Cardinal’s choice
July 11th, 2003
As presidential spokesman Ignacio Bunye said the other day, Jaime Cardinal Sin, the Archbishop of Manila, has a right to his opinions.
Like everyone else in this earthly paradise called the Philippines, the Cardinal had the right last week to urge President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to run in 2004. He also had the right to call on the Catholic faithful to mass at EDSA twice, in 1986 and 2001.
He also had the right in 2002 to describe “Live Show,” a film he had not seen, and by the consensus of film critics a legitimate work of film art, as pornographic. In furtherance of that belief, he similarly had the right to urge Catholics not to see it.
The Cardinal has the right to express his opinions on a universe of issues, including the right to free expression, which in the case of “Live Show” he successfully denied others by convincing President Arroyo to ban it.
Under the provisions of the law establishing the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board, the President of the Philippines can override any decision by the MTRCB and can stop the exhibition of any film. Mrs. Arroyo made use of that power on the Cardinal’s behest, although she insisted that she too earnestly believed, though she had not seen it either, that the film was pornographic.
Similarly, the Cardinal has many times opposed any state policy encouraging family planning through means other than “natural methods,” and condemned government encouragement of the use of condoms in combating the spread of AIDS. In both campaigns he has been successful, the Arroyo government having diverted funds to a campaign for “natural” family planning, away from the use of artificial means.
Similarly, government propaganda now reflects the Church view of AIDS as primarily avoidable through sexual abstinence, thus successfully converting the AIDS issue into a moral rather than a health problem as the Church prefers.
Cardinal Sin can thus not be accused of having been remiss in exercising his right to free expression, as it is guaranteed in Article III, Section 4 of the 1987 Constitution (“No law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech, of expression, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances.”).
Since his successful intervention in state matters before and after 1986, Cardinal Sin has made known his opinions on a vast range of issues before the Filipino people—from family planning to what films they should see—and everyone, the Church and the Presidential Spokesman included, can argue that in doing so he has been within his rights as a citizen of this, the Philippines’ supposedly strong, Republic.
If only things were so simple. When the Cardinal speaks, it’s not Jaime Sin, citizen, speaking, but the head of the Catholic Church in the Philippines, which means that behind every statement is that institution’s authority and power, which in this country have been unbroken for over 300 years. Indeed the Cardinal has never spoken except as Cardinal; he has never said “I am speaking as citizen now, and as Cardinal later,” which in the nature of things is a distinction both impossible and hypocritical to make.
Filipinos—at least those who belong to the Catholic majority—are in the first place either incapable or unwilling to make such distinctions. They see nothing wrong—and would be perplexed at the suggestion—in priests’ not only expressing their opinions, but also in seeking state intervention for their causes, including seeing to it that Church policy is state policy as well.
They see nothing wrong—and in fact see everything that’s right—in heads of state’s being photographed on their knees, publicly affirming their vassalage to priest and Church. The separation of Church and State in this country is part of the basic law, but like many Philippine laws, exists more as an expression of what should be rather than what really is.
On the other hand, cardinals themselves do not make distinctions between their citizenship and the duties and rights that go with it, and their calling as members of that elite circle from among whom God’s own representative on earth, the Pope, is chosen. States—except possibly the Vatican—are temporal mechanisms, and God knows cardinals owe their authority to a Higher Power. A cardinal thus always speaks his mind as a cardinal—as a Prince of the Church, never as ordinary citizen.
The recognition that when cardinals speak it is the Church speaking through them probably explains why a group that calls itself the Social Justice Society had immediately condemned Cardinal Sin’s urging through presidential spouse Mike Arroyo that President Arroyo run in 2004.
The SJS said the Cardinal’s urging was a violation of the Constitutional mandate on the separation of Church and State. That mandate does exist, and has been in all Philippine Constitutions. But it might as well as never have been, in a country where even government TV stations urge prayer every day at 3 p.m., Supreme Court justices avow with straight faces that some of their decisions were divinely inspired, public schoolchildren pray at the beginning of each class day, professors at UP (a state university) send their students to Opus Dei rallies, and Santo Nino shrines adorn every government office.
The Philippine Church knows the union of Church and State to be the solid basis of its influence and power, and no Church dignitary ever says or does anything only as an individual. It would be dishonest for it to say that Cardinal Sin has ever expressed only his personal opinion; and to its credit no Church spokesman has ever said so. The Cardinal’s statement that President Arroyo should run cannot but be the Church’s own, the Cardinal being both Church leader and spokesman in the Philippines.
That being established, expect Mrs. Arroyo to run in 2004, assuming there will be elections, the Church’s blessing being among the last precious testimonials she needs to credibly do so. She already has police and military support in her pocket, thanks to her “get tough” policies on the MILF and the National Democratic Front, and the latest communiqué from the business front is that the Employers’ Confederation of the Philippines will be glad to support her candidacy.
The support from the Church as well as other sectors has predictably come after the less than subtle expression of support from the United States last May, which by far has been the most crucial to getting everyone else in line. Late this year, as if to emphasize the obvious, the visit by US President George W. Bush should dispel any doubts as to who’s the US’ preferred candidate—and it’s not Angelo Reyes, who once thought he could be.
The support of the Church and the United States should tilt the popularity scales enough for Mrs. Arroyo to have, by the end of the year, high enough approval ratings for 2004 to be, if not a walk in the park, at least a reasonable risk. If that should happen—and it probably will—Mrs. Arroyo, despite Vice President Teofisto Guingona’s decision to run for President in the same year, will be the Lakas candidate.
Should Mrs. Arroyo win in 2004—it is almost certain now that she will run—that means that she will continue not only her chosen course of ever closer relations with the United States, but also of the Church’s continuing to be a formidable presence in state matters.
The Cardinal’s “opinion” was thus far from being a lighthearted, uncalculated comment, or an expression of his opinion alone, but a decision taken by the leading Church dignitary in this country to assure Church influence in government beyond 2004. Anyone who thinks otherwise was either born yesterday, or has been living the last 30 years in a cave somewhere.
(Today/abs-cbnNEW.com, July 8, 2003)