Saturday, December 08, 2007 Editorial: Low and tacky
THESE days, with politicians and priests accusing each other of lying, the faithful and the followers may find it more and more difficult to believe and follow their earthly leaders.
Such may be the case in Minalin where the parish priest and the mayor have traded public accusations of being untruthful over political activism and style of governance.
The priest, Fr. Manuel Sta. Maria, has been accused by three-term Mayor Edgar Flores of using the pulpit to air his myriad criticisms against Flores and other officials. The priest's alleged sniping at the pulpit scored supposed illegal and anomalous undertakings in the town hall.
Apart from denying the priest's tirades, Flores has decried the cleric's undue advantage of using the pulpit in the service of his political opinion and activism which, to a devout Catholic like Flores, is improper, if not outright sacrilegious.
Fr. Sta. Maria has denied Flores' charges of being unkind to him and other town hall denizens in his homilies. In fact, he said to Sun Star Pampanga, he merely appealed to them for help to close illegal fishponds that are endangering the town's ecology.
Where credibility is the issue, politicians may have a hard–time pulling abreast with the priests, especially in Pampanga, perhaps even more so in Minalin where the present priest-governor of the province comes from.
The point is not idle, considering the difficulty with which provincial officials are facing in convincing the public here and there that priests also have credibility problems of their own , probably just as bad, if not worse than, politicians'.
Vice Governor Joseller "Yeng" Guiao has repeatedly conceded this impossible hurdle each time credibility surfaces as a litmus-test on vital issues that put him and Governor Eddie T. Panlilio on opposite sides.
Guiao's predicament is somewhat echoed indirectly by Flores with his plea upon Archbishop Paciano B. Aniceto to intervene in the ongoing spit-and-spin between him and Aniceto's ward.
Secular and spiritual leaders like Fr. Sta. Maria and Mayor Flores are expected to take the high road in dealing with people or issues that concern their flocks and followers that, by sheer common sense, should not be mutually exclusive.
Damaging broadsides on dishonesty do not indicate that this road has been taken. Perhaps, Mayor Flores has bettered the priest in appealing to one with a higher ascendancy in Archbishop Aniceto.
But both maybe equally guilty of failing to do what's necessary to resolve the issues at their level on their own.
