Brothers and sisters, whoever may have caused pain in our hearts or had become our reason for anger and frustration, we must not wish them to be hurt, to catch illness, or to pass away. For us Christians, Jesus is our greatest example of this characteristic. When He was crucified, Jesus did not wish His Father to punish the people behind His suffering. Instead, He prayed for them because, like what is said in the book of Luke 23:24,” Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” In the first part of the evangelism of St. Luke 6:31, we are reminded to “do to others as you would have them do to you.”
This past week, there was news about our fellowmen who posted ill jokes about our President. There was one teacher who offered P50 million to anyone who will kill President Duterte, a joke brought by his anger about the closing of a certain TV station. He was merely matching up the P50 million offered by the President to anyone who could discover the vaccine against the coronavirus. When the police took him, he cried asking for forgiveness from the President. After this, a construction worker who was also a habal-habal driver claimed he would give P100 million for the life of the President. He was also taken in by the police and was sued for inciting to sedition related to the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012.
On one hand, there are a lot of questions revolving around the arrests of these two men, especially the teacher because the police did not present a warrant of arrest. Let us remember that one of the opportunities in allowing warrantless arrests is if the person is caught in the act during a crime. What is worrying is, even the Department of Justice has said that it wasn’t wrong to arrest the teacher even without a warrant. In the case of the teacher, the police publicized the teacher being forced to admit his mistake without a lawyer accompanying him. This is a violation of due process. We must be vigilant not to let this crooked interpretation of the law to pass because our freedom is at stake.
On the other hand, we too must avoid irresponsible use of our freedom of expression, such as threatening the lives of our fellow people, even jokingly. This is not only a reminder to over 40 million netizens in our country, but to our leaders who use their power to threaten the lives of others. It is difficult to consider expressing opinion or sharing comments on the shortcomings of our leaders and jokingly have them killed or wish for them to lose their lives. However severe our anger toward the people who did us wrong, or even created things against our interest, it is not good to intend to harm them for their deeds.
In a General Audience held in February, Pope Francis focused on the words of Jesus in the book of Matthew 5:5, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the Earth.” Reminders from the Pope, those who have humility avoid cruelty—cruelty that can reflect from our words—and stop anger from overcoming their hearts. Anger is the opposite of humility, and this destroys many things if not controlled. The Pope added, “Meekness unites, anger divides.”
Brothers and sisters, we must not allow lawmakers to abuse us, but we must also remember that there are responsibilities accompanying our rights.
Make it a habit to listen to Radio Veritas 846 Ang Radyo ng Simbahan in the AM band, or through
live streaming at www.veritas846.ph, and follow its Twitter and Instagram accounts @veritasph, and YouTube at veritas846.ph. For your comments, e-mail veritas846pr@gmail.com.