Homily Delivered by His Excellency
Most Rev. Socrates B. Villegas

at the Thanksgiving Mass of K1230
on July 25, 2003, at 3:00 p.m.
at the Mary Queen of Peace,
Our Lady of Edsa Shrine.

Your Excellency President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Former President Fidel Ramos, Former President Corazon Cojuangco Aquino, members of the Cabinet, government officials, my dear friends,

Today we celebrate the feast of St. James, the apostle, also known as St. James the Great. According to the Scriptures, St. James was the son of Zebedee and the brother of John. James and John were called by Jesus Christ to follow him while he came upon them by the seashore where they were set to fish. Zebedee and his sons were fishermen.

This date holds a special significance for me because two years ago this day, my appointment as bishop was publicly announced by the Holy Father at the Vatican. We might say that the Lord also called me in a special way that day, for the office of bishop is, first and foremost, a calling to greater service.

Today as we honor St. James, we also gather in thanksgiving for God’s many blessings to our country and people. It may seem a strange time to do so because our country continues to be beset by adversities, not the least of which had been the devastating storm, which only very recently cut a swath of destruction across almost our entire archipelago. And thus we also take this occasion to offer prayers for those who had been severely affected by this calamity. We pray that help may soon come their way so they can begin to rebuild their lives, their homes, and their communities.

There have been developments in our country the past weeks, which really give us reasons to be glad and which bode well for the many who have labored and have suffered all these years.

Two landmark decisions by the Supreme Court have effectively given the Filipino people the fruits of their peaceful revolution in 1986 at this very ground. First was the ruling that the disputed coco levy funds would now be returned to the coconut farmers from whom they were taken in the first place.

Second is the release of the Marcos billions discovered in a bank in Switzerland and which have been held in escrow at the Philippine National Bank.

With these two decisions it would seem as if the Filipino people have won in the lottery, except that it was not luck that we have invested but our lives and our freedom.

Why is there no dancing in the streets then for these recovered fortunes? Maybe it is because many of us have become skeptical of our government system, and have deemed it wiser not to put too much faith in decisions that can as easily be thwarted by some manipulations, political or otherwise.

These two decisions are victories in the fight against corruption, true. But the fight had been long and bruising and oftentimes there was really no victory in sight. We have almost resigned our fate to the fact that nothing may come out of government’s efforts to recover all these wealth, which had been accumulated by Marcos and his cronies in the heyday of the dictatorship, at the expense of true progress for our country.

We toppled that dictatorship, true, right in this very place, where we had mounted a peaceful revolution. Then we faced the threat of tanks and military action and bravely stood our ground for the future of our children. That never again would a dictator hold sway over us. That never again would we let our rights be trampled upon, our country’s wealth despoiled, our future sold to indebtedness.

The fruits of our peaceful revolution have been very long in coming. It is as if we had planted a barren tree. But today we celebrate because finally the tree is bearing fruits, which we hope will be merely the first of many fruits in the days to come.

Still I understand why our joy is guarded because the evil of corruption continues to reside in our midst. It has infected our way of life, damaging our culture and toppling our hierarchy of values.

Early this month we, the bishops of the Philippines once more brought attention to evil of corruption. It was an unpleasant task for us because the bishops had been on that road before. Fourteen years ago the bishops issued an incisive pastoral letter that pointed out in detail the evil of corruption and how it could be fought and eradicated. It would seem as if nothing has changed.

The money involved in corruption is staggering—millions, billions of pesos that could have otherwise gone to productive endeavors that would improve the lives of all Filipinos but more especially the poor. These are millions of money that could have bought books and built schools for our children, that could have provided for health services for the sick. These are millions of money that could have drawn young people away from the deadly lure of drugs and other addictions.

That is the evil of corruption. It is thievery. It is stealing. It robs a nation of its future and throws it in the quicksand of moral depravation.

Sometimes we think that corruption is not all that bad because it is already a part of our life. But it is precisely this desensitization to its evils that is allowing the monster to grow in our midst.

It is not too late, however, and the victories we celebrate today are proof of what vigilance and concerted effort can do to win against corruption.  A vigilant citizenry—one that is ready to mass in the streets in a peaceful way to make its will known—is the biggest deterrent to the spread of corruption. This should be coupled with the determined efforts of government to be rid of corruption. 

Let us not allow that our children should even be exposed to the smallest form of corruption. Let us not allow that our children even think that corruption has its rewards. Our lives must always bear to the truth that not a single good could come out of corruption. Once we are convinced of that there should be no room for corruption in our homes, in our offices, in our communities, in our country, and in the world.

How do we do it? As I am wont to say, “How do you eat an elephant?” How else, but piece by piece. We must remove corruption piece by piece. We must starve it to death, until it could no longer find a home anywhere, anyplace, anytime. Not in our hearts, not in our system of values, not in our way of life.

My dear friends, we celebrate today our victories against corruption. But these are really victories for our suffering poor. It is our hope that the government will make good its promise of using these funds to help our poor people—the farmers, the victims of repression and oppression, the marginalized.

While we laud government for these developments we exhort it also to work more, to be more resolute and determined, to be more bold and daring, in totally eradicating corruption in our midst.

This brings us once more to St. James. This apostle was a simple man, a fisherman, and an all too-human disciple. He wanted to rise above his ranks. And he did not demure—maybe he even encouraged her—when his mother did some influence peddling with the Lord. His mother had boldly asked Jesus to let her sons to each sit beside him, one at his left, and the other at his right. 

Jesus did not embarrass her by rejecting her outright. Instead the Lord challenged her that whoever occupies these positions must be ready to endure the sufferings that they entail.

Indeed, James would realize what the Lord’s words meant when he continued on to be an apostle of great commitment and passion. But James the Great, with courage and fortitude, fulfilled his mission to the very end dying a martyr for the faith.

That is the challenge we face today. That like St. James we will not back down from our commitment to fight corruption, repression, oppression. Like St. James we would be willing even to lay our lives on the line in order to make good triumph.

 Indeed this is a good day to thank the Lord because we are truly blessed. He has given us the fruits of our peaceful revolution here at Edsa. He has showered us with the means to improve the lives of the poor. We stand here on holy ground today to recommit ourselves to those ideals. This shrine is the monument to remind us that we should never, ever again allow our people to be robbed of their future through corruption, that we should never, ever again allow ourselves be enslaved by dictatorship, that we should never, ever again compromise our moral principles and values.

Let us ask St. James to help us in our efforts to be strong and committed. We know that through the intercession of Our Blessed Mother, our Queen of Peace, to her Son, Jesus, our Prince of Peace, God will reward our good works with good fruits, and shower abundant blessings to our land and our people.