Philippine Politics - Bishops and fleas

Here’s something that they don’t teach in Catholic catechism, even if maybe they should these days: If you lie down with the political dogs, you get up with the fleas of corruption.

During a mass last Sunday at the parish church of swank Ayala Alabang Village in Muntinlupa, the Catholic bishop who was officiating tore into the media for allegedly smearing the new president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, Tandag, Surigao del Sur prelate Nereo Odchimar. In his homily, the bishop said it was unfair to say that Odchimar was Malacañang’s bet to preside over the bishops’ association, and that reports their new leader supposedly met with President Arroyo before his election and used old-fashioned bribes to win were uncalled for.

Odchimar himself has denied seeing even President Arroyo’s shadow. But an obviously proud Surigaonon, former Rep. Prospero Pichay, let slip that the new CBCP president saw the president “every time” she visits the province.

The bishop giving the homily in Alabang also confirmed the meeting with the President, even if he said this was attended by many other prelates; the media, he said, spun the story into something else to prove the preconceived notion that Odchimar was Malacañang’s bet in the CBCP elections last week.

But, given the recent history of political dilettantism by the bishops, is imputing motives other than religious to the CBCP and its actions unjustified? The media, after all, did not create the political activism among the bishops that began with the term as president of the then-newly minted Manila Archbishop, Jaime Sin, during the darkest days of Marcos’ martial law.

Indeed, after Sin made it clear that he was not the dictator’s stooge (at least, not all the time), First Lady Imelda Marcos began cultivating her fellow Waray in Cebu, Archbishop Julio Cardinal Rosales, to serve as a counterweight to Sin’s anti-administration positions. And that’s when the Palace’s courtship of the bishops—and their collegial association which Sin once headed—began in earnest.

Prior to that, Catholic prelates—probably still smarting from the accusations of establishing a “frailocracy” during the Spanish era—kept to their convents. Before Sin, it was unheard of for priests to discuss politics from the pulpit, and despite the predominance of the voters who claim to be Catholic, no national politician thought of seeking the bishops’ blessings before doing anything important.

It was a simpler time in Church-State relations in the Philippines, a time that will probably never return. The ascendancy of Sin and the alliance of a significant number of clerics with the Left (a post-Vatican II anomaly that was first noted in South America, where it was called “liberation theology”) ensured that the Philippine Church would be irrevocably politicized.

A while back, we had tank-stopping nuns, priests and seminarians—who never appear in public outside of church in their clerical garb, by the way—joining almost every political rally. The natural evolution of this phenomenon has the same clerics now giving supposed “whistle-blowers” in political controversies sanctuary and acting as their groupies-slash-bodyguards—something that the state already supposedly provides and pays for.

Where once we had pastoral letters covering everything from changing the constitution to how to vote, now we have reports of bishops being bribed to hush up on certain matters or even to elect their own leader. We used to have a silly running priest; now, we have a priest-governor whose election victory is the subject of an official recount and who dreams of running for the highest office in the land next year.

If the media caused all of that, then the Philippine Church must really be in trouble, your excellencies.

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Regardless of Odchimar’s true political leanings or the actions that led to his installation as CBCP president, the truth of the matter is that the Church in general—and the bishops, in particular—have degenerated into just another special-interest group that has to be appeased by the lay political leadership. And because the Church has very specific agendas that it wants to push (like its opposition to a government-sponsored population-control program, to name just one), it becomes very susceptible to political “operations” that require the quid pro quo of the dirty politics that it never used to meddle in during the pre-Sin era.

And it seems that the CBCP has learned its politics well. After all, Church observers predicted early on that Odchimar was assuming the association’s presidency simply because he had been installed two years back as vice president – after the bishop holding that lower position (which is on the fast track to the presidency) was ousted in favor of the Tandag prelate.

Thus, for the first time in more than 40 years, the CBCP has a mere bishop (instead of an archbishop) as president. And the last time a lesser-ranked prelate assumed the position, there were too few archbishops to begin with.

By electing Odchimar as their president, the bishops can always say that they followed tradition. What they fail to mention is that they probably decided early on not to replace administration critic Archbishop Angel Lagdameo with his original vice president, Cagayan de Oro’s Antonio Ledesma, whom they perceived to be a CBCP president in the same anti-Arroyo mold as the outspoken Lagdameo.

(If that’s the case, then there is certainly no way that another senior archbishop, Lingayen-Dagupan’s Oscar Cruz, will get the job of CBCP president anytime soon. Most Church observers believe that Cruz, best known for his anti-jueteng campaign, has always wanted the job but isn’t as politically correct as the others who have gotten it instead.)

Try as it might, the Church leadership just cannot forbid the media (or even the Catholic laity in general) from imputing motives other than religious in its actions. It own very thorough—and still ongoing—politicalization will not allow it.

If the bishops do not agree that they should be scrutinized, they cannot arrogate the same job for themselves in the lay world. Especially if they also have the fleas that infest that many other political institutions have.


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The Source : Manila Standard Today