Bishops willing to mediate between Aquino, Corona

President Benigno Aquino III and Chief Justice Renato Corona. INQUIRER file photo

Catholic bishops on Tuesday said the Church was willing to mediate the conflict between President Aquino and the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice Renato Corona.

“The bishops are capable of doing that especially those bishops who have more ascendancy,” Sorsogon Bishop Arturo Bastes said over the Church-run Radio Veritas.

The prelates include recently retired Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales, incoming Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle, Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma, who is also president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) and Cebu Archbishop Emeritus Ricardo Cardinal Vidal, according to Bastes.

Bastes and several other CBCP members seemed amenable to a suggestion by Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile on Monday after Mr. Aquino openly derided Corona in front of him at the First National Criminal Justice Summit supposedly aimed at cultivating cooperation and coordination.

Enrile said the “best way” to resolve the conflict was for the Catholic Church and the other churches to talk to both parties as these were “neutral”  institutions.  “They are peacemakers,” according to Enrile.

“I am OK with that specially this time of Christmas… a time for peace, reconciliation, understanding and respect,” Bastes said.

Only upon invitation

Marbel Bishop Dinualdo Gutierrez said it was important that the executive and the judicial branches pray before entering into a dialogue and the leaders of the Church would only act as facilitators who would not give any judgment.

Caloocan Bishop Deogracias Iñiguez advised the two leaders to set aside or talk about personal issues privately.  “They must be sensitive to the sentiments of the people… they must also listen to the feedback,” Iñiguez said.

In an interview with reporters yesterday, Archbishop Emeritus Oscar Cruz said he was open to Enrile’s suggestion, but “only upon invitation.”

“The one who will decide whether the Church would mediate or not is not the Senate President but the parties themselves concerned, which is the Chief Justice and the President,” Cruz told reporters.

But he doubted that the President would “go by what the Church would say” should an intervention be realized given the President’s misgivings with the Church as an institution.

Hacienda Luisita decision

Cruz also said Mr. Aquino’s ire “came to  a boiling point” not on the account of the so-called Philippine Truth Commission, which was thumbed down by the Supreme Court, or of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, which the high tribunal had allowed to seek medical treatment abroad.

“If I may interpret it right… the decision of the SC on Hacienda Luisita was what made him boil [since] it is a very much cared-for family wealth,” Cruz said.

On November 22, the high court ordered the distribution of the 5,000-hectare estate owned by the family of Mr. Aquino to its 6,200 workers, settling the decadeslong agrarian problem that was a major cause of peasant unrest in Central Luzon.

The Arroyo administration revoked the 1989 stock distribution option under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program promulgated by Mr. Aquino’s mother, the late President Corazon Aquino, after workers in the hacienda staged a strike in 2004, saying the arrangement did not improve their lives.

Originally posted: 7:33 pm | Tuesday, December 6th, 2011