Missing Element in CBCP Call for Political Involvement

The call of Philippine Catholic bishops for the active involvement of the laity in "principled partisan politics" (24 January 2010 CBCP Pastoral Statement) targets individual candidates and voters but neglects necessary institutions like political parties. More than our flawed elective officials, the bigger national challenge is our weak governance institutions. Enduring and pervasive unethical practices in politics are rooted in flawed systems and institutions, which can outlast individuals & cannot be changed without sufficient competence, imagination, strategic moves & sustained efforts.

The CBCP asks the candidates to educate the people on the situation of our country and “to present their platforms and convictions rather than attack others.” The bishops appeal to voters to exercise wisely their right to vote, and to “follow the dictates of conscience after a prayerful and collective period of discernment” rather than be swayed by “survey results or political advertisements.”
The CBCP encouragement for lay people to participate actively in principled partisan politics should target the strengthening of institutions like the political parties, which are weak in the following: clarifying and promoting their ideologies and platforms, mobilizing resources for political education and electoral campaigns, and disciplining their party members (see “Priorities for Parties,” 15 August 2009 blog). Political parties that are financially stable, ideologically strong, platform-based, and dialogical in practice will be more effective in the political education of the citizenry than the institutional church will be.

In this light, here are some crucial pastoral actions for the institutional church:

(1) Encourage voters, and urge the political parties, to support a Party Development Law that would create a State Subsidy Fund for party strengthening and campaign financing, require an established participatory process for selecting party candidates, and punish party-switching.

(2) Encourage voters to review the platforms, programs & accomplishments of current parties, and to join a party & actively contribute to its capability in formulating & implementing its programs & disciplining its members.

(3) Specify & disseminate criteria to guide voters and neophyte candidates in assessing & choosing to join a political party, e.g. the coherence, the explanatory ability & the explicit & implicit anthropological assumptions of the party ideology & platform.

A radical theologian once suggested that faith without ideology is dead. If ideology is understood as a politico-economic theory on how a society may resolve or balance the competing interests of its members, then the practice of one’s religious faith without ideology tends either to neglect social reform or to pursue reform in incoherent or unsystematic ways. The evangelization of Philippine politics is ineffective when it ignores the institutional weakness of political parties, which are ideologically & financially weak.

Democracy and the Catholic Church in the Philippines

A major cause of the weak sense of nationhood among many Filipinos is the historical connection between the Roman Catholic Church, the country’s dominant religious institution, and the colonial powers. To both the political and religious rulers of Spain, it was important that the Philippine Islands, named after the absolute monarch Philip II (1556-1598), be colonized and evangelized at the same time. The Spanish missionaries and friars blessed and legitimized the colonial enterprise. In turn, the colonial Church gained from the Spanish crown martial protection, support for its missionary efforts, resources for constructing churches, control over colonial education, and large estates from which much wealth was derived.

Spanish Catholicism was accepted by the natives partly because it reaffirmed their belief in the necessity of intermediaries in bridging the distance to the supreme deity. The primary structure of intermediation was maintained even though functional substitutions occurred: the saints and angels replaced the ancestral spirits or anitos, while the Catholic priest replaced the native shaman or babaylan. Thus, from the colonial period down to our times, most priests, ordinary devotees, and their popular devotions highlight the powers of the mother of Jesus and the saints as patrons, intercessors, or intermediaries more than their virtues of courage, wisdom, justice, and integrity.

Bishops tend to give great importance to intermediary power and undemocratic hierarchical authority partly because of their inherent duty to be guardians of the Roman Catholic tradition. Conservative pastors predominate in an institution that asserts the apostolic authority of the bishops and the primacy of the Pope. Yet there have been turning points and conjunctions in the history of the Church when, even for brief periods, the Church became both conservative and radical. Locally, one such turning point was the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines (PCP II) in 1991.

With the participation of selected priests, religious, and lay leaders, the bishops at PCP II asserted that, for genuine and lasting social transformation, “people empowerment” is necessary—implying “greater involvement in decision-making, greater equality in both political and economic matters, more democracy, and more participation” (PCP II Conciliar Document nos. 325-326). Nearly two decades after PCP II, however, it remains unclear to what extent the hierarchical Church is a genuine democratizing force in society.

Today, the hierarchy remains undemocratic in that its members—the clergy—are selected in a process with little participation from the laity, who form the great majority in the Church. Also, the clergy tend to be secretive about the assets and liabilities of dioceses, religious institutes, their schools, and their hospitals. Likewise, some Church organizations do not practice what is preached about the dignity of human work and the rights of workers to just remuneration and to “participative management” in which workers are involved in decision-making.

While the Church decrees that “bishops, priests, and religious must refrain from partisan politics” (PCP Decrees Art. 28 #2), and teaches that the laity, and not the clergy, ought to be at the forefront of the task to renew the political community in accordance with gospel values, some high-profile clerics and religious exempt themselves from these precepts. The late Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin (1928-2005) had been criticized for sometimes acting more like a political power broker than a prudent moral teacher. To journalist and public relations practitioner Ramon Isberto, the Cardinal “always appeared to relish his role as mediator, go-between, and king maker or unmaker.”

In December 2006, Novaliches Bishop Antonio Tobias publicly called on soldiers “to defend the Constitution” by joining the “prayer rally” against Charter Change to be held at the Quirino Grandstand in Manila, and organized mainly by the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines. By issuing mostly moralistic or morally judgmental statements against the proponents of Charter Change, several bishops have not helped clarify the complex and muddled issue of the strengths and weaknesses of the 1987 Constitution.

Both Church and State have contributed to the weakness of democracy and patriotism in the country. As sociologist Arnold Alamon puts it: “The State and religion, the two institutions whose primary function is to forge social solidarity, have repeatedly failed in this task owing to their colonial origins. Instead, we continue to draw our moral identities from our clan memberships which served as our pre-colonial moral and political communities.”