Philippine Church renews pressure on Marcos

THE CATHOLIC Church in the Philippines has increased pressure on President Marcos to introduce democratic government and step down from political office, said Bishop Morelos y Flores of Butuan in London this week.
Cardinal Jaime Sin, Archbishop of Manila, for long an outspoken critic of the Marcos regime and moral arbiter of opposition movements, has, according to Bishop Morelos, strengthened his position by the invaluable part he played as a peace negotiator following the assassination of opposition leader Mr Benigno Aquino.
Cardinal Sin recently said that the time would come for President Marcos to leave the political scene. in an interview in the Italian Catholic magazine, Famiglia Cristiana, Cardinal Sin said that, by the laws of nature,
the time comes for everyone to leave their positions.
Bishop Morelos said that President Marcos would do well to heed the advice of the country's business community who have urged a return to democracy, and have pointed out that the country's serious economic problems derive as much from a political profile unacceptable to foreign investors as from any problems of market competitiveness.
Bishop Morelos' diocese is on the island of Mindaneo in the most militarised part of the country. Questioned on the likelihood of large scale insurrection, the Bishop said that if President Marcos did not heed the advice of Church and business leaders, people might see no alternative to violence and might be pushed into civil war.
Bishop Morelos' diocese contains the palm oil plantation at Agusun del Sur partly financed by the Commonwealth Development Corporation. The CDC has decided to keep its investment despite controversy over the employment of notorious guerillas as security guards and questions over the probity of resettling Filipino peasants to provide the multinational Gutbrie Corporation with the 20,000 hectare site.