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[av_heading heading=’JUST ANOTHER DAY ‘ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY LUIS BUENAFLOR JR.
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Blasphemy in the name of God
“THE Philippines will not be a party to the massacre and we refuse to be a conduit to this cycle of killing. We value the living elephants with tusks intact than the ivories from elephants that were killed for their tusks.”
Strong words indeed, coming from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) when it destroyed its stockpile of more than 5 tons of ivory. The Philippine government not only lived up to it with the ivory destruction but strengthened its campaign with the creation of the Philippines Operation Group on Ivory (POGI), a multi-agency task force designed to investigate ivory smuggling and to prosecute those involve.
Commendable to say the least, but what if one of the oldest and probably the most revered and respected institution in the country is one of the driving forces behind the illegal trade on ivory?
Sadly, in a presentation by the National Geographic Society of the results of their more than two years investigative research on the illegal ivory trade, one of the main drivers of this illegal trade is religion, and the Philippine Catholic Church is one of the main consumers of ivory.
This seemingly endless devotion and desire to own or collect religious icons creates a huge demand for ivory as these religious icons are all made of ivory. Whether naïve or with full knowledge, the Catholic Church fuels the demand for ivory in the black market.
According to the Chief of the Customs Police, “The Philippines is a favorite destination of these smuggled elephant tusks, maybe because Filipino Catholics are fond of images of saints that are made of ivory.”
The religious icon with the biggest and most passionate devotees in the Philippines is the Santo Niño and it is not uncommon to find one such icon in the home of its millions of devotees. This devotion transcends class barriers. From the humble shack of a common laborer in Tondo to the stately mansions in Forbes Park and Ayala Alabang you can find a Santo Niño icon. Of course, the more affluent you are the more icons you have and the more money you have, the more expensive the icon and the best ones are all made from ivory.
One only has to go to Tayuman, Manila’s religious supply district, and you will see a flourishing trade on handcrafted ivory religious icons. Remember, the raw material for these ivory icons is an elephant tusk and each tusk comes from a slaughtered elephant. A few families control the ivory carving industry in the Philippines and their main shops are all found in Tayuman.
According to one of the prominent ivory dealers “priests, gay men and balikbayans are their best customers.”
And this passionate if not senseless devotion bordering on idolatry is not limited to the layman and ordinary Catholic priests but to some already high in the Church hierarchy. The NationalGeographic Society has identified perhaps the most well-known ivory collector in the Philippines and zealous devotee to the icon of the Santo Niño – Monsignor Cristobal Garcia, chairman of Cebu’s Commission on Worship.
According to the National Geographic Magazine, “Monsignor Garcia is the leader of a group of prominent Santo Niño collectors who display their icons during the Feast of the Santo Niño in some of Cebu’s best shopping malls and hotels. When they met to discuss formally incorporating their club, an attorney member cried out to the group, ‘You can pay me in ivory.’”
In their investigative research on Monsignor Garcia’s link to the ivory trade, the National Geographic Magazine found out that he was one of the major consumers of ivory icons and he was well connected to the ivory underground market.
This exposé by the National Geographic Magazine on the involvement of Monsignor Garcia in the illegal trade on ivory eventually led to his suspension and was stripped of his position in the Archdiocese.
In a statement released to the media, Archbishop Jose Palma of Cebu and then president of the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) said, “Let it be made clear that the Church supports the ban on ivory as it is consistent with her doctrine on stewardship of creation…The Church does not condone ivory smuggling or other illegal activities, although in the past, ivory was one of the materials used in the adornment of liturgical worship. While these ivory artefacts created long before the ban are considered the cultural heritage of the Church, in no way does she encourage the use of ivory for new implements.”
In the meantime, thousands of elephants are slaughtered each year so their tusks can be made into religious icons not only because of greed but also in the name of God. Blasphemy indeed!/PN
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