Moral recovery from where?

RECENT events are mind-boggling and disheartening.

The mayor and his wife and boardmember dead, a vice mayor and her brother arrested in a simultaneous drug raid in Ozamiz City in Misamis Occidental, a priest in Marikina City was arrested at around 6:30 pm at Blue Wave Mall on Sumulong Highway, in Barangay Sto. Niño, Marikina City, along with a 16-year-old gay boy who served as the pimp in the transaction for the 13-year old girl. A bishop defending the priest and cautioning the netizens from further fanning negative reactions against the priest and his misdoing...

Discombobulated is too mild a term. There must be another word that’s more than just confusing and upsetting at the same time.

Lost for words, we sought out Google, typed “moral recovery” and saw the topmost entry to be a definition and a reference to Executive Order No. 319 - Lawphil and defined as:

“The Moral Recovery Program (MRP) refers to the national campaign for moral renewal which includes the objectives, strategies and cumulative experiences generated in the course of implementing Presidential Proclamation No. 62 dated 30 September 1992.”

Right below it, the second entry to about 31,400,000 results gathered by Google on the phrase “moral recovery” was: “Spiritual Upliftment and Moral Recovery Program”. We would have browsed through it and looked for something else that would make more sense to the confused and upset state we were in, except that the URL address caught our eye.

The second entry that Google presented to us was the Spiritual Upliftment and Moral Recovery Program of Misamis Occidental.

Ozamiz City belongs to the province of Misamis Occidental. It has been rumored for years now that town executives of Misamis Occidental are among the leaders of drug syndicates.

The page about this program reads: “The Sangguniang Panlalawigan Office embraces spiritual upliftment through an organized Prayer/Worship held every Monday after the Flag Raising Ceremony, and likewise, continues to uphold and implement the Provincial Government’s Moral Recovery Program through Values Formation Hour every week led by the NACPHIL, Mis. Occ. Chapter.”

This, on top of the recent raids and arrests and deaths, somehow underscores the way spirituality has been used to blind and that thought is more sobering for a Christian nation than hearing that a mayor was a subject and killed in a drug raid.

Much like the bishop cautioning the believers to please stop the bashing of the priest who contracted the sexual services of a 13-year-old girl.

“Let us refrain from issuing unnecessary comments that might worsen the situation,” Antipolo Bishop Francisco de Leon said in a statement.. We’re back to how we started: Discombobulated.