South Philippine Union Votes To Deny Pulpits To People Who Speak Against Covid-19 Vaccines

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).