasn't in any medical field, or because I haven't experience menstruation or pregnancy in any way. Another lady asked if I had a uterus as if the absence or presence of one would invalidate my opinion on the matter.

The other people on the thread did engage and that's always a good thing. Another commenter bought into this idea that abortion can in fact be used to save a woman's life. His concerns are legitimate but misguided. The only thing abortion can do is kill the unborn baby's life. In fact, former abortionist Dr. Levatino has stated that in all of his years treating pregnant women, he has needed to use abortion exactly zero times. In most cases, he would simply deliver the baby and then treat the woman.

But I digress. Why does the absence of a vagina somehow make my opinion of less value. I did check out some posts by women who are pro-life and they're dismissed simply by saying, "So you bought into that lie?" or something to that effect. Really, whether or not I have a vagina will ultimately not make my opinion any more or less valuable.

The last thing that irked me was that they use these hypothetical situations to "boost" their argument. Throwing out hypotheticals such as, "If someone you know personally was raped, ..." This did get to me and I was tempted to reply but as I had already said I wouldn't reply, I kept my promise.

I know how these people think. I've been one of them. I'm Catholic but even if I wasn't I would be pro-life. In fact, I've been in the position where I had to reevaluate my entire belief system because only one thing mattered to me, truth. If it's true that abortion is the direct killing of an innocent human life, there is nothing that will sway me to think otherwise.

I have decided to go the coffee and abortion route and asked one of the girls to have coffee with me so we can discuss this very important issue. I just need to wait for her response.

Touring the States: Washington D.C.

One of the other places we stopped by on our family road trip was Washington D.C. It was a stroke of luck that we would arrive during the full bloom of the cherry blossoms in DC. We didn't plan for this so it was definitely a good surprise.

DC is a great place for tourists to do a lot of things for free. The Smithsonian museums are free and you get to see a lot of things in the museums. When we were there, even the DC Circulator buses were free. We went around the National Mall and enjoyed it. The cherry blossoms were a sight to behold and it was especially nice for us since a year ago, we went to Japan to see the cherry blossoms and they bloomed earlier than expected and so we weren't able to see the full bloom.

Walking around the National Mall, we saw the Washington Monument, Capitol Building, the Lincoln Memorial, the WW II memorial and at a distance, the White House. An interesting sight in the WW II memorial was the name of the Philippines on one of the pillars. It looked like the memorial was to honor the states and territories that fought in the US army. The Philippines is the only one on there that is not a state or a US territory.

The museums were great too. Due to lack of time, we were only able to visit the Air and Space Museum and the Natural History Museum. Those two are the ones that kids are able to relate to the most so if you have kids, these are the ones you should hit.

Our DC trip was short. It felt even shorter as most of us got sick in DC. It actually surprised us that the temperature was much lower than expected. So the best part about our DC trip was actually our airbnb. It was big and spacious and it was as homey as an airbnb can get. If we had to get sick in one place, I'm glad we got sick in DC as the airbnb was that nice.

A Reaction to a Rant on Abortion

The issue of abortion has been pushed into the limelight once again when Alabama passed a bill to make abortion illegal. Other states like Georgia introduced a heartbeat bill which basically says you can't abort if you can sense a heartbeat.

Because of this the "medical experts" on social media have put forth their concerns about making abortion illegal. Twitter user @pinkrockopus went on a rant on Twitter and I'll try to go thru her objections. Original thread here: (https://twitter.com/pinkrocktopus/status/1111847344415363073?s=21&fbclid=IwAR3DCsbnEMWuoW2mdqwKJY4o1krIBSZg0KmojGw4FzNPHXHTb2F4Env6Uzo)

