Activist priest: PSG tried to bar me from Pope Francis’ events in Leyte

Fr. Robert Reyes. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

LUCENA CITY, Quezon, Philippines – Just a day after Fr. Robert Reyes criticized the government for its phobic security measures on Pope Francis, the activist priest nearly got barred from attending a Papal event in Palo, Leyte.

“It’s the risk of speaking out,” Reyes described the incident in a post on his Facebook page on Saturday (Jan. 17).

On Friday (Jan. 16) while Reyes was at the Chancery of the Archdiocese of Palo in Palo, Leyte, to get his identification card as a priest and participant in Pope Francis’ activities scheduled for Jan. 17, he was told by the person in-charge that the Presidential Security Group (PSG) was withholding the release of his security card.

“When I had my turn to ask for my ID, the one-in-charge gave me a rather quizzical gaze. A nervous pause of a few seconds preceded the words, ‘Sorry father, we cannot release your ID,’” Reyes said in his narration.

When the priest asked why, the unidentified staff of the chancery informed Reyes that the PSG had ordered them to withhold the priest’s ID.

“In effect, the Church, which already had my ID, was allowing Malacañang, through the PSG, to bar me, a Catholic priest from participating in Catholic activities led by the leader of all Catholics, Pope Francis himself,” Reyes wrote on his Facebook account.

When he complained and demanded for the release of his ID, the person-in-charge and several other staff workers just looked away, obviously not knowing what to say.

In a phone interview Saturday morning, Reyes declined to identify the staff workers of the chancery in-charge of the ID distribution except to say that “they are also religious.”

“One of them even told me that I was one of the leaders behind ‘People’s Surge’ and I could be a communist,” Reyes said.

“What is happening to my Church?” a frustrated Reyes blurted out.

‘People Surge’ is a broad alliance of victims, organizations and individuals joined together by the common goal of helping the victims of supertyphoon Yolanda (Haiyan).

Reyes said he decided to report to the media the “terrible injustice where the State is in fact violating the constitutional provision of the separation between Church and State.”

He looked for a news reporter in the area and found one from a major television channel who instantly conducted the interview.

As Reyes was about to end his statement before the camera, the priest said someone from the secretariat sneaked from behind and told him to stop the media interview because they had decided to release his ID.

“The one in charge tells me off, ‘You should not have spoken to media,’” Reyes said

“I told the one in-charge how disappointed I was that instead of defending me from the unreasonable and unjust move of the PSG, they just gave in and allowed themselves to be bullied,” Reyes said.

As an afterthought, the priest said he was almost tempted to endure the injustice but remembered all the poor Yolanda victims who would never get the chance to come close to Pope Francis.

“I owe it to all of them, those usually barred, marginalized, excluded and discriminated by the structures and systems of exclusion and inequality, to speak out and protest against this seemingly innocent yet truly lethal act of convenient accommodation and discrimination,” he said.

Reyes has come to be known as the “running priest” for initiating runs to raise public awareness of social and political issues.

On Thursday, Reyes assailed the Aquino administration for putting up physical and human barriers – wood and steel fences and rows of policemen between Pope Francis and the multitudes of welcoming Filipino Catholics.

Reyes argued that a barrier between the Pope and the people would be a contradiction.

He explained that the etymology of the term Pope is Pons, Pontifex, Pontif, which means “bridge.”

“The Pope bridges God and man and man with man. The Pope ideally is a dissolver, not a promoter of barriers that separate institutions, sectors from those deemed unworthy or less in status,” Reyes said.

Instead of facilitating the people’s access to the Pope, the militant priest said the government and Church’s concern for security “has made it near to impossible for the majority, namely the masses to get close to the Pope.”

Authorities said the material and human barriers have been set up to prevent devotees from blocking the Papal motorcade.

Pope Francis’ five-day visit has become the Filipino people’s avenue to voice out their grievances – landlessness, human rights violations, environmental destruction, among many other social issues – against the government.