The South Philippine Union Executive Committee held a meeting in late March in Upper Carmen Cagayan de Oro City.
In that meeting they voted to restrict Seventh-day Adventist church pulpits from people who question or speak against Covid-19 vaccinations. Here is a document outlining the action. It is dated yesterday.
Observations
The letter appears to have been composed by someone for whom English is not their first language.
There is a legal tone to the document.
The document opens the door for possible church discipline of individuals who speak against the Covid-19 vaccine(s).
The heavy-handed president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, has threatened to jail people who refuse the Covid-19 vaccine. This South Philippine Union Conference document appears to be a preemptive attempt for the Church to cover themselves, should any Adventist refuse a Covid-19 vaccine.
The Catholic Duterte, has publicly stated in 2016 that he might convert to Seventh-day Adventist if he is excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church. How do you say “Thanks, but no thanks” in Tagalog?
The Ozamiz police chief in the Philippines is also a Seventh-day Adventist. He is known as a willing enforcer of Duterte’s ruthless war on drugs. Chief Inspector Jovie Espenido has become known throughout the Philippines for killing Ozamiz Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog, a man accused of running one of the country's most notorious crime syndicates.
Before Espenido became police chief in Ozamiz in 2017, the Parojinogs controlled the drugs trade and filled their coffers through rampant corruption. Everyone — from drivers of tricycle taxis to wealthy businessmen — had to pay protection money to the Parojinogs. Within months of Espenido's arrival in Ozamiz, a sleepy port town on the island of Mindanao, the mayor was dead — killed in a police raid on his house. His wife and 13 family members and acolytes also died in the raid. A large poster of the Ten Commandments hangs on the wall in the Ozamiz Police Station, no doubt placed there by Seventh-day Adventist Police chief Jovie Espenido.
Into this kind of setting, the Seventh-day Adventist South Philippine Union has made it plain that vaccine dissent will not be tolerated. At least not for public speakers in our churches there.
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“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep” (John 10:14-15).