1. She has, "a genetic abnormality that prevents me from metabolizing folic acid... This bill will make it illegal for us (her and her husband) to abort a pregnancy that cannot possibly be viable." She went on to clarify that the child could suffer from anencephaly
• This can be tricky as the concern is with the child. This I can sympathize with but I cannot support. Anencephaly is NOT a death sentence. It may affect the quality of life of someone but death is obviously not preferable to living a life with a "lower standard". If you ask some abortion survivors, you'll even hear this from them, "How do you get to decide the quality of MY life?"
2. "If your religious practice or moral code justifies forcing a human to carry and bear a child, against their will and judgement, then your religion treats childbearing people as brood mares."
• This assumes that people are only against abortion due to religious reasons. But that's simply not the case. Secular Pro-life is an organization of atheist pro-lifers. This statement also assumes that pro-lifers want to force women to carry children to term. This is not the case. You'd call those pro-birth people. The pro-life position has only been that you cannot directly kill the unborn. The "forcing women to carry a baby" argument is simply a strawman argument meant to make the pro-life position look bad. It's on the same league as when pro-life people accuse the pro-choice movement of "Supporting murder!"
3. "100% of pregnancies are caused by ejaculation" and "Pregnancy is not caused by loose morals in women, short skirts on girls, .... It's caused by semen."
• Lol. This lady needs some basic biology. Men can masturbate all they want and ejaculate all they want and no one would be pregnant. Pregnancy is caused not by just semen or just the egg but by both. Without one of the ingredients, all you have are ingredients.
4. "HB481 is drafted in a way that criminalizes *miscarriages.*"
• I have yet to read the actual text of HB481 but from my understanding, it's only the abortionists who will get penalized by this law as the abortionist would be the aggressor to the fetus on the womb. In the case of miscarriages, there would be no aggressor. It would be like a person dying suddenly due to natural causes.
5. "You can't enjoy full personhood without complete bodily autonomy, ...
• Complete Bodily Autonomy - three words that only came together with the sole purpose of excluding the unborn. Before all this talk of abortion, people simply knew that a baby was in the womb of a woman when she was pregnant. The baby was where it needed to be to survive. Just like how you and I need a roof over our heads, the baby needs to be in her mother's womb.
6. "It's a medical procedure like a colonoscopy, ..."
• There's so much I can say about this but it isn't really. The movie Unplanned, for example, showed the closest thing you can to an actual abortion and it got an R rating. In a movie with no foul language, no horror scenes, no nudity, it had to have deemed abortion as an act of violence, which it really is. But not even taking that into consideration, let's consider a procedure that removes the appendix. It simply removes an appendix. An abortion is more like an eviction without notice where you forcibly remove one person from where they're supposed to be in their development.
7. "... don't come at me with how it's different because a colon polyp isn't a tiny sentient human like a fetus is."
• I will come at you at how different it is. Look at a polyp and look at a fetus. The fetus is distinct from the woman carrying her as she has her own set of human DNA, her own limbs, her own heart, her own blood type. That is not an abnormal growth or some other specie or an inflamed part of the woman's body. It simply isn't. If you still think that a baby in the womb is just a part of the woman's body, you'll have to admit that when a woman is pregnant, she has 20 fingers, 20 toes, 2 heads, 2 hearts, 2 blood types, and 50% of the time, she can even have a penis.
8. "Poor people are entitled to have children. Single people are entitled to have children ..."
• I've written about this long before but people aren't entitled to children at all. The opposite is true. Children are entitled to their parents. As such they need their parents to fight for their right no matter how small and helpless they are.
9. "Not all women have wombs. Not all people who have wombs are women."
• This is where we start to see the insanity in all of this. No society in the history of the world has ever held this belief. It is also scientifically incorrect. That is all.
10. "No waiting periods, no judge's permission, no parent sign-off, no absolutely ghoulish transvaginal ultrasound so you can see the zygote before you evict it."
• This cuts her own arguments in the previous lines. If it's simply a surgery like any other, why prevent parents from signing off on it? I had an operation when I was 8 and my parents had to sign off on that. Why not have them sign off on an abortion? Again, because abortion is NOT like any other surgical procedure. Also, why oppose an ultrasound. I truly believe that if you support abortion, you should be very well aware of what you're actually evicting from the womb. Google search 8 week old fetus and tell me that's not a person.
11. "The patriarchy" complaints.
• She then goes on a rant which basically says, "because men" not knowing that most people in the pro-life movement are women! And it makes sense that women would be more pro-life. Women are more nurturing and as such understand that while a man sees a small dot, she sees a child at the most vulnerable time of her life. This isn't a woman's rights issue. It's a human rights issue. And it's not their right to choose, it's their right to life.

