I’ve been raised a Catholic all my life. I studied in parochial
school in high school and went to an exclusive Catholic college in Manila. My being
Catholic is deeply rooted in my system and it was not something I just learned to
embrace with. I’m not claiming to be an expert on my faith. But having taken
units in Theology and read Encyclical letters and thoroughly studied Catechism
of the Catholic Church for years as a pre-novitiate, I must say I understand
the belief well.
We have read much about the separation of the state and the
church. But we need to understand its interconnection as well as the thin line
that separates the two. This coming May 9, as we vote for our next President, I
firmly believe that as Catholics, we must consider a lot of things before
deciding who we should root for. Bear in
mind that whoever you vote firm reflects your own character as a person.
The Presidency is not all about solving crime, drugs, and
traffic. And most of all projecting a tough guy image. A President is a father
to a nation. As Catholics, we should choose the one who is God-fearing. We are
privileged enough to choose who we’d like to vote in accordance with our own
will, unlike other religion or sects who had no freedom to do so because of
block voting. If you ask me, this is one defining moment for us Catholics to
rally behind CBCP (Catholica Bishops Conference of the Philippines) against
Duterte.
Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte has warned us Catholics not
to vote for him. "Sundin ninyo ang inyong bishop kasi kung hindi pupunta
kayo sa impyerno," Duterte said on Tuesday at an election forum at the
University of the Philippines campus in Iloilo City. Duterte made the said
remark a day after CBCP president Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas
posted on Villegas posted
on Facebook a video of his controversial remarks about the rape in 1989 of
an Australian missionary.
"Judge for yourself if this is the right choice. I will
keep my personal judgment to myself. This video can help...." Villegas
said in his caption.
In the video, Duterte was heard saying, "P-- ina,
sayang. Ang napasok sa isip ko, ni-rape nila, pinagpilahan nila lahat
doon."
"Nagalit ako kasi ni-rape? Oo. Isa rin 'yun. Pero
napakaganda, dapat mayor muna ang nauna. Sayang," Duterte said.
Respect begets respect. Caritas Manila’s Executive Chairman Father Anton Pascual
also aired his own opinion, “Presidency is all about character, nothing more,
nothing less. He should be a good role model being someone looked up to by his
fellow Filipinos most especially the youth. That’s why he should lead by
example and must know his GMRC .(Good manners and right conduct).
Duterte’s psychological assessment on 2010 was the basis of
his legal separation with his former wife. It’s a manifestation of who he
really is, by law he can be a president.
But technically immoral to be a leader. It’s been very much proven with
his thinking, reasoning, and much more his immoral statements, and not to
mention his way of disrespecting women. It’s not even religion to begin with,
it’s all about respect with one another, which he clearly lacks. Presidency is
not all about religious belief, it is about leadership with moral ascendancy.
C’mon, Catholics, listen to what your conscience is telling
you. Conscience is NOT the same as your opinions or feelings. Conscience cannot
be identical with your feelings because it is the activity of your intellect in
judging the rightness or wrongness of your actions or omissions, past, present,
or future. On the other hand, your feelings come from another part of your soul
and should be governed by your intellect and will. Conscience is not identical with your opinions
either because your intellect bases its judgment upon the natural moral law,
which is inherent in your human nature and is identical with the Ten
Commandments. Unlike the civil laws made by legislators, or the opinions that
you hold, the natural moral law is not anything that you invent, but rather it’s
something you discover within yourself and is governing your conscience.
Conscience is the voice of truth within you. It is your opinion that needs to
be in harmony with that truth.
As a Catholic, you have the benefit of the Church’s teaching
authority or Magisterium endowed upon her by Christ. The Magisterium assists
you and all people of good will in understanding the natural moral law as it
relates to specific issues. Our feelings need to be educated by virtue so as to
be in harmony with our conscience’s voice of truth. When you do this, you will
have a sound conscience, according to which you will feel guilty, and feel
morally upright when you are morally upright. We should strive to avoid the two
opposite extremes of a lax conscience and a scrupulous conscience. We must meet
the obligation of continually attending to this formation of conscience.
I don't want to bore you to death. But why am I discussing all these? My point of being is if a
political candidate supported killing (or worse, committed the actual crime
himself) and rape, or any other moral evil, for that matter, it would not be
morally permissible for you to vote for that person.
St. Thomas Aquinas put it this way: “Wherefore human laws do
not forbid all vices, from which the virtuous abstain, but only the more
grievous vices, from which it is possible for the majority to abstain; and
chiefly those that are to the hurt of others, without the prohibition of which
human society could not be maintained: thus human law prohibits murder, theft
and such like.”
If a political candidate supported anything morally evil,
such as committing a crime for that matter, it would not be morally permissible
for you to vote for that person. This is because, in voting for such a person,
you would become an accomplice in the moral evil at issue. It is with such
gravity and importance that allows for political maneuvering. It is an issue
that strikes at the heart of the human person and therefore should be
non-negotiable. It renders a candidate for office unacceptable regardless of
the position he’s running for.
You must sacrifice your feelings on this issue because you
know that you cannot participate in any way in an approval of violent and evil
violation of basic human rights. A candidate for office who supports any other
moral evil has disqualified himself as a person that you can vote for. We need
someone who is pro-life. The key is to know the distinction between policy and
moral principle.
On the other hand, no policy or strategy that is opposed to
the moral principles of the natural law is morally acceptable. Thus, technical
reason should always be subordinate to and normed by moral reason, the kind of
reasoning that is the activity of conscience and that is based on the natural
moral law.
The right to life is a paramount issue because as Saint Pope John
Paul II says it is “the first right, on which all the others are based, and
which cannot be recuperated once it is lost.” If a candidate for office refuses
to respect the law, the rights of his fellow brothers and sisters as well as
life itself and put justice in his own hands, he has laid the ground for
refusing solidarity with anyone.
I don’t normally speak out my opinion regarding political
matters. But this time, I feel it’s about time to voice out my thoughts. After
all, as a blogger and media practitioner, I believe I am also an online
influencer. I'd vote for someone who'd bring the kind of future that my child can live in safely. I don't want him suddenly blurting out: "I want to be like the next President of the Philippines" or following footsteps like that. That's why I'm proud to say that I'm a volunteer at Bayang Matuwid.
I’d like to express my irrevocable support to the Roxas-Robredo
tandem this 2016 May Elections. I don’t know about you, but Mar and Leni for me
best exemplified the President and Vice President that the Filipinos need. I'm not saying that these two are 'holier-than-thou' or that they are perceived to be 'perfect'because we all know nobody is. But Mar Roxas and Leni Robredo have the integrity, credibility, experience and both are God-fearing whose only desire and mission was to serve the nation. I can personally attest that Roxas-Robredo's strategy strives for an
honest, good governance compared to what we have before.
As a practicing Catholic, I want my President to have tact as much as his willfulness
to enforce the laws. How can a man enforce the law when he breaks the others?
Much as my desperation and frustration sometimes tempt me to cast my vote on
Duterte, I cringe at the way he acts towards women, much more after he admitted to several crimes. I could never entrust our
country to someone who has no respect for another human being. Joking about
rape- is not funny at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment