Biggest challenge

The Pope’s World Day of Peace message last January 1, 2004 is a great challenge to us during these times when political passions are heating up.

When both sides in the current power struggle display total lack of trust of each other and those out of political power already anticipate to be cheated to the extent of stirring the populace and warning of "dangerous consequences", it seems difficult to apply the Pope’s earnest advice that "love is the loftiest and most noble form of relationship possible between human beings", that "love must enliven every sector of human life…", that "only a humanity in which there reigns the civilization of love will we be able to enjoy authentic and lasting peace".

Indeed, how can there be authentic peace in the Philippine political scene, when love has been replaced by selfishness? When politicians are vying for governmental power not out of a desire to serve the people but to protect and promote their own vested interests? Indeed, the coming May 10, 2004 elections foreshadow direr consequences because those out to regain power apparently consist of the same faces who were clandestinely involved in the previous attempt to topple the present regime last July 2003 through the barrel of the gun. Now they are doing it through the ballots, not the bullets, riding on the popular appeal of a cinematic figure who has vainly tried to keep a respectable distance from them.

Using the "law of force" rather than the "force of law" is definitely wrong and cries for the strict rendition of justice to those involved. Thus it is likewise seemingly difficult to reconcile the existing reality with the Pope’s New Year’s message that "for the establishment of true peace in the world justice must find its fulfillment in charity". That law is "the first road leading to peace and people need to be taught to respect that law… Yet one does not arrive at the end of this road unless justice is complemented by love..." That "historical experience shows how justice is frequently unable to free itself from rancor, hatred and even cruelty… unless it is open to that deeper power which is love".

On deeper thought however, there is really no irreconcilable conflict between the Pope’s message of mutually integrating justice with love, under the present Philippine setting. When the Pope speaks of love, he means forgiveness. As the Pope himself said, "Forgiveness is needed for solving the problems of individuals and peoples. There is no peace without forgiveness".

And forgiveness is mainly bestowed by the victim directly affected by the wrong done. The Pope himself showed us how when he forgave Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish national who attempted to assassinate him. In his case, justice was still meted out and fully served as the penalty of imprisonment was still imposed on the offender despite having been forgiven. Justice has thus rid itself of ill will, bitterness and hatred because of the deeper power of love.

In the case of the politicians in our midst who tried to use the "law of force", the Filipino people can forgive them out of the deeper power of love but still pursue the case against those with enough evidence of involvement in the dangerous and damaging power grab. But the ends of justice will better be served by rejecting them at the polls. This is the biggest challenge hurled at us in the coming elections.

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