Too late the judgment FRONTLINE Ninez Cacho-Olivares 06/01/2010

Too late the judgment

FRONTLINE Ninez Cacho-Olivares 06/01/2010 It took the Catholic bishops nine years to come out openly and state that Gloria Arroyo failed in her performance and so-called achievements. So why did it take that long for them to come out and say so? Is it because she is now on her way out and the bishops feel it is now safe for them to say what the Filipino people have been saying for so many years? There were the many times when the Filipino people — and not just the flock — wanted Church support through condemnatory pastoral letters from the bishops to keep Gloria in line, yet they never did. Instead, they continued to support her, virtually casting a blind eye on the many scandals and allegations of her lying, cheating and stealing, to the point of even debunking the legal means of impeachment to get her to stand trial in the Senate, saying such a move was useless. Then much, much later, the same bishops came up with this claim of corruption being endemic in the Philippines. Yet they knew that corruption was already at a high in the Arroyo administration, much much earlier, since there were already the scandals being reported in the media, but they never came out strongly — not even when the evidence of electoral fraud in 2004 was right before their eyes. One recalls in 1986, when there were allegations of cheating done by then President Ferdinand Marcos, the bishops came out with a strongly worded pastoral letter, stressing that Marcos cannot claim moral and constitutional legitimacy due to the corruption in his government and his cheating — which was, it should be pointed out — not proven. Yet in the case of the Arroyo administration, whom the bishops supported to the hilt, even when there was proof of cheating, never did they condemn the cheating. As a matter of record, bishops even came out to state that the cheating was minimal, giving the public the conclusion that it was alright to cheat — as long as one doesn’t cheat big. One of the reasons corruption in government grows even bigger, with every administration and a change of government is that civil society, media, the bishops and even the big businessmen, hardly ever take a strong position whenever early scandals rock a government that they support. Instead all these are hardly ever reported, as their aim is to protect their Malacañang tenant.... MORE     Source:  The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100601com2.html

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