Not only does the tax-exempt status of the Church violate the principle of the separation of Church and State; it also makes a mockery of the principle of equality and promotes the disgraceful inequity that characterizes this poor country. Exclusive Catholic schools are extremely profitable business ventures. They provide expensive education for children of the elite - using their wealth to attract the best teachers and to buy the best in educational technology while enjoying tax-free privileges.

Meanwhile, the massive numbers of poor children who also need education are abandoned in ramshackle public schoolrooms with inadequate primitive teaching tools. Their poorly paid teachers fall further behind in their heroic efforts partly because they are not given chances for continuing education to upgrade their skills.

And yet, it is the opposition of the Catholic Church to the provision of reproductive health and family planning services that accounts for the persistent growth in the numbers of poor children who eventually become poorly educated adults. Because of benighted dogma that regards all sex as sinful and prevents government from making reproductive information and services available to them, women of the poorest segments of society continue to bear an average of 6 children during their reproductive lifetimes. Meanwhile their rich counterparts, with the access to modern technology that money can buy, have only two children during their child-bearing years.

Unfortunately, the seeming enlightenment of the new Speaker of the House is not expected to be lasting. Neither is it likely to have any serious influence on policy in this present government. After all, the Speaker just like his beloved leader and the rest of this unscrupulous administration is a well-known practitioner of transactional or unprincipled politics. He merely used the threat of taxation as a political weapon to bully the religious leaders growing increasingly restive with the immoral behavior of the administration as a whole.

On one hand, unprincipled politics is the Macapagal-Arroyo government's most effective trait, enabling it to keep many sectors happy. On the other hand it is also its most serious weakness, forcing it to back away from policies beneficial to the people. Very recent events in the health sector demonstrate this observation.

When the Hospital Detention Law was enacted, patient's rights groups were jubilant that poor people unable to afford exorbitant hospital charges could no longer be held hostage by greedy hospitals. However, the hospitals and their equally rapacious physician allies countered with the threat of a "hospital holiday" - thereby, withholding services from patients in need. Under this pressure, the government backed off and developed "Implementing Rules and Regulations" that effectively emasculated the provisions of the new law.

The "generics only prescriptions" provision of the lower house version of the "Cheaper Medicines Bill" was actually introduced at the suggestion of DOH's own technical staff in the congressional task force that crafted the bill. However, when the bill was finally approved by Congress, medical practitioners, supported by the pharmaceutical lobby, once again threatened a "hospital holiday." The pressure apparently reached Malacañang which in turn instructed the DOH to withdraw its support for the "generics only" provision. The result is the present deadlock at the bicameral committee where, ironically, the Senate contingent favors the Palace position against the provision while the House side continues to defend its position - despite DOH abandonment.

On the issue of kidney transplants from living unrelated donors (commercially obtained kidneys), the DOH has dragged its feet in the face of a strong "medical tourism" lobby that would ignore the fact that current practices are gross violations of even the most rudimentary of ethical principles. Even as the government's own National Kidney and Transplant Institute celebrated its 25th anniversary last week, DOH maintains its silence on the issue.

It is ironic that a government claiming to be "matatag" is so vulnerable to pressure from interest groups especially in the sectors that matter most to the poor - health, social services, and education. The present near-chaos in Philippine politics is clear evidence that the administration installed a motley group of power-brokers bereft of political principles and commitment lacks a firm foundation to anchor its legitimacy. It might be possible that this weak-kneed bunch can hang on to the reins until the next elections - but just barely and at the expense of the poor individuals, families and communities that desperately need services.