Where's The Church?

Pinoy Kasi : Ichthys

Michael Tan opinion@inquirer.com.ph
Inquirer News Service

I GOT my first copy from a Catholic sister. There was no name, just "Various Reports," a compilation of news and feature articles about the Philippines, produced by the Association of Major Religious Superiors of the Philippines (AMRSP).

It actually looked quite dull, page after page of text mimeographed on newsprint, without pictures or photographs. Yet I found myself looking forward to each new issue, packed with all the news that we couldn't find in the daily papers, radio or television.

It was the 1970s and we were under martial law. There was no cable TV then, or Internet, so Marcos' press censorship was fairly effective. Print and broadcast media mainly churned out press releases from government, dull but also infuriating with its fabrication and lying. We had the hallelujah press singing praises to Ferdinand Marcos' New Society, with rosy statistics showing a nation moving forward even as the public coffers were being plundered.

It was also a muzzled press, with a suppression of news that didn't fit into the image of the New Society. Among the news that couldn't quite make it into the papers, radio or television were corruption, "government" (read Marcos') expropriation of private companies, protest rallies, strikes and, of course, torture and salvaging.

Extra-legal

Media people generally toed the line, at least for the first few years of martial law. Looming over their heads was Republic Act 1700, the Anti-Subversion Law, dating back to 1957, prescribing severe penalties for suspected communists. Not satisfied with that law, Marcos issued other decrees penalizing an assortment of "crimes," including rumor-mongering. In 1976, Marcos signed Presidential Decree 885, or the Revised Anti-Subversion Law, which expanded the definitions of subversive activities, including several that could be applied to mass media practitioners.

Despite these anti-subversion laws, there was an active underground press with newspaper names like Ang Bayan and Liberation. The papers were heavy on propaganda, often with fiery rhetoric around the theme of "exposing and opposing the US-Marcos dictatorship" and calling for armed revolt.

"Various Reports" belonged to a different genre, part of what was called an "extra-legal" struggle, neither legal nor illegal. There were a few school papers like Philippine Collegian of the University of the Philippines that tried valiantly to keep people informed and critical but they were always in danger of being closed down.

The AMRSP tried to protect its weekly report, making it clear on the cover that it was intended "For Religious Use." On the inside cover page, an editorial box explained that the articles and reports were intended "for critical analysis and theological reflection of the religious and laymen we serve." That made the newsletter sort of legal, but technically, it could still be considered a subversive document.

Signs of the times

Each issue was about 30 pages long, including several reprinted news articles from banned foreign magazines, as well as dispatches from the Catholic Church's own nationwide network of contacts. To give you an example of what the newsletter carried, the July 3, 1976 issue of Signs of the Times had news on fasting political detainees, military brutality in the province of Bukidnon and an article on the Marcos regime taking over the copra industry. Other issues had articles from prominent theologians, pastoral letters, reflection papers. People knew of Signs and Ichthys, writing the AMRSP about their grievances and appeals for assistance, especially around human rights violations.

The AMRSP newsletter went through several name changes. From "Various Reports" it became Signs of the Times, the name explained in an editorial box: "The various issues regarding our society of today are to be seen in the context of God's ongoing revelation, as signs of the times."

Signs of the Times later became Ichthys, from the Greek "Iesous Christos Theou Huios Soter," or Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior. It also means "fish," a symbol of the early underground Christian Church. A Tagalog edition of Ichthys eventually came out and was called, simply, Isda.

The AMRSP publications weren't political tracts disguised as religious documents. Their approach was simple: Here is the news that you didn't get to read, here are your options as you reflect on the morality of it all. I never found out how many copies were printed but they probably ran into at least a thousand, with a large multiplier effect. There were all kinds of distribution networks and after college, when I worked with the Catholic Church's social action groups, I'd find the newsletter out in the most remote of communities. Remember photocopying wasn't cheap then, so people had to just read and pass on their copies. Perhaps it was as well; without photocopying, people remembered the news in greater detail, and discussed what they read.

Irony

This year's commemoration of martial law reminds me of AMRSP's publications, eliciting a degree of sad nostalgia. In the 1970s, the Catholic bishops were, as today, quite cautious, opting for "critical collaboration" with martial law. But many religious and lay people, especially those working with communities, were quite critical. Many practiced a local version of Latin American liberation theology with its emphasis on reading the signs of the times and responding to issues of justice.

Alas, liberation theology declined, partly because Pope John Paul II cracked the whip on its theologians and seminaries, finding them too far on the left. In fairness, John Paul II did find it appropriate to speak out from time to time against the excesses of right-wing dictatorships such as that of Marcos. The current Pope is said to be much more unwilling to get involved in anything political.

The Anti-Subversion Law was repealed in 1992, so in principle, we have a free press, some even saying it's too free. Yet the never-ending streams of breaking and live news can be deceptive. The Philippines is now the world's most dangerous place for a mass media practitioner, given the number of journalists who have been killed. Meanwhile, the hallelujah press has become more sophisticated, repackaging doctored facts and figures from the government propaganda machine while suppressing the less savory news, from the machinations of the ruling party in Congress to the continuing arrests, disappearances and salvaging of political activists.

The irony is that under martial law, there was more critical moral guidance available from our religious leaders. It was a vibrant Church with AMRSP's weekly newsletter as well as other Catholic and Protestant publications that drew on the lived Christianity of the communities. It was a Church living up to the tradition of Ichthys, followers of Christ, the fisher of men with his vision of a just and moral world.