Pope Benedict XVI: No change in our doctrine

While the whole world was glued on satellite TV watching all the events leading to the finals of the World Cup 2006, where Italy won a slim victory over the France last Monday, a less famous event but with a deeper impact was happening in Valencia, Spain, where Pope Benedict XVI made public for the very first time his thoughts on same sex or gay marriages before the 5thWorld Meeting of Families.

During his homily, Pope Benedict XVI said, "The family, founded on indissoluble marriage between a man and a woman, is the expression of this relational, filial and communal aspect of life. It is the setting where men and women are enabled to be born with dignity, and to grow and develop in an integral manner." He added, "The Christian family – father, mother and children – is called, then, to do all these things not as a task imposed from without, but rather as a gift of the sacramental grace of marriage poured out upon the spouses."

With that statement, clearly there has been no change in Catholic doctrine under this pontiff. Perhaps he did this on purpose… as a response to Spain’s President Jose Luis Rodriquez Zapatero, who is an avowed atheist and a communist and therefore isn’t averse to same sex or gay marriages and abortion in very Catholic Spain. The Pope gifted the Spanish President with a Codex Vaticanus of 1209. Now, I have to dig up my Catholic history to find out what’s inside this Codex.

No doubt, Spain is fast losing its age-old position as the bastion of Catholicism in Europe. Mind you, we received our Christian faith when Ferdinand Magellan came to our shores in April 1521, thus making Cebuanos the first Christians in Asia. Perhaps now is the time to return the favor to Spain and help the lost sheep find its way back to the flock of the Good Shepherd. It is our duty to re-evangelize Spain and the rest of Europe!

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How time flies. It’s been a year since President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) got her bitter taste of treachery, akin to act III of William Shakespeare’s "Julius Cesar" where Caius Brutus plunged a sword on the back of the great Julius Cesar within the hallowed halls of the Senate. We’re talking here of the treachery of the so-called Hyatt 10, members of the Arroyo Cabinet who turned their backs against their boss at the height of the Hello, Garci scandal after she apologized on nationwide TV.

Taking the cue from that public apology on July 8, 2005, 10 Cabinet Secretaries of the Arroyo administration, went to the Hyatt Hotel and announced that they are break away from the Arroyo administraton, believing that the government would fall after their announcement. The rest is history. A year later, President Arroyo is still President and the Hyatt 10 last Saturday released an expensive one-page ad in the national paper saying: "We Can Do It Again!" Do they mean to say, "We can be traitors again?"

The Hyatt 10 members may claim that a year ago they made the "ultimate sacrifice" and resigned from the Cabinet purportedly as an act of delicadeza in the face of one of the most embarrassing scandals this country has ever seen. But in hindsight and after a year of examining their every move, the Filipino people now know that what the Hyatt 10 really did was a reaction to a sort of "deal" that would have allowed them to continue holding on to their Cabinet positions under a new government. They miscalculated that Mrs. Arroyo would fall, but that didn’t happen.

In thee one-page advertisement, they said: "To divert the people’s attention, the Palace foisted upon our people a bogus people’s initiative to amend the Constitution. Deceptively, it has been presented to our people as the answer to every conceivable problem that we face." Come now, who really is deceiving who? In mid-April 2004, I had a one-on-one television interview with President Arroyo on my show, Straight from the Sky, which was actually the only show I had in my seven years on TV that was aired nationwide through the government television channels.

In that interview, one of the questions I asked her was about Charter change (Cha-cha) because I noticed that among all the presidential candidates, Mrs. Arroyo was the only with a program for a genuine change in our system of government. With The Star’s Marichu Villanueva covering that TV interview at the Waterfront Hotel, The Star came up with a front-page story about GMA’s position regarding Charter change. Hence, it is not true, as the Hyatt 10 ad says, that the People’s Initiative was "foisted upon the people to divert their attention."

Charter change has always been part and parcel of the Arroyo administration’s plans and programs. Of course, as the old saying goes, there are many ways to skin a cat and even more ways to change the Constitution. So, the people believe that the quickest way is via a People’s Initiative, which I, too, do not embrace. But just like the Hyatt 10, I still prefer the holding of a Constitutional Convention (concon) with delegates elected in their respective district who would sign a waiver that they would agree not to run in the first elections under the new constitution.

Meanwhile, Hyatt 10 now has a new meaning — Holding You Accountable To The Nat10n. So, let’s put to test their motto and turn the tables on them by asking this question: "Who paid for those expensive ads?"

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During the Cabinet/Regional Development Council (RDC) meeting last Friday, I got it right from the horse’s mouth… from Finance Secretary Gary Teves that embattled Cebu Customs Collector Ma. Lourdes Mangaoang was finally replaced by Customs Collector Ricardo Belmonte, brother of Quezon City Mayor Sonny Belmonte. This appointment ends the seemingly endless line of ambitious Customs officers trying to squeeze themselves in to become Cebu Port Customs Collector. As for Ms. Managaong, she’s headed for the Port of Iloilo. But now the people who wanted Mangaoang out are regretting her transfer. Poetic justice?

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For email responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila’s columns in the Freeman can also be accessed through The Philippine Star website. He also hosts a weekly talkshow entitled "Straight from the Sky" every Monday only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 of SkyCable at 8 p.m.