Eric Manalang of Pro-Life shows his true colours
Ana Santos shared on ProPinoy.net a letter from Pro-Life head honcho Eric Manalang. The letter was a response for a request from Ms Santos for an interview for IRIN News, the media arm of the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.Aside from the really appalling English grammar used in the letter there was one key point I noted and is contained in the following excerpt...
Kindly yourself, Catholic or not, consider that The POPE did not change any existing teaching nor commandment,it is the secular media that translates it to meet its liberal/left leaning agenda, PDI included, when it comes to fighting and destroying objective morality and decency.
No population, no economy because no producers and no consumers. Simple truth. Poor people are the source of growth in an economy, not the wealthy.
WE, THE REAL CATHOLICS, LOVE THE POPE!
There are TEN COMMANDMENTS not less nor more. Bad morality brings bad policies,what else can we expect ?
My question to Mr Manalang is quite simple:
Where exactly does your presumption to be the judge of who is and who is not a "real" Catholic come from?
The very Pope these guys love to quote -- and even Jesus Christ himself -- took very inclusive approaches to their ministries. Too bad this example is not being followed. The problem with Christianity is its "Christians".
This is an unfortunate post because it is a personal attack on Eric Manalang, first with a snarky comment about his grammar and then asking "Where exactly does your presumption to be the judge of who is and who is not a "real" Catholic come from?". You could have taken the high road and ignored his poor, rushed grammar (this is an email afterall) and you could have ignored his statement about "real Catholics" and instead focused on his arguments about abstinence and where real wealth comes from. Good civic debate requires focusing on the substance of the arguments, not on the people who are making them. Instead you fall into the same problem that you accuse him of. One could just as simply ask "Who are you to judge Eric Manalang?"
ReplyDeleteThe grammar comment is particularly disturbing. Not everyone has had the opportunity to go to good or elite schools. There are smart, intelligent people with good things to say who come from poor backgrounds and lack formal education and good grammar. We should not discriminate against them just because they do not look like, speak like or write like our own social circle. Just because Eric Manalang does not have good grammar does not mean that he does not have the right to be respected and listened to in a democratic society.
Nah. Manalang sets a bad example on two fronts. First is the primitivist and closed-minded approach he takes to evaluating the issue of reproductive health, and second is the whole idea that one can issue statements using retard-level English in a society that is pathetically dependent on the call centre industry for survival.
ReplyDeleteI concur. First of all, the strength of one's assertion in a medium that eliminates 90% of the tools we humans ordinarily use to communicate -- visual and verbal cues -- is, whether you agree with it or not, helped or harmed by one's grammatical and compositional rigor. In other words, if you write like an idiot, people will assume you are an idiot, and that what you have just written is idiotic.
ReplyDeleteSecond, a point worth making is worth making in a considered fashion; "this is an email afterall" is an excuse that rather implies emoting is an acceptable substitute for actual arguing.
It also comes down to respect. Save, perhaps, for JD Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, I don't think there has ever been a book worth buying written with dodgy grammar. Such works embody their authors' respect for the readers who shell out good money (or set aside their time) to read them.
ReplyDeletePerhaps, the amount of respect Manalang extends to the people who might read his written work is conditional -- or, worse, a non-issue to him.