Sunday, March 23, 2008 Rein Jun Lozada in, Gullas urges 'handlers'
REP. Eduardo Gullas (Cebu Province, 1st district) has joined the call for Rodolfo Noel Lozada Jr. to apologize to Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal.
He also advised handlers of the Senate hearing’s star witness on the aborted telecommunications deal with China’s ZTE Corp. “to rein him in or else he will self-destruct.”
Gullas said that Lozada insulted Cardinal Vidal gravely by calling him the head of the “Archdiocese of Malacañang” and by claiming that the prelate barred priests from saying mass during his visit here in Cebu last Monday.
“Lozada Jr. should ask for the forgiveness of His Eminence Ricardo Cardinal Vidal for his slanderous and insulting statements uttered during his visit here. As a Cebuano, I demand that he asks for forgiveness,” the congressman said.
The Gullas family is close to the cardinal because the congressman’s late mother, Inday Pining, worked closely with Vidal during her stint as president of the Cathedral Parish Pastoral Council.
Gullas said Vidal was only 51 years old then when he served as parish priest of the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral.
“She regarded him (Vidal) as her own son as we are of the same age. We cannot find a priest anywhere more humble, gentle, self-effacing and fatherly than our own Cardinal Vidal. He is the epitome of a good pastor,” the congressman said.
Gullas said people handling Lozada should advise him to also remain modest and calm or else he will self-destruct.
“Oozing with monumental ego, it is clear—power has gone to his head,” he said.
Lozada has testified before the Senate blue ribbon committee that President Arroyo’s allies asked for US$130 million as bribes from the broadband deal.
These allegations have provoked calls for President Arroyo’s resignation.
Apart from Lozada, Gullas called on Leah Navarro, spokesperson of the Manila-based Black and White Movement, to also apologize to Cardinal Vidal for calling him a “congressman in a cassock.”
Gullas considered Navarro’s name-calling not only an insult to the prelate but a desecration of the memory of her late father Pedro Lopez and uncle Paulino Gullas, two Cebuano congressmen.
Lopez died with President Ramon Magsaysay in a plane crash on Mt. Manunggal in the western town of Balamban, Cebu on March 17, 1957, while Paulino, brother of Gullas’ father Vicente, was reportedly killed by the Japanese in the hills of Cebu.
“I am deeply and personally shamed by Navarro’s tirade against the cardinal. I likewise demand that she should ask for forgiveness. She should also apologize to all Cebuanos,” he said.
Gullas called on the Presbyterial Council of the Archdiocese of Cebu to continue looking for the persons responsible for spreading “false information” that priests were prohibited from officiating mass for Lozada in Cebu. (GC)
