President Quezon’s speech during the Cebu Provincial Capitol’s inauguration (Part 5)

(Note from CEBUpedia: The Governor at that time was Buenaventura Rodriguez, but its Governor Sotero Barte Cabahug’s administration that built the building. The speech of Quezon will give the reader an insight of the political atmosphere not only of Cebu but the entire country as he also spoke of religious instruction and social justice.)

“The Catholics in the Philippines constitute an immense majority of our population. I take it that the Catholics believe that if religious instruction would be made a part of the curriculum, the greatest beneficiary would be the Catholic Church. I am afraid that that may not be always so. It is a very dangerous thing to even permit the Government to have anything to do with the church. This does not mean, however, that the Government will not have anything to do with the church. It will be perfectly right for the Government to do something with the teaching of religion if this is made a part of the curriculum. But suppose we have a President who is a zealous Catholic—one who entertains some prejudices against other religions while he has strong inclinations in favor of his own religion—he would directly or indirectly exercise his influence in favor of the teaching of the Catholic religion. The majority of you who are Catholics will say, all right, that is fine, let me do it. But suppose the next President happens to be a non-Catholic; suppose, for instance, he is Vicente Sotto [Applause]—I mention his name because he comes from this province and I know that he is not fully in accord with the teachings of the Catholic church-the result would be only chaos and confusion. If the Catholic President feels that he can favor the Catholic church, Vicente Sotto will certainly believe that he can also favor any church other than that of the Catholics.

Now, if and when such a situation arises, we who are Catholics and who compose the majority of our population, what shall we say? Shall we say that that is not right? If we say that it is right for a President to favor the Catholic Church, end if we bear in mind that this Government must be fair and impartial to all religions, we should recognize that the President who helps other religions is also right. [Applause]

And I say this: if the teaching of the Catholic religion is made a part of the curriculum, the final power and responsibility for conducting classes will be, in the last resort, in the hands of the Government. If there are complaints from the priest of one church or of another, the decision will be rendered by the Executive Department of the Government, and this department may decide those questions in favor of his own religion regardless of the merits of the case. Now, what would be the consequence of that? The consequence would be that the Catholics, being in the majority, would want their religion protected in the schools and always make that question an issue whether a candidate is a Catholic or not. That means that a religious strife will always be involved in every election,

And now, I want to ask every Filipino, whether he is a Catholic, a Protestant, an Aglipayan or of whatever sect he may be, these questions: Do you want religion to be discussed in politics? Do you want to mix religion with Government? I am sure you will answer, “No.” Yes, you don’t want that to happen.” (To be continued)