COMMUNITIES

Statement of the CEAP-NCR on the Current Political Situation

Reflections…Realization…Response

12 November 2005

Posted Monday, 16-Jan-2006 2:09 PM

      We, a group of educators and student leaders from the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines NCR, convened on November 12, 2005 in St. Paul ’s College in Pasig City to read, through the lenses of our Catholic faith, the signs of the times. This is an endeavor that began on July 7, 2005 at a gathering of heads of schools in St. Scholastica’s College, which produced the statement of the CEAP-NCR Educators’ Forum on the National Situation.

      As persons inspired through faith and hope, and fired with love and courage, we probed the roots of the confusion and ensuing indifference of a people faced with enormous poverty and deprived of the most basic services and of human dignity and respect, and asked: What is God telling us in this moment of our history?

      From Mother Church we clearly glean that She expects us all, Her children, to aspire to be ideal Filipinos, whether we be clergy, religious or lay that we deem it our personal obligation, as educators and learners, to muster the will and the effort to sustain the search for truth in areas relevant to the integrity, the life and happiness of our Nation.

      We look around us and we see a crisis situation. We see that people are preoccupied with survival issues even as they worry about questions of truth and legitimacy. We see a people seemingly helpless, fed-up, frustrated and skeptical, their lot continually being made worse by the dishonest and the corrupt. The young among us, as they share their thoughts and sentiments, decry that they have not been told about the repressions of the past and plead that mentors present them the bigger pictures lest investigative journalism reports and street marches for them remain meaningless.

      In the midst of these realities, we need to make a moral judgment on the authority which governs – for authority must govern from a morally sound foundation and not from political consensus and compromise. To keep our intentions unsullied, however, each time we subject a specific socio-political situation to educative inquiry, we vow to be guided by the four “lampposts” on restoring moral values enunciated by our Bishops through their pastoral statement entitled Restoring Trust: A Plea for Moral Values in Philippine Politics, namely:

•  Moral Accountability. Political authority is accountable to the people. 

     Those who govern have the obligation to answer to the governed.

•  Constitutionality. The Constitution enshrines cherished values such as

     human dignity, the common good, freedom, the rule of law and due

     process. Resolving any crisis has to be within the framework of the

     Constitution and the laws of the land to avoid social chaos and the

     further weakening of political systems.

•  Non-violence. The use of force which produces new injustice, throws more

     elements out of balance and brings on new disorders is rejected.

•  Effective Governance. This is the art and science of public service in being

     effective towards the attainment of the common good where the leader is

     a person of integrity aside from being one of competence.

In this light, we resolve to work for change, for both individual and social transformation, and while the challenges are formidable, we of CEAP-NCR commit to pursue the following viable courses of actions:

1. Generate and implement innovative ways to make Christ better known as the model of human life to stakeholders, and offer progressive initiation to prayer so that our faith relationship with God may be communal as well as personal, since to pray for one another is to ask God’s help in meeting the needs of the larger human community;
2. Critique curricula; ascertain that integral evangelization, patriotism and love of Country are in place, integrate the SEE, JUDGE, ACT process in their implementation; and solicit learners’ comments, suggestions, and evaluative ideas;
3. Provide continuous opportunities to work in solidarity with the poor; emphasize pastoral and outreach programs, empowering partnerships with the deprived as a means to help ensure sustainability;
4. Support training (in theory and practice) and actual engagement of students towards servant leadership to draw them to take upon themselves responsibilities in reading the signs of the times, interpreting these in the light of the Gospel and carrying out the tasks of a CHURCH IN ACTION;
5. Dialogue within and across institutions on discerned common stands and provide structures and systems for truth to come out; and
6. Be activists engaged in socio-political action guided by Gospel values; and mobilize, within our capability, for vigilance on concerns such as those identified by, but not limited to, the Commission on the Social Apostolate of the Philippine Province of the Society of Jesus:

•  Continued effectiveness of government programs for the poor;

•  Appointment to public offices made by the President;

•  Acts of apparent retribution against those who are critical of the    

   government and the President;

•  Actual use of pork barrel by legislators and their possible abuse of it for

   themselves;

•  Preparation for forthcoming electoral exercises, through advocacy for

   automation and the continuing task of voter education; and

•  Use of funds that will be made available in the event of a Peace    

   Agreement in Mindanao .

      Through all these, we shall be bent in prayer that hope remains always alive in all of us. We shall strive to ascertain that the growth in awareness and conscientization which we seek in ourselves and in others shall not simply be that which is morally impeccable, but rather that which is itself the Holy Spirit’s work within us, transparent and without guile.

      May we all, educators and learners, surmount personal persuasions and regional boundaries to tread where only God can make the difference, for as the martyred Archbishop Oscar Romero once said: “…we are prophets of a future not our own…”

      And may Jesus, the Light of the New Year, guide us.

Go back to the top ^