Look who's talking

News that Catholic bishops have been receiving money from PAGCOR actually made me laugh. I don’t know which one’s more, should I say, laughable: Catholic church cleansing gambling money or Ephraim Genuino giving money to the Church all this time and not bothering to use this during his own days of disgrace.

What do you know? Philippine politics never fail to amuse me. What better time to have such juicy information leak to the media than after Pangasinan Archbishop Cruz’s high-strung jueteng expose. How lovely.

If jueteng money went to Erap and Chavit and allegedly to Mike and Mikey, casino money we understand goes to Cardinal Vidal and Archbishop Capalla. And apparently, there’s a big difference between the two. Politicans bagging money from local gambling lords is plunder and a capital offense while priests accepting money from the gambling behemoth is charity. There’s also an expanse of difference between poor people betting anywhere between P1 and P10 and the rich who win and lose hundreds of thousands. To begin with, the former is illegal while the latter is legal and even government-commissioned.

If indeed there is nothing wrong with receiving gambling money as donation for the poor, howcome Church leaders now claim they no longer receive gifts from PAGCOR since January of 2004. Is it because jueteng lords give even bigger amounts or Mr. Genuino has been using his funds paying P1M a night hotel suites.

The Church has never been this fragmented. On one side you have CBCP statement choosing a truth commission over the President’s resignation and Fr. Robert Reyes on the other side practicing voodoo in the halls of Congress. Now you have Cardinal Vidal saying there’s nothing wrong about receiving money from gambling so long as it goes to the poor and Archbishop Cruz saying the end doesn’t justify the means, it’s supposed to be elementary morality. No wonder Archbishop Cruz has been running a one-man crusade. Above all these there’s Pope Benedict XVI calling Church leaders to steer clear of politics. Please come again?

Hearing and reading about politicians bickering has become so ordinary I no longer take note who says what. But having our pillar of values and guard of morals crumble like this over something like gambling certainly made me fidget.

Money really makes the world go round.