Recently, In two columns, God on trial and The inner light of a man, I mentioned the BBC film, God on Trial (this is different from Elie Wiesel’s play). The scene above is the culminating argument made by a rabbi, condemning God. The film is actually a series of powerful dialogues on faith. In Losing my religion, the movie’s script writer, Frank Cottrell Boyce, described how he wrote the script.

This news item, from Malaysia, caught my eye. Another fender-bender in the intersection between politics and religion.

Of the accounts and commentaries on the Pacquiao-de la Hoya fight, I enjoyed those of The Warrior Lawyer -first on the boxing of the thing (see the links in The Age of Brillig, too), then the economics of the sport and the match- and the broadside against the actual broadcasting of the match, by Bong Austero, the most. Former Socialist rebel and priest Edicio de la Torre (hat-tip, GlobalVoices) ties in the match with the death of a young actor that marred what was otherwise a morning of national rejoicing (see also A Filipina Mom Blogger).

No one has pointed out what a remarkable image, and what a remarkable campaign, this was:

Here in one image, all the the things that people think matters to people (including themselves):

1. Faith and Hope

2. Perseverance of the Underdog

3. The will to win of the Champion

4. Community & Solidarity

5. Material Success & its Manifestations

The website featuring this image, takes it even further. People were given the option of adding their personal “prayers, wishes or dedications” for Pacquiao. In one fell swoop, popular instincts were marshaled and put on display:

1. The Community Spirit

2. Patriotic Feeling (versus Nationalist Chauvinism)

3. Racial Vindication

4. Individual Empowerment

5. Religion’s Role in Everyday Life

In contrast to all the positive things above, take a look at this remarkable video:

All the negatives, in contrast, are on display:

1. Class Resentment

2. Mistrust of Officialdom and the Institutions they Dominate

3. The Language and thus, Educational Divide

4. Citizens’ Feelings of Powerlessness

5. The Absence of a Genuine and Legitimate Rule of Law

Both campaigns, mind you, are highly effective, and are brilliant messaging efforts. But to my mind, the power of the first -based on aspirations- trumps the power of the second, based on reality on the ground.

A proposed solution will always be stronger than a non-solution; by this I mean that a proposal for change will have greater drawing power than a stubborn insistence on the status quo.

Since 2005, let’s not forget that the House of Representatives has had a working draft of the Constitution, as it wants to see that Constitution after amendments are accomplished:

Matrix House Proposed Charter Amendments

Nothing suggests that these fundamental objectives have changed. Much has been made of the absence of any concrete document detailing the changes, particularly to the economic provisions of the Charter, but I think that there’s no reason for such a document to be released to the public, because the proposed changes have been clear to those interested in them, from among the ruling coalition, for some time.

As for public opinion concerning these proposals, take a look at this presentation, containing information on public opinion used during the 2005-2006 Anti-Cha-Cha campaign (at the beginning of the campaign, it seemed 44% of the public favored Charter Change, with only 40% opposed; but as Serge Osmeña, a firm believer in the use of survey information for strategizing campaigns pointed out, if you took a close look at the supposed 44% for Charter Change, a significant chunk was for it on the assumption that it would help remove the President; therefore, they were susceptible to being swayed to joining the ranks of the Antis):

SO2.0

If nothing fundamental has changed in terms of the aspirations of the ruling coalition (unicameral parliamentalism), I don’t think anything fundamental has changed in terms of the fundamental political preferences of the public (bicameral presidentialism), either. Economics remains a powerful argument, but that argument is weakened by questions over the political motives of the proponents of Charter Change.

This is where what helps foster Charter Change within the ruling coalition, harms its prospects when it comes to public opinion. It matters to members of the House, that the President’s sons are so conspicuous and that her pet party, Kampi, is taking such an active role; their prominence, however, leads to public mistrust of the proposals and the proponents.

In his blog, Mon Casiple details where the House effort is at and the long ways it has to go:

The GMA forces in the House are crowing about a 183-strong signatory to a House resolution for the convening of a Constituent Assembly. This particular resolution–reportedly being passed around by the Arroyo sons directly–has not even been filed and contained no particular provisions to amend. They are publicly proclaiming that the 196 three-fourths vote required to pass a constitutional amendment in a joint-vote Con-Ass will be theirs.

Of course, the passage of such a resolution is just the first round in a four-round Cha-cha bout.

The second round is the expected Supreme Court battle over the joint-vote Con-Ass. A February 16 retirement by SC justice Adolfo Azcuna is eyed by GMA political strategists as the golden opportunity to appoint a pro-GMA justice in order to firm up the shaky alignment in the current Supreme Court.

The third round is the convening of the joint-vote Constituent Assembly to actually pass the necessary amendment or revision of the 1987 constitution by shifting to a parliamentary system, extending the terms of office of elected officials, or by simply allowing the president to run again for reelection. This is where the 196 captive votes will come in handy, ramming through by brute force such an amendment or revision.

The fourth round is the conduct of the plebiscite on the GMA extension in power, possibly by corroding and influencing the Commission on Elections.

Like the Pacquiao steamroller win over de la Hoya, the GMA strategists imagine doing it over the Cha-cha opposition. The GMA congressmen are raring to do it in the next days to come.

