Ironically, it is England,which has an established church that once legally barred clerics from sitting in the elected Commons. Clerics may influence State policy, the electorate once believed. While in the Lords, the bishops of the Established Church have a right to sit, they get their rights from ancient practice. However the bishops by convention never vote on matters of State or law.
Thus some separation of Church and State is even maintained in what seems to be an archaic institution as Britain’s parliament.
But in 2001, Parliament passed an act allowing clergy to stand for election in the Commons. The British public have become comfortable with clerics being MPs provided that they resign their Holy Orders.
Thus the separation of the State from the Church is still in practice maintained. All these in a Kingdom where the Church and State are theoretically one, the Queen is Supreme Governor of the Church and that all subjects should be Church of England communicants.
The British electorate are therefore no longer confused with their MPs political and religious sentiments, thus the removal of clergy disqualification. As a result the Devil is given a little laud while great praise is given to God! (For those unfamiliar with this witticism, this is a paraphrase of what Charles I’s fool said when asked to comment on the Puritan influence in the English state). The Devil in English literary tradition refers to the the King (Recall the famous line in Bolt’s “A Man for all Seasons”? . “I give the Devil the benefit of law for my own safety’s sake!)
This leads me to consider whether Filipinos are ready to have clerics elected as their representatives in government. The Inquirer’s Vox Populi has this to say and reader’s comments on Ed Panlilio’s travails as Governor of Pampanga. Based on what I read, we Filipinos are not ready to have clerics elected as our representative. We confound God and the Devil and in the process get terribly confused. Perhaps the Spanish friars failed to complete their tasks. We are syncretists. God and the Devil are one!
And in Panlilio God and the Devil are. I fault him for not doing the honourable thing. He should have resigned his Holy Orders prior to standing for election. Mere “leave” from the Catholic priesthood smacks of dishonesty. Also his bishop is not free from sin. Under Canon Law he has the authority to boot out Panlilio from the priesthood. There is wisdom why Catholic Canon Law bans clerics from standing for election.
Thus when bribe money is flashed on the TV news with Panlilio holding the “supot”, people can’t figure out if he was the Devil himself or God!
But I disagree with many of the commenters on Vox Populi. Panlilo wasn’t confused. He knew that his priesthood was a good campaign stunt. Unfortunately his electorate is confused and is the loser as the result.
And the Devil may have the last laugh!
Popularity: 1% [?]
I’m new here. Let me introduce myself. I’m the high priest of smokes. And I’m Essene.
It’s the fault of Father Panlilio that he ran for the Governorship of Pampanga. I mean, if he’s looking for morality in Politics, he’ll not find it there. Here in this country, Filipinos subscribe to the Mammon, instead of God. For them, especially ordinary Pinoys, mammon means mamon and whatever these politicos give them, wherever they got it, it’s irrelevant.
Panlilio is no saint. Panlilio should be ousted.
While I cannot recognize Panlilio as a priest anymore, since he hasn’t been defrocked by his Church, he remains part of the clergy. So I will have to address him as Gov. Panlilio.
As such he cannot be ousted on the grounds that he was one (unless we have a law similar to what England had). He can only be removed by what the law prescribes. Morality alone cannot be the basis for removing him from office. Even the Devil herself can play the morality game!
Panlilio cannot be ousted be it that he is a saint, the holy virgin or even the Devil himself.
That’s why I hold the opinion that for you and as well for me, we confound God and the Devil. While the Devil dispenses mammon, we tend to confuse morality for politics.
The cure for this confusion is the disestablishment of religion (mind it not faith, which we should all have. Atheists have theirs too.) in our body politic.
And there we go again with the canard that “atheists have faith, too.” The only “faith” we have is the faith that what we perceive through our senses is real. Do not equate this “faith” with the belief in an omnipotent, omniscient being who created the entire universe but finds it necessary to interfere in the sex lives of the population of a small planet in the outer arm of one of the galaxies. Oh, and why *should* we have faith? I’d think that believing in something without evidence (or despite contrary evidence) is a sign of irrationality.
As for Panlilio, being a priest is the same as being an officer of an organization. Unless he uses government funds to fix his church or lets it dictate his decisions, I see no problem. As some of the Inquirer commenters mentioned, he’s an alternative to the trapos of Pampanga.
