The Angel Gabriel Stone; A dangerous trend

SAI KUNG, Hong Kong — Thanks to modern technology it is possible to be far away and still be able to work at home. I was able to monitor and administer Bayanko’s crowdsourcing page in FB and write on how I spent New Year’s day in this fishing town in Hong Kong in the New Territories.

My daughter Marta and her family, husband Simon and son Felix live there and thought it would be a good idea to welcome 2015 in a quiet place, a town nestling by sea and mountain. It was a welcome respite and for the first time, I spent New Year’s Eve without the din and polluted smoke from fireworks of Manila.

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The big treat for me was a visit to the Asia Society’s Chantal Miller Gallery where the Angel Gabriel Stone is currently on exhibit. I have read about the Dead Sea Scrolls whose implications to Christian teachings have been hotly debated but I did not know about the Angel Gabriel Stone. It is said to be the most important finding written in the same style and text of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The difference is that it may have been a scroll but it was not written in parchment and the text is etched on stone. It is truly a wonder how that stone has been preserved although parts of the stone have been chipped. The narrative was said to have been written by Angel Gabriel and written in the first person. The text says specifically, “I am Angel Gabriel.” 

It provides insight into the religious ideas around the time when Jesus was born. The exhibit has been brought to make it available to Hong Kongers and other Christian people in this part of the world. If you have time and the means, see it. One hour was not enough to read the explanations and draw some tentative conclusions. The exhibit includes parallelisms between Chinese and Jewish histories at the time.

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According to the brochure the exhibit traces “the development of the archangel Gabriel in the three monotheistic religions, displaying a Dead Sea Scroll fragment which mentions the angel’s name; the 13th century Damascus Codex, one of the oldest illustrated manuscripts of the complete Hebrew Bible; a 10th century New Testament manuscript from Brittany, in which Gabriel predicts the birth of John the Baptist and appears to the Virgin Mary; and an Iranian Quran manuscript dated to the 15th or 16th century, in which the angel, called Jibril in Arabic, reveals the word of God to the prophet Mohammad.”

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Last week’s column “It is time” drew many comments and prescriptions on how we might tackle the problem. It will not go away unless something drastic is done about it politically and economically soon, and it will have consequences that both the rich and the poor will regret.

As Bayanko adviser, Jose Alejandrino, posted in the crowdsourcing page in social media:

“Super rich Filipinos number 40 families across a population of 100 million. These super rich Filipinos have combined assets of $34 billion.

The high income segment numbers 185,000 families or less than one million Filipinos, earning at least P2.4 million a year or P200,000 a month. They own nine percent of the total income of the country.

The middle class totals nine million out of 100 million Filipinos, earning an average of P600,000 a year or P50,000 a month.

The high income and middle class total nearly ten percent of the population.

The vast majority, 60 percent or 60 million Filipinos, earn P190,000 a year or P15,800 a month. It is from this class that 52 percent considered themselves poor according to a recent survey. They can’t make ends meet.

Thirty percent, or 30 million, live below the poverty line. They are food poor.

So 90 percent of the Philippine population is actually poor. With a diminishing middle class, it is conceivable that in the next few years, 95 percent of the population will be poor. How can this trend continue without leading to a violent explosion?”

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Taken in conjunction with the studies by various groups of the huge percentage of families who control the political life of the Philippines as posted in “It is time,” the figures are depressing and alarming. We can argue over differences of a few percentage points here and there, as the government is bound to do, but there is no escaping the conclusion that a few rich families rule the country while the overwhelming majority remain poor, that the disparity in incomes is wide, and that the political and business elite has been the main obstacle to much-needed reforms. This analysis comes from the World Bank, IMF and other international bodies.  

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A recent Princeton study by Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page to show the US is no longer a democracy but an oligarchy of the wealthy elite mirrors the developments in the Philippines because “economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.” Unlike Western European countries with parliamentary forms of government and more equitable distribution of income, the US and the Philippines have a presidential form. This is the more reason why Bayanko is advocating a system change.