Debating, not feasting / Why she will run

We are a nation deeply divided on the nature of sin in the wake of Bishop Teodoro Bacani’s recent brush with the flesh of his female secretary, appropriately or inappropriately called Rosalyn. Until the Vatican resolves the issue, 82 million Filipinos will not know exactly how the good bishop abused Rosalyn’s body, if indeed it was abused and what carnal pleasure or satisfaction he derived. The bishop described it as an "inappropriate demonstration of affection". His critics and enemies claim Bishop Bacani did much more and, besides, wasn’t there a bed nearby?

Stung by the commotion, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has appealed to the citizenry to "stop feasting" on the issue and allow the Vatican to solemnly and quietly perform its job. I don’t think she will succeed.

I believe there is more to the issue than meets the eye. The Bacani "scandal" goes down deep to the institution that is the Roman Catholic Church, particularly its role as the custodian of the nation’s morality and values. When a bishop of Bacani’s high stature – a veritable pontifex maximus of "the most numerous Church here – to use Claro Recto’s words, gets sucked into charges of "sexual harassment", the whole structure starts to shake.

Bishop Bacani’s real troubles perhaps started when he was given – and he accepted with alacrity – the assignment to be "adviser" to Brother Mike Velarde’s El Shaddai. El Shaddai was both son and adopted son of the Church, an immense congregational that broke with Catholic ritual but embellished the bonds of millions of Catholic Filipinos who sought more than just the congregational and sacerdotal stiffness of Church. This had to be massaged lest Mike Velarde, giddy with the success, break with St. Peter’s Church and establish his own as the Manalos did with Iglesia ni Cristo (INC).

The massage was a success. A success, of course, of Bishop Bacani who like Cardinal Richelieu, mastered the inner currents of Church politics.

Except that an unexpected factor intruded. And these were the charges that Bro. Mike Velarde had piled up a tremendous fortune from the collections of El Shaddai. This is an accusation angrily rejected by Mike Velarde and Bishop Bacani has stood by him. For this and other reasons, El Shaddai and the bishop set off a spirited controversy within the Church hierarchy, a controversy that will rage even more in the wake of the Bacani scandal.

Already, Fr. Nico Bautista, a highly locquacious – they say even loose bullet within the Church – declares darkly: "It’s about time the Church, the institution, to open up and admit the situation, the evils going on… The Church should bring in to the daylight… what we do in the dark." This is anthema to the princes of the Philippine Church. It’s happening at a time Jaime Cardinal Sin, because of his critical health, is virtually bent and broken.

Caught in the post-Bacani snarl is another prominent Church leader, Teodoro Buhain, auxiliary bishop of Manila. Reports were that Buhain several years ago allegedly sired a child. Bishop Buhain claims he is not only innocent, but has documented his innocence. This has not discomfited Fr. Nico Bautista at all who said more and more violations should be exposed "because the Church doesn’t seem to move until it is rocked and battered".

From hereon, who will be doing the rocking and the battering? Watch Fr. Bautista. I have had some private conversations with him on supposedly ugly goings-on in the Church. In any language, what he told me was dynamite. If he exposes this, this whole town will be shaking like Mexican jumping beans. Knowing Fr. Bautista, they’ll have to exile him abroad if they want to keep his mouth shut. He knows a lot. Nobody fought the Marcos dictatorship from the pulpit more ferociously than Fr. Bautista. Once he and Bishop Bacani found themselves inadvertently at the same dinner which I also attended. Boy, did they go after each other hammer and tongs – verbally, of course.

But to the bigger picture.

The Church in the Philippines is going through a crucial historic stage. Until just three decades ago, it was a Church of the rich and the powerful, as it was under the crown of Spain. Jaime Cardinal Sin changed all that when he was promoted to the archbishopric of Manila. As such, he found his calling. Either instinctively or clerically or both, he took issue with the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, took the cudgels for the poor and the oppressed, roared like the lions of Voltaire. This he did until gradually the Church through the fighting archbishop, for the first time identified itself with the citizenry.

It is not an exaggeration to say Sin brought the Church together. Within, they had their fights and intrigues, their turfs and bitter intramurals.

The Church under the Cardinal – and until lately – remained one of the nation’s most respected if not revered institutions. Not anymore. If the surveys are to be believed. In one survey, the cardinal got only 40 percent approval. Why? One reason probably is that, for all the Church’s repeated promises, for all its clamor its priority is a "Preferential Option for the Poor", the poor not only remain poor but have become poorer. What probably hurts is the perception that the Church is rich, fabulously rich, but none of this trickles to the poor. The poor are often told they will get their rewards in heaven. This may still work but not for long.

I may sound irreverent. But it’s to the good that the debate and discussion continue on the Bacani flap. It’s time the Church be put to the test, that its evils – if any – get out of the dark, that it be stripped of the hypocrisy it alone knows what’s good or bad for the faithful.

Like the Roman Catholic Church before the Reformation, the same Church in America before the series of sex scandals Cardinal Law in Boston sought to conceal, it’s time our Church be shaken and its sins flushed out. The fathers Gomez, Burgos and Zamora did reach for the Church’s jugular. And so did national hero Jose Rizal. Now that there is an opening, let us Filipinos bust it wide open. A catharsis is always good for the soul.

In this context, let me recall the words of Will Durant, that great American historian, whose research on the Reformation remains a classic. While unwilling to abandon the good the Church did for humanity, Durant nonetheless wrote:

"The individual succumbs, but he does not die if he has left something to mankind. Protestantism, in time, helped to regenerate the moral life of Europe, and the Church purified herself from an organization politically weaker but morally stronger than before. One lesson emerges above the smoke of battle: A religion is at its best when it must live with competition; it tends to intolerance when and where it is unchallenged and supreme. The greatest gift of the Reformation was to provide Europe and America with that competition of faiths which put each on its mettle, cautions it to tolerance, and gives to our frail minds the zest and test of freedom."

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As the first journalist to claim GMA would run in 2004, I feel the need to buttress that statement. The flow of international and local events combined to set off the current. But the ultimate decision, of couse, will have to be made by President Gloria Macapagal- Arroyo. And I maintain she will not be able to resist. Why? It is in the nature of power and glory to carry off the person affected as an eagle’s claws carry its prey to the mountain ledge.

The attraction of six years in Malacañang by way of constitutional election is simply too dazzling to resist. As Shakespeare intimated, power is the ultimate intoxication, "the eagle that suffers little birds to sing". When we first met on the subject of the presidency in mid-1996, I asked GMA if indeed she sought it, her answer was that she felt God was giving her signals. Or something like that. Big Mike, who was right beside his wife, said they purposely sought me for advice. That’s the way it started and in the end GMA was on the campaign trail.

GMA never got the presidency on her own. She was elected vice president in 1998. EDSA II ousted Joseph Estrada and catapulted GMA to Malacañang. The joining of negative Fate and Circumstance led to her decision renouncing 2004. Everything was bleak at the time. Her approval ratings were hitting the cellar, not really all her fault. The nation was in grim crisis, had been for decades.

But 9/11 changed all that. America swerved sharply as George W. Bush went after international terrorism. GMA was on track as Abu Sayyaf made her life miserable. She never imagined her early decision to board the terror train of George Bush would scramble virtually everything. Life for GMA changed superbly in the twinkle of an eye. This led to a White House welcome fit for a queen. This led to so many US signals that if she changed her mind and ran in 2004, she would get full US support.

If you were in her place, what would you do?