INQUIRER.net Eleksyon 2007

Shall we ignore marital history of candidates?

Inquirer

The recent opinion surveys on senatorial candidates sadden me. Former senator Loren Legarda, Sen. Francisco Pangilinan and Sen. Ralph Recto are faring very well in the senatorial race.

Legarda had a marriage preceding her union with Antonio Leviste. Pangilinan went through a marriage ceremony with Sharon Cuneta, who earlier married Gabby Concepcion and gave birth to KC Concepcion. Recto exchanged marriage vows with Mayor Vilma Santos, former wife of Edu Manzano and mother of Lucky Manzano.

According to the Holy Scripture, “[t]herefore, what God has joined together, let no human being put asunder.” (Mark, 10:9)

The previous marriages of Legarda, Cuneta and Santos were annulled? Yes, but by man’s authority, by force of a Family Code which is full of semantics to conceal that it allows divorce in the Philippines.

One related observation. Our judicial records contain final judgments that the fathers of KC Concepcion and Lucky Manzano were psychologically incapacitated to contract marriage at the very outset. But does anybody care?

Whatever their alibis, the fact is Legarda, Cuneta and Santos disregarded the divine injunction. “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.” (Mark, 10:11-12)

What about their husbands? They are just as guilty.

I grieve over our society’s apparent complacency toward keeping our marriage -- in good times and in bad, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health. Divine retribution intimidates us no more.

The Philippines is 80 percent Christian or Catholic? No, not quite. In fact, with our eyes closed to the marital history of Legarda, Pangilinan and Recto and with all the filth in our government, I say we are a godless nation.

If the three candidates would later face difficult decisions, I have no doubt that they would be guided by personal convenience and self-interest. Never mind KC Concepcion and Lucky Manzano and the two children of Legarda by Leviste.

Permit me, however, to be alone in my self-righteousness and my cynicism.

A journey of a thousand miles, a great man aptly observed, begins with a single step. That single step may well be taken on May 14, 2007, when we fill our ballots up and help restore the sacrament of matrimony to its ordained indissolubility.

EFREN C. CARAG, 4 Lataña St., Tahanan Village, Parañaque City

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