Requiem for recall

DEAD ON arrival.
That was how – from the very start – purported top election lawyer Romulo Macalintal called the petition for the recall of his purported pro bono client, Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio.
Dead on arrival.
That was how – Macalintal so gleefully proclaimed, not without an I-told-you-so sneer – the petition for Panlilio’s recall seemed to have gone at the Commission on Elections, with its decision to defer all petitions for recall due to lack of funds.
Comelec Chair Jose Melo had long been saying the poll body had all but P5 million in its coffers for recall elections. Pampanga’s alone would require a minimum of P24 million. And there are 16 more petitions lodged with them.
Dead on arrival.
Not so much for any infirmity – legal or otherwise – that should have been first diagnosed, but for the sheer unavailability of funds to go about it.
Dead on arrival.
Just like the destitute patient rushed to a hospital, getting no attention from doctors because he had no money for the required deposit. The grieving relatives taking what little comfort from the consoling “kagustuhan na ng Diyos yan (It is God’s will).”
Come to think of it, the recall petition’s “death” at the Comelec has been, indeed, hailed by at least one rabid Panlilio mongrel as the very will of God.
Dead on arrival.
With the demise of recall petitions at its very doorstep, the Comelec has shamelessly reduced itself to the level of government hospitals where the dying is far greater than the healing. Afflicted as they both are with the same insufficiency of funds, and therefore failing to live up to their very mandate, to the very reason for their being.
Dead on arrival.
The Comelec-government hospital analogy takes on the wing of a song. Particularly some lyrics in that golden song of yore, Mona Lisa. In this wise, Victor Wood’s tremulous version, for its tragicomic appropriateness:
“Many dreams have been brought to your doorstep.
They just lie there, and they die there.”
Dead on arrival.
Is the Comelec for real?
Dead on arrival.
Should the Recall-Panlilio advocates now prepare for a funeral?
Pray. Wail.

Pulpit politicized

Zona Libre/Bong Z.Lacson
“THE PULPIT should be reserved for the exposition of the Word of God and the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom, and should not be utilized by any person to defend himself nor malign others directly or indirectly on a particular issue.”
The access to the pulpit given by a number of priests to Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio to advance his political ends has merited a complaint-letter to Archbishop Paciano B. Aniceto
Those who signed the letter (in order of appearance now): Rosve Henson, Kambilan president; Joseller Guiao, Pampanga vice governor; Cris Garbo, board memder; Jerry Pelayo, Candaba Mayor; Raul Macalino, Councilors’ League of Pampanga president; Joel Simpauco, Association of Barangay Captains of Pampanga president; Lolo Go, former Balas supervisor; Armando Canda, Conscience; Andres David, Rotary Club of Southern Pampanga president; Emil Miranda, Ibaca Foundation; John Eric Tumang, SKF president.
The complainants cited a video of Panlilio addressing the parishioners of San Matias parish “explaining his side” of the recall issue “in the guise of expounding on his call for good governance and responsible citizenship.”
If this went on – Rosve, Yeng, et al said – it might “create divisiveness, discord and even heated arguments inside the holy ground.”
Now, what if “some articulate and vociferous parishioners challenged the governor’s pronouncements”?
Yeah, what if? Would the pro-Panlilio parish priest then tell them to shut up under threat of excommunication?
“By using the Church as forum to advance his political agenda,” Panlilio’s ready access to the pulpit is “lopsided favor” he enjoys “over the other parties, particularly the proponents of the recall movement.”
Fair is fair – the letter writers, invoking his “unquestionable sense of fairness and uprightness,” asked the good Apu Ceto: “If your Eminence (sic) deemed it reasonable that such political activity may be allowed by the Mother Church as in the case of Gov. Panlilio, may we also REQUEST, without being disrespectful and presumptuous, that the same privilege and equal opportunity be provided the opposite side as well to air their version of the issue.” With the reminder there that “most signatories of the recall are flocks of the Catholic Church.”
Now, what if Apu Ceto accede to this request? And what if he did not? I dare not speculate.
We have quoted it here and we quote it again: “…yet politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement. No sound ought to be heard in the Church but the healing voice of Christian charity. The cause of civil liberty and civil government gains as little as that of religion by this confusion of duties. Those who quit their proper character, to assume what does not belong to them, are, for the greater part, ignorant both of the character they leave, and of the character they assume. Wholly unacquainted with the world in which they are fond of meddling, and inexperienced in all its affairs, on which they pronounce with so much confidence, they have nothing of politics but the passions they excite.” That was Edmund Burke in his Reflections on the Revolution in France written in 1790.
Isn’t that Panlilio precisely that Burke wrote about?
For political exigency, Panlilio has found expediency in the Church and the priesthood. The very institution he disobeyed, the very sacrament he is now suspended from.
Even as Panlilio invoked the spirit of ecumenism in getting rid of the Marian image at the Office of the Governor – an act that did not sit well with the saradong Catolico (devout Catholics), he now seeks not only solace but a platform for his political agenda in the Holy Mass itself.
Now, there is a captive audience there – within the confines of the holy sacrifice – that Panlilio has found most expedient. Given the utter lack of audience in his talks outside the Mass, even on church grounds.
A case in point was his Sindalan sojourn some Sundays ago. With his motorcade of passenger-challenged 12 vehicles, Panlilio arrived at the Sindalan chapel yard where he was slated to speak after the Mass. Despite the appeals of the priest, the churchgoers promptly went on their various ways – to the mall or home – after the final blessing. Leaving Panlilio to talk to members of his own party of 12 non-passengered vehicles. And they say that Sindalan is staunchly pro-Panlilio!
So, it had to be the Mass that Panlilio must access. No matter the sacrilege he brings with his political agenda there.
Religion, ‘tis been clichéd, is the last recourse of scoundrels. Counter-clichéd I dared ‘tis politics. Whichever, Panlilio finds himself entangled there.

