CEBU CITY—She may have gotten a scolding from five bishops recently, but President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo Thursday basked in the benign regard of a reliable ally, the influential Archbishop of Cebu.

The President encountered Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal “by chance” during her visit here Thursday for the inauguration and blessing of the P86.9-million Banilad flyover.

Cebu Councilor Sylvan Jakosalem said he saw the archbishop bless the President before blessing the flyover.

He said the President and Vidal were talking and smiling but he could not hear what they were saying.

Cebu City Rep. Raul del Mar, Deputy Speaker for the Visayas and proponent of the flyover project, said the public should not inject any malice in the encounter between the President and the Cardinal.

“They talked but only pleasantries. They did not talk about the issue [the criticism from the five bishops],” the congressman said.

Msgr. Achilles Dakay, Vidal’s media liaison officer, said the archbishop had told him he and the President did not talk about politics because Vidal did not like to raise those kinds of issues.

He said Vidal considered the joint statement of the five bishops as their own personal opinions, which did not represent the entire Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines as it was made without consulting the other CBCP members.

On Tuesday, Jaro Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, the CBCP president, issued a joint statement with Pangasinan Archbishop Oscar Cruz and Bishops Socrates Villegas, Joel Baylon and Jose Sorra disputing the Arroyo administration’s claim of economic progress and denouncing government corruption.

The statement, titled “Corruption—A Social and Moral Cancer,” said it was now time to “prepare for a new government.”

The bishops’ move was denounced by business leaders who said it was divisive and could incite other sectors with “a different agenda.”

“We, the businessmen, need a calm environment to work in,” said Donald Dee, chair emeritus of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, adding that instead of teaching the people, the bishops were confusing them.

Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez said the bishops were courting sedition charges, noting that they were talking about removing the President.

Lagdameo Thursday said he and the four other bishops were standing by their call “to form a new government now” because of the allegedly rampant corruption in the Arroyo administration.

In a Radio Veritas interview, he said there was nothing seditious in their joint statement and he was leaving it to the public to decide how to take what they said.

“If what they read or heard agrees with their perception, that’s up to them,” he said.

He said that calling on the people to form a new government meant the public should start preparing for the time Ms Arroyo steps down in June 2010.

“Since we expect to have elections in 2010, we should prepare our people for a new government, all the elements involved, including the candidates,” said Lagdameo, adding that this was what he told Dee when the latter called on him about the statement.

Deputy Presidential Spokesperson Lorelei Fajardo Thursday said the bishops should “be responsible” in mouthing opinions critical of the government in the wake of the global financial crisis.

“All of us should be responsible. We cannot create confusion [and] panic at this time,” Fajardo told a press briefing.

Also Thursday, the CBCP released an open letter from the Bishops-Businessmen’s Conference of the Philippines (BBC) warning against a new campaign for Charter change and a re-imposition of martial law which it said were meant to extend the President’s term beyond 2010.

The statement, titled “A Call for Statesmanship for a Stronger Democracy and for Vigilance of Citizens,” was dated Oct. 4 but was released only Thursday by the CBCP media office. With reports from Dona Pazzibugan and Christian V. Esguerra