President Quezon's press statement against the Archbishop of Cebu (Part 3)

This is the last of the three-part series of the press statement of President Quezon against the Archbishop of Cebu and his bishops on the pastoral letter issued by the ecclesiastical church of Cebu. In 1939, the National Assembly passed Bill No. 3307 briefly entitled the "Optional Religious Instruction," its formal title "An Act to carry out more effectively the provisions contained in Section 928 of Act 2711, Administrative Code and in Section 4, Article 13 of the Constitution." The Constitution referred to is the 1935 Constitution drafted in 1934 by a Constitutional Convention by elected delegates and ratified by a plebiscite on May 14, 1935.

President Quezon on June 4, 1938 vetoed the bill and returned it to the National Assembly without his signature. In reaction to the veto of the president, Archbishop Gabriel Reyes of Cebu issued a pastoral letter. President Quezon retorted by issuing a press statement on June 24, 1938:

"A very unfair campaign has been launched against the Government, making it appear that we are not complying with the provisions of the Constitution regarding optional teaching of religious instruction. The truth is the opposite, as evidenced by the fact that while the enrollment in classes in religious instruction during the academic year 1932-1933 was only 29,996, this had increased to 187,089 in the academic year 1937-1938. During this last school year, in the 817 schools were religious instruction was given, more than one-half of the children enrolled in said school received religious instruction.

"Moreover, if the desire is to have hours exclusively devoted to religious instruction in the public schools, so that the regular school activities may not interfere with said instruction, I am placing Saturdays and Sundays at the disposal of all the ministers of all the religions existing in the Philippines. On Saturdays and Sundays, the public schools are not being used for school purposes and, therefore, they may be used for religious instruction, if it is so requested. What is prohibited in the existing legislation and by the Constitution, and which, therefore, I may not allow, is that any hour needed for public school purposes be devoted to religious instruction.

"It is my earnest conviction that the Filipino people will not heed the call to drag them into a religious controversy such as would result if the threat of the ecclesiastical authorities as stated in their pastoral letter, to wage anew another campaign to change the present status of optional religious instruction as provided in the Constitution, is carried out."

(End of series)