Disempowerment

"I HOPE my detractors would refrain from seeing these invitations as my personal venues for a campaign which I never do or even thought of. There's nothing like that."
So spake Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio of the various speaking engagements he has been doing all over the country. So we take his word for it: these have nothing to do with some political plans on the national stage for 2010.
Let us rather focus on what he talks about in these engagements. In his latest, before a so-called Cebu Citizens' Involvement and Maturation for People Empowerment and Liberation (C-Cimpel), the Reverend Governor was slated to speak on “people empowerment and its impact on the development of barangays.”
Indeed, Panlilio has a lot to impress his audience about that subject, given his Pampanga experience.
One. Threatening to take Barangay Captain Jomar Hizon of Cabalantian, Bacolor to court for desilting the Gugu Creek to save his constituencies from the dangers of lahar, and actually throwing the law book at Bacolor Mayor Buddy Dungca for doing the same?
Two. The capitol incompetence in securing medical supplies and equipment for the province’s district hospitals and thus depriving the people of proper health care.
Three. His accomplishment of 20 kilometers of concreted roads in his first year in office to fasttrack the delivery of goods and services to the people. Yeah, all of 20 kilometers translating to less than one kilometer for each of the province’s 20 towns and one city. Indeed an achievement worthy of a barangay captain!
Four. Increasing by a thousand fold the quarry collections but depriving the people of the benefits therefrom with the breakdown in the delivery of basic services.
Five. Declaring Arnedo Park as not a “freedom park” and therefore totally restricted from being used as venue for the people to air their grievances.
Six. Preventing access to the Office of the Governor of charity seekers, and the great Kapampangan unwashed.
Seven. The total empowerment of putative provincial administrator Atty. Vivian Dabu to lord it over the capitol – not excluding Panlilio himself.
We stop at seven samples of how Panlilio is exercising people empowerment to impact on the development of the barangays.
Yes, indeed, an impact he has created: Over 224,000 voters signing the petition for his recall.
Now, that is people empowerment. That, no thanks to the abject poverty of the Commission on Elections, is most endangered.
Friday last week, the Comelec said it has suspended action on all recall petition filed and pending before them until funds are made available for the purpose.In Resolution 8547 promulgated Nov. 13, 2008, the Comelec cited lack of funds as the reason for suspending recall elections. It said that it only has P5 million in funds available at the moment."The request of the Commission for the release of additional funds for recall elections was not favorably considered due to funding constraints," it said.Now, that is clearly disempowering the people from exercising a right guaranteed in the Constitution.
Democracy in this country is subject to the availability of funds. Weep.

