“To follow Christ means to resist against corrupt and unjust”
It seems that the president is trying to appear holier than thou in this season of lent. Be it with his Ash Wednesday message last February to that of the recent Palm Sunday, Bongbong Marcos is trying to appeal to the people using their Christian faith, such as a call “to know Jesus Christ more” and to “better agents of change and conveyors of truth wherever we go.”
He sounds almost Christian in his encouragement to people to reflect, if not rethink. But the realities of seeing the corrupt and oppressive within the rotten order make the concerned wonder if the president's message really affected him and his cabal—especially after not accepting responsibility for the bloody killings of drug war victims and activists, if not seeing his predecessor Duterte who left a legacy of huge foreign debt amounting to 13 trillion pesos, a $1.6 billion balance of payment deficit, and wholesale corruption. What's more, Bongbong Marcos appears to be sticking to the same neoliberal model for the benefit of the US-China imperialist masters while claiming to as patriotic as what his supporters insist about.
Sorry if this note turns out to be less of a call for Christian greatness and more of a criticism against the order whose head urges to follow Christ; but his call for reflection doesn’t stop the corrupt from being corrupt, from oppressor from being oppressive. They would claim themselves as Christian as other Christians, but this doesn’t diminish the fact that they’re corrupt and oppressive. Until when people realise that to see corrupt and oppressive leader and followers prevail over that of the good? To seek truth, to serve people, in pursuit of following Christ is a commitment that makes one after another renew their faith despite hardship be it spiritual or societal.
And although true that this season of Lent urges the folk to inspire by Christ’s love in order to endure and faithfully continue service to others, following Christ means to seek truth from facts, to expose and to oppose the wrongs, of serving wholeheartedly to the people, and to fight and build a just society as what the Lord intended.
After all, right is the canticle is taken from the Gospel of Luke (1:46–55), that:
“He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.”