The legal issues that have to be sorted out are explored by Fr. Joaquin Bernas, SJ in The ‘ifs’ in Charter change and Speak tenderly to Jerusalem on Cha-cha (see also former Chief Justice Panganiban’s articles). Essentially, Bernas (rather glumly) admits the Constitution he helped write, has provisions on amendments written in such a manner as to require some sort of resolution by the Supreme Court to sort out it’s meaning (in marked contrast to Dean Jorge Bocobo’s strong belief the Charter is immune to being interpreted in any but a strictly bicameral way).

So what is the opposition to the House proposals up to?

On December 10, the hierarchy and the Catholic Schools will mounted a protest at the gates of the House of Representatives, for Land Reform and against Charter Change at the present time. On December 12 there will be an inter-faith rally.

Here is a tactical question: both rallies require a turnout at least as large as the February 2007 Makati City rally. If neither rally -or if both rallies- fails to match those numbers, the Palace and the ruling coalition, at present spooked by the possibility of a massive turnout, will get their second wind. The President herself, if you’ve noticed, doesn’t seem to have unleashed a torrent of cash, which means she’s either hard-pressed to scrounge it up, or is holding back. But if the much-feared mobilizing power of the Catholic Church proves a dud, or the public shrugs off Charter Change by avoiding the rallies, then the President may decide to bet and bet big on Charter Change.

In December 2006, the House, lacking the votes to bring the Charter Change case to the brink of a full-blown Constitutional Crisis, blinked and folded in the face of a threatened Church mobilization. But the Church itself, suddenly getting cold feet because it was worried about a People Power situation, and inflexible in its determination to purge the Luneta rally of anything smacking of the “political,” declined to mobilize fully. A lot of finger-pointing and recriminations then took place within the ruling coalition, basically along the lines of “well, what do you know, they weren’t so strong after all”. Although to be sure, this was also meant to enfeeble Jose de Venecia, Jr.

The ruling coalition’s ranks already having been purged of JDV and his ilk, and with many more shepherds to guide the ruling coalition (a more effective Speaker, Nograles, the President’s two sons, and Rep. Villafuerte), with a hard-line cabal in the Cabinet composed of durable political operators, the President might just be inclined to see where this will go. Personally, I think the one to watch here is Eduardo Cojuangco, Jr. and his empire-building efforts in the power sector. How his efforts prosper will clarify whether an alliance has firmed up with the President, making it more economically rewarding for him to pursue an extension of the current regime rather than embarking -and placing his bets- on influencing the next government.

But even as I point this out, something else is bothering me.

Both protest activities (December 10 and 12) make me think that we really ought to ponder whether camouflaging political action with the cloak of religion is healthy.

A couple of years ago, during a forum held by a foreign chamber of commerce, one Filipino expressed frustration over the timidity of the hierarchy and I responded by saying that perhaps this was a good thing, as reducing the political influence of the Catholic Church was better for the country in the long run. Since then I have become increasingly concerned with preserving the secular nature of our state (see The secular ideal) while ensuring freedom of conscience for practicing Catholics (see Faith and morals).

Making religious observance the central focus of political action dates to martial law, when public gatherings were hampered and regulated by the dictatorship, and when Communists needed to find a way to pursue their United Front tactics while dodging the accusation that they were promoting a Godless ideology. Religious rites helped keep political action focused on peaceful, non-violent resistance and kept the brutality of the martial law regime in check.

But the (unintended) consequence of all this has been to make the Catholic Church and in particular, the hierarchy, political players of consequence to an extent that would have been intolerable to past generations.

On one hand you have the Catholic Church effectively mobilizing to block the Reproductive Health bill, and on the other, mobilizing to keep Land Reform legislation alive. Tolerating the former because of the need for a force capable of mobilizing to promote the latter is a Faustian bargain. It only serves to underline the inherent contradictions in what’s going on, because it introduces the element of sectarian morality into the political sphere. Yet it may be the wrong place for that: after all, what is the political benefit of organizing around the celebration of the Mass, when the President can organize her own Masses, too? What is the use of one bunch of prelates if another will publicly support the administration?

For politicians, partisanship is not only to be expected, but natural; for bishops, the clergy, and their rites, it is, somehow, incongruous. At the very least, marshaling religion for one side only permits marshaling religion for the other; it does not introduce anything new nor does it offer any real opportunity to break the impasse the country’s been in, politically, since 2005. It only fosters the impression both sides are cynically using faith as a camouflage for politics, when the onus should be on those who should be in the dock for using official patronage as a means to court clerical support.

What makes me anxious, though, is that I think the President’s camp, if it decides to continue the brinkmanship Charter Change will entail, has latched on the right ingredients for successfully pursuing a campaign, while the opposition to the President and all her works will find the going tougher this time around.

But then again, there may be a reason why there is the perception that there is a conventional wisdom: and that is, that the gut instincts of those who believe that brinkmanship over the Constitution will truly mark the point of no return and defeat for the administration, are right.

Looking ahead, Congressman Ruffy Biazon thinks amendments are in order, eventually. That is assuming three things. First, that a real consensus concerning the need to amend exists (only within the narrow confines of certain groups does such a consensus exist, methinks). Second, that there are qualified people to ponder on and propose amendments (particularly if convention delegates are chosen by popular election). And third, that the amendments would accomplish some good.

