My Reflection of The Two Popes

One of the unique offerings of Netflix this past month was the movie that talked about two popes, entitled, "The Two Popes". It shows the contrast between the current Pope, Pope Francis and the previous one, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. Now, I'll leave this note here before I proceed with my reflection that most of what appears in the movie is based on 100% fiction. Pope Benedict, I believe is portrayed poorly. It shows the common trope of "conservatives are bad and progressives are good" while not addressing the in-between as much as I would have hoped.

That said, I liked how the movie made me reflect on the actual two popes. I'm at an age where I remember both of them being elected. I remember what both of them brought to the table as I noticed it in my life as a Catholic.

A line was said by Benedict in the film, "God always corrects one pope by presenting the world with another Pope. I'd like to see my correction." This line struck me as it wasn't the first time I had heard it. As a practicing Catholic, I love reading about how the popes in the past had addressed certain issues and how each pope is always different. They always bring different things to the table but always within the bounds of truth.

I remember the under Benedict XVI, a new translation of the mass became normal. The idea was to avoid translations of translations when celebrating the mass. The mass would be translated directly from Latin into the language being used. It was difficult at first but with this slight change came with it a huge appreciation for the faith I never knew was there.

Lines like, "And with your spirit," instead of "And also with you," have helped me see more clearly some truths that were previously not seen with the other translation. There are many more of these minor tweaks to the language which is said to encapsulate the meaning of the lines much better than the older translations. This is what I appreciate the most from Benedict XVI's papacy, which I don't think Pope Francis or Pope John Paul II would have even thought of addressing.

Contrast that to today, Pope Francis' papacy stresses the idea of welcoming more people to be in communion with the church. The single most important pronouncement, I believe, would be that all priests now have the authority to absolve the grievous sin of abortion. Most people do not know this but to stress how abhorrent abortion is to the church, she has a rule that abortion can only be forgiven when confessed to a bishop. In fact, the procedure when anyone confesses abortion to a priest who didn't have the authority to forgive it was to stop the confession and refer them directly to the bishop or to another priest who did have that authority.

The main goal of the church then was to stress the evil that was parading itself as a woman's right. Truly, it's much more difficult to be forgiven for abortion than for murder. Pope Francis, however, granted all priests the authority to forgive even abortions. This was done to stress the availability of God's love to the world. This move, I believe, is one that Pope Benedict would not have done as I think he wishes to stress the evil more than stress the power of God's mercy.

In fact, many conservative Catholics complained that this might be taken by the world as the church saying that abortion is not that grave a sin as it can be much more easily forgiven. I was one of those. But Pope Francis never said that abortion is any less grave now than before. He simply wishes to put more stress on the love of God for His children.

I find it very interesting to see what each pope brings to the table. Neither pope ever changed church doctrine. Then simply lead or nudge the church is the direction which is the most appropriate for their time. This is not to say that each pope is perfect. Far from it. But it's these imperfect popes we have that make our Church a great one.

Angkas, Tara Na!

There's this feud that Angkas and the LTFRB are having where Angkas is saying come the new year, 17,000 drivers will lose their jobs because LTFRB will only allow them to keep 10,000 drivers. LTFRB, on its part says that they in fact will usher in an additional 29,0000 jobs for the drivers as a result of introducing more players into the market. The LTFRB has said that Angkas is operating as a monopoly and that that should not be the case as it effectively puts the riding public in the hands of Angkas, a private company.

Now, as I've given ample time for the news to breathe and I myself have allotted some time to thinking about this issue, I've got to say that Angkas has got it right and we all should stand with Angkas on this matter. LTFRB saying that Angkas is operating as a monopoly is false. I repeat - ANGKAS IS NOT OPERATING AS A MONOPOLY.

Think about it. What is Angkas selling to the public? They're not selling an app where you can book motorcycle rides; they're selling transportation. As such, Angkas is nowhere near a monopoly. Angkas has to compete with all the other major players in transportation - buses, taxis, Grab, MRT and LRT. The LTFRB saying that Angkas is operating as a monopoly would be like saying that Titay's is operating as a monopoly since they're the only ones who produce Rosquillos.

Angkas, as a private company gets to enjoy being the only app based motorcycle ride sharing service. What LTFRB is doing is forcing this small playing field to have more competition when one would normally sprout out naturally.

Take the example of Netflix, for example. For the longest time, Netflix enjoyed being the only streaming service on the market and they were rewarded for that. Content creators liked being on Netflix as it allowed them to earn from their content and subscribers liked it for it's relatively low cost and ease of use on the side of the user. However, as time went by, other streaming services, like Hulu, Disney plus, and HBO plus, are making it so that Netflix is no longer the only player. This appearance of new players in the market happened organically WITHOUT any government intervention.

