Voters urged to engage in principled politics

MANILA, Philippines - The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) yesterday called on Filipino voters to engage in principled partisan politics and appealed to the military and police not to let themselves be used by politicians.

In a pastoral statement released last night, the Catholic bishops urged all Filipinos to form “circles of discernment” so that they can see, judge, and act together on issues of public concern according to moral values.

They reminded the Catholic faithful that it is their right and duty to support candidates that are qualified and have a record of striving for the common good.

“They should not hesitate to engage in principled partisan politics. We are asked to first articulate the key values and principles by which we can evaluate individual candidates across political parties. This is the kind of politics in which Gospel values form the bases of our choice of candidates and not party or family loyalties,” the statement said.

The pastoral statement, signed by CBCP president Nereo Odchimar, was released after the 100th General Assembly held for two days at the Pius XII Center in Manila.

The bishops said that the recent outrageous political violence has awakened the Filipinos to the reality that if they would not be vigilant, “our electoral processes can drag us down.”