Bishop Pablo Virgilio David. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) is alarmed over the “radical distortions” in the history of martial law and the Edsa People Power Revolution, as it warned that the “pandemic of lies” on social media is poisoning the Filipinos’ collective consciousness and destroying their moral foundations.
Caloocan Bishop Pablo Virgilio David, president of the CBCP, said the Catholic Church would also take on a more “proactive” role in helping the faithful choose the country’s next leaders through collective discernment and consensus-building that is “guided by the Gospel, the Church’s social teachings and an objective understanding of what happened in history.”
In a three-page pastoral letter signed by David and titled “The Truth Will Set You Free,” the CBCP stressed that it “favors none but the truth.”
“We wish to warn you of the radical distortions in the history of martial law and the Edsa People Power Revolution … We are alarmed by this distortion of the truth of history and the attempt to delete or destroy our collective memory through the seeding of lies and false narratives. This is dangerous, for it poisons our collective consciousness and destroys the moral foundations of our institutions,” the pastoral letter released on Friday said.
‘All well-documented’
It described the Edsa People Power Revolution as “a fruit of love of neighbor and faith” that was the “triumph of the entire Filipino people,” not just one person, one party or one color.
The letter pointed out that many bishops witnessed the injustice and cruelty of martial law that was toppled by the peaceful revolt, and that human rights abuses, corruption, grave debt and the economic slump during that time are “all well-documented” and are “all written in our history.”
With the 2022 elections just a few months away, the CBCP said it was “appalled by the blatant and subtle distortion, manipulation, coverup, repression and abuse of the truth” through historical revisionism, disinformation and “troll farms, which sow the virus of lies.”
‘Pandemic of lies’
“This virus paralyzes our capacity to recognize God, respect truth and goodness. Thus, we do not realize that there is a ‘pandemic of lies,’ especially in the social media. This is very serious,” the bishops said.
They warned that the “neglect of truth is detrimental for all of us, for the foundation of a good society and responsible government is the truth.”
“Can we afford to make lies become the basis of our laws and their implementation? What happens to a family or a society that is not founded on truth? Dear brothers and sisters, let us stand up for truth. Remember: Goodness without truth is pretense. Service without truth is manipulation. There can be no justice without truth. Even charity, without truth, is only sentimentalism. An election or any process that is not based on truth is but a deception and cannot be trusted,” the pastoral letter read.