There is a need to state and distinguish two realities: Duterte as a person and as an elected President who has to be respected and understood especially that has some alleged his bad psychological state. And a distinction: One thing is to post against his persona and another thing is to go against the extrajudicial killings as a way of maintening and prolonging his governance.

The president’s admission of Death Squads in Davao and his allegorical statements on his willingness to kill three million drug addicts and pushers alarmed not only concerned Filipinos here in the country but also civilized persons and government leaders abroad. Perhaps an apology could diminish the impact of his previous statements recorded well on social and mass media, but granting his unstable and flip-floppping, words, while others would just smile, some would worry about the effects of this words especially to the police which seem to be encouraged by his words to kill.

He even asked for an extention, “Even if I wanted to, I cannot kill them all,” he admitted as he recently asked the nation for another six months to fulfill his promise of a drug-free and a crime-free Philippines. When will all of this killing end? It will not. In fact already at this time some opines that it is a rationale to stay in power.

It is in this killings that the Church as a whole, i,e., the People of God, including the bishops, priests and the lay faithful alike, who believes in the sanctity of human life and God’s mercy, is challenged to do the prophetic role and denounce it as baptized persons. Catch words like “healing not killing” “Thou shall not kill” seem to be slowly if not hardly accepted by the president’s supporters. Anyway the victims of drug addicts are also human lives, they say and it is for the common good. On the other had there are actions of some clerics on offering sanctuary and immunity in their is parishes. Moreover drug rehabilitation seems to be more encouraged and placed in motion within the church.

Why are some clerics seem afraid to be vocal in the Internet? Let me state some reasons, though not pretending to be the only and absolute ones.

First: Not very many priests are tech savvy, if they are they are afraid of trolls. Not everybody has the oppurtunity of internet an connection since many could be assigned in far flung mountainous parishes. But they know that killing innocents are wrong and would even shun death penalty.

Granting that many of them have social accounts, the first obvious reason why they seem to shy say something against killings is: they could have an unfounded and unreasonable fear of trolls. There is a new phenomenon of trolls used during the elections but continue to do so. In fact some says that the church is already being attacked due to these trolls. Well, who believes in these trolls? They have already lost the battle. But the neophytes in the internet and clerics who are usually more accustomed to be praised by their flock, seem to be afraid of them.

Second: Some priests voted for the president. Many catholics including priests have been instrumental to the the president’s victory. The right of suffrage has to be respected but inevitable division was created between the honest critics of the president and these voters who are still attached in a a sense to the persona of the president. This created the impression of a divided church: division between his loyal subjects and his most vocal critics among the Catholic themselves.

But this is not now the issue. The sanctity of life as a God-given should be the front liner of a moral choice. This seem to be relegated to the background in favor of the persona of our president. He shakes the foundation of this choice of well meaning Catholics – God, and indirectly attacks the moral stance of some clerics. In effect the source of life Himself is left in the sidelines.

All the more, if the persona, his promises, his “sincerity” etc is given priority, rather than the person of Jesus, the church seem to be divided among its members into either “defenders” or “attackers”. This created in the mind of Filipinos a division and the diminution of the Church influence.

In fact this seeming division becomes a necessary result if the church members leaves behind God and place more in evidence the rationalizations of their defensive and offensive stance against the President’s persona. On the one hand, there is the stance based on the moral principles against murder espoused by the critics and on another, a stand based on the attachment to the persona as espoused by his supporters who voted him to victory. This could go nowhere and further weaken and divide the church. Someone with an evil intent against the church could already lurking in the shadows and could patronize this division in order to destroy the church.

As one friend wrote: “Virtually no one points to or remind us of Jesus Christ and that all his teachings are our prior principles of living. None except our shepherds, individually and collectively as CBCP. And their voice is being met with a thunderous silence all over our islands.” Why? Perhaps it is because some Christians have relegated God and pointed their attention apart from Him towards power, influence and more rationalizations to defend the persona rather than the ideals of service in true governance for the people, by the people and of the people through justice and peace.

Third: The disgust and frustration of some clerics and Catholics from the previous governments and an overzealous, unrealistic hope of this present one to succeed at all costs. Though many have discovered that they have voted for the wrong president, some would still cling to a “hope against hope.” This is something not totally bad. “Baka Lang sakali “change would come”. This is even capitalized by the present president. So this division expresses itself from a deep false moral permissiveness unreasonably hoping for a better nation. Again, this side tracks the present issue: an immoral command for an immoral action of killing to a seeming innate often frustrated desire for a better society which is not rooted on what is right and wrong. The other priests in the other hand, are also hoping for the good of the nation but it is based on the principle that any development could not be attained without the respect of the dignity and the life of each human being.

Fourth: some clerics succumb to a cynicism that shrinks the noble desire to approve and proclaim what is right because doing what is right did not solve social problems in the past, as opposed to doing what is amoral that seems to work, expedient and seems to be necessary for the present state of affairs. Unconsciously it states that a short term solution even though immoral (killing) could have immediate good effect (even though the means is immoral) than to have a moral solution but does not have an immediate good effect. This basically sums up the moral stance of the president and his loyal followers and this where the church, confronted by the real killings should make a moral stand.

Fifth: Fear against the president himself who does not relish real opposition, and his constant challenge to debate his critics and lecture them on their own not-so-savory secrets which intimidate church people to silence.

Sixth: Lack of real witnessing and prophetism. “In the hierarchy it is everybody’s knowledge that some are the king’s friends and followers; still others, just by-the-sidelines watchers, ” even 71 percent of Filipinos disapprove of killing the suspects during arrests, and sixty percent of the voters, i.e., the majority, did not vote for the president.

People of good will ask: do the church leaders guide the lives of its members to the Absolute? Do we need to be reminded? Vanity of Vanities, all things are passing away, only God remains. It is always good to base our decisions on this absolute that does not pass away rather than the seeming immediate good that passes away like smoke . “Sit transit mundi glorae”. The glory of this world is passing.

Unless all members of the church realize that we belong primarily to the city of God and secondarily to the city of man, though we are in this world and not if this world, the divisions and seeming fear of the priests and laity would create more distance from one another and further divide the church from within. Our God is not a God of war and division. Unless we learn to say that we have one Father and unless have learned how to love and become one family including both with the victims and victimizers, the church would always be taunted to be fearful and divided.

But it is precisely when the church seems to be weak, in front of real evil, that it becomes strong. Have courage then as Jesus would say now, do not be afraid!