Gay apparent

BAKLA! That is what I make of the latest burst of tepid air coming from the fired quarrymen of the Biyaya a Luluguran at Sisikapan (Balas). My apologies, not to the Balas Boys, but to the Third Kind.
I can only think of a sudden surge of sissyness charged with an even greater voltage of silliness in the Balas Boys’ reported appeal to Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio “to visit them at the picketline to take a look at their plight.”
This, even as they continue damning Panlilio and his putative provincial administrator Atty. Vivian Dabu as the very cause of their sad, sad and sorry plight. With the vow to intensify their call for the tandem’s resignation.
The Balas Boys even bragged that their “truck attacks” – their novel showboats of Panlilio-Dabu matrimonial invites, to their ouster – would start hitting the barangays to take the Balas cause directly to the people.
And, no, no, no, no – to the thousandth degree. No way that the Balas Boys would be “soon packing up,” decamping from the fringes of the Arnedo Park. Notwithstanding the apparent setting of donor fatigue among their supporters. Not even to give way – and show some solidarity with the people of the capitol – in the celebration of Pampanga Day this first week of December.
Wait, just you wait for their 100th day at the picketline, the Balas Boys warned, and witness what they can be capable of in highlighting the urgent need for the ouster of the Panlilio-Dabu tandem from the capitol.
At the picketline, the Balas Boys shall stay. “Until a final, judicial, and concrete resolution to our demands is met.” So they vowed. (These guys are always vowing. Leads me to think of Jamie Hippolites in swardspeak: “Promise, ha?”)
Amid all these arm flexing and warmongering, comes this appeal for Panlilio to “look at their plight” at the picketline. So what’s that appeal all about, silly...er, sissies?
Fight. Or surrender. An either-or, not a yes-but proposition in the Balas struggle.
Aggression and appeasement mixed makes Mars and Venus one. A more definitive take in Greek mythology: the union of Hermes and Aphrodite birthing Hermaphroditus who became united in one body with the nymph Salmacis and from there a-born “hermaphrodite.” Having both male and female sex organs, that’s what that word means, dummy.
Just some weeks back, the piece Love of Among came out in this corner. It started thus:
“SUITORS JILTED, not once, not twice, but many times over, yet still pining for the affection, nay, even just the acknowledging glance of the beloved, are those ex-seminarians who form the core of the Balas Boys.
That is how, in no particular order now, Filologo Rodriguez, Archimedes Reyes, Chris Ocampo and Roperlee Syquia, came across to me – most certainly to a great number of viewers too – in their guesting at friend John Susi’s Hamon: Central Luzon over CLTV-36 last week.”
The piece went to conclude, thus:
“Clear to all, Panlilio, by his actions, has no love lost for the four former seminarians. Clear to all, except to the four.
They still abhor to think of fighting, nay, of even slighting, their beloved, their most revered Among Ed.
Is this a hopeless case of the four hoping against hope that somehow, someway, Panlilio still carried in his heart of hearts even just some flickering embers of love for them – his own wards in the seminary?
That the Good Lord will cause some epiphany to come to Panlilio, the scales in his eyes suddenly falling off – even without an Ananias, see the lie in Dabu, and rush to them, his beloved disciples, for a renewal of bonds, never to be cut again? No way will the God who appointed Dabu at the capitol allow that, most surely.”
Still...so, ano ba talaga mga bruha sa buhangin? Nagkabaklaan na ba?

