‘Restrictions on religious services impractical’

“IMPRACTICAL and without sense.”

This was how Davao Archbishop Romulo Valles, who is also the president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, described the government’s guidelines for the resumption of religious services.

The Inter- Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infection Diseases (IATF-EID) had said under a modified enhanced community quarantine and general community quarantine, religious gatherings would be limited to five and 10 persons, respectively.

Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo of Manila, the administrator of the Archdiocese of Manila, said limiting Mass attendees to five or 10 people was unreasonable and “laughable.”

In a Facebook post, he questioned the IATF’s basis for limiting Massgoers to five or 10, pointing out that there were no such limits for offices and business establishments.

“Where did they get these numbers? Why is it that they do not give the absolute numbers of persons who can enter a store or work in the office or in the factory? Do they say that only Q0 persons should be in an office or that 20 persons work in a factory or that only five persons can enter a store at a time? This would be preposterous!”

“It is just another way of saying that you do not have religious activities,” he added.

Pabillo pointed out that a “onesize-fits-all” directive was laughable if applied to big churches like the National Shrine of Our Mother of Perpetual Help (Baclaran Church) or Manila Cathedral.

“Why not give instead the instruction that there be one meter or two-meter distance between persons in a church?” he said.