The Panlilio farce
ON MONDAY, defeated gubernatorial candidate Eddie T. Panlilio was bannered in the local papers.
The Central Luzon Daily headlined Panlilio: Pineda voters ‘bought’ with the bullet …including his relatives in Minalin.
Read that story in part: “Outgoing Gov. Eddie “Among Ed” Panlilio claimed that the almost half a million (488,521) Kapampangans -- including his relatives -- who cast their votes in favor of Governor-elect Lilia “Nanay Baby” Pineda were “paid.”
Meanwhile, the 242,367 people who favored his candidacy were “reformed citizens.”
Panlilio said that he felt “a little pain” in his heart because even his close kin in his hometown fell prey to alleged vote buyers.
“Pati ring kamag-anak ku, mesali lang tia P1,500 per head and P4,000 per bubong (Even my close kin were sold (sic), P1,500 per head and P4,000 per household),” he alleged.
This paper on the other hand headlined Panlilio to withdraw request for priesthood dispensation with the kicker Already forwarded to Pope.
Read the lead paragraph: Outgoing Gov. Eddie Panlilio will withdraw his request to be dispensed from priesthood and expressed hope that Catholic Church authorities would fully restore his priestly powers.
Panlilio has been under suspension as priest since 2007, and before the May 10 elections, he submitted a letter to San Fernando Archbishop Paciano Aniceto seeking permanent dispensation from priesthood.
Aniceto said Panlilio’s letter was forwarded to Pope Benedict XVI for decision even before the last polls and that he expected the Vatican to decide on it within a year.
After denigrating the Kapampangan as vote-vendor, Panlilio now mocks the priesthood, treating it like a rag to be discarded when not needed, to be retrieved when needed, if only to wipe his hands off his (ir)responsibilities.
In 2007, Panlilio declared he “heeded the clamor of the laity to serve God’s people by running for public office.” He said his gubernatorial run was in pursuit of a “higher vocation.”
Which, in effect, (ir)rationalized his breaking his priestly vow of obedience with his refusal to heed the pleadings – five times – of his superior, Archbishop Paciano Aniceto for him not to run. Yeah, Peter denied Christ only three times. Panlilio denied his superior five times.
That disobedience merited the suspension – punitive rather than preventive in nature – of Panlilio’s priestly functions. So is there any worldly vocation higher than the priesthood, loftier than being an alter Christus?
That was but the first of a series of disobedience Panlilio committed. Not to mention his “unpriestly” conduct while governor – from banishing the image of the Virgin from the Office of the Governor to replacing the First Friday Mass with Born-Again services at the Capitol lobby, from attending a service of the Iglesia ni Cristo to his regular pray-over by Born-Again pastors.
The good Apu Ceto would himself confirm Panlilio promising him that he would only stay for a single term as governor and would train a layman to succeed him. Promises broken with Panlilio’s initial dalliance in presidential fancy and subsequent run for re-election.
When Panlilio proclaimed that God told him to run for the presidency, and he had no other recourse but to obey Him, Apu Ceto promptly called him to a meeting with auxiliary Bishops Roberto Mallari and Pablo Virgilio David.
Even after the bishops advised him to get into a period of discernment, Panlilio, with the proper pimping by his favorite national daily, pursued his personal ambition with more out-of-town sorties, in a test of the political waters, so to speak.
With the groundswell of support for the Noynoy-for-president movement, Panlilio said – not so much as a whisper from God – that he was subjugating his presidential ambition to Noynoy’s. Which is in effect a disobedience of God Himself. So Panlilio said God told him to run. No, he never said God asked him to withdraw.
Panlilio neither here nor there, talks of dispensation crop up thereafter.
So it was written here then: San Fernando Auxiliary Bishop Pablo Virgilio David says: “As far as we are concerned, he has yet to inform us of his intention to be readmitted to the priesthood.” And the Church is not pressuring Panlilio to return. Neither will the issue of dispensation be forced upon him.
Furthered the foremost intellectual of the Church in Pampanga: “Among Ed can either decide to seek readmission to be able to perform his priestly duties or seek dispensation. It all depends on him now, but he cannot seek an extension of his suspension since it was only agreed that he would be suspended from performing his priestly functions for only one term.”
Yeah, as Among Ambo once said, Panlilio could not have his cake and eat it too. Sooner than later, he’s got to choose between the priesthood and politics.
