Unwavering Service: The Sovereign Order of Malta’s Influence Amidst Philippine Transformations

On February 1, 1979, then Sovereign Military Order of Malta Prince and Grand Master Frá Angelo de Mojana di Cologna honored the Philippine Order with a five-day State Visit, the fruit of Ambassador of the Philippines to the Holy See, Don Antonio C. Delgado’s efforts. Officially a guest of Philippine President Marcos, the Grand Master visited the Leprosaria at Culion and Tala in the company of Ambassadors Soriano and Delgado to observe firsthand the Order’s work with Philippine lepers.

On his second day, Grand Master Frá Angelo de Mojana di Cologna was honored by President Marcos with the conferment of the Order of Sikatuna, Rank of Raja, the highest of the Philippine diplomatic orders of merit.

Don José María Soriano’s tenure as Ambassador of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta to the Philippines ended in 1980. He was succeeded by Don Ernesto V. Lagdameo, himself a past president of the Order. In so doing, Lagdameo became the first Filipino ambassador of a foreign state to the Philippines, Soriano, though raised in the Philippines, being Spanish.

Don Ernesto’s son, Antonio Lagdameo, also a Knight of Malta, is the Philippine Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s.

The 1980’s was a pivotal period for the nation. To usher in a parliamentary government, Marcos announced his intention to lift martial law in 1981, in time for Pope John Paul II’s Philippine visit. However, despite lifting it, Marcos retained his extra-judicial powers.

His Holiness, Mindful of the separation of church and state, himself from Poland, a nation under martial law in the 1980’s, nevertheless touched on the subject of human rights:

Even in exceptional situations that may at times arise, one can never justify any violation of the fundamental dignity of the human person or of the basic rights that safeguard this dignity. Legitimate concern for the security of a nation, as demanded by the common good, could lead to the temptation of subjugating to the State the human being and his or her dignity and rights. Any apparent conflict between the exigencies of security and of the citizens’ basic rights must be resolved according to the fundamental principle – upheld always by the Church – that social organization exists only for the service of man and for the protection of his dignity, and that it cannot claim to serve the common good when human rights are not safeguarded.

Further hinting strongly of a path for the Philippine leadership to follow, he added:

It is my hope and prayer that all the Filipino people and their leaders will never cease to honor their commitment to a development that is fully human and that overcomes situations and structures of inequality, injustice and poverty in the name of the sacredness of humanity. I pray that everyone will work together with generosity and courage, without hatred, class struggle or fratricidal strife, resisting all temptations to materialistic or violