Endorsement by the Catholic priests - a kiss of death of a political career

By Edward Era Barbacena

The Catholic clergy in the Philippines has been endorsing political candidates since the time of Corazon Aquino stole the presidential seat in Malacañang and all of their endorsed candidate lost positions that their aspiring for.   

It is quite intriguing that Philippines being a conservative country  wherein more than 50 percent of the populations are Catholics, their political bets are not being supported by the majority.  In 2016, members of the Catholic Bishop's of the Philippines strongly backed presidential aspirant Mar Roxas but  lost to Rodrigo Duterte who took the country to a new chapter. In 2016, Socrates Villegas,  Luis Antonio G. Cardinal Tagle and Running priest Robert Reyes fiercely encouraged people to vote for Leni Robredo's senatorial slate - the Ocho derecho but none of them won.

Now Presidential candidate Leni Robredo and his running mate Senator  Kiko Pangilinan are now facing embarrassing defeat to former senator Ferdinand 'Bongbong' Marcos and Davao Mayor Sara Duterte - Carpio who are obviously winning two of the highest government positions of country with more than 31million votes for each one of them.

Before the current election started over 1,200 priests, bishops, and deacons officially endorsed the candidacy of presidential candidate Vice President Leni Robredo and her running mate Senator Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan.

At a press conference on Wednesday, May 4, the Clergy for the Moral Choice (CMC) made the appeal to Filipinos “to remind them gently yet firmly of their sacred duty to vote and to vote only for the right leaders of this our beloved country, the Philippines, to choose and to elect true servant-leaders whose hearts are really after the heart of the Good Shepherd – just like Leni and Kiko.”

But apparently, their appeals to the Filipino people were just ignored and simply went futile considering the majority of the voters are Roman Catholics.  This means they are losing their strong influence among the people or the people do not trust the Catholic priests anymore.  Either way, their endorsements don't work at all. Why is this happening?

Accusations of sexual abuse

The catholics priests not only in the Philippines  were placed in many forms of bad publicity since the 70s. There have been many cases of sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests, nuns, Popes and other members of religious life. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the cases have involved many allegations, investigations, trials, convictions, acknowledgement and apologies by Church authorities, and revelations about decades of instances of abuse and attempts by Church officials to cover them up. The abused include mostly boys but also girls, some as young as three years old, with the majority between the ages of 11 and 14.

 Criminal cases for the most part do not cover sexual harassment of adults. The accusations of abuse and cover-ups began to receive public attention[8] during the late 1980s. Many of these cases allege decades of abuse, frequently made by adults or older youths years after the abuse occurred. Cases have also been brought against members of the Catholic hierarchy who covered up sex abuse allegations and moved abusive priests to other parishes, where abuse continued.

According to an extensive study produced by John Jay College for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, about 4 percent of priests in ministry from the study period (1950-2002) were accused of sexual abuse.

Here in the Philippines, there are also large number of reports of priests involved in different crimes similar to those that occured in other countries or even far more grim.  Sexual abuse allegations against Catholic priests in the Philippines are on the rise, according to senior church investigators.

But this new 101 East documentary reveals that prosecutions of priests alleged to have committed sexual abuse are extremely rare in Asia’s largest Catholic nation.

Some alleged victims say they have been pressured not to file charges and were paid money in exchange for their silence.

Imelda* was 15 years old when she says the priest in her village sexually assaulted her.

“After he kissed me on the forehead, he hugged me,” she recalled. “It was really painful. Why did he do that to me?”

She says that when her family discovered she had reported the incident to the police, they beat her.

“They actually beat me to the point that I was afraid to go home. They were angry with me. They were telling me that what I did was wrong. They treated me like a stray dog because of what I did, because I filed a case,” she says.

Then she claims a man and a woman from the church gave her $150 to drop the charges. Her case never went to court.

In 2017 Al Jazeera reported that some Filipino priests are breaking the vow of celibacy and fathering children.

Father Elmer Cajilig, who has four children with his long-term girlfriend, says that the celibacy vow for ordained priests is “only a man-made rule”.

“God did not say this, so I think I cannot say that I’ve committed sin. I am just continuing His mandate … to go and multiply.”

Father Cajilig and two other priests who also fathered children have set up their own self-styled Catholic ministry, where they preach at privately owned churches.

