PARADOXICAL

Dr. Fauci received a severe battering from Republican senators asking him about COVID and the government policies he helped form at the time. 

Alex Eala made history on August 3, 2026, by becoming the first tennis player from the Philippines to win a WTA singles title. 

posted by Resty Odon  # 10:16 PM 0 Comments

Recently, a handful of popular podcasters have claimed that Islamic regimes are historically “very kind” toward Christians. Those who make this claim are either willfully ignorant or are advancing an agenda. The historical record is not ambiguous. 

For example, the claims that relations between Islam and the Christian world were peaceful for 500 years until the First Crusade are false. 

- Mohammad died in 632. By 732, Islam had taken the Holy Land and North Africa from the Christian Byzantine Empire. 

- It had also conquered Spain and advanced into France a few hundred miles from Paris.  

- After taking additional land in southern France and establishing bases in the Alps, Muslims launched raids into Germany. 

- They also sacked the outskirts of Rome and took control of Sicily. 

- In 1071, they defeated the Byzantines and took control of most of modern Turkey. 

- Twenty-four years later, the Byzantine Emperor asked the Pope for help, leading to the First Crusade. 

- Christians in these conquered territories were treated as dhimmis, second-class citizens who were required to pay the jizya, a special tax and sign of submission that was often accompanied by ritual humiliations. Failure to pay the tax could result in death, enslavement, and the destruction of the local church building.  

- No public displays of Christianity were allowed, including the ringing of church bells or even praying aloud in one’s own home within earshot of a Muslim. No new churches could be built, and no old churches could be repaired without permission, which was rarely given. Criticism of Islam and evangelizing Muslims was strictly forbidden. In court, a Christian’s testimony was worth less than a Muslim’s. Christians could not have authority over a Muslim or have a house taller than a Muslim’s. They could not bear arms or ride a horse. At times, they were forced to wear distinctive clothing.  

- Another claim is that Muslim rulers protected Christian holy sites and repaired them when damaged. Again, nothing could be further from the truth. Typically, important Christian holy sites were converted to mosques to show the victory of Islam. The most prominent example is Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, the largest church in Christendom for 1000 years. When the city fell to the Turks, it and other churches were desecrated and converted to mosques. 

- An exception was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, perhaps because it was a major pilgrimage site that generated revenue for the Caliph. However, in 1009, Caliph Al Hakim destroyed it. It lay in ruins for decades until his successor allowed the Byzantines to rebuild it, likely to again collect pilgrimage revenues. 800 years later, the church was severely damaged in a fire. Local Christians blamed Muslims, but the official story is that it was caused by a candle or oil lamp. The Ottomans allowed it to be repaired using Christian funds donated from overseas. They did not pay for the repair. 

- In the Ottoman Empire, that some claim was kind to Christians, boys were taken from Christian homes to be raised as Janissaries, or Muslim slave-soldiers who were taught to despise their Christian families. Girls were often taken as slaves into harems, and violence often broke out against Christian communities in Ottoman territories. The worst violence was the Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek genocides of the early twentieth century, in which between 1.5 million and 2.5 million people were killed by the Ottoman government. 

- The same violence against Christians continues today, with abductions, forced marriages, murders, arson of churches, and oppression of Christians in places like Pakistan and Egypt, and increasingly in Europe. There is a prohibition of churches in Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries and, of course, the ongoing slaughter of Christians by Islamists in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa. 

So no, Islam has not been kind to Christians. The only reason to make this claim is to make the occasional anti-Christian acts of Israelis look worse. But there is no comparison. Christians in Israel have more rights and freedoms than in any Muslim country, especially in history. To claim otherwise is to ignore reality.

Author

Breakpoint

For links to the sources mentioned in this article and more resources, visit the Breakpoint website: https://breakpoint.org/no-islam-is-not-kind-to-christians/

No, Islam is Not Kind to Christians - Breakpoint

BREAKPOINT.ORG

No, Islam is Not Kind to Christians - Breakpoint

No, Islam is Not Kind to Christians - Breakpoint

5d

Reply

Joao Correia

Are there any muslim majority countries where religious minorities are not persecuted or discriminated?

5d

Reply

Garrett Barton

Boys, time to bring back the crusades

4d

Reply

Jim Hallstrom

I've read both books and Islamic Hadiths! I've even listened to podcasts comparing the Arabic of the Quran and Hadiths translated to English. The OP is correct and if anymore proof is needed, just start reading and researching! Past and current events should solidify reasoning why Islam will never assimilate to Americas Judeo Christian principles upon which our country was founded! What does one do? Exactly how the OP did it, read, research, report!! Not all Muslims are terrorists just like not all that call themselves Christian are! But, one book is Islamic that has doctrine that wants to subjagate all non believers while the other, if followed, wants to love all mankind! Choose wisely!!