If you're pro-choice, chances are I didn't convince you. But humor me. If you really think that abortion is still something we need, know what you're supporting. Know what an abortion entails and what it actually looks like.

Here's a link to a video I think will help. Watch it all the way through and tell me then that you still think there's nothing wrong with it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFZDhM5Gwhk

What's the use of the Party-list system?

Seriously? What's the use of the Party-list system? I know its intended purpose but what I fail to see is the actual purpose it serves. It's supposed to give a better voice to minorities. I'm all for that but a party-list system just doesn't do it and if you look at the 134 party-lists you could vote for, you'll notice some of them don't actually represent minorities or they can actually be represented by local congressional districts.

Take for example, Ako Bisdak. That's not a minority by any stretch and the Bisayas are already represented by their own local districts. The same goes for party-lists like, An Waray, Ako Bicol, and Amin (Mindanao). There are a lot of party-lists which do represent minorities like teachers, farmers, garbage collectors, PUV operators, etc. What makes these redundant in my own opinion is that they can actually field candidates in their own locale as opposed to running a nationwide campaign.

Take the example of Butil. Butil says it represents rice farmers. I believe them. But wouldn't it make more sense for them to field candidates in rice producing districts? The campaign costs more and the issue would be closer to the hearts of those within their own locality.

Some party-lists are one which simply want to put forth a specific agenda. In other words, you're voting for the policy, not the minority. Examples like, Ako (anti-drugs), ACT-CIS (anti-crime and terrorism), Duterte Youth, etc. Some party-lists don't even try to represent a minority. They just represent a general idea. As much as I'd want to mention their names here, it's best you go through the names (https://www.rappler.com/nation/politics/elections/2019/221971-party-list-groups-2019-polls). Some don't even try.

This leaves us with the true minorities. Minorities that appear in almost every province throughout the Philippines. Party-lists which represent teachers, women, the youth, workers, etc. I'd understand if these are the kinds of party-lists which ran. However, these groups may still field their own candidates in local elections. There's nothing stopping candidates who have a heart for teachers to run for higher positions. Candidates the fight for women's causes are also not barred from running. Look at the winners of the past elections and you'll see a lot of women there.

Workers' rights are also a constant topic that is being asked of candidates. Again, these are issues that can be brought up to the congressmen of specific locales. It would actually do them more good to do so as they are forced to convince numerous congressmen to fight for their cause rather than settle for one measly seat in congress.

Really, there are no issues that a local congressman cannot put forth that needs a party-list congressman to fight for. I really truly believe it's time for the party-list system to die. These smaller parties can still be active in the national scene but will have to push their agenda directly through their local congressmen. If a cause is important enough to fight for, I think it will get traction in the local level.

Touring the States: Florida!

This past month, our family took a family vacation to the USA and very early on, we decided to make it a road trip along the east coast going from Florida to New York. On the way, we passed by and stopped at a few states/cities. This series of posts will highlight one particular state or city and all the things we did in that location as well as my thoughts on what people should expect when visiting this particular state or city. I'll be doing these in semi-chronological order and so my first post will be all about Florida.

I lived my whole life in the Philippines and as such, I've always considered the US to be universally be a cooler place than the Philippines. Going to Florida proved me wrong as I wore shorts the whole time we stayed there. We placed Florida on our itinerary for the sole purpose of Disney World. I have two nephews and Disney theme parks are always better with kids. It also gives the adults a reason to go. So our Florida stop was largely theme parks (3 Disney parks and Legoland) and shopping at an outlet mall.

