DAGUPAN CITY–For Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz, "it's time to go for the national leadership".

Perhaps, the time has come for the national leadership to become some kind of a hero instead of a downright villain, Cruz said in a statement yesterday.

By now, it should have learned the admittedly hard and painful lesson that it is neither truly meant to govern nor really capable of good governance, he added.

"The logical conclusion is but-one: it appears that the time has come for the national leadership to go, to renounce the office, to move somewhere, to leave everything behind," he said.

Cruz enumerated several reasons. He said for a start, it (national leadership) faces so many serious and standing socio-moral predicaments and political adversities.

He said it continues to be accused of lying, cheating and stealing, the long hanging threat of impeachment proceedings, the actual worsening economy notwithstanding all loud and repeated official protestations to the contrary, people’s hunger grows while their death for lack of medicine multiplies and there is not only less education available for the children but also less
educated youth.

He noted that there are its often failed attempts at having power more than that allowed by law. This is not to mention its fast becoming gun-powder mentality that translates into many and still continuing political killings and disappearances, he said. There are more and more rallies of dissent plus bigger and bigger marches of contempt and it has even become the target not only of creative jokes but also the object of sickening texts, he added.

Cruz also said its pretence at super regions is simply met with super typhoons. "Pure coincidence or actual design, there are one too many natural disasters coupled with many man-made calamities", he said.

Cruz also cited problems on illegal drugs, illegal gambling, graft and corruption that continue to hound the national leadership.

And there came the desperate government plan of changing the fundamental law of the land—for any and all conceivable reasons except the common welfare, he said. There must be another planet where those possessed and obsessed proponents of CHA-CHA (Charter Change) come from to preach that national abundance, progress and development are necessarily connected with a
parliamentary form of government!, he said.

But then as the infamous “people’s initiative” was unmasked and discarded, the insistent “constituent assembly” was all of a sudden set aside on account of wide and strong contrary public outcry, Cruz added.

In the same way, the much publicized ASEAN Summit was likewise suddenly cancelled allegedly for simple climatic reasons, he said.

"National leadership: time to go?," Cruz asked.

DAGUPAN CITY–Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz said that Church law categorically forbids clerics from assuming any public office whenever this means having a share in the exercise of civil power.

Cruz issued this statement after no less than Batanes Bishop Camilo Gregorio, appointed by President Arroyo to be member of the special investigative body she formed called Melo Commission to probe spate of killings of left-wing activists and journalists, requested that he be replaced Tuesday.

The commission headed by former Supreme Court Justice Jose Melo will also have as its members National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Director Nestor Mantaring, Chief State Prosecutor Jovencio Zuno, Catholic Bishop Camilo Gregorio, Senior Counsel Vinluan, and Atty. Nelia Gonzales, representing the legal and academic community.

Gergorio earlier expressed willingness to be part of the commission created by the President last Monday.

Cruz, former president of the influential Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, said that this universal church law prohibition applies to all deacons, priests and bishops of the Catholic Church in the four corners of the globe.

"The law is quite strict and rigid such that any cleric who entertains a definite and defined contrary option, should terminally leave the clerical state", he said.

He said that the so called “Melo Commission” is definitely neither a purely private nor civil body.

"As designed and constituted by no less than the highest executive office holder in the land, it is incongruous to even think that it has nothing to do with the exercise of civil power in its executive expression in other words, all clerics in the country are forbidden by church law from membership in the said commission as such," he said.

”Hopefully, this canonical prohibition would assuage the apparent paranoidal preoccupation of the present administration that clerics in the country like to take over its tenure of power, intent to assume its public office and pursuant prerogatives”, Cruz said.

"Would that the said church law put to rest the seemingly progressive self-agitation of Malacañang that the local Pilipino church hierarchy is interested in changing its occupant due to its design and desire to have a presence therein," he added.

He noted that it is not only the fundamental law of the land that indirectly provides the separation of the church and state. The universal law of the church also affirms its separation from the state is inherently for church ministry-definitely not for government service, he added.

It is strange that the present administration fervently invokes the principle of the separation of church and state whenever clerics denounce the unethical contents of its political options and actions, Cruz said.

"Yet the same is rather fast in enlisting no less than bishops for membership in the said commission that is envisioned precisely to investigate and resolve political killings in the country," he added.