May be an image of text that says 'OF WITNESSES ONE MAN JOKE HOLY BIBLE Quran Nahum Nehemiah o.T. Moses Amos Daniel Daniel David Ezekiel Ezra Habakkuk Samuel Salomon Zechariah Zephaniah N.T. James John Jude Luke Mark Mark Matthew Peter Paul Hosea Isalah Jeremiah Joel Jonah Joshua Malachi Micah Muhammad'

5d

Reply

Edited

Steve Lyublanovits

But it is not possible to live in peace when one religion must kill you if you don’t agree with them.

5d

Reply

Dave Woomer

Ask Nigerian Christians what they think of Islam...

5d

Reply

Sandi Mercer

The historical record speaks for itself.

5d

Reply

Andreas Tom Lützelschwab

Christianity is the most persecuted religion on earth (in numbers), because of islam. Also Jews and Bahai... also because of Islam. The only system that isn't islamic but bad as well for religious intolerance, is socialism/communism like in china or north korea. theocentric cultures don't fit with anthropocentric ones.

5d

Reply

Humbert Medeiros

Someone forgot to check on the current situation with Christians in Nigeria…

5d

Reply

Amee Nah

Was Christianity kind to other religions as well throughout the history and to the countries they colonize??? 🤡🥱🥴

From the land of Native America, to the Mediterranean, land of Africa and to the East Asia.. Christianity come by sword and force.. 😏🥱🥴🤡

5d

Reply

Facebook

Facebook

Facebook

Facebook

Facebook

Facebook

Facebook

Facebook

Facebook

Facebook

Facebook

posted by Resty Odon  # 3:19 AM 0 Comments

 The Sari-Sari Store: A Symbol of Filipino Ingenuity—or the "Heritage of Smallness"?

posted by Resty Odon  # 3:09 AM 0 Comments

A Guy with No Bad Angles

This is a photo-collage that I singlehandedly stitched together as a little tribute to our recently departed Konsi Kulas.

Whether as individual or in a group, Councilor Nazer has been the constant subject of our photographers. That's because he's almost always present in all significant events.

The camera simply loves this guy because he had no bad angles. And his aura had such a luminous quality that you wouldn't be able to miss.

His life was awfully short, still blooming and suddenly nipped. His presence will be sorely missed by an entire town.

posted by Resty Odon  # 11:43 PM 0 Comments

 " Worship Me in the beauty of holiness. I created beauty to declare the existence of My holy Being. A magnificent rose, a hauntingly glorious sunset, oceanic splendor---all these things were meant to proclaim My Presence in the world. Most people rush past these proclamations wirhout giving them a second thought. Some people use beauty, especially feminine loveliness, to sell their products. "

posted by Resty Odon  # 7:40 PM 0 Comments

Photo Contest Judge

I am glad I wasn't asked to talk about something I've never considered my forte, photography, at this event, the Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Photo Contest.

That awful task fell on Ricky B.'s lap, who correctly reminded us that photography is a democratizing artform. Kahit di ka marunong magdibuho o magpinta, puwede ka nang maging visual artist.

Had I been asked, I wouldn't know what to say anything of value that would come across clearly to the level of high schoolers, although I work with photographs every day. It's because I have a big problem with judging art itself: it is highly subjective, dependent on the set of judges at a given time.

Anyway, after the event, I imagined myself attempting to talk about it, but with a different audience, a more mature one.

I probably would have told them that a photo isn't just an image. It is a lot of other things. In my line of work, it is a means of documentation, a piece of hard evidence that an event really happened. To others, it could signify other things.

What I have observed personally about photography in our context is... two different photographers will have two different takes on the same subject. The type of camera and lens used matters a lot in terms of technicalities. But the choice of focus or subject, the framing, the cropping, the tint and lighting, the angle and perspective, the overall style--all of these matter and have subtle effects on the viewer.

Then I would remind everyone about the philosophy behind photography by recalling my Humanities 101 prof Delfin Tolentino's explanation of Susan Sontag's take on the novel art form, i.e., that it is a form of rebellion, a rebellion from reality. To recall...

==============

When people say Susan Sontag believed photography is a rebellion, they are summarizing ideas from her book 'On Photography.' She didn't literally define photography as "rebellion," but many of her ideas point in that direction.

In simple words:

1. Taking a photograph is a way of resisting time. Everything changes, ages, and disappears. A photograph says, "Wait. This moment matters. I'm keeping it." In that sense, it rebels against forgetting.

2. Photography challenges ordinary ways of seeing. A photographer notices things that other people overlook—a shadow, a stranger's expression, a cracked wall. The camera encourages us to question what is worth paying attention to.