Our first park was Legoland. Legoland was a kid's theme park. Almost all the rides can be ridden by anyone - young, old, fearless and fearful. Ironically, the most thrilling ride involved riding on ponies in the Lego Friends portion of the park. It was well worth the wait in line though to be fair the line wasn't as long as the other rides.

Our next theme park was Disney's Magic Kingdom. Actually, the next two are also Disney theme parks so I was curious as to what would set each park apart from each other. For the Magic Kingdom, it was definitely the rides. Classics like Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, and It's a Small World were all still amazing. The 7 Dwarves ride was one of our favorites. It was a kid's ride which ran very smoothly compared to rest of the rides and had it's own little story with it. We ended our day with an amazing fireworks display and though we were all tired from the long day we just had, we enjoyed that last bit so much. My nephews who would normally complain at being out the whole day just stood in awe and amazement at the fireworks.

Hollywood Studios was our next stop and we went in knowing it wouldn’t have as many rides as Magic Kingdom. What Hollywood Studios does do is it makes up for the lack of rides through a lot of shows. Even the rides seemed like shows. Tower of Terror was a great ride which seemed like a 3D movie experience. The Aerosmith ride was just amazing. We lined up for almost three hours for that one but it was worth it. Going around the park, you can see different things like children doing Jedi training, and even an Indiana Jones Stunt show, which was amazing!

Our last Disney park to visit was Epcot Center. It also had a few rides and so safe to say the park wasn't focused on the rides. Though the rides we did ride had a big amount of participation from the riders. Test Track was a notable ride which sees your car designs be put through the test while you ride it. Most of the park, however was very nice in that the park itself was the park's main attraction. I can honestly say that one can simply go around the park walking and neglect all the rides and you could still have a great day in Epcot. Our Epcot day was spoiled by a little bit of rain in the beginning but it quickly turned around before we left.

In summary, Legoland is a park for kids and they will love it. Magic Kingdom's main draw is its rides. Hollywood Studios lives up to it's name as the shows take center stage in this park. For Epcot, the park itself is the main attraction.

If I were to rank the four parks we visited, I'd put Magic Kingdom on the top of the list just because I'm the kind of guy who enjoys rides. Epcot would follow because of how beautiful the park is. Hollywood Studios would be a close third and is the home to my favorite ride, the Aerosmith one. And Legoland was just too kiddie for my taste.

Answer to all Filipino Concerns: Subsidy

Listen closely to any of the past senatorial debates and you'll come across many candidates answering a problem with subsidy. How do we help the farmers? Subsidize them. How do we help the senior citizens? Subsidize them. And you'll see that theme recurring every single time a question is posed. It's as if the solution to any of our problems is to throw money at it and it'll go away.

Here's my own little story about subsidy and why it does not work:

I'm a baddict (a badminton addict) and I would always try to invite people to play badminton with me. I wanted to make it cheap for people to join the group and so I would shoulder the cost of the shuttles and we'd only divide the cost of the court equally. Each person would pay only around 20 to 40 pesos and everyone was happy. It worked... for a while.

I then noticed that my own costs would go up as I did shoulder the shuttlecocks for the sessions. What did I do? I would go for the cheaper shuttles or we'd even use shuttles that shouldn't be used anymore for our games. There were times we would run out completely! And other times, I simply didn't see the need to organize games anymore because it did drain my own pocket.

Flash forward to the present where I belong to two badminton groups and we always split all the costs including the shuttles. This made for a fairer and more sustainable badminton playing experience and the groups are thriving. One of them can have up to 40 players during one night while the other consistently has 10 or more players every session. We end up paying more than before but more and more people want to play.

You'll notice that subsidizing anything will NOT solve any problem. Notice the same is the case with Manila's MRT which was heavily subsidized to keep costs lower for the masses. At some point, the MRT just stopped trying! If you really think about it the MRT was subsidized by the Filipino people - even those who did not use the system!

