A church man lectures on governance

It was rather awkward for the archbishop of Manila, His Grace Gaudencio Rosales, to lecture on governance during a pastoral assembly held recently in that city. Addressing President Arroyo, the head of Manila Church said that it was imperative for the government to have a clearer vision of how to govern the country, adding that the government's lack of vision could be the root cause of the current political crisis. The good archbishop then proceeded to explain that a leader must not "manufacture" his vision but should instead consult the people about it.

It is heartening that a church leader has shown concern on how to govern the country. But was he not out of tune? How could he speak with authority on a subject that was clearly outside his training and expertise? Unless he had had advance training in political science or had taken a management course such as the ones at AIM or DAP only the very naïve could have given credence to what the archbishop said.

Moreover, the archbishop's claim that the current administration has not crafted nor articulated its vision is not completely accurate. The fact is there is the Medium Term Philippine Development Plan (2004-2010) which formed a substantial part of the President's SONA delivered early this year.

To refresh our memory, the following are the major agenda in the President's anti-poverty program: A balanced budget through intensive revenue collection and right spending; educational opportunity for all children of school age; implementing the full automation of the electoral process; building transport facilities and digital infrastructure; terminating hostilities through a peace process; healing the wounds of Edsa 1, 2, and 3; providing power and water to all barangays; providing livelihood opportunities and creation of 6 to 10 million jobs.

A mouthful indeed of vision and intention. And unless one closes his eyes he could hardly blame the President for running the country without a vision. Perhaps, she could be blamed for indiscretion or for questionable deals or for her controversial "calibrated preemptive response", but a visionless governance? A leader who had had a seasoning in an economic school in Harvard cannot be that careless.

Having assumed as a fact the absence of a developmental vision, the archbishop made another judgmental slip: He declared that the current political crisis could be rooted in the failure of the government to have a vision. Perhaps, it has not dawned on the good archbishop that such crisis is nothing but the working of an EDSA mentality coming from a cabal of discredited politicians who are bent on a power grab for their own selfish agenda. It is political adventurism pure and simple and greed, not the absence of vision, is the driving force.

At any rate, archbishop Rosales without doubt, was motivated by good intentions to help out in the country's ongoing political crisis. In fact, he was one of the churchmen who stood in defense of the administration in its water canon misadventure a couple of weeks ago. While other church leaders, including Cebu's Ricardo Cardinal Vidal, condemned the government's high handed treatment of the "prayer rallyists", the Manila archbishop justified it by saying that the latter had ventured into a no rally zone, therefore they deserved what they got.

Some people are turned off when churchmen step into the domain of politics and government, believing that such action breaches the church-state separation doctrine. But these religious leaders are citizens too, and they have every right to make their stand on civil issues affecting their parishioners. Moreover, their parish faithfuls are domiciled in a socio-economic and political environment whose forces impact on the quality of life as well as on the quality of faith of these people.

Before the Second Vatican Council religious leaders were "allergic" to affairs that were basically secular in nature, but after that event traditional Christianity with its "cloistered" mentality began to open itself to the inroads of social awareness. It is this new openness which inspired St. Josemaria Escriva to write: "It is not true that there is opposition between being a good Catholic and serving civil society faithfully there is no reason why the Church and the State should clash when they proceed with the exercise of their lawful authorities"

Yet even the Church's openness to secular engagements has its limit and it is this limit which the venerable archbishop of Manila seemed to have overlooked.