Priest says Sen. Santiago deserves the ‘fires of hell’

MANILA, Philippines—She may be untouchable in the Senate, but before the eyes of God, Senator Miriam Santiago is liable to “the fires of hell,” a Roman Catholic priest said Saturday.

Decrying the senator’s court antics at Mass on Saturday, Fr. Catalino Arevalo, the spiritual adviser of the late former president Corazon Aquino, said Santiago should apologize publicly for repeatedly berating prosecutors at the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona.

“If you call anybody ‘You fool,’ you are worthy of the fires of hell.  And she called them ‘gago,’ which is Filipino for fool, before millions of people,” Arevalo said in his first Saturday homily at the Edsa Shrine at noon.

“I did not say that. Jesus said that,” added Arevalo, the priest who gave the homily at Aquino’s funeral Mass in 2009.

Arevalo’s message was a reflection on the gospel the day before from Matthew 5:20: “But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, “You fool”, you will be liable to the hell of fire.”

His tone emphatic, Arevalo repeated his message to the senator without mentioning her name. And for publicly unleashing her sharp tongue, Santiago must repent, the priest said.

“Well, that was before millions of people. So she is, in conscience, bound to make a formal apology before millions of people if God will forgive her,” Arevalo later told the Inquirer in an interview.

“That’s the teaching of Jesus. You don’t do that, and if you do that, you have to retract it by making a formal apology before millions of people, otherwise you remain worthy of the fires of hell.  I did not say that. Jesus said that,” he said.

Known for short temper on the Senate floor, Santiago figured in a verbal duel with private prosecutor Vitaliano Aguirre in the middle of trial on Wednesday, as the senator delivered another scathing attack on the prosecutions alleged lack of lawyering skills, calling them “gago” and describing them as brain-dead.

Aguirre, who had since quit the panel while facing contempt charges, was the first to stand up to Santiago on the floor, even covering his ears to shut off the senator’s  “shrill voice.”