"Filipinos wanted to go to Luneta to give vent to their outrage. Instead, the bishops moved to cool that outrage..."

"...which explains the lesser than expected numbers at the rally."

(UPDATED: keep scrolling down)

A watered-down, "slap on the wrist" "thanksgiving" message from the CBCP to Arroyo and her cohorts will never be taken seriously by either this corrupt illegitimate administration or the anti-Arroyo groups.

Want to call another anti-Arroyo rally? Only if you mean it.

Here's quoting the Daily Tribune editorial in it's entirety:

It was not due to fear of terror, sabotage and provocation threats raised by Gloria Arroyo’s security adviser and military and police generals that kept the church-expected rallyists from turning up at Luneta but the many restrictions placed by the organizers — the Catholic bishops — on the general public, such as what cannot be displayed, who can’t be on stage; what they are forbidden to say by way of political speeches, and many more don’ts besides.

There were other factors of course, such as evident Malacañang pressure on some of the bishops not to stage rallies with a political flavor and no doubt, pressure made to bear on some religious leaders, who generally can whip up over 300,000 of their believers, but who obviously didn’t bother to send them, or if they did, deliberately didn’t tap the bulk of their followers for the bishops’ prayer-rally.

That Malacañang pressure on them worked, was evident, as the bishops suddenly turned the rally into a “Thanksgiving prayer-rally.” And all the don’ts injected by the organizers appeared to have been a way to deliberately cool the people’s passion.

Surely the bishops knew that if they wanted the prayer-rally to be conducted along strictly religious lines, they may as well have held an ecumenical Mass in a church and thank their God for what they called a “miracle of grace.”

The bishops cannot honestly believe that the outraged-over- Charter change people will brave the traffic and flock to Luneta, just to hear a homily from them giving thanks for the congressmen and Malacañang for dropping Cha-cha via the Constituent Assembly. Just why should we give thanks for something that shouldn’t have been done by the same public officials in the first place, since, as claimed by the bishops themselves, this is immoral and illegitimate?

What these church leaders did was no different from their pastoral letter that spoke of “searching for the truth” but dismissing the impeachment bid against Gloria as a useless exercise. So how did the bishops expect to search for the truth? Through a pastoral letter telling the people to pray for the public officials’ enlightenment?

That would be like telling the faithful to please pray for the devil’s enlightenment and for that devil to undergo a character change. But didn’t they know that one can’t change the nature of the beast?

As proof that people wanted to hear the compilation of sins of Gloria and her administration, the vice president of De La Salle University got the loudest applause as she zeroed in on these issues.

The same bishops couldn’t have been that naïve either to expect the followers of the politicians or activist groups to bring in the numbers to join this “Thanksgiving” prayer-rally organized by the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) and meld into the crowd without even being recognized. While their leaders — whether politician, religious or activist groups — would be around to show their support, they won’t be likely to bring in their supporters. Who is to know anyway who brought in the numbers, save for some religious leaders who caved in to Gloria’s pressure?

Still, not even the followers of televangelists are likely to be overjoyed to be at the Luneta when their leader is not around to give them their usual pep talk and keep their spirits up. People belonging to these religious groups flock to a site to hear their televangelists speak, just as the supporters of politicians go there to hear their political leaders speak.

But the bishops put in all these silly restrictions, such as no political speeches. Why not? What were these church leaders so scared of? That these speeches would be inflammatory, thus raising the level of outrage being felt by the Filipinos over the many sins of Gloria? But wasn’t the original idea of the prayer-rally marketed as an outlet to express the Filipino people’s outrage? So why didn’t the bishops allow the people to speak out?

And just what do the bishops think Cha-cha, the “Hello Garci” electoral fraud and fertilizer funds scam as well as the Cha-cha railroading all about, if not political, since all these are political issues?

Filipinos wanted to go to Luneta to give vent to their outrage. Instead, the bishops moved to cool that outrage, which explains the lesser than expected numbers at the rally.

Too bad, they again lost that authority to morally guide a nation that has had enough of the immorality and illegality of this current government.

UPDATE: I agree that the withdrawal of support for CON ASS was a face saving move to reduce the size at the prayer rally. But I think kasalanan rin ng organizers kung bakit konti lang ang dumalo sa "thanksgiving" rally. The bishops played into the administration's hands on this one.

More from the Malaya editorial:

Last Wednesday, armored personnel carriers rolled out of their depot and soldiers in combat gear poured out of their barracks in Camp Aguinaldo in what was described by AFP chief Gen. Hermogenes Esperon as a "camp defense exercise." For those who were too thick-headed to immediately get the message, Esperon warned that communist rebels and Islamic fundamentalists might bomb the rally.

The next day, the PNP said there were no such threat, but a day later, it was national security adviser Norberto Gonzales’ turn to warn that NPA members were on the way to Metro Manila with firearms and explosives.

Instead of denouncing the raising of the hoary Red bogey, the organizers gave the assurance they were taking adequate security measures to prevent mayhem.

It’s like we were being treated to the following dialogue:

"The Reds are coming! The Reds are coming!" a hyperventilating Gonzales warns.

"Trust us, we would not allow them near," chief rally organizer Henrietta de Villa, former ambassador to the Vatican, assures.

The nightmarish vision of a repeat of the Plaza Miranda bombing in 1971 probably led to countless parents telling their children who are enrolled at Catholic schools to stay home.

All the while, Gloria’s sycophants were praising the bishops to high heavens for turning the planned protest rally into a prayer gathering for the "enlightenment of the nation’s leaders." The organizers, as if following a script written in Malacañang, followed with warnings against carrying of streamers and placards with political slogans.

Those who originally planned to join to add their voice to the rising wave of indignation and outrage over Gloria and Joe’s shameless display of power probably decided they might stay home as well. What, after all, is the whole point in trekking to Luneta when they could as well pray for the conversion, however unlikely, of the liars and cheats at the privacy of the home or the nearest church?

What worries us is that those who had been scurrying with their tails between their legs when earlier faced with the threat of people power might be emboldened to press their agenda after this perceived unsuccessful rally.

The frustrated rapists are unrepentant. To the call of character change, they now have the gall to say the churchmen and those who joined them at Luneta ought to undergo the same moral transformation too. The victims are now as equally guilty as the criminals?