The president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines normally serves two two-year terms, but for some reason, Tandag Bishop Nereo Odchimar declined a second term at the helm of the outspoken conference.
So the inevitable election of a sitting CBCP vice president—Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma—as president bishop happened earlier than Church watchers expected.
Palma now has to divide his time between the Cebu archdiocese and the conference.
The bishops’ selection of Palma was not something that occurred in a vacuum; it certainly didn’t happen without reference to developments in the State.
In 2005, the bishops chose as their leader Jaro Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, who curtly confirmed that then president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was corrupt and became her scourge in her last four years in office, incidentally the years of Lagdameo’s two terms.
Lagdameo kept the Church engaged with society, in contrast to his predecessor Davao Archbishop Fernando Capalla under whose leadership the CBCP issued the studied and ambiguous document that asked GMA neither to stay nor depart from office in the wake of the Garci scandal.
We can read into the election of Palma into the CBCP presidency a desire on the part of the bishops to respond to several crises situations—the worst among these not a morally bankrupt presidency but bishops perceived to have been parties to patronage politics by their acceptance of vehicles bought using Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office funds.
Palma and the prelates elected with him will assume their new posts in December yet, but he has a role in the CBCP’s internal investigation of the PCSO scandal since he is a member of the group’s permanent council.
Palma has a special interest in ensuring that the bishops come out of this chapter of their histories converted and purified because the resonance of the CBCP’s moral voice in the years when he will be its head will be determined largely by how the bishops behave amid the fallout from the PCSO scandal.
As CBCP president-elect Palma can project to his brother bishops the urgent need for coherence with gospel values that will be his currency when his turn comes to sign on behalf of the conference statements that will deal with issues ranging from charity in the home to integrity in public office.
If this coherence, especially in light of Christ’s invitation to evangelical poverty remains missing, the leaders of the sheep, many through no fault of their own, will find themselves continually perceived as wolves.
Palma and the CBCP permanent council should work quick to stall the erosion of the bishops’ credibility. The sooner, the better, so that the conference’s energies may be rechanneled to critical collaboration with many social sectors that need the moral guidance that is always expected from the bishops, not only in the form of abstract catechesis, but also in the form of lived doctrine.