PRAYER IN RESPONSE TO THE WEST PHILIPPINE SEA TENSIONS
An ungentlemanly behavior befitting only for “pirates” is what has characterized the Chinese Naval personnel for ramming and boarding our Philippine Navy inflatable boats to prevent our service men from transferring food and other supplies including firearms to a Philippine territorial outpost in Second Thomas Shoal. After this scuffle, these Chinese personnel likewise seized and damaged our boats with machetes and hammers to which a number of Filipino personnel were wounded, including one who lost his right thumb
As such, we should not only condemn and abhor such illegal and provocative acts but likewise call upon our national government to be more pro-active in addressing such escalation by proportionality without collateral damage. Such proportionality is where humanitarian law and military law meet. The needed course of action should now focus on the balance between achieving the important military advantage vis-a-vis the humanitarian interest in protecting civilians and civilian objects.
Moreover, “bogus” and untruthful claims by the Chinese government on what has transpired does not only add more insult to injury but also distorts the truth in the wider context of misinformation. As such, we stand by our Philippine Navy Personnel and seek to fight duplicity and propaganda with factual narration of these events as shown in all media outlets. We will continue to be on your side as we collectively fight for our sovereignty and sovereign rights to what rightfully belongs to our motherland.
As for the CBCP, when Most Rev. Socrates Villegas, DD (Archbishop of Lingayen-Dagupan) was the president; he once expressed that, “We have no capacity to face the superpowers but we know how to pray. We encourage everybody to pray because we know that the tension in the West Philippine Sea cannot be solved among people only, but through the grace of God. Let’s all pray together. We cannot all go to The Hague, not everybody can patrol the West Philippine Sea, but we can all kneel down and pray because the Lord can hear our prayers”.
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) also has an Oratio Imperata for Peace, which was circulated nationwide. The Oratio Imperata or obligatory prayer is a set of Roman Catholic invocative prayers consisting of a liturgical action and a short, general prayer that bishops may publicly pray when a grave need or calamity occurs. The prayer reads …
O Lord our God, Maker of heaven and earth, the sky and the seas, look kindly on us, your children of the Philippine islands, our home, now beset with tensions over our West Philippine Sea. We pray to you for peace over that part of our islands and waters. We pray that questions over it may be resolved through justice and respect for people’s rights. We pray that no harm may be done to our marine creatures and habitat. We pray that our fellow Filipinos, protecting our islands and seas, be kept safe from natural and manmade disasters. Loving God, you are our wonderful Creator, our generous provider of good things. Send Your Holy Spirit of wisdom and understanding to our leaders, that they may resolve this crisis with courage and in the spirit of dialogue. Help us all to remain faithful to Your Word and obedient to Your will always. This we ask through Christ, Our Lord. Amen.
Just recently, Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas also spearheaded a 50-day rosary campaign beginning June 27, to defend the Philippines from China as tensions rise in the West Philippine Sea. This rosary campaign will run until August 15, the Feast of the Assumption of Mary. In his pastoral letter, Archbishop Villegas cited evidence of “insidious attempts” to trample on “our sacred shores.” Denoting to China, he ascribed these to “a foreign power that governs by an ideology that recognizes no God and keeps all religion and the practice of faith under the heavy heel of its totalitarian boot.”
“Our freedom now stands in a balance. The continued Chinese message on their 10-dash line claim is the provocation. The line, which China said is based on its historic maps, loops as far as 1,500 km (932 miles) south of its Hainan Island and cuts into the EEZs of the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and Vietnam. As such, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague invalidated China’s claims over areas of the South China Sea in 2016. So, our fight for freedom must stand; and like our heroes of the past, we shall prevail” (Atty. Howard M. Calleja).
In 2 Timothy 1:7 scripture says, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” Our Service Men and Women had the physical and moral courage to confront the challenges posed against our nation’s sovereignty? Becoming, and living as patriot of our motherland is not for the fainthearted or the weak. It takes both physical and moral courage. It requires heroic effort. And we won’t let you fight that fight alone. We come along side as compatriots to support and encourage one another.
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