I think Angkas and it's very niche spot in the market should be left alone and a new player will simply pop out organically and it's this competition that will keep Angkas on their toes to provide the best service they possibly can. Until then, however, I think LTFRB should let Angkas operate as it is. Them forcing two other players into the scene simply reeks of corruption with some people suggesting that people in the government are pulling all these strings to that their company has a chance at succeeding on the market.

I've never ridden on an Angkas motorcycle but I stand with them as this case sets a very harmful precedence for other business who want to thrive. When the government has the power to dictate the market in this way, it's all a formula for disaster.

The Philippine Collegian

I've always known the Philippine Collegian to be biased to the left but they've shown time and time again that they cannot be trusted. Them and their allies cannot do anything wrong and if they are arrested, they cry wolf again and again without giving the whole story.

The latest of these allegations involve a group called Panday Sining. If you were to believe the Collegian, four of their members were illegally arrested while they were "making art". The charges are mentioned but only in passing but they always stress how aggressive the police were. The silence on this matter is very troubling and is actually a huge red flag for FAKE NEWS.

You see, an unbiased eye to the incident would at the very least include the statement of the police on the matter. A simple, "When asked why the Panday Sining activists were treated so roughly, the police merely responded _________," would have been sufficient to make the article a more well rounded article. The Collegian does mention the charges (vandalism) but they fail to show that this was an unjust arrest. Their conclusion right away is that the police merely want to silence the activists and that their rights were infringed upon. They even have their own hashtag, #StopTheAttacks

The Collegian doesn't even post this art as it would clearly show these activists were in fact guilty of vandalism. Photos surfaced in other news sources which show the vandalism done by these "artists".

Let me preface this by admitting that I may well be duped into thinking this was done by the artists and it could possibly be the case that they never had a hand in doing this at all! But weeks have passed and the Collegian is still very silent and refuses to publish pictures of these "works of art" by Panday Sining that I find it very much more probable that they were behind these vandals.

I seems that the Collegian as a whole seems to defend these vandals with every post they make. When they include words like, "to create murals and OTHER PROTEST MATERIALS depicting their critique ..." they've successfully conflated artistic murals with common vandalism and they expect everyone to believe their story.

I know the Collegian can be very dishonest in their reporting so I'll have to fill in the blanks to explain the policemen's "brutal" behavior. The most reasonable explanation I can derive is that these vandals were stopped by policemen and tried to make a run for it thus the policemen had to use some force in apprehending the vandals.

It's clear from the Collegian's framing of any issue lately, that they try to paint members of their side in as positive a light as possible and the the police/army in as negative a light as possible. As such, I need to blacken their whites and whiten their blacks to get a better view of the truth.

Such is the sad case of the Philippine Collegian.

Let the news breathe!

Last week saw wave after wave of complaints about a range of things concerning the SEA games that the Philippines is hosting. The first bit of news that broke was about a Php50M cauldron that was built. People thought that was excessive, which I believe is reasonable to think. Php50M is a lot of money for a structure that's just supposed to hold fire but I've spoken on this in a previous post.

The next wave of news came when several teams started arriving from other countries. Issues like the Cambodian team having to sleep on the floor of a holding room because their hotel room wasn't ready to some teams being brought to a different hotel started sprouting. Other news bits include some teams complaining about limited food options or a scarcity of water. There was even a news bit about the Singaporean team being served pork when some of them were Muslim.

Together with this wave of embarrassing news bits came news of some venues not being completed on time. Football fields or media centers that, based on the photos, were indeed embarrassing if they were in fact to be used. Now, the SEA games are ongoing and neither football field nor media center was used. No more pictures of toilet cubicles with two toilets inside and the like.

What have I to say about all these matters?

Let the news breathe! Around 24 hours would do.

It's very easy to jump on a news article that supports your viewpoint. Pro-admin camps will usually jump on any little news bit that will highlight the admin in a good light and anti-admin camps will do the same but with news bits that will show the admin in a bad light. As such, putting out any news bit that falls on either side of the aisle will no doubt be published to please a certain crowd.

Let's take the case of the Cambodian team sleeping on the floor. The news bit that broke the story didn't even get the side of the hotel as to why the team was sleeping on the floor, which I think is very irresponsible. The true story of the Cambodian team was that they simply arrived earlier than the agreed upon check-in time. The slept on the floor because they wanted to as the floor was carpeted.

The hotel that housed the team released a statement which explained everything very calmly and reasonably before the 24 hour breathing window expired. Those who shared about the Philippines being a bad host for treating its guests this way then became quiet as it was shown that everyone got riled up over a simple issue. Don't get me wrong, I still think it was an issue but it was very mild compared to how it was reported.

Another news bit that ticked me off was one where the article made it sound like there was a shortage of water for the athletes. "Athletes given 2 bottles of water only," the news goes. This news bit seemed odd to me at the onset as it sounded very familiar to me. The athletes said they were only given two bottles of water per room per day.

