Misleading the President

Too many Arroyos are embroiled in one form of corruption or another. The First Gentleman’s “noble” act is dubious. Then there’s the son’s alleged involvement in jueteng. Iggy’s Jose Pidal is a broken record. And then the crime that broke the camel’s back – the phone call. It seems that President Arroyo’s “inappropriate” call has become her undoing – a wound for which there is no cure now except by amputation. In a recent issue of Time magazine, she claimed that God, no less, put her into office. Anyone can claim that. Was she deluded? deceived? duped? hoodwinked? I believe she was misled.

Shortly after then Vice-President Arroyo’s rebellious ascension (biblically speaking, that is) to power in 2001, Christians flocked around her and gave her all sorts of “prophetic” words to comfort and assure her. In truth this was more a political move than anything else. It was, in my opinion, excessively premature. Retrospectively, it is becoming increasingly evident that these “prophecies” were, at best, encouraging misrepresentations. We have misled our President into thinking that there was some divine mandate on her and that her administration would be under God’s hand of blessing. Is it any wonder then that she said what she did in that Time interview? How can there be divine favor when her method of rising to the highest national office is constitutionally questionable? How can anyone think that good can come out of betrayal and treachery? And now the skeletons are coming out. Even her allies have fled. It would be comical, if it weren’t so pathetic, that suddenly several of our legislators are saving their skins by preempting the listening of the tape knowing that their verbal signatures are indelibly etched on the magnetic ribbon. It was predictable that someone would mention that it was normal for candidates to call Comelec officials during elections. Since when did common practice determine morality and ethics?

Even our current roster of Church leaders need to do some serious introspection. Some of those who are most vocal now are the very ones who led a “holy” rebellion. What a contradiction in terms! I recall in November 2000 how a group led a revolt against then President Estrada calling for his resignation before the hallowed halls of the Senate. They were at the time behind Vice-President Arroyo. And now once more they are chanting the same tune but with altered lyrics: ARROYO RESIGN! When are we going to learn to listen to God before we speak to man?

Galatians 6:7 says: “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked. Whatever a man sows, that will he also reap.” Power was stolen then. We see history repeating itself. And the Church is blinded by the glitz of politics. We desire the king’s favor. But wasn’t this the downfall of the Church in the fourth century when Emperor Constantine instituted religion thus plunging not just the Church but the whole world into the Dark Ages? Must history always repeat itself?