If there is another moment in Philippine history when despair threatens the majority of Filipinos, it is today. The plight of the very poor has not been eased with the touted growth rate of our economy. By a strange twist of fate, in the context of an economy called robust, the moderately poor are descending at an alarming rate and closing in on the poorest of the poor. Gasoline at P60 a liter is like a sledge hammer to the head of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and pricks Gloria's economic bubble.

When rice prices have spun out of control and at least tripled, the moderately poor fear they will soon join the ranks of the food-poor. When oil prices have doubled, and do not appear ready to stay put, most Filipinos have again become poor. Rice and oil prices sweep away the euphoria that national government tried to promote over an economy that it claims is the best in decades. As more and more claims to this economic boom are made, including the latest boast made when a wasteful entourage joined a presidential trip to the US, more Filipinos are battered by their inability to make ends meet.

Who can blame Gloria for the way oil and rice prices are bringing the majority of Filipinos to their knees? Who can blame Gloria for malevolent Typhoon “Frank” and the devastation it inflicted on so many? Who can blame Gloria for the tragedy of a capsized passenger ship and deaths in numbers that will climb to several hundreds? None of these were her making. Yet, the poor will blame her. Those who are becoming poor will blame her. The calamity victims will blame her. Her political enemies will blame her. The only one who will not blame Gloria is herself and those she has appointed or somehow enriched through favors.

Where she has little or no fault, most will nonetheless blame her. Many had blamed her for wrongdoings of which she might be guilty but they did not succeed in convincing Filipinos to remove her. Now that she has little to do with the steep climb in the prices of oil and rice, she will get the brunt of people's discontent and people's distrust. I know there will be those who call this karma—that what man could not do to her, acts of God, or force majeure, will. They may be proven wrong, but they are very right in saying that the feeling is more universal than it has ever been.

The Catholic Church hierarchy has just apologized for removing former president Joseph Estrada within a context of a very unpopular president and government. This helps make the church unpopular as well. Now that the corruption rating of the Philippines is at its worst in history, the church regrets the change of government. Members of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) appear to believe that changing a president accused, and later convicted, of plunder was wrong. It may be that the church hierarchy truly believes in its stand. What weakens them is their propensity to accept donations from the gambling corporation of the government. There is also much talk that several bishops have been beneficiaries of largesse from Gloria, and people assume the lack of direct criticism by the bishops against the most corrupt government of Asia is connected to donations received.

When the Pope visits the United States, where abortion is legal, where gay marriages are legal, where the production of products and medicine considered anti-life by the church is legal, when even unjust wars opposed by the church are legal, a Filipino bishop criticizes a noble work for the poor, the same poor that the same church cannot rescue from centuries of suffering, for accepting donations from a firm producing what the church calls anti life medicine. Yet, the most known social arm of the church in the Philippines advertises its gratitude for donations given to it by the same firm. Furthermore, the Pope engages a nation aggressively promoting or allowing what the church deems as anti life. One can only surmise that he sees engagement even of sinners as more transformative and salvific than a policy of condemnation.

The timing of the CBCP statement apologizing for removing Estrada is quite bad as well. Not too long ago, it has issued a statement condemning the cancer of corruption. Then, it says sorry for removing a president accused of corruption and plunder. Almost following that statement is an exhortation by Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, for Christians to engage in politics in order to build up a society worthy of man. I suspect that if a survey is taken to measure the credibility of the CBCP in the view of Filipinos, the CBCP will be happy that the government or Gloria is there so the bishops will not look as bad.

The separation of State and Church has no more great meaning in a country where both state and church have utterly failed their citizens and flock. I was reminded by a fellow Filipino about the complete absence of a Filipino saint who was a member of the clergy after more than four centuries of Catholicism. It had to be a sacristan to earn the first sainthood for Filipinos, not a priest or bishop. This is upwardly indication about the manifest holiness, or lack of it, among the clergy, that after more than four centuries, not one of them has been sanctified.

The glaring absence of politicians who are deemed role models for morality, integrity and statesmanship mirrors the lack of saints among the Filipino clergy. With government being distrusted by the very people who voted many of the officials in, it can be surmised that the votes were half-heartedly given, or financially influenced. Else, how can a government sink so low before the eyes of Filipinos who themselves voted the leaders into office?

The desire to leave the Philippines among students who should be thinking of how to build their lives and families in the homeland can be the most painful measure of the despair Filipinos now feel. How can a multi-talented people all want to be nurses? Yet, there is hardly any decent delivery of health services to the majority of Filipinos.

What is the difference between colonialism then and democracy now? The many are not more hopeful, and a few are not less greedy. What is the difference between superstition and religion? There is no real faith in Christ's mission of bringing glad tidings to the poor where poverty defines society. What is the difference between preaching and living one's faith? None when prayer without good works is considered compliance.

We need role models who can show us the difference between good and evil, between exploitation and empowerment, between simply believing and living one's belief, between greed and generosity, between hypocrisy and honesty. There are none who stand out from government, none who stand out from the hierarchy of the church.

It might be a message to us as Filipinos and as Christians, that there should not be any middlemen between us and higher ethics, between us and God.

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