KILLER earthquakes shake the Visayas, then Luzon and Mindanao, with volcanoes also spewing fire. Mega typhoons and inundation in the past year expose unprecedented corruption in flood control projects.
Top leaders in Congress resign amid mind-boggling revelations about billions of pesos in payoffs laundered in casinos, piled up in office and apartment halls, then transported in P50-million luggaged batches allegedly taken by van to luxury homes of leading lawmakers.
Filipinos are outraged, reprising anti-graft rallies that twice dethroned leaders, including President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s late father. In Pulse Asia’s survey last month, the government saw lower net approval ratings (NAR) in all top five national concerns.
For corruption, now the No. 2 issue after inflation, September NAR plunged to -52 — double the -26 in June (https://tinyurl.com/52wjc3va). Another Pulse Asia poll showed 45 percent with little or no trust in Marcos addressing flood control corruption (https://tinyurl.com/4xs9fpx4). And his overall net trust rating, by Social Weather Stations’ polling, fell to +7 from +18 in June.
Plus, confrontations between Chinese and Filipino coast guards are back after some respite from escalating frictions after President Marcos, under American pressure, abandoned neutrality and let Washington weaponize our country for war with Beijing over Taiwan.
What in heaven is happening, and where are we going?
Back to the Creator
Before political, economic and social factors, let’s first look at the supernatural. After all, while worldly forces may explain corruption and social unrest, only God’s hand can move Earth, wind and water in our spate of disasters.
What might our Lord have in mind for Asia’s largest Christian nation at this time of national crisis and earthshaking calamity?
Not a few people may see in quakes and floods divine judgment upon life-threatening top-level thievery, just as disasters and debacles in late 2013 and early 2015 were possible reprisal from above for the administration of then-president Benigno Aquino III using pork barrel to enact contraceptive legislation undermining Christian family values. Not to mention falsely maligning bishops in the media, Congress and the January 2015 visit of then-pope Francis, followed days later by Aquino’s worst crisis, the Mamasapano massacre of 40 police commandos.
For sure, God is infinitely incensed by the deaths and sufferings of His beloved poor because flood control infrastructure were flimsy or absent, with billions of pesos kicked back by contractors to bureaucrats and “proponents” behind budget insertions funding corrupt infrastructure outlays.
Sadly, it took months of inundating rain to expose substandard or “ghost” projects. Similarly, the Cebu, La Union and Davao quakes may now lead to nationwide inspections to discover roads, bridges, hospitals, classrooms and other state-funded structures dangerously weakened due to building funds siphoned off for officials and politicians.
So, disasters expose grafters. But there is a bigger reason for heaven to allow earthly calamities: they lead us back to God. Today, affluence, knowledge, technology and power have become idols on which humanity relies for life and security. But calamities show money, might and brilliant minds as false, unreliable gods.
During the coronavirus pandemic, about most respondents in a third of nations surveyed said their people gave more importance to faith and religion during the contagion. Religious revival among Americans also followed the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that saw jetliners flying into buildings in New York and Washington, D.C.
Since the pandemic, our Catholic prelates and even the occasionally blasphemous then-president Rodrigo Duterte called for nationwide prayers for protection from Covid-19, geopolitical and internal political conflicts, mega storms, eruptions, earthquakes, and now corruption.
Early last year, President Marcos also consecrated the Philippines to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. He not only sought deliverance from war, but more important, offered our nation to the kingship of Jesus Christ (“What Marcos prayed for may well be happening,” https://tinyurl.com/bdh2uw93).
Being consecrated through Mary to our Lord Jesus Christ, our nation falls under heaven’s protection and obtains graces to be faithful and obedient to the Almighty.
For goodness’ sake
So, contagion, catastrophe and crisis can bring us to God for protection and succor. Two other directions He may want for our nation at this time are goodness and peace.
The corruption crisis can lead us to reaffirm godly values lost by many: truth, justice, integrity, morality, simplicity and charity. As current Mass sermons have been increasingly exhorting the faithful, we must not only protest against graft, but also walk our talk by eschewing extravagant, self-indulgent living, corner-cutting bribery and silent acceptance of sleaze, and by joining hands to protest, prosecute and prevent it.
Now, once widely cheered and shared, social media posts of globe-trotting, brand-toting, high-riding lifestyles get bashed, taken down and shunned. No more videos showcasing fleets of luxury marques garaged by families accused of graft. Or overseas junkets featuring spouses and children of implicated officials.
Even more game-changing would be religious groups and civil society joining forces to expose dubious contracts and projects, unexplained wealth, delayed graft probes and prosecution, and other anomalies — as urged by Catholic bishops, led by Cardinals Pablo Virgilio David and Jose Advincula Jr.
Thus, our mind-blowing corruption can increase awareness and avoidance of sin, and the adoption and adulation of virtues, as our Lord wills. Calamities and corruption crises must not only make tens of millions of Filipino faithful pray to God and return to His righteous tenets but also mobilize us to fight sleaze, rather than just hoping for upright leaders and groups to do it for us.
Needless to say, all that wouldn’t happen if the high-and-mighty perpetrators of trillion-peso budgetary high-jacking escape unmasking and jail, keep ill-gotten gains and return to power — exactly what these schemers aim to do.
Will that happen? That depends on some questions moving forward.
Will current investigations whitewash or truth-tell? If whitewashed, would we accept it? If they tell all, will they uncover more or less graft, since the flood control projects in Bulacan are just a fraction of public works? And if more mega scams emerge, would we — and heaven — let the scammers still rule?
As for peace, that’s for next week.