Except for that balderdash proposal to revive the grant of autonomy to the troublemakers who almost razed to the ground their own city, the move to amend the poorly crafted and elitist Cory Aquino Constitution is, in truth, long overdue. There are many revisions that need to be introduced much that the present Constitution has become more of a burden to the Filipino people, and a source of conflict and antagonism among us.
This column believes that it is high time to introduce changes in the charter that was rammed into our throat by this Christian equivalent of ISIS who made sure they control our educational system, rewrite our history, and enjoy the privilege of not paying a centavo to the government they love to maliciously wag their tongue in the name of freedom.
The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines issued a suffocating warning that should the supporters of the Duterte administration push ahead in amending the charter by convening Congress as a constituent body, it will accordingly be self-serving if there would be no election or extend the term for the incumbent officials. In their usual guile of wanting to deceive our people, the CBCP branded the move as tantamount to a “creeping dictatorship.”
If only the Sanggunian Laiko ng Pilipinas headed by Julieta Wassan analyzed her shot-in-the-dark assessment, one could clearly see her motive why our people should be prevented from amending the charter, except for her ridiculous fear that amending it could open the gates of hell. Somehow the Church exhibited its usual artifice to prevent right thinking Filipinos from bringing out the more pressing issue of tax-exemption which the clerics and their lackeys inserted in the 1987 Constitution riding high on the euphoria of bogus freedom and democracy.
The CBCP and its minions truly deserve to be called callous hypocrites. Their argument that charter change could lead to possible dictatorship is to sidetrack the truth that the Church through its front-organization that styled itself as Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting headed by Henrieta T. de Villa, was an accomplice to the commission of the massive and systematic electoral fraud ever committed in this country. The PPCRV no doubt acted in obeisance to the dictate of the US that it even teamed up with Rappler in 2016, whose license to operate was revoked by SEC for being a foreign-operated mass media organization.
The Church ignored the evil deed they committed in defrauding the people of their mandate. It focused instead in imagining the dangers of dictatorship. Maybe they can claim that no violence was committed, but definitely cheating the people of their mandate without their consent stirred a far-more ranging consequence—that of reducing their bankrupt democracy to a complete farce. Today, the Church and its confederate want this political swindle to be memorialized in history, unmindful that it left a deep scar of economic inequality in a society touted as the only Christian nation in Asia.
While the CBCP fear the prospect of repeating the past, it ignores the malaise that is eroding the fibers of our society like the rule of the oligarchy, the lording over of political dynasty, and the breakdown of law and order that is fermenting the seeds of political instability, insurgency and secessionism. Despite the apocalyptic symptoms, the Church allowed itself to be co-opted by the corrupted practice of you scratch my back and I will scratch yours.
One can easily observe how the Church became the virtual shepherd of the sons and daughters of the corrupt elite reaping the fruits in charging exorbitant tuition fees tax free. The Cory Aquino-appointed constitutional commissioners failed to reckon that when they extended to the Church the extraordinary privilege of tax exemption, all Churches, religious organizations and denominations should have reconciled themselves to the truth that accepting it would equally entail limitations and responsibility to their exercise of freedom as civilized members of society.
You call it respect, courtesy or decency, but just the same their loud-mouthed members, including those nuns, should refrain from unnecessarily attacking the government. The Church should have the common sense that it cannot eat the best food in the restaurant while lambasting the one that is footing the bill for the food they eat.
Taxing the Church is not a violation of Church and State separation. Rather, it was the clerics and their lackeys that violated the principle by according the Church right to slander the government in the name of freedom and democracy without them paying a centavo in tax. If only the Church observed their virtue of piety, not exactly to the Duterte government but to the State that ensures their very existence, the issue of taxing this modern-day parasite would not have been highlighted as urgent.
Setting aside other issues like their firm grip on our educational system that has reduced the country to a theocratic state; the Church is virtually exempt from the payment of all taxes, including the payment of corporate and individual income tax, real estate or property tax, gift tax, and payment excise tax on all educational, scientific instruments and materials, including books for educational use. If their business falls in a gray area where there is doubt whether exemption should be granted, they readily hide behind the curtain of their foundation which they included in the list of tax-exempt business.
What is most anomalous is the numerous educational institutions they operate from the university level to pre-schooler Montessories. Ordinary children can only gawk at these luxurious facilities and the high educational standards Church-operated schools offer, which is natural for the high cost of tuition now running to a million pesos. On the other hand, ordinary Filipinos pay income tax and real estate tax even as mere condominium owners small as match box. In effect, the Church today has become a burden for instead of separating the two institutions to give room to equality and balance, the Filipino people has been reduced to beast of burden doing the workload for their master and often lashed at the slightest sign of weariness.
rpkapunan@gmail.com
