MANILA (PHILIPPINES)
Manila Times [Manila, Philippines]
February 9, 2025
By David Haldane
EXPAT EYE
I don’t even remember the story.
It was published back in 2003 when, as a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times, I wrote all kinds of stuff that has since slipped my mind.
This particular piece was about a Roman Catholic priest arrested in Santa Ana, California, for allegedly sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl. As it happened, he was an immigrant to the United States, having previously worked at a parish in the Philippines. And the only reason I remember the story now is because it’s among hundreds cited in a study recently released by a US-based watchdog group called BishopAccountability.org. The allegation: that the Philippine Catholic Church maintains what the New York Times calls a “culture of impunity” regarding sexually abusive priests.
“BishopAccountability.org has identified 82 priests and brothers with ties to the Philippines who have been publicly accused of sexually abusing minors,” the organization declared in a statement accompanying a list of names. Included on the list are Filipinos accused of sexually abusing minors in the Philippines; Filipinos who served part of their priesthoods in the Philippines but were accused in the US; and non-Filipinos who had served in the Philippines.
And yet, the report contends, not a single priest has ever been convicted of abuse in a Philippine court. “This list,” the statement concludes, “is the tip of the iceberg. It’s a fraction of the total number of accused clerics who would be known if Philippine church leaders were required to report child sexual abuse to law enforcement…”
Anne Barret Doyle, the organization’s director, went even further at a press conference in Manila. “Philippine bishops feel entitled to their silence,” she charged. “They feel entitled to withhold information about sexual violence towards minors. They feel entitled to defend accused priests.”
The reactions of local clergy were swift and conflicting.
“It is not true that bishops conceal wrongdoing,” Fr. Ranhilio Callangan Aquino wrote defensively in the first of two Manila Times columns that, ironically, seemed to confirm some of Doyle’s contentions. “They merely do not publicize their actions,” he explained.
Furthermore, Aquino argued, “Bishops do not allow media to investigate cases against priests…because media is not empowered to investigate priests.” Why? Because such coverage, he said, could result in “adverse and biased” exposure leading to “shaming and humiliation.”
His conclusion: that the report’s primary goal is “sensationalism” designed to “wreck the credibility of the clergy and of the Church.”
Writing the next day, however, Fr. Shay Cullen had an entirely different take. The BishopAccountability.org findings, he wrote, demand that “the top priority of bishops — and the people of God — should be to protect, heal, empower and safeguard children, not just with words and fine-sounding statements, but with action aimed at attaining justice for those abused by clergymen. This is what bishops are most reluctant to do, and their inaction has created a culture of covering up crimes against children in the Catholic Church.
“The sexual abuse of so many children,” Shay concluded, “is heinous and despicable.”
And, indeed, Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David, a Philippine church leader, indicated that the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines has set up an office to protect minors by reporting complaints to the Vatican. “Our mandate from Rome,” he said, “is to take the issue of accountability very seriously, especially those related to alleged abuse cases involving priests.”
So what does all this have to do with me?
The Filipino priest I wrote about 22 years ago — Father Gerardo Jarencio Tanilong, then 71 — eventually admitted to having molested a young girl while the two of them rode in a car with her parents. He was immediately removed from the priesthood and sentenced to six months in jail.
“Because he was a Catholic priest,” the prosecutor told the judge, “she respected, revered and trusted him. He shattered that trust.”
Tanilong died in 2016.
As for me, well, it’s nice to have written a bit of history. Not so nice, though, to have it be so shameful.
David Haldane is an award-winning American journalist and author with homes in Southern California and Northern Mindanao. His latest book, Dark Skies, is due out in May.