Beliefs and Reconnaissance Through Twitter

For anyone who cares, today is the given date for the discussion/town meeting of Ayala Alabang Village. On the agenda: their Ordinance that has garnered so much public interest. Normally, I'd attend such meetings in a heartbeat, particularly since it does discuss something that is quite troubling and relative to everyone one that will be governed by it. Since it is my misfortune to be in Davao (my trip to Manila won't be until 2 weeks from now), I find myself trying to scrounge up as much information as I can.

Fortunately for me, the social networking/microblogging website Twitter was an avenue that was more than helpful in my mission. Thanks to the the accounts of Elizabeth Angsioco, Ruffy Biazon, Filipino Freethinkers, and concerned residents like Andrei Gonzales that I was able to get some sort of idea at how the meeting went.

So it boiled down to pretty much an appeal to morality by pro-ordinance and a severe pelting of logic and facts by the anti-ordinance. The pro-ordinance recruited Nene Pimentel to try and infuse politics into the simple human rights issue that is hit by this ordinance. Sen. Pimentel did a good job of trying to muddle issues and inject significantly irrelevant details as pointed out by @drei_gonzales.

It is frustrating how they tried to inject politics into this. The ordinance is mainly about the rights of the residents. Whether or not they want to be subjected to such rules and restrictions. For anyone who hasn't read the entirety of the ordinance, feel free to go to Ms. Lea Salonga's website. She made a blog entry about the ordinance and provided a copy of it. You could look at her blog entry here.

Also it seems that Sen. Pimentel tickled the ire of @ruffybiazion. Where does Nene Pimentel live anyway? This ordinance is to be decided upon by AAV residents. Pimentel's input is welcome however he ought to have kept in mind that he is a guest to a discussion about an ordinance that he won't even be under.

@bethangsioco made it clear that the pro-ordinance side once again gave such...inspired and logical reasoning to support their side.

The talks were smooth and everything was orderly. It was reported that most of the pro-ordinance side were nuns and elderly people. While it was nice that a lot of people are concerned about this, it is saddening that our elders aren't looking out for today's youth. Do they really want to have their kids just indulge in uneducated and unprotected sex and just say 'Hey, at least we're protecting the rights of the unborn child that could very possibly be born from this!'

I just sigh whenever I think of these events. So the AAV council has 3 options. 1.) Edit and resubmit their ordinance. 2.) Abandon the ordinance. And, 3.) Keep their ordinance as is.

I am glad that AAV is taking steps to develop an ordinance that they think will come in the best interest of their people. It's just that, well, next time, I hope they think things through a bit more. AAV isn't a wholly Catholic village, after all.