Sin urges Ramos to remember Marcos

Sin urges Ramos to remember Marcos

MANILA (Reuter): The Philippines' most influential churchman said on yesterday that President Fidel Ramos should learn from history and what happened to Ferdinand Marcos if he wanted to succeed as president.

Cardinal Jaime Sin, the country's leading Roman Catholic prelate, said he and Ramos remained close friends despite his outspoken criticisms of the government but the president should listen to the people instead of the flatterers around him.

"I tell him repeatedly that 'I criticize you because you are my friend. A friend is somebody who can tell you not so nice things and still love you'."

Sin, a powerful force in this predominantly Catholic nation, accused Ramos in October of plotting one-party rule and wanting to prolong his presidency beyond the constitutional limit of 1998.

The church and state have been at loggerheads since Ramos, a Protestant, took office in 1992 and revitalized a campaign to reduce the country's high birth rate through family planning.