It is unfair that those Cultural Center of the Philippines board members opposed to the exhibit be treated in the same way as those who were for it:
1. Prior to Aug. 5, there was no board consultation regarding the exhibit. CCP board meets only once a month.
2. The exhibit was a fait accompli when the special executive board meeting was convened.
3. The decision to mount the exhibit was primarily in the hands of the artistic director and head of Visual Arts.
4. Even if Raul Sunico was opposed to the exhibit, he was apparently overruled by the chair, Emily Abrera.
5. During the executive board meeting of Aug 5, sensing perhaps that those who opposed the exhibit were in the majority, the chair did not call for a vote.
6. Sunico forced a referendum the following Monday (Aug. 8), which gave him the mandate to close down the exhibit.
7. Abrera should give honorable example and resign from the board.
Abrera has been barking up the wrong tree! There are only 150 or so bishops. The lay people, however, number in the tens of millions—they are the ones who were horrified by the exhibit. They will not rest until Abrera leaves the CCP.
Blame the Church? As if the Church had any police power!
By her intansigence, she let the demons out of Pandora’s box.
Security threats, my foot! With a budget of about P180 million for security? (And I’ve been pointing out to no avail that the budget for the Outreach Division is just about P1.5 million or so to serve the entire country…)
By the way, the budget for janitorial services also amounts to almost the same as security, and the CCP isn’t even that clean! As the complaint goes, the CCP Library got nothing for new books!
If Chris Millado did his homework first, this faux pas could have been avoided. But, then again, what a joyful occasion for the freethinkers to rankle the (Church) hierarchy with their debauchery. By doing so, they expect Catholics to fold up and lamely walk to the gas chambers!
Fray Casurao, a member of the CCP Board of Trustees, is a Franciscan friar and the moderator general of the Congregatio S. Francesco Peregrinorum (CSFP, or Pilgrim Brothers of Saint Francis). He is based in Punta Princesa, Cebu City, and is into cultural work as chair of the Pasundayag Cultural Network and Institute of Drama for the Development of Peoples, and executive board member of the ITI International Monodrama Forum and ITI Philippine Center.