Keh's fancy

PA-RAM-PA-PAM-PAM. Ram-pa-pam-pam. Ram-pa-pam-pam.
The little drummer boy of Gov. Eddie T.Panlilio is at it again. Drumbeating – what else – and trumpeting too for his idol.
Elitist Ateneo de Manila’s Harvey Keh of the exclusivist Kaya Natin! (We Can) clique had a letter in the Philippine Daily Inquirer titled “Filipinos can do an Obama.” It read in part thus:
“Many Filipinos have begun to lose hope in finding that leader but I think that we have our own little Obamas in our country today such as the likes of Ramon Magsaysay Awardees Mayor Jesse Robredo of Naga City and Gov. Grace Padaca of Isabela, Gov. Eddie Panlilio of Pampanga, Mayor Sonia Lorenzo of San Isidro, Nueva Ecija and Gov. Teddy Baguilat, Jr. of Ifugao.
These local government leaders have defied the odds in their respective areas to win against well-entrenched political dynasties.
“Obama was not entirely correct when he said it is only in the United States of America where someone can defy the odds and win.”
“Little Obamas.” I don’t know about all the other political personalities Keh trumpeted about but I do know that Panlilio is NO Obama, little or whatever else. Still – in the spirit of Desiderata, not the least of which is that part about the intellectually challenged having their stories to tell – let us indulge Keh’s fancy.
Comparisons are always odious. That is never truer than to compare the Pampanga Governor to the US President-elect. No, not simply odious. But most odious.
Obama won over what’s-his-name McCain by a landslide. Panlilio won by the length of his nose in a tripartite contest. In a one-on-one, Governor Panlilio would not have come to be.
“Change” was the operative word in the Obama campaign. So Panlilio’s “Good governance” campaign blurb was in a way a call to change too, from the perceptively corrupt system at the capitol. So the similarity merits some common identity?
The US presidential campaign may have been heated, inflamed may be the better word there. But after the elections, Obama reached out to his rival, soothing him with the finest, kindest words. Panlilio – till this time – continues to demonize his political foes.
Obama, for all his audacity, is known to be collegial, to seek out and listen to counsel. Panlilio is all…well, Dabu?
So, while Obama is still all promise, Panlilio is already promise undelivered.
Obama’s supporters are as yet coagulating around him. Panlilio has been drained of his.
Now, why am I being serious. Let me get back to being fanciful, like Keh.
A dry dream. Keh hailed Panlilio as “Little Obama.” Obversely, we make Obama a “Little Panlilio.” What shall the United States of America have?
“Yours is only a caretaker government” letter to George W.
A request for a “blanket authority” from the US Capitol to enter into any deed of donation, memorandum of agreement, and some such contracts.
Hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign donations trimmed to less than five million in the official report.
Declaring as illegal the use of the Washington Mall as “freedom park” where any issue, even those against the sitting administration, can be articulated.
Unleashing the National Guard to bodily remove protesting former supporters.
Madame Lolita Hizon in Ophra Winfrey crying “I am sorry” for campaigning – and spending millions – for the President
An Atty. Vivian Dabu at the White House. The American people would readily forgive, nay, would even adore Bill Clinton for Monica Lewinsky.
God have mercy on America! God have pity on Harvey!

Binay the audacious

JOJO BAMA. Quick to cash in on the popularity – and political success – of the US president-elect, supporters of Makati Mayor Jejomar “Jojo” Binay have arrogated unto their man the Obama name at the declaration of his intention to run for the presidency during the celebration of his 66th birthday on November 11.
Audacity – that which evolved as core character of Barack Obama in his campaign for the US presidenc – has also been appended on Binay. His presidential intention – in the words of the Philippine Daily Inquirer – “an audacious journey from the “Republic of Makati” to the Republic of the Philippines.”
The truth though where audacity is concerned, Binay is way, way ahead of Obama, having been into the game when Barack was still the gangling student Barry. Truly, Binay’s defining value is audacity.
Audacious, as only Binay can be, in standing up against the then-demigod of Makati, the political overlord Nemesio Yabut.
Audacious, as only Binay can be, in leading the assault on ABS-CBN – full battle gear and all – at the time of the Edsa Revolution.
Audacious, as only the indio Binay can be, in facing off the mestizos and illustrados that created and lorded over Makati and making them toe the line.
Audacious, as only Binay can be, in transforming Makati from a backwoods township into the bustling, premier metropolis of the Philippines.
Audacious, as only Binay can be, in providing the best health care for his constituents, free education to college for the youth and all that leisure to the senior citizens.
Audacious, as only Binay can be, in winning the Makati mayorship in 1988, 1992and 1995 and making his wife, Dra. Elenita, win in 1998 and then regaining his stranglehold to the post in 2001, 2004, and 2007.
Audacious, as only Binay can be, in trouncing the Bida ng Masa – Senator Lito Lapid – at the polls, ceding but less than nine percent of the vote to the former action star and governor of Pampanga in 2007.
Audacious, as only Binay can be, in opening Makati to the rallies of the Opposition calling for the ouster of the sitting President.
Audacious, as only Binay can be, in refusing that Makati be placed under the jurisdiction of the Metro Manila Development Authority in waste management and in the number-coding traffic scheme.
Audacious, as only Binay can be, in refusing the suspension order served him by the Department of the Interior and Local Government and holding out with his faithful at the Makati City Hall. If that is not the height of audacity to which Binay has risen, I don’t know what is.
In audacity, Obama pales in comparison with Binay.
Thus, it was to Binay’s long-time friend, the erudite Congressman Teddyboy Locsin: “You mean Obama is the Jojo Binay of Chicago? The difference…is that Obama has no achievement to speak of so he is (pushing) hope we can believe in, change we can believe in…Secretly, I believe Obama was watching Jojo Binay.”
Audacity has paid of. Not only for Binay but for the people of Makati. For Obama, and the American people, it has yet to.
Jojo Bama? For the name recall maybe. Barack O-Binay. For the proven performance, most certainly.

