Monday, March 31, 2008 Ledesma: Bigots in the bishopric By Jun Ledesma Sunbursts
BISHOP Oscar Cruz is holier than Christ. His declaration that he will deny President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo the sacrament of Holy Communion revives the era when bishops and cardinals rules like masters of the universe. It is the black history of the Church, one, which I personally hates to revisit. But now and then bigots emerge from the very heart of Christendom and we find ourselves in a quandary whether these holy of holies are worthy of respect or repudiation.
If we follow the sanctimonious sermon of Cruz, President Arroyo and those that serve under her are beyond redemption. Bishop Cruz is judgmental and assumed the omnipotence of the Lord when he presumed that whatever confession she makes, whatever repentance she takes, as far as he is concerned, she does not deserve forgiveness and therefore is not entitled to Holy Communion.
I personally know what it takes and how debasing it is to be denied of communion when you are there in front of the altar waiting to receive the bread of life. Notre Dame was where I graduated from high school and where I was President of the Catholic Youth Organization. Because ND was not offering any college course then, I enrolled along with 12 other fellow graduates at the Southern Christian College, which was run by UCCP. The next thing we got was a letter, which was written in red ink from Bishop M (may he rest in peace) advising us that henceforth we will be denied of the sacraments. In short we are to be excommunicated. By Sunday, I still went to church and I stood there with three of my buddies deprived of the Holy Communion. Some of my classmates stopped schooling. I stayed and convinced the dean of the SCC College to allow a Catholic priest to teach Religion in a protestant campus. This was no problem to SCC and Dean Magdamo, thus for the first time a man in white Cossack walked in the SCC campus. However this did not last long for the bishop put a stop to it. I pursued my schooling and transferred to Davao later all because SCC is only offering subjects which was up to second year.
We Christians complain and wail against fundamentalist Muslims unmindful of the fact that in our midst are hypocrites and dogmatists who are more popish than the pope.
Oscar Cruz cannot forgive President Arroyo for having called Garci and for the ZTE-NBN deal. Arroyo apologized to the people before national TV for talking to Garci. In the case of the ZTE-NBN deal, she had it scrapped. It maybe late, but just the same she stopped it.
In the case of Bishop Cruz, he used millions of pesos in church funds for an Internet Service Provider project. The project never took off. He never apologized for what he did. Midway in the execution of the project, Cruz already knew that the contract he entered into was rife with fraud. He never stopped it until the entire amount was zapped. Did he ever go to the confessional box? I think he did and I presumed that he asked that he be absolved of his sins.
Now is Cruz any different from Arroyo? Who is the greater sinner between the two? Here is a pot calling the kettle black.
And now comes Jun Lozada and a failed actress and singer Leah Navarro. Jun is delirious and has an overdose of self-importance. Leah, a divine charlatan, having the temerity to despise the bishop of Cebu. Just because the Cebuanos do not want to participate in edifying Jun will they berate the bishop for denying them the use of the altar to stage a hate campaign against Arroyo? Here are two crackpots calling a kettle black.
BTW, for being too busy with my travel arrangements such that I had to shuttle to Manila and back a couple of time for visa interview I missed the wake of Gil Abarico. I will always remember Gil. My first press card was from Mindanao Mail and Gil issued me that. We met each other at the National Press Club building in Manila where we had lunch together with the late Ernie Plana. I insisted to him that I cannot write but he pushed me into it. I tried but never got the nerve to send him an article. Later when I came back to Davao, Gil was the deskman of the Philippine News Service. Again he prodded me to write. It was election time and I have a scoop. My first story was headlined in the Philippine Herald with my byline. Since then I never looked back. When Gil left PNA he would compliment me for my writings. I had a weekly column with the Evening Post and the Metro Manila Times of Kerima Polotan. Gil was impressed not realizing that the manuscripts that I sent to Kerima were thoroughly overhauled by her. In time, a learned and is still learning. Gil, whenever we meet, always had a compliment for the things I write and how I write even with my bad grammar. Thank God there's the computer to correct my spelling.
Gil was the information officer of two generations of Duterte: that of Gov. Vicente Duterte and later of Mayor Rodrigo Duterte. He too was the information officer during the terms of Elias Lopez. During the martial law regime, Primitivo "Tibo" Mijares appointed him as head of Region XI Media Advisory Council, a precursor of KBP and the Philippine Council for Print Media. Gil is one of the best writers, if not the best and versatile writer of Davao. He attended various international forums where only the cerebrally gifted are invited. We will surely miss Gil.