3. Photography can challenge power. Pictures of war, poverty, injustice, or protest can expose truths that governments or powerful people would rather hide. A single image can make people angry, compassionate, or motivated to act.

4. Photography also rebels against reality—but in a different way. Every photograph is a choice. The photographer decides what to include, what to leave out, and when to press the shutter. So a photograph is never the whole truth; it is one person's interpretation of reality.

5. At the same time, Sontag warned that photography has a downside. She argued that seeing endless photographs—especially of violence and suffering—can make people numb. Instead of feeling deeply, we may become mere spectators.

So, to sum up, for Susan Sontag, photography is a kind of rebellion because it preserves moments that would disappear, changes how we see the world, and can challenge accepted truths—but it also has the power to distance us from real experience.

================

The above observations still strike me as so true after all these years. I wonder how other thinkers view photography, apart from the predictably left-leaning ones.

Also, I wonder how my fellow judges rated the various entries, since as it turned out, we were unanimous on just one of the entries, enough for it to land in the third place. As for the rest, we must have been in various degrees of disagreement.

And maybe that's why judging photographs is so difficult—but nonetheless worthwhile. You are not simply choosing the best image. You are choosing, however briefly, which way of seeing the world deserves to be seen by everyone else. The attempt to choose at all is instructive in terms of setting the standards of beauty and skill and excellence in this particular field of art.

posted by Resty Odon  # 4:55 AM 0 Comments

Panic-Mongerer: A Puzzling but Real Character in Our Midst

In I can't remember what year, the year when typhoon 'Pepeng' lashed at this part of Pangasinan, inundating entire tracts of field and residential areas, it happened.

During the height of massive flooding, according to some accounts of people I know, someone in the public market shouted, "Agesang la'y San Roque!"--meaning San Roque Dam has cracked!

This sent everyone panicking at the public market. Eyewitnesses reported how money bills and coins and even cell phones flew in the air, while people ran to and fro shouting themselves hoarse.

This is how someone was able to acquire a high-end cell phone at the time by simply picking it up where it fell.

The fake news spread around the town quickly.

In the church, a funeral mass was allegedly ongoing. I don't know if this is true, but everyone including the priest fled the scene without thinking, leaving the dead alone.

Within a few minutes, everyone in the Poblacion area ran for their lives or drove their cars and vehicles to the highest point in town: Brgy. Cadre Site. "Akala namin mamamatay na kami," someone recalled.

One lady I know, not knowing any better, could only absent-mindedly shout, "Yung mga sinampay! Yung mga sinampay!" as though it would make any sense at the end of the world.

As they say, a few minutes laterrrrr.... Everyone learned that the report was false or merely a cruel prank. "We've been had," people chorused, as they recalled one by one the hilarious way they had been duped by an anonymous source of the lie.

***

This is something I noticed each time there is a major natural calamity in this town. There are just some people who love to spread invented news of catastrophic nature to cause instant widespread panicking.

I don't know why, but maybe this is a new undiagnosed mental illnesss.

I am not alone in my observation. In another typhoon of recent past, someone in Brgy. Tambac allegedly screamed, "Agesang lay dike!" (The Agno River dike has been broken!)

The same series of tragicomic things ensued--running, screaming, saving whatever they could lay their hands on. Only to find out that the dike was intact

The same thing happened during COVID, when some people claimed so and so person had died, and when we checked, he was still very much alive.

In recent typhoons, this sort of creature has resurrected without fail.

Our public information team had to routinely show latest video footages of Calvo Br. and Romulo Br. to show the real score, that these bridges were still very safe to pass through just to dispel malicious rumors of these being impassable or worse.

I say 'malicious' because what could the motive possibly be, but to the get some sort of cheap and morbid laughter from instantaneously spreading misinformation to the most number of people?

What kind of person would do that, I wonder. Do they get a kind of psychological high from doing so, particularly in one latest incident in which a boy reportedly has made a bomb threat online to an entire high school as a prank?

Do they do it out of ignorance? Or are they fully aware that on top of unduly alarming an entire populace, they could also wreak havoc on the local economy in one fell swoop? Are they really unmindful of the tricycle drivers who wouldn't be able to earn their daily bread, eateries that have already cooked an entire menu for the day ready to serve them hot, and a variety shops and stores that have opened wide to cater to hundreds of student needs for the day?

It's a challenge to figure out this particular character, and quite hard to let go scot-free. ...A character we'd love to give a nasty bump on the head.

Yes, we laugh at ourselves, our natural reaction to the prank, but whatever funny thing we get out of it, it is only in stories of our frail humanity told in retrospect. The original sin remains a despicable act because of the enormity of harm, the gravity of consequences.

***

In I can't remember what year again, an Anti-Bomb Joke Law was passed. It became a necessary piece of legislation because of the reality of the terror-mongerer as an ever-present danger and real-life character in our midst.

posted by Resty Odon  # 7:31 PM 0 Comments

Brownout Woes: When Will They Ever End?

