Philippines: Catholics Caught in a Cross Fire

With violence continuing to be an invasive force in Philippine life from left and right, the resident Catholic Church is redefining its role as a moral counterforce.

Back in the days of Ferdinand E. Marcos’ martial law, there was one thing on which the president, the communists and the Catholic bishops appeared to agree. Marcos said, “I am the only alternative to the communists”; the communists said, “We are the only alternative to Marcos,” and the majority of the bishops seemed to say “amen, amen.”

With such limited options, many socially involved priests, nuns and lay leaders became involved with the communist-dominated National Democratic Front (NDF), seeing it as the only viable opposition to the Marcos regime and a vehicle for needed social reforms.

Eventually the influence of the NDF began to make itself felt in church-sponsored organizations. An uncomfortable feeling grew among some bishops and religious superiors--that they were not being told all that was going on, that unseen forces were taking control of training programs and social action centers, that work for the poor and the defense of human rights was taking on a particular ideological color, that possibly funds were being diverted to hidden purposes.

Unwilling to expose suspected “leftists” to reprisal from a regime with no respect for human rights, the bishops in the late 1970s and early 1980s concentrated on developing an independent position to criticize Marcos abuses and on formulating a strategy of nonviolent but active opposition based on what they saw as gospel values. The strategy culminated in their letter describing the failure of the 1986 election, declaring that it provided no moral legitimacy for the regime and inviting the people to force Marcos, by nonviolent means, to undo the unjustices he had committed.

Then came the February revolution and a certain shifting of positions. The NDF lost heavily in prestige, to be repudiated along with the Marcos loyalists in the plebiscite of February, 1987 and the May election. The underground Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), which calls the shots for the NDF, has gone through a period of re-evaluation and debate, pitting dogmatic Marxist hard-liners who insist on a strategy directed toward absolute party control of the nation’s future against reformist soft-liners who are more open to pluralism and willing to work with the Corazon Aquino government in the interests of social reform.

The word now is that the internal debate has ended with a victory for the hard-liners--a decision to treat the Aquino government as no different from the Marcos government. This was signaled in a demonstration organized by radical farmers opposed to Aquino’s moderate land-reform program; Aquino and Uncle Sam were burned in effigy. Earlier intimations of the same attitude were reflected in a barrage of negative reporting on Aquino and the Philippine situation circulated by NDF groups--particularly church-related groups--on the lecture circuits and through newsletters in Europe and the United States.

Behind the hard-line victory is an expectation that the president’s popularity will decline as she fails to find solutions for the nation’s problems. The administration has, in fact, been slow to address key social issues, paralyzed by inner divisions and by threats from the extreme right, the extreme left. Land reform, an extremely difficult problem both politically and technically, has become a symbol and an issue threatening to tear the nation apart; it remains to be seen how vigorously the president will follow up her executive order on this matter now that Congress has come into session. Her state of the nation address indicated clearly, and with unaccustomed bitterness toward the nation’s foreign creditors, how little financial room there is for maneuver. “It is for this reason that I have yielded more to prudence than desire in the reform measures I have enacted. I have aimed for modest successes to avoid a comprehensive failure,” Aquino said.

The situation obviously is fluid. Ahead lies, in all probability, an escalation of the armed struggle. “Sparrow units”--NPA hit-men or urban guerrillas--have begun to operate in Manila. Such units were at first believed responsible for the Aug. 2 assassination of Local Government Secretary Jaime B. Ferrer, although no formal charges have been made.

Meanwhile, prominent individuals who have been associated with the soft-line position continue to espouse cooperation with the government. If enough soft-liners choose to follow the reformist road of legal struggle and can show some successes in bringing about significant change, the armed struggle will lose much of its attractiveness.

Aside from the rebellious Muslims in Mindanao who threaten a full-scale war, rightists and vigilante groups continue to be a major concern. Some groups are in fact landlord armies, prepared to block any attempt at land reform. Others are surrogates for politicians or the military and may be part of an anti-insurgency strategy promoted by U.S. advisers, with “licenses to kill.” But in still other places, vigilantes seem well-disciplined and the people are pleased with a relative peace and order in place of the former, almost daily, “liquidations” by the left.

The situation may be fluid but it is not formless. It does appear that constructive steps are being taken, steps to reenforce a centrist but progressive stance on the part of the government. Secretary of Health Alfredo Bengzon, one of the better organizers at cabinet level, has been put in charge of the peace process. Peace, he claims, involves more than negotiating and far more than fighting; he is working toward a more efficient government offering more effective services, particularly in the rural areas.

The Catholic Bishops Conference has continued to support such a stance. The bishops have strongly supported a c ompreh e nsive land reform program, in opposition to those who would wish to restrict it to certain types of crops. The bishops issued no formal statement on the other “hot” issue, the vigilante question, but in their discussions there was some support for acknowledging that vigilantes can be a means for the people to regain some control over their lives in areas dominated by an undisciplined military, by abusive bandits or by armed rebels.

One decision may have far-reaching implications: to reorganize the Bishops National Secretariat for Social Action and make it more directly responsive to the Bishops’ Conference, thereby depriving the NDF of what may have been one of its most effective footholds within the church. To carry out reorganization the Bishops elected Bishop Francisco Claver, one of the original “dissidents” who opposed the “amen, amen” stance. He is known for strong opposition both to the Marcos regime and to leftists attempting to manipulate the Church; his commitment is to a socially involved Church, working with autonomous citizens’ organizations.