Investor's Business Daily, March 29th, 2007
Amid the Philippines' turmoil two decades ago, strongman Ferdinand Marcos feared one man the most: a clergyman named Sin.
That was Jaime Cardinal Sin, the archbishop of Manila, who led a nonviolent revolt that ousted the president over abuse of power.
Sin (1928-2005) arrived in the capital from the southern part of the country with two weapons: his sense of humor to open up people's hearts and his ability to speak up against the dictator.
"Welcome to the House of Sin," the church leader often greeted visitors, who included Imelda Marcos, the first lady, at his door.
Before the revolution of the mid-1980s, Sin was a regular guest at the Marcos' residence, Malacanang Palace. The president who declared martial law and the Roman Catholic Church leader even released doves into the sky together on Marcos' 68th birthday.
That outward closeness made some say Sin was in Marcos' hip pocket. Actually, the dictator was in Sin's pouch. In an Asian nation that today has 90 million people, 85% of whom are Catholic, the archbishop knew he was perhaps the only man Marcos had to heed.
Peachy Yamsuan, who worked with Sin for 10 years and now is the communications director of the Archdiocese of Manila, says Sin intentionally chose a path to dialogue. That led to the People Power Revolution and Marcos' ouster in 1986.
Up And At 'Em
Sin climbed the church ladder fast. He was ordained in 1954 and became the archbishop of Manila in 1974. Two years later he was named a cardinal.
Sin was 47 and not exactly a household name.
"Everybody thought, 'Who is this man?'" Yamsuan recalled. "President Marcos might have underestimated Cardinal because he came from a provincial area and he was so young. He was not from Manila, and he didn't even study in Rome."
By the time Sin became a cardinal, the Philippines was in Marcos' grip. The day he declared martial law in 1972, the police shut down every store in the capital and took control of the Manila Times building to control the press.
The dictatorship seeped into the '80s, and Sin had seen enough.
"Cardinal spoke up about the government when many thought the church should only say holy things," Yamsuan said.
Sin urged Marcos to become more democratic, but the president only escalated human rights violations.
Marcos' regime arrested hundreds of activists. Churches became refugee centers for people who escaped government oppression. When nuns and priests protested against Marcos, the leader's henchmen reacted with kidnappings and torture.
"Martial law really did instill fear," Yamsuan said.
It also led to outrage, sparked by the assassination of Benigno Aquino in 1983. Aquino had been an opposition senator whom Marcos imprisoned, then exiled. Upon Aquino's return to Manila, he was gunned down at the airport. Filipinos immediately blamed Marcos.
The reaction was overwhelming, with nearly 2 million mourners joining the Aquino funeral procession.
Speaking at the mass, Sin called for a bloodless backlash.
"Can man liberate man without recourse to violence?" Sin asked, according to Felix Bautista's biography, "Cardinal Sin and the Miracle of Asia." "Our answer to that is an unequivocal yes."
Sin didn't stop there.
When Marcos -- pressured by massive protests -- rigged the snap presidential election of Feb. 7, 1986, and declared victory over Corazon Aquino, Benigno's widow, the archbishop turned up the volume: "Join the parliament of the streets and show the dictatorship that the power of nonviolence can be irresistible."
Such was Sin's mastery of communication. While Marcos controlled Philippine television and newspapers, the cardinal spoke through a church radio station and used his pastoral letter and church newspapers. The way Sin saw it, telling a nun was the fastest way to spread the word.
Two weeks after the election, millions of Filipinos inspired by Sin's message erupted in their People Power Revolution. They filled Manila's main highway in protest of Marcos, carrying rosaries and statues of the Virgin Mary -- even food and water for watchful soldiers.
Sin later recalled: "I see in my mind's eye to this day the young girl, who was maybe 14 years of age, who stood unmoving in front of an advancing tank. She was scared to death. ... But she stood there, a flower in her hand."
On the fourth day of the bloodless revolt, Marcos got the message. He fled to Hawaii on the back of a U.S. military evacuation to end his 21-year rule and died in 1989.
"Before People Power, we didn't know it was going to be a People Power (Revolution)," Yamsuan said. Sin's benevolent direction gave the movement its moral compass. "That's why we miss Cardinal."
Sin was born in New Washington in Aklan province, 200 miles south of Manila. He was hardly spoiled, being one of 16 children to a Chinese immigrant father who owned a general store and a Filipino mother who was a devoted Catholic.
Young Jaime grew up watching his parents say the rosary every morning. Soon he dreamed of being a priest. His father argued that his son was too sickly to reach that level of church leadership. His mother thought otherwise. On her deathbed she made the boy promise to become a holy man.
Becoming a priest was not easy. Sin suffered from severe asthma attacks during his seminary school days. Sin's dormitory friend remembered Sin waking up at night and struggling for breath. When the friend asked if he could help, Sin shook his head. "In between gasps, I would see him reciting the rosary," the friend said in Bautista's book.
Overcoming his asthma, Sin served at a church in Iloilo City, south of Aklan. Susan Go met him when he was a regular priest and recalls a humble fellow.
"He didn't put himself on a pedestal," Go, now a librarian at the University of Michigan, told IBD. "And he joked a lot."
He was no joking matter to Marcos. When the dazed dictator declared the election in his final days, Sin persuaded Salvador Laurel, an ambitious opposition leader, not to run for president and instead support Corazon Aquino. That opened the way for Benigno's widow to win.
Clinching The Deal
"You can say Cardinal Sin was the broker," said Belinda Aquino (no relation to Corazon Aquino), a professor at the University of Hawaii. "Imagine, to those macho guys in Philippine politics, Cardinal Sin said, 'You guys better get your act together. If you run against each other, you will lose and Marcos is going to win.'" On top of that, "Marcos feared Sin because he was a rival in a sense for loyalty."
Some criticized Sin for crossing the line between church and state. Sin countered: "The church must fight injustice whenever it exists and in whatever form it takes."
"At that time, he was our voice," said Leddy Carino, now a professor at the University of the Philippines.
When Sin died, he had no personal possessions. He had given everything to the poor and churches.
Some people had talk about Sin becoming the first Asian pope.
"First of all," he said, waving off the idea, "my name is bad."
Copyright 2007 Investor's Business Daily, Inc.
