News Analysis

Is GMA-Church Clash Looming?

With President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s enforcement of the calibrated preemptive response policy, more and more Catholic bishops and even lay leaders are coming out with statements opposed to her government’s actions. Is the country’s most influential church then headed for a collision with the present administration?

BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat

With President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s enforcement of the calibrated preemptive response (CPR) policy, more and more Catholic bishops and even lay leaders are coming out with statements opposed to her government’s actions. Is the country’s most influential church then headed for a collision with the present administration?

In its Sept. 13 statement, released a week after the killing of the impeachment complaints against Arroyo, the influential Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) did not call for a people-power uprising, but it encouraged the Catholic faithful to continue the “search for truth.”

Arroyo has long been facing calls for her resignation or removal from power because of her government’s implementation of what cause-oriented groups describe as “anti-national and anti-people” policies. These calls recently intensified following renewed allegations that she cheated her way to victory in the 2004 election, where she was supposed to have received a fresh mandate three years after being catapulted to power through a popular uprising.

CPR

On Sept. 22, Arroyo announced the enforcement of the CPR policy, which entails a blanket restriction on all rallies without permits. She enforced the policy amid escalating protest actions calling for her resignation or removal from office and with the said policy intended to quell mass demonstrations.

The CPR goes a step further than Batas Pambansa Blg. 880, which, although prohibiting rallies without permits, also provides that applications for rally permits are considered approved if not acted upon by the concerned local government units within two days from filing. “This is like the President amending the law,” said Bayan Muna (People First) Rep. Satur Ocampo in a recent interview with Bulatlat.

The calibrated preemptive response policy has been used as basis for forcible dispersals of rallies even before the ralliers could get to the planned rally site. This, even as labor lawyer Remigio Saladero, Jr. has argued that “In the first place, the police have no business being where the rally is.” BP 880 provides that police should stay at least a hundred meters away from the rally site.

The latest rally to bear the brunt of the calibrated preemptive response policy is the Oct. 21 march by some 7,000 demonstrators belonging to the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP or Philippine Peasant Movement), Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan or New Patriotic Alliance), and the People’s Movement Against Poverty (PMAP) to the foot of the Don Chino Roces Bridge, a few steps away from the presidential palace. Police blocked all points leading to Malacañang Palace, thus provoking scuffles with the ralliers, who had to content themselves with holding their program at the corner of Nicanor Reyes and C.M. Recto Streets for the rest of the day.

That was a full week after the dispersal of a prayer procession along C.M. Recto led by Bishops Antonio Tobias, Deogracias Yñiguez, and Julio Labayen; former Vice President Teofisto Guingona Jr., former Executive Secretary Oscar Orbos, former Sen. Wigberto Tañada, Sen. Jamby Madrigal, and Ocampo.

The marchers, who included scores of nuns and priests, had staged a prayer action at the Plaza Miranda in Quiapo, Manila to demand a stop to “immorality” in government, and had intended to march to the San Beda Church, which is near Malacañang. They were carrying not placards but mostly rosaries and an image of the Virgin Mary, and they had refrained from chanting anti-Arroyo slogans. This did not prevent the police from hosing them down and hitting them with truncheons.

Before that dispersal, the targets of the CPR policy had been those who may be described as “the usual suspects,” those belonging to groups described as leftist. The Oct. 14 prayer march was so far the first people’s assembly led by personalities aside from “the usual suspects” to be forcibly dispersed.

Sharp condemnation

The dispersal of this particular rally drew sharp condemnation from influential leaders of the Catholic Church, the biggest religious denomination in the Philippines. As of 2004, the Catholic Church had 66.4 million members out of 81 million population.

One of the first to issue a statement of condemnation was Jaro Archbishop Antonio Lagdameo, incoming president of the CBCP. He said the “violent dispersal” of the prayer march was “uncalled for and objectionable.”

“The prayer assembly and rosary procession that were held there were part of a crusade by civil society for truth, honesty, credibility and integrity in government – a crusade for good governance, which is sadly lacking and very much needed for economic progress,” Lagdameo added.

Meanwhile, Archbishop Oscar Cruz of Lingayen-Dagupan said in a short essay written two days after the dispersal:

“The (administration) just committed a double violence: violence against people having a peaceful assembly and violence against the constitution regarding respect for human rights. It was not enough to stop or disperse the people’s assembly. They were subjected to the indignity and ridicule being the helpless targets of water cannons – inspite of all prayers and pleadings. The event and the sight were very familiar during the martial law regime.”

Curz did not end there and has even coined a new equivalent for CPR, the abbreviated name of calibrated preemptive response: concrete progressive repressions. Under concrete, progressive repressions, said Cruz, “People must first secure government’s permit before they could gather and speak. And when they do, the country becomes like a (police state).”

And now, it is not only bishops like Lagdameo and Cruz who have raised their voices against the calibrated preemptive response policy. Evangelist Mike Velarde, leader of the Catholic charismatic group El Shaddai, went on record Oct. 17 to express anger at the dispersal of the Oct. 14 prayer march. “The suppression of prayer rallies led by responsible religious leaders is a clear sign of disrespect for faith and beliefs,” Velarde said, “which must not be tolerated by the faithful and the people regardless of religious affiliation.” The charismatic lay leader also said that he plans to talk to the President about withdrawing the calibrated preemptive response policy.

This statement by Velarde is significant, first because he is a known ally of Arroyo, to whom he serves as spiritual adviser. His condemnation of the Oct. 14 dispersal is his first expression of displeasure with Arroyo.

Problems for Arroyo

What makes this move by Velarde more significant is that he is by no means a non-influential person. His El Shaddai group claims five million followers all over the country, and politicians have been known to court his support for their electoral bids. The late Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin was even once reported to have lamented that Velarde was more influential on the Catholic faithful than the bishops and priests.

As if that were not enough, Cruz has told media that more and more bishops now “see more signs” about what is happening in the country. “I do not think I have still to hear a bishop who is rejoicing because of what happened,” said Cruz, who is also a member of the CBCP. “Not because they are bishops but because it is really offensive to human dignity.”

Cruz has also disclosed that what happened last Oct. 14 will surely be a factor when the CBCP Permanent Council meets next month for a joint session. Already, he sees that more and more rallies will arise out of the Oct. 14 incident.

As if to prove him correct, the crowd that participated in the Oct. 21 rally in commemoration of World Peasant Day was estimated at about 7,000 – definitely bigger than the rallies that were violently dispersed before that, which numbered less than a thousand.

Arroyo enforced the calibrated preemptive response to quell protests against her continued stay in office. The strong-arm tactics this policy entails have not served her well, and by antagonizing both clerical and lay leaders of the country’s most numerous religious denomination, she has only created more problems for herself.

Arroyo could certainly use a lesson or two from her predecessors Ferdinand Marcos and Joseph Estrada, in whose ousters multitudes of Catholics played considerably important parts. Bulatlat

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