The reactionary in me takes a skeptical attitude and would rather ponder what so many of our elders pointed out, which was, the desirability of restoring the 1935 Constitution, which worked without a hitch so that it took a dictator and a craven court to eliminate it, and which proved so difficult to replace an elected Convention bickered and squabbled its way into co-optation and scandal. As was eloquently pointed by the late Teodoro M. Locsin in Farewell, my lovely! in 1986.

With those words, Urban II proclaimed the Crusades. Kings at the time “took up the Cross,” to fight in the Holy Land; and then, as now, kings and presidents, princes and governors, have been eager to wrap themselves in the mantle of the Holy Cross. As Machiavelli advised, the appearance of piety is more important than actually being pious.

My column for today is The Black Mass. What a “Black Mass” is, is described here. As for the various -conflicting- reports concerning the President’s midnight devotions, you can start with Bishop, NGO rally around Arroyo: Cite ‘destabilization plot’ and go on to the way officials couldn’t get their stories straight: Pre-midnight Mass at Malacañang baffles officials (1:06 a.m.); then .Finally, the party line got sorted out, so that reportage in turn, changed: ‘Coup rumor’ sets out Mass for peace at Malacañang (7:06 a.m.) and the Philippine News Agency churned out the final, final party line later that afternoon: Lucena bishop says CBCP prexy not calling for people power . This could then be amplified later on: Arroyo, supporters hold mass vs ‘destab’.

The cast of characters at an presidential appearance always provides an insight into the motivations both of the President and the people who decide to show their clout by being seen in close proximity to her. The prelate who said the Mass was Lucena Bishop Emilio Marquez, who proposed the division of Quezon Province, which has been delayed because there seems inadequate funding for a provincial plebiscite before the 2010 elections. Together with Rep. Danilo Suarez, he’s been lobbying for a plebiscite to be held.

Of course the President, too, was deep in prayer for other intentions besides remaining in office.

Yesterday, the Inquirer editorial, Desperate for Obama, took a look at the increasingly-commented upon Desperately Seeking Barack mentality of the President. Tonight she leaves for the United States and another chance at securing that elusive photo opportunity with the American president-elect.

The Palace, seeing how any move to perpetuate itself in power gets people upset, tried to pour oil on troubled waters: Palace names choices for president:

Apart from De Castro, Malacañang’s choices also include Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro, Senator Richard Gordon, Chairman Bayani Fernando of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority, and Quezon City Mayor Feliciano Belmonte.

Over At Midfield, veteran newsman Ding Gagelonia puts it bluntly:

This listing is obviously aimed at making the wannabees salivate and look hard at their options anew and alert their ‘operators’ and supporters…

Veep Noli is hands down sure to [r]un, secretary Teodoro will likely demure given that he has the ‘youth advantage (meaning he can wait his turn apart from assessing his own links with ‘Boss’ Danding Cojuangco), while Gordon, currently head of the national red cross has been going around the country sounding out his backers.

The last two gentlemen short-listed by Malacanang are in contrasting situations: Fernando is shamelessly peddling his mug everywhere in a blantant display of presidential ambition while the well liked mayor Belmonte, executive vice president of Lakas party, has been thinking of going back to reclaim his congressional seat in the 4th district of QC (with city pundits seeing this as a route to the speakership.

MMDA Chairman Bayani Fernando is certainly whooping it up. A 100-truck motorcade trundled around Quezon City yesterday, to celebrate the Chairman’s doing well in Celebrity Duets. See Welcome to the Pink and Blue Parade in Filipino Voices:

There were over 100 trucks that plied C.P. Garcia Avenue this morning, all bearing praises for BF’s win, “MMDA Labs U,” and all that jazz (so to speak). You kind of figure where these trucks are supposed to be, you kind of figure what these trucks are supposed to do, and if some accident or mishap happens, and they’re all singing praises and joy for Mr. Fernando.

Wonderful. Great. Fantastic. I’ve never been angrier.

New Philippine Revolution says that the Speaker of the House is poised to allow the impeachment complaint against the President to reach the committee level, at least. There could be many reasons for this, defusing public tension, or merely using the process as way to extract patronage concessions from the President. But in one respect, the blogger seems to have underestimated the ability -and willingness- of both the Palace and the House to juggle as many balls in the air as possible:

Well, I don’t know about you, but this is as sneaky as they can get. They would probably sacrifice Bolante and have him roasted at the Senate. They would probably allow the impeachment to pass the committee level. But, they’ll never, ever, give up on this stupid cha-cha gravy train.

But the main issue at hand is what the House of Representatives is poised to do, which is, to report out of committee, a bill proposing amendments to the Constitution.

They may not sacrifice Bolante at all. His malingering finally at an end (see Bolante can leave hospital–doctor), and public skepticism over the Ombudsman’s newfound energy concerning the charges against him having (for now) put that idea on the backburner, and even as the Senate holds a caucus today, to decide what to do with the Bolante investigation, there’s word that Rep. Mitra of Palawan wants to open an investigation in the House, and could do so as early as Wednesday. This would certainly provide a more hospitable environment for questioning Bolante and friends.

But the blogger is right in pointing to the Charter Change campaign going once more into high gear. Not least because the major obstacle to its success in the past -an independent Supreme Court- is increasingly a non-obstacle.

