Leftist Opportunism During the Pope Motorcade

This morning, Pope Francis will leave the Philippines and go back to the Vatican. He arrived four nights ago, January 15, from Sri Lanka. The visit at UST yesterday in the morning  and the last mass at Luneta in the afternoon drew several millions of people.

Yesterday too, some leftist groups in the Philippines played epal, unfurled streamers calling for social justice, social debt, socialism. What a bunch of lousy minds.

If it was Senator X or Congressman Y or Governor or Mayor Z, or other party list groups unfurling   streamers and placards showing their faces and names during the Pope motorcade, the public and the left will criticize them. But if it's the left like Partido Manggagawa (PM) party list and the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC), it is fine?

Another display of double talk and hypocrisy. They cannot distinguish what is strictly secular and religious activity from any political activity.

Social debt, social justice, socialism. Picking quotes from the Pope hoping to justify their political opportunism.

Photos I got from Arcy Garcia, a friend since the late 80s when I was still a socialist. Arcy remains a socialist and admitted that he was part  of this group who unfurled this cheap opportunist stunt. They should get anti-votes now for the 2016 elections.

Arcy's album title for the street demonstration was

“mga tinig sa kawalan...matatapang kahit di gaanong pinakikinggan. …ito ba ang version ng epal nating mga kaliwa?.”

("voices from nowhere... brave although not often heard... is this the epal version of the left?")

"Matatapang"/brave, against whom? Against the people who wish zero politics, just see the Pope on the road?

"ito ba ang version ng Epal naming mga kaliwa?" -- Yes. Secular, non political activity. Even some non-catholics that I know joined joined the streets welcome, they say he's a different kind of church leader. So zero politics activity, then  the left will force the issue of socialism, social debt, etc. Off tangent and really epal.

Kung si Binay or Mar Roxas or Drilon or other politicians maglatag din ng streamers with pol messages like "inclusive growth", "social justice", etc tapos andon pangalan nila, hindi ba bobombahin ng publiko at ng kaliwa na opportunism? Pero pag kayo mag latag ng mga ganong streamers, justified? Double talk yan.

Meanwhile, two photos of the huge crowd yesterday at the Luneta mass.

Government estimates put the crowd at six million including those spilling over at surrounding roads and streets.

This Pope visit and the warm welcome by Filipinos to him is truly phenomenal. The Pope displayed humility a number of times in his speeches. Some of my non-religious friends admitted that they themselves were swept by his simpleness.

I think Pope Francis can greatly help bridge the divide among Christians, Protestants, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and so on. Tolerance and respect of our diversity, that is the single most important character that the people of our planet should embrace to have world peace. His role is more significant then than efforts and wars by many governments in enforcing tolerance and respect among people partly or wholly driven by religious differences.
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See also: 
Pilipinas Forum 17: The Church and Galileo, November 07, 2011 
The Pope and Capitalism, December 03, 2013 
The Pope in Manila, Security Paranoia vs People on the Roads, January 16, 2015

The Pope in Manila, Security Paranoia vs People on the Roads

Pope Francis' visit here is nice and good. The Philippines is the only predominantly-Catholic country in Asia, about 80 percent of its 100 million population consider themselves as Catholics. Thus, a visit of the Pope is a big event for many people here.

But I saw in tv that the security system laid by the PH is OA and too paranoid. Why? 

1. Closure of the airport (NAIA) for five hours, 2-7pm yesterday.

The Pope's plane from Sri Lanka was scheduled to arrive at 5:45pm yesterday but the government closed the airport at 2pm, Five of zero activity at the airport except the arrival of the Papal plane, when that airport has one activity, landing or take off, every 30 seconds I think. So many flights in and out of the airport, domestic and international, were either postponed or cancelled or diverted, affecting tens of thousands of passengers.

They could have closed the airport from 5-7 pm only.

2. Motorcade at fast speed.

The Pope's plane arrived on time but the motorcade started late. From Villamor Airbase to the Papal house in Manila, they were travelling fast as if there was a very important meeting at the destination. Tens of thousands of people were waiting for the Pope as early as 3pm perhaps in that short route. They could h ave slowed down to allow those people to see the Pope much longer. 

In this photo, notice the wide gap between the thousands of people and the Pope's mobile car as police cars made a wide  gap from the crowd, at a fast speed. ALL photos below I got from  the web, not one from my camera.

Yesterday, I arrived at Terminal 3 around 11:30am, CX flight from HK. Hardly any taxi, long lines of passengers waiting for the yellow airport taxi, so I took the white bus to Baclaran. I saw there were already some people at Roxas Blvd. Baclaran area waiting for the Pope. So for these people, they waited since 11am or 12 noon, and the Pope passed by around 6:45 pm on a whiizz and they hardly saw him.

Then this morning, a huge crowd of people were waiting on the roads again waiting for the Pope to pass by, in a short distance from the Papal house to Malacanang to meet again the President and his official family.

Then they were moving fast again from the Papal house to Malcanang, And instead of a single column of cars, they have 2-3 columns near the Pope's car, making him far from the huge crowd.

The Pope's visit is good and nice. People can further affirm their religious faith when they see the head of the church, flying from Vatican to Asia. But the militaized security paranoia is not. 

