A prayer for the nation
As the Duterte administration is about to start its six-year watch, the Catholic church has enjoined its faithful to pray the "oratio imperata" calling them to value human life and distance themselves from the "culture of death", a term used by St. Pope John Paul II in one of his encyclicals.
This call to prayer is timely and urgent. From day one after the elections to the present, almost 50 people have been killed on mere suspicion of peddling or using illegal drugs. And this is happening even before the proponent of summary killing, who is no less than the incoming president himself, assumes office a week from now. What will be the scenario after he takes his oath of office?
Since that oath commits the president to defend the Constitution which guarantees every Filipino the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, will the bloodbath slow down? This is unlikely to happen because in his many speeches the president-elect has persistently vowed to use "salvaging" as a means of controlling the menace of drug and heinous crimes. So expect more killings after June 30 - and throughout his six-year reign?
That's why the Church is alarmed. And every right thinking Filipino should be.
The reason is that, first, we live in a democratic society, which means that our interpersonal relationships as well as our transactional activities are governed by laws. What happens if these laws are set aside? What happens if a person suspected of wrongdoing is immediately punished or killed without due process? This is of course martial law in its naked sense.
Martial law - how we cringe in fear just to hear it mentioned. Yet before our very eyes people are hounded and slaughtered on mere suspicion of drug addiction or of committing a crime. If this will go on, anarchy and mayhem are not far away, and good-bye democracy.
No, we have no sympathy for criminals such as drug lords, kidnappers, hold-uppers and what have you. By all means these should be wiped out from the face of this archipelago. But for heaven's sake let's stick to what is lawful and rightful. Let's not cut corners under pretext of a social crisis and forego our hold on our time honored conviction on the sanctity of human life. To yield to the impulse of violence as a means of social control is to hark back to the days of paganism and savagery where the law of behavior is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
The average Filipino, steeped as he is in Christian upbringing, never accepts violence as a means of solving social problems. That's why the current killing scene offends him deeply no matter how the authorities try to justify them. That's why he takes recourse to prayers.
More things are wrought by prayer than this world dream of, says the poet Alfred Tennyson. The skeptics may scoff on this. But the man of faith firmly believes it. The coming leadership seems to be insensitive to things divine and spiritual, and therefore would be stone-deaf to prayers.
But the more reason should Filipinos pray for the enlightenment of the new leadership. Light, spiritual light, is a must for the national leadership because without this it is doomed to fail and its failure would surely have a massive adverse repercussion on the life of every Filipino.
If the voice of the people is the voice of God, then the new president is God's chosen one to lead this country out of its critical state. That's why the "oratio imperata" should resound in all cities and countryside's with this appeal: "Loving God, look with favor on those who rule with authority over us. Through your loving hands, may prosperity and progress be achieved, may peace and harmony be assured, may freedom and justice be served and may this nation be healed and protected from harm through Christ your Son who is Lord forever and ever, amen."
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