This brings up the deep unease with which the upcoming vacancies in the Supreme Court are being viewed: not least because a pattern is becoming evident in the way the justices are voting, which hews to the Palace line. Next year, Ruben Reyes, Adolfo Azcuna, Dante Tinga, Consuelo Ynares-Santiago, Leonardo Quisumbing, and Minita Chico-Nazario all retire from the court, but the vacancies will come at the heels of expected vacancies over the remainder of this year, too. So the Palace majority will be fortified sooner rather than later. Over At Filipino Voices, Ding Gagelonia recently reported that the Solicitor-General, widely expected to be among the President’s upcoming Supreme Court appointees, has started laying down the predicate for reversing the recent ruling on the BJE-MOA, for example:

Devanadera delivered a sharp twit to the high tribunal for allegedly violating the separation of powers in declaring the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity ancestral domain agreement unconstitutional.

Devanadera’s broadside reads like a preview of a makeover given that there will at least 7 vacancies in the Puno court between now and 2010.

Today’s Inquirer editorial, Gloria and the Supremes, also sounds the alarm over the consequences of packing the court purely with loyalty as the consideration for appointment.

In his column, Joaquin Bernas, SJ, looks at the whole process of Choosing Supreme Court justices. For some time now he’s stated his personal conclusion that the Judicial and Bar Council System has failed, and that a return to the old system of requiring Congressional confirmation of Justices would be better.

Dean Jorge Bocobo over at Filipino Voices thinks the Supreme Court wouldn’t be so crazy as to throw away its reputation in craven obedience to the President. Along the way, he also gives a fine summary of the constitutional and procedural issues in play:

A major Constitutional conundrum has arisen around Section 1(1) above because two entirely different meanings may be given to the clause “upon a vote of three-fourths of all its Members”. It all depends on whether the Congress’ two chambers, House and Senate, are to ”vote jointly” or “vote separately” to propose amendments or revisions for ratification at plebiscite.

There are those who argue that the Constitution here means “voting jointly” at the end of Art. XVII Section 1(1). By the way, this phrase occurs exactly once in the present 1987 Constitution, in the famous “Martial Law Provision” on the Executive..

So WHY have the Palace, the House and the Supreme Court been unable to do such a seemingly simple thing as establishing a “unicameral form of ConAss” similar to the above provision, where the Congress members vote as individuals and so the Lower House by itself would have the required 195 or so votes (238 House Members plus 23 Senators gives 261 total) to satisfy the three fourths super majority rule?

A good reason is that the House Rules themselves acknowledge the voting separately principle!

Which leads him to his view that no Supreme Court would throw away its integrity or reputation on such a patently self-interested move by the Palace and the House. It’s happened before. Yet it’s remarkable how the benefit of the doubt is still so instinctive in many observers. As is the desire among the nonpartisan to find a non-confrontational, institutionally-oriented, means to salvage the situation, as Cocoy in Filipino Voices lays out, in what I think is a fair and accurate summation of the point of view of those who have refused, so far, to cast their lot with either side in the great political divide:

The most common theme in people’s responses to me is their expectation for an election in 2010. That is when they want a change in President. They do not want a change now because there is no one they trust. They do not support impeachment even though they believe the charges are right because it would simply be like throwing a pebble at an incoming 747.

Their responses does not by far say that they like Arroyo.

The people that I asked, can be found grumbling in front of the evening news at the sheer incompetence of those in charge. They find it incredulous as scandal after scandal come out that the ones on top of the food chain have such rampant and blatant disregard and who pervert and bend the law to their will. Ask them about BJE-MOA and people from Mindanao would be vehemently opposed to it. Given that perhaps in any normal day, the unconstitutional nature of BJE-MOA and such abuse might have been grounds enough for impeachment and conviction. We can safely say that these are not normal and is an unsettling time. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that.

The opposition has a credibility issue. An issue, one might add they’ve not been able to shake out of since FPJ and has since become worst. They are perceived as no better than Arroyo and her ilk. That incredible mistrust hurts any measure they wish the people would support whether impeachment or election. It isn’t apathy— it is more neutrality. Neither Arroyo nor Opposition has their side.

The people are fully aware of how things go. Whether it is local politics— where people make money out of everyday and know the scope and breathe of it. Our people know that it is a politics of who you know and ultimately, money talks.

People have come to realize that national life is simply local politics writ large. And this realization simply proves and point that there is no distinction between Arroyo and Opposition. The disastrous result of past EDSAs and the failure of impeachment have more than galvanized the resolve of our people to fully expect an election in 2010.

The political landscape has hardly changed since 2004.

Everybody with a mind can clearly see that our national life is like one old machine, rusting on the seems and filled with patch work. It is not efficient but somehow, it moves along. The state of this machine, whether our assumptions of what a Republic and social justice is as framed to be the foundation of our national life is flawed. But clearly such judgment is for the collective will of the people to decide upon.

Especially as Arroyo pwns the Supreme Court as Justices retire, the fear of charter change as driven by Arroyo is not a fantasy. It is a clear and present danger that one such as her and her ilk who have gamed politics would bend permanently the very soul of our Republic and shape the future is even more so frightening. Clearly, they aim to tighten their control over this Republic. To unravel this Gordian Knot, perhaps it is this fear that we must face head on.