Those people will hardly have the opportunity to see him up close. They could not enter the airport arrival area yesterday; they could not enter the Papal house in Manila, nor Malacanang, nor Manila Cathedral, nor the SM Arena. They could not fly to Tacloban, and they could not come close to him on his mass at Luneta on Sunday. Seeing him on the road is the closest thing they can get and see the Pope. And the paranoid security system tried hard to make the public's view of the Pope as short as possible, as far as possible.

The police and other security system should have slowed down the motorcade, allow the people on the roads to see the Pope much closer, much longer. He is the "People's Pope", not the government's Pope. It is not good when a militarized system would take over the movement of the Pope.

3. Temporary loss of mobile signal  and internet connection especially in areas near his motorcade route.

Since yesterday evening, internet connection  was slow in our house in Makati, far from the motorcade route or from the place that he is staying. It continued until this morning. It turns out that the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) has ordered the two telecoms company to do so. Zero connection near the motorcade and meeting area, slow connection nearby, several kilometers away.

Please do not misunderstand this post. This is NOT a party-popper against the Pope and his visit to the Philippines. Rather, this is a party-popper to the paranoid security system that the government has designed.
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See also: 
Pilipinas Forum 17: The Church and Galileo, November 07, 2011 
The Pope and Capitalism, December 03, 2013

The Pope and Capitalism

A friend from UPSE alumni association, Mike A. wrote me in our SEAA yahoogroups and asked my views on   Pope  Francis, as  he  has  made a critique  on the Free  Market  ideology, and the Social Darwinian "survival of  the fittest" philosophy. Below is portion of a news report from theblaze.com.

Pope Francis Made Some Pretty Big Comments on the Global Economy: Here’s What You Need to Know

Nov. 26, 2013 1:26pm  By  Becket Adams

Pope Francis rebuked the culture of profit at any cost as he issued a 224-page mission statement for his papacy Tuesday, saying that mankind is called first to care for his neighbor and the poor….

The document also denounced the survival of the fittest theory of economics “where the powerful feed upon the powerless” and the poorest in society are excluded….

Unsurprisingly, as is the norm for this particular pontiff, some media outlets chose to present Francis’ words as an attack on yet another traditional pillar of “conservative” ideology: the free market.

Today Pope Francis blasted capitalism as "the new tyranny" that "kills" people.

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Well, a religious argument is based on faith, on belief and morality not so much on hard facts. No one asks for graphs, charts, tables and regression analysis to believe that a God exists, people just believe and have faith in a God.

To disappoint some people’s obsession with central planning and critique of free market, now invoking the Pope to strengthen their weak and lousy belief, here are some quickies.

1. The free market system, the capitalist economic system, gave us yahoo, yahoogroups, google, facebook, youtube, twitter, linkedin, Samsung, Apple, iPad, HTC, Starbucks, McDo, Mang Inasal, Aling Karing Carinderia, Toyota, GM, BMW, Vespa, Suzuki, Shimano bikes, etc. They are all useful. If people do not find any of them as useful, then they don't use or buy it. There are still people in fact who don't have facebook until now, it should be fine, no one coerces them to get one. In addition, no one was also coerced via taxation to finance the start up of those private enterprises.

2. The non-free market, the non-voluntary exchange, the force and coercion sytem, gave us what? Thousands of bureaucracies, local-national-multilateral, and tens or hundreds of thousands of central planners, very often their plans contradict or duplicate the plans of other bright boys and bureaucracies. 

There is also "state capitalism" where an institution of coercion tries to enter the world of voluntary exchange. But such state capitalism is possible only via rule of men, not rule of law. Certain requirements and polices on taxation, business registration and other regulations that normally apply to private enterprises do not apply to government- or state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

3. "Survival of the fittest" economic theory is a wrong term. The appropriate term is "expansion of the efficient" and "non-expansion of the inefficient", or Yes, “bankruptcy of the inefficient.” Mr. A puts up a bakery shop in a corner lot, it was doing well initially. Then Mr. B and Mr. C also put up a competing more glitzy, more fanciful bakery shops nearby and draw in many customers of A. Does this mean the death, non-survival of bakeshop A?

Maybe yes, but maybe No. People are rational, they innovate and adjust as much as possible. Those who do not adjust and innovate are likely to go bankrupt. So bakery A can focus on cheaper (and smaller) pandesal at P1 per piece while B and C sell fancy pandesal at P3 or more a piece. They serve certain markets, certain consumers, over the same locality, and they can all survive, no one dies. Instead of A prospering to become a big bakery shop, it just retained its small size in that area, and can plan an expansion elsewhere, in another village or municipality where it can innovate in its products, pricing and marketing.

Market segmentation, product and pricing differentiation. These are the key for enterprise innovation, market competition and economic freedom. Even people who took Economics for their college degree forget their Econ 102 or Micro Economics course. They may consider reading old books on microecon, or have a sit down in one undergrad lectures at UPSE.

Instead of listening to the Pope on economics, perhaps people should consider listening to undergrad lectures at UPSE or other universities. They will learn more. But if they want to hear stories for enrichment of the soul, then they should listen to the Pope.

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See also: 

Welfarism 26: John Mangun on Economic Decline of the West, July 31, 2013 

Inequality 16: Inclusive Growth and Central Planning, October 21, 2013 

EFN Asia 32: Day 2 of Conference 2013 in Bangkok, November 09, 2013