Palace to Church: Cool it / Tension over reproductive health bill escalates

MANILA, Philippines---Appealing for sobriety, Malacañang on Sunday sought to heal a widening rift between Church and State over the controversial parenthood bill that last week saw prelates threatening civil disobedience and President Benigno Aquino III warning he would jail them.“We have different positions here, but probably we should explain our positions within the means of the law. That is what the President is saying. There is room for debate, it doesn’t have to degenerate to illegal acts or anything like that,” Communications Secretary Ricky Carandang told reporters.“It would be better that we calm down a bit and discuss the issue at hand,” the President’s deputy spokesperson, Abigail Valte, said over the state radio, adding that Mr. Aquino was merely reminding that Filipinos have a civil duty to pay their taxes used to finance public programs.Tension flared when several members of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) last week declared an “all-out war” using pulpits against the reproductive health (RH) bill pending in Congress and warned they were prepared not to pay taxes in a civil disobedience campaign.Mr. Aquino, a 51-year-old bachelor who has said he is prepared to face Church excommunication in supporting the RH bill, countered that tax boycotts were seditious and could lead to criminal cases.“He can put us all in jail. We are all willing to pay the price to save the unborn from modern Herods and to save the executioners from the grasp of the evil one,” Lipa Archbishop Ramon Arguelles said in response to the President’s statement.“He sounds like Marcos when his mother called for civil disobedience. What happened to his mother’s terrorist and his father’s tormentor?” Arguelles told CBCPNews, the bishops’ news website.The archbishop was referring to the late Corazon Aquino’s action against Ferdinand Marcos following allegations of fraud in the snap election of 1986 that led to the ouster of the dictator.'Charge us all'Cotabato Auxiliary Bishop Jose Colin Bagaforo said Mr. Aquino’s sedition threat was “most welcome.”“Let him charge us all bishops, priests, religious, all the faithful with sedition,” said Sorsogon Bishop Arturo Bastes.Jaro Archbishop Angel Lagdameo called for calm and a “wait-and-see attitude” but also added that, in the end, Catholics have to “obey God and not man.”Fr. Jerry Oblepias, director of the Diocesan Family and Life Ministry in San Pablo, Laguna, over the weekend said the Church had always been consistent and strong in its opposition against the RH bill.“The Church is motivated by genuine love and concern for the people and the poor, unlike the RH bill proponents who are certainly motivated by the love of money and they use the poor for them to stay in power,” said Oblepias, whose statement was also posted on the CBCPNews.Emotional tantrumsOblepias was reacting to Gabriela Rep. Luz Ilagan who said that the Catholic Church was already showing “a symptom of scarcity of arguments” when the CBCP disengaged last week from a dialogue with the Palace.The CBCP’s move was an indication that the Church was “bankrupt” of reasons why the RH bill should not be legislated, with Church leaders resorting to “threats, name-calling and emotional tantrums,” according to Ilagan.