The Philippine Catholic Church will play a significant role in guiding the voting public whom to elect as the country’s next leaders in the upcoming 2016 elections, a Catholic bishop said on Friday.
Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo, chairman of the Permanent Committee on Public Affairs of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), said the Church would guide voters’ morality in choosing deserving and righteous candidates.
“Malaki ang role ng simbahan. Siya ang nagpapaalala ng ating moralidad, kung ano ang tama at mali… ‘Pag mali pupunahin, ‘pag tama susuportahan,” Pabillio said in an interview with church-run Radyo Veritas.
Pabillo said the Church’s “spiritual energy” would help voters in making sound decisions.
“Ang role ng simbahan [ay] magbibigay ng spiritual energy para gumawa ng katarungan. Saan nanggagaling ito? Sa Salita ng Diyos sa panalangin, sa grasya ng Diyos sa mga sakramento, at ‘yan ang ibinibigay ng simbahan para maging malakas tayo at gumawa ng katarungan,” he said.
Amid criticisms against the Church for supposedly meddling with state affairs, the bishop said everyone has a responsibility to participate in political issues and discussion to ensure that leaders would actually fulfill their mandate to the Filipino people.
“Lahat tayo ay may tungkulin na makialam sa pulitika upang ang mga namamahala ay gawin nilang maayos ang kanilang pamamahala sa bansa, he said.
Pabillo also called political participation a “higher form of love,” as it would be a way of “exercising love by means of looking for the common good.”
In a pastoral letter in June, CBCP president Archbishop Socrates Villegas urged voters to reject “the notoriously corrupt” and “end political dynasties” in the 2016 presidential elections.
READ: CBCP chief: End political dynasties, reject corrupt