A distinguished Catholic priest has urged critics of newly appointed Supreme Court (SC) Chief Justice Lourdes Sereno to give her the benefit of the doubt.
According to  Fr. Marlon Lacal, executive secretary of the Association of Major Religious Superiors of the Philippines, we still do not know Sereno and for that let us not pass judgment as she is a woman and for sure she will stand up for the women’s rights.
Seemingly meaning to warn Sereno the priest said he believed that the Chief Justice will not reverse the earlier decision by the SC judges on Hacienda Luisita and will implement its distribution to farmers.
In a radio interview, Fr. Lacal recalled that from the start Sereno had favored that the 2006 valuation of about P10 billion be given to Cojuangco family.
Fr. Lacal added that the matter of the hacienda was now in the hands of President Aquino.
“Yes, she is truly in favor of the Cojuangco family when it comes to giving higher compensation to them but (the matter) is in the hands of the President, it is now beyond her control. Even if the Chief Justice will be pressured, there are many members of the SC and (because of) this it is not easy to overturn (their) earlier decision. I think the President would not allow it anymore, it would look obvious and offensive (and smack of) too much politicking,” Lacal said.
Meanwhile, the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines (CEAP) has announced it cannot revoke the membership of the Ateneo de Manila University (Ateneo) from its organization or nullify its Catholic identity over the “defiance” of some professors of the official stand of the Church with regard to the Reproductive Health (RH) bill, which is pending in Congress.
CEAP president Fr. Gregg Bañaga Jr., CM, said their organization, in which membership was voluntary, will only reprimand and impose sanctions on members that fail to fulfill their dues or those whose Catholic titles are revoked by their bishops. Ateneo is in the CEAP’s network of 1,345 Catholic schools nationwide.
“It is only the bishops who can revoke a school’s identity as Catholic. CEAP, for its part, can only reprimand its members if they fail to fulfill their duties like paying their dues, among others,” Bañaga said.
Bañaga made the clarification in view of the brewing tension between the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) and the Ateneo’s Jesuit administrators for the public endorsement of some Ateneo professors of the passage of the RH bill.
But Bañaga said CEAP supported the dissenting position of the CBCP on the controversial legislation, which seeks to use taxpayers’ money to make artificial contraceptives readily available to the public and to make sex education a mandatory subject taught in public and private schools, among others.
“Officially, CEAP supports the bishops because Catholic schools are under the bishops’ leadership. But individually, some of us may differ with them,” he said, apparently referring to Ateneo.
The concurrent president of the Adamson University admitted that some CEAP members do not oppose the RH bill in its entirety and would support amendments to the bill to make it “acceptable.”
Although the Catholic Church’s opposition to the use of artificial birth control has not been regarded as “dogmatic,” Bañaga said that the faithful, CEAP member-schools included, “are encouraged to think with the Church.”
Earlier, Ateneo president Fr. Jose Ramon Villarin, SJ, issued a statement reiterating the Jesuit-run university’s opposition to the passage of the RH bill, after CBCP president Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma said a Catholic school may be stripped off of its affiliation with the Church if it teaches anything contrary to the official teaching of the Church.