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The power of the meek

by Eleanor R. Dionisio
Philippine Daily Inquirer
July 22, 2010

THE DAY after Bishop Francisco F. Claver, S.J. was laid to rest under a grieving sky, I brushed the dust off a collection of essays he had written as bishop of Malaybalay in the 1970s. Titled “The Stones Will Cry Out,” the book assembles the best of the weekly pastoral letters that were read in the prelature’s parishes after the military had shut down its radio station and newsletter in 1975.

One letter, “The Violence of the Meek,” spoke of civil disobedience as a Christian response to structural and state violence. The bishop suggested that violating the unjust laws of the dictatorship was a moral duty. Disobeying the mandatory voting law, the strike ban in “vital” industries, the laws banning public criticism of government—these were ways to wield the violence of the meek.

It struck me, as I read the essay, how different (and how fortunate) the times are in which we now live, when the President’s vow to obey traffic laws becomes the most talked-about policy statement of his administration’s first week of existence. How different, too, the moral duties of citizenship. Activist minstrel Noel Cabangon, singing at President Benigno Aquino III’s inauguration, defined a patriot as a rule follower: “Ako’y isang mabuting Pilipino. Minamahal ko ang bayan ko. Tinutupad ko ang aking mga tungkulin. Sinusunod ko ang kanyang mga alituntin.”

It sounds almost like an early martial law mantra: “Sa ikauunlad ng bayan, disiplina ang kailangan.” But in our poorly constituted democracy, with its elusive rule of law, Cabangon’s call to be law-abiding is a call to resistance, just as was Bishop Claver’s call to disobey a dictatorship. When most people—from bureaucrats and legislators, to street vendors and jeepney drivers, to professionals and entrepreneurs—break rules at the slightest inconvenience, obeying the most mundane rules is an act of defiance.

So perhaps there is some wisdom in our droll enthusiasm for President Aquino’s commitment not to use sirens or go against traffic even when he is in a hurry to keep appointments. And when his two eldest sisters recently declined, with their signature quiet grace, an invitation from immigration officials to jump the departure line at the airport named for their father, cheers would not have been misplaced.

Bishop Claver also understood that in a fragile democracy, the moral challenge is to keep just laws, and to confront those who do not. He understood that this challenge can require no less courage than the challenge to disobey, especially when the law breakers are those given power to enforce laws. He understood that such courage is built up through small acts of defiance.

As bishop of Bontoc-Lagawe in the late 1990s, he encouraged his diocese’s Basic Ecclesial Communities to take on local problems with government corruption. In his last book, “The Making of a Local Church,” he wrote: “They go after the corruption they see happening right where they are. Petty corruption, they know. But they also know corruption is like a web. They are at the fringes of the web, but those fringes are ultimately connected with a center. Weakening the fringes will sooner or later have an effect on the center…. And where the people have persisted, we see some change taking place.”

This passage captures the bishop’s conviction that, in a democracy or against a dictatorship, power can spring from the meek. By small acts of defiance, we can change ourselves, our communities, our churches, and ultimately our society.

It was such small acts that wore down the dictatorship. It was such small acts that built up the courage with which hundreds of thousands massed at Edsa in 1986, in one final act of collective disobedience. Some drew strength for that act from the Catholic hierarchy’s pastoral statement which declared Ferdinand Marcos’ rule devoid of moral legitimacy, and therefor undeserving of our obedience. The statement was crafted by Bishop Claver.

Perhaps we can draw strength from the bishop’s more recent words as we face the immense task of making democracy work. “Where the people have persisted, we see some change taking place.” The bishop used the image of a web to explain how confronting local corruption can effect such change. “Weakening the fringes will sooner or later have an effect on the center.” If we think of democracy as a web, then the obverse is also true: strengthening the nodes strengthens the center. All of us in our fringes can fortify the web by our small acts of obedience. Declining the invitation to jump the line; observing traffic rules; refusing a bribe; refusing to bribe; calling out those who flout the rules for selfish gain—these are ways to wield the power of the meek. They are also ways we can heighten our awareness of that power, an awareness without which democracy cannot thrive.

Bishop Claver spent his pastoral career fostering that awareness among those entrusted to his care. He and they changed their communities, our Church, the face of our political system. As his casket was borne out of the Loyola House of Studies chapel, the congregation broke into applause. It was a small gesture of thanks to a shepherd who taught us to break rules, and to follow and enforce them, in obedience to the higher laws of the Gospel.

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