Your Excellencies, I am writing this letter from my heart, I am expressing myself as a faithful lay person. I am doing this in my baptismal vocation to voice out what I know is right as a Catholic. I am doing this in good faith with one motive: to express my thoughts regarding politics and the way our Church is dealing with it. I am not worried about what people will say or think about me writing you. I am more worried about what God will say about me if I do not share you these thoughts which are based from my personal views, experiences and observations.
“Why Are We What We Are Today…?”
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) in its 1997 Pastoral Exhortation on Philippine Politics asked the question: Why are we what we are today- a country with a great number of poor and powerless people?
The CBCP answered its own question in this manner: “Philippine politics, the way it is practiced has been most hurtful for us as a people, it is possibly the biggest bane in our life as a nation as a nation and the most pernicious obstacle to our achieving full development. If we are what we are today- a country with great number of poor and powerless people- one reason is we have allowed politics to be debased and prostituted to the level it is now.”
The Bishops’ Call to the Laity
Expressing concern for this sorry state of affairs in the country due to politics, in 1991, during the PCP II, the bishops, have collectively called upon the laity to actively participate in politics. “In the Philippines today given the general perception that politics has become an obstacle to integral development, the urgent necessity is for the lay faithful to participate more actively, with singular competence and integrity, in political affairs. It is through the laity that the Church is directly involved” Quoting PCP II, the bishops further said, “Our Plenary Council stands on record to urge lay faithful to participate actively and lead in the renewing of politics in accordance with values of the Good News of Jesus.”
Probably, the bishops then asked, and still perhaps are asking these critical questions: Who is going to respond to this call? Who is willing to begin? What needs to be started? Are there lay men and women out there with ideas and vision who are ready to restore the temporal order and bring back God at the center of politics?
Responding to the Bishops’ Call
In response to this call of PCP II, in August 2002, Nandy Pacheco, along with other lay faithful, formed the Kapatiran sa Pangkalahatang Kabutihan (KPK). This was our way of eloquently expressing our “Christian obedience” to our bishops as Church leaders.
KPK was established to develop an enlightened, mature, and responsible citizenry from which servant-leaders can be chosen, through character-building, values formation based on the Social Teaching of the Church, consistent ethic of life, good citizenship, catechesis and political education, and to encourage the formation of responsible and accountable political parties. This is in accord with the pronouncement of Pope Benedict XVI when he said “the specific mission of the laity is Christian action in the public sphere, where they act on their own initiative and in an independent manner, in the light of faith and the Church’s teaching.
It is worthy to note that it is not the purpose of KPK (now Ang Kapatiran Party) to lead this country by using the Catholic dogma. That would be dictatorship. We party members are neither minions of the Catholic bishops. That would be indentured servitude.
AKP has clear and specific objectives in its platform-based politics, the politics of virtue and of duty, and politics of transparency and public accountability, and to draw up a list of aspirations. Examples of these objectives are the abolition of pork barrel, family political dynasties, fighting the RH law, gambling and promoting gun control.
On May 8, 2004, two days before the national elections, the Commission on Elections accredited the Alliance for the Common Good, otherwise known as Ang Kapatiran Party, as a national political party. The party took part in the 2007 elections with three senatorial candidates and some local candidates. In 2010, Ang Kapatiran Party had a presidential candidate and vice presidential candidate and seven senatorial candidates. We AKP candidates lost the elections but did not lose the Catholic principles which got us involved in politics. Indeed, we accepted the challenge to run for elective positions (I ran for a senate seat) under AKP. But we didn’t get enough support from our own flock including our church. Many of our brethren thought we AKP candidates were outlandish. They thought that our efforts were inutile that we cannot outsmart those candidates who were popular and moneyed. Indeed, we AKP candidates were not only aware of the financial difficulties of the party but also we were willing to be misunderstood and, worse, ridiculed.
Ang Kapatiran Party (now Kapatiran Party) is the only political party, a laity-organized party that seriously responded to the call of the bishops by bringing forth strong lay leadership specifically focused on the renewal of the temporal order. It is the only political party that has a role model in the persons of St. Thomas More and the late president Ramon Magsaysay. It has a theme song whose title is “Pananagutan” which expresses the very essence of what Ang Kapatiran Party is all about. It is the only party that pursues and accepts Christ’s peace with love, justice, truth, reconciliation, freedom and active non-violence.
