{"id":199942,"date":"2019-01-29T23:11:00","date_gmt":"2019-01-30T04:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=199942"},"modified":"2019-01-29T23:11:00","modified_gmt":"2019-01-30T04:11:00","slug":"prrd-tirades-vs-church-have-nothing-to-do-with-jolo-blast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/01\/29\/prrd-tirades-vs-church-have-nothing-to-do-with-jolo-blast\/","title":{"rendered":"PRRD tirades vs. Church have nothing to do with Jolo blast"},"content":{"rendered":"
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FILE: President Rodrigo Roa Duterte delivers his speech after leading the ceremonial turnover of housing units to wounded police officers and soldiers at the Pleasant View Residences in the City of San Jose del Monte, Bulacan on January 10, 2019. REY BANIQUET\/PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 The remarks made by President Rodrigo R. Duterte against the Catholic Church and its members have nothing to do with the twin explosions that happened inside and outside Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Cathedral in Jolo, Sulu on Sunday, Malaca\u00f1ang said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you say that the President\u2019s criticism of them would embolden others to disrespect the Church, I don\u2019t think so,\u201d Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said in a Palace press briefing when asked if the Jolo bombing has something to do with the President\u2019s tirades against clergymen.<\/p>\n

Panelo explained that it was not the President\u2019s words, but the perpetrators\u2019 disrespect for the Roman Catholic religion, which convinced them to launch the bomb attacks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose who will attack places of worship especially with the Catholics are doing it because they do not believe in that religion. In other words, they are disrespecting precisely the religion,\u201d Panelo said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s directed against\u2014to my mind, apart from challenging the capability of this government to secure the safety of the citizenry, it is also showing its utmost disrespect to this religion,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Despite Duterte\u2019s verbal attacks against the Church, Panelo reiterated that the President was \u201coutraged\u201d by the incident, noting that he even declared war against them and all enemies of the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe President is outraged. He\u2019s so angry that they have not respected a place of worship \u2013 that\u2019s why he declared war against all these perpetrators,\u201d Panelo said.<\/p>\n

Panelo further said Duterte\u2019s criticism against the Church were meant to cleanse the institution of its erring members.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe President was not actually criticizing the institution \u2013 it was criticizing certain hypocritical acts of the members of the Church, especially those who wear the cloth,\u201d Panelo reiterated.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea is to let them know that these hypocritical acts will not go unnoticed,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

While Catholic Bishops\u2019 Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) President and Davao Archbishop Romulo Valles, in a pastoral statement, admitted that members have their “share of failures and shortcomings”, Panelo said that this will not stop the President from waging a word war against sinful clergymen.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s still part of the freedom of expression. I said, he is not attacking the Church \u2013 he is just criticizing certain immoral acts of some members of the Church,\u201d Panelo said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody can stop him from saying his mind on certain matters that he feels are wrong,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

He also noted that the Palace could not do anything about CBCP feeling as if its members were being alluded to but acknowledged their effort to admit their mistakes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe charges of the President go to the specific priests who committed the acts \u2013 not necessarily even with the CBCP members. Now if they feel alluded to, we cannot do anything about that. If they admit their guilt, then well and good,\u201d Panelo said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Panelo urged members of the clergy anew to pray that the President succeeds in his endeavors instead of speaking negatively about him.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is important is this President doing his job as President of the country, whose job is one, to serve the people and two, to protect them,\u201d Panelo said.<\/p>\n

Prior to the CBCP statement released on Jan. 28, three bishops have spoken against Duterte\u2019s strong remarks against the Church. They were Novaliches Bishop Emeritus Teodoro Bacani Jr., Balanga, Bataan Bishop Ruperto Santos, and Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0\u2014 The remarks made by President Rodrigo R. Duterte against the Catholic Church and its members have nothing to do …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":197360,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-199942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199942","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\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}