Ask our people in 2010— will you call for a Constitutional Convention?

Such push from the Heroes of past EDSAs would mean for their generation to accept they have failed. That their vision is flawed. That their brand of social justice is a failure. Don’t you think, 20 years is enough?

Mon Casiple also brings up the point that the President’s own, original, Charter Change coalition has itself broken up:

What was interesting was the turn-about of those who were most vigorous in pursuing the president’s charter change agenda in 2005-6 to favor constitutional convention over constituent assembly (also a surprising pro-Constituent Assembly position from unexpected sources), the common conclusion of the futility of pursuing it under GMA’s term (until 2010), and the sober assessment that we do need charter change for the right reasons.

Some of those who came are of course identified with former Speaker Jose de Venecia and may have reflected the latter’s own turn-about on Charter change. However, it is also a sign of the deepening cleavages in the ruling coalition and the increasingly uncertain loyalties to the president that is plaguing its ranks. It is worthwhile now to revisit past political assumptions regarding the political staying power and the numbers in relation to the Arroyo administration. The current GMA charter change initiative increasingly takes on the character of a lonely, desperate campaign.

The GMA charter change initiative is an uphill proposition at this time.

Let’s hope so.

Incidentally, concerning the new American president-elect, see Inner Sanctum and The Warrior Lawyer and My Online Notebook for samples of public reactions to the President’s obsession with a photo-op, and most of all, Torn and Frayed in Manila, who takes a hard look at the incoming American administration’s foreign policy goals:

It is true that Asia as a whole seems likely to receive more attention from Obama than from previous presidents. According to a fascinating New Yorker piece on the candidates’ foreign policy agendas, the blueprint for the new administration’s foreign policy can be found in a Phoenix Initiative report. This document lists only five “strategic priorities” for the United States and of those only two are regional:

1. counterterrorism,

2. nuclear proliferation,

3. climate change and oil dependence,

4. the Middle East, and

5. East Asia.

Although East Asia is often narrowly defined (the Harvard Department of East Asia Languages and Civilizations, for example, concentrates on China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam), the Phoenix Initiative’s definition is much wider, something closer to the now discarded term “the Orient”.

So if the USA is going to increase its focus on “East Asia”, won’t that be good news for its traditional allies in the region?

Unfortunately for, say, the Philippines and Japan, who fit into that category, the Phoenix Initiative concentrates heavily on the anticipated future economic powerhouses of China and India. The comforting remark that “the long-term U.S. strategy must also reassure traditional friends and allies” can’t disguise the fact in a world dominated by real politik the USA will go where the action is.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita was keen to stress yesterday that back in June Obama had written to Arroyo stressing the two countries’ shared interests, including “climate change, food security, poverty reduction, the future of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, human rights in Burma and defense reform.”

That’s fine and no one is going to claim that the US is going to abandon the Philippines, but let’s say you were an aspiring foreign policy professional in Washington, would you be brushing up on your Tagalog or your Mandarin?

See The Obama-Biden Plan, laying out the incoming administration’s foreign policy priorities. Concerning China and Obama, this makes for interesting reading: Can China adjust to the US adjustment?

(Above: video of “Anti DEATHS” rally mounted by Catholic Church in Cebu City last July: DEATHS is the acronym thought up by the wife of Kit Tatad and represents the Church’s advocacy against Divorce, Euthanasia, Abortion, Total Family Planning, Homosexual Unions and Sex Education)

Felipe Medalla some months back recounted to me that whenever President Marcos thought the Catholic hierarchy was becoming too antagonistic, he would make a big to-do about dusting off a draft Presidential Decree instituting divorce in the Philippines.

So long as Marcos was at the height of his powers, and there was a Julio Cardinal Rosales to counterbalance Jaime Cardinal Sin, the ploy worked. But as time wore on, and Marcos’ legalism gave way to cruder methods to stay in power, the manner in which he concentrated all power in his hands meant that as his own physical and mental condition decayed, no one beneath him could really do anything except scheme against fellow subordinates. The result was a power vacuum that only the Communists or the Catholic Church could fill -with the hierarchy worried that its clergy were drifting in to the clutches of the Communists.

As I wrote twelve years ago, the Catholic hierarchy exorcised the demons of the Philippine Revolution of 1896 by taking a lead in the People Power Revolution of 1986. Just how thoroughly Church has ended up appropriating the functions of the State is best seen in the opposition, with its reliance on mass mobilizations for masses, and how opposition and administration alike fuss over the hierarchy and whether they will order the Catholic studentry into the streets.

Both Marcos and Estrada, traditionally contemptuous of and hostile to the hierarchy, paid the political price, not realize how thoroughly eroded the traditional secular reverence for their office had become. Ramos was more clever; Arroyo, cleverer still, in appreciating that the hierarchy can be upwardly mobile, too, in their aspirations, and if flattered and courted and plied with cash, can become pliable, too, and a source of strength and not subversion to the incumbent.

And yet, the cozy relationship’s being challenged, and the challenge is in the form of a bill.

It is 2008, and in comparison to say, 1938, it seems unclear whether secularism is once more resurgent, or whether the Church Militant is poised to be triumphant and retain the privileged position it secured in our national life in 1986.

