Archbishop Socrates Villegas INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / NINO JESUS ORBETA
Some Filipinos are getting tired of loving their country, which they claim has fallen into a disturbing moral decay.
Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas expressed this sentiment in an open letter on Saturday to Sen. Leila de Lima, who in several days will mark her first year in detention on drug charges.
“There are some of us who are beginning to feel a fatigue for loving our country,” the prelate said in his missive to the embattled lawmaker.
Villegas wrote the letter to give spiritual succor to De Lima, a fierce critic of President Rodrigo Duterte, who has been detained at the Philippine National Police Custodial Center in Camp Crame since Feb. 24, 2017, on orders of a Muntinlupa City court.
The prelate told the senator about the lack of decency among people in authority, the proliferation of fake news, how foul language is now applauded, and how people are “genitalized rather than respected.”
‘Creeping dictatorship’
He warned that “even the once admired and adored justices in Padre Faura [where the Supreme Court building is located] are showing signs that the court is now compromised and Lady Justice is now peeping through her blindfold, tilting the scales of justice to favor the creeping dictatorship.”
Despite these, Villegas vowed to defend public servants who put the country first before their own, and to reject the corruption of resources, the adulation of traitors, and the concealment of the sins of the guilty.
He stressed that he was also against illegal drugs and all forms of crime, and that he would defend the country against Filipinos who oppress their own and foreigners who threaten the country’s independence.
“We are ready to fight them with courage and determination, always according to God’s laws and the laws of life, and never according to the whims of those in authority or the bloodthirst of our sickening leaders,” Villegas said.
Noting that both he and the senator were far from being perfect or saints, the archbishop wondered why the senator ended up being detained, and why God allowed it to happen.
The prelate called De Lima’s imprisonment “the biggest symbol of what is wrong with our country.”