They have written to the Vatican, asking to be accepted by the Church.

Father Jaime Achacoso, secretary of the Canon Law Society in the Philippines, condemns these ‘father’ priests, but says in some remote dioceses, one in five priests has had children.

“That’s the reality that happens in those areas where discipline, where the hierarchy is not so well-organised,” says Father Achacoso.

The Vatican did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment about how it handles allegations of clergy sexual misconduct and abuse in the Philippines.

When asked if Filipino bishops are obliged to report sexual assault allegations to civil authorities, Father Achacoso says all investigation should be left to the Church.

“A person is innocent until proven otherwise, and so the Church handles these cases with a lot of discretion, both to protect the dignity, the good name of the priest and also for the victim.”

These are only few cases of abused made by the priests in the country and these reports have surely tainted the reputation of the Catholic church  and every nuns and priest suffers the stigma of being accused of evil predator and pathological hypocrite. Their words of wisdom are taken as terrible lie so  people won't simply by their endorsement of political figure. This doesn't make any difference in the recent election.

The antagonists of the Catholic Church

The Iglesia Ni Cristo

The INC or the Iglesia ni Cristo being a highly influential church in the country, it well known for the so-called unity voting of the members who ever they choose as the rightful candidate during election will surely have an edge to imminent victory.  In addition, the Iglesia ni Cristo is a well known antagonist of the Catholic church.  The teachings of the INC contradicts the ways of the Catholics in many ways. These two Christian Churches in the Philippines don't get along well. 

Before, the Catholic priests  and even nuns don't usually endorse political candidate only recently. They only began backing politicians since Duterte came into power. Most of the political figures that they would ask people to vote are mostly from the opposition - the Liberal party in particular.  Duterte was preferred by the INC so that's why he won in 2016. Since Duterte has been highly critical to the Catholic church, catholic priests and nuns would simply vouch for those who would strongly stand against President Duterte. Leni Robredo as mentioned was endorsed by more than one thousand catholic priests and bishops because she is one of the toughest critics of Duterte.  The Iglesia ni Cristo being known a strong counterpart of the Catholic church, the church leaders won't ever affirm to preferred candidate of the Catholic clergy and will definitely choose a different candidate. This is what happened in the 2016 senatorial election, Robredo's slate - the Ocho derecho. They were strongly supported by the Catholic priests but were snoot down by the INC so they lost. Now, Robredo is suffering the same fate.

The Duterte effect

Since Duterte came into power, he has been consistent in the trust rating approval has been consistently high. President Rodrigo Roa Duterte scored higher approval and trust ratings just over two months before he ends his term, according to the results of a Pahayag 2022 first quarter survey conducted by PUBLiCUS Asia Inc.

The March 30 to April 6 survey, released Monday, showed 67.2 percent of the 1,500 respondents saying they either "approve" or ‘"strongly approve" of Duterte’s performance as president over the past 12 months.

This figure is 2.3 percentage points higher than Duterte’s 65 percent approval rating in the first quarter of 2021.

Duterte’s trustworthiness was rated either as “high” or “very high” based on 61.2 percent of respondents, up by 6.2 percentage points from his 55 percent trust rating in the same period last year.

Since he is very popular up to this day, it was highly observed that his enemies are also the people's enemies including the clergy of the Catholic church.  The Catholic church have been strongly denouncing Duterte's war on drugs. Despite of being successful and it made the crime rate went down to as much as 70% Duterte had always fought back against the priests who has been critical against him.  Because of Duterte's popularity, the people stood behind him and accused the Catholic priests as hypocrites. Many of the people who support Duterte many told the nuns and priests not to meddle in any of the country's political issues.  

Since majority of the people support Duterte, who ever will join him will be considered as ally and who ever opposes him will be treated as an enemy of the country. This is the Duterte effect.

With all of the issues going on with the Catholic priests in country involving different controversies and politics, many have simply turn their backs on the Catholic church, their words that they utter don't matter anymore.  Many have simply lost trust and their so-called spiritual influence is no longer that powerful.  Nowadays, people have look at them as a hypocrite and a rabid wolves hiding in sheep's cloak. Their endorsement of a political candidate in an election will surely be a kiss of death.