The silence of the bishops / Calm before . . .

There really wasn’t much news that came out of the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) that held its biannual gathering last Sunday at the Pius XII Center along United Nations Ave. in Manila. As what was reported in the STAR last Saturday, the case of the Senate Impeachment trial of Supreme Court (SC) Chief Justice Renato Corona was to be discussed and indeed it was… but in what I would say… very hush tones?

I got a copy of the CBCP Monitor, the official organ of the CBCP which is a bi-monthly newspaper, and the headline for Jan. 16-29th was, “Bishops urge vigilance in Corona impeachment trial.” That call came from Parañaque Bishop Jesse Mercado who stressed the need for vigilance to ensure that the truth may prevail (sounds like the masthead of The Philippine STAR) and the common good be achieved in the impeachment trial. But in honesty that statement was totally harmless… it had no sting!

If you read in-between the lines… pray tell me Bishop Mercado who is spreading falsehood in the national news media... forcing CJ Corona into a trial by publicity? If you’re referring to the impeachment trial, certainly the trial by publicity isn’t coming from the camp of the Supreme Court. But we’re not saying that Bishop Mercado is taking sides in this issue. But then there are only two sides in this impeachment trial… the side of those who peddle falsehood and lies and those that fight those lies with the truth!

Since that bi-annual meeting of the Bishops did not come up with any breaking news… let me just say that I got a very well-sourced information that the Bishops were given scenarios by a military official of what could happen in case there is an acquittal or a conviction. No doubt the Bishops were all ears, after all, I heard that many of them don’t really know the deeper issues about the impeachment trial, it’s roots and its consequences.

By now, the Bishops have a general idea why the Aquino regime last year used Margarita Juico of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) to do a demolition job against our Bishops… even calling them names as “Mitsubishops”. Clearly, the objective of the Aquino regime was to discredit the Catholic Church and shame them in preparation for the fight against the RH bill… so now even the CBCP refuses to issue any statement against the Aquino regime… until perhaps the resumption of the still on-going threat to innocent lives dubbed the RB bill.

There is no doubt that these are times when we miss the late Jaime Cardinal Sin who by now would have already said a lot about what’s happening in this country where politicians quarrel amongst themselves while the Philippine economy grounds to a crawl, while the number of families that grows hungry has risen once more… where the nation has become so polarized, it is almost a repeat of the tumultuous times in February 1986. Perhaps the silence of the Bishops (and the military?) could be that calm before the storm.

Open your social networking sites and you will hear a loud grumbling by Filipinos who are no longer happy with what’s happening in Manila. Meanwhile, I got an emailed quote from Bishop Ramon Argüelles who said, “On the planned People Power led by Dinky Soliman to force CJ Corona to resign, she won’t succeed. Call it another thing. True People Power is not man-made. True People Power is never planned nor organized. It is spontaneous.” 

I guess this was the response from the text messages that we got that Dinky Soliman is on top of the rallyists or mob at the Supreme Court. If this is so, where did she get the funds to feed these rallyists… from gov’t funds? I fully agree with Bishop Argüelles that People Power is never planned or organized… it is spontaneous. If Dinky Soliman thinks she has become so powerful she can call for People Power, she better watch out because People Power could be a double-edged sword… if you know what I mean.

My position on any People Power uprising is very clear… it should never happen again! We had EDSA People Power that booted out the Marcos Dictatorship… but did that result in the country getting any better than we were during the Marcos era? Nope! 25 years later, we’re still stuck in neutral! We’ve had EDSA Dos in 2001… but corruption and injustice still remains. So if Dinky and her ilk think that another People Power would move this nation forward, she’s headed in the wrong direction!

What this nation direly needs is a big fix… an overhaul of a system that no longer works. How many columns have we written here that the Philippines is akin to a brand new bus when we were given Independence in July 4, 1946. Back then the bus ran smoothly and there were enough seats in the bus. 66 years later, the passengers are already seated in the roof of the bus… while it could hardly move, as the engine is broken. Yet the Filipino people only ask… “Whose gonna drive the bus?” Change the bus and we can be assured that even if we had an idiot for a President, the bus would move forward. But People Power never allowed us to move forward.

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