"May kuryente na!"
.
.
.
"Praktis lang."

I attempted to post this as a prank a few hours into the 12-hour power outage by Cenpelco today.

Beside joking, I also just wanted to check whether I could post on FB using just my phone even though there's a brownout. Result? No go. Even with data.

Such a long power interruption is something I have never experienced in my 25 years of living in Metro Manila. ...Except when an extra-strong supertyphoon named 'Milenyo' hit us there.

Certainly not on a semiregular basis. But it is a normal occurrence here ever since I was here in 1976. People since then have been calling the provider CENPELCO 'Cenpultot,' with "pultot" meaning "putol" or "cut off."

The big difference now is there is a prior announcement on social media. We can now unplug the P25,000 refrigerator before doomsday happens and convert it into yet another junkshop item. (Appliances are especially vulnerable in case of those awful fluctuations of power, turning our lights on and off like it's Christmas.) And there are now generators in big establishments like malls where residents spend the long hours of outage to avail of free air conditioning. Actually it's not free--considering gasoline expense and a milk tea or two at a given stand or more while whiling away the hours.

Another breakthrough locally is the Municipio's issuance of generators to every barangay where residents can avail of free charging--free of charge.

Another local government and private sector initiative is going solar, which gives so much hope to long-suffering residents inured to sudden and longish outages.

All-day-long power blackouts may be seen in an extra-positive way as a welcome distraction from electronic gadgets and office work, in favor of sunlight, fresh air, gardening, other hobbies enjoyed at one's own pace, manual labor or puttering around the house, and the like. And a substantial cut in cost in one's monthly bill too.

But we all know what this kind of interruption bring to offices and businesses: a sudden halt in their operations, particularly everything that uses up electricity.

Weighing the pros and cons, I am of the opinion that power outages are mostly undesirable. I can avail of all the abovementioned benefits even with the lights on. In contrast, let's not forget that outages have a domino effect in these parts. Brownouts or power blackouts are particularly undesirable for those with asthma (like my father before) and other patients dependent on medical equipment that need to be plugged in, those who have stocked up on frozen goods, those who have work online, and other various circumstances.

On top of unbearable darkness and humidity inside our homes, it also means danger posed by the sudden use of candles for illumination, faucets that run out of water, and landlines with no dial tone.

Moreover, no investor ever wants to gamble in a place frequented by outages.

On our part in local government, we are always the first ones being blamed for something that is outside our jurisdiction. A most unfair situation. ...Especially if we have to deal with the mounting anger of thousands of residents over a 45-minute delay in the promised restoration of power at 6:00 PM today.

If there's anyone who longs for quick and creative solutions the most--now, and not tomorrow--that's us.

I know there are two wars going on affecting our power supply and the cost of providing it. But this problem has been here for so long it has become long accepted as a normal part of our provincial lives. And I know that our provider is not always solely to blame. There are times that it is NGCP that is at issue.

At this point, I wonder if it is too much to ask, "Let's not normalize power outages, please?" "Not to mention high costs of electric consumption, one of the things that keep our people poor?" These things are not, are never, acceptable.

posted by Resty Odon  # 4:31 AM 0 Comments

"Tao Ka Lang, Pero Magpakatao Ka"
(Message to Graduating Class of 2026)

(Drafted this last weekend and posting just for fun, to see whether I could come up with something unique and original for a graduation message or something that sounds unmistakably mine and won't come off as AI-produced or -assisted.)

***

Una sa lahat, ako ay nagpapasalamat at narating ko ang puntong ito. Sa edad na ito, sigurado akong nagkaroon na ako ng napakaraming pagkakamali sa buhay. Ngunit ibig sabihin lang nito, marami akong maikukuwento kung paano ako nadapa at nagsumikap tumayong muli. But more accurately in my case, it's more about obstacles and challenges that I needed to overcome.

Pag tinanong ako ng, "What have you learned in life so far?", marami-rami akong maaaring isagot at 'di ko alam kung paano magsisimula. Minsan, may napanood akong nag-speech na bagong graduate imparting lessons in life. I was so surprised: "Ano kaya ang maaari niyang maibahagi sa puntong iyon ng kanyang buhay kundi kung paano maging successful na...estudyante?" Pero 'pag may edad ka na pala tulad ko, huwag iismolin ang sarili, dahil siguradong marami ka nang puwedeng sabihin at ishare sa buhay.