Subsidies belong to that category of nice things that sound good on paper but have bad effects in the long run. This is actually why when any senatorial candidate would mention that they would solve a certain problem by subsidizing it, alarms ring in my brain and I automatically put them in my "No" list. Now, some of them made it out as I ended up with less than 12 senators in my final list but you get the picture.

Watch out for politicians who tell you they'll solve problems by subsidizing it or by throwing money at it. I would like to think they mean well, but it simply won't do us any favors.

Why choose 12 senators?

Last Monday, the whole country voted to elect 12 senators to be in the Senate. I have absolutely nothing against having 12 senators be elected. I have an issue with how we're voting for them.

Let's flash back to three years ago. Who remembers the campaign promises of Drilon? Or Villanueva? Or De Lima? Recto? Gatchalian? Hontiveros? Pangilinan? Paquiao? Zubiri? Gordon? Lacson? Sotto? Exactly! Me neither.You may remember one or two of their stances on certain things but never do you remember their main reason for running. Why is that?

Compare that side to side with Duterte or Robredo. People remember their campaign promises and can (at this junction) judge how well these two have either kept or not kept their promises. We even have re-electionists now who we don't even know if they stuck to deliver what they promised. Thing is, it's much easier to remember the promise of one person than the promises of different people. Considering, we had to choose 12 out of 62 senators is enough to have the average Filipino just say, "I'll vote based on name recall."

Because the senate is composed of so many people, we can't reasonably expect everyone to keep track of how every single senator voted on a particular issue. Can you remember who voted for the RH Law? Me neither! So for or against it, we simply can't keep track of who we should be supporting for these positions. So what's the solution?

People should really just be voting for one senator every election cycle. One president, one VP, one senator, one representative, one governor, one mayor, etc. That way, it's much easier for Filipinos to keep track of the one person elected into that position. Senators should run in local elections and not nationwide elections. Let's assume the rough proposal that Region 7 will have its own senator. Senators need only campaign in their own local regions to gather votes as opposed to having all candidates spend so much on a national campaign. This way, you can even have a more representative Senate.

So each region has 2 senators, one elected during the presidential elections and one elected during the mid-term. This way, all any Filipino will ever have to look out for is how their own elected senator voted in certain key legislation. This also prevents people from winning purely on name recall alone. It will help but will only get you so far.

Note what happened in the mayoral races in Lapu-Lapu, Mandaue, Cebu City and the Gubernatorial race of Cebu province. We had prominent names losing to less prominent figures? The reason? The people are more familiar with one person and his promises as compared to the promises of 12 individuals. I assure you, by next week, people won't remember what any of the winners promised. I can't even remember what the people I didn't vote for promised anymore. All I remember was I didn't agree with them.

It's that simple. Two senators per region to be elected one at a time in their own region. So if Region 1 wants to elect Imee Marcos to represent them in the senate, so be it as long as I can vote for my own Region 7 senator without worrying about how Region1 would affect my own vote for my own senator.

Now, you may be wondering at this point where I got this scheme from. Those familiar with US politics might say I go it from the US but this is actually one of the provisions of the charter change movement which is now in congress. This system actually allows the smaller regions like CAR or ARMM or many of the Mindanao regions to have more of a voice in National Policy making. It prevents their voices from being overruled by more populous regions like NCR, Region 3, 4A, or 7.

We need this now. We need to give the smaller regions a bigger voice in the national arena and we have the opportunity now. Like it or not, most of the winners this cycle are for Charter Change. Charter Change will push through and will be the next battleground. We need to make sure we get that one right.

Free College Education. Cure or Curse?

I've written on this topic many times but I still feel the need to write about it even more because even people who are very intelligent support the idea of free tertiary education. I, on the other hand, do not. What bothered me the most about people who disagree with me is they always start with the line, "What's differentiates us is that I believe that education is a right..." This made me think, "Well, so do I!" I just don't think it should be free.

