Bacolod Bishop Vicente Navarra and the priests of the Diocese of Bacolod yesterday called on President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to resign saying she has lost the moral ascendancy to govern amid  numerous accusations of corruption.

CPG photo

Bacolod Bishop Vicente Navarra (4th from left, seated) and the priests of the Diocese of Bacolod announce their call for President Gloria Arroyo to resign*

Navarra said their decision, that went a step further than the call of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, was reached by the majority of the priests as a reflection of the sentiments of the people.

The CBCP in a pastoral letter Tuesday had stopped short of calling on the president to resign.

While the Diocese of Bacolod is calling for the resignation of the president, Navarra said the process of determining the truth should be pursued to allow due process.

“We are calling on the president to resign through due process. If that is not possible then the judgment of truth as perceived by the people will be the ultimate liberating force as what happened in the previous EDSAs. It was not the truth as presented to us by our courts but the truth as perceived and believed by our people,” Fr. Dimitri Gatia said.

The president should not block the truth from being told so that what happened will be clear to all, and whoever is found to be guilty should admit and face the corresponding penalty, Navarra said.

The alleged Garci tape, election cheating, fertilizer, North and South rail and the national broadband network deal scams have never been answered properly by the administration and are too much already, Navarra said.

“The Diocese of Bacolod will continue to educate and conscienticize the people on what is happening in our nation,” he said.

“We are just guiding our people in the pursuance of truth, honesty and the eradication of anomalies,” he added.

NOT IN CONFLICT WITH CBCP STAND

Navarra said the Diocese of Bacolod position is not in direct opposition to the CBCP  that left the option to the people to decide what stand to take.

We hope that our analysis of the situation is also heard by the other dioceses and sectors in the country, Navarra said.

The CBCP never said no to resignation, Gatia also pointed out. 

CALL TO OFFICIALS

The bishop yesterday called on local officials who have benefited from their closeness to the President to abandon their privileges and even their positions and stand up to what is morally right.

These officials should cut cleanly and take the side of the people, Navarra said.

“We have called on our officials to represent the people and not the interest of the few,” Fr. Ireneo Gordoncillo said.

Navarra said they reached their decision after listening to the various sectors in the Diocese of Bacolod, from the businessmen, students, to the academe who believe that the president has lost her authority to govern.

The bishop and the priests met for about three hours yesterday morning at the Bishop’s House in Bacolod City before coming out with their position.

Asked if after the investigations are concluded and it is found that the President has no direct link to the alleged charges of corruption, the bishop said, then “We will have to admit also that we were wrong.”*CPG

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