Apparently Willie Revillame is giving away P100,000. That’s a lot of money, and in the right hands it could do a lot of good, but instead it’s joining almost 1.5 million pesos put together by Senators, other personalities and lay people for, of all things, cars. Cars for bishops.
Macalintal and former Manila Mayor Lito Atienza are leading the fund raising drive in support of seven bishops who bought utility vehicles from the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office donations in 2009…
Macalintal said they are looking at seeking donations from Catholic parishioners to raise P8.2 million, the amount that the prelates received from the state-run lottery.
So let me get this straight:
- They ask for money.
- They receive money they know they shouldn’t have.
- They buy cars.
- They get called out on their hypocrisy.
- They return the cars.
- They get money?
God damn I chose the wrong line of work!
Now I’ve seen a fair share of envelopes passed around the office or classroom – for a classmate whose father died, for a colleague who lost everything he owned to Ondoy, for a friend who had cancer – and none of them were for a reason as shallow as “because I had to return my car.” There are a lot of people who need real help, a lot of severely underfunded charities, a lot of dilapidated public schools and hospitals, and compared to them – hell, compared to anything – buying a half dozen SUV’s for some bishops just doesn’t seem like a worthy cause at all.
Of course, if people like Willie Revillame and other personalities want to donate their own money to this fund, it’s entirely their choice. They are private citizens, and as long as there is no violation of church/state separation going on they are free to do with their money as they please. I just hope that before handing them the money, Willie makes the bishops do a little dance first.
(Image taken from Single Father at Work)
"Occam's Razor", folks. Its not just for philosophical debating… Why spend P8.2 million to buy cars for bishops to "help" the poor when it's more efficient to use the money to improve the livelihood of the poor directly?
So it's alright to send money to a bunch of old men sitting on a pile of money, but it's not to health services that can prevent maternal deaths?
Love their priorities
It is not the job of investment bankers, Hedge funds, Vulture funds or the job of the RCC to support and feed the poor.
According to the Philippine 1987 constitution, the support of the urban and rural poor, children and elderly is the guaranteed responsibility of the government.
“free the people from poverty “ (2:9 )
the highest priority to reduce “social, economic, and political inequalities” by “diffusing wealth for the common good” (13:1)
It is the state who also has to defend “The right of children to assistance, including proper care and nutrition” (15:3:2)
and to care for senior citizen “care for its elderly members but the State may also do so” (15:4).
The Montero-7 Bishops just acted according to Mark 14: 5It could have been sold for more than a year's wages and the money given to the poor." And they rebuked her harshly. 6"Leave her alone," said Jesus. "Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. 7The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me
Though I believe your quotation of Mark 14:5 was tongue in cheek, I've heard that justification before in a more serious tone. And, it doesn't take a Bible scholar to note that Jesus was talking about getting the benefits for himself, not about the disciples enjoying what could have been used for charity. Jesus is purportedly the Son of God, after all, and not a mere bishop.
JUDAS (to Mary Magdalene and Jesus):
Woman your fine ointment
Brand new and expensive
Should have been saved for the poor
Why has it been wasted?
We could have raised maybe
Three hundred silver pieces or more
People who are hungry
People who are starving
Matter more
Than your feet and hair
JESUS:
Surely you"re not saying
We have the resources
To save the poor from their lot?
There will be poor always
Pathetically struggling
Look at the good things you"ve got!
Think while you still have me
Move while you still see me
You"ll be lost
You"ll be so sorry
When I"m gone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeeKZ9vnknI
+1 for the JCSS reference 🙂
"Close your eyes, close your eyes… everything's alright, yes everything's alright…"
= "church muna, before the poor". as long as the needs of the clergy are met, everything's alright in the world. Tutal, sanay na ang mahirap sa kanilang kalagayan, but don't expect a bishop to use a 7-year old car.
The Catholic church of the Philippines is sitting on billions of Peso worth of equity stock holdings (BPI, PLDT, San Mig ….) plus billion worth of bond and fix interest assets and even many more billions worth of real estate prime properties. The Vatican with his own banks is sitting on 300 billion $ (or Euro ?) of financial assets, and as mentioned before the 2 main churches in Germany (RCC and Lutheran protestants) collected assets of 800 billion Euro during the centuries. This would be sufficient to support every of the 80 million Christian Pinoys with 10,000 Euro (> 600,000 Peso) so every single could buy his brand new small car, a couple a pickup, a family of 3 a brand new SUV : EVERY Philipino !
So the RCC is just a kind of greedy investment fund and the little charity is a marketing effort and smokescreen to attract donations, government support and tax exemption.
Birds of the same feather flock together. I guess it also is true for idiots.
>> “ God damn I chose the wrong line of work! “<<
You are free to study theology and become a priest and later then bishop too !!
You are free to open your own religious sect with televangelist TV channel, a Megachurch and collect billions of Peso from the gullible of course all fully tax exempt.
Televangelist make multi million US$ a year, Osho (‘the Bagwhan’) collected 68 Rolls Royce cars from the donations of his flock, and the starving malnutrition south Indian faithful Hindus of Kerala collected tons of gold and gemstones worth around 20 billion $ for their god Vishnu discovered in a temple this month – but the BJP (Hindu nationalist party) rejects to use it to help the hungry poor masses and keep it as belonging of their god Vishnu.
So open your own religious sect and fleece the gullible !