Category: Government and Society

Catholic Social Teaching

Come Jan. 20, on the inaugural day of his second term, President-elect Trump has promised voters that he will begin a massive deportation effort. It is a deeply menacing threat without any indication of how matters of due process, human rights, respect of persons, respect of families and other matters of human dignity, justice and mercy will govern the deportation. And though we see indications that some Republicans will try to tone down Mr. Trump’s threats, many members of the party that will take control of every branch of our government on that day have not taken any evident steps to address the massive deportation itself.

I, for one, am not waiting for Inauguration Day. I think the threat of mass deportation needs to be urgently addressed by bishops, teachers, theologians, politicians and preachers. We cannot wait to see what happens, especially since the President-elect insists that he means business on that day.

James F. Keenan, S.J., in America

Water Festival

The day after the Water Festival ended, life started returning to normal.

The street barriers were pushed aside. Gone were the 6.4 million tourists who jammed the waterfront. Only departing tourists were left.
On the river, a barge with a light display remains. On the shore just a tent frame and empty rubbish bins.

Water Festival

Saturday was the third and last day of the Water Festival.

Some of the smaller boats.
A monk blessing the boat rowing crews.
The final parade of the light barges on the Tonle Sap River
4 million people came to Phnom Penh for the boat races and other Water Festival events.
King Sihamoni presiding from a royal box on the waterfront.

Water Festival

Today is the second day of the Water Festival, a three-day holiday extravaganza. More than a million people come from the provinces to Phnom Penh to watch the annual boat races.

350 boats representing towns and villages all over Cambodia are brought to Phnom Penh to race against each other. More than 20,000 men–with a few women–paddle the boats along a 2-kilometer course.
Lots and lots of people crowd the waterfront for the races. Pigeons, too!

NSSF

This week an official from the National Social Security Fund came to DDP to explain to our staff about the rather new social security program in Cambodia. He spend three hours explaining the fund with a sign language interpreter for the deaf staff. The beginning of a social security program is a BIG step forward for Cambodia.

One Window Service

A much-publicized initiative of the Cambodian government a couple years ago was to start what they call “one window service,” that is, being able to accomplish one of the many bureaucratic tasks the citizens endure in one trip to one window rather than being shunted from office to office for one or many days.

This woman embraces the same principle in getting her coffee in front of the one window office: she doesn’t even need to get off her motorcycle