By Adolfo Quizon Paglinawan

 

A controversial prelate who has been relegated by the Vatican to a provincial  posting for the past 15 years to learn humility, had issued a three-page pastoral letter encouraging his constituencies to pray the rosary in order to counter China’s threat to Philippine sovereignty and freedom.

There is nothing wrong with these rituals if confined within religious circles but when premised by prevarications and arrogance, they become public poison.

Archbishop Socrates Villegas of Pangasinan promotes this campaign with a racist video punctuating Chinese squinting eyes and with effusions about the growing threat of China at sea and the reports of its infiltration and espionage in the country, that is way out of line.

Let us examine the pastoral letter first:

“The threat is no longer imagined. It is no longer mere conjecture. There is evidence of insidious attempts by a foreign power that governs by an ideology that recognizes no God and keeps all religion and the practice of faith under the heavy heel of its totalitarian boot to trample our sacred shores.

“The network of agents it maintains and is capable of deploying, including those involved in espionage and even subversive activity, will not be denied by anyone who makes it his business to keep himself abreast of disturbing news reports. The People’s Republic of China shows neither fear nor does it exhibit hesitation in inching menacingly close to the Philippines.”

Obviously soaking in paranoia, the archbishop said that the government has been infiltrated by persons on Beijing’s payroll or Filipinos who have received favors and in return placed the country’s sovereignty and independence on the line.

“Due to the lackadaisical Investigations conducted by both the Senate and the House of Representatives, if not criminal conduct of many government personnel, it is not impossible for foreigners with malicious intent to acquire documentation allowing them not only entry but residence in the Philippines, perhaps even to pass themselves off as natural-born Filipino citizens and thus qualify for public office,” Villegas said.

It appears that Soc needs a cold wintry shower. His pastoral exile near the boonies may have caused a major dislocation between his ears. But is this not what happens when anyone confines to gathering information through the mainstream media? Why even people who have taken 24 units of philosophy during postulancy days, when soaked with propaganda, will definitely have sleepless nights in the Philippines, especially as Lingayen Gulf opens up to the South China Seas.

Over-analysis onto paralysis

In fairness to the faithless, however, let us do a content analysis where his neurotic symptoms seem to be coming from.

First, the phrase “a foreign power that governs by an ideology that recognizes no God…” In another document, Villegas called China an atheistic state.

This is true. But is not the Philippines too, an atheistic state?

Article II Section 6 of the 1987 Constitution says “The separation of Church and State shall be inviolable. No law shall be made respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

If Villegas would only be circumspective as expected of his level in the Catholic hierarchy, he should not be dismissive of China as an atheistic state. That simply translates politically and socially that it has no state religion, in the same sense that the Philippine state is a secular one.

An archbishop ought to distinguish between sectarian and secular considerations.

Obviously, Villegas does not know that the Chinese acclaim Zheng He, as its greatest admiral and diplomat who in seven voyages from 1405 to 1433, extended the maritime and commercial influence of China throughout the regions bordering the Indian Ocean onto the southern tip of Africa, almost a century before the Portuguese reached India.

Zheng was a Muslim eunuch. Today 58% of Xinjiang province practice Islam.

Out-of-context

Second, the prelate cited “keeps all religion and the practice of faith under the heavy heel of its totalitarian boot to trample our sacred shores.”

 This misperception has been created because in the past, some sects have openly prescribed religious rebellion against the state, thus receiving in return a stern response from the Chinese government.

Soc Villegas is second-guessing China’s internal affairs. His imagining that China should follow a liberal democratic mindset is what is totalitarian imposition.

Allowing five religions to operate cannot be totalitarian.

Most Chinese are either non-religious or practice a combination of Buddhism and Taoism with a Confucian worldview, collectively termed as folk religion with Chinese characteristics. Officially the Chinese government recognizes Buddhism, Taoism, Catholicism, Protestantism and Islam.

But China would be foolish not to regulate pockets of extremism, given that it is a country of 1.4 billion people. A level-headed person, much more a highly-educated clergy should distance from religious dogmatism especially because Catholics are a minute .5% of the population.

As earlier hinted, China may not have a western-style of democracy as it practices democratic socialism. But this is why in order to avoid conflicts and ease social cohesion of religions, President Xi Jinping introduced a program to “Sinicise” all religious practice, so that they become “Chinese in orientation”. With the government providing “active guidance to religions, they can adapt themselves to a socialist society” under China’s all-embracing principle of   peaceful co-existence.

China bans gambling

Third, I do not know where Villegas got the notion that “The network of agents… involved in espionage and even subversive activity” until he mentioned “(passing) themselves off as natural-born Filipino citizens and thus qualify for public office.

This is what is called a blind item in journalism. He was referring to Congressional investigations on online gaming operations involving Bamban Mayor Alice Guo and the sensational narratives spawned by the mainstream media to drown the failure of the Marcos administration in the delivery of basic services to the people.

Frankly he should appropriately direct his indignation against Philippine government officials who tolerate gambling in the Philippine, a policy that has magnetized criminal syndicates into the country. I agree that they have corrupted our immigration system. That is what happens when governments allow the underworld to take over.

The Peoples Republic of China has strongly urged the Philippine government to ban POGOs, just as it has banned gambling except in Macau, a special administrative region like Hong Kong, where it has been legal since the 1850s under the Portuguese government.

What Villegas should be preoccupying himself with is admonishing his “faithful followers” against the evils of gambling that could be construed to raising habitual expectation that salvation will be granted regardless of one’s personal response to God’s grace, a vice or distortion directly opposed to the theological virtue of hope.