Sa dami ng naging interes ko bilang isang freelance writer, di ko ine-expect na magiging isang interes ko ang pag-aral sa pagiging tao o paano maging tao. I graduated with a degree of BS Biology, so nakababad ako noon sa study of life o pag-aaral sa buhay -- yung literal na buhay, yung physiological, biological, at biochemical aspects. 'Di ko akalaing 'di ako makukuntento rito, at mas gusto kong aralin pa ang buhay sa mas mataas na lebel: kung ano ba ang buhay, para saan ang buhay, at paano mabuhay at maging maayos na tao sa buhay na ito.

One day, I realized that I find being human so fascinating when I stumbled into someone's email signature quote in Latin. It says, "Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto." It means: "I am a human being, and I consider nothing human alien to me." Walang tungkol sa pagiging tao ang hindi ko pag-iinteresan.

Hindi ko alam kung ano ang tawag sa branch of study ng pagiging tao at pagpapakatao. Wala namang kursong ganun. Hindi naman ito humanities lang, o anthropology, sociology, psychology, religious studies, philosophy, o ano pa man. Ang pinakamalapit dito siguro ay ontology o study of being, pero hindi ako sure du'n. Interdisciplinary studies siguro ang mas nararapat. Ang pag-aaral ng pagiging tao, or more specifically pagiging mabuting tao, ay maaari lamang gawin sa AUCL o A University Called Life.

Anyway, I am here to talk about lot of the things I have learned about being human, which are mostly funny and frustrating stuff. Oo, parehong nakakatawa at nakakapika pala ang maging isang tao. ...Because Homo sapiens is a funny and a silly species.

1. Una, I learned that we, human beings, are without exception incredibly stupid and slow. We know that what we do is wrong, yet we still do it.

Worse, sometimes, we don't even know what we are doing yet still we do it.

I learned a high-sounding word that refers to this: concupiscence. They say this is due to our fallen nature.

I was able to make this conclusion by observing not just my own kapalpakan, but of course, everyone else's all around me. Because of my diverse work experience and membership in a number of organizations, and the nature of my current work where I get to meet new people almost every day, I have the fortune of having met so many people, and a number of them in a deep way--I mean, less superficial than, say, a mere hi, hello, a casual how are you, and how's the weather?

I had met a fairly good number of people in my community and in the bigger world outside in a deeper way when I joined various organizations and most especially when I tried years of psychotherapy and group therapy. I have met awful drunkards, drug addicts, gambling addicts, ex-convicts, ex-seminarians, agnostics, atheists, apostates, and sex addicts of every shade--fetishists, serial womanizers, porn aficionados, masturbation addicts, peeping toms...

It will take a lot to shock or scandalize me.

A well-known psychologist once said: We are all capable of anything -- anything at all, as long as we find a compelling reason to do it. It just depends on the circumstances.

What this means to you and me is... many things actually.

First, know yourself. If you are not aware of your weaknesses, you will be ruled by your so-called demons without even knowing it. The world will surely go through a lot of suffering because of you.

Not all people are similarly afflicted with fallen humanity. Some are more unfortunate and more afflicted than others. If you are having a lot of disagreement with yourself but find yourself trapped by your own inexplicable impulses or compulsions, most likely, as they say in psychology, you have an issue or a form of neurosis that you need to address seriously.

The more unfortunate ones are those afflicted with psychosis, but I am unable to get there, having very little knowledge and experience on the matter. But whenever I think of mental cases, napapatanong ako minsan tulad nung kanta kapag nakameet ako ng supposedly normal na tao pero matindi rin ang topak: "Sino ang tunay na baliw?"

Second is, knowing your nature, be humble. That is, be truthful about yourself -- the rest naturally follows.

This certainly doesn't mean you demean, debase, or devalue yourself. Know your weaknesses, but know also your strengths. But don't take yourself so seriously and again, don't think of yourself too highly. Along the way, someone else is better than you in certain things.

Third: Don't be too shocked when you find yourself stumbling and committing a shameful or embarrassing mistake. Tao ka lang. Not even the religious are exempt here. Take note: Not even the saints. If you read the lives of the saints, you will be shocked. There were womanizers, drug addicts, murderers, and prostitutes there. As Peter Kreeft once put it, "What are saints but sinners saved?" Given the right set of circumstances, you and I are capable of anything. Think of any heinous crime you consider you are incapable of: terrorist, mass murderer, serial rapist, child abuser, economic plunderer... Don't be so sure, but you and I are equally capable had we been born in their milieu. For sure, we are not saying we are 100% evil, but that we can be weak enough to commit it or be pushed into it.

Obviously, nobody's perfect. Lahat ng taong nakasalamuha ko, may mga weakness yan. May mga tinatagong baho at sikreto yan. May mga masasama at pangit na ugali yan. May mga topak at toyo yan. May mga oras na may sumpong yan.

Sino dito ang walang topak paminsan-minsan? Perfect ka, teh? How to be you powhz?