Blackshama,
You are spot on.
Indeed Among Ed has confounded the electorate. When he speaks to his constituents they are uncertain whether he is ministering to them or walking the walk of new politics.
On his road to the Capitol, he was filled with good, even pious intentions but as he is finding out, among those who are turned against him are some who hag nit only egged him to throw his frock into the dirty ring of Philippine politics, including ‘well-intentioned businessmen kuno, but who are now itching to cash in on their ‘investment’. Among Ed me thinks, is himself confounded by his current circumstance. And he are correct. going on leave was the wrong patch to take. An attempt to have the best of both worlds? And there’s more. There are more ambitious element who are this early even whispering 2010 in Among Ed’s ear along with the idea of higher office. Are we looking at an Eddie Villanueva-Ed Panlilio faceoff. Now that’s one equation that something to consider.
Let me close with a question. Are religion and politics tubig at langis or will we Filipinos be able to mix them for the greater good?
Postscript: Remember Among Ed to this day is project as the nemesis of jueteng with illegal gambling interest widely rumored to be financing the recall move against him.
Blackshama,
Your view on disassociating religion from politics is admirable. However, it cannot be done. The duality of both concepts sticks like glue in the psyche of the Filipinos, I think.
This country can be likened to South American countries where everything is religion (not religious). Filipinos have synthesized both concepts as one, not surprising since being a Historiographer myself, I have noticed that this conforms with the indigenous concept of the Filipinos, that is deeply rooted in monotheism (Essene believes in the duality of God and promotes the Christ family).
Having said that, Ding’s idea is also far-fetched, since Filipinos do not think of the greater good; they think of their personal salvation first. Besides, who’s to say that Panlilio The Priest is not involved in jueteng too?
Missingpoints
mE: The problem is the main position of atheists, that God doesn’t exist is NOT SUPPORTED BY EVIDENCE. The absence of presence is not evidence of absence in the whole cosmos. So atheism rests on faith and faith alone.
Atheism is a faith based system my dear like Roman Catholicism,Islam, and Marxism!
In fact it is more probable that God exists. How can you explain the 90% or more of people who believe in God? This patterns constitutes probable evidence.
The delusion hypothesis requires extraordinary direct evidence. That’s why I don’t give much credence to what the Priest Richard Dawkins says!
Ding Gagelonia
“Are religion and politics tubig at langis or will we Filipinos be able to mix them for the greater good?”
Me: Yes we can when we are able to discern what belongs to religion and what belongs to politics? Didn’t Christ say almost the same thing.
Now can’t a secularist fight jueteng? Can’t an agnostic or even an atheist?
The highpriestofsmokes
“Your view on disassociating religion from politics is admirable. However, it cannot be done. The duality of both concepts sticks like glue in the psyche of the Filipinos, I think.”
Me: The aggressive teaching of science should answer this.
The existence of god isn’t supported by evidence. I don’t need faith to NOT believe. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, BUT IT ISN’T EVIDENCE OF PRESENCE EITHER.
The fact that a lot people believe in god is evidence for the existence of the belief in god. For you to claim that god’s (which god, BTW?) existence is “probable” because of this is plain bad reasoning.
Jeez.
Using this kind of reasoning, we can conclude that a universe with earth as its centre WAS true in the 15th Century and IS false today by virtue of the proportion of people who believed so or not.
And to think I expected a bit more from you, mate.
When Einstein formulated his General Relativity theory, he showed us an example of how the truth can sometimes be so counterintuitive (just as the concept of a universe with no centre and the Earth being a very ordinary speck in the cosmos would have been hopelessly baffling to the 15th Century mind).
I DON”T get it.
on a NON-religious note…
methinks Gov. Panlilio is doing a DECENT and Good job overall for that province.
The provincial income from quarrying per month is many times more than the Lapid and Son team’s collection during their entire tenure (I exaggerate but the difference is obvious) which shows what a corrupt system that province had before Panlilio put some things in order.
And yet, for some bizarre reason the people of the province want to recall him?? To be replaced by the jueteng lords?
Ps. I agree with Benign-zero on this one
“In fact it is more probable that God exists. How can you explain the 90% or more of people who believe in God? This patterns constitutes probable evidence.”
