A letter to CBCP

Dear CBCP, My name is Gary Granada and I am neither a Catholic nor a Protestant. I do not belong to a huge organization, much less represent one. At best I am a volunteer of Kaalagad, a small interfaith community. I write this letter in the hope that you might reconsider your stance regarding GMA and her government - that too. But primarily I write out of confusion. In previous pronouncements, you deplored a “most corrupt President” which you said the Church helped install, hence urged everybody to take communal action. And then two weeks later you asked the very same President to take the lead in combating corruption. I understand that this was the result of a process of discernment on your part as bishops. God must have spoken to you and told you to ask a most corrupt leader to rid her most corrupt government of corruption. Perhaps God forgot to consider who would benefit from your statement. Lord, do you see who is cheering? Discernment must be a supernatural mystery, I wonder if it involves executive privilege between God and the CBCP. “Discernment” reminds me of one of Christ’s disciples. When he announced that one of them was about to betray him, the culprit himself asked, “Is it I, Lord?” Napakahirap nga i-discern ang klaro na. As a fan of Jesus, I did a bit of discerning myself. Something tells me that the Gospel itself - the good news to the needy, the reign of hope, sufficiency, justness and goodwill – is being undermined by the very institution that owns its franchise. It has made it like tasteless salt, no longer good for anything except perhaps to be thrown out and trampled under foot by people. Dear CBCP, two years ago you could have helped prevent a most corrupt president and her gang from continually getting away with lying, cheating, stealing and murder. But you chose to sit it out, hence instead helped save GMA and Garci. Despite the odds, the people went ahead anyway and marched. And “lost”. Now you do the same. And again the people will march to oust GMA and her conspirators. The triumph of public good might be uncertain. They may not prevail. Just the same, the people will march anyway – in a sense trampling on the tasteless salt of hierarchical religion. You may want to join them, not as bishops, not as CBCP, but as average believers whose untrained spiritual eyes nevertheless discern God’s Will in the obvious. ____________ Gary Granada is one of the alternative Filipino artists I genuienely admire. He is an icon of the Philippine progressive music because of his nationalistic compositions. His many songs included Eroplanong Papel (my favorite), Philippines 2000, Kung ayaw mo na sa akin, Kung alam mo lang Violy, Bahay and Salamat Musika.

------------------ Gary