EDITORIAL- The Seventh Commandment

We’re sinners all, and moral rebuilding is the message of several bishops to their flock as Christendom welcomes Christ this Palm Sunday. Moral rebuilding — and restitution from those who steal. In a pastoral statement read this weekend, several bishops led by Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales focused on the Seventh Commandment: Thou shall not steal. Among the thieves, the bishops said, are smugglers, tax evaders, and yes, the corrupt. In whatever form it takes, the bishops said, corruption is immoral and unjust; it is “the cancer of the nation.”

“Graft and corruption are against the Seventh Commandment and have the added element of betraying one’s country,” the pastoral statement declared. Strong words. Now if only these would be heeded by everyone concerned, from ordinary citizens who resort to fixers, to traffic cops who extort lunch money from motorists, to corrupt officials at the highest levels of government. The bishops condemned both those who offered bribes and those who accepted it. They also called for restitution if violators of the Seventh Commandment wanted absolution. “An authentic conversion demands willingness to restore what has been stolen and the resolve not to steal again,” the statement declared.

As in previous pastoral statements, the latest one refrained from calling for the resignation of any official accused of corruption. It also reiterated a weariness of people power, saying that the country must go “beyond EDSA.” The statement condemned corruption in the past two generations, pointing out that the problem had persisted through several administrations, with the worst case so far the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant that was built during the Marcos regime.

The bishops need not worry about violence and hatred in the search for truth and justice. Protest in this country even during the Marcos regime has generally been non-violent even amid hatred and contempt. But restitution should include punishment in its legal, secular sense. Hardly anyone has been punished for all those previous cases of graft and corruption. If all that the nation gets from the current controversies is spiritual repentance and a resolve never to sin again — or at least never to get caught sinning again — corruption will be around for two generations more.