The Bible-quoting Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano once introduced himself as “an ambassador of the Lord Jesus Christ,” eliciting unpleasant reactions from some advocates of human rights.
Cayetano, a born-again Christian, said he wasn’t imposing such a description on anyone, adding it was a “personal code,” even as he kept referencing biblical teachings.
But it seemed inappropriate for the occasion — a legislative inquiry on the March 11 arrest of former president Rodrigo Duterte and his eventual turnover to the International Criminal Court at The Hague, the Netherlands.
“More than being Alan Cayetano, or a senator, a former secretary of foreign affairs, a former speaker or congressman, I believe I am an ambassador of the Lord Jesus Christ,” he said during the March 20 hearing of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, chaired by Sen. Imee Marcos.
This came to mind after Cayetano dared Filipinos to prove their commitment to human rights and compassion by supporting his call for Duterte to be placed under house arrest at The Hague, where he awaits trial for crimes against humanity.
“We have to examine our heart … Are we compassionate as a people?” he said on his program “CIA (Cayetano In Action) 365 with Kuya Alan” livestreamed on Facebook on Saturday, July 12. He discussed the resolution he filed earlier, urging the Marcos government to advocate before the ICC for the interim release of Duterte, proposing that he be placed under a form of house arrest in the premises of the Philippine Embassy in The Hague while awaiting trial.
While Cayetano is correct in saying that Filipinos are a deeply compassionate people, compassion can be twisted in a way that undermines its true purpose or used as a tool to manipulate emotions.
We know where Cayetano is coming from. He owes much of his political positions to Duterte. The former mayor of Davao City chose him as his vice presidential running mate in the 2016 national elections. When he lost in the race to Leni Robredo, Cayetano was appointed to the Cabinet as foreign affairs secretary in 2017, right after the one-year ban on appointments for defeated candidates lapsed.
After Cayetano ran and won in 2019 to reclaim his congressional seat in Taguig, Duterte favored him to become speaker of the House over Lord Allan Velasco of Marinduque, on the condition that there would be term-sharing, meaning, each would serve for one and a half years.
While he was speaker of the House, Duterte allowed him to chair the Philippine Southeast Asian Games Organizing Committee, a private entity tasked to organize the 2019 SEA Games. PHISGOC had a budget of P6 billion. Cayetano had to defend the P50-million cauldron for the SEA Games that became controversial. He justified it as a “symbol of the games” and a “work of art” designed by the late Francisco “Bobby” Mañosa, a national artist for architecture.
It is thus not surprising for Cayetano to move heaven and earth to defend and ensure that the 80-year-old Duterte lives a comfortable life in his twilight years.
In the livestreamed program with showbiz host Boy Abunda, Cayetano argued that true compassion should be applied to those we love and even those we despise as a people.
“If we’re only compassionate sa mga mahal natin, pero d’un sa mga taong galit tayo (to those we love but to those we’re mad at) we’re not compassionate, then we’re not compassionate,” he said. “When we say that we want justice, that goes both ways. Ganoon din ‘pag sinasabi nating tayo ay maka-human rights (It’s the same when we say we’re pro-human rights),” he added.
Abunda, known in the entertainment industry as “King of Talk,” should have shown Cayetano his “magic mirror” to reflect on his life and his contradictory messages, often invoking biblical passages.
How was his defense of Duterte’s brutal drug war that saw thousands of killings without due process justified by his religious pretensions? He did not just defend Duterte’s drug war. He even invoked the name of God to justify his position.
Why would he not believe Duterte’s repeated admissions that he had ordered the killings and personally carried out some as part of his bloody drug war?
Cayetano said Duterte deserves an interim release and house arrest, citing an accused individual’s right to good health, dignity and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.
But what about those killed, including young children who were once labeled as collateral damage by Sen. Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa, in the course of the drug war?
Indeed, Filipinos hold a strong tradition of respect and compassion for the elderly, but it’s another story when the elderly is one who did not show compassion for the victims of his warped policies and dirty mouth.
We should know the difference between genuine and corrupted compassion. Genuine compassion refers to selfless concern for another person’s well-being; corrupted compassion is often self-serving or leads to negative consequences.
Filing a bill or resolution promoting Filipino values does not make one an ambassador of the Lord Jesus Christ.
As Bishop Antonio Ablon of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente said in an article last March, Cayetano’s claim “is not just blasphemy; it is the peak of hypocrisy.”
“Cayetano does not represent the gospel of love and justice. Instead, he uses God’s name to whitewash the crimes of those in power,” added Ablon, a human rights fighter who has been granted asylum in Germany and is presently a chaplain in Stuttgart.
The views in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of VERA Files.
This column also appeared in The Manila Times.
