We kneel before Your altar, O Lord, in great sorrow for the sins perpetrated in the halls of Congress in these Advent days when we Your people should repent and prepare for the coming of Your Son.

And the gravest of these transgressions for which we implore Your divine mercy is the unconscionable assault on the consciences of our lawmakers by those employing threats and inducements to amass votes for the reproductive health (RH) bill.

Every person’s informed conscience is nothing less than the sacrosanct voice of the Almighty whispering in his or her heart, giving inner counsel on do’s and don’ts, right and wrong, good and evil. And the highest attribute of humanity, to which even Your omnipotent power yields, is the free will whether or not to follow the dictates of conscience.

This decision, made in countless moments throughout every human life, shapes both soul and society, directing them toward heaven or hell, the divine or the devilish, through the accumulation of actions for or against God’s edicts. And the devil’s constant quest is to make people disregard Your voice in their hearts.

The freedom of moral choice You have gifted Your beloved children enables the giving of ourselves to You in love and obedience, letting our true beings speak and act, rather than the shackled, bridled instincts of an unthinking beast. By Your wisdom and grace, the unfettered will empowers us to be ourselves, free to heed or ignore Your word in our hearts. And the greatest act of a human being can perform is to freely choose what is right and just by the lights of his or her conscience.

We implore Your divine forgiveness, therefore, for the diabolical schemes subverting the unfettered will of legislators by interposing the bait of earthly gains between Your heavenly voice of conscience and the unforced choice of souls. In months past, that lure of lucre was wielded to expedite budgets and laws, and oust constitutionally independent officials. But now, the budgetary leverage aims to silence not human voices, but Your own voice in the human heart.

“Temptations to sin are bound to happen,” You warned in Matthew’s Gospel, “but how terrible it will be for that person who causes someone to sin!” The President supposedly called for a conscience vote in meeting representatives two weeks ago, allowing them to follow Your voice in their hearts on the RH Bill. But threats of impounding development funds for legislators belied the reported presidential leniency. And last week, any pretense of letting the House decide without Malacañang prodding evaporated with the President’s certification of the measure.

Now, those whose moral compasses point to rejection of RH are strong-armed to veer from true North, or else their constituents’ share of state funds will go south. Thus, to ensure that indigents students receive scholarships, farmers get roads to market, patients obtain life-saving remedies and other needy souls are given already allocated benefits, legislators with consciences opposed to the contraceptive legislation are constrained not to pay heed.

What an abominable act, the worst scandal and sacrilege ever, to force Your faithful servants in Congress to deny Your word in their hearts if it commands nay to RH. That this appalling affront to Your moral voice in lawmakers’ hearts is transpiring in the only Christian nation in Asia, so soon after we were honored with a new saint and a new Cardinal, calls for even greater contrition and breast-beating.

Your Filipino faithful extolled the ultimate sacrifice of Your Saints Lorenzo Ruiz de Manila and Pedro Calungsod de Visayas, who braved death rather than deny their faith. Yet forgive us, Lord, as we watch with little concern while believers in Congress are also subjected to reprisal if they do not deny Your will as discerned by their consciences.

This corruption of our lawmakers, turning them away from what Your voice tells them is right, must cease, and we ask Your grace, guidance and intervention to restrain those behind this vile plot. May they desist from their subversion of moral freedom and rectitude, even at this late stage.

And if they persist in using against You the unlawful tactics, breaking Your holy precepts and our Constitution’s hallowed principles, then give Your people the solidarity, strength and resolve to remove these corruptors of conscience and destroyers of democracy from their lofty posts by peaceful, constitutional means.

The imperative is clear. If the country’s powers that be persist in forcing elected representatives to violate God’s voice in their consciences, then they are violating the Constitution’s unequivocal reverence for the Almighty, not to mention its tenets of religious freedom, the separation of powers, and the accountability of public officers; and have lost the moral right to rule. They are neither maka-Diyos, nor makatao; if they do not stop, they have to go.

O Beloved Savior, we lastly ask Your grace and guidance especially for those of Your holy men and women who have influence upon our national leaders, especially the spiritual adviser of President Benigno Aquino 3rd, to convincingly convey the grave sinfulness of pressuring members of Congress to vote against what their consciences dictate.

In this crossroads in our national life, O Lord, grant every Filipino the moral rectitude to follow Your heartfelt voice and let others pay heed as well. So help us God.

Ricardo Saludo serves Bahay ng Diyos Foundation for church repair. He heads the Center for Strategy, Enterprise & Intelligence, publisher of The CenSEI Report on national and global issues ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ).