Rodrigo Duterte and the Silence of the Lambs

On June 30, 2016, the Philippines witnessed the inauguration of Rodrigo Duterte as the country’s sixteenth president. He is the first president from the island of Mindanao. Out of five candidates, he won with 16 million votes. He ran with a platform based on ending criminality, ending the illegal drug menace and stopping corruption.

Duterte on the Attack

Duterte is a man who has captured the imagination of many of my countrymen, with his fiery, curse-laden speeches. He has promised that the campaign against criminals will be relentless and bloody. He has even put a cash reward of 5 million pesos to anyone who can kill a drug lord. Prior to his inauguration, there was a spike in the number of those reported killed every day because of their connections to the use and selling of illegal drugs. Every day, there are reports of people found dead on the streets; sometimes they even have placards on top of them with the declaration that they are drug users.

Duterte has not only declared war on criminals and illegal drugs, he has also antagonized some of the major institutions in the country. In press conferences, he has openly attacked the media, even to the point of saying that people in media who are involved in corrupt practices deserve to be killed. One of the institutions that he has also openly attacked is the Catholic Church. Duterte is a Catholic. Yet, in many of the speeches he had delivered before assuming the presidency, he has shown no fear in exposing  the  faults and inconsistencies of the leaders of the Church.

During the presidential campaign period, Duterte openly cursed Pope Francis for the supposed traffic the Pontiff caused when he visited our country in January 2015. Days after winning the elections, he lashed out at the church by calling it the most hypocritical institution. He has attacked the hypocrisy of several bishops for interfering in government policies, while at the same time asking for government assistance. He has blamed the Church for the growing population of our country because of their stand against a reproductive health law that guarantees the distribution of contraceptives. He has threatened to give the addresses of the houses where the wives, mistresses and children of several priests and bishops live. In one press conference, Duterte even challenged the Church leadership to a televised debate and said that he will spill out all the sins of the Church.

To understand his seething anger against the church, it is useful to realize that he has claimed it publicly that he, and several of his companions, were once sexually abused as high school students in the Catholic university that he studied. And in the days before the elections, there were several bishops who discouraged the electorate from voting him because of his alleged connections to a vigilante group when he was still mayor of Davao City on Mindanao.

Catholic Reactions

In the face of a leader, who has vowed to destroy the relevance  and the credibility of the Church, how would one react? Would it really be helpful to fight back and condemn him or would it also be instructive to remain silent “as lambs ready to be slaughtered”?

The reaction of the Church leaders and some lay Catholics in my country can be divided into three main lines:

First are those who have decided to fight back by pointing out the public faults of the president. They call out his alleged human rights abuses. They comment on his seeming low regard for women. They even  call him a greater hypocrite himself. But is this the real Christian response? Would attacking someone back based on his personal faults be of good use in our diverse society today?

The second manner which some church leaders have taken is to face the criticisms head-on. They have answered the charge of hypocrisy, infidelity and church interference into political affairs not by making personal attacks but by admitting the faults of the church and by clearly explaining the real meaning behind the concept of the separation between the church and the state.

Understanding Silence

The third manner can best be summarized in a letter that was issued by the head of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, Archbishop Socrates Villegas.  In a statement sent to media outlets, the Archbishop says:

Are we still at ease with silence? Has the noise of violence and terror drowned the voice of quiet conscience? Do we always interpret silence as fear of the cowards; the destiny imposed on the unwilling mute; the refuge of the guilty?

It is not always so.

There is nobility in silence like the silence of the lambs brought to slaughter in the temple to atone for sins. There is the silence of the desert mystics that pierced the hidden secrets of the heart of God. There is the silence of the woman who treasured all those things in her heart. Silence indeed is the language of God and only those who speak silence will be able to grasp Him.

Mine is the silence of Jesus before the arrogance of Pilate. Mine is the silence of the tears from mourning trying to fathom the mystery of death. Mine is the silence of prayer contemplating the divine mysteries. Mine is the silence of the bud blooming quietly without calling attention to itself. Mine is the silence of a hopeful mother waiting to give birth to her infant. Mine is the language of peace that refuses the dark magic of revenge. Mine is the silence of the vigilant waiting for destiny to unfold. Mine is the silence of respect for those who consider us their enemies but whose good we truly pray for and whose happiness we want to see unfold.

There is virtue in silence. There is virtue in speech. Wisdom is knowing when it is time for silence and when is the timing for speech.

You can understand my speech if you speak the language of silence. You can understand my silence if you know how to love like Him who was born one silent night.

The response of Abp. Villegas comes as a breath of fresh air in the virulent atmosphere that has engulfed the Church in the Philippines these past few months. His response seems to concretize the admonition of Jesus to “turn the other cheek.”.  His response is also instructive for Catholics who are at the receiving end of harsh words, because of the stand they take against certain issues, because of their faith. To respond in silence is not to stand passive against the attack against the Church. To respond in silence means to take time to bring the harshness that the Church receives in a spirit of prayer and contemplation. In silence, we get to be in touch with God. In silence, we acquire the wisdom to know the next steps to take. In silence, we make the necessary preparations to face the tougher battles ahead.

“Vigilance the Great Price for Freedom”

And true enough, after weeks of silence, Abp. Villegas, speaking on behalf of the CBCP on the day that the new President was inaugurated, issued the following statement:

“Pursuing the same vision as Filipinos and as Catholics, we will be vigilant because vigilance is the great price for freedom. … We will offer our critique and denounce error but kindly look at us, not as enemies wanting governments to fall, but as brethren and friends wishing politics to succeed.”

In recent memory of the relationship between the Church and the state here in the Philippines, the vigilance, which Abp. Villegas mentions, is also called “critical collaboration.” This has been the usual stance that our Church leadership has taken with regard to our nation’s leaders. The Church will always cooperate with the government to achieve the common good. She will prove herself to be an instrument of collaboration in the task of nation building. However, she will not bow down when the cherished values of the faith and of humanity are placed under attack.

In our life of faith, there is a time for silence and there is a time for action. In these exciting times of the Philippine Church, living under our country’s new president, I believe that this is the time for silence, conversion and greater action. Silence, because we need to find our strength to remain steadfast in faith thru prayer and contemplation. Conversion, because no matter how our President has said it, there is truth to his message that the Church, indeed, has become a hypocritical institution. Action, because this is the time for the Church to make her presence felt more, not by dogmatic proclamations, but with her compassion towards the poor.