HomeNewsPhilippine lay Catholic council endorses candidacy of Leni Robredo

Philippine lay Catholic council endorses candidacy of Leni Robredo

Robredo “bested the others” based on her “track-record of service, dedication to good governance," among others

The leadership of the Council of the Laity of the Philippines, or the Sangguniang Laiko ng Pilipinas, endorsed the candidacy of Vice President Leni Robredo in the presidential election in May.

In a statement, the group said that Robredo “bested the others” based on her “track-record of service, dedication to good governance, ability to implement partnerships and programs for the advancement of the people especially the marginalized, and her unassailable integrity.”

The council said that 11 of the 15-member board voted to endorse Robredo after evaluating the track record and platforms of all the candidates. There were three abstentions during the voting while one member was absent.



“After a series of listening sessions … and personal evaluations, through prayerful discernment, of the profiles and platforms of the presidential candidates, the current leadership of the Sangguniang Laiko ng Pilipinas have reached a majority decision regarding the endorsement of a candidate for president,” read the group’s statement.

“With our current political-economic turmoil and the pandemic situation in the Philippines, we firmly believe that Vice President Leni Robredo, a God-fearing person, is the most capable candidate for the presidency, and we urge our constituents, if possible, to consider the same,” said the group.

“Hence, we explicitly endorse Vice President Leni Robredo to the highest position of our land,” added the Laiko statement.

The lay Catholic organization said “there are still other issues” with Robredo that “need further dialogue and cooperation,” especially on her stand on the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Expression Equality Bill, and the proposed measures on same sex civil union and decriminalization of abortion.

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The lay leaders said they based their decision to endorse a candidate on their “mandate to be agents of social transformation” contained in the decree Apostolicam Actuositatem, also known as the “Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity,” one of the 16 magisterial documents of the Second Vatican Council.

The decree stresses that the “renewal of the temporal order” must be taken up by the laity “as their own special obligation,” aspire to exercise this mandate, “led by the light of the Gospel and the mind of the Church and motivated by Christian character.”

Quoting Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical Verbum Dei, the group said they continue “to remind our members that ‘it is the primary task of the lay faithful, formed in the school of the Gospel, to be directly involved in political and social activity.’”

Laiko also said that it took directions from the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines that “strongly urged that competent and conscientious persons of integrity should become political candidates” and that the laity must “help form the civic conscience of the voting population and work to explicitly promote the election of leaders of true integrity to public office.”

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