Cruz said, "What a self-contradiction!”

DAGUPAN CITY–People's Initiative, Da Vinci Code, the repeated official claim of a great up and coming national economic progress are three good fictions making the rounds in the country these days, according to Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz.

Cruz said in a statement yesterday that the People's Initiative is the blitzkrieg of no less than the national leadership for all conceivable reasons but the cause of national unity and prosperity. Not the people but the government agencies are pushing it, he said.

He said public officials as well as public funds are used to promote it. Even the government printing office is used to push government’s initiative for the country to have a charter change, sparing nothing and no one, he added.

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DAGUPAN CITY–Marital infidelity has particular relevance to those who hold power and influence, according to Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz.

Cruz said in a statement yesterday that marital infidelity appears to be becoming a non-issue among more and more individuals. For husbands and wives to engage in extramarital affairs seems to be a reality that is taken as a matter of course, he said.

He said provided it is kept discreet and it is not exposed, then the practice simply goes on.

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I find the following worth pondering in reaction to the latest pronouncement of President Gloria Arroyo that the people should not lose hope because it was God's plan that she would run the country. This is not actually the first time that Mrs. Arroyo used God in her statements. Some sectors, including Archbishop Oscar Cruz of the Lingayen-Dagupan Archdiocese, would like to remind Mrs. Arroyo that she should not use God's name in vain.

Here, posted yesterday in the Archbishop's blog.

personal opinion

One’s opinion about self is personal. One has all the right to believe, express and even defend it. It has to be respected in deference to the person thinking about self, looking at self and making a self-rating. This is the premise of the saying that everyone is entitled to his or her opinion.

This is relevant to the present Malacañang occupant with no less than a triple heavenly claim. God told her to run for the office although god before said too not to do so. A Pope, a man of God, endorsed her candidacy although he has gone to a better life then. God’s plan is the basis of her tenure of office. No wonder that there is rather loud claim that she is the best person to lead the country.

One’s personal opinion however no matter how strongly convinced the person sounds, is not immune to a contrary opinion of other persons. This is the nature of personal opinions. They are open to the contrary personal perceptions of others as well as to contrary objective realities.

That is why while there can be many who concur with the personal opinion of the holder of the presidential office, there is also a good number of people who vehemently disagree usually on the basis of the pitiful situation and circumstances obtaining in the country.

Not few painful brandings have been appended to the Philippines during her watch. The nation is said to be number one in corruption. It is said that it is second in ranking in the exploitation of women and children. Lately, it is claimed as the haven of illegal drugs.

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DAGUPAN CITY–Life was never the same again for this man of cloth who hogged the headlines in 2005 for his unrelenting anti-jueteng campaign.

Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Cruz whose name is almost synonymous with the campaign against jueteng in the Philippines, is fighting the giants, as some people say, with his crusade to rid the country of this very popular illegal numbers game called jueteng.

Cruz, national chairman of Krusada ng Bayan Laban sa Jueteng (Jueteng-Free Philippines), recently told this writer that 2005 was the banner year for anti-jueteng campaign marked by unprecedented exposes about the illegal game’s influence in local and national governance during a Senate probe. Cruz prominently figured in the inquiry, bringing along with him witnesses like Sandra Cam, Wilfredo “Boy” Mayor, Richard Garcia, among others.

Known as the Juetengate II, a sequel of Juetengate I that toppled then President Joseph Estrada due to, among others, corruption charges including jueteng payola briberies, the 2005 jueteng scandal exposed by Cruz and his witnesses brought embarrassment to President Gloria Arroyo after her husband, First Gentleman Miguel Arroyo and son Pampanga Rep. Mikey Arroyo and presidential brother-in-law Rep. Ignacio Arroyo were implicated as among the top beneficiaries of jueteng payola.

Credit goes to the indefatigable Cruz, whose crusade opened the eyes of the people and the officials that eventually led to the stoppage since late April 2005 of jueteng for the longest time in the province and in most parts of the country.

Cruz described 2005 as “the climactic conscientization of the people on the extent and evil that this illegal numbers game brings to the country.

He said his consolation was they were able to reveal that jueteng ties down the hands of the officials and its beneficiaries, silences the police, disables the national officials who are also their protectors and beneficiaries.

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