Filipinos should vote with discernment in the May 13 midterm elections and pick candidates who “stand for human life,” Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo said Saturday.
Pabillo said the “people power and prayer power” the participants displayed during the Walk for Life 2019 event in Quezon City would “translate into vote power.”
One criteria we should have in choosing our candidates are persons who stand on solid principles,” the bishop said on the sidelines of the “Walk” at the Quezon City Memorial Circle.
Candidates who support the death penalty, the lowering of the minimum age of criminal liability, and those who are “mere sycophants of those in power positions” should not be elected, Pabillo pleaded with the public.
The Catholic Church is not telling the people who to vote for, the bishop explained, but is only giving guidelines on the “character and values” of candidates who deserve Filipinos’ votes.
“Its not our place as a hierarchy to tell people who to vote. We only express the qualities we should look for in candidates. But the laity can put any name they want on the ballot. It’s their responsibility,” Pabillo said.
The Walk for Life is an annual event spearheaded by the Catholic Church to remind the faithful of their duty to uphold and nurture life, which is being threatened “by the creeping culture of death.”
Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle appealed to the public to promote life in his homily at the Eucharistic celebration during the event, saying it is a gift from God that must be protected.
Tagle again condemned “extrajudicial killings” and reminded everyone to respect women who deliver life to this world.
Pabillo added that President Rodrigo Duterte is “gravely mistaken” in assuming the Church is against the people in his administration.
“What the Church people are up against are the means by which the government implements its policies,” the bishop said.
He also denounced the Duterte’s statement in a recent PDP-Laban political rally where he encouraged the crowd “to rob bishops because they are rich and kill them if they resisted.”