Book Chapter: Abortion and Human Dignity

(Excerpts, Ethics and Human Dignity, 2010)

When does life begin? Conception happens when a male cell (spermatozoon) fertilizes the female cell (the ovum). It then becomes a zygote. This zygote contains the full genetic code of twenty-three pairs of chromosomes. Afterwards, the zygote undergoes the process of cell division. The zygote then grows then moves through the fallopian tube and gradually implants itself in the uterine wall.

Book Chapter: Rights and Animal Welfare

(Excerpts, Ethics and Human Dignity, 2010)

Some people have bad habits. For instance, pigs are transported in decrepit trailers or trucks, their bodies cut with blades to identify them. Chickens are grown at a fast rate so that they can be consumed after 23 days while raised in the difficult conditions of poultry farms. And of course, some people slaughter dogs and torture them before they are finally served on the dining table.

Positive and Negative Democracy

(Public Lecture, Ateneo Jubilee Lecture Series, Ateneo de Davao University, 2009)

Starvation, says 1998 Nobel Laureate for Economics Amartya Sen, “is the characteristic of some people not having enough food to eat”, not the fact of “there being not enough food to eat” . Consequently, he says that poverty is not the case of people’s “lack of income”, but rather, is “a matter of capabilities deprivation” . Income and other social primary goods are only suggestive of what people have or do not have – not of who they really are or of what they are capable of doing. Income, therefore, should not be suggestive of the kind of life a person is to live.