No less than the late Eminence Jaime Cardinal Sin referred to Kapatiran as “a group of concerned Catholic laity who wanted to contribute to the social transformation by raising the political awareness and maturity of our people.” Certainly, AKP is the closest political party that the Church has in mind because it champions a wide spectrum of Her teachings as part of its platform of government.
But truth to tell, during the campaign, we AKP candidates missed the shepherding and encouraging efforts of the bishops, clergy and the religious who, I know, ought to guide, nurture and guard the laity. As expected, we lost in every election. In effect, we felt like a lost sheep, worse, early orphaned, without the shepherd looking after us. But even if we lose hundreds of elections, we will stand by the call of the Catholic Church to evangelize to all including the political realm. For us, politics is a fertile vineyard for evangelization. We shall never rest till we reap the fruits of our campaign for a God-centered politics in our country so shall we continue to educate our people on the advocacies of the Ang Kapatiran Party. We are not ready to surrender this cause for whatever reason.
Ang Kapatiran’s Experiences and Struggles in Politics
Ang Kapatiran was led to believe that the pronouncement of the bishops in PCP II to urge lay faithful to participate actively and lead in the renewing of politics in accordance with values of the Good News of Jesus would lead to a genuine partnership between the Church leaders and the laity in the common effort to transform the temporal by living our Catholic faith in the realm of politics. However, were left alone as if the bishops retreated from their PCP II’s commitment to support the laity in their involvement in politics.
Are we at AKP on the right track when we responded to the call of the bishops for the laity to join politics? What does the church teach about our role as a laity in the political realm? Please correct us if we misheard your call but we admit we heard you clearly calling us the laity to actively participate in politics. We answered your call in a positive way. We formed Ang Kapatiran as a laity-led political party. Admittedly, Ang Kapatiran Party is not founded around big names and influential people but on a platform that eloquently expresses the firm faith of ordinary people who want to change the lives of their fellow Filipinos “for the better and want to find meaning and fulfillment in life by loving God and serving others.”
We harbor no illusions that AKP is the sole solution to our political problems. Buy we cherish our action that we stood with you our bishops when you called the laity to join politics.
However, we at AKP are at a lost and we are in dire need of the guidance of the bishops. I am well aware of the frustrations by some of the AKP candidates that the bishops, individually or collectively, have not shepherded us clearly. Can you blame us if we felt deserted by some of the bishops? It is apparently painful to admit that only handful bishops openly supported the party during the past elections.
Rising to Challenges
It is noteworthy to mention that PCP II gives special stress that politics is noble. On the one hand, Pope Francis I says “Politics is a noble activity. We should revalue it, practice it with vocation and a dedication that requires testimony, martyrdom, that is to die for the common good.” On the other hand, Pope Benedick XVI in his first encyclical Deus Caritas Est (Part II) says “The just ordering of society and the State is a central responsibility of politics. Justice is both the aim and the intrinsic criterion of all politics. Politics is more than a mere mechanism for defining the rules of public life; its origin and its goal are found in justice, which but its very nature has to do with ethics.” Indeed, politics is bad only when we misuse it. Politics is decent and worthy if only there are no bad politicians and there are no irresponsible political parties. If only our bishops had the willingness to endorse politicians of moral integrity and political parties that have platform of government that is reflective of the teachings of the church, then we would have a better country.
What is imperatively needed is to have an authentic evangelization of politics, including political education and to have a genuine political action. The lay faithful, like the Ang Kapatiran Party, cannot do this alone. The bishops have to help the laity in this regard. The role of a bishop or priest in politics is to give laypeople the spiritual guidance and education they need to live up to their obligation to make society reflect God’s plan for the world, Pope Benedict XVI said.
For instance, our society is beset with many social sins. Consider the issues on the use of pork barrel, political dynasty, reproductive health law, among others, which have envenomed our society as a result of a serious lack of discipline and Gospel values on the part of many of our national leaders especially the Catholic politicians. In fact, PCP-II looks at these socio-economic and political problems in terms of sinfulness (Nos. 264-70). This realization of sinfulness as the root cause must lead to conversion and social transformation (Nos. 272-74).
