An Open Letter to the Philippine Daily Inquirer

To the editors of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

I still recall a lot of basic journalism rules from my days as writer and editor for my high school paper. One of them is that the paper’s main editorial is supposed to reflect the views of the entire staff or, at the very least, of the editorial team. A consensus is made as to what topic to feature in the piece, as well as what the paper’s stand is on the chosen issue.

 

While most of your editorials reflect—or, at least, appear to reflect—these rules, I found today’s piece on San Pedro Calungsod a bit troubling. It talks about the impending canonization of Calungsod, to whom a doctor prayed in the hopes of recovering a woman who’d been clinically dead for two hours. It then goes on to mention Christianity in the Visayas and folk Catholicism, and even dismisses secularists’ notion that Catholic feasts are “wastes of time and resources” with a few handy quotes from two National Artists for Literature. The piece then ends with the following:

“The examples of Calungsod and Lorenzo Ruiz should indicate that the ‘hometown’ has grown to embrace as well the globe. Both of them earned the palm of martyrdom abroad—the latter in Japan, the former in what’s now Guam. They may as well have been the first Filipino OFWs! And although they died with clerics (Calungsod with the Jesuit Fr. Diego Luis de San Vitores, and Lorenzo with several Dominican friars), they were laymen, an indication of how Christianity had really taken root among the Filipinos. Their martyrdom having sown and watered the seed of Christianity elsewhere, they’re veritable ambassadors and embodiments of the catholicity of the Catholic faith. They’re the Philippine Church’s gifts to universal humanity. They make us proud to be Filipinos and Christians.”

Given the above rule as to what an editorial should be, is it true that every person working for your paper (or editorial team) is a proud Catholic? Is it true that all of you decided that this issue—which affects fewer people than you think, given that not all Filipinos are serious believers, much less Catholic ones—was significant enough to be the main opinion piece, when there are quite a few other issues (OWS, MILF, GMA, etc.) to be tackled?

I kind of understand why your editorial last October 17 was on the newly-appointed Archbishop Tagle.  Our country’s government, unfortunately, tends to be swayed by the opinions of the local Catholic Church’s leaders, so making mention of the new head honcho can be justified. As Antipolo Bishop Gabriel Reyes admitted, “He could wield more influence to spread the opposition against the [RH Bill] legislation.” This piece gives “unrepentantly secular” individuals like myself reason to be alert. (And by the way, your use of “unrepentantly” in the piece’s first sentence smacked of prejudice.)

But an editorial on some guy from Guam who magically healed a dead woman from the future by way of a doctor who closed his eyes and mumbled for help, which is a story that is not based on a shred of evidence and is only sincerely believed by some people?

Sincerely,

Marguerite Alcazaren de Leon

6 comments

  1. If you own your own paper you can editorialize whatever you want. If the Inquirer did a piece on Bl. Pedro Calungsod it is because of general interest of the predominantly Catholic readership. A canonization is a big thing for Catholics hence the PDI piece. Stop whining for attention for goodness sake.

  2. side topic: a local network reporting on Archbishop Tagle's new appointment ran something like, "New Archbishop of Manila as Papal Candidate". somewhat misleading, and they did try to "correct" the misconception in their report by stating that all Cardinals can be candidates for the papacy. something like all eligible Filipinos can be President, but not all of us have the logistics or the machinery or the clout to be one.

    i think sometimes Filipinos are so eager to have global recognition we tend to overlook basic facts about the people we try to elevate to that status.

    as for PDI's editorial on Calungsod, as an editor i would definitely run an opinion on him, given that majority of Filipinos are Roman Catholic (and with regard to their sincerity of faith, i can form no objective truth). if you look at the Philippine RCC objectively, it is less an institution of faith than a political juggernaut. even if we despise their hypocrisy, we cannot deny their influence, and as such, this makes them newsworthy.

    but i definitely would have not presented the article in a light prejudiced to other religious/non-religious minorities. in fact a secularist might use the opinion article as a venue to introduce ideas of tolerance.

    • //even if we despise their hypocrisy, we cannot deny their influence, and as such, this makes them newsworthy.//

      It works both ways. The more they try to play the morality card, the more their hypocrisy needs to be dragged out into the light.

  3. its a Vatican PR move. Its not like they a 3rd Party, non-Catholic, contribute in the investigation of this Miracle. Also, the real process of cannonization is much stricter than a Doctor Praying. Why the heck was a the doctor praying to a super obscure martyr? What is the success rate of this martyr anyway? how many people he has failed to intercede for? Shouldn't there be a control before objectively declaring effectivity?

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