A CONSTITUTIONAL expert has pressed the Catholic Church to use its resources and lead various sectors in addressing the issue of poverty in the country.
“[The] Church, business, and civil society must commit resources and expend social capital to promote the agenda of the poor even when it is against our own interests,” lawyer Christian Monsod said last March 11 during a three-hour conference at the Arzobispado de Manila in Intramuros, Manila
Monsod, one of the framers of the 1987 Philippine Constitution and a former chairman of the Commission on Elections, said the poor are “not asking for equality but only equity and justice.”
“We must re-orient our policies and institutions with the lens of [social] justice and in the process finally dismantle feudalism and its companion evil–corruption,” he said.
Monsod also said the public should nurture a new generation of leaders from the poor. “I believe that they are more concerned and knowledgeable about our country and more committed to its future,” he said.
The conference, which tackled the Duterte administration’s proposed shift to a federal system of government, was organized by the Episcopal Commission on the Laity of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines and its lay arm, the Sangguniang Laiko ng Pilipinas.
