I DO NOT know how you are looking at ways to solve our country’s political and economic problems, but I do not think that some defects in our Constitution are to blame for these problems. That is like saying that our traffic problems are getting worse because our traffic laws are defective.
But is that really the case?
As some sectors in our society are calling for charter chance, could it be that we should be calling for character change instead? To change the character of every citizen?
Although it might seem too far-fetched, there is actually a direct connection between graft and corruption, and our political and economic problems.
As I understand it, graft and corruption have a cause-and-effect relationship. What I mean by that, is that corruption is the cause of graft, and not the other way around.
To compare this with the story of the garden of Eden, the temptation initiated by Eve is the cause of the graft committed by Adam, graft being the sin that was in violation of God’s laws.
Rough estimates say that about one third of our national budget is stolen by government officials who violate graft laws. Although these officials may well be capable of committing graft without anyone corrupting them, it’s more likely that there is someone who is tempting them by way of corrupting them to commit graft.
Perhaps character change could help reduce the temptation to commit graft?
STOPPING ONLINE SEX TRAFFICKING
By definition, sex trafficking is merely a subset of human trafficking.
Although human trafficking is now the popularly used terminology, it is actually the same as slavery or the slave trade, long banned in many countries but is still being practiced everywhere, despite many strict laws against it.
For some reason, a lighter version called white slavery has come into play, but nonetheless it is still slavery. In the same way that slavery has existed since time immemorial, sex trafficking has also existed since time immemorial.
With the emergence of the internet however, all these old terminologies have taken on new meanings. Anything done online is now termed as “cyber”, such that sexual actions online are now called “cybersex”. In other words, what used to be the old crime called “sex trafficking” is now called “online sex trafficking” and this new version is now considered as a “cybercrime” because it uses the internet to perpetuate the crimes.
While it appears that the national offices of both the National Bureau of Investigation and the Philippine National Police have already upgraded their computer systems to fight cybercrime in general and online sex trafficking in particular, more budgets are apparently needed to empower their regional, provincial and municipal offices.
Congress should therefore increase their budget allocations, because otherwise, we could be losing the war against this very powerful threat to national security and public safety./PN
