Business as usual

Some people speculate that bishops elected Davaoeño Romulo Valles as president of CBCP (Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines) for his kinship with fellow Davaoeño ,President Rodrigo Roa Duterte (PRRD), that could help ease the tension between CBCP and PRRD. Indeed, this likelihood could have been in the bishops’ minds, but really nothing can be farther from the truth.

Unknown to many, CBCP has this tradition of electing its president and vice-president to two consecutive two-year terms with the second term a mere procedural formality. Also a matter of procedural formality in this tradition is the election of the vice-president to the presidency after the two terms.

There has only been one exception. After one term as vice-president to Archbishop Angel Lagdameo of Jaro, Archbishop Antonio Ledesma of Cagayan de Oro City was ousted and replaced by Bishop Nereo Odchimar of Tandag. Thus, it was Bishop Odchimar and not Archbishop Ledesma who succeeded Archbishop Lagdameo to the presidency of CBCP in 2009.

At the time, it was commonly believed that CBCP broke with tradition because bishops had apprehensions about Archbishop Antonio Ledesma’s relatively liberal stance vis-à-vis the Reproductive Health Law. Unlike many other bishops who simply opposed the law without doing anything to promote natural contraception which the Church allows, Archbishop Ledesma was famous for his full-blown natural family planning or responsible parenthood program using the natural method first in Ypil then in Cagayan de Oro.

I am sharing this so my readers can have a peek into that corner of bishops’ gray matter that drives their votes during the election of their officers. The exception clearly tells us that bishops will break with any tradition to prevent the election to CBCP president of anybody who shows the slightest hint that he might rock the boat.

Thus we can figure out what to expect from Archbishop Romulo Valles’s term as CBCP president. If he was not ousted as vice-president but allowed to follow tradition and assume the presidency of CBCP, it means that his fellow bishops see him and expect him to be on the same page as they are on current issues in the Church and in society.

I much prefer Romulo Valles to Socrates Villegas, whom I know only from the Christian-ese (think legalese) verbiage the latter’s term was full of. But I have no illusions. Because his election was a formality borne of tradition, I have to expect it would be business as usual under Archbishop Valles.

Still, because I have known “Mulong” for the good seminarian and young priest he was when I was stationed in Davao, I must admit to praying that he will come up with some pleasant surprises during his term.