Reward and punishment

Adhering to tradition, Filipinos flocked in droves to churches last Sunday to have palm fronds blessed. In our parish, there were two palm blessing sessions – one in the morning and another in the afternoon. The palaspas across the street from the church were nearly all sold out by noon.

Government officials, led by the feuding ex-UniTeam allies, issued statements related to Holy Week and religious observance.

The activities and statements of piety once again raise questions on why Asia’s bastion of the Roman Catholic faith has one of the highest homicide rates in the region, with corruption and thievery endemic and social inequity widespread.

Weren’t we taught to love one another as Jesus Christ loved us? How did we produce a God-cussing Rodrigo Duterte, with so many Filipinos supporting his policy of mass extermination of crime suspects? How can so many entitled lawmakers institutionalize multibillion-peso thievery in the national budget, with little compunction?

Our religious festivals are always so impressively well-attended. Do people participate in such events mainly to have fun and pray for miracle cures or for the lotto jackpot?

Certain religious groups are among the most notorious influence peddlers in our country, undermining the integrity of the judiciary and prosecution services, reinforcing transactional politics and sabotaging every effort to develop a merit-based society.

Worse, some of our most crooked politicians even like making a show of their religious devotion, having their photos taken while kneeling in church or attending religious festivals.

In many other countries, attendance at Catholic masses has reportedly been falling steadily. I don’t know if the slide was reversed during the COVID pandemic, when many people again found religion. But in the Philippines, it doesn’t seem like there has been a drastic drop in church attendance.

Even when the COVID threat still lingered, Philippine churches were full of people wearing masks and maintaining physical distancing.

When do the faithful lose their way and become plunderers, liars, cheaters, murderers?

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Spiritual guidance is supposed to start at an early age. Private schools run by the religious orders typically have Religion subjects in their curriculum. Even if there are no subjects dedicated to spiritual anchoring in secular public schools, they are supposed to impart civic responsibility including good manners and right conduct to students.

Such lessons can also help students, especially teens with raging hormones, cope with mental health problems.

Instead we see public high school students being stabbed dead by their schoolmates, with the attacks triggered by seemingly trivial matters such as the denial of a makeup kit and switching off of lights in the school lavatory.

An employer I know plans to send her house helper’s daughter, currently attending a state-run kiddie school, to kindergarten in a school run by a religious order. The employer is hoping that moral grounding can be taught in the private school.

But Duterte himself attended private schools run by religious orders. Maybe he fell asleep when lessons on sin and redemption and the 10 Commandments including “thou shall not kill” were being taught.

It is said that goodness is its own reward. There are people who are guided by this belief all their life. Others, however, need more guidance, inspiration or a concept of reward and punishment.

From grade school, the concept of good versus evil can inspire good behavior, with an invisible guardian angel constantly keeping watch like a closed-circuit TV, ready to report sins big and small to the Bossing in heaven.

There’s also the idea of divine love for all of humankind, with kids encouraged to also spread the love – although the concept may be difficult to grasp for children in loveless households where abuse and domestic violence prevail.

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If we can believe in ghosts, then we can believe in the afterlife, and in a higher being. There are people who carry such beliefs throughout their lifetime – people who fear the wrath of God and eternal damnation for wrongdoing. Others, on the other hand, revive such beliefs only in their deathbed, or when dealing with a life-threatening problem.

Once children outgrow belief in guardian angels and Santa Claus knowing who has been naughty or nice, the concept of crime and punishment is meant to encourage responsible behavior.

For the generations used to instant gratification, you can see why reward in the afterlife can be difficult to take seriously. But the concept of reward and punishment should be easier to impart in the real world.

In our country, unfortunately, this isn’t happening. In fact what we’re seeing is the opposite, with the highest offices in the land occupied by crooks and murderers. The bigger the amount stolen, the higher the office, and the greater the chance of getting away with everything. Crime pays, handsomely.

The shepherds of the Church exert more effort in bringing back those of the flock who lose their way.

In the secular realm, we need greater effort to impart the message that those who commit wrongdoing face punishment.