Believe it or not: JDV now calls for a moral revolution!

The Filipino nation is being destroyed by a core problem faster than the destruction being wrought on our environment, our democracy and our culture. Our destruction is so extensive that resolving the core problem would

also be resolving many of our other problems.  

Very few Filipinos actually realize that all these problems are but outgrowths of a deeper underlying malaise — our counter-productive Filipino values. In the last 40 years, morality here has sunk lower than the economy.

We are like the diabetic treating each symptom in isolation — hypertension, failing kidneys, neuropathy and developing glaucoma. Failing to get the proper diagnosis, he is unable to control his blood sugar level, the real culprit causing the symptoms.     

Filipinos like to take pride in our being the bastion of Roman Catholicism in Asia. But this is contradicted by Filipino apathy for the high crimes that our leaders commit and the utter lack of social justice and social conscience in the country.

Some of the biggest predators of the country are products of Catholic schools like the Ateneo De Manila University. Through several plundering regimes, some Ateneo Blue Eagles have turned into Blue Vultures, human predators helping themselves to the nation’s coffers. 

Predation is not the monopoly of rich Filipinos. The Blue Vultures just happen to stand out because of their privileged education, one which ironically was supposed to instill the Jesuit ideal of becoming a “man for others.”

The impoverished predator will conveniently justify his wrongdoing as the instinctive drive to survive. But that of course is pure bovine ordure. The Class E predator can be just as vicious as the Class A predator.

But where is the Catholic Church in all this?

A values crisis is a moral crisis — the turf of the religious leaders. They know that this moral crisis is promoted by a leadership that demonstrates the worst possible example for this and future generations.

The one bad lesson of our history of presidential plunder is that crime pays handsomely and one who is convicted can always look forward to a presidential pardon. We have already established a precedent whereby the successor to the convicted president-turned-plunderer is also held under scrutiny for the same crimes, if not worse, and is even raring to pardon her convicted predecessor.   

This country is ruled as though it were a monarchy even as it tries to masquerade itself as a democracy. This era of Harlot Politics has resulted in the murders of unarmed political activists and journalists. It was reported that 90% of those journalists killed were exposing crimes of public officials.

We’ve heard how the ruler-who-would-be-queen made a mockery of the system by allegedly engineering an impeachment case that is calibrated to fail. Then bribes were reported to have been given to congressmen and governors to generate support for the anticipated political turbulence generated by the ZTE scandal.

Forty years ago, corruption was largely regarded as evil, ugly and disgraceful. But today, bribes are openly given out. Bribe givers do not show any sign of remorse or shame when they are exposed. Those who receive the bribes are of course happy and grateful enough to want to repay the favor in any which way. Meantime, Philippine society thrives as though these shenanigans were a fact of everyday life. 

Surely, the Philippine Cardinals and Bishops realize that at the core of this systemic predation and exploitation is an ignorant, clueless Filipino. The predator’s prey does not know his rights and is not empowered to assert his will as the voter.

What have our religious leaders done to enlighten and inspire both predator and prey, to unite and think as one nation — under God — with a shared destiny? Would Jesus Christ have remained silent or passive in the midst of all these predation and exploitation? These hypocrites who rule us today are no different from the Pharisees who Christ exposed for their pretensions.

At times, we even have a Cardinal saying that election cheating is no big deal since everybody cheats anyway. Is that what Christ would have preached?  Would Christ condone sex with someone other than one’s spouse just because of the philandering ways of others?

Sure, the CBCP issues Pastoral Letters and condemnations every now and then. But compared to the extent of the moral cancer, these are puny attempts at treatment — tactile, too little and too late.

Buddhist monks are known to be the most tolerant and apolitical religious leaders. Yet Myanmar’s Buddhist monks felt compelled to lead the demonstrations for democracy in their country while over here, many times, Philippine Cardinals and Bishops turn a blind eye to what is going on.

The best proof of the lack of a champion for a moral crusade in our country is the fact that Speaker Joe de Venecia (JDV) is now the one who is clamoring for a moral revolution.

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Chair Wrecker e-mail and website: [email protected] and www.chairwrecker.com