Let's start with the idea that our rights should be free. This is totally untrue. Take, for example the right to life. This is not in question but no one would ever think that people's living expenses should be shouldered by the government. Let's move on to the right to own property. No one (at least no one sane) is suggesting that people should be given free land or property. I would agree that no one should bar anyone from the access of quality education - that is to say, Universities and Colleges cannot disqualify on the basis of race, ethnicity, sex or even political ideology.

A number of my friends have put forth the thought that their own lives have drastically improved after they got their degree and they wish that everyone has this advantage. While I'm happy for them, this will not apply across the board, unfortunately for a number of reasons:

1. More college graduates will not mean more quality college graduates. Any HR officer can tell you that differentiating the good from the bad college grads is not an easy task. That was true before and that still is true now. It's even harder now as there would undoubtedly be more college grads to sort through. I've said this before and I'll say it again. We need quality, not quantity.
2. Speaking of quantity grads, salaries will go down. The law of supply and demand dictate that a higher number of professionals will mean more will be willing to take work at a lower rate. Lower rate of work means it might be harder to get a good paying job here and we end up with the problem that Nurses had many years ago - all the good ones, simply leave the country. The ones that do stay, don’t get paid well.
3. Got a problem with the government? Better shut up! I'm not saying in any way that people shouldn't voice their opinions against the government. What I'm saying is that, if you have free tertiary education, the politicians will have a big say in which university gets more or less money. And if a particular University doesn't stay in line (Hi, UP), they can easily see their own budget slashed by the very politicians who passed this free tertiary education law.
4. People don't appreciate free things. While I was in UP, I did notice a lot of people dropping out of school. Some of them dropped out for financial reasons while more dropped out because they simply didn't attend class because our tuition back then was inexpensive - 900 pesos for a 3 unit class is pretty cheap! What more when education is free? I expect UP to see a surge in the number of failures they'll give out. The idea being, "I can always take it next semester."
5. People might take the wrong courses. Have you met people who have never used their degree in any way, shape or form? There's a bunch of them! With those who paid for their own tuition, you can't say it's a waste but it's a waste they shouldered. For those who's tuition was paid for by someone else, that's a totally different story. Now, I've worked for a company that sent people to school with the purpose of hiring them right after. In other words, they saw their own need and addressed it directly. That way, people wouldn't get degrees they didn't need.
6. What's the use of K-12? Ninoy Aquino pushed for K-12 with the very purpose of allowing the masses to be more equipped for the workforce when they turn 18. Now that college would be subsidized, we're actually pushing back the working age to 21 or 22 for most of our labor force.
7. Why tertiary education? A college education is good. But it's not the only good. TESDA offers vocational courses so people can start their own freelance businesses. An associate's degree is also not a bad idea. Working straight off from high school is also not a bad idea. Why fund only tertiary education and not the entrepreneurial dreams of a young man? Consider also what happens when someone decides not to go to college so he can provide for his family. He'll be entering the workforce earlier and will start contributing taxes to fund someone else's college degree. Think about that.
8. It removes the edge of having a college education. Since almost everyone can get one, it removes the edge that people have them. In other words, college education will be the new, "high school graduate" requirement we see in job qualifications. Soon, all companies will be requiring a college degree and that pretty much sums up point number 6.
9. It will be costly. Wait, what? How can free education be costly? Remember that nothing is free. With the government practically assuring spending for state colleges and universities, you'll no doubt end up with school administrators using money in more wasteful ways. I mean, they didn't earn it and the money will come in anyway so why should we budget wisely. And guess who ends up paying for all that. Does the line on your payslip which says, "Withholding tax" mean anything?
10. Loans! What's the next source of funds to taxes that the government can get? International loans! And it's easy! It's an investment for our future. In my opinion, it's a very poor investment if we allow everyone who got a free education to leave the country.

This is why I think this free college education which is already being implemented is like a ticking time bomb. And you have other senatorial candidates proposing that school allowances be also subsidized.

