Notes from the North

By Estanislao C. Albano, Jr.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) should make up its mind what it really thinks of  the late President Corazon Aquino. Sometime ago after the President declared his support for the RH bill, they told the latter that he should follow the example of his mother who, during her term, toed the line of the church when it came to the issue of family planning.

Now Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales has just blamed the parents of the exponents of the RH bill for what he calls the absence of consciences of their children.

It is now apparent that these people do not stop at anything to attain their goal of defeating the RH bill including using the memory of a dead person who they pretend to respect but actually look down on.   

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That should have been the CBCP’s  course of action right from the very start of the RH controversy. Go to their constituents and convince them that the position of the church in the family planning issue is superior to the proposed government solution and to tell them what to do in the event the RH bill is passed. But their first option which was effective before but is now losing its magic is to interfere in the process of government legislation.

The CBCP is no different from some local politicians. Instead of fairly competing for the votes of the populace, they shoot their opponents.

It is possible the CBCP is afraid it really has no sway on its constituents thus, the option to try to bully government instead.  

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Clearly, the CBCP does not realize and accept that it is living in a democratic order where there is freedom to hold different opinions and positions and to espouse the same. They cannot brook any dissension. Fairness which is one of the basic ingredients of democracy is not in their vocabulary. As far as they are concerned, they have the right to disagree and fight with the government, a right which right they in turn deny to government officials from the president down when the position of the latter differs from theirs.     

They alone know what is good for the people and woe to anyone who dares disagree with them because all the weapons in the arsenal of the church  will be unleashed on him. The usage of excommunication and civil disobedience have already been mentioned in connection with the RH bill and I do not think that was a slip of the tongue as they want to make it appear after receiving flak for their threats.

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One of the most inane pronouncements that has come from the anti-RH bill ranks recently is that they are ready to go to jail when the RH bill is passed into law. Like I told you, they do not accept that we are in a democracy so they assume that everybody in this country thinks like they do.

If  the CBCP were the government, the RH bill exponents or anybody who challenges the official position would have been locked in jail a long time ago.

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To expose the arrant hypocrisy of the CBCP,  just what is the Roman Catholic Church in the country doing for all the unwanted children born into the world thanks to its hard line opposition to artificial family planning? None whatsoever. In fact, it does not even have funds and programs to promote natural family planning among its parishioners. What the CBCP wants is that after ramming down into the throat of the government its brand of family planning, the latter will also foot the bill for its promotion to the public.  

And it also wants the government to hire additional teachers and build additional school rooms for the additional babies it wants to enter the world in the name of its doctrine that contraception is murder.

To the CBCP, there is nothing  contradictory  in defending the rights of children to be born into this world even if the parents could never dream of getting them delivered in a Catholic hospital and sending them to  a Catholic school.

What kind of life Filipino children it helps come to the world is of no concern to the CBCP. Its only interest is that the reproductive process be free from something the church disapproves of.  Never mind if the child will be born in a leaking barong-barong and will never have chance to see the inside of a school.

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The government is already up to its neck with the bloated population. The exponents of the RH bill and a lot of other people in government are convinced that the population is one of the main reasons the country is not moving forward economically and why there is always a shortage of government services. That has compelled our lawmakers to propose a law that would somehow slow down our population growth to manageable levels. And here comes the CBCP moving heaven and earth to block the passage of the legislation.

Now isn’t it but proper then that the CBCP should do something for the children the government does not want to be born but  it is fiercely fighting to be born?  Shouldn’t it be building and running schools for the children of  the poor alongside its schools for the elite for a change and opening up its hospitals to the poor? Not on your life. All the CBCP wants is that its supremacy remains unchallenged like during the times of Padre Damaso.

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I challenge these self-deceiving anti-RH bill people to answer the following questions: If there is a fire in a squatters’ area, which has the better chance of escaping unscathed – the family with two kids or the family with 10 kids? And which of the two families has the better chance of eventually moving out of the blighted neighborhood to a better location?

I suppose their answer would be as follows: If the government just stopped being corrupt and really did its job, the squatters’ areas all over the land will disappear in no time at all.

These people are really hopeless. You cannot reason with them.