Amid the hype surrounding the new Philippine reproductive health bill, signed by President Benigno Aquino III on December 19, 2012, an outspoken street artist and reproductive health advocate named Carlos Celdran has become a lightning rod for the Catholic Church.
It all started on September 30, 2010, when Celdran entered Manila Cathedral during mass dressed as 19th-century Philippine nationalist Jose Rizal. Interrupting the ceremony in progress, he walked down the church’s center aisle, past Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim and a slew of bishops in attendance, and stopped in front of the altar.
As he turned to face the congregation, he lifted a sign emblazoned with the name “DAMASO”, in reference to the corrupt, cruel clergyman of the same name (Padre Damaso Verdolagas) from Rizal’s 19th-century novel Noli Me Tangere. He shouted “Stop getting involved in politics!” to the entire church, before being escorted away by police.
Celdran’s stunt earned him a 13-month stint behind bars, in a sentence handed down Monday in Manila. He was found guilty of violating Article 133 of the nation’s penal code, which prohibits acts deemed to be “notoriously offensive to the feelings of the faithful”.
As predicted, many were outraged by the highly subjective ruling. “Nobody should be jailed for voicing an opinion or position, especially on a subject that concerns the lives of millions of Filipino women and mothers," Carlos Conde, a researcher with Human Rights Watch, told BBC.
In an interview with the South China Morning Post, University of the Philippines criminal law professor Ibarra Gutierrez said, “I find the whole idea of Article 133 archaic. More than a hundred years ago, we threw off the yoke of Spain, yet we are still dealing with this kind of law.”
Despite the verdict, the 40 year old told his friends, "It was worth every moment." In a Facebook post, he also wrote that he plans to fight the ruling.
The new healthcare bill, for which Celdran pushed, was 14 years in the making. Before finally passing in December, it was shot down three times in the face of fierce opposition by the church in the 80-percent Catholic nation. The bill requires health centers to hand out free condoms and birth control pills, and stipulates the launch of sex education programs in schools.
The church, which views contraception as sinful, has publicly voiced its disapproval of the legislation. "It's not the business of government to be promoting contraceptive devices," the BBC reported Bishop Teodoro Bacani as saying while debate over the law was still raging last December.
He continued, "It's like the government saying it will pass a law which will fund the promotion of pork-eating among the Muslims. Can you imagine what an uproar there would be among the Muslim population?"
For supporters, on the other hand, the reasons for the law are clear. In 1990, the population of the Philippines was 65 million—now there are 95 million—giving the nation the highest birth rate in Southeast Asia. Moreover, a 2011 government survey found that from 2006 to 2010 the nation’s maternal mortality rate had jumped by 36 percent. The bill is intended to offset these disturbing and economically debilitating trends.
The public attention ignited by Celdran’s performance at Manila Cathedral is nothing new for the street artist, who has built a reputation as a go-to guy for commentary on Philippine culture and social issues.
A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design with a degree in performance art, Celdran frequently comments in Western media outlets, offering his take on anything from flooding caused by Typhoon Ketsana to the virtues of spam – of the tinned meat variety – as an economic and social marker. He is also a popular tour guide and has concocted a colorful tour of Manila, including a walk through the city’s old quarter, for which he dons Spanish-colonial era garb.
But even with his public persona, the impact of Celdran’s performance at Manila Cathedral has been of a different order. Since the ruling, the activist’s fame has skyrocketed, evidenced in the more than 39,000 “Likes” on his Facebook page. His popularity has made Celdran a voice for the many Filipinos who find it difficult to express a controversial opinion in a debate that is just getting underway.
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Raj
Its good that there is someone who is fighting against the insanity of the church.Unfortunately,in India, the organizations that stand against the devilish actitivites of the church are termed as fundamentalists and constantly receive flak from the media. The church has already been guilty of converting in massive numbers and killing cultures to boost its memberships.Now it wants to further shoot its members by overbreeding.
Shame on you Vatican!
Karl
Well, Mr. Carlos Celdran is going to jail not so much for "offending the church" (which he did) but for breaking the law. The law may be archaic to many people but the spirit of it is quite nice: you need to show respect to people exercising their faith in a generally recognized place of worship. You wouldn't interrupt a class in uni or a board of director's meeting in the manner that he did, wouldn't you? If there's any culture in you, if there's any civilized thing to talk about, like the RH bill, you'd wait until the other guy is ready to listen or is done with whatever he's doing before you'd engage. You won't hold him captive audience while you rant about his faults in style.
It boils down to good manners and right conduct, which we all learned in grade school. And by the way, the Catholic Church and the CBCP (Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines) did NOT file any cases against Mr. Celdran; it was some lay person and then the state prosecutors who saw his act as clearly a violation of the Revised Penal Code.
I'm not a Catholic, by the way. I'm actually a Protestant, and I support the RH bill's aims even if I'm doubtful on some measures it puts in place. But I'm also commited to doing things the right way. Millions of people are. The wisdom of the Penal Code is that if Mr. Celdran isn't allowed to do what he did to Catholics, offending their religious sensibilities, Catholics aren't allowed to do the same thing to Muslims, and Muslims aren't allowed to do the same to Baptists, etc. I hardly see that kind of thinking as archaic, as Mr. Carlos Conde of the HRW or Atty. Ibarra Gutierrez of UP in the article seem to think so. Mutual respect among faiths is even more important now in the age of extremism and militant, religious fundamentalism.
Mr. Celdran does marvelously well as a tour guide – I've seen been in one of his tours in Intramuros – but what he did was really a pointless act of disrespect. In the end, the activists who actually educated the public on the need for a law on reproductive health, the lawyers and lawmakers who spent days and nights poring over statistics and interview transcripts, priests and ministers of various faiths in our country who sought to share the virtues of responsibility to the young, parents who raised and are raising their children according to high standards of morality – they achieved and are achieving more in terms of what I believe are Mr. Celdran's aims, a citizenry wise in the ways of responsible parenthood.
Sarah
Great comment, even and fair handed.
cindy cruz
I applaud Mr Celdran’s commitment to become a voice for the masses, however the manner in which he did it is unworthy of praise. What he did was downright disrespectful… And not just to the clergy but to anyone with faith.