Just a couple of days ago, on October 7, I was privileged to be seated behind Brother Eddie Villanueva, universal leader of the Jesus is Lord (JIL) Church, and Supreme Court Chief Justice (CJ) Reynato S. Puno, to my mind two of the most admired Filipinos in the country today. It was the 29th anniversary of the JIL congregation, now present in 36 countries worldwide, and was held at Luneta Park, which was filled as far as the eye could see, from my seat in the grandstand, which was also filled to capacity.
The last report placed the crowd at 1.8 million. But it was not the huge crowd that overwhelmed me. What touched me so much was the identity of the fundamental message in both their speeches and prayers for a reign of righteousness to prevail in our country.
It was the powerful message of righteousness that all of us must seek, pray for, and instill in our lives. It was the striking message the two of them delivered that we adapt to a lifestyle of love, of truth, justice and righteousness.
It was the stirring realization that perhaps we have not done enough to instill true values in our social life, business life, political life, professional life — in fact, every aspect of our life on earth. We really have come to a point in the life of our beloved country where we are faced with shocking situations where lies and falsehoods, and the scandalous revelations of briberies committed with heartless impunity, have become a way of life.
The theme of the anniversary celebration was “Your Kingdom Come.” According to Brother Eddie, the kingdom of God simply means the “rulership of God… the dominion and jurisdiction of God, which is manifested in the life of man, in his family, in his community, in his nation and all over the earth. This is needed so that the kingdom of this world will become the kingdom of the living God! Not the kingdom of Satan.”
I am certain the kingdom of Satan vengefully cries with victory amid the culture of impunity that accompanies the wanton violations of the laws of the land and the criminal veil of secrecy that shrouds the crimes of bribery and the undercurrent of fear mercilessly being inflicted on the citizenry.
Brother Eddie said loud and clear, “The kingdom of God will erase injustice. The kingdom of God will erase poverty being worsened by unabated gargantuan corruption in our beloved country.”
Supreme Court CJ Reynato Puno, in his prayer said, “…We, Your people, have not reflected Your righteousness and just character. We have more often spurned justice, and chosen the least difficult path of unrighteousness and wrong. Forgive us for even allowing unrighteousness and injustice to abound in our world, our society and our country.”
CJ Puno spoke with such a powerful tone when he continued with what I now call “CJ’s Commandments”: You shall not repeat or raise a false report; you shall not join with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. You shall not follow a crowd to do evil; nor shall you bear false witness at a trial so as to side with the multitude to pervert justice. Neither shall you be partial to a poor man in his trial just because he is poor. You shall not pervert justice due to the poor in his cause. Keep far from a false matter and be careful not to condemn to death the innocent and the righteous, for I will not justify or acquit the wicked. You shall take no bribe for the bribe blinds those who have sight and perverts the testimony and the cause of the righteous.
Brother Eddie, echoing CJ Puno’s prayer for a reign of righteousness to prevail in our land, says it loud and clear: “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness… the kingdom of God means righteousness. Justice! Peace! Joy! Prosperity! What is existing in heaven should be experienced and should be manifested here on earth.
They both clearly state that all of us have strayed away from what God has set as the standards of truth, justice, and righteousness.
The Chief Justice elevated the entire judicial world to God. In his prayer, he said, “In earnest prayer, we lift up to You, Your servants and Your instruments of justice and righteousness. We pray for the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals, the Sandiganbayan, the Court of Tax Appeals, the regional trial courts, the metropolitan/municipal trial courts, the justices, judges, and all court workers and employees. Imbue and breathe anew in them a spirited sense of and thirst for genuine justice and righteousness… Blessed are they who maintain justice, who constantly do what is right and when justice is done, bring joy to the righteous, but terror to evildoers.”
Two men with such disparate backgrounds in life, but with an identity of calling — to uphold righteousness and teach their respective constituencies what righteousness really means.
Within a battered moral order, the shocking injustices, the willful violations of laws by government functionaries, their connivance and arbitrary refusal to be transparent, the stink and stench of bribe money that underlies the kind of corruption the country is suffering from, the abominable extra-judicial killings and disappearances that have reached scandalous numbers, the unbelievable culture of impunity that hovers incessantly — righteousness is indeed trampled upon with a severity, to my mind, never known before.
It is really up to us, and nobody else, to save ourselves from where we are right now.
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