[av_one_full first min_height=” vertical_alignment=” space=” custom_margin=” margin=’0px’ padding=’0px’ border=” border_color=” radius=’0px’ background_color=” src=” background_position=’top left’ background_repeat=’no-repeat’ animation=”]
[av_heading heading=’‘PEOPLE POWWOW | To God be the glory’’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”][/av_heading]
[av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=”]
Sunday, May 14, 2017
[/av_textblock]
[av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=”]
“TO GOD be the glory” has become cliché. It’s no longer from the priests and pastors that we often hear that quotation but from politicians – including those perceived as “corrupt” – no doubt to ingratiate themselves with their audience.
While writing this yesterday, I remembered how the former mayor of Davao City, Rodrigo Duterte, would grace the televised church services of Pastor Apollo Quiboloy. I thought the mayor was one of those who had accepted Quiboloy as “the appointed son of God.”
Today I wonder whether it was part of Duterte’s strategy aimed at winning votes for the highest political office in the Philippines, the presidency. It’s ironic that he can now get away with blaming the Pope for traffic congestion in Manila, as if he has become a religious icon himself. He believes in God, but not in any religious organization.
Any other political leader desecrating the Pope could have earned the ire of the same people who condemn Sen. Tito Sotto for describing Social Welfare secretary Judy Taguiwalo, a single parent, as “na-ano lang.”
That he can spill cusses like “put… ina” and still win adulation seems to project him as some kind of idol more popular than Quiboloy.
But this is not all about Duterte. The point I would like to raise is that each of us has a way of adoring God or idol to suit our persona. In my case, having been born to parents of different Christian faiths, as a child I knew of the futility of arguing against an ingrained religious belief.
My late father, a member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, had tried to convince my late mother, to abandon the Iglesia Filipina Independiente Church (IFI) but to no avail. To his credit, however, there was never a time when he forced her to attend an Adventist service.
On the contrary, he occasionally accompanied my mother and us their children to an Aglipayan mass which always started with the band playing the National Anthem.
I heard Tatay praise IFI founder Gregorio Aglipay for being so “nationalistic”. But it was not really nationalism that compelled him to abandon the Roman Catholic priesthood; it was his opposition to celibacy. The Church he founded allowed him to marry his girl friend.
Religion is like politics, where leaders compete for power. An ordinary priest dreams of “ripening” into a bishop, into an archbishop, into a cardinal. But first, he has to guide his flock to the door of heaven kuno.
Remember, it was in the name of God that Spain dominated our country for 350 years, starting from March 16, 1521 when Ferdinand Magellan landed in the Philippines with a sword in one hand and a cross in the other.
Otherwise, this nation could have turned predominantly Muslim like Indonesia and Malaysia. In that era, our southern natives had already known Allah. If we were a Muslim state where the Bible is banned – as in Saudi Arabia – we would also condemn the “evil Christians.”
Through his novels – Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterimo – Jose Rizal subtly indicted the Spanish authorities for using friars, including the womanizer Padre Damaso, to control our thoughts and actions. God, they threatened, would punish the non-obedient with perpetual hell.
There is no question that religious bigotry is a global phenomenon more favorable to the deceiver than to the deceived. Indeed, by the time Rev. Sun Myung Moon died in September 2012, he had amassed billions of US dollars from five million followers. It was Moon who founded the Unification Church of South Korea in 1954.
The Filipino “appointed son of God” — Apollo Quiboloy – could not be far behind; he is the richest evangelist in Davao City today. Wow, tax-free! But would it be correct to say “to God be the glory” for his follower’s tithes? (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
[/av_textblock]
[/av_one_full]
