Collegial Statement

April 2022

Our Ecumenical Community of Faith — Filipinos, Filipino Americans, and Friends in Southern California and beyond — publicly profess with renewed vigor and urgency our sense of moral duty to get involved — before, during, and after — in the May 9th National and Local Philippine Election concerns. We have a painful and long history of foreign subjugation, oppression, and subsequent litany of politicians with the recycled breed of corruption and anti-people leadership. Our silence on their socio-economic and political crimes had been an approval of the hidden schemes within their rotten and institutionalized greed and deception. Each time there is a new door for change, the focus seems centered on old and convenient holes for change. We hold on to the better values of our Christianity. We should never feel exhausted when it comes to continuing the arduous and increasingly challenging tasks of sociomoral-political transformation in the quest for Social Justice.

We shall continue to be inspired and strengthened by the valiant testimonies of Clergy and Laity regarding the 2022 Philippine National and Local Elections. Bishop Pablo Virgilio David (President of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines) asserts, "What is the purpose of safeguarding elections if no one is volunteering to help and support candidates who embody principled politics that would build the common good in our society?" Our common and united vigilance is a necessary component to our Support and Votes for the right leaders of our country. Bishop Emeritus Teodoro Bacani reminds us to be more vigilant in protecting the will of the people inasmuch as ... "the proliferation of fake news and information may create confusion that can adversely affect the outcome of the elections."

"The Church needs to play a big role in preparing Filipinos for the upcoming 2022 general elections... the Catholic Church hierarchy must go beyond the pulpit and maximize its resources, including universities. parochial schools, mission stations, and church-based non-governmental organization. It would be timely for members of the Church to continually remind one another of its long tradition of fighting for the oppressed and caring for the poor and marginalized. The memory of the progressive Church is not one for triumphalism, but one that must be remembered and appreciated with humility, accompanied by a strong sense of responsibility." (Franz Santos on Remembering the "progressive" Philippine Church, published on April 2021).