GMA-7 RH Bill Grand Debate

Here's the RH Bill debate sponsored by GMA-7 held last 22 May 2011. The GMA YouTube channel (www.gmanews.tv) divided the debate into 8 parts for easier viewing.

Part 1
 

A Borderless World

This is the winning piece of Patricia Evangelista during the 2004 International Public Speaking competition conducted by the English-Speaking Union (ESU) in London. Tricia won the Best Speaker award and bested 60 contestants representing 37 countries. The theme of the competition was “A Borderless World”. Tricia is a columnist of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

BLONDE AND BLUE EYES

By Patricia Evangelista

WHEN I was little, I wanted what many Filipino children all over the country wanted. I wanted to be blond, blue-eyed, and white. 

I thought -- if I just wished hard enough and was good enough, I'd wake up on Christmas morning with snow outside my window and freckles across my nose! 

More than four centuries under western domination does that to you. 

I have sixteen cousins. In a couple of years, there will just be five of us left in the Philippines, the rest will have gone abroad in search of “greener pastures.” It's not just an anomaly; it's a trend; the Filipino diaspora. 

Ateneo Faculty on Conscience and Faith

Statement of Catholic Theology Teachers on Conscience and Faith

August 28, 2012

The Feast Day of St. Augustine, patron saint of theologians

We, the undersigned, speak only on our own behalf as Catholic theology teachers, and speak in no capacity either for Ateneo de Manila University or for its Theology Department, or for any other members of the Ateneo community.

Conscience allows God’s voice, not one’s own voice, to echo in one’s depths (cf. GS 16; CCC 1776). It subjectively applies transcendent moral norms. This subjectivity means that we apply the transcendent moral law within the given situation whose details, motivations, and ends we must discern truthfully and to the best of our ability (cf. CCC1780). Thus conscience involves the apprehension of transcendent truth, and is never simplya matter of one point of view versus another. For the well-formed Catholic, these transcendent moral truths are transmitted in the Tradition of the Church and are taught by its Magisterium (cf. CCC 2032-2036). Thus a good conscience is truthful and seeks the right, and a well-formed Catholic conscience seeks guidance for doing right in the authoritative teachings of the Church (cf. CCC 1783). But should any figure urge one, as a Catholic, to go against these transcendent norms which one has received and in which one has been well-formed, then it is better to disregard that figure than to disregard one’s Catholic conscience.