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By William B. Depasupil, Reporter
Outspoken Lingayen-Dagupan
Archbishop Oscar Cruz on Friday defended the collective decision of
the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) that
rebuffed calls for President Gloria Arroyo to step down.
He belied speculations that the
bishops stand divided.
Earlier Tuesday, the CBCP issued
a pastoral letter that did not include a message for President
Arroyo to resign, but for her to take the lead in stamping out
corruption. Calls for her to step down mounted after the latest the
exposés in the Senate hearing on the now canceled national
broadband deal that was awarded to China’s ZTE Corp.
Cruz, a staunch critic of the
Arroyo administration, explained that as shepherds of the church and
the people, the bishops’ duty is to provide moral and spiritual
guidance to the faithful. This duty, he said, dictates that the
bishops remain neutral on political issues.
He said the collective decision
not to call for resignation was reached after the bishops voted to
stay away from the demand for her to vacate the presidency
voluntarily.
The CBCP members are neither
“pro-Arroyo” nor “anti-Arroyo,” Cruz said. A former
president of the bishops’ group, he said any insinuation or
perception that it is divided is mere speculation.
All members of the bishops’
group are united on “moral and doctrinal” matters, he said.
Nueva Caceres Archbishop Leonardo
Legaspi, among those who drafted the pastoral statement and the one
who read it, said the bishops had decided that the calls for Mrs.
Arroyo’s resignation were “a political exercise” that should
be left to the people.
Bontoc-Lagawe Bishop Emeritus
Francisco Claver said that asking for the President’s resignation
“could weaken the country’s democratic structures.”
Another vocal critic of the
administration agreed. Bishop Deogracias Iñiguez of Caloocan City,
head of the bishops’ group’s Permanent Council on social action,
said it is the people, not the group, who should call for the
President’s resignation.
Iñiguez and Cruz said individual
bishops are not prohibited from expressing their individual
opinions.
Cruz said the 1986 and 2001
“people power” revolts that deposed President Ferdinand Marcos
and President Joseph Estrada, respectively, were not the initiatives
of the CBCP but of then Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin. He
died in 2005.
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