WHAT is so holy about the holy week when the events recalled during the whole week are essentially unholy?

        It is a week of betrayal. Betrayal was what the Gospels referred to when the people who were crying out “Hosanna, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is to come! Hosanna in the highest!” on the first Palm Sunday and spread their cloaks on the road and leafy branches that they had cut from the fields were the same ones who later that week on Friday shouted “Crucify him. Crucify him”. Betrayal was what Peter, on whom Jesus would build his Church, did when he denied that he was one among the followers of the arrested Christ. Betrayal was what Judas did, when he identified Jesus with a kiss for the soldiers who came to arrest him. What then is so holy about the Holy Week?

        It is a week of deceit, duplicity and double dealings. The Sadducees and the Sanhedrin had to present false witnesses and trump up lies so that the Christ could be accused of blasphemy and thus be meted death. The chief priests and scribes in the temple who could not afford to have a preacher from the desert become wiser than they were in interpreting the Law of Moses. What then is so holy about proud priests and hypocrites?

        It is a week of cover-ups, illegal arrest and unprecedented human torture. The Christ who was arrested was not given due process. His trial was done in a rush and did not admit reconsiderations and motions for postponements. Even Pilate who said “What evil has this man done? I found him guilty of no capital crime,” had to have the Christ flogged and to release him later, to please the mob, but was prevailed upon by the practice among the Jews of letting the mob decide who between Barabbas or Christ would be released. Pilate did not have the courage to insist on his findings. What then is so holy about a trial where one is found guilty even if with very reasonable doubt?

        Of no wonder then that the Holy Week that in the old days used to be observed in silence and prayer, with fasting and abstinence, has been transformed into a long vacation for parties and sumptuous meals and overnight parties in the beach.

        Of no wonder then that the practice of staging the Cenaculo or the singing of the Pasion or just simply the broadcast of Biblical dramas in the radio or of movies about the Life of Christ have lost their religious appeal and have slackened to give way to overnight videoke singing and minus-one sessions or even the viewing of pornographic films.

        Indeed, much has changed in the way the Holy Week is observed or even in the manner the people search for truth and handle issues on corruption and good governance.

        Today more than ever, these issues have been classified as political and being political they cease to be issues which the Church would not care discuss, as if by labeling an issue as political it is emptied of its moral content.

        Cheating in the elections such as the one captured in the “Hello, Garci” tapes, the Joc-Joc Volante fertilizer scam to raise funds for the elections, the paper bags containing P500,000 distributed to mayors, governors and congressmen in Malacanang without proper accounting, the cover-up on the kidnapping of Rodolfo Lozada or the P500,000 cash extended to Lozada so that he would not testify in the Senate hearing on the ZTE-NBN deal have been happily classified by Malacanang as political maneuverings which the bishops naively accepted as empty of any moral content. The bishops have even gone a step further: they make philosophical distinctions to hide their fear and their getting embroiled in the issues.

        Indeed, many unholy things and issues are there during the Holy Week.