EDITORIAL : THE DAILY TRIBUNE, THE PHILIPPINES

 

 

Dirty play

EDITORIAL

07/14/2011
Clearly, the move of Noynoy Aquino and his allies, specifically through the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) to damage the Catholic bishops’ credibility, reputation and the moral clout they are said to hold over their flock, was purely political. And no doubt Noynoy’s vengeance wreaked on them not only for the call of Butuan Bishop Juan de Dios Pueblos for him to resign as he is unfit for the presidency, but for their not supporting him and his administration along with their criticisms against him.
This could gleaned from yesterday’s Senate hearing where it was proved by the bishops that all they really got by way of vehicles from PCSO during Gloria Arroyo’s watch, were pick-ups, with some of them even being second hand, which is really a far cry from what PCSO Chairman Margie Juico was portraying and leaked out to the media.
The Yellow media broke the story and quoted Juico as the source of the story.
Juico at first denied it was she who brought up the “Pajero” branding of the bishops who were granted their dioceses’ service pick-ups but later came up with a lame story that she could have told the media these were Pajeros as SUVs or 4X4 vehicles are being referred to as such, which she said would no different from saying Frigidaire for refrigirator.
Lame it really is, because it was also found that she had informed the media about these “Pajero bishops” simply on the say-so of somebody whom she did not identify even as she never even had an offiical report on this nor did she bother to confirm this information.
The destruction of the bishops while linking Gloria to the “anomalies” was the clear intent of Noynoy and his allies, and the political play they had engaged in was to subject the bishops to a trial and conviction by publicity.
Juico later claimed during the hearing that she did correct the Pajero branding during the first Senate hearing, which was well over two weeks of the Aquino administration’s trial and conviction by publicity wave.
Despite her claimed correction, Juico apparently never bothered to come up with a statement to the media denying all those charges raised against the bishops and their PCSO-donated SUVs. Surely she could have come out with a media statement saying that these vehicles were pick-ups and not the luxury SUVs that were made out to portray the bishops as having obtained from the past administration for their personal use.
But that’s how dirty Noynoy and his allies play the political power game, yet he and his KKKs certainly ended up with red faces, when Noynoy himself said that the apology of the bishops was not enough to absolve them and that he was still digging for the violation of the church and state separation principle that may have been committed by these bishops.
Yet Noynoy sweats the bishops’ small P6.9 million stuff while he quickly absolves his P23 billion Dinky Soliman and her really anomalous PeaceBonds where her NGO netted a cool tax free P1 billion, while making the Filipino people pay P35 billion for that scam. And yet they have the gall to claim that they tread the daang matuwid?
The seven bishops have exonerated themselves and regained the lost “moral ascendancy” in this matter at least, as they proved that the vehicles they obtained from the PCSO not only were not luxury vehicles but also used to aid the poor and helpless. They all have returned the vehicles to the PCSO which really leaves Noynoy and Juico with the problem of what to do with those old dilapidated vehicles.
More to the point, the bishops who attended the Senate hearing made it clear that it may prove to be difficult to continue to have a government-church collaboration on assistance to the poor and the needy, as there is now created an atmosphere of mistrust between the bishops and the government.
But perhaps the bishops have also learned their lesson of not engaging in trial by publicity themselves, as they now know how it feels to be the victims of trial and conviction by publicity because they also engaged in this odious exercise in 2001 during the so-called Edsa II revolt.