And Panlilio made a clear choice: submitting to local church authorities his letter of request for dispensation and running for governor again.
Sometime in April, the eminent Archbishop Oscar V. Cruz sent me a letter – modesty be damned now – thanking me for the “much appreciated copies of your wonderful book Reverend Governor.”
Apung Oscar furthered: “More than being much informative, it is also very instructional for Priests who suffer from delusional thoughts about their persons and politics.”
And the clincher: “Three copies thereof are being sent to Rome for the proper handling of the Panlilio Case.”
Attached to the letter is the prelate’s Priest-Politician that he called a “little publication written on the occasion of the sad phenomenon.”
The dispensation procedures are rolling. Now this change of heart in Panlilio. Come to think of it, if Panlilio won, would he have sought to withdraw his request for dispensation?
“He told the media he’s returning to his ministry if his bishops would permit him, but he already wrote a letter addressed to me which I have already sent to the Holy Father." So was Apu Ceto quoted in an article posted Monday night on the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines news site.
Furthered the story: Aniceto said Vatican is expected to grant the priest-turned- politician’s petition.
Aniceto said it would be hard for Panlilio to be a parish priest again because he has caused division not only among the faithful and but also among the clergy. He added that some people didn't like Panlilio's statements and brand of leadership.
He described Panlilio’s latest statement of his desire to return to the priesthood as a “politician’s statement."
Asked to describe the outgoing governor, Aniceto said he finds him “someone who would not listen" and would not hold on to his vow to serve Pampanga for one term.
Panlilio being priest-turned-politician-wanting-to-turn-priest-again is what Apung Oscar once called “a big anomaly in the Church and a dilemma, if not a scandal for many lay people.”
“The insinuation (of such a character) is that the priest can be anybody or anything as long as he pleases, until such time when he finds it convenient, helpful or secure to minister as a priest again,” he wrote.
Yeah, the priesthood nothing than a trapo, literally and figuratively there.
“Bring down the curtain, the farce is played out.” Famous last words, apropos our time, from the French humanist Francois Rabelais.
So I write now of the Panlilio (non)phenomenon, as I wrote in the defunct Pampanga News April 19-25, 2007 issue.
The Central Luzon Daily headlined Panlilio: Pineda voters ‘bought’ with the bullet …including his relatives in Minalin.
Read that story in part: “Outgoing Gov. Eddie “Among Ed” Panlilio claimed that the almost half a million (488,521) Kapampangans -- including his relatives -- who cast their votes in favor of Governor-elect Lilia “Nanay Baby” Pineda were “paid.”
Meanwhile, the 242,367 people who favored his candidacy were “reformed citizens.”
Panlilio said that he felt “a little pain” in his heart because even his close kin in his hometown fell prey to alleged vote buyers.
“Pati ring kamag-anak ku, mesali lang tia P1,500 per head and P4,000 per bubong (Even my close kin were sold (sic), P1,500 per head and P4,000 per household),” he alleged.
This paper on the other hand headlined Panlilio to withdraw request for priesthood dispensation with the kicker Already forwarded to Pope.
Read the lead paragraph: Outgoing Gov. Eddie Panlilio will withdraw his request to be dispensed from priesthood and expressed hope that Catholic Church authorities would fully restore his priestly powers.
Panlilio has been under suspension as priest since 2007, and before the May 10 elections, he submitted a letter to San Fernando Archbishop Paciano Aniceto seeking permanent dispensation from priesthood.
Aniceto said Panlilio’s letter was forwarded to Pope Benedict XVI for decision even before the last polls and that he expected the Vatican to decide on it within a year.
After denigrating the Kapampangan as vote-vendor, Panlilio now mocks the priesthood, treating it like a rag to be discarded when not needed, to be retrieved when needed, if only to wipe his hands off his (ir)responsibilities.
In 2007, Panlilio declared he “heeded the clamor of the laity to serve God’s people by running for public office.” He said his gubernatorial run was in pursuit of a “higher vocation.”
Which, in effect, (ir)rationalized his breaking his priestly vow of obedience with his refusal to heed the pleadings – five times – of his superior, Archbishop Paciano Aniceto for him not to run. Yeah, Peter denied Christ only three times. Panlilio denied his superior five times.