I like viewing things in cycles so let me explain my approach to the problem.

In 1938, Filipino leaders, most of them with memories of the Spanish era still fresh in their minds and themselves heirs to the anticlericalism of both the Propaganda Movement and the Revolution (a shrewd exploration of this can be found in Frederick Marquardt’s 1954 article, Quezon and the Church), debated and ended up defeating the proposal to teach Catholic catechism in the public schools. See The Church, July 2, 1938. Efforts by Catholics to have catechism taught during class hours in public schools, passed by an obliging National Assembly, ended up vetoed; a line was drawn demarcating the separation of Church and State (a line first established by statute in 1898, thoug even the Malolos Republic seemed more inclined to pursue establishing a national church more along the lines of the England of Henry VIII).

This line would hold so long as there were Filipinos alive who remembered the Spanish era and bore the anticlerical attitudes of Filipinos of that time. The apogee of that generation and its attitude towards Catholicism was the passage of the Rizal Law: see The Church Under Attack, May 5, 1956. Yet victory in Congress -the law was passed, against the impassioned opposition of the Catholic hierarchy and a new generation of bold Catholic apologists in politics- turned out a pyrrhic victory.

You could say the height of the anticlerical era was from 1896 to 1956; and in turn, the Catholic era began in 1956, and peaked in 1986 -with the Edsa Revolution taking on the characteristics of a Marian Deliverance- and, just as the anticlerical era began to wane in 1938 when the National Assembly, indicating how local-minded politicians were willing to take their cues from local prelates, approved religious instruction in the public schools and so showed the sign of political submission to the Catholic hierarchy to come, so did the influence of Catholicism -its naked triumphalism in the wake of Edsa, and its lingering assertion of religious supremacy over the secular, as demonstrated every day by the insistence of Catholic schools in having invocations and prayers come ahead of the national anthem, an act that would have caused a riot fseventy, sixty, even forty or thirty years ago- begin to wane at its point of maximum influence, when patently Catholic principles concerning the family and sexuality were enshrined in the 1987 Constitution.

The debate over the Reproductive Health Bill, then, has characteristics both modern and ancient: and aspects that echo the 1890s, the 1930s, the 1950s, 1970s and 1980s, too. But what too many overlook, I think, is how the Catholic Church is now fighting from a position of strength: not just in terms of organization and the enfeebled notions of citizenship and political identity of the electorate, but also, from a position of statutory advantage.

From the preamble of the Constitution, which dispensed with invocation of a Deist “Sovereign Legislator of the Universe” of 1899, or of the studiously non-denomenational “Divine Providence” in 1935 and 1973, our present Charter invoked “Almighty God,” and despite retaining the official separation of Church and State in Art. II, Sec. 6 (while providing, in the Bill of Rights, Article III, Sec. 5, from any specific Church being favored over the others, while forbidding any limits on the exercise of religion, as much a limit on the State as it is an encouragement to members of any particular faith), the Constitution moves on to providing for Catholic Doctrine as the core principles of the State:

Article II, Section 12. The State recognizes the sanctity of family life and shall protect and strengthen the family as a basic autonomous social institution. It shall equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception. The natural and primary right and duty of parents in the rearing of the youth for civic efficiency and the development of moral character shall receive the support of the Government.

And while Sections 13, 14, and 15 may nominally ordain concern for the youth, gender equality, modern health policies, etc., there follows a provision that subordinates all these, quite clearly, to Section 12:

Section 16. The State shall protect and advance the right of the people to a balanced and healthful ecology in accord with the rhythm and harmony of nature.

Here lies what is arguable a Constitutional exhortation to limit anything related to health, including reproduction, to the Church-sanctioned Rhythm Method, or “natural” family planning.

For this reason, I believe that the debates raging in and out of the blogosphere, in the public sphere and wherever people take either their citizenship or religion seriously, when the debate focuses on the duties versus the rights of individual Catholics as pertains to their conscience, is a waste of time. I say this as a non-practicing Catholic who is entirely uninterested in whether or how people reconcile the tenets of their faith with their political and social conscience. It is a question only of interest to practicing Catholics but no one else (and even for the practicing Catholic, I think it’s futile: either have faith, which is beyond science and reason, or exalt science and reason and become an apostate; there can be no compromise between the two if one actually takes seriously the fate of one’s immortal soul).

So if the question of whether one can salve one’s conscience and not imperil one’s soul is immaterial and irrelevant for non-Catholics and non-practicing Catholics, how then, should the question of the Reproductive Health Bill be approached?

First, the actual provisions of the bill are no longer relevant or material. I say this, because the bill itself has been turned into a litmus test.

On the part of the Catholic hierarchy, the only choice is whether the bill can be defeated outright in Congress, or so thoroughly amended as to turn it into a law more fully supportive of Church aims.

On the part of supporters of the bill, the provisions are less interesting for what they contain -it is, after all, only a law, liable to be enforced more with talk and less with any real action- than for what they represent: an assertion of a non-Catholic, ideally non-sectarian, morality for the state.

The battle lines having been drawn, the battle has been joined and it would be dangerous to prematurely gloat that indications of broad public support for the bill is some sort of death knell for the influence of the Catholic hierarchy in the political sphere.