I say we see the effects that K-12 has on our workforce and improve on that. I do, however agree that public schools should still make primary education free if they're able.

And that's my take on free education.

I'm Anti-"Anti-Political Dynasty"

Many will read the title of this and think I'm all for political dynasties. I am not. I am simply against legislature that aims to dictate who can and cannot run for certain positions in government. Put simply, many of these kinds of legislation aim to block certain people from running - regardless of their ability to lead the country.

I'll add to this law, the law on restricting term limits. It's one of those laws that dictate who can or can't run based on how many times a person has won the office of mayor regardless of how good a job he's done.

Why am I against these two laws? It's quite simple. The only people who should be able to decide who can or can't run should be the people. I.e., if the people want to vote for the son of the current mayor to replace him, so be it. Or if the people want to vote for the same mayor after 10 prosperous 3 year terms, why not allow them?

The Anti-Political Dynasty Law comes from a good place. It aims to allow a more level playing field especially in places where the political dynasties are only serving their own interests. To which, I say, if the people allow themselves to be conned by the same family over and over and over again, I say let them be conned and let them learn their lesson the hard way - I'm looking at you, Lapu-Lapu City!

I worry that if we use the Anti-Political Dynasty law to restrict the people running, we're actually depriving ourselves of legitimately good lawmakers and politicians just because we want other people to have a chance at running. Why fix something that may not be broken?

And what do we make of families that run against each other? Or families that support people other than their own families? These two cases aren't rare and have appeared in the news in just the past week. Clearly, it's not the case that all families are as close knit as your typical non-political family.

It may be a bitter pill to swallow as I once did support some form of Anti-Political Dynasty Law but such a law would be counter-intuitive and might actually make things worse in the long run. This is why I'm considering this point to be one of the deciding factors when I vote next week.

Spoiler Etiquette

With GOT in it's final season and Endgame coming to the big screen last April 24, talk about spoilers have been all over social media. Statements like, "If you spoil Endgame, you will be unfriended," and the like have been posted. For Endgame, I've been able to dodge all possible spoilers. I've even refrained from watching the trailer for Endgame since I wanted to go in perfectly blind. And I just have to say, it does increase one's enjoyment of the scene.

However, not everyone online is sensitive to these kinds of things and end up posting about certain things that would potentially decrease other viewer's enjoyment. Most are harmless but imagine scrolling on Facebook to see your friends vacation pictures and you happen to stumble upon a spoiler for a movie you were going to watch that night. That's not a good day for you now is it. So I wanted to make a compilation of the rules of spoilers for different things like books, movies, TV series and games.

First of all, what would be considered a spoiler? For this segment I'll be using things that would normally be considered spoilers during the time they first came out. Meaning the examples I'll be using have their spoiler flags expired and can be talked about openly in social media and pop culture.

A direct spoiler is one where you directly give away a major plot twist or plot point. Example:
"Darth Vader is Luke's father!" or, "I knew Ross and Rachel would end up together!"

Most people know to avoid direct spoilers but don't know how to avoid indirect spoilers. Indirect spoilers are more subtle in that they provide a reaction to a plot twist which one couldn't possibly have otherwise. What do I mean? Would you really post, "She's your lobster" if they didn't end up together after the season finale? Or would you ever post, "All this time? Always." if you hadn't seen the last Harry Potter movie? Or even something as vague as, "I'm still shaking after that episode," after watching the Red Wedding? It's these subtle spoilers that irk many spoiler sensitive people like myself.

If you really want to post some reaction on social media, make it as vague as possible and AT ALL COSTS, avoid using ANY CHARACTER NAMES or pictures. Acceptable reactions are things like, "I highly recommend Age of Ultron," or "The Hobbit movies are a must watch." Subtle spoilers include things like, "Deym, Neville Longbottom! You made me a fan!" or "We'll miss you, Ned Stark."

