Philippine Jesuits And Politics

Going beyond the disappointment
By Boyet Dy

Philippine Daily Inquirer

05/13/2008
The “Guidelines for Communal Discernment and Action” that was circulated by the Philippine Province of the Society of Jesus Commission on the Social Apostolate last Easter Sunday was the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s “Talk of the Town” on April 6 and April 13.

This should be a welcome development; as stated in the accompanying endorsement letter from Jesuit Provincial Fr. Danny Huang, the invitation was precisely that “communities and institutions read, reflect, pray over and discuss these Guidelines.” I was able to read critical reactions to the Guidelines. It seems that the overriding sentiment is disappointment over the Guidelines’ failure to join calls for resignation.

I should have been disturbed too. I was Ateneo Student Council president when the “Hello, Garci” scandal broke out and, at that time, we called for President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s resignation. I have even recently reiterated my call for Ms Arroyo to resign within my own circles at the height of Jun Lozada’s whistle-blowing. I maintain that calling for her resignation and punishing her and her family members and minions who brazenly drag their weight around are legitimate and appropriate demands because of their accountability to acts of corruption and abuse of power that ultimately undermine hard-won institutions, delay reforms that demand time and crush the hope of the Filipino people. Nevertheless, I was not disappointed by the Guidelines. It seems that the disappointment is misplaced since it is premised on two misinterpretations. One weighty “if.” Closely revisiting the Guidelines will reveal that calling for Ms Arroyo’s resignation is not categorically excluded.

In the analysis of the “Arroyo Resign” position, the last sentence provides nuance by saying that “while this position is one of principled moral conviction, it ceases to be a real political option if GMA [Ms Arroyo] … will not resign voluntarily.” There is a weighty “if” in that phrase, making the expressed caveat conditional, not absolute.

To my mind, it means that while the “Arroyo Resign” position is by no means being junked, it should also by no means steer us away from doing the other equally important democratic work of strengthening institutions and empowering citizens now—especially because calls for resignation still continue to fall on deaf ears. I find this prudent because in the thick of demanding her resignation, I am reminded that I might lose sight of the other democratic work that cannot afford to wait and that in fact must be in place if and when she does resign, so that regime change will be authentic and structural. One can even argue that attending to the democratic work of institution-building and citizen empowerment, even as one persists in exacting ultimate accountability, can precisely be a process of “ripening” so that the resignation call becomes increasingly irresistible, forceful and definitive. A set of guidelines.

Rereading Father Huang’s endorsement letter puts everything in perspective because it unambiguously states that: “The following Guidelines are not a ’statement’ or a ’manifesto’ of a ‘Province position or stand’… but provides a substantive analysis, based on Catholic moral and social doctrine, of our present national situation and the various options and courses of actions taken or advocated in response to that situation.”

If a reader approaches the Guidelines with the expectation of knowing the Jesuits’ stand on Ms Arroyo’s presidency, then the reader will certainly be disappointed because the rubric for assessment is irrelevant to the document’s purposes. Assessed using the correct lenses, the set of guidelines is a valuable document because it was able to paint the complexity of the current situation and remind us of the cornerstone principles that we should use in responding to the complexity. However, the document’s shortcoming, which may be the central source of the misinterpretations, is that in advocating specific action areas, it was conspicuously silent on the resignation question. It was thus not able to clarify that its proposed action areas are the immediate but certainly not the only steps that can be taken in response to the continuing crisis, especially as developments continue to unfold. This is perhaps the reason why it might have come off that the resignation route has been excluded by the Guidelines not only for now, but for always. The real challenge. The difficulty is that these misinterpretations have colored the way the Guidelines has been subsequently appreciated by the critics, resulting in the disproportionate emphasis on and re-framing of the aspects of the Guidelines that reinforce the misinterpretations.

With this has come a downplaying of other important considerations contained in the Guidelines, such as prioritizing the poor, which has become doubly urgent as we confront a ballooning food crisis. At the least, we have seen that the Guidelines did elicit critical reflection and conversation, as it was meant to do. My only hope is that these resultant conversations will be healthy ones that will broaden our perspectives, and not contribute to the hardening of diverging positions, leading to even deeper divisions. In the end, we are one against the evils of this administration and not each other.

The challenge is to go beyond the disappointment—and our differences—and continue exploring ways of how we, who are concerned about the excesses of Malacañang, can come together to rise from these dark times, in the true spirit of Easter.

Link (here)

Photo is of Fr. Danny Huang, S.J.