Not in cardinal's character?

DID or didn't he? Or should the question be, does he or doesn't he? On Friday, the 13th last week, Ricardo Cardinal Vidal read a statement of the National Transformation Council (NTC) demanding that President Noynoy Aquino resign ASAP. When he was done reading, the Cardinal was asked if he supported the NTC's call for the President's resignation. His reply: “It's there in the first sentence.”

Ordinarily, the question would have been impertinent. That he read the statement without disavowing it meant that he agreed with its clear and unequivocal message that PNoy should step down now.

An antecedent event, however, rendered imperative asking that otherwise impertinent question. Last year, also in Cebu, Vidal read a similar statement of the NTC, only to deny that he agreed with it because what he really wanted to happen, he said, was the conduct of a more thorough discussion of the NTC's so-called Lipa Declaration.

The cardinal, who has been in and out of the hospital lately, hasn't made any such denial this time. But the spokesman of the Cebu Archdiocese did, offering the same explanation that the cardinal merely wanted to facilitate a dialog.

Don't judge him quickly and harshly, Msgr. Joseph Tan appealed to Vidal's critics. “Cardinal Vidal never openly called for the resignation of past presidents.”

But that is precisely the point. Vidal never condemned the abuses of martial law under Ferdinand Marcos. He did not publicly call the attention of Joseph Estrada nor of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to the graft and corruption that plagued their respective administrations.

Monsignor Tan claimed that Estrada resigned because he was convinced by Vidal to do so. This is the first time I've heard of the cardinal's brokering the peaceful transition of power in Edsa 2 but I believe him and I am proud of what the cardinal did.

Vidal also met with Arroyo, according to Tan, in the company of three bishops and of the late president Cory Aquino at the height of the Hello Garci scandal but they were not able to persuade her to resign.

“Again, Cardinal Vidal did not publicly announce his plea for President Arroyo to step down because that is not his character.”

Is? Shouldn't we be using the past tense when talking of that character?

We never saw the cardinal in the company of the anti-Erap forces even after the public uproar brought about by the refusal of the Senate to open the second envelope during Estrada's impeachment trial. And when the Hyatt 10 resigned from the Arroyo government in protest of the Hello Garci scandal, it was not Vidal who read their manifesto withdrawing their support of and from Gloria. In fact, he was never seen anywhere near the place where Arroyo's critics converged.

But against Aquino, the cardinal lent his name and presence to a group whose avowed objective is to oust Aquino. He conveyed their demand for Aquino to resign not once but twice, the last time making sure that people understood that he stood by what he just read.

What brought about the change in what Tan said “is” his character?

Cardinal Vidal is a decent human being. From the private conversations I had with him in the past, I know he wishes no ill on anyone. Pero napabarkada lang, as the Tagalogs would say. It is sad how some bishops and the discredited politicians that they're allied with would have no qualms about taking advantage of him, his good heart and his failing health to advance their agenda.

When I wrote about their “holiness, not-so-holiness and unholiness” in my last column, I definitely was not referring to Cardinal Vidal. I was addressing them.