(Photo source: Inquirer)
Yet another “prayer rally”, and Filipinos add more proof of how primitive their politics is. What exactly does a “prayer rally” achieve? This latest one today, the 5th November 2017 to be held at the EDSA Shrine is being pitched in an Inquirer report as one that will harbour “no politics, just prayers for healing”.
“Let us ask that our prayers for the country’s healing be answered. The November 5 activity has no colors. It will stand for transparency, clarity of vision, purity of heart,” Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas said in a video posted on his Facebook account on Thursday.“We won’t be there to shout and hold a rally. We will pray and whisper to Jesus’ heart to ask for forgiveness, forgiveness for the country that sinned,” added the president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP).
“Non-political”? This is another case where the banal dishonesty of the CBCP and those who follow it is on exhibit for all those who choose to see it. According to the Inquirer report “Groups critical of the administration, such as Movement Against Tyranny and #TindigPilipinas, were also expected to be at the event.” The word “also” is used here as if to imply that the attendance of these two groups (which are known leading “movements” within the Opposition) was purely incidental. “Educator” Bro. Armin Luistro also puts in a rather pathetic effort to paint this “prayer rally” as one that is non-partisan…
To critics who ascribe political or “yellow” undertones to the activity, Luistro said there was no more space where people could freely express what they feel, since doing so meant being labeled “yellow” or described as “destabilizers.”“We are very concerned about that, that we are being divided into progovernment supporters and destabilizers. This is why we need the healing to begin,” Luistro said.
Luistro should step back and take stock of what it is exactly he is participating in. The EDSA Shrine is a symbol of Yellowtardism and the CBCP has long shown an almost perverse skew in its politics towards Yellowtards (Philippine political speak for the supporters and top honchos of the former powers-that-be in the Liberal Party). Whenever “EDSA” is quoted, and whenever the CBCP is involved, one can bet good money that the event is deeply Yellowtard in nature and by design.
Asking the question “Is the EDSA Shrine a Yellowtard site?” is like asking Is the Pope Catholic? Luistro and all those who try to convince everyone that this event is non-partisan is, again, insulting the intelligence of Filipinos. You could feel the collective eyesroll of those who can see past the bullshittery baked into the marketing of this “prayer rally”.
What does prayer really achieve to begin with? This is a democracy after all, where representatives and chief executives are elected by popular vote and, as such, whose actions mirror the will of the people. There are clear channels ordinary people could use to influence their leaders. More likely, prayer rallies like these are shows of power rather than supposed occasions to “pray” or “talk to God”. Prayer can be done in private. Public prayers are political exercises pathetically disguised as “spiritual” community activities. The CBCP has long lost the credibility needed to pitch these nonsensical events as the latter. Even Sunday Masses have been politicised by the CBCP thanks to their routine abuse of this Filipino family tradition to further its political ends.
More to the point, the intent of this particular type of show of power is to emotionally-blackmail Filipinos. Fear of God after all remains deeply-ingrained in the Filipino psyche. Therefore a rally that is supposedly endorsed by God is implicitly one that “God-fearing” people must attend lest they be sentenced to eternal damnation for defying the word of God’s lieutenants on Earth (i.e. those men-in-robes that comprise the CBCP).
Parada ng Madre de Cacao na naman ang solusyon ng mga Dilawan.
Ultimately, it is up to Filipinos to decide whether they will continue to allow themselves to be subject to this institutionalised emotional blackmail and to continue to have their intelligence insulted by the CBCP and its Yellowtard minions.
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