THERE IS a signature campaign endorsing the return to the priesthood of defeated Pampanga Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio. It is being spearheaded by the organization of laity in the province headed by one Banjo Serrano.
So announced the Rev. Fr. Raul de los Santos before bestowing his final blessing in last Sunday’s (Nov. 13) 7:30 a.m. Mass at the St. Jude parish church.
He was quick to stress to his congregation that Among Ed was never separated from the priesthood, that his suspension was neither preventive nor punitive but merely a cessation of his priestly functions to allow him to engage in an altogether different endeavour.
Those who wished to sign may just go to the table by the church’s entrance manned by members of the parish Catholic Women’s League, the good priest said.
Alas, there was a table but no CWL or any document there. I did not see anyone linger about, with just about everyone rushing out of the church after the final hymn.
So did I wish to sign, asked the wife.
I did not know, I told her.
Not with a little ambivalence that I view Panlilio’s return to the priesthood. No, I am ripped by contradictions.
On one hand, I subscribe to my parish priest’s take on Panlilio that, notwithstanding his political run, he was never separated from the priesthood, firmly believing that once a priest, always a priest.
So often have I heard the incantation of the order of Melchizedek in so many priestly ordinations I have attended that the eternalness of the priesthood has – to me – become an infallible dogma.
On the other, there are compelling arguments against his return that shake that faith.
Like, his political persona.
Yes, as I wrote in a banner story here last month, Panlilio said he was done with politics. That declaration made from the pulpit of the St. Jude parish church too when he was introduced by Fr. Rau as “guest homilist.”
The very title though – Problema ng Pampanga sa 2013 – of Panlilio’s subsequent column in the tabloid Abante practically negated his own declaration. A sampler of what Panlilio wrote:
Ang isang problema ng Liberal Party (LP) sa Pampanga sa 2013 mid-term election ay kung sino ang kanyang ipantatapat na kandidato sa pagka-gobernador.
Tila walang gustong tumakbo upang hamunin ang kasalukuyang Gobernadorang Lilia Pineda.
Hindi naman pwedeng pabayaan na lang ang nasabing probinsya na walang tatayong kalaban ng gobernadora na kailanman ay hindi tatanggapin sa LP sa sandaling gusto nitong tumalon sa administrasyon…
Kung ito ang pagbabasehan, ang malaking tanong ay bakit walang gustong lumaban? Bigla bang naubusan ang Pampanga ng matitinong mamamayan upang mag-alay ng kanilang sarili?
Hindi ba ang nasabing lalawigan ay duyan ng magigiting na bayani at kandungan ng mga makabayang kilusan na kagaya ng HUKBALAHAP at Partido Sosyalista ng Pilipinas?
Hindi kakaunti ang nagsasabing ang Pampanga raw ay tinatawag na “jueteng capital” ng Pilipinas. At paniniwala ng marami na hindi lang jueteng capital ang naturang lalawigan kundi jueteng politics din ang umiiral dito…
Sino nga ba naman ang tatapat na matinong pulitiko kung ang magiging kalaban niya ay nagpapagamot ng mga mamamayan kahit ang gagastusin niyang pondo ay nagkakahalaga ng bilyones? At sino nga ba naman ang may kahandaang gumastos ng ganyang karaming pera kung ang mga salaping ito ay pinagpaguran o galing sa legal na pamamaraan?
Kagaya ng mga nakaraang pahayag ko, hanggang ang jueteng money ay ang siyang nagpapaandar sa politika at ang marami sa mga nakaupo sa panunungkulan ay pinagagalaw ng jueteng, walang pag-asang maglingkod sa pamahalaan ang may kakayahan at matitinong lingkod…
Nothing sacerdotal, everything political there.
I distinctly remember too – because I recorded it here – the good Archbishop Oscar Cruz, saying on record right after Panlilio ran and won in 2007: – “There is nothing for him to go back to. He should leave the priesthood completely, raise a family, build a dynasty.”
I even postulated in that column: “Is there anything of the priesthood still left in Panlilio? This no doubt spurred by some ”un-priestly” actions deemed in the governor, not the least of which was the disappearance of the image of the Virgin from his office, his perceived closeness with “born again” sects, his reportedly having made samba (worshipped) in an Iglesia ni Cristo church. Yes, and his “uncharity” towards the protesting Balas Boys too.
The Balas Boys make one irrefutable argument against Panlilio’s return to the priesthood. Led by a group of ex-seminarians who had Panlilio himself as their formator, the Balas Boys were the force behind the so-called quarry miracle or the multiplication by a thousand fold of the provincial government’s collections from sand and gravel.
After gaining a Gawad Galing Pook for the quarry collections, Panlilio unceremoniously dismissed the Balas Boys who made a protest encampment at the Capitol grounds complete with posters and billboards of alleged but implied conjugal rule, prompting Panlilio to take them to court.
The case is still extant. Even after the prosecutor’s office struck out of the list of respondents Archie Reyes, the governor’s former chief of staff, Panlilio filed a motion for reconsideration that he remained among the accused.
Nothing sacerdotal, pure vindictiveness there.
And what about Panlilio’s sweeping indictment of the Pampanga voters as having been bought – his own relatives in Minalin not spared from his accusation of being sellers of their rights of suffrage – during the 2010 elections that he miserably lost?
How would the 488,521 Kapampangans who voted for Gov. Lilia Pineda take to a Rev. Fr. Eddie T. Panlilio ministering the sacraments anew?
On the other hand, how would Panlilio feel giving holy communion to those he branded as public sinners?
What about the Kapampangan clergy, at least a number of them, demonized by the Panlilio political propaganda machine in 2007 and in 2010 as being in the payola of Baby Pineda?
And the priests who joined the some 300,000 cabalens who signed the 2009 petition to recall Panlilio?
From Panlilio, it was though I heard SavonaroIa’s lament: ”Filii matris mea pugnaverunt contra me” (The sons of my mother fight against me).
No, it won’t just be as though the most natural way for Panlilio to return to the priesthood.
