{"id":168803,"date":"2018-07-02T06:27:09","date_gmt":"2018-07-02T10:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=168803"},"modified":"2018-07-02T06:27:09","modified_gmt":"2018-07-02T10:27:09","slug":"god-did-not-give-us-president-rodrigo-duterte-manila-bishop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/07\/02\/god-did-not-give-us-president-rodrigo-duterte-manila-bishop\/","title":{"rendered":"‘God did not give us President Rodrigo Duterte’: Manila bishop"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Manila<\/a>
Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo. (ROY LAGARDE\/CBCP News<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA, Philippines \u2014 \u201cWe cannot say “vox populi, vox Dei,” that is, “the voice of the people is the voice of God.” Not necessarily!\u201d<\/p>\n

That was Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo\u2019s opinion on the proclamation of Rodrigo Duterte as president of the Philippines.<\/p>\n

Duterte, who became president after winning the May 2016 presidential election, was elected by the people and not \u201cdivinely ordained,\u201d Pabillo wrote in a Rappler column.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuterte was elected by 16 million voters, not even the majority of our 50 million voters in 2016. He is not even a majority president,\u201d he said<\/p>\n

\u201cGod did not give us Duterte to be our President. The 16 million voters chose him to be President and he is now President,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The bishop also reminded the faithful of what the Bible says about subordination to authority.<\/p>\n

He said that even though Romans 12: 1-2 admonishes resistance to authority, Luke 20:25 and Matthew 22: 36-38 affirmed Peter and the apostles\u2019 argument that \u2018We must obey God rather than men.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTherefore subordination to civil authority is secondary to subordination to God, especially if the civil authority is no longer serving truth, justice, and peace,\u201d Pabillo said.<\/p>\n

Pray for Duterte<\/strong><\/p>\n

Albeit criticizing Duterte for causing \u201cfear to innocent people\u201d with his \u201corders to kill,\u201d \u201cswearing,\u201d usage of \u201cgovernment money to pay\u201d trolls, and other \u201cmachinations,\u201d the bishop said that faithful should still pray for Duterte, as the Bible tells.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven how evil and unfit they may be we should pray for them. Even if they persecute us, as Jesus said: “But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father,\u201d Pabillo said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet us pray for them all the more. Let us never cease praying, especially in these dark times,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Pabillo also stressed that \u201cgood can come out\u201d from \u201csomething bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst, I hope we can become better voters this time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSecondly, in our desire for change and for a strong leader, hopefully we have learned the lesson not to be blinded by propaganda, like tough talk (which later proved to be empty) and now social media,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThirdly, people are now more courageous. If before many are apathetic, now people are standing up because our beliefs are being maligned,\u201d he further stated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA, Philippines \u2014 \u201cWe cannot say “vox populi, vox Dei,” that is, “the voice of the people is the voice …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":168804,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,1145,16,95],"tags":[2712,2526,600,343,2444],"class_list":["post-168803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-broderick-pabillo","tag-catholic-church","tag-manila","tag-philippines","tag-rodrigo-duterte","mauthors-katherine-padilla","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}