Thursday, April 24, 2008 Speakout: Unacceptable actions
HERE'S to commend your paper on the news you have been publishing these past days on the visit of Mr. Rodolfo Lozada Jr. to Pampanga, which was held in our school, St. Scholastica's Academy. It has been beyond our expectation that the event has occupied your columns for some days now. I take this as part of your desire to propagate the truth which Jesus in the Gospel of that Sunday, April 20, was speaking about: that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
For this reason, our school was privileged to have been chosen as venue so that people of various faiths and beliefs and profession and occupation could come together in the spirit of the CBCP's call for "communal action" and discerns the truth and act together.
The activity was in the form of an Ecumenical Service, not a Holy Mass as stated in the April 21 article of Mr. Chris Navarro and Ms. Ian Flora Ocampo. Having many pastors and representatives of various denominations and faiths, an Ecumenical Service was chosen as the form of prayer to precede the Forum. May I also call your attention that Senator Panfilo Lacson was not in the forum, contrary to what was stated in the article of Ms. Marna H.Dagumboy, p.1 in the April 22 edition.
The "rally" in front of our school's gate has already been written about. I would just want to reiterate what I have said that the "rally" had no permit according to the good Mayor of our city. Being so, they still conducted their rally with all their anti- Lozada posters and declarations.
However, what is unacceptable was when the so-called rallyists blocked some of the cars that were entering our gates, thinking that Mr. Lozada was in one of them. On top of that, they were shouting all kinds of unkind words that are unacceptable to the sensibilities of visitors and Capampangans are supposed to be known to be hospitable and marangal.
The derogatory remarks were not only against Mr. Lozada but also to the very school whose gates they were blocking. To the Benedictine sisters, the rallyists were claiming that we were receiving someone who is "nagsisinungaling" and so even asked the crowd if they still want to enroll their children in such a school.
Those who come to the gates of St. Scholastica's are accepted on the basis of their being persons and we, even as religious, have no right to judge them as "liars" and not open the gates to them. Not even God calls anyone by that derogatory term.
I fully agree with Mr. Jun Lozada who says that when one is following the path of truth, many forces will try to block the way. Yet, we all know that this is precisely the path chosen by Jesus who said, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life."
May we all be one in the search for genuine truth.
Sr. Celine Saplala, OSB
Directress
St. Scholastica's Academy
City of San Fernando