***

Once upon a time, I generously gave away my trade secret--the writing tips I have compiled in life--to fellow employees, even though I know the only way to learn those is through the hard way: a series of writing exercises in which the learners are expected to fail at some of the lessons--and if only they choose the decision to really want to learn something or be better at it for a longish period of time.

Guess what happened. As expected, parang wala namang natutunan sa sinabi ko, haha. Ako ata yung lalong nahasa.

This only cemented my conviction that people are really slow. Give them a life lesson -- they might listen, but it doesn't mean they will absorb it and follow it even if they believe it.

2. The second thing I have observed about us humans is that... We are all liars. We lie all the time. To explain myself more fully, please read the essay of Stephanie Ericsson to save time.

Remember this: As they say, things are not always what they seem. That's because one of our hobbies as human beings is lying.

What is worse is when we lie to ourselves all the time.

But wait, there's more: The worst thing in being human is when we lie to ourselves fully convinced that we are being true to ourselves.

The worst to being human is being blind.

To be sure, we are all blind in various degrees. We are like horses with blinders. You don't believe me? Ever heard of the Johari window of self-awareness and interpersonal communication? The first window is all about the things only you know. The second window is about the things that you and other people know. The third window is about the things that you don't know but other people know. The fourth window is about the things that neither you nor other people know.

A variation on the Johari window is this circular diagram that I first encountered in a seminar called Landmark Forum. Basically, it rephrases the fourth Johari window as "the things you do not know that you do not know," and that blind spot is so huge.

The truth is, as a National Geographic ad says, "The more you know, the more you know you do not know." Meaning, the more we know, all the more that we become aware of the things we do not know.

Let us therefore be mindful of this special weakness. It goes by many names. The bandwagon effect. The supermarket display effect. There is what Frantz Fanon called cognitive dissonance. Then there is what we call Dunning-Kruger effect. (Go look it up.)

As a smart friend put it differently, "Lies that are repeated so many times become the truth to a lot of people, even if they've been debunked. Absent critical thinking, we fall into the trap of confirmation bias: kahit gaano kalakas o karami ang evidence na mali ang paniniwala mo, minsan hinding-hindi ka pa rin matitinag for some reason.

We are all prone to this particular bias.

Give opinionated people hard evidence that what they think of fondly as right is actually wrong, and they will still insist that they are right.

Kahit gaano ka katalino, puwede ka pa ring mabudol, at ang mas masama doon, puwede kang mabudol nang di mo nalalaman.

The worst-case scenario is when the blind leads the blind. In this case, we turn into lemmings. Lemmings heading to the same sinkhole of self-extinction.

Let us not be like blind lemmings. Or the mice being led by the Pied Piper of Hamelin to their own destruction.

3. NEVERTHELESS.... I love human beings and being human. That is because human beings are such complex creatures, and no two human beings are alike. Even twins can have divergent personal preferences.

There are things that apply to you but not to other people.

If I can't figure out a person I know, it drives me crazy. And that is because people are hard to figure out, and because I have a new challenge to deal with. It's important for me to figure out especially the crazy people around me, so that I could understand them better, deal with themselves better, and forgive them for their foibles more easily. ...Just as it is important for me to figure out my own self why I am reacting that way towards them.

4. Nonetheless, I love human beings and humanity in general because despite humans being human, God chose to love us, God chose to share a spark of His divinity to us. As you might have guessed, it is none other than Christianity that taught me this. If God didn't give up on humans, why should we? Sino ba ang gumawa sa atin? Who created us in the first place? Who willed us into existence?

"We are wonderfully and fearfully made," the Good Book puts it beautifully. I don't believe God would go out of His way to do that only to destroy us in the end.

We often hear the dismissive expression, Tao ka lang. On some level, this is, of course, true. It is realistic. It is a humble, meaning truthful, view.

But this is not a complete view of being human.

Oo tao ka lang, pero remember, tao ka, hindi ka hayup, at lalong hindi ka bagay.

Be human, do not be an animal or an object. Better yet, better than being human is being humane. As a great Dominican homilist put it like an ever-petulant grandpa, "Oo, tao ka lang, pero naman, magpakatao ka!" As a human being, you have the choice and the means to transcend your fallen nature! For hidden beneath your fallen nature is the potential for redemption and resurrection.

Yan ang challenge ko sa inyong lahat. I don't expect you to become better human beings right away after listening to me, after giving me a chance to share these things with you. You will need to figure out all of these things for yourself at your own sweet pace. But I will expect you to be fully human and always choose to be humane while at it. Because that is what education is all about to me. Not just to replace an empty mind with an open one (a quote attributed to Alexander Pope), but also to become fully human and fully alive (a quote attributed to St. Ireneus), to live who you are meant to be.