The devil's hand

THE MIRACLE that was the quarry collection under the Eddie T. Panlilio administration – a whopping P1 million daily as benchmark established in his very first month in office – has, in only one year, gone to the devil’s hand.
Plunged, nay, plummeted have the quarry collections to a deeply disturbing P31,035,000 year-to-year difference. That sordid financial freefall, pointed out by no less than the License & Fees Division of the Provincial Treasurer’s Office (PTO).
The PTO’s November 3 Quarry Situationer reported a four-month (July-October, 2008) collection of P54,555,000, broken down to: P13.49 million, P12.88 million, P14.49 million and P13.905 million.
Now, interface this with the collection for the same period last year of P85,590,000, broken down to: P24.41 million, P20.91 million, P21.18 million and P19.09 million. It does not take an Einstein to see an average of almost P8 million lost every month from there.
And that’s not even the end of it. A PTA honcho warned that the quarry collections “would continue to plunge as the year comes to a close unless immediate and proper measures are taken to curb factors causing the decline.”
What these factors are, he did not have to say.
We have long been hearing the Reverend Governor and his tsu-tsu-wari-wari-wa chorus blaming everything from the rains to the Mabalacat-Bamban boundary dispute, from the opening of the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway to overloaded dump trucks, as the causes of the downtrend in the quarry collections. Which led Vice Gov. Yeng Guiao to smirk, “there must be more to it than the rainy season, the SCTEx and overloading of trucks.”
The coach of starless Red Bull in the PBA couched in so many words the root cause of the drop in the quarry take: “You establish a benchmark in your neophyte year. That should be surpassed in the following year, as you have gained more experience and expertise in doing the same thing. Paurong ang nangyayari ngayon. (What is happening is retrogression.)”
That – Yeng need not have stressed – is pure and simple incompetence. On the part of… who else? Not putative provincial administrator Atty. Vivian Dabu, bobo!
The story of the fall in the quarry collection is well written – not in the stars, duh – in those streamers strung around the capitol grounds.
“Sa Balas Boys ang hirap. Kay Panlilio-Dabu ang sarap.” Suffer Panlilio-Dabu, ye quarrymen, as one screams.
The sheer drop in the quarry collections started at the time the “original” quarrymen of the Biyaya a Luluguran at Sisikapan (Balas) started their protest action, and continued its fall as the Balas Boys pitched their protest tents and were replaced by Panlilio-Dabu with new checkers and supervisors.
The dismal quarry collections have fully vindicated those boys: well into their third month, still shouting their voices hoarse: “Panlilio resign!”
Now, what has Panlilio still got to brag about? What miracle still obtains in the heavily depleted quarry collections?
Again – as it is our wont whenever we talk of miracles – we segue to Nora Aunor in her defining role of the faith healer Elsa in the now classic film Himala: “Walang himala. Ang himala ay nasa puso. Ang himala ay nasa tao.” No miracle there, indeed.
Indeed? So what was that Tagalog wag saying? “Ibinigay na sa iyo ang santo, bahala ka na sa milagro.” So the saint has been handed to you, now, the miracle is all up to you. A different kind of miracle, yeah, the devil’s handiwork there. Of the vanishing quarry collections finding their way into some deep pockets somewhere.
The more things change, the more they look the same? It’s getting to look a lot like...the Lapids at the capitol?

Caskets, anyone?

