When he turned 84 last Feb. 6, Ricardo Cardinal Vidal was asked by Cebu reporters what he thought of calls for President Aquino to resign over the Mamasapano tragedy.
Vidal said he was disappointed when Aquino didn’t condemn what happened but the prelate avoided taking a stand on ouster moves.
“I have no reason to say yes or no. I’m no longer in office,” said the retired archbishop. He spoke of “overwhelming gratitude for God’s gift of life” in his birthday Mass after being hospitalized in October.
A week later on Feb. 13, the cardinal caused a national tempest in a second birthday celebration at his residence.
Why did the good cardinal abandon his usual caution by reading a statement of the National Transformation Council (NTC), whose goal to unseat the President is a well-known agenda?
Whatever was his intention is lost in the uproar that followed. Only words and actions can be weighed.
All Cebu dailies correctly reported that Vidal had added his voice to the call for President Aquino to step down. The meaning was patently clear in his choice to read in the full glare of a media spotlight , the NTC statement where he identified himself with the movement saying “We, bishops of the Catholic and other Christian churches…”(The group refers to him as their “chairman”; he doesn’t object to the title.)
Local reporters, who know Vidal’s accommodating nature, saw how a copy of the speech was provided by NTC principals, including out-of-town bishops who spoke loudly about their dissatisfaction with Aquino.
They also know Vidal’s health is frail, and that the visitors had a clear purpose to magnify their position with the voice of a well-respected Cebu prelate.
This is why reporters asked Vidal four times afterward whether he was, in fact, calling for the resignation of Aquino. The cardinal again would not say ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
“I’ve already retired… (but) it’s in the first sentence. It’s very clear there,” he replied. That first sentence begins: “Various assemblies convened by the National Transformation Council strongly advocated that the President shold step down.”
If Vidal was used by the NTC to advance its cause, he allowed it.
In October 1 last year, he did a similar favor for the group by addressing their national assembly in Cebu City. He repeated the NTC’s belief that President Aquino “has lost the moral right to lead the nation.” When Vidal got flak for that, he denied signing any declaration or making a direct call.
This time, Vidal miscalculated the backlash. No clever phrasing of his prepared statement can distance him from the NTC’s agenda. For this, he’s taking a public beating that nobody wishes upon a retired shepherd who’s still weak from a bout with pneumonia (Vidal breathes with an oxygen tube when he sleeps an night).
By now he’s realized that the same statement, posted on the NTC Facebook, has been embellished. Entire paragraphs were added that Vidal did not speak at all .
Even the presence of Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma by his side, an unsuspecting birthday guest, was a source of confusion.
Perhaps the bigger regret is not that Vidal took a stand to criticize President Aquino but that he placed his trust in a group that seeks “moral reforms” in the nation yet thinks little of exposing Vidal, with his advanced age and uncertain health, to the grief of being misrepresented.
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