DECADES ago, when the opulent church inside Ayala Alabang Village was undergoing renovation, someone from the project decided to write a solicitation letter to Enrique Zobel, one of the more prominent village residents, who I happened to be working for at that time.
By some stroke of God’s grace, he didn’t reply immediately to the solicitation, and then the next time I was with him (I was his executive assistant) he asked me what I thought about the letter.
“You’re asking me?” I said, “the UP student that I am?” I asked him in return: “Sir, imagine this. Jesus is coming back down to earth and wants to meet us all. Do you think He will want to meet all of us while seated at the opulent altar of this church, or do you think He will ask all of us to gather around Him in Payatas or Baseco?”
It was my pleasant – no, joyous – task to write a letter politely declining the solicitation.
In Palawan, some clergymen still think they’re from the Inquisition, trying to instill fear in the hearts of politicians by threatening to swamp them with votes in May should these politicians not kowtow to their wishes – in this case to oppose mining in the whole province. Why are they opposed? Because mining, they say, is destroying the “last frontier,” causing global warming and climate change and the floods and typhoons and river siltation.
Some even criticize one host LGU (Bataraza) for having the third highest incidence of poverty in Palawan.
When I hear the clerics thunder like that I smile, remembering one simple fact – when in the 1600s Galileo Galilei told the world that the Earth revolves around the Sun (fact!) the Catholic Church led by the Pope called him a heretic, condemned him as an enemy of the faith and refused him a proper burial. Why?
Because the Pope and the church insisted that the Sun revolved around the Earth. I repeat: the Pope, God’s representative on Earth, and his minions in the Inquisition, insisted that the Sun revolved around the Earth.
But the Earth has been orbiting around the Sun for billions of years. Billions of years. As created by God Himself! Yet it is clear as day that neither the Pope nor the clergy knew this. Let me repeat: they didn’t know what God had made!
Don’t they talk to God?
So imagine – a Pope was so damn wrong about God’s creation. Why then should I worry about a bishop or a parish priest?
Going back to Palawan. Only two percent of the land is covered by approved mining permits, mainly in the south – but there is flooding everywhere else where there is no mining! And then only 0.7 percent of the total land area is actively being mined. The mining activity in such a small area contributes 1/4 to the total economic activity of the province. So how can such activity in such a small area contribute such a large share of economic activity and be so destructive to the island??
Let’s talk about practical matters. The LGU of Bataraza is the richest in the province.
From one mining operation alone, it earns P200 million a year in taxes. If mining were to stop, would the province give Bataraza that money? Will the Church hold second, third, and fourth collections? Or will they tell the Bataris to go hungry on their own?
(As to the complaint that Bataraza has a high incidence of poverty, some Googling will reveal that Vietnam is much poorer than America but has a five percent poverty rate compared to 11 percent in America. For sure, Quezon City has a higher poverty rate than Aborlan though QC is the richest LGU in the Philippines. But who has time to do a little research when you’re so busy beating your chest proclaiming you’re an environmentalist?)
The clergy are against mining? So what? Let’s see how effective they can be in calling the flock if all they have are plastic church bells.