THERE IS no mourning in the casket manufacturing industry in Sto. Tomas, Pampanga.
I still clearly remember the lead of my feature story in a mimeographed folio of featured industries produced by the general information and production division of the Department of Public Information, Region III office in November 1975.
The remembering is spurred by a news item in Sunday’s Sun-Star Pampanga of my hometown mayor mulling the holding of a Kabaong (casket) Festival “to attract tourists and open up business opportunities.”
Casket-making was the sunrise industry in somnolent Sto. Tomas in the late ‘60s through the ‘70s, when the principal industry, farming, became less and less profitable with the intrusion of saline waters in the rivers that adversely affected rice production. The rivers were the principal sources of irrigation then.
If memory serves right, the pioneer mangabaong (coffin-makers) were a Kojak look-alike surnamed Tayag in Moras de la Paz, then only a sitio of Barangay San Matias, and Apung Esu Canlas, whose factory was based in Balut, Sapa also a San Matias sitio then. Both sitios have since been made barangays that brought to seven the total number of my town’s basic political units. See how tiny Sto. Tomas is?
Casket-manufacturing went big-time with the establishment of the House of Woodcraft (HOW) in Barangay San Vicente, taking the industry from the backyard to the production line. HOW also broke the sole proprietorship tradition of the business, going corporate with the surnames Kabigting, Calaquian, Tayag, Manese, among others, as shareholders.
As in the cases of the sari-sari store and hot pandesal – of profitable ventures getting over replication – casket manufacturing mushroomed all over town with company names ranging from Briones to Pineda to PPP Santos, and later Arceo – all of whom entering the political ring but with Pineda – Romulo, and Arceo – Lucas, managing to get elected as mayor.
The ‘70s saw Sto. Tomas as the casket center of the whole Philippines, its factories supplying the whole archipelago – from Appari to Jolo, and even exporting their produce to Asian countries and even the USA.
So used to coffins in all makes – high-end narra with all the intricate dukit (carving), mid-level apitong and tangile, low-low class “flattop” of plywood – and in various stages of production were the townsfolk and the children that the horror the kabaong of lore impacted completely vanished in Sto. Tomas.
As a matter of course, at funeral wakes in the town, the first thing the makirame (condolers) take note of is not the departed but the coffin in which he/she lies. Which is a clear give-away of his/her social status, if not of his/her value to the family left behind. The ante was further raised later with the entry of bronze and metal caskets.
In the ‘80s to the ‘90s casket manufacturing nosedived. For a lot of reasons.
There was a glut in production. Then came the cut-throat competition resulting to sungaban presyu (underpricing). And ultimately the funeral parlors they supplied put up their own factories, with the help of the Sto. Tomas casket craftsmen themselves.
It was at this time when “stowing-away” among skilled workers, primarily carpenters and carvers, became a phenomenon in the town.
The funeral parlor owners or their agents from Northern and Southern Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao regularly called on the Sto. Tomas factories for their orders. This afforded the workers to know them and established some sort of connections. So when the “stowaway” workers suddenly materialized in their funerarias offering their skills and services – usually as industrial partners – to put up their own casket factories, the funeral parlor owners readily welcomed them: the savings not only in freight cost of caskets, but also in time and materials, as primary motive.
That – plus the later liberalization policies that opened the Philippine market to imported caskets – virtually dug the grave for the casket industry of Sto. Tomas.
It is good to hear that Mayor Lito Naguit, though in the other Sto. Tomas industry of pottery-making, is keen in re-placing the town in the national consciousness when it comes to caskets.
Back to the glory days soon for Sto. Tomas, back with our blurb too: Sa aking bayan, hanap-patay ang pangunahing hanapbuhay (In my town, the dead provides our principal livelihood.) Bow.

