I am not surprised that Joaquin Bernas S.J. does not see fit to mention us by names. Instead he makes the indirect jibe that he will not mention the names of the purported letter writers because he did not bother to verify the signatures. Of course. He knows who wrote the letter and that the names refer to specific persons who can readily be contacted to verify their signatures. But he claims that does not interest him. What arrogance. That is not a very good example for changing values. By the way, the encyclical is Deus Caritas Est, not Deus est Caritas if you really want to be picky.
Ok, so let us go to the content of the letter. It did not ask the Holy Father to educate the members of the hierarchy about their duty not to get mixed up in political matters. That is his interpretation. You can be educated but not enlightened. What we did ask is that we be educated on Deus Caritas Est. Bernas says the letter implicitly admits ‘there is nothing in the Constitution to prevent bishops and priests from getting involved in politics.’ If that is the case, then there is even more reason that the Constitution should be amended so that the separation of church and state is made crystal clear and directed not only to the state but also to the church. The bloody history of church interference in state affairs especially in our hapless country will take volumes.
To show off his legalistic expertise he calls our letter to Pope Benedict VI as forum shopping. I beg to disagree. It is a letter to clarify just what the encyclical Deus Caritas Est means. More erudite but humbler religious scholars have said as much about its ambiguity. It did not help that in the public debate on Charter change, the CBCP put its name behind One Voice, clearly a partisan group.
It is unfortunate that the people’s initiative and referendum petition was turned down by the Supreme Court thanks to the leadership and vote of former Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban who, incidentally, is now a columnist in the Inquirer, the newspaper that fought hard to put down the initiative. It would be unfair to lump all the other justices with that one opinion. Filipinos will forever be grateful to now Chief Justice Reynato Puno who wrote a brilliant dissenting opinion. So did Justices Quisumbing, Corona, Nazario, Tinga, Velasco and Garcia.
Puno focused on the substance of the debate â۠that the issue before them is not the verification of signatures or the shaky distinction between revision and amendment. He rightfully instructs us it is about ‘expounding a constitution’. Generations hence Filipinos will understand just what was at stake.
What that decision stopped to the delight of some members of the CBCP and Bernas is freedom of speech to enable the people to propose constitutional amendments. If he deems it beneath him to be concerned with names, so is it with me on dates. He concludes it is "forum shopping" because the letter was dated Jan. 10, 2007, or "weeks after the SC decisions on Oct. 25, 2006 and Nov. 21, 2006." The intellectual dishonesty is implied when he refers to ‘months’ as ‘weeks’. It is to the Pope that a letter seeking clarification about an encyclical should be properly addressed no matter what the date.
He trivializes the dedication of Charter change advocates for reform by comparing them with the never say die spirit of Ginebra team. This he got right. It is true. For Charter change advocates it isn’t over, not now or later until it succeeds. Remember that the advocacy for parliamentary government has been around for decades since the founding of the republic. The torch has been passed on and will continue even if some Filipino churchmen use their positions of authority to make sure Charter change does not happen.
It is understandable that Joaquin Bernas S.J. should be against amending the 1987 Constitution. He was one of its principal authors, if not the guiding spirit of the flawed constitution. I am sure that the House of Representatives can very well defend themselves. Let them answer why it was "archived" which is a polite way of filing it in a circular cabinet," according to Bernas. As for the people’s initiative to propose amendments, it is obvious that the drafters made it an impossible task subject to an enabling law and requiring 3% for each legislative district. In other countries and in most states in the US, a preponderance of citizens signing their names in a petition was enough. The crux, after all is in whether it will be approved in a plebiscite by which time the 3% percentage can be imposed.
The Constitutional Consultative Commission proposed a shift to parliamentary federal government and the liberalization of our economic policies on foreign investments in our economy and natural resources. That is the substance of the report which was submitted to the President on December 16 and forwarded to Congress. The final report came after much debate and nationwide consultations.
Those who voted for the report put their names to the final document because they believed that Charter changes are needed to address the grave problems facing the country. For this we have been accused of being ‘immoral’ because of one transitory provision to postpone elections in 2007 to 2010. The spectacle of the multimillion election circus before us is the result of that rejection.
But what really is immoral? It is immoral and unacceptable if we do not do anything about the pervasive poverty, unemployment, low income, and homelessness of our people; the widening social inequality, injustice, criminality, rebellion, and now terrorism as a local and global threat; our weak rule of law, and lack of public accountability in government, the private sector, and the media; and the widespread graft and corruption in the government and the private sector.
I wonder why these churchmen do not criticize the endless political infighting and bickering in our present presidential unitary system. President GMA is doing a yeoman’s job keeping the country together and it is not made easier by those who have nothing to offer in its stead. What happens if we do not change the system? We can expect more violent and authoritarian alternatives from both the left and right as ‘solutions.’
My e-mail is cpedrosaster@gmail.com