Why has Cardinal Tagle spoken for PNoy?
We do not claim to speak for the good Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Manila, much less for the Church. They can very well speak for themselves. But we have viable opinions on why Cardinal Antonio Tagle, reportedly while in London, spoke against those who called for the resignation of the President. He even called those critics of the President, in a phrase so uncharacteristic of him, '' they are just panggulo," or purveyors of troubles. Well, the cardinal might have overlooked the fact that some of those who pushed for resignation were bishops like him. "Panggulo" was quite stinging, spoken in the same week PNoy called Napenas "tatanga-tanga."
We thought all along that the Catholic Church has one stand, that it has lost its trust and confidence in the President. That is why many of its members have spoken against Malacañan. In fact, even our own venerable Cardinal Ricardo Vidal was made to read a prepared statement of the Catholic Bishops Conference, which, in so many words, in effect, called on the President to step down. There were many others from many dioceses who joined the bandwagon. Even Archbishop Soc Villegas, the incumbent CBCP president spoke very harshly against the President. That was a big blow to Malacañan.
But why did Cardinal Tagle opt not to join the crowd, and chose to call on Filipinos, especially Catholics, to pursue change within the framework of the Constitution. That could only mean that we have to wait for the 2016 presidential and national elections. The nation is not prepared to embark on another extra-constitutional means to effect change. The Filipinos are sick and tired of EDSA revolutions. More so because any change in leadership would not guarantee that the next chief executive would be anyone better than PNoy. Anyway, it is a matter of one year. PNoy will go by legal means.
Cardinal Antonio Tagle, among all the cardinals and bishops in the Philippines, is the one most attuned to the thinking of Vatican. He is also the one who knows by heart the nuances and intricacies of Church politics. Cardinal Tagle, more than all the other pillars of the Philippine Catholic Church today, knows best the impression that Pope Francis had on our country's politics and socio-economic realities. He is in constant touch with the sanctum sancturom of the Church Curia. After the Pope's visit, Vatican does not want to rock the boat in the Philippines. The Aquinos are devoted Catholics.
Furthermore, the Church, as a matter of policy, does not want to be in the forefront of the host country's political struggles. The Church does not want to have its millions of adherents consisting of lay people divided between pro and anti-government. The times of the late Jaime Cardinal Sin was exceptional. Thus, it called for an exceptional stance. Today, we have a President who is beleaguered. He has committed a lot of errors. He had chosen a lot of incompetent and dishonest people. But he himself is not intrinsically corrupt. Thus, the Church is not prepared to drop him like what they did to Marcos and Erap.
Cardinal Tagle is young. If he is always ''politically correct," he can even be a papabilli, a prospective pope. A great majority of Catholics all over the world today are from Asia. And so, it is not farfetched to predict that the next Supreme Pontiff will be from the biggest Catholic country in South Asia, the Philippines. Above all reasons, however, is that, by all appearances, Cardinal Tagle sincerely believes in good faith, that a resignation by PNoy today is not good for the nation. And, we believe that, on that point alone, the good Cardinal is perfectly correct. Cardinal Tagle's stance is the centrist approached expectedly ''blessed'' by above.
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