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The constitutionalist Jesuit priest, Fr. Joaquin Bernas, in his
Inquirer column some days ago wrote about rehabilitating the Arroyo
presidency.
This idea was most likely in the minds of the
Catholic bishops, including the Arroyo maladministration’s most
vocal critics—like Archbishop Oscar Cruz of Dagupan, who are not
joining the call for her resignation of ouster. The bishops, in
their two pastoral statements, have minced no words in describing
the corruption and other evils that characterize presentday national
governance.
The condemning outlook does not sit well with
those bishops who wish President Arroyo finish her term in 2010.
These bishops are not necessarily “pro-GMA.” Like many
businessmen, they just want less political conflicts and more focus
on productivity. If these bishops are mostly in Mindanao and the
Visayas it is because it is there where the administration’s
pro-poor projects are working.
They being unjustly portrayed by the anti-GMA
broadcast (radio and TV) media as Arroyo toadies.
My valued acquaintance at ABS-CBN, Korina
Sanchez, together with former congressman Ted Failon, tried to bait
(albeit politely) the Archbishop of Manila to come out and speak on
the subject of why he has said nothing about Mrs. Arroyo and her
maladministration. “Is it,” Korina and Ted, in different words,
asked, “because it is true that Cardinal Rosales is related to the
Malacañang official, Meldy Poblador . . . and sino ba ito . . .
(who is this person anyway)?” Then—reminding me of the Roman
Procurator of Judea’s ritual washing of his hands—made a
disclaimer of believing in the buzz that Cardinal Rosales was close
to and actually beholden to Mrs. Arroyo.
CBCP attacked
The Inquirer, along with many columnists and the
openly anti-Arroyo editors and editorial writers, attacks the CBCP
for having issued weak statements that, in the minds of the
bishops’ critics, disappointingly serve to confuse the people.
They want the bishops to be harsher towards Mrs. Arroyo and come out
with the explicit moral judgments they (the newspapers and
commentators) have pronounced against her and her bad governance and
political practices.
They wish CBCP President Archbishop Angel
Lagdameo and Cardinal Rosales were as politically engaged as the
late Cardinal Jaime Sin.
The serious Catholic and Protestant Christians
among commentators should be reminded of how the Lord Jesus Christ
responded to those of his disciples who wanted him to take political
positions against the despised Roman colonizers of Israel.
The CBCP bishops are right to limit themselves
to describing the sinfulness of this regime in impressionistic terms
—not in legal specifics. They are very right also in telling the
Catholic laity that it is they who have the duty to analyze the
situation and then decide to do what is right in the light of truth
(or the light of God who is the Truth).
But the bishops are extremely precise in asking
the people to reflect on the moral, socioeconomic and political
situation, form a social conscience and then work and act together
at the communal level.
Basic Christian Communities
It is, I think, Archbishop Lagdameo’s use of
“communal” that has been wrongly read by his fellow bishops of
the “pro-GMA and let her finish term” mentality.
The anti-Arroyo bishops and people have also
misread “communal.” Their misreading makes them think and say
that, although the CBCP’s pastoral statements should have barked
louder and bitten more sharply, it does call on the people to bond
together and rise in another people-power revolt.
What, I think, Archbishop Lagdamemo (and his
co-authors of the statements sent out with his signature) mean by
communal is the first sense of the word.
The commune at the time of the early Christians
(which is carried over to this day in the archaic vocabulary of the
local government of Rome City in the Italian Republic) is the basic
unit of society. It is more like intimate than our present “barangay.”
But the commune in Archbishop Lagdameo’s “communal” is
probably as intimate as our forefathers’ original barangay.
That communal level of analysis and action is
actually even smaller than the parish. It is the Basic Christian
Community of several families in a neighborhood or in Bukas Loob
sa Diyos, Couples for Christ and similar prayer and fellowship
groups.
Revolt or be a watchdog
What the two CBCP pastoral statements are
advising the people of God to do, under the guidance of the Holy
Spirit, to reflect and meditate and arrive at decisions personally
and then communally and move forward and act—at the BCC and then
perhaps the parish level.
This is the new kind of people power proposed. A
more doctrinally Christian people power. This way, when the Filipino
Catholics—and their Protestant Christian brethren and the other
“Believers in the One True God”—act, whether to rise in revolt
or to exercise a watchdog role over the rehabilitation of the Arroyo
presidency, they will have not only the bishops’ blessings but
also their company.
rq_bas@yahoo.com
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