I'm also writing this because just 24 hours after GOT S8E3 showed, someone posted that the 24 hour window had lapsed and that he was free to post a very spoiler filled post for everyone to see. I don't know where this 24-hour rule came from but I would heavily disagree that 24 hours was all it needed to release this kind of spoiler to the world.

Books

Book spoilers don't expire quickly. Regularly, they wouldn't expire at all or would only expire after a lifetime - No one gets mad when you say what happened at the end of Romeo and Juliet, for example. However, as books become movies and TV series, things cease to be spoilers only after the TV or movie spoiler has expired. Notice that when the Red Wedding aired, even if thousands of people have read the books and knew exactly what was going to happen in the series, practically everyone kept their mouths shut? That's because it's recognized that book spoilers last a very long time due to people being able to pick them up at any time they're being sold.

TV

TV spoilers are more intricate. Minor events, plot twists, cliffhangers and major plot twists all differ in times when you're allowed to talk about them openly. These even change during a regular season and the final season. Here's a summary:

Type of Spoiler                                                           Spoiler Window
Minor events and plot twists                                       1 week
Cliffhangers (especially season enders)                      2 months
Death of a major character                                          Half year
Season Finale/Climax                                                 1 year

Yes, TV spoiler windows can last up to a year. This is mainly because people watch TV shows differently. Climaxes usually come at the end of the season and as such people who choose to binge watch their TV series will start watching the season at a later date and as such they will get to the last episode much longer. Binge watching a series is a legitimate way of enjoying a show so while some people think a 24 hour window has lapsed, we must learn to respect some other people's choice to start watching series at a later date.

Movies

Movie spoilers are usually safe to talk about after the movie has ceased to show in the cinemas, Meaning, if a person really wanted to watch a certain movie, they've probably already seen it before it disappeared from the cinemas. If they haven't, they probably don't care as much. Though a safe time to talk about spoilers for movies would be a month after its DVD release. After this point in time, if people hadn't seen the movie, they probably either haven't heard of it or don't care for it.

Video Games

Games have a different rule set from the rest as I think that games can generally be picked up at any point in time and because of this, their plots shouldn't be spoiled ever, especially if you want the studio that produced them to succeed. Here's a rough guide though (and yes these can be considered spoilers.)

Type of Spoiler                                                           Spoiler Window
Game Mechanics (like Link jumping)                        1 week from release date
Visual Wonders (Skyrim environments; Pokemon)    1-2 months
Minor Bosses                                                               6 months
Final Boss and Plot twists                                           1 year

This next section will tackle common reasons people put up things that could be considered spoilers:

"It was in the trailers!"

- This is not a reason to post this. Some people purposely choose not to see any trailer as it does increase the enjoyment of the movie/episode. Entering the movie house or a game completely blind allows the viewer/gamer to be genuinely surprised by anything and everything it throws at you.

"It was in the books!"

- This is just wrong. Not everyone who watches a movie or follows a TV series has read the books. And please keep your, "Not a true fan" nonsense to yourself.

"It's your fault for not seeing it earlier!"

- People have lives. Real lives. So while half the fandom is able to watch the Game of Thrones episodes in the morning, the other half has to wait for the episode to air at night. Also, while some people are able to watch movies on opening night, certain events might prevent people from watching it earlier - even up to 2 weeks later.

"I thought you already reached that part."

True story. Someone spoiled The Deathly Hallows book for me because she saw I was reading the book and saw I was almost finished with it and so assumed I had read a major plot twist. Quick advice, ask where the other person is in the book.

"I barely said anything."

Think about your post. Some people will say they only mentioned a character's name and maybe a few heart emojis. This signals to everyone that something significant might happen to this character. Avoid this at all costs. Did you expect something to happen to that character? If not, don't rob that experience from anyone else.

Whatever the case, spoiling things online is tricky. Make sure to add the spoiler tag if you do expose a spoiler but if you want my honest opinion. If you need to react to something you just saw, go to your real 3D friends and don't post your feelings online for your online friends to see. Yeah, 3D friends are the best. Go to them and talk to them... in person.