EDITORIAL - Malacañang knew the terrain

The political opposition is trying to use the financial assistance offered by Malacañang to the country's bishops as yet another cannon with which to fire broadsides at its main occupant in the hope of further weakening her position. Either it is desperate or it just didn't get it.

But first let us clear the air. Let's call a spade a spade. Malacañang may call the offer by whatever name it wants, but there is no mistaking the smell. For all intents and purposes, it smelled like a bribe. Let us not kid ourselves. Malacañang has its own bag of dirty tricks.

But you may ask, how could Malacañang be so callous and blatant? The answer to that is, of course, another question. Why not? The determination by anyone of how to proceed in any given direction is always measured by the amount of knowledge one has of the terrain.

Had Malacañang not known the terrain beforehand, it would not have dared do what it did. Making an offer of money can be too risky an undertaking to make. It is a gambit that could blow up in its face if it did not know what it was doing.

Of course it is too presumptuous for anyone not in the room when the bishops cloistered themselves to say the offer of money was what swung the vote in Arroyo's favor, that is if a vote was taken, and consequently diluted the impact of their collective position.

Still, judging by reports, no less than 40 bishops reportedly accepted the offer. That is roughly a third of the whole congregation bunched in one position. In any numbers game, that made what remained immaterial, however it is split. The offer was actually insurance money.

Everybody knows, the panicky Malacañang included, that even if the bishops wanted to, they can never take up a collective confrontational position on a political issue without running the risk of having the Church getting more alienated in an increasingly secular world.

Besides, even if she is lucky, Arroyo will only be around until 2010. But the mission of the bishops takes up entire lifetimes. If they intend to stick to that mission, they cannot risk getting isolated from their flock just because they got carried away by one temporary irritant.