Shall our bishops allow these social evils unchallenged? Is our Church losing its salt and influence in maintaining a society known as a Christian nation? Is our Church fading to oblivion? Is the Church failing us or are we failing the Church?
For the bishops to keep on speaking out and raising moral issues of these social evils is not enough. They should go the extra mile of promoting the idea of electing new set of men and women who will work not just that which is legal but that which is moral or Christlike. Is it too much to ask the bishops if they urge the lay faithful to vote for the responsible political party or candidates who adhere to the teachings and ethos of the Catholic Church?
The Church somehow failed to communicate its moral teachings to our lay faithful. Some of the bishops fell short in providing the foundation of our faith, some of the clergy neglected to teach this faith and the religious are wanting to witness to this faith by their prayer life and by their special apostolate in the Church. The pervasiveness of our national sins Your Excellencies is too obvious to be missed. The Church has been generally complacent in standing her ground against lawlessness and the wrong doings of the dishonest and corrupt politicians. The moral authority of the Church seems to be now collapsing. The Church has become cold that even some of her priests are not proud of their priestly vocation and the Church because, on several occasions, they don’t like to be recognized as Catholic priests by not pinning crucifixes around their necks evidencing that they are witnesses of faith. Truly, a believing and practicing Catholic who loves the church should defend her at all cost and unconditionally embrace her teachings on the fundamental contents of faith and morals. It is my humble opinion that anyone who professes that he or she is a Catholic yet acts in a contrary manner is a humbug.
By Way of Resting My Case
It is my prayer that the Church should actively engage herself in politics. It should get out of her shell. The Church should refashion its image and redefine its perspective about politics. The bishops should not be anxious to evangelize politics since politics is good governance and authentic public service. God is all good and there is no reason why God should not be involved in politics.
Pope Francis had this to say: “A good Catholic doesn’t meddle in politics. That is not true. That is not a good path. A good Catholic meddles in politics, offering the best of himself- so that those who govern can govern.” Simply put, a good Catholic meddles in politics and a good Catholic makes a good citizen. The bishops then should meddle in politics if only to bring the source of Goodness who is God at the center of politics.
The Church, through the bishops, should continue to proclaim the Gospel values but this should not be confined to the walls of a Church building. Otherwise, the Church is spiritually sick. Pope Francis admonishes that “We need to avoid the spiritual sickness of a church that is wrapped up in its own world: when a church becomes like this, it grows sick.”
Finally, I hope you agree with me Your Excellencies when I say that transformation of our society is a shared ministry among the bishops, clergy, religious and the laity. But you must be aware that the laity has a vast responsibility. Their mission in the Church is to bring Christ into the temporal world. Their field of evangelizing activity is the complicated world of politics. It is unfortunate that some of our Catholic laity remain as a sleeping giant to be awakened and must be made aware of this special form of evangelization. If only we can revitalize political catechesis in every parish the purpose of which is to conduct political education to our laity, then probably they will be more empowered with their duty and responsibility to transform our society into a better Christian place to live in.
Remember us as the lay faithful who responded to your call to help change the face of politics in our country. Remember Kapatiran Party who responded to the challenge of the Second Vatican Council to be an instrument of the sanctification and transformation of the temporal order. KP is not sliding down to irrelevance as some claim. We as members cannot simply be ignored in the political space. We still have the appetite to introduce substantive changes in our political system and help build a society in which responsible and caring citizens want to live. We owe it to our people and God to contribute what we have in shaping a better future of our nation. We will help bring the truth of the Gospel and the wisdom of Catholic teaching into the public square. All we ask is for the Church to do more politically, for you and the clergy to be more engaging in the political issues that threaten our faith.
These are my personal thoughts and observations that I would like to bring to the attention of the bishops for whatever they are worth.
Your Excellencies, how hard it is for me to say this. However, I feel responsible as a humble layman to talk about these matters because I live my faith and live a life according to my preaching. My apologies if you find harshness and negativity in my words.
In writing you this letter, I express to Your Excellencies my profound regards of esteem and devotion.
