he bishops have
called on Gloria Arroyo to lead the campaign against corruption that they said
has infected the body politic from head to foot. They added that as a first step
Gloria should scrap Executive Order 464 so officials in the executive department
could tell all they know about the bribery-plagued $329 million national
broadband deal.
We don’t mean to be uncharitable – just being smart alecky –
but the bishops seemingly have a misplaced sense of charity. Sure, Gloria the
sinner is not beyond redemption. But we are not holding our breath, given her
record of covering up the crimes committed under her administration.
We doubt that the bishops seriously believe that Gloria is
serious in her pronouncements that she is as committed to fighting corruption as
much as the legislators, the civil society groups, the businessmen, the lawyers
and the mostly lower-ranked clergy who have been consistently calling for
transparency and accountability in this administration which survey after survey
shows is considered by majority of the people as the most corrupt bar none.
But the way the bishops are toeing the Palace line, we can’t
help but wonder if they truly possess the discernment that they want their flock
to apply in seeking to defuse the political crisis brought about by the thievery
in government and the systematic efforts of the administration to hide it.
We understand that the bishops are sharply divided on how to
deal with Gloria. That the administration is corrupt is more or less not in
dispute. It is the call for Arroyo’s resignation that a number of bishops are
not prepared to join on the ground that whether Gloria stays or steps down is a
political – not a moral – question.
We don’t want to be caught in the middle of a disputation
among learned theologians (a bishop automatically carries the title doctor of
divinity). But there are times – and today is one such time – when abstractions
clash with concrete reality. The people can no longer stomach the cheating,
thieving and lying. They want Gloria out.
Their shepherds, unfortunately, decline to lead the way. By
their timidity, they, in effect, condone the abuses their flock seeks to put an
end to.
Are we perhaps being too harsh on the bishops? Guilty. For we expect the
bishops to provide moral leadership, not strained equivocations in these days of
trial.