Surely you jest?
:D
As I said a short while back:
A society where all the wrong arguments win
- ;)
Quarrying from lahar.
I agree with Nash,for obvious reasons dahil totoo naman eh, na pinakita lang ni gov ang totoong picture ng tax revenue potentials from quarrying.
The hypothesis is that belief in God confers fitness is extremely plausible. Let me throw atheists (who don’t accept that their view is a faith) three hypotheses
First God does exist
Second God is something that is an epiphenomenon a product of Darwinian evolution.
Third God doesn’t exist
Now what is most parsimonious? and has a higher probability?
Perhaps the third one. But you have to find extraordinary evidence to prove it with little chance of falsifiability. Not even the Right Reverend Richard Dawkins has it.
Philosophy can prove the first quite elegantly,no need for empirical evidence. In fact it is harder to prove the converse. But that ain’t science!
Science can validate the second when the problem of consciousness is ventually understood. In that case, God does exist! even in the mind! Voltaire is right here
It is a red herring to use the Copernican argument for or against the existence of God. After all Bellarmine’s foil against Galileo is that he did not have enough evidence to prove the Copernican hypothesis beyond what a mathematical model can predict. This is an instance of mathematical fun as the Rev Fr Daniel McNamara SJ ( a beloved Ateneo priest-physicist) has pointed out in a lecture. It is possible to prove that the Ptolemaic system is true given another coordinate system.
But this is beyong my argument. It is interesting to observe in atheists is whether their faith does confer some sort of evolutionary fitness let’s say when atheists are in foxholes or as the subject of Air Crash Investigation episodes!
Evolutionary fitness is the reason why Anne Rice became theist (once more!)
I would hypothesize that atheism being a faith confers evolutionary fitness in certain situations (like when you are in the common room with Richard Dawkins)
This is the question that makes the Most Reverend Richard Dawkins fume!
But Dawkins can have the comfort that there is a possibility that God is an Integer!
Duh!
“Evolutionary fitness is the reason why Anne Rice became theist (once more!)”
methinks it was the all consuming guilt that catholics cannot shrug that forced her back to theism…but yeah, ok maybe you are right, this is ‘evolutionary fitness’ of some sort (whatever that means in this context)
Our constitution guarantees Panlilio’s right to run for public office. Whether he shouldve resigned his holy orders first or whether he should be kicked out of the priesthood is between him and the Catholic hierarchy. As far as the law is concerned, he’s free to be governor.
@blackshama
Moving the goalposts. When you extend the definition of god to include even the imaginary ones in people’s heads, you can’t lose.
As for “extraordinary evidence,” do reasonable people automatically assume the existence of something pending evidence to the contrary? Is non-belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster simply a case of faith on your part?
Until someone provides real, falsifiable evidence of god’s existence we will continue to exercise reason and refuse to believe.
@jeg
I agree. Problema ng simbahan iyan.
God or devil?
Meaning to say now we have a choice? Before we are reduced to de castro, escudero, villar and estrada. All of which are representations of the same old corrupt politics.
But hey, look, someone came out aside from Puno. A priest. a man of god to venture into the hellish Philippine politics. Clean as he may be, may he remain true once in power for if not there will be no mercy for the likes of him both in this world and the next.
Mas malaki responsibility nya compared to the 4 aspirants. the dark horse dressed in white we’ve been looking for perhaps.
hangat hindi nakikipagsabwatan si panlilio sa mga trapo…kung hindi sya makibesobeso sa mga trapo sa kanyang pagtakbo pagkapangulo ng pilipinas…wala akong pakialam kung pari sya o alagad sya ninuman…
ang mahalaga…meron ng ibang opcion ang pinoy…pinoy na nasusuka na sa kakahalal ng mga lintek, hinayupak at kurakot na mga politiko…
de castro? escudero? villar? teodoro?, roxas? pangilinan? erap? jinggoy?
susmaryosep!!!!!!!!!
nakakasuka na!!!!!!
Priests are people like you and me. They can be
tempted and can commit mistakes.
Look at the Inquisitions during the Middle Ages.
They were advocated by the Church and implemented
by Priests. They tortured People and burned them
on the Stakes.
No one is Holier than Thou…