That disobedience merited the suspension – punitive rather than preventive in nature – of Panlilio’s priestly functions. So is there any worldly vocation higher than the priesthood, loftier than being an alter Christus?
That was but the first of a series of disobedience Panlilio committed. Not to mention his “unpriestly” conduct while governor – from banishing the image of the Virgin from the Office of the Governor to replacing the First Friday Mass with Born-Again services at the Capitol lobby, from attending a service of the Iglesia ni Cristo to his regular pray-over by Born-Again pastors.
The good Apu Ceto would himself confirm Panlilio promising him that he would only stay for a single term as governor and would train a layman to succeed him. Promises broken with Panlilio’s initial dalliance in presidential fancy and subsequent run for re-election.
When Panlilio proclaimed that God told him to run for the presidency, and he had no other recourse but to obey Him, Apu Ceto promptly called him to a meeting with auxiliary Bishops Roberto Mallari and Pablo Virgilio David.
Even after the bishops advised him to get into a period of discernment, Panlilio, with the proper pimping by his favorite national daily, pursued his personal ambition with more out-of-town sorties, in a test of the political waters, so to speak.
With the groundswell of support for the Noynoy-for-president movement, Panlilio said – not so much as a whisper from God – that he was subjugating his presidential ambition to Noynoy’s. Which is in effect a disobedience of God Himself. So Panlilio said God told him to run. No, he never said God asked him to withdraw.
Panlilio neither here nor there, talks of dispensation crop up thereafter.
So it was written here then: San Fernando Auxiliary Bishop Pablo Virgilio David says: “As far as we are concerned, he has yet to inform us of his intention to be readmitted to the priesthood.” And the Church is not pressuring Panlilio to return. Neither will the issue of dispensation be forced upon him.
Furthered the foremost intellectual of the Church in Pampanga: “Among Ed can either decide to seek readmission to be able to perform his priestly duties or seek dispensation. It all depends on him now, but he cannot seek an extension of his suspension since it was only agreed that he would be suspended from performing his priestly functions for only one term.”
Yeah, as Among Ambo once said, Panlilio could not have his cake and eat it too. Sooner than later, he’s got to choose between the priesthood and politics.
And Panlilio made a clear choice: submitting to local church authorities his letter of request for dispensation and running for governor again.
Sometime in April, the eminent Archbishop Oscar V. Cruz sent me a letter – modesty be damned now – thanking me for the “much appreciated copies of your wonderful book Reverend Governor.”
Apung Oscar furthered: “More than being much informative, it is also very instructional for Priests who suffer from delusional thoughts about their persons and politics.”
And the clincher: “Three copies thereof are being sent to Rome for the proper handling of the Panlilio Case.”
Attached to the letter is the prelate’s Priest-Politician that he called a “little publication written on the occasion of the sad phenomenon.”
The dispensation procedures are rolling. Now this change of heart in Panlilio. Come to think of it, if Panlilio won, would he have sought to withdraw his request for dispensation?
“He told the media he’s returning to his ministry if his bishops would permit him, but he already wrote a letter addressed to me which I have already sent to the Holy Father." So was Apu Ceto quoted in an article posted Monday night on the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines news site.
Furthered the story: Aniceto said Vatican is expected to grant the priest-turned- politician’s petition.
Aniceto said it would be hard for Panlilio to be a parish priest again because he has caused division not only among the faithful and but also among the clergy. He added that some people didn't like Panlilio's statements and brand of leadership.
He described Panlilio’s latest statement of his desire to return to the priesthood as a “politician’s statement."
Asked to describe the outgoing governor, Aniceto said he finds him “someone who would not listen" and would not hold on to his vow to serve Pampanga for one term.
Panlilio being priest-turned-politician-wanting-to-turn-priest-again is what Apung Oscar once called “a big anomaly in the Church and a dilemma, if not a scandal for many lay people.”
“The insinuation (of such a character) is that the priest can be anybody or anything as long as he pleases, until such time when he finds it convenient, helpful or secure to minister as a priest again,” he wrote.
Yeah, the priesthood nothing than a trapo, literally and figuratively there.
“Bring down the curtain, the farce is played out.” Famous last words, apropos our time, from the French humanist Francois Rabelais.
So I write now of the Panlilio (non)phenomenon, as I wrote in the defunct Pampanga News April 19-25, 2007 issue.
posted by A.Caesar Z. Lacson at 2:13 PM
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