The seven Catholic bishops criticized for receiving donations of sport utility vehicles from the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) during the Arroyo administration will face senators investigating the controversy.
Butuan Bishop Juan de Dios Pueblos and his fellow prelates received summonses from the Senate last Thursday and decided to attend the inquiry and formally respond to accusations of wrongdoing.
“We will attend as a group,” Abra Bishop Leonardo Jaucian told the Inquirer on Saturday.
The Senate blue ribbon committee opened last Tuesday a public inquiry into the donations approved by the PCSO board during the Arroyo administration. The hearings will resume this week.
Jaucian also said he had decided to return to the PCSO the Mitsubishi Strada pickup that his diocese had purchased using a P1.107-million donation from the agency two years ago.
Jaucian said that at its plenary assembly that began yesterday at the Pope Pius XII Catholic Center in Manila, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) decided to leave to him and the six other prelates the choice of whether to return the SUVs or not.
“The decision to return or not is given to individual bishops,” Jaucian said. “Everyone is willing to return the vehicles.”
Earlier, Pueblos and Cotabato Archbishop Orlando Quevedo indicated that they were ready to let go of the vehicles. They said the vehicles were being used for charity missions and related programs, and never for their personal service.
Quid pro quo
The Catholic hierarchy is embroiled in a controversy over multimillion-peso donations from the PCSO at the behest of then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
Critics of the Church claim that the donations resulted in the bishops being soft on the Arroyo administration despite the many corruption and electoral scandals surrounding it.
The recipients of the donations for the purchase of SUVs were the Diocese of Butuan led by Pueblos (P1.704 million released on July 9, 2009), Zamboanga Archdiocesan Social Action Apostolate led by Archbishop Romulo Valles (P1.54 million released on July 9, 2009), Archdiocese of Cotabato led by Quevedo (P1.44 million released on Feb. 24, 2009), Diocese of Bangued, Abra, led by Jaucian (P1.129 million released on Jan. 16, 2009); Roman Catholic Prelate of Isabela, Basilan, led by Bishop Martin Jumoad (P1.125 million released on July 2, 2009); and Apostolic Vicariate of Bontoc led by Bishop Rodolfo Beltran (P600,000 released on April 30, 2007).
A seventh recipient, Caritas Nueva Segovia led by Archbishop Ernesto Antolin Salgado and which covers the province of Ilocos Sur, received P720,000 on March 17, 2010, under the general term “financial assistance.”
Pueblos has come under particularly heavy criticism for requesting, and getting, a brand-new 4×4 vehicle for his 66th birthday in March 2009 from Arroyo.
Except for Valles and Salgado, the bishops linked to the scandal were at yesterday’s plenary assembly, which was attended by 77 other active bishops and seven retired bishops.
‘Damage’ done to bishops
Jaucian said the CBCP plenary assembly was intended to tackle the controversy and reevaluate the Church’s overall partnership with the government in terms of charitable work.
“We will see if we would still continue with the partnership considering that in the end, we are the ones being put in a bad light,” he said.
Jaucian lamented the “damage” done by the controversy on the bishops.
He said an organization of Chinese-Filipino Catholics, of which he is the national coordinator and chaplain, was so dismayed that it offered to raise funds for the purchase of a utility vehicle for the Diocese of Abra.
He added that the group was appalled that bishops were being portrayed as “materialistic and corrupt” when the donations had actually been offered to them and were being used for legitimate purposes.
In an interview with Radyo Inquirer 990 AM, Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo said the CBCP devoted the first day of its plenary assembly listening to the explanation of some of the bishops who had received SUVs from the PCSO, Pabillo, who chairs the CBCP National Secretariat for Social Action, Justice and Peace, said it was not the first time that the side of the bishops was heard.
“We talked about this in Tagaytay for several days. We talked about it [on Friday], and [Saturday] morning we were still talking about it,” Pabillo said in Filipino.
Internal investigation
“This is really a big concern for us,” he said. “The CBCP has been dragged into the controversy, so the discussion was really lengthy and protracted.”
Pabillo said that aside from the formal talks at the July 4-8 retreat in Tagaytay City and at the ongoing assembly, “informal talks” were being held among the bishops. He did not elaborate.
He said all these were part of the internal investigation being undertaken by the CBCP.
Pabillo said the group would issue a statement at the close of its assembly tomorrow afternoon.
Earlier, the CBCP announced that an inquiry by the episcopal commission on bishops’ concerns headed by retired Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal was underway.
CBCP permanent council
But on Saturday, Tandag Bishop Nereo Odchimar, the CBCP president, said the permanent council had taken over the investigation.
“Under the CBCP constitution, the permanent council … can be convened by the CBCP president at any time to discharge its functions for special purposes, including some particular inquiry that is deemed urgent in character,” Odchimar said in a statement issued through the Church-run Radio Veritas.
“The CBCP permanent council would now take over the inquiry to provide for a more broadly represented panel to conduct an inquiry by peers,” he said.
Odchimar said that with the CBCP plenary assembly ending Monday, “the permanent council can continue to act for and on its behalf with regard to the inquiry, and to address all public concerns related to it.”
He said the CBCP was thanking Vidal and the episcopal commission on bishops’ concerns for “the initial data gathering.”