Return to priesthood

IN ONE interview, beleaguered Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio said there was really nothing for him to lose in a recall election as he could always go back to being a priest.
Not a few people were taken aback by that response, scandalized by Panlilio’s seemingly cavalier attitude towards the sanctity of his vocation. He treats the priesthood like a piece of hand towel he discarded, to be picked up when needed to clean his soiled hands. A coffee confederate opined, the subtle symbolisms there not really unnoticed.
Back to the priesthood for Panlilio?
Contending thoughts there, the most prominently abhorrent to that idea was Lingayen Archbishop Oscar Cruz’s – “There is nothing for him to go back to. He should leave the priesthood completely, raise a family, build a dynasty.” So was Panlilio’s former superior quoted in the papers as saying just about the time the suspended priest entered the capitol to roost.
Then, the question: Is there anything of the priesthood still left in Panlilio? This no doubt spurred by some ”un-priestly” actions deemed in the governor, not the least of which was the disappearance of the image of the Virgin from his office, his perceived closeness with “born again” sects, his reportedly having made samba (worshipped) in an Iglesia ni Cristo church. Yes, and his “uncharity” towards the protesting Balas Boys too.
Interesting is this item culled from a news story in the UCANNews.com dated September 2, 2008. UCAN stands for Union of Catholic Asian News: “Bishop (Pablo) David cited prayer meetings of Jesus is Lord, a “born again” movement whose members pray for the governor as if he is the “anointed of God, the one the country has long been waiting for.” People interpret this to mean he is their candidate for the 2010 presidential elections, the bishop said.
“He went on to say that he has tried to talk with his fellow San Fernando clergyman for the past six months, but found himself dealing with a “new man” who is “obstinate” and whose moves are “hard to understand.” The bishop expressed hope Father Panlilio will “return quickly to his priesthood.”
I don’t know if Bishop Ambo still entertained that hope. I was apprised of events that transpired during the trip of the bishop to the US on the occasion of the veneration of the Virgen de los Remedios in Los Angeles which coincided with Panlilio’s visit there sponsored by Pamagcusa. The two looked, nay, acted like they were total aliens to each other, so I was told by a seminary brother. An estrangement that has gone on to date, so whispered to me by an elder Father only a few days back.
Back to the priesthood for Panlilio?
Koyang Willy Villarama, former Bulacan congressman and former Panlilio supporter, emailed this item that could serve as a template for the governor’s return to the priesthood.
"Priest MP leaves politics after pressure from Vatican
Quebec priest picks church over politics following 2 years in office
Bloc Québécois MP Raymond Gravel has decided not to run in the next federal election after the Vatican forced him to choose between Parliament and the Catholic Church.
Gravel, an ordained Roman Catholic priest, was granted special permission by the Vatican to run for federal office in 2006. He indicated on Tuesday that the Vatican requested he choose between politics and the priesthood in light of Canada's impending federal election. He has represented Repentigny, a riding east of Montreal, since he won a November 2006 by-election. Montreal newspaper La Presse reported that the Vatican received complaints from some Catholics who were not happy with positions Gravel took as an MP. The complaints stemmed from his support for Dr. Henry Morgentaler's nomination to the Order of Canada, and his opposition to Bill C-484, a piece of legislation on crimes committed against pregnant women.
Gravel said he was disappointed with the complaints that he believes twisted his beliefs."I've never gone against the church doctrine," he told CBC's French-language service. "I do not support abortion, I am opposed to abortion."When Gravel won his seat, he said he wouldn't vote on social issues presented in the House of Commons that would compromise his position as a priest. Gravel maintained his priest status while in office but was barred from celebrating mass, weddings or funerals or performing baptisms."
Gravel’s though was not the first case where the Vatican asked a priest to leave a political post.
There was the Rev. Robert F. Drinan, a Jesuit, who left Boston College's administration to become the first Roman Catholic priest elected to Congress and who in 1973 filed the initial impeachment resolution against President Richard M. Nixon.
A five-term member of Congress, Father Drinan was one of its most liberal members. His strong anti administration stands earned him a place on the Nixon "enemies list." So it was reported in the news of his death in January 2007 as published in the Boston Globe.
In 1980, Pope John Paul II ordered Father Drinan to either forgo re election or leave the priesthood. With "regret and pain," Father Drinan announced he would not seek re election.
"It is just unthinkable," he said of the idea of renouncing the priesthood to stay in office. "I am proud and honored to be a priest and a Jesuit. As a person of faith, I must believe that there is work for me to do which somehow will be more important than the work I am required to leave."
Gravel and Drinan though differed from Panlilio. Not only in that the former were elected to a legislative body while the latter to an executive position, but also in that the Vatican gave them the option – to stay with politics or to return to the priesthood. Which has not been thrown Panlilio’s way as yet.
Back to the priesthood for Panlilio?
Not when 2010 beckons. Not when a “new man” has emerged in him, as Bishop Ambo noted. Above all not without…uuuuyyy.