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Catholic Church rallies Filipinos against
war
By Marco Garrido
MANILA -
The largest demonstrations here against the US-led war
with Iraq have been marked by prayer more than protest.
While the usual leftist crowds are certainly in
attendance, toting familiar placards denouncing the war
as "imperialist", their ranks are outnumbered by more
unusual attendees: housewives.
Middle-class
Filipinos have come out in force to protest the war,
largely at the encouragement of Catholic Church leaders.
Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin has deemed the war
illegal under the United Nations Charter and, worse,
immoral under the rubric of Christian principles. Sin's
call for peace has been echoed in the homilies of many a
parish priest. Small wonder, then, that in this
majority-Catholic nation the largest anti-war
demonstrations have been, in fact, prayer rallies.
A moral opposition
The largest such
rally in the Philippines to date billed itself as "The
Nationwide Prayer Assembly for Peace". Held late last
month at Luneta Park in Manila, the gathering boasted an
attendance of 50,000 people (though police put the
figure at 15,000). While various leftist factions turned
out in large numbers, this was unmistakably a religious
event.
Church groups made it an outing, Catholic
schools made it a field trip, and housewives heeded the
call of their parish priest. Sister Theresa Lorenzo
accompanied students from Mary Help Christian School in
Canlunbang, Laguna: "We came as a way of witnessing and
proclaiming what we have in our hearts, and what these
young people would like to tell our president."
Across the country, peace advocates continue to
congregate in the hundreds and thousands. Like the
Luneta Park rally but on a smaller scale, these pious
demonstrations seem, foremost, an affirmative expression
of religious faith. Only as a consequence of this do
they represent a conscientious objection to the war in
Iraq.
These prayer rallies illustrate the
Catholic Church's tremendous power not only to mobilize
but to unite. Protestant and Muslim religious leaders,
usually discordant leftist factions, and politicians of
various parties gather under the Church's aegis.
This may be because the Church is the best
platform for an opposition rooted in moral evaluation.
Whether religious or not, the various groups opposed to
the war agree that it is unjust. "This is an aggressive
war," Bishop Teodoro Bacani told the Luneta Park crowd;
it would only be justified by God "as a last resort ...
and as a defensive war", and, of course, it is neither.
And whether religious or not, that so many
Filipinos have rallied behind the Church's position, in
the way the Church has expressed it, would suggest that
most Filipinos who oppose the war do so not because they
believe it flouts international law, threatens global
stability, or is bad for national interest. They oppose
the war because they see it as immoral.
A
political agenda
Religion and politics have never
been completely separate in the Philippines. In cases
where the Catholic Church deems that the government has
forfeited its moral mandate, it will assert itself. The
most spectacular of these assertions were the People
Power Movements of 1986 and 2001 that deposed,
respectively, presidents Ferdinand Marcos and Joseph
Estrada.
Likewise, there is politics behind all
the prayer that marks Church-sponsored peace rallies.
The Church and other groups that form the moral axis of
the Philippine peace movement hold the government
accountable to explicitly moral standards.
Since
the prayer rallies began some months ago, their
political agenda has expanded. It now includes
opposition to the current military campaign against the
insurgent Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in
Mindanao, as well as to the prospect of a new deployment
of US troops on Philippine soil as part of the Balikatan
military exercises.
The existence of a coalition
against war in Iraq has made it easier for peace
advocates to target other issues consistent with a peace
agenda. Hence, opposition to one war has naturally
broadened to include opposition to other wars and to war
in general. Bishop Bacani exhorted the crowd in Luneta
Park: "Let us oppose war in Mindanao, in Iraq, and
oppose war whenever and wherever."
This is a
movement with enormous moral and, therefore, political
clout. It uses its clout to discredit two individuals in
particular: President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, for her
support of the war on Iraq, and Defense Secretary Angelo
Reyes, who is believed to have instigated renewed
hostilities in Mindanao as well as campaigned for a
combat role for American soldiers in the upcoming
Balikatan exercises.
According to Miriam Colonel
of the All-Out Peace coalition, a group was being formed
specifically to work for Reyes' ouster. It would be
called NO WAR, standing for National Outrage of Women
against Reyes.
A moral accounting
The
same Church-led coalition agitating for peace had swept
Arroyo into office on the tide of the 2001 People Power
Movement. Now with her administration's moral mandate
quickly dissipating - and with it her chief political
backing - she remains hard-pressed to accommodate the
demands of the peace movement. Her attempts at
accommodation, however, have only resulted in tepid
positions that invoke peace in name and not in
substance.
Archbishop Cardinal Sin has urged
Arroyo to remain "a faithful daughter of the Church" and
declare Philippine neutrality toward the war in Iraq.
Despite having initially come out squarely behind the
United States, as the chorus of opposition mounted,
Arroyo aligned her position behind that of the United
Nations. Nevertheless, when war broke out, Washington
counted the Philippines as a member of the "coalition of
the willing" even before Arroyo did, publicly at least.
She equivocated until the last minute: "Perhaps at zero
hour itself it is very difficult to come to a very
definite and real consensus in which everybody agrees
... In the meantime let us pray. Up to zero hour we are
still praying for peace."
Arroyo's position
toward the war in Mindanao has been similarly
confounding. While she has backed Reyes' military
campaign against the MILF, including the offensive that
sparked current hostilities, she has insisted that her
policy is one of "active defense" intended to maintain
the peace. "The government will not stop searching for
peace, but it will not allow any group to disturb the
peace and order of Mindanao ... It is not all-out war
that is taking place in Mindanao. What is going on in
Mindanao is active defense." Meanwhile, as the military
campaign rages on, preparations for peace talks with the
MILF in Kuala Lumpur are being eagerly pursued.
It would seem the president is straining herself
by trying to do two things at once: talking the talk of
peace while marching to the drums of war.
People power for peace?
While the
previous People Power movements succeeded in deposing
presidents, this one failed even to dissuade one. Arroyo
accommodated but did not capitulate to a single point on
the peace agenda: the Philippines remains among the
coalition of the willing, the military campaign in
Mindanao continues, as will the Balikatan exercises. If
Arroyo were to run for reelection next year, the peace
movement might claim to have secured her defeat. But she
isn't. Instead, all the innumerable prayer rallies seem
to be accomplishing is to vocalize an opposition that
goes unheeded despite its numbers.
To be sure,
the Philippine peace movement is limited in many ways.
For one, it lacks internal coherence. Its unity is born
out of opposition. Without the rallying points of war in
Iraq and Mindanao, the groups that compose the peace
movement would probably fragment into their usual
disunity. It would be hard to imagine communist groups
subordinating themselves to Church leadership in the
long term.
For another, the movement lacks a
positive agenda. Peace makes a fine rallying cry as long
as it remains short on specifics. As it is being used,
"peace" does not mean much more than a blanket
opposition to war. While keeping things simple allows
for maximum appeal, the movement runs the risk of
portraying things simplistically, if not naively.
Nevertheless, despite its limits, one cannot
ignore the phenomenon: tremendous numbers demonstrating
against war not only in the Philippines but across the
world. To the demonstrators, the US is further
squandering its moral mandate with this war. While the
protests and prayer rallies may subside once this war
concludes, a general, intractable, and deepening
resentment toward the United States may remain. And,
given the next occasion - which is sure to come - be
aroused over and over again.
(©2003 Asia Times
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