AMID calls for President Macapagal-Arroyo’s resignation, the University has proposed the establishment of a “Truth Commission.” The country’s bishops seem to agree as they cited the proposal as a means of resolving the national crisis.
According to the UST statement that Rector Fr. Tamerlane Lana, O.P. read during the Mass for “peace, unity, and truth” last July 7 at the UST Chapel, “the Commission will ferret out the truth, establish culpability, and impose sanctions and restitution”. The statement was published in paid advertisements in several newspapers last July 8.
The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) roughly expressed the same view three days later, recognizing non-violent appeals for Macapagal-Arroyo’s resignation, the establishment of a Truth Commission and the filing of an impeachment case.
The CBCP said it is not demanding the President to step down.
“We do not demand her resignation,” outgoing CBCP President Archbishop Fernando Cappalla said while reading the statement. “Yet neither do we encourage her simply to dismiss such a call from others.”
Fr. Rodel Aligan, O.P., Vice-Rector for Religious Affairs, said the official statement of the CBCP stabilized the situation and pushed for what the University has been pressing all along—to find the truth.
“In a way the statement from the Catholic Church gave a cooling effect to the issue and echoed the need to find the truth through peaceful means,” Aligan told the Varsitarian.
Thomasian bishops, comprising the majority of CBCP, greatly influenced the decision of the CBCP not to go along with calls on the President to resign, Aligan added.
Moreover, save for one bishop, Luis Antonio Tagle of Imus, Cavite, the Committee that drafted the much-awaited CBCP statement were Thomasians: Nueva Caceres Archbishop and former UST rector Leonardo Legaspi, O.P., Bishop Nereo Odchimar of Tandang, Surigao del Sur, and Cotabato Archbishop Orlando Quevedo.
The “truth commission,” according to the UST statement, should be composed of “non-partisan sectors enjoying general social acceptance, such as the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, the religious sector, the academe, business and (non-governmental organizations).”
The statement said congressional inquiries on the alleged wire-tapped conversations, the proliferation of the alleged wire-tapped conversations through electronic media, some media reportage and commentaries are not enough to reveal the truth because they seem to be working “towards evading the truth.”
“The truth has been held hostage by those whose interest is to score political points at the expense of the larger national interest. The truth is being used at the service of falsehood.”
“There is a need to depoliticize the truth,” the statement added.
The statement was the product of an intense discussion by the Rector’s Committee on Social Concerns composed of Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs Armando de Jesus, Commerce Dean Jeanette Loanzon, Social Research Center Director Ernesto Gonzales and several other officials and resource persons of UST. The draft underwent revisions by the Rector and other Dominican experts.
In an interview with the Varsitarian, Lana said the President must double her efforts in cleaning up her act if she wants to be forgiven.
“The damage is quite serious,” he said.
But Lana said President Macapagal-Arroyo should be given the benefit of the doubt and that any means to remove her from office should conform with the Constitution.
Aligan agreed.
“In everything that we do, we must follow the legal process,” Aligan told the Varsitarian. “The President has no right to stay in office if proven guilty of election fraud.”
Meanwhile, the University’s Central Student Council (CSC) sought broad reforms and a government revamp in a statement released last July 7.
“We commend the President’s hard decisions to exile her husband and son, however, we are asking for more,” the statement said. “We believe that our efforts should be focused on knowing what really transpired rather than condemnation with just too little information to base it on”.
CSC president John Voltaire Almeda told the Varsitarian that it is not yet the right time to ask for President Macapagal-Arroyo’s resignation since the entirety of the tapes containing the supposed conversation between the President and Commission on Elections Commissioner Virgilio Garcilliano has not been heard.
Meanwhile, a group of UST students is asking the President to step down.
“The President no longer has moral ascendancy to govern the country,” said Civil Law student Glenn Romano of the Alliance of Concerned Thomasians.
The clamor for President Macapagal-Arroyo’s resignation mounted following her admission that she called Garcillano. Since then, several educational institutions including the De La Salle University and the University of the Philippines College of Law have asked her to step down.
But UST has taken an opposite tack. Its position has been echoed also by the Catholic Educators Associate of the Philippines which issued a statement refusing to call on the President to resign. April Dawn Jennifer C. Adriatico and Marlene H. Elemenzo
