The Clueless Shepherd

I enjoy reading the blog of Uniffors-Life in Gloria’s Enchanted Kingdom so much. I specially love reading the articles of one of its eloquent and witty authors, Mr. Manuel Buencamino, because I believe his posts mirror the abhorrence and rage the majority have for this woman who can lie with a straight face (may kasama pang righteous indignation!). In today’s article (April 11), he posted the email of a certain Fr. Roy Cimagala. Here it is:

Gasping for breath
By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Truth to tell, that’s how I felt when that guy Lozada came to Cebu to sing his now tiresome song. I felt suffocated by the thin air of reason and common sense that surrounded the controversy he provoked in Cebu. We have plunged to a new low!

What does he really want-to waken the dead also? I join those who complain that he is overdoing his act. Can we not move on, can we not let the courts investigate and render judgment over the issues he’s raising?

Can he not figure out that he is being used, that his testimonies just are not enough to cause a national outrage? Someone has to tell him that he has to learn to look at a bigger picture, and to be more prudent and careful with his words.

What a pity to see him, with his Cheshire cat grin and moving tears, increasingly cutting a funny and pathetic figure in the public mind. He should know when he is reducing his problems, and when he is multiplying them unnecessarily.

That sick joke he dropped in Cebu, branding it as an “archdiocese of Malacanang,” aggravated by Leah Navarro’s no-brainer of calling our Cardinal a “congressman in cassock,” was fatal. Though the Cardinal has forgiven them, I pray that both can recover from this disaster.

This simply is not the way to fight for a cause. If he wants to gain public sympathy, he has to learn to behave and talk properly, going beyond the bantering and rib-tickling done among drinking buddies and the shallow bravado of militants.

His insistence that a Mass be celebrated in a public place for his activity was just unfortunate. Also, his accusation that the Cardinal was banning priests to say Mass for him-that was wild! What’s happening with him?

We are all for the truth, we are all against corruption. But we have many other immediate and pressing things to do. And we are supposed to have some division of labor in our society, and problems, like the one he is whistleblowing about, have their proper forum.

No matter how much I try to understand his moves, I cannot help, from where I sit, to liken the whole thing as a small-town scandal that has held the whole simple population hostage, paralyzed, defocussed and derailed.

True, anomalies exist. We were not born yesterday. We are aware of the SOPs (standard operating procedures), the official euphemism for corruption already inherent in our system.

But we should not be quixotic in our war against it, using simplistic tactics soaked with holier-than-thou elements. Our bishops already said that the problems cannot be solved merely by changing officials or mounting People Power.

It would be good that we have whistleblowers even if the amount involved is not as big as that alleged in the NBN-ZTE deal. Problem is that many do not want to go through the bother. Are we surprised why we have a culture of corruption?

Then we have to realize that we just don’t stop at whistleblowing. We have to continue being watchful, and really go through the life-long process of cultivating virtues and developing integrity in everyone.

The struggle has to start in each one’s heart. And as Cardinal Rosales said in his Palm Sunday pastoral letter, everyone has to pass through the “desert experience”, individually and collectively, to attain authentic conversion. Of course, it is easier said than done. But that happens to be the only way.

We have to understand this communal search for truth not as a right of one group to impose their views on the others, no matter how superior they feel their views are over those of the others. How repulsive to see some people act and speak as if they have all the solutions to our problems!

There has to be dialogue. If one party is not ready, let’s not force. We just intensify our prayers and sacrifices and be patient and keep looking for ways to continue with the dialogue. This, of course, is hard. No one said, all this will be a walk in the park.

As for Tita Cory and her cohorts of nuns, please, your claim at righteous indignation is wearing out. Please rethink your position before you fall into the world of absurdity. Righteousness is no excuse to ignore prudence and common sense. Dialogue, don’t impose yourselves.

(Fr. Cimagala is the Chaplain of Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE), Talamban, Cebu City. Email: roycimagala@hotmail.com)

Nobody is claiming, even Lozada himself, that he is a saint. He admitted that he was part of the dysfunction in government until the time some “men in uniform” (under instructions most probably from “She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named”) gave him a free tour of Laguna and Cavite. Lozada’s intention for coming out and fighting this administration may be for self-preservation; and sure he is being used by the opposition for their own selfish gains but those do not make his story less credible.

Fr. Cimagala says that we must act with prudence, choose our words carefully and practice common sense. He also pontificates about the “division of labor in our society, and problems, like the one he is whistleblowing about, have their proper forum.” Hello…didn’t the Church say that impeachment was not the way to learn the truth because we all know that it’s just a numbers game? Is he unaware that the graft and corruption cases against the ‘chosen few’ are still not acted upon by the Ombudsman or the Justice Department? Didn’t the Supreme Court just issue a decision saying that graft and corruption issues under this administration are sacrosanct communication? Didn’t Malacanang, on it’s high horse because of that decision, now require the Senate to publish their rules on Senate investigations before any executive official can be allowed by the Executive to attend the hearings? The streets…but didn’t he just advise “Tita Cory and her cohorts of nuns, please, your claim at righteous indignation is wearing out. Please rethink your position before you fall into the world of absurdity. Righteousness is no excuse to ignore prudence and common sense. Dialogue, don’t impose yourselves.” What forum do we go now to have this much loved but elusive ‘dialogue’? After the revelations made by Lozada, does he expect the people to just “sit back and enjoy being raped since the rape is inevitable?”

He says that he believes that ‘anomalies’ exist in this government and that these problems cannot be solved merely by changing officials or mounting People Power. Yes, we know that! Isn’t that the reason why after two EDSAs, we are still continuing the fight for good governance? Changing the stubborn leader is just incidental. Maybe he is just confusing the genuine intentions of the people right now with the true but hidden agenda of the Church then when they joined in booting out an ‘undesirable self-confessed adulterer and college dropout’.

Now, I understand why we, the Catholics, are clueless about our spirituality…it’s because the Shepherd (Fr. Cimagala and his cohorts of bishops) are equally clueless, if not more. I picture them as defense lawyers demanding an acquittal for a client not on the basis of his innocence but on the basis of a mere technicality! This is what they are good at…finding loopholes in the testimony of Lozada, destroying his credibility by insinuating evil intent and enumerating past indiscretions and quoting passages in the Bible that appear to justify the crime committed by the defendant.

If GMA was only guilty of being masungit, antipatica or matapobre, then we’d pray for her conversion in silence. But what she is being accused of right now besides being immoral is also illegal and instead of being transparent, she has used all the institutions in government plus the Church to escape accountability. How can you expect us to be silent and just pray for her conversion?