The Problematique:
This is a difficult topic to deal with: Activism in the Christian Prophetic Tradition. It invites fear: the war against drugs and the war against communist terrorists have created the same patterns of victimization: the “tokhang” against the poor suspected of involvement in the drug trade and the activists involved in the work for social change, on behalf of justice, peace, human rights and integrity of creation. “Tokhang” is carried out, first by identifying them publicly either as drug peddlers or red-tagged activists, then the procurement of search warrants, the raids in the middle of the night, followed by arrests, disappearances and the kill or the massacre, with impunity! It provokes anger: why should the “tokhang” be directed at activists who are helping construct a better world of justice and peace? More profoundly, it challenges the deepest, most complex contradicting resources of our being: faith and faithlessness, hope and hopelessness, love and lovelessness, compassion and despair, hatred and indifference, humanity and animality, fanaticism and meaninglessness, life and death, justice and violence, action and paralysis.
In our situation, the “tokhang” style of legalized repression and extra-judicial killings is justified by the Anti-Terror Law. The seeming connivance of both Houses of Congress and the Judiciary and the seeming voluntary obedience of the people to this way of doing things is provided for by the demagoguery of populism and its populist leader. Pope Francis provides a prophetic analysis of populism and populist leadership when he says:
individuals are able to exploit politically a people’s culture, under whatever ideological banner, for their own personal advantage or continuing grip on power. Or when, at other times, they seek popularity by appealing to the basest and most selfish inclinations of certain sectors of the population. This becomes all the more serious when, whether in cruder or more subtle forms, it leads to the usurpation of institutions and laws.
(Fratelli Tutti, 159)
This is the social context of our reflection today on Activism and the Christian Prophetic Tradition. The problematique that we must face in this situation is this: Shall we, out of fear, cower and cease to be activists, or shall we overcome fear and transcend it and assert our activism? Or shall we be carried away by anger, and unleash our activism to its limits, and let this anger construct that better world? Or can anger – just anger – construct a better world? Or more profoundly still, can we still get in touch with the core of our being and behold the qualities of our humanity, or shall we allow the beast, the animal and the baser and basest instincts in us to triumph over and rule our being? What are our choices?
The words of Paul come to mind, thus:
We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh.
(2 Cor 4:7-11)
Activism, Anyone?
In the time prior to, during and shortly after Martial Law and the Marcos Dictatorship, activism was a prized word. It conjured the image of deep serious scientific study and rigorous critical thinking, of preferential option for the poor and leaving one’s comfortable home, convent and institutional work and routine in favor of the messy, exciting, dangerous and adventurous life with the poor and the adoption of their smell, sweat and struggle to eke out a living.
It was an exciting time for student activists who demanded academic freedom, recognition of student power and non-commercialization of schools and education. It meant commitment to the cause of national freedom against US imperialism, Soviet revisionist expansionism and Chinese social imperialism on the one hand, and social emancipation from domestic feudal landlordism, government corruption and big business control of an economy that basically catered to foreign interests on the other. Many of them dropped out of school in order to learn from the masses and develop an alternative education which their studies could not interfere.
The progressive members of the Church and the religious, inspired by the aggiornamento of Vatican II, took this activism to heart. Priests, sisters and those in formation in their clerical and religious habits picketed the huge party of an haciendero that had a fountain flowing with champaigne. They lived with the sacada of Negros, and it was a young Jesuit priest, Fr. Arsenio Jesena, SJ who exposed the oppressive, exploitative, unjust condition of the sacada in the hands of the contratista and the haciendero. (Fr. Arsenio Jesena, SJ, The Sacadas of Sugarland, authorsden.com). A French diocesan clergy came to introduce to the Filipino clergy the life and work of “worker-priests”, priests who worked in the factories to earn in order to live like any other worker, without forsaking their sacramental and pastoral duties. Nuns left their convents and institutional works and lived with the peasants, the lumad, and the urban poor, so that their spirituality, theology and life would articulate the Gospel values of Jesus’ preferential love for the poor. The ICM, the CFIC (later called SFIC), the RGS, the MSM, the m.a., the Maryknoll and the Columbans were at the forefront of this new movement of renewing and liberating the Church from within. Priests and religious got involved in organizing cooperatives among farmers and workers; their ministry became more holistic, integrating liturgical-sacramental renewal with social action that were humanitarian-developmental and later, with the work for justice, peace, integrity of creation and liberation. Literature and communications facilities thrived that not only announced the spirituality and theology of the Church but also proclaimed the life of the Church in the Modern World: the Impact Magazine, the Ichthys, the Ang Tao magazine, the movie Sugat sa Ugat of the Communication Foundation for Asia, and the radio stations of the religious and the dioceses.
In initial formation, seminarians clamored for renewal in formation in light of the vision of Vatican II. They organized themselves into the Inter-Seminary Forum of the Philippines. They studied the Ratio Fundamentalis and proposed changes. The bishops accepted the seminarians’ proposals. The fruit of this activism is manifold: seminary training would now include secular courses like social work, organizational and financial management, exposure and immersion programs, a year of socio-pastoral experience, student government in the seminary and an independent seminary publication. Probably most notable was the establishment of new seminaries designed to be formation houses in the bosom of the people’s quest for justice, peace and liberation: the experimental theology schools pioneered by Fr. Carlos Abesamis, SJ in Quezon City, Fr. Rodulfo “Dong” Galenzoga in Lanao del Norte, and the Inter-Congregational Theological Center also in Quezon City.
In liturgy, this activism in the Church produced the Misa ng Sambayanang Pilipino, a project of the seminarians of the CICM under the tutelage of Fr. Anscar Chupungco, OSB. In theater arts, Pagsambang Bayan of Boni Ilagan was a hit musical that merged the mass of salvation with the struggle of the poor for freedom and liberation under Martial Law and the Marcos Dictatorship. Theologically, the historical development of this activism in the Church and society produced the Theology of Struggle. This identity of doing theology in the Philippine setting was coined by Fr. Luis Hechanova, CSsR.
