Thomas Aquinas and the Moderation of Greed
Today’s headline of the Philippine Daily Inquirer used the juicy quote from Rodolfo Jun Lozada: “Moderate their greed.”
That was Romulo Neri’s instructions as he left him to negotiate with the Philippine principal players in the $329 million National Broadband Network project. As far as I can gather from all the news reports, the amount started with an initial $70 million which almost doubled to $130 million, and further increased to $200 million.
At 40 Philippine pesos to a US dollar, the last amount is 8 billion pesos! For those of us in the Education for All movement, that’s one hundred million pesos per province that could support alternative learning systems for out of school youth and adults. For comparison, the total budget of the Bureau of Alternative Learning Systems (BALS) of the DepEd is just over 100 million pesos.
As I write this blog, I am watching the start of the Senate hearing, and I remember that at yesterday’s press conference, Jun Lozada fumbled for the precise word to describe what these huge amounts are. He eventually settled for “commisssion.”
Based on what happened, it is obvious that he did not succeed to “moderate their greed.”
From his sketchy CV in the papers, Jun Lozada is a graduate of the University of Santo Tomas. I don’t know if he took any theology units, but if he did, he would have tempered his expectations about “moderating greed” from the theological writings of St. Thomas Aquinas.
One description of theology which I carry from my seminary days is “fides quaerens intellectum” – faith seeking understanding. As the premier theologian in the 12th century, St. Thomas Aquinas developed five “rational” proofs for the existence of God, which is of course accepted in faith.
One of the five proofs is the argument from the “infinite desires” of human beings. His line of argument is that no desire can be frustrated. Therefore, if the desires of human beings are infinite, there has to be an Infinite Being that can fulfill them.
Greed is only one of many human desires. But based on Jun Lozada’s frustrated efforts to “moderate greed,” it may be a base desire, without any fixed summit.
February 8, 2008 at 12:08 pm
That’s a very compelling take on “moderation of greed”. Meanwhile you may be interested in a petition set up here to promote “Education for All”.
February 8, 2008 at 4:12 pm
[...] * Simbahan * Lozada’s Testimony * Explosive Testimony at Philippine Senate Rocks Arroyo Government (with an MP3 recording) * Will More Lozadas stand up? * The Aftermath of the Jun Lozada’s Senate Testimony * Thomas Aquinas and the Moderation of Greed [...]