Philippines archbishop appeals for “sobriety with vigilance”

Philippines archbishop appeals for “sobriety with vigilance.” 

Lingayen Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas, in a pastoral letter on March 16, the second Sunday of Lent, appealed for “sobriety with vigilance,” among others, this time when the country goes through a critical moment in its pilgrimage as a nation.

Titled “Sandali lang, Mag-isip at Makinig!” (Just a Moment, Think and Listen), he wrote from the Cathedral of Saint John the Evangelist in Dagupan City, “This chronic condition of living through one crisis after another can indeed make us fatigued and depressed. Let us choose to be better from every crisis."

On March 11, the historic arrest of former President Rodrigo Duterte by Philippine authorities for his crimes against humanity with a warrant of arrest from the International Criminal Court (ICC) and coursed through Interpol generated strong reactions, especially on social media.

He was brought to the ICC in The Hague in the Netherlands, where he will be tried for allegedly thousands of extrajudicial killings when he was chief executive in Davao City (where he is now again a mayoral candidate in his 80s) and later as president.

On Sept. 23, the ICC's Pre-Trial Chamber scheduled confirmation of charges to commence.

Seeing the division in the country brought about by “ethnic roots and languages, politics and economics, faith and religion, literacy and ignorance, prestige and anonymity, weaknesses and strengths,” Villegas sees the prospect of these differences “to also be the force for goodness.”

The will of God is not to be divided

“It is not the will of God for us to be divided. The devil wants us disunited and splintered. The mission of Satan is to crush unity and fracture our wholeness. We have lost the ability to love as we argue. We have even given up reason and intelligence as we argue. We have shaken away our responsibility for the truth as we disagree with one another. The outcome is tragic for us. Villegas said, "It leads to hell on earth, not redemption."

Sobriety with Vigilance

The archbishop appealed to widen the space for sobriety. “Let us pause and examine our sources of facts, which should be the basis for our words and actions—facts first, facts only, facts always. With sobriety hopefully comes critical thinking. So much misinformation, disinformation, and misinformation is in cyberspace.”

Villegas also “appealed to widen the space for rationality, to widen hearts for atonement, and to widen the capacity to remember the pitiful fears and the restless moans of the victims of the bloody drug war whose blood continues to cry to heaven for vengeance. When we applauded their deaths, it emboldened the murderers to continue killing.

“It does not help to gloat and rejoice in the sufferings of others. Let us lower down our bows and arrows of legalese; lay down the guns of our tongues and see that, before these divisions and opinions, we were one in humanity, one in nationhood,” he said.

Invitation of Lent for a “New Patriotism”

Villegas, a former president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines, said the season of Lent calls for a new patriotism where we take responsibility for what a nation with a blaming attitude. 

“We all have contributed to this pandemic of criminality and sin. Let us begin with self-critique and open ourselves to a new kind of patriotism based on faith, not ideology or partisan politics. The path to heroism begins with contrition.”

Based on the Gospel's account of the apostles' silence following the Lord's transfiguration and their discovery of Jesus alone, Villegas posed the question, "Amidst the noises of division, accusations, and attacks, let us ask ourselves, 'Where is Jesus in the Philippines?' Where is Jesus in my words, actions, and thoughts?"