EDITORIAL - Another Church scandal

Everything about ivory is illegal — from extraction, to trading, to possession. But the fact almost never occurs to anyone beholding a religious icon. With presumably too many favors to ask in prayer, it still probably would not register even if told the icon was made of one.

But a supplicant begging for grace or forgiveness in front of an icon is different from the one who owns the icon. The icon owner is expected to know the circumstance of his possession. One such owner in Msgr. Cris Garcia of Cebu.

Garcia is said to figure prominently in an article coming out in the October issue of National Geographic magazine, where he is described as one of the best known collectors of images made of ivory in the Philippines.

Garcia was interviewed for the story and revealed intimate details about the ins and outs of the trade that can only incriminate him as a direct participant in the illegal trade. Worse, others aside from Garcia can be incriminated as well, including Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma.

Palma was quoted in newspaper reports that broke the National Geographic story as having said “I know the issue. I will address it.” That places him squarely as somebody in authority and in the know who heretofore did nothing about the issue.

But religious images made of ivory are not unique to Cebu. Come to think of it, they must be everywhere in this predominantly Catholic country where reverence for these representations of God and other holy figures are well spread out, from churches, to homes, to offices, to vehicles.

It is difficult to paint complicity into the picture. But awareness is a sorry fact in the details and the wonder is how come, given the short distance from awareness to realization, it never occurred to anyone within this swirling circle that something illegal was going on.

Motive to profit may not be fairly imputed into this scandal. But it is just as bad that something as profound as faith and prayer cannot be shielded from brushes with evil, by the thing itself (ivory trade), and by negligent ignorance or tolerance.