For an entire generation, Filipinos have been allowed to subordinate the state to God, daily seeing sectarian prayers given priority over the national anthem; this underscores, day in, and day out, the subordination of the state to the Church.

While this period -the generation since Edsa- only represents a third of the lifetime of our modern-day political institutions, it encompasses the living memory of fully two-thirds of the population.

In other words, in the generation since Edsa, where God has day in and day out been demonstrated as superior to flag, anthem, and republic, at least half of present-day Filipinos were born and their attitudes towards Church and State, molded; Filipinos reared in the strict subordination of religion to the State, a subordination demanded by historical experience, are the minority.

During this period, when our sense of the proper distinction between God and Country has been literally turned on its head, our civic sense, our political consciousness as a people, has been enfeebled. The weakening of our political institutions and the political culture upon which the proper functioning of those institutions is premised, also means that in the absence of a vibrant civil society, the best-organized, best-motivated, and best-funded sectors can hold state policy, including the formulation of laws, hostage.

Those wasting their time sneering at Catholic dogma, who want to debate the superiority of Reason over Faith, and so forth, are wasting their time either preaching to the converted, or egging on the religious to new heights of missionary zeal and fantasies of martyrdom.

Public opinion, in this era of apathy and how legalism and naked force trumps all public sentiment, is worthless. As both leaders and the led become increasingly local in their mentality and dismissive of anything that smacks of the romanticism and impracticality of the national, then the political strength of the Catholic hierarchy exponentially increases.

The clergy have never elected a president, a senator, even a congresssmen; this is a truism of our politics. But the other truism is what matters: a politician, whether local or national, is asking for trouble if he incurs the displeasure of the bishop. The hierarchy may not be able to get people elected; but they can seriously harm the prospects of a candidate for election.

And the hierarchy has brought two presidents to their knees; and they helped make the difference between being down and out, or living to fight another day, for the present chief executive.

So let me disagree with Blackshama and others in terms of how they’re framing the debate on this bill. There is no reason to frame the issue in terms of what’s going on in the United States; the proper frame is our anticlerical heritage from the Propagandists and Revolutionaries of the 19th Century and the Catholic Countereformation since the 1950s which achieved its aims in 1987. That heritage has been swept aside by demographics and the rot in the educational system and the sapping of the strength of the body politic.

When Stalin sneeringly asked, “how many divisions has the Pope got?” it was a classic case of the pragmatist being unable to recognize the motivational power of faith; he could sneer at Pius XII, yet it was that same Pope who ordered even cloistered nuns to go out and vote and keep Italy from having a Communist government; and it would be one of Pius XII’s successors who was given great credit (exaggeratedly or not) for bringing the Soviet era to a close in Eastern Europe.

In a society that has taken to accepting, at face value, the administration argument that all politics is a “numbers game,” then the Catholic Church has the numbers; the supporters of the bill, on the other hand, may have public opinion on their side but it is an opinion that cannot find a practical expression -or one practical enough to negate the negative influence prelates can have on the countless political contests officialdom’s already gearing up for in 2010.

As Blackshama tellingly points out -Galileo may have provided inspiration for generations of scientists and freethinkers, but his daughters became saintly nuns. The students who will be mobilized to show their numbers should the debate over the bill reach the point of requiring mobilization, may be attending their chemistry classes today, but they and their parents are already being primed with the incontestible battle cry, “what does it profit a man to gain the world, but lose his immortal soul?”

I have been advocating an effort to reeducate people when it comes to their rights and obligations as citizens. Secularism is far from dead, but at no time since the Revolution has it been so feebly understood and unappreciated by the public as now. We are not alone in this, and not just in terms of Catholicism. See an appeal for the secular ideal, in terms of Muslims, for example, on British subjects -not God’s by Ed Husein.

If I were a betting man, I’d say the odds are in favor of the bill being defeated, and that the odds are getting better for the Church every day. At the very least, they can water down the law so it becomes meaningless.

But even if they fail to derail the bill, let’s not forget what the Catholic Church has done, and continues to do, ever since it lost the showdown over the Rizal Law: it interpreted it as it pleased, and flouted it more than it obeyed it. And the secular schools have not been able to compensate and have even added to the general uselessness and essentially counterproductive results of the passage of that law.

Watch this video

O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times.
Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!
Over thy wounds now do I prophesy,-
Which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips,
To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue-
A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;
Domestic fury and fierce civil strife
Shall cumber all the parts of Italy;
Blood and destruction shall be so in use
And dreadful objects so familiar
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quarter’d with the hands of war;
All pity choked with custom of fell deeds:
And Caesar’s spirit, ranging for revenge,
With Ate by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voice
Cry ‘Havoc,’ and let slip the dogs of war;
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial.
-Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

Adel Tamano argues that,

In my view, the fatal flaw in the whole process of creating the MOA - even going beyond the constitutional issues and whether or not it was negotiated by the government in bad faith – is that the MOA was crafted in the shadows beyond the pale of public discussion and debate.

