Bishops and Gloria Arroyo's Goverment

11/01/2006

The general perception of the attitude of the
Catholic Church toward
the woman that it helped install in the
presidency in 2001 is one of
selective indifference toward its demonstrated
shortcomings. This
perception has been strengthened by statements
made by some members
of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the
Philippines (CBCP)
regarding a report said to have been prepared,
and presented to the
CBCP, by a committee created to investigate the
allegation that
Gloria Arroyo cheated Fernando Poe Jr. of victory
in the 2004
election.

According to the statements made by some CBCP
members, the committee
concluded, on the basis of its inquiries with
church-related entities
and their civil society groups, that the
standard-bearer of the
Kilusan ng Nagkakaisang Pilipino (KNP) was
cheated of around 600,000
votes by Mrs. Arroyo. The entities to which CBCP
directed its
inquiries were the Catholic Church-organized
Parish Pastoral Council
for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) and the National
Movement for Free
Elections (Namfrel).

Teodoro Bacani, the former Bishop of Novaliches,
is one of th CBCP
members who have stated that a report prepared by
the committee
created by the CBCP to investigate the 2004
electoral fraud
allegations — marked "For Your Eyes Only" — was
presented to the CBCP
members during a plenary session held early this
year in Manila.
Bishop Bacani has written that "(t)he figure of
the CBCP
investigating panel that the fraud was massive:
600,000 votes." The
bishop added that a high official of the PPCRV,
when asked in the
course of a private conversation whom he thought
really won the 2004
election, had answered "FPJ."

Another prominent CBCP member, the Archbishop of
Lingayen, Oscar
Cruz, has publicly confirmed that the report of a
CBCP committee
created to investigate the 2004 electoral fraud
allegations was
circulated during a CBCP plenary meeting. "A
report was handed to the
bishops during our plenary meeting," the
courageous prelate has
stated.

Bishop Bacani noted that in his testimony before
the Senate, the then-
Namfrel chairman for Lanao del Sur — one of the
handful provinces
which Gloria Arroyo claims to have won —
"categorically stated that
FPJ and Loren (Legarda) were cheated in 2004."

Furthermore, two officials of the Commission on
Elections (Comelec),
Arsenio Rasalan and John Clinton Colcol said to
have detailed, in
affidavits, how Gloria Arroyo's operatives
altered entries in the
Certificates of Canvass to ensure her victory in
the 2004 election.

Any sensible observer would have thought that a
report such as that
prepared by the electoral-fraud investigating
committee would create
a stir during the plenary meeting and move the
Catholic Church's top
clerics to action. But it didn't. Why not?

A third CBCP member who confirmed the
distribution of the committee
report during the CBCP plenary meeting stated
that the report failed
to satisfy the bishops' questions on the charge
of massive electoral
fraud leveled against Gloria Arroyo. "It didn't
create a ripple among
the bishops," he said. "(They said) it wasn't
worth it because the
report came from second-hand information taken
from other reports
made available by different groups."

At the beginning of this piece, I spoke of the
general perception
that the CBCP practices selective indifference
toward the Arroyo
government's demonstrated shortcomings. The
Catholic Church
leadership group's reaction to, and inaction on,
its electoral fraud
investigating committee's findings is a perfect
example of this.

This country's Catholic prelates could not be —
refused to be — moved
to action against Gloria Arroyo's gigantic fraud
and grand deception
in the 2004 election notwithstanding Mrs.
Arroyo's highly improper
and exceedingly incriminating canvass-stage
conversations with
Comelec official Virgilio Garcillano, the
unwavering testimonies of
civil society people involved in the monitoring
of the election and
the mounds of testimony received and compiled in
the course of the
numerous inquiries that have been conducted, in
Congress and
elsewhere, into the 2004 electoral-fraud
allegations. In so doing —
or not doing — this country's Catholic bishops
completely disregarded
the series of opinion surveys that found the
majority of Filipinos,
often up to 80 percent, (1) believe that Gloria
Arroyo cheated her
way through the 2004 election, (2) think that the
issue of Gloria's
legitimacy must be settled conclusively and (3)
want her to get out
of Malacañang.

There are many discernible indications that the
Roman Catholic Church
in this country has steadily been losing ground
among its flock. Its
selective indifference toward the wayward ways of
Gloria Arroyo's
administration, as demonstrated by its attitude
to the reports of its
electoral-fraud investigating committee, is
guaranteed to not bring
about a reversal of that trend

CBCP - Bishops and Philippine Goverment

CBCP: Anti-Cha-cha stance not to push church tax
exemption

11/03/2006

The Catholic Bishops Conference of the
Philippines (CBCP) yesterday
said it had no sectoral agenda in its expressed
opposition to the
proposal to amend the 1987 Constitution and is
not trying to coerce
the government into lifting the imposed tax on
the church.

Msgr. Pedro Quitorio, spokesman and media
director of the CBCP, said
the CBCP's aired objection to the proposed
revision of the 19-year-
old Charter was basically due to the reason
stated by the government
in pushing Charter change (Cha-cha).

"Changing the Constitution would only worsen the
situation of the
Philippines because of the (government's) hidden
agenda and this is
perpetuated by deception, lying and corruption,"
he said.

Quitorio added the issue on the tax on the church
is an almost
insubstantial part of their objection to Cha-cha.

He said the Catholic church is abiding by the law
and is paying its
taxes along with schools and other businesses
owned and operated by
the church.

Quitorio stressed the proposed amendments to the
Constitution through
the government-backed people's initiative had
just been revived
following the controversy hounding the legitimacy
of the Arroyo
government.

In an earlier statement, the CBCP lauded the
Supreme Court (SC) for
scrapping the petition for the recognition of a
people's initiative
to effect Cha-cha that was filed by the Sigaw ng
Bayan movement and
the Union of Local Authorities (Ulap).

Prior to the SC's junking of the petition, the
Commission on
Elections (Comelec) turned it down on the grounds
that there was no
enabling law to allow for it.

CBCP president, Jaro, Leyte Arhcbishop Angel
Lagdameo said the
Catholic Church is not against Cha-cha per se
since they agree that
some provisions of the Constitution needs to be
amended, but what
they are opposing is the timing of the proposed
amendments.