The Davao Association of Catholic Schools (DACS), in solidarity with the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines (CEAP) Board of Trustees’ call for moral courage in the 2022 Elections, encourages all Catholic schools in the Davao Region to exercise our Christian values in all our election engagements. Christian values such as trust in God, integrity, humility, and love for all (the common good of all without exception!) should be the anchor and reason for all our undertakings as educators, school administrators and students during these elections.
We encourage everyone to bring these Christian values to bear in assessing the candidates and their platforms as they approach us and try to win our votes.
In these times where disinformation prevails, we overcome it in our educational institutions by demanding facts and not mere rhetoric. We strengthen our dialogue with communities, organizations and individuals to pursue truth. Half-truths and self-serving revisions of history we reject in truth. We demand the same from our candidates. We assess how they uphold the TRUTH in their campaigns and platforms. We demand it more from them should they win.
Integrity and humility are core Christian values we teach in our Catholic institutions, “for we are taking pains to do what is right, not only in the eyes of the Lord but also in the eyes of man” (2 Corinthians 8:21). As we cherish these values in our institutions, we look for them in the candidates. Words are empty unless validated in works, integrity, and humble leadership. We earnestly pray that the leaders we choose genuinely possess these.
While we prepare our communities for the May elections through different fora and platforms, we must also prepare them to understand that the ultimate intention of exercising our right to suffrage is also our expression of our Love for God. When we choose our leaders, we also choose God. “You shall therefore love the Lord your God, and always keep His charge, his statutes, His ordinances, and his commandments” (Deut 11:1).
We choose the leaders who align with the Lord’s commandments, ordinances and statutes.
While we respect that citizens must take positions that cannot remain neutral especially to lies and injustice, we also value the non-partisan role that clerics and our schools must play in forming decisions through discernment and actively seeking guidance through prayer and honest sharing. We do this in union with the arch/bishops of Davao, Digos, Tagum and Mati (DADITAMA).
This leads to the discerned choice that each one must ultimately make.