Which reflects the consensus, I suppose, on where the administration went wrong; but I am not convinced a hundred years of consultations or any administration expending political capital would get either side to budge. There are times when things just sort of fall into a kind of balance, uneasy at first, but which gradually becomes second nature and hence, while unofficial, semipermanent. This is the problem now; this where things had been for some years now, accounting, in large part, for both the sense of optimism until last year, in Christian Mindanao, and the gradual appearance of Moros in other parts of the country, where they began to engage in trade and even start setting down roots.

[Read the rest of this entry »]

On The Explainer last Tuesday (which you can watch online on YouTube) I presented a series of maps based, in turn, on maps you’ve already seen on previous entries, to argue along the lines of there being a basis for the territorial claims of the Moros. At the same time, looking at the past basis for today’s territorial claims also runs smack into the reality on the ground.

Starting with the present ARMM:

Then showing the areas proposed for inclusion by plebiscite next year:

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I have been working on 20 Speeches That Moved a Nation Volume II for some years now, and one of the speeches I decided to include was this one, taken from the Constitutional Convention records. It was delivered by Alaoya Alonto, the Sultan Sa Ramain, convention delegate representing Lanao. By way of putting the speech in its historical context, here is an extract from a paper by Rizal G. Buendia:

In the 1934 Constitutional Convention that framed the 1935 PhilippineConstitution (used as the fundamental law of the Commonwealth and 1946 Government of the Republic of the Philippines [GRP]), several elected Muslim Constitutional delegates, led by Alauya Alonto, called upon their fellow delegates not only to cease calling Muslims Moros but also to accept Muslims as part of the Filipino nation.

This turn of events is a classic case of shifting self-definition, attaching new value and meaning to one’s identity in the prospect of advancing its political interestsand exigencies of power within the parameters of a newfound state. This is a clear case wherein ethnic identity is simply not fixed but malleable and shaped by one’s interest in preserving power and access to resources as expounded by instrumentalists Brass and Cohen.

What deepened in almost two decades from the 1950s was the ethnic self-recognition of the masses as Filipino-Muslims (foremost as a Filipino and second, as a Muslim). The legitimacy of the Philippine state to govern the Muslim areas of thecountry was neither questioned nor challenged by any of the Muslim elite. The emergence of new intellectuals and counter-elite among the Muslims and the political events that transpired in the late 1960s until the early 1970s triggered the re-invention of Muslim identity. The massacre of about 28 Muslim military trainees (called ‘Jabidah commandos’) on Corregidor Island in March 1968 rekindled the quest of Muslims for independence, almost 50 years after it was first clamored for inthe 1920s.

[Read the rest of this entry »]

THAT phrase is being reported around the world, and locally: RP Catholic Church ready to hold Latin masses. As the religion to which most Filipinos, at least statistically, belong, goings-on in the Roman Catholic Church are always interesting -and relevant. What the present Pope, Benedict XVI, has decreed, Motu Proprio, that is, on his own initiative, is that many of the old limitations on celebrating the old Tridentine Rite of the Mass, have been removed. The Weight of Glory has a roundup of Catholic blogger reactions. See also The Byzantine Dominican, and First Things, which calls the Pope’s decree a “liberal document.” Incidentally, in Ad Orientem, there’s an entry from some time back, on why the Eastern Orthodox care about the Latin Mass. Since reunification with the Eastern Churches is a particular interest of the present Pope, his new decree might have fringe benefits not readily seen in terms of Christian unity.

Whispers in the Loggia is a blog I’ve mentioned before, it’s a good guide to goings-on in the R.C. Church, and it reports on what the Pope hoped to achieve by issuing his latest decree (it is, he says, “this pontificate’s most significant text”). Dr. Robert Moynihan is a well-known “Vaticanologist,” and his “Inside the Vatican”  Magazine and newsletter often give the inside scoop on the workings of the oldest government on earth. His report, The Old Mass Returns, gives the political and theological inside story on the Pope’s decision.

The Pope’s decree is already known as Summorum Pontificum (most Papal documents get their titles from the first few words in the definitive Latin text of those documents): see the English translation and other relevant texts. The Pope also issued a letter to the bishops of the Catholic world, explaining the reasons behind, and the objectives of, his decree.

Catholics pining for the old rite will be happy; most Catholics born since the 1960’s have no idea how the Mass used to be celebrated, and probably wouldn’t care for the rituals of the old rite. But around the world, there’s a growing number of young Catholics (including priests) unhappy with the jazz guitar masses and general relaxing of the old discipline of the Catholic church, and they might just be attracted to the old rituals. On the whole, it’s a sign that the Catholic Church, institutionally, is slowly backing away from its 60’s style activism and returning to a more traditional understanding and expression of the faith. Or, as the Pope put it, of “arbitrary deformations of the liturgy.” He was the one, after all, who columnist Maureen Dowd praised on his election, saying, “The cafteria is closed,” referring to the idea of  “cafeteria Catholics”.

May 28 began our flag days, which ends with Independence Day on June 12. Personally, it makes me happy and sad to see so many flags on display. Happy, because it shows how we love our country. Sad, because the end result will be disrespect for the flag.

But here’s something that’s bothered me for a long time. Why do people insist on putting invocations before the national anthem? This is a recent thing, and it’s something that the older generation would have found completely wrong.

The national anthem should always be first. It’s our country, its constitution, the nation our flag and anthem represents, that guarantees us the freedom to worship or not worship: but whether we worship or not, it’s the country that ties us together.