As the letter of Fr. Rex Reyes reads, this book that we launch today is “our small contribution in the furtherance of the quest for justice for all victims of human rights violations.” I ask you now – can there be anything more than our small contribution to a quest that is incumbent on all of us to undertake? Justice, as lofty and abstract as it may be, is for everyone and we all play a part in upholding it. It is not attained by some grandiose gesture, by government or otherwise. It is attained through the small efforts of everyone, crossing boundaries of secularism and sectarianism, rich and poor, educated and uneducated. The quest for justice, the quest to quell extralegal killings, the quest to find the missing, the quest to attain vindication for those who have died, continues… and our unfailing contributions must continue.
BY LEILA DE LIMA
Chairperson, Commission on Human Rights
Posted by Bulatlat
Reverend Bishops, the members of the National Council of Churches, allies and friends in the cause of human rights, good morning.
Much has been said about the dividing line that separates the Church from the State. In an era of religious tolerance and diversity in a largely Catholic country such as ourselves, the secular government stands against a backdrop of sectarianism. It is in secularity that our government seems to draw its authority, its impartiality and ascendancy over all divisions of sectarianism that compose the full strata of a deeply religious people, Christian, Muslim or otherwise, the Filipino Nation. Much has been said of separating Church and State in the manner of governance – a securely secular Constitution and government, cut from a fabric of religiosity and faith, run by self-professed religious for the benefit of a religious people.
In analyzing this separation, we find a crucial common thread between any form of faith and the form of government that we have in place. Both represent the highest ideals held dearly by people. The faith in a supreme being or divine providence direct the faithful to emulation of the characteristics that define our religions – to be prayerful, to do unto others as we would have them do unto us, to care for the needy, to respect one another, to be deliverers of peace and justice, and to be answerable to one higher being. Our allegiance to one Constitution and one country, ingrained in us through our National Anthem and the Panatang Makabayan, direct all Filipinos to love our flag, our Nation, to respect our parents, to live harmoniously with our countrymen and to be useful and industrious members of society.
The values have never been fundamentally different between the secular and sectarian. After all, nations and religious communities are composed of people. The values of people always rise to the surface in every aspect of our lives. While every child is shaped by the country or creed to which he or she is part of, in the greater scheme of things, every child who grows up, in community with others, eventually shapes the country or creed to which he or she is part of. The more we separate the Church and the State, the more that we find that the values are not only the same, but that they must remain the same.
Perhaps the reason that we, people from all walks of life, people who are typical of the communities that make up mankind, fight so hard for the cause of human rights and the ideals that are common to every man, woman and child is because these ideals permeate every structure we find ourselves in, be it secular or religious. In the face of the gravest of violations of our values, these deeply inculcated values rise to the surface to strengthen our resolve to do what is right and what is just.
The Ecumenical Report, as the authors have stated, is not just a depiction of the state of human rights, but a depiction of the incongruity between the values of the state and the church. It is not merely a clash of values, but a ghastly display of state-sponsored violence against the members of religious communities. And since the values that make up our state and our religions are the same, and the people who comprise them, the Filipino people, are the same, essentially violence committed by the state against the church is a violence committed against itself. Whoever these insidious forces maybe, they perpetrate a violence against themselves by committing vicious acts against their fellow man. They violate a social contract of the Filipino nation, a value system to which they themselves are part of. The commission of extralegal, enforced and arbitrary killings, and abductions inflicts a wound not only against the victims, but against all of us.
