MANILA, Philippines – The Aglipayan Church, a Filipino Christian group known for its activist roots, congratulated the Philippines’ new Roman Catholic cardinal, Kalookan Bishop Pablo Virgilio “Ambo” David. 

It “means so much to us” that David is now a cardinal, said Joel Porlares, the Obispo Maximo or Supreme Bishop of the Aglipayan Church, formally known as the Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI), in a statement on Sunday, December 8.

The IFI is a 122-year-old Filipino Christian church that broke away from Roman Catholicism in the early 1900s due to the abuses of Spanish friars and the second-class treatment of Filipino priests. 

Its founding fathers included key figures in the Philippine independence movement. 

It was labor leader Isabelo delos Reyes of Vigan, Ilocos Sur, who proclaimed the church’s establishment on August 3, 1902. The church’s first Obispo Maximo was Gregorio Aglipay of Batac, Ilocos Norte, a former Roman Catholic priest who was excommunicated in 1899 due to his revolutionary activities.

Much has changed since the time the IFI was founded, as Filipino Catholic priests now receive first-class treatment even at the Vatican, and David is now the 10th Filipino cardinal since 1960. The Aglipayan and Roman Catholic churches have also established friendlier ties, with both religious institutions recognizing that they “share the same baptism.”

The IFI, which now has over 640,000 members, has kept many Roman Catholic doctrines and changed a few, including how it allows women bishops and priests, and even transgender clergy. 

The IFI, which includes the Philippine national anthem in its liturgies, has also kept a more activist orientation compared to the Roman Catholic Church. For their stance against Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war and other abuses, IFI bishops and priests were red-tagged or linked to communist groups by the Duterte government. 

It is in the context of this activist tradition that they hailed David, one of the staunchest drug war critics and human rights defenders in the Philippines. Since 2016, David has led the Diocese of Kalookan, which he once called a “killing field” in Duterte’s drug war.

Porlares explained that David is “a bishop who stands and raises his voice against grave abuse of authority in the use of lethal force and violence in the anti-drug war and red-tagging, and who cries with the victims and their families in their struggle for justice.”

“Let Cardinal David’s pastoral and spiritual leadership be an active inspiration to us brethren in the Aglipayan Church who persistently seek to serve God in journey with the broken and downtrodden,” Porlares said.

The National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP), where the IFI belongs, had also congratulated David two months ago, when Francis announced his appointment as cardinal. 

“The new cardinal, Bishop Pablo Virgilio S. David, has proven to be a true shepherd and leader, standing up for the rights and dignity of the poor and marginalized during a time when the ‘war on drugs’ campaign victimized countless innocent people,” said the 60-year-old NCCP, the largest alliance of mainline Protestant and non-Roman Catholic churches in the country.

“May his time as a cardinal serve as a powerful representation of the God of justice and compassion and as an inspiration to all people,” the NCCP said. – Rappler.com

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