Blaming China for the shortcomings of the Philippine government is not only the height of hypocrisy but resorting to polemics that the Bible prohibits. Titus 3:9 teaches avoid foolish and ill-informed and stupid controversies and genealogies and dissensions and quarrels about the Law, for they are unprofitable and useless.

Debunking the archbishop’s judgmental style, Chinese Ambassador Huang Xilian met with Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin recently to discuss how PROC can best assist our law enforcers in curbing criminality related to gambling that the Philippine government has legalized.

Prelate needs serious fact-checking

Lastly, I take on the archbishop’s innuendo that “China aggression shows neither fear nor does it exhibit hesitation in inching menacingly close to the Philippines (placing) the country’s sovereignty and independence on the line.,” as a distortion of his maternal instincts.

His video speaks of preventing fishermen to do their work. This is a lie. It is the Filipino military provoking law-enforcing Chinese Coast Guard to a confrontation that is causing the militarizing the discourse. The frequent Philippine military exercises with the US and its allies has lessened the manhours of the fisherfolk to perform their trade.

The Philippine government’s departure from previously-agreed protocol (since 1999) is the reason why our navy’s regular resupply mission of delivering humanitarian necessities to our marines BRP Sierra Madre has been disrupted. And when we were caught oftentimes delivering prohibited building and construction materials to repair the derelict ship, President Marcos in order to hide the subterfuge, resorts to tantrums and rescinds whatever agreement, turning the situation into a fair game.

The prelate has a lot to say about squinting eyes. But not a whimper on the US-Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people in the biblical land of promise – half them children.

Villegas is a professed “yellowtard”. His appreciation of the South China Sea conflicts obviously birthed from the positions Noynoy Aquino took on as policies, under the tutorials given by the late Albert del Rosario, who was his secretary of foreign affairs, and the surviving Antonio Carpio who led the toxic demonization of China to create favorable conditions to suit his vested connections in the oil-gas exploration industry.

Observing the 31st Anniversary of the EDSA People Power Revolution on February 25, 2017, Villegas published a fictitious ‘letter’ to his mentor, the late Cardinal Jaime Sin, saying “the dictator ousted by People Power is now buried among heroes. The Lady of one thousand two hundred pairs of shoes is now Representative in Congress.”

It is the archbishop’s fixation to fly outside of his pastoral duties that has made him repugnant. When his favored radio-television corporation (ABS-CBN) failed to win Congressional approval for its application for renewal of its franchise to broadcast, he vented on his pet peeve President Rodrigo Duterte accusing him of killing the network. In October 2023, Villegas publicly stated that the International Criminal Court investigators should be allowed to probe into human rights abuses in Duterte’s war on drugs, even if the international body no longer had jurisdiction over the matter because our internal justice system is functioning as a third branch of government.

Eye-opening principles

Soc Villegas must abandon his bigotries and learn from the third idea of four keys to unlocking China’s foreign policy, “Even a proud dragon has to repent when it falls after flying too high into the thin, freezing air”. Lao Tze teaches that great strength can easily deteriorate; so supremacy must not be pursued to the point that one is consumed by his quest for power.

The point of departure may be different from where Jesus Christ was coming from 500 years after, but both their teachings coagulate in essence. The carpenter from Nazareth instructs his followers, “The person who is greatest among you will be your servant. Whoever honors himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be honored.”

Francis knows Lao Tze

Pope Francis has been searching ways and means for the Catholic faith to find another rebirth in China. Definitely, intolerance by men of the cloth like Villegas makes it hard for the pontiff to achieve that.

On September 21, 2018, the Vatican and China signed a historic agreement on the appointment of Roman Catholic bishops, a breakthrough on an issue that for decades fueled tensions between the Holy See and Beijing and thwarted efforts toward diplomatic relations.

The provisional agreement was described by the Vatican as “the fruit of a gradual and reciprocal rapprochement”, following a long process of careful negotiation, and subject to periodic review.

In Beijing, the foreign ministry put out a statement saying: “China and the Vatican will continue to maintain communications and push forward the process of improving relations between the two sides.”

The Vatican said that, as part of the deal, the pope would recognize seven Chinese bishops who were appointed by Beijing without the Vatican’s approval, and were excommunicated as illegitimate.

Sources told Reuters in the accord China gave the Vatican a say in the naming of bishops and granted the pope veto power over candidates.

Greg Burke, director of the Holy See press office, acknowledged there was work to be done to reassure those who have opposed the agreement. “This is not the end of a process. It’s the beginning. This has been about dialogue, patient listening on both sides even when people come from very different standpoints. The objective of the accord is not political but pastoral, allowing the faithful to have bishops who are in communion with Rome but, at the same time, recognized by Chinese authorities.”

The Vatican has been keen to re-create ties with Beijing ever since Chinese authorities broke off diplomatic relations in 1951. Pope Francis has vigorously pursued rapprochement with the rising superpower.

He has sent gifts to Xi, his homilies have been translated into Chinese, and last year the Vatican dispatched 40 artworks to Beijing in a cultural exchange which, according to a senior Chinese official, signaled the “strong commitment for the development of civil relations” between the two.

What Francis does with diplomacy, Soc Villegas deals with intolerance. He is no different from Cardinal Joseph Zen, the former archbishop of Hong Kong, who thinks the pontiff has sold out to a communist government.

Pray tell me, whose style will most likely evangelize China? 

As a Catholic, I join the Archbishop Villegas in his rosary crusade, but would lift him up never by smokes and mirrors but in and through the Holy Spirit, to know the truth and the enlightenment that comes with it.

Lux et veritas!

   

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