Catholic schools cannot limit themselves to staging protests when corrupt scandals erupt, but must commit to the slower, harder work of forming students who will reject corruption as “normal,” a senior Church leader told the country’s largest Catholic education gathering on Wednesday, October 1.
Bishop Charlie Inzon of Jolo, who chairs the Episcopal Commission on Catholic Education under the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), warned that dishonesty has become so normalized that the youth may grow up believing “there is no way out” of it.
‘Systemic dishonesty has become normalized. Our young people. may grow up believing that it simply is the way things are, and worse, that there is no way out, no escape to this reality,’ Inzon told an audience of some 3,500 students, educators and school officials at the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines (CEAP) national convention on Wednesday, October 1.
Inzon delivered the “message of hope” during the first day of CEAP’s national convention yesterday. He chairs the CBCP commission that supports all Catholic educational institutions in the country and was recently appointed as the next Cotabato archbishop.
Resignation as the enemy
Inzon sees corruption not only as a governance issue but as a ‘cultural sickness and spiritual malady’ that erodes truth and conscience. When citizens start to believe no one will ever be held accountable, he said, society slips into what psychologists call ‘learned helplessness.’
‘If corruption is the disease, despair is the poison, and resignation is the enemy,’ the prelate stressed. ‘When this enters our mind. indeed, there is no way out, no escape.”
He warned that corrupt leaders exploit this despair, insulating themselves with ‘systems of immunity and mutual protection’ while convincing themselves that ordinary people are ‘easily manipulated, bought, and silenced.’
While mass protests and movements against corruption have erupted in the past, Inzon noted that they often ‘wane’ and dissolve once anger subsides. Catholic institutions, he argued, cannot solely rely on these actions to fight corruption.
‘Our intervention should not be only dramatic and episodic through protests, but also sustained, consistent, courageous, and persistent,’ the CBCP official said. ‘We must be vigilant not only in the streets, but in our classrooms, ensuring that we do not fall into the cycle of despair and helplessness.’
CEAP operates around 1,500 member schools nationwide and yesterday highlighted the timing of the convention, which coincided with ongoing probes into anomalous public works projects and nationwide calls for accountability.
During a press conference on Tuesday, September 30, CEAP President Fr. Karel San Juan, SJ called on Catholic school alumni implicated in the current corruption scandal to return to the values of ‘truth, decency, social justice, and social transformation.”
Inzon’s message on Wednesday was for Catholic schools to actively shape students not just into competent professionals, but also into citizens who have a strong moral conscience.
‘If our institutions succeed only in producing graduates with technical skills and with beautiful board exam performances but lacking in conscience and social responsibility, then we have failed,’ Inzon said.
Seeds of hope
The bishop also pointed to different signs of resistance to corruption: civic campaigns for accountability, communities rallying to support each other after calamities and youth leading online efforts against corruption.
For Inzon, the mission of Catholic education is inseparable from the country’s political problems. ‘To be a Catholic academic community in this time of national crisis is to live out solidarity,’ he said, urging schools to stand with marginalized communities and ensure education remains accessible to the poor.
‘Hope is saying and telling us that corruption is not our destiny, that dishonesty is not our identity, and that resignation is not the way to go,’ he said.