As our family operates a hotel, this was very familiar as industry standard is exactly that! Two complimentary bottles per room per day. There is free service water and paid bottled water beyond the two that you get for free but the way it was worded made it sound like the athletes came here for a Fyre Festival 2.0, which is very very much far from the truth.

The truth about this came out before the 24 hour breathing period and so if everyone simply waited for all the facts to come out, the Fyre Festival 2.0 comparison would never have been made. The same goes with the kikiam for breakfast news and the news bit about serving the muslim athletes pork! All of these supposed issues were explained further after the news was allowed to breathe.

So really, don't jump on any expose right away. Allow the news to breathe for 24 hours and you'll get a fuller picture of the entire story. In today's day and age, it can be very easy to forget that journalists have their own biases as well and we have to remember that they too can fall into the sin of reporting biased stories.

Not Prepared?

The 2019 SEA games have kicked off and the netizens (the most important Filipinos) are flooding social media with cases where the committee handling the event has bungled or made mistakes. Photos of unfinished event areas, athletes sleeping in function rooms or squatting on floors to (and this, I think is scraping the bottom of the barrel) eating the same food everyday. So much so that Alan Peter Cayetano has seen a need to address these allegations personally.

It must be said that organizing these type of events are very difficult and one will almost always end up with things like minor over sights, to major hassles. The most important part of every singular issue is that they are addressed! Now, if the Cambodian team is still sleeping on the floor a days after this happened, I'd say that's a major issue. Same goes with the teams from Timor-Leste, Myanmar and our own contingent.

Now, another issue I find in all of this is when news outlets decide to make a mountain out of a molehill. I saw the post of a Thai footballer simply stating that their head decided to buy them a different kind of food as the food that was served to them was repetitive. This wasn't a complaint, as far as I gathered from Google Translate. The way I see it, if I were an athlete and the news outlets saw me waiting for my food, ask me if I was hungry and publish that I was starving due to slow service.

These hiccups are normal for any major event. An amazing events coordinator will make it so that very few of those happen or make it onto Facebook. But our government officials are not trained in handling events. I would say that they should've hired a more competent organizer but I don't think that would've helped either.

Let's take a look at what the committee had to say about the first few incidents where some athletes had to wait in function rooms because their rooms weren't ready. I've been to my own share of hotels and this is NOT UNCOMMON!!! This irked me so much more than it probably should as our family does operate a hotel. Check-in time is typically in the afternoon and these athletes arrived early in the morning. Should they have been given preferential treatment? Maybe, but if all your guests for the SEA Games are VIP, then guess what? No one really is VIP.

This is why when one travels to a place early in the morning, it is expected that you'll have to wait until the afternoon to check-in. Also, these hotels inform their guests (or should, at least) that check-in time is usually around 2 or 3pm. So late check-ins? Not really. The function rooms were just set up to allow the athletes a place to rest while waiting. Considering the number of visitors arriving for the games, I'd venture to say the lobbies were full at this time and the function rooms were the only space decent enough for the hotel staff (yes, not the committee) decided to house their guests pre-check-in.

Just 2 bottles of water? (Gasps in Singaporean!) I seldom attribute to malice or incompetence things that can be more easily explained by ignorance. Hotels, in the Philippines typically include 2 water bottles per day per room (this matches with the story detail I read about) as a complementary thing for their guests. What's complimentary is the bottled water. Also typically free in Philippine Hotels - filtered water. Now, foreign athletes and local housekeeping attendants might lose more in the translation. Typically, the attendants will want to sell their wares and tell these foreigners that they made purchase more bottle water if they wish. Foreign athletes, may also be unaware that (for the most part) filtered water is safe for us to drink here). I'm sure that if I go to another country, I wouldn't know either!

Brought to a wrong hotel? (Gasps in Bahasa!) Looking at how the story went down, it seemed that a team was housed in one hotel while their staff was housed in another. In a less nefarious telling of the story, it could be said that the driver brought said team to their hotel only to find out that some people in his van should've been brought to another hotel. Lack of communication? Of course! Worthy of criticism, yes! Worthy of all the hate they're getting online? No.

Unfinished sporting venues? I see a lot of these but it seems to be a mix of things from journalists taking a photo of the wrong venue (old arena vs new arena) to actual unfinished new arenas which are really trying to beat the clock as far as construction is involved. The committee has stated that all venues do have a back up venue just in case something happens. I'm still in a wait and see mentality right now.

The main issue about the netizens is that they jump on a story without confirming any details or looking deeper into the story. What I like to do is to let a story breathe. Let all the details come out and see from their whether criticism or praise is warranted. But if you have a news outlet that simply wants to push a certain narrative, you're out of luck there.