Bishops set parameters on resign call

MANILA, Philippines – The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) said yesterday that “the time for President Arroyo to resign is not now,” but set its own standards on when to support calls for her to step down.

Archbishop Leonardo Legaspi, one of the three bishops who drafted the CBCP statement unanimously approved by their fellow prelates in an emergency meeting last Tuesday, said they had “a moral understanding” to allow democratic and constitutional processes take their course in finding the truth on allegations of rampant corruption in the President’s administration.

“There was an agreement that when the truth is found (and allegations against Mrs. Arroyo are proven), we have to meet again – or at least our officers, if we don’t have way or time – to tell the public what to do. There was moral understanding,” the prelate from Nueva Caceres said in an interview.

Legaspi, who read the pastoral statement in a brief press conference at the conclusion of their meeting at the Pius XII Catholic Center in Manila, stressed that the bishops did not discuss a specific deadline for the truth to be found.

“We don’t want to appear as if we are threatening the government. We are not rallyists, anyway,” the prelate explained.

The permanent council of the CBCP, or officers elected for one-year term, will convene next week for their regular meeting.

Another senior prelate, Cagayan de Oro Archbishop Antonio Ledesma, confirmed that the CBCP could still issue a follow-up statement on allegations of corruption against the Arroyo administration.

“Everything is open in the sense that we have to judge the situation according to its own merits at the proper time,” said Ledesma, former vice president of CBCP.

“We will certainly be expecting concrete compliance (to recommendations in the CBCP pastoral letter) and in fact in earlier statements we were asking for a closure of many of these high-profile cases of alleged graft and corruption,” he stressed.

Ledesma said that most bishops agreed during their meeting that asking for the resignation of Mrs. Arroyo would be “a political call” and they opted to focus on the “moral aspect.”

“Most of us did not favor another EDSA (People Power). That was very clear,” Legaspi said in an interview with Church–run Radyo Veritas.

“In short, it was agreed even at the start of the meeting not to discuss the issue on resignation since it would be futile because we were not in favor of another EDSA. Secondly, we opted to give focus on the search for truth,” the prelate explained.

Although all 55 bishops who attended the emergency meeting of the CBCP agreed to condemn corruption in all levels of government and society, they arrived at a conclusion that President Arroyo should be part of the solution by taking the lead on efforts to end the social ill.

“We strongly condemn the continuing culture of corruption from top to bottom of our social and political ladder and urge the President and all branches of government to take the lead in combating corruption wherever it is found,” the CBCP said in a statement issued Tuesday night.

Although the CBCP did not support calls for resignation of the President, Legaspi said he believes the pastoral statement they issued is “a form of pressure in itself.”

The archbishop explained that the bishops in assembly did not ask for the resignation of Mrs. Arroyo because they did not find enough grounds for it, which he described as “a political exercise that should be left for the people to decide.”

“We envision the participation of the President in reforms that we want to be undertaken,” he said.

Bontoc–Lagawe Bishop Emeritus Francisco Claver added that calling for Mrs. Arroyo’s resignation is a move that “could weaken the country’s democratic structures.”

But the bishops stressed that the truth on allegations of corruption against government officials must be found as they called on the President to abolish Executive Order 464 that prohibits Cabinet men from attending the Senate probe on corruption charges without permission from the Palace.

“We recommend the abolition of EO 464 so that those who might have knowledge of any corruption in branches of government, may be free to testify before the appropriate investigating body,” the CBCP said in its two-page statement titled “Seeking the Truth, Restoring Integrity.”

As for bodies investigating allegations of corruption against the Arroyo administration, particularly the Senate and the Office of the Ombudsman, the bishops urged them “to use their distinct and different powers of inquiry into alleged corruption cases, not for their own interests but for the common good.”

Lastly, they called on the media to be a “positive resource in seeking the truth and combating corruption by objective reporting without bias and partiality, selective and tendentious reporting of fact.”  

Meanwhile, a big group of Baptist bishops, pastors, and their followers, led by Manila Rep. Bienvenido Abante Jr., refused to join calls for the President’s resignation, but announced that it would soon schedule a “walk for righteousness.”

Abante, president of the Bible Believers League for Morality and Democracy (Biblemode), told his supporters and journalists in a press conference that his group would change their stand if Mrs. Arroyo “does not heed the people’s clamor for her to reform her government.”

Abante, who holds the rank of bishop, claimed that Biblemode has 6,000 churches and 1.8 million members throughout the country and cities abroad.

He said his group is specifically calling for the resignation of Transportation Secretary Leandro Mendoza, Trade Secretary Peter Favila, and Commission on Higher Education chairman Romulo Neri.

It was Mendoza who signed the scrapped $329-million national broadband network (NBN) contract with ZTE Corp. officials in Boao, China last April 21. The signing was witnessed by the President.

Favila and Neri were involved in the negotiation and approval processes for the NBN contract.

“Biblemode expresses in no uncertain terms our collective outrage and indignation over what appears to be corruption, which has tainted the highest office of the land and the subsequent heavy-handed attempts to cover up the truth,” he said.

“Our indignation is not an indictment of any one person. Our outrage is directed at all Filipinos who have – by commission or omission – contributed to our current state of affairs by compromising their morality and principles at the altar of naked ambition or turning a blind eye to perpetrators of corruption,” he said.

He added that aside from the resignation of Mendoza, Favila and Neri, “among other officials involved in the ZTE deal,” the President should reorganize her Cabinet by replacing “incumbents with persons with the best minds and the best motives for the President and the country.”     – Edu Punay, Jesus Diaz