Economics is a social science concerned with the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. It studies how individuals, businesses, governments, and nations make choices on allocating resources to satisfy their wants and needs, and tries to determine how these groups should organize and coordinate efforts to achieve maximum output (Chappelow, 2019). In the world we live in, if you have the power over the needs of people, you have power over them. And, that is prevalent in the Philippines, especially today.
The life that we are living right is run by power. Power from those who provide our resources, which is the gorvernment. Just like Karl Marx’s theory about the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. But unlike those times we are given the right to choose whoever rules over us.
Therefore politics is everywhere, in the things we do, the things we’ve done. As stated by Leftwich (1970) “As long as we have needs that are provided by others, there will always be politics, it just depends on who”. The current elections is our chance, the people to make their decision on how the future is going to play out.
“Mixing politics and religion is like mixing ice cream and manure; it doesn’t affect the manure much, but it really messes up the ice cream”
Tony Campolo
Some say religion is a way of life; some say that it is a system of beliefs. However, religion is so much more than those as it is something extraordinary that no mere human can comprehend. Politics, on the other hand, is defined as striving for power. How are these two related, you may ask? Religion and politics have existed together since the dawn of time. There was a time when these two went as far as controlling the other. This is because both religion and politics want something and that is control and power; control and power over the people. However, we think that the separation of church and state should remain separated. Nonetheless, that is not the case in the Philippines.
The Philippines is Asia’s largest Catholic nation where the Church is vocal regarding issues related to faith, morals, and social justice (Gomes, 2018). Majority of Filipinos are very religious and are unabashedly proud of what they believe in. With that being said, they are easily persuaded by their Church leaders and their opinions. Due to this, our citizens’ judgments become clouded as they are being redirected. Being logical humans, one should not be entirely focused on the viewpoints of their religion. An example was during 2012, the Catholic Church brought out the ‘big guns’ in its campaign against the RH Bill (Alave & Burgonio, 2012). The RH Bill Is something that would let women take control of their own bodies; it is something that would even help our countrymen with family planning. The Church interceded saying that the usage of contraceptives equates to violating God’s command: go forth and multiply. They also stated that abortion is considered as murder and violates the Fifth Commandment: thou shall not kill. They would not see reasons beyond what is stated in the Bible; logical reasons at that. His word is their testament.
This concludes that blindly following faith blurs the logical mind. This is why we reiterate that the separation of church and state is an integral part of progress. Though the passages in the Bible are timely and relevant, they have been written thousands of years ago and cannot tackle each and every issue that we face today. We urge you, the Filipino citizen, to think logically, especially when it involves the welfare of other people.
POLIS AMBIENTE 