THERE is a new daytime television favorite — the hearings at which the Discaya couple and contractors of the government’s flood control projects are the stars. This, however, is very serious business, as it has to do with the legal expenditure of public monies and the well-being and safety of the people the flood control projects were meant to protect and benefit. The present legislative investigations are, however, stymied by the posturing of some personalities always eager for popular acclaim.
The motives of some inquisitors are questioned. On the whole, the present inquiry suffers a credibility issue.
The Church is the highly structured and organized body capable of lending credibility to a community-based, grassroots-level and popular inquiry into flood control projects. And that would not be engaging the Church in something extraneous to its mission. The normatively of the common good is central to the Church’s moral theology, and justice occupies a high place in the hierarchy of virtues that Catholic teaching upholds — that justice that has to do not only with dealings between individuals but the justice that is due all. Engaging the Church in the endeavor of seeing to the proper expenditure of public funds on flood control projects will be asking it to do “for the least of the brethren” what they would do for its Lord.
After the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines, the Church in the country embarked on the organization of Basic Ecclesial Communities — fundamentally neighborhood assemblies whose members are familiar with each other — that meet regularly, pray together and share with each other insights on how the scriptural readings impact on their personal and community lives. Certainly, taking asking the members their perception of whether government projects are doing them any good, whether the materials used are what are commonly used in constructions of unquestionable probity, that work is done in earnest and that there are no undue delays are issues these neighborhood caucuses can take place — provided that questions and discussions are motivated by the passion for justice and the earnest desire to be assured that government funds — taxpayers’ money — are expended justly. That the Church’s Basic Ecclesial Communities are not cornered by politicians’ schemes or contractors’ maneuvers is crucial, and that is exactly where priests and bishops can fruitfully discharge their duties of stewardship and shepherding: protecting the “flock” from marauding wolves!
Synodality is yet another relevant consideration. Pope Francis inaugurated the Church’s drive towards synodality — the ethos of welcoming, inclusion, partnering, meeting and journeying together. The Catholic Church is not the only church in the Philippines, and a common detestation of corruption that impoverishes the community and denies God’s people of what is justly due them should be sufficient spiritual motive to draw members of different churches together in a common crusade, in united vigilance, in evangelical solidarity as guardians and guarantors of the common good.
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It might help tremendously were the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines to establish a commission “oversight for the common good” with the express mandate to direct the activities of Basic Ecclesial Communities, religious organizations and ecumenical movements towards a systematic, organized and concerted involvement in the oversight of government projects directly impacting on the lives and welfare of God’s people. Let not the uninformed protest of “separation of Church and State” be given any hearing. What is proposed is not for the Church to superintend the State. What is rather advanced is the proposal that the Church do more than protest against blatant injustice through the misappropriation of public funds. What is advocated is for the Church to be what she was instituted to be: salt of the earth and light of the world, through active, actual, attentive engagement in matters of public and common concern for the welfare of “the least”!
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