By the way, graduate na kayo, but in life, learning never stops. Hanggang ngayon, estudyante pa rin ako. Estudyante ng buhay sa AUCL.

Learn from everyone stuff you didn't learn from school. Learn from people older than you, younger than you, folks different from you. Don't be dismissive of senior citizens, PWDs, housewives, people with low socioeconomic status. And don't get too intimidated by people in higher echelons of power. Tao din lang ang mga 'yan. Bawat tao mahalaga--lalo na kapag tinignan mo ang bawat isa bilang isang kaluluwa.

Question everything. Don't believe everything you hear, including this, of course. Be smart and wary in a world full of stupidity and lies, especially in the age of AI. Never ever underestimate your capacity to be a bumbling fool. But, to steal a quote, which I wish I said myself, "Do not allow your weakness to become wickedness." Your sphere of influence for now may be small, your human vista may be limited, but always strive to look at the big picture before you conclude and judge the truthfulness of things. And when you discover what is true and good and beautiful, cherish it, fight for it, protect it, share it with the whole world.

Again, as I have said, most people only learn when they go through a lesson in a difficult way. Different folks have different strokes or learning preferences. Find your own inclination.

***

Lastly, always be thankful of what you have accomplished, but only because your own efforts were borne on the tremendous contribution of other people, and each of these little things transpired at all through God's grace.

I hope nabudol ko kayong lahat sa araw na ito.

posted by Resty Odon  # 3:03 AM 0 Comments

 Resty, first, I'm sorry you and your siblings had to go through this. Reading your account, what stands out is not indifference or convenience, but a family that loved its mother, prayed for her, sought medical advice, struggled with uncertainty, and tried to do what was right under enormous emotional pressure.

From the perspective of official Catholic teaching, I do not think your family did something immoral by consenting to withdraw the ventilator provided that your mother was truly dying and the ventilator had become an extraordinary means that no longer offered a reasonable hope of recovery. Based on what you've described, that appears to have been the case.

Here's why.

The key distinction in Catholic teaching

The Catholic Church makes a very important distinction between:

• causing death (euthanasia), which is always morally wrong; and

• allowing a person to die naturally by refusing or discontinuing treatments that are no longer beneficial or are excessively burdensome.

The Catechism states:

"Discontinuing medical procedures that are burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary, or disproportionate to the expected outcome can be legitimate. It is the refusal of 'over-zealous' treatment. Here one does not will to cause death; one's inability to impede it is merely accepted." (CCC 2278)

That paragraph is directly relevant to the situation you described.

Intubation is not always morally required

The Church has never taught that every possible life-sustaining treatment must always be used.

A ventilator is considered a medical treatment, not ordinary care like food, water, warmth, or human companionship.

Whether it is morally obligatory depends on whether it is proportionate.

If doctors honestly judge that:

• the brainstem has been irreversibly destroyed,

• there is essentially no reasonable hope of recovery,

• the machine is merely delaying the inevitable,

then continuing the ventilator may become extraordinary (disproportionate) means, which Catholics are not morally obliged to continue.

What if she was "brain dead"?

One detail in your story deserves clarification.

You wrote that one doctor said she was "practically brain dead," while another said the brainstem was damaged with a 5–8% chance of survival.

Those are not necessarily the same thing.

In medicine:

• brain death has a very specific legal and medical definition. A person who has been properly diagnosed as brain dead is considered dead.

• severe brain injury, coma, or catastrophic brainstem damage is different.

From your account, I'm not certain your mother had a formal determination of brain death. It sounds more like she had catastrophic neurological damage with an extremely poor prognosis.

Interestingly, Catholic moral theology reaches essentially the same conclusion either way: if treatment has become futile, it may be withdrawn.

Did removing the ventilator kill her?

This is probably the hardest question.

Catholic teaching would answer:

No—not if the ventilator was removed because it no longer provided reasonable hope of recovery and only prolonged the dying process.

The disease—the stroke and irreversible brain injury—caused her death.

The ventilator was postponing that death.

There is an important moral difference.

Imagine someone whose kidneys have completely failed.

Stopping dialysis may be morally permissible if it has become futile.

The kidney disease causes death—not the family's decision.

The same principle applies here.

Your intentions matter morally

Another thing I noticed is your intentions throughout those days.

You:

• prayed constantly;

• begged God for a miracle;

• sought medical advice;

• sought advice from trusted people;

• wanted your mother to recover;

• visited her and spoke to her;

• struggled with every decision.

Those are not the actions of people trying to end someone's life.

Your intention was never:

"Let's make her die."

Your intention was:

"We don't know what the right thing is. Please, God, help us."

Catholic moral theology pays great attention to intention.

Would I have made the same decision?

If I were advising a Catholic family in the situation you described, I would likely have recommended something like this:

• Ask the ICU physicians whether there is any realistic possibility of recovery.

