Changing World
By BERNARDO M. VILLEGAS
MANILA, Philippines — I am very familiar with the leftist movement in this country because some of its leading lights such as Jose Maria Sison hatched the Kabataan Makabayan (KM) in the late 1960s and early 1970s in one of the rooms of the house of my parents in Singalong. My brother Edberto M. Villegas was one of the founders of KM and was especially active in the underground movement against the Marcos dictatorship.
In fact, Eddie was imprisoned and tortured in Camp Crame for about two years. I used to visit him and admired him for his patriotism while remaining critical of his Marxist beliefs. He has been a long-time professor of political economy and social studies in the UP system of schools (his last assignment was as Chair of the Social Studies Department of the UP Manila campus). Ever a scholar and academic, he still teaches at the UP even after having retired a few years ago.
Although his radical views about the market economy might have mellowed a bit, moving towards the German model of the social market economy, he is still very much a fierce fighter of imperialist forces that threaten Philippine sovereignty.
He still participates in rallies in front of the US embassy when he perceives attempts of the American government to perpetuate their colonial practices in the Philippines. I find his consistent and principled stand in great contrast with the so-called leftists in the House of Representatives who have swallowed hook, line, and sinker the anti-natalist propaganda of some American officials and private organizations.
They are either ignorant of the secret document called NSA 200 written by Henry Kissinger, then Secretary of State, to President Gerald Ford in 1974, or they choose to ignore it. The document leaves no doubt about the imperialist intent of US-inspired campaigns to introduce population control programs in developing countries like the Philippines (this formerly secret document actually names the Philippines as one of the target nations for population control propaganda).
The gist of the document is that rapid growth of population in what are known today as emerging markets would threaten US long-term security because America would no longer have unlimited access to the natural resources of these nations if their populations explode.
The modern version of this fear of population explosion has spread to European countries that are suffering from the scourge of the demographic winter. Because their fertility rates have dropped to below replacement levels, many European countries are afraid of being "Islamized" or dominated by other cultures through the massive inflow of immigrant workers whom they need to man their respective economies. They are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea: they need the foreign workers but they are afraid of cultural annihilation.
I am glad Senator Vicente Sotto has questioned some of his colleagues in the Senate about the very active presence and proselytism inside and outside of the Philippine Congress of the disciples of Margaret Sanger, the birth control and eugenics campaigner par excellence in US history.
I cannot think of a better example of cultural imperialism when I see foreigners, not only Americans but also some Europeans, actively funding the pro-RH Bill lobbyists. The most sacred part of the culture of a nation has to do with attitudes and practices concerning the family, marriage and the conjugal act. The leftists in the House of Representatives, who used to rail about US imperialism in the past, are now among those who are the most active in allowing aliens to brainwash the Filipino youth so that they radically change centuries-old traditions concerning the family, especially those related to the immense value given to children.
While I criticize some of today's leftists for being blind to the imperialist undertones of the RH Bill, I congratulate them for having abandoned the theologies of revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. The image of Vilma Santos playing the role of a nun inflicted with the Theology of Liberation error in the film "Sister Stella L" returns vividly to my mind every time I read about her success as a local government official in my home province, Batangas.
Thanks to the efforts of the late Blessed John Paul the Great and his able assistant at that time, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), the Church was able to exorcise the evil spirit of liberation theology. As Pope Benedict XVI wrote in Part II of Jesus of Nazareth, "Since that time (the 1960s), there has been a noticeable reduction in the wave of theologies of revolution that attempt to justify violence as a means of building a better world — the 'kingdom' — by interpreting Jesus as a 'Zealot.' The cruel consequences of religiously motivated violence are only too evident to us all. Violence does not build up the kingdom of God, the kingdom of humanity. On the contrary, it is a favorite instrument of the Antichrist, however idealistic its religious motivation may be. It serves, not humanity, but inhumanity" (Page 15).
For comments, my e-mail address is bvillegas@uap.edu.ph.
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