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EDITORIAL
Stasis
Inquirer
Last updated 09:49pm (Mla time) 11/27/2007
The president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), Archbishop Angel Lagdameo of Jaro, has called for a “moral revolution” in the face of social ills besetting the nation. “If only to stop our country from continuing to become a ‘social volcano,’ we support the idea of a moral revolution,” he said. The statement was made amid what Lagdameo called the unremitting piling up of “social concerns and nagging issues that are crying for solution and closure.”
Lagdameo said a moral revolution is needed to ease the sociopolitical turmoil and pave the way for genuine national reconciliation. “[It’s] nothing new,” he said, “but the resolve may be.”
Perhaps that’s the problem. The call for moral revolution has been made so often by Lagdameo and his brothers in the CBCP that it has become a tired refrain, spectacular in its pulpit-fire-and-brimstone, but signifying nothing. The bishops often make calls for moral change when they have nothing new to say or they have been boxed into stasis by their own moral confusion and uncertainty. Moral revolution has become a euphemism for lack of moral will, which presupposes a lack of moral vision.
Lagdameo perhaps betrayed this lack of moral vision when, along with his call for moral conversion, he also urged government officials “to do a Zacchaeus” and give their ill-gotten possessions to the poor. While the call is Gospel-inspired, it is not morally wise; it sounds like a sly condonation of plunder. It seems to tell plunderers that it’s all right to steal from the public coffers and amass ill-gotten wealth so long as they give part of it later to the poor. Any rogue or thief might romanticize his plunder by doing a Robin Hood -- or a Zacchaeus.
But to be fair to the CBCP president, he has also criticized the presidential pardon extended to Joseph Estrada, a convicted plunderer. “But where is restorative justice?” he asked. “Where is the justice capable of restoring harmony in social relations disrupted by the criminal act committed?”
But then his brother-bishops sang a different tune. Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Vidal welcomed the pardon. So did Nueva Vizcaya Bishop Ramon Villena and former Novaliches Bishop Teodoro Bacani. While all three cited the Church’s teaching on mercy with justice, they glossed over the fact that Estrada did not even acknowledge his sin, much less seek forgiveness.
The striking clash of views betrays either the political expedience or moral bankruptcy of the bishops. Either way, it encapsulates what Pope Benedict XVI in another context has called the “dictatorship of relativism” that characterizes the globalizing world. More importantly, it shows the inability of bishops to provide moral guidance to a nation that is in a terrible moral muddle.
Part of the reason the bishops add to the moral confusion of the nation is that just about every one of them seems to have jettisoned the cardinal virtue of prudence and acquired a taste for loquaciousness, offering his opinion on just about every issue under the sun. Gone are the days when bishops would convoke a council and labor over a document or a position behind which they would stand solidly, their erudition and unity a fortress of moral conviction and power. Since the death of Jaime Cardinal Sin, the bishops have gone about their merry ways of individualism and division, leaking developments to the press in a shadow game of brinkmanship and one-upmanship, or casually shooting off their mouths before the media. Perhaps they are only being human; in their divisions, they actually constitute the Philippine Church, or what’s left of it, which in turn embodies the ugly divisions of the whole nation.
But the bishops cannot afford to be human in this manner. First, because as successors to the apostles, they have the prophetic mission to read the signs of the times and provide spiritual direction to the people. Second, as the teaching authorities of the Church, they are expected to draw from the Gospel and the social and moral teachings of the Church to provide moral direction to the people. And third, because the Philippine Church, through the bishops, remains the linchpin of the nation, holding it together. If the nation is in a moral drift, it is in a large way because of the Church. If the social volcano explodes, it is because the Church has come unhinged.
KAMPALA (AFP) - - Commonwealth heads of state should send a strong message of support to next month's international summit on climate change in Bali, the 53-nation group's chairman said Friday.
"There is little doubt that in order to keep the adaptation challenge in manageable bounds we must work decisively towards the aim of reducing greeenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 percent below 1990 levels, and this to be reached by 2050," said Lawrence Gonzi, outgoing chairman and Maltese prime minister.
"The challenge of climate change not only requires a united front but an unprecedented level of cooperation and firm action," said Gonzi at the summit's opening ceremony in the Ugandan capital.
He added: "We must send a strong message of support to the forthcoming climate change conference in Bali."
Combating climate change is high on the Commonwealth agenda at the biennial summit, having not even been a footnote to the the final statement at the last meeting on Malta in 2005.
Officials said in the run-up to the summit that all members states are now agreed there is an "urgent" need to tackle the issue.
Present are those in the front line of climate change's effects like Kiribati, a Pacific island group in acute danger of being washed away by rising sea levels, as well as Australia, one of the world's biggest polluters.
The presence of Britain's Prince Charles, attending his first overseas Commonwealth heads of government summit, also ensured the problem was given prominence, as leaders met in behind-closed-doors talks to determine the body's future policy.
"Climate change has become the greatest challenge facing mankind," said Charles, who has previously spoken out about environmental issues, on a visit to a British Council-funded grassroots convention of activists.
"We all hold this planet in trust for our children and grandchildren."
On Thursday, Guyana's President Bharrat Jagdeo called for a carbon credit scheme to be introduced as an incentive for countries to reduce levels of deforestation, which has been blamed for a rise in greenhouse gas emissions.
"Cut down a forest, and you get money. But if you don't cut it down then there is no money for you," he said as the Commonwealth Business Forum wrapped up talks.
Carbon trading allow countries that reduce carbon dioxide emissions below a target level to sell the remainder to a private company or country that has not met the goal.
The loose federation of mostly former British colonies includes some of the world's major polluters such as Australia, who are said to be holding out on a more strongly-worded final Commonwealth communique to take to Bali.
But British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's spokesman Michael Ellam told reporters differing views were to be expected. He refused to say whether Britain was pushing for the Commonwealth to agree on specific binding targets.
"We're looking to achieve consensus here on the business of commitment to a positive agenda in Bali," he added.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change conference in Bali aims to see countries agree to launch a roadmap for negotiating cuts in climate-changing carbon emissions from 2012.
That is the date when current pledges under the Kyoto Protocol expire.
Meetings leading up to the Bali talks begin in the Indonesian resort on December 3 and the summit concludes on December 14.
BARANGAY ken SK ELEKSYON:
Ladawan ti Nakillo a Politika
Kas kapadasan ken kapaliiwan iti eleksyon idi October 29, 2007, nagbalin ti Barangay ken SK Eleksyon a ladawan ti nakillo a sistema politika kas ibuksilan dagiti sumaganad a pasamak;
1. Pannakalabsing ti common poster area a kas pagannurotan nga ituding ti COMELEC. Naikabil dagiti campaign posters iti uray sadino a lugar ken iti agduduma a sizes.
2. Pannakasalungasing ti requirement a drug test a kas kiddawen ti linteg gaputa adda dagiti kandidato a bimmulod lattan wenno nagsinnublat iti urine specimen tapno laeng mapaneknekan a negative iti panagaramat ti droga.
3. Pannakaaramat ti kuarta a pagpasuksok tapno magatang dagiti botos. Nagtaud dagiti kuarta kadagiti nalimed a nakibiang iti eleksyon wenno inur-or manipud kadagiti kabagian iti ballasiw-taaw.
4. Pannakibiang a nalimed dagiti adda iti saad ti bileg ken turay tapno maipatugaw dagiti pasurotda a kayatda mangabak ket mataginayon ken agtalinaed iti puesto.
5. Pannakagatang ti botos dagiti SK babaen iti mismo a pannakaaramat ti kuarta wenno panangibaklay iti gasto ti drug testing ken filing fee tapno maipasigurado a kukua ti botos.
6. Panangibotos ti maysa laeng a kandidato gaputa daytoy ket mabalin a naggatang, kabagian wenno gayyem. Daytoy ket managimbubukod a wagas-panagbotos.
7. Pannakaipasdek ti political dynasty gaputa mangrugin a maipasublat, Maipatawid ken bukodan ti agasawa, agkabsat, agama wenno agina ti saad ti bileg ken turay iti Barangay.
8. Pannakaipagna ti un-opposed candidacy gaputa kapatang wenno bayadan dagiti adda ti saad iti bileg ken turay dagiti agpanggep a sumango tapno agsanud ket agparang nga un-opposed dagiti kayatda nga ipatugaw a kandidato.
No ti ladawan ti Barangay ken SK Eleksyon ket nakillo, daytoy ket isagmaknatayo iti agtultuloy a KORAPSYON ken Social Injustice a mangdadael iti biag. Daytoy ket pammaneknek a ti wagas-politikatayo ket nagbalinen a kultura a mapasamak manipud ngato agingga iti baba. Ti karit ti Ebanghelio ni Jesus ket tubngaren ken umikkat iti daytoy a sistema ti nakillo a politika ket agtignay a mangpasayaat-biag iti Purok-Gimong wenno BEC.