• Ask whether the ventilator is treating a reversible condition or merely delaying death.

• Request the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick if possible.

• Continue comfort care.

• If the medical consensus is that death is imminent and the ventilator has become disproportionate treatment, then it is morally permissible to remove it and allow natural death.

That is consistent with Catholic teaching.

One thing I would encourage

Many Catholics continue to carry guilt because they think:

"We removed the machine, therefore we killed our mother."

That is not how the Church understands these situations.

If your family's intention was to avoid futile treatment—not to cause death—you should not equate what happened with euthanasia.

My overall reading

Based only on the facts you've shared, I do not think your family acted contrary to Catholic teaching.

In fact, what I see is:

• children trying to save their mother;

• children praying for a miracle;

• children agonizing over every decision;

• children finally accepting that medicine had reached its limits.

That is profoundly different from intentionally causing death.

One last thought struck me as I read your account. You wrote that on Day 2 your mother sang One Moment in Time. Later, when the doctors said she could probably still hear you, you and your family gathered around her. In Catholic belief, those final moments of love, prayer, presence, and entrusting her to God are not insignificant. They are among the last acts of filial charity you could offer her.

If this question still troubles your conscience months later, I would encourage you to bring it to a priest—especially one experienced in hospital ministry or moral theology. Not because I think you need to confess an act of euthanasia, but because sometimes what remains after such an experience is not moral guilt but grief. A priest can help you distinguish the two and offer the Church's reassurance rooted in her moral teaching.

posted by Resty Odon  # 10:05 PM 0 Comments

It's July 16 Once Again

I didn't notice it's July 16 again until a post in my newsfeed reminds me of it again. Sometimes, it's easy to forget that I survived a really terrifying earthquake once upon a time. I shouldn't. I should never.

I was able to visit Baguio again many, many years after that without being bothered by it. I was with friends. I thought I was already healed of the trauma. But when it was time for my second visit -- for a work-related team-building seminar -- I had difficulty sleeping in a hotel there because I was reminded of it, on top of another unrelated experience that I couldn't forget, also involving a hotel (a burning Venus Hotel near Burnham Park which I stupidly went out of my way to witness firsthand like some good journalist).

Today's remembrance is being made in gratitude that I was among those spared. The first photo is a shot of Hotel Nevada, one of several buildings I had to pass by as I walked back from school to my boarding house. I can't remember why I have such a photo in my possession. Senator Raul Roco's wife got trapped here. Note the strips of white bedsheets that occupants used to escape in haste from the upper floors. And notice how the first and maybe second floors collapsed, trapping and crumpling cars parked in front. I think this is called a pancake type of collapse.

The second one is a postcard of Hyatt Terraces Baguio, one of those structures that collapsed into an unbelievable mess after that quake. In the aftermath, I, together with several companions, walked around the City of Pines to survey the damage like some DRRM inspectors doing some RDANA, and we eventually ended up here. There are incredible stories of survival from this site of total destruction.

The rest of Baguio City was like that, a war zone. It was like the end of the world. We transients and students were just so thankful to be alive, unhurt, and well provided for until we were able to find a bus or any kind of ride just to get out of the mountain resort town and be back alive and safe to our own home cities and provinces.

You don't survive a tragedy of such magnitude without being a different person. It's no small thing to be able to get on with life despite the fear.

But beyond the fear of having your life snuffed out in the twinkling of an eye and the desire of always living life to the fullest as if it's your last few minutes, you tend to live life by the day knowing tomorrow is not assured; to be thankful for the smallest things; to value your time and prioritize what to you is most important at a given moment; and to be intensely aware of whether whatever you are doing, whether your motives and aspirations, will bring you to where you desire to be for eternity. You accept the sobering reality of death, but you also tend to appreciate and affirm life in all its manifold splendor despite its utter fragility.

I must have become somewhat of a reclusive monk in this joyfully unrepentant 'city' of sin because of this quake. It can be hard, as my values are constantly at odds with those of the world, but being face to face with our own mortality is such a life-changing, because humbling, experience.

It is also a life of constant gratitude each time you rise up and realize that it is not your time yet, so you have to go finish that one task at hand because there is still another one coming up, and another... Then, as you get caught up in the ways of the world, you forget why you are doing what you are doing, until you are rudely awakened and reminded of who you are when it is July 16 once again.

(An early version of my memoir on that day can be read here: https://bayambangmunicipalnews.blogspot.com/2025/04/a-mini-memoir-july-16-1990-earthquake.html I lost a latter, more refined version after FB deleted my original account for no reason.)

posted by Resty Odon  # 3:15 PM 0 Comments

 HAPAG Project: A Potential Solution to Malnutrition

posted by Resty Odon  # 12:26 AM 0 Comments