Widespread cheating, for me, is a cheating on the people's will whoever the people voted for in majority.
And right now which government agency can independently, effectively and speedily protect that basic right to choose who Filipinos want to lead them? Comelec? SC? Pet? All these have so far lost it. I believe not taking it to the streets where the only solution could be made to happen is the irresposible call to make. If Cardinal Rosales spoke for the Catholic Church in the Philippines, it is one of those situations when the church is missing the spirit of the times that Cardinal Jaime Sin did not fail to see.
The Bishop of Manila said that the time is different today than in 1986. That was an extraordinary time demanding an extraordinary action. Will widespread cheating an "ordinary" thing in a time so critical to the nation's history? Martial rule may have not been imposed on the Filipinos. But don't you think cheating on the presidential choice of the people a new form of dictatorship, done with great finesse, and being so a greater slap to the face of the Filipinos, telling them: "You ignorant, indios! You have been hit hard, and not even knowing it."? If Cardinal Rosale was in the office in 1986, would he find the courage to call on People Power? That's a big "what-if" question to ask?
This human "blindness" of supposedly enlightened holy leaders are the kinds that have caused child abuse and sexual blunders in the church worldwide. They were all acts of omissions on the part of bishops--not doing something when something should have been done. This is the same kind of thinking that rationalizes a philandering priest who had a child while still a seminarian that defrocking him would be losing his vocation when there was never a vocation in the first place. So much blindness! May the Lord help us. We miss you Cardinal Sin.
UPDATE
10 September 2011--When I wrote this article last year, I have no idea on the undercurrents behind the softened stance of the Archbishop of Manila against then PGMA. But I did suspect that something was going wrong with a bishop who sided with a presidency so deep in the mire of serious controversies. Then these articles from Raisa Robles put substance into the unfilled sense of incongruence.
What happened was, Archbishop Rosales asked Cory to go to PGMA to ask her to step down, but when Cory did, the bishop abandoned her, and in fact even slapped her face in public in an EDSA Shrine homily. That gesture of a Catholic prelate put shame to upright Catholics.
UPDATE
10 September 2011--When I wrote this article last year, I have no idea on the undercurrents behind the softened stance of the Archbishop of Manila against then PGMA. But I did suspect that something was going wrong with a bishop who sided with a presidency so deep in the mire of serious controversies. Then these articles from Raisa Robles put substance into the unfilled sense of incongruence.
What happened was, Archbishop Rosales asked Cory to go to PGMA to ask her to step down, but when Cory did, the bishop abandoned her, and in fact even slapped her face in public in an EDSA Shrine homily. That gesture of a Catholic prelate put shame to upright Catholics.
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