WINDOWS
Gabriel L. Cardinoza

JUST when I thought Archbishop Oscar Cruz has stopped his tirades on the present administration because his present media exposure has not been as wide as before, I have just discovered in his blog ( http://ovc.blogspot.com) that he’s still very much at it today.
 
In fact in his latest blog entry dated May 27 entitled, “Suspect government equals difficult governance,” he slammed the present administration for fomenting disunity and division among the people because its tenure of government is suspect.
 
“That is why it finds it hard to exercise governance. Instead of leading, it is merely led by its preoccupation to retain power and to wield authority. Rather than having the assent of people, many of these demonstrate their strong dissent. Hence, it divides, not unite the citizens,” the archbishop said.

 
Honestly, I do not know if the good archbishop has ever found anything commendable in the Arroyo administration’s accomplishments that would at least compensate for its shortcomings (or sins) to the Filipino people. From his blog posts, which by the way are neatly archived, not one article praised the Arroyo government for anything that it has done.
 
Maybe, this has something to do with trust. From the bishop’s point of view, the Arroyo government cannot be trusted because of suspicions that it cheated in the last elections.
 
As he said, “Any individual who is suspect of many wrongdoings and continuous malbehavior will find it a moral impossibility to gain the trust and have the deference of people who know him. This is neither singular nor profound. To believe in someone unbelievable, to respect somebody disrespectable is contrary to reason and offensive to logic.

“A trusted and respected government finds it easy to govern effectively to make the citizens abide by its proposed agenda. While competence in governance is a basic requirement for those in fact governing, the confidence and deference on the part of those governed are no less demanded and invaluable—under pain of constant and consistent challenges they throw on the lap of their governors.”
One thing that may have continued to erode the bishop’s (and the people’s) trust in the government may have been the campaign against the illegal numbers game jueteng. For months, jueteng operations stopped as the archbishop relentlessly opposed and exposed people benefiting from it.
 
But alas, when it was clear that the bishop could not send anybody to jail because of jueteng, when it was clear that that kobradores and other jueteng workers could not be given an alternative livelihood, the illegal numbers game returned with a vengeance.

Despite this, despite the perception that he’s been left out in the cold by those who used to support him, despite the perception that his is just one voice in the wilderness, Archbishop Cruz is far from stopping in his crusade.
 
He said: “The question is not who will last but who will last longer—the challenging citizens or the challenged government? In answering this question, a good reminder comes to mind: governments come and go. The governed remain—always! Only fools could even think otherwise.”
 
As man of God, there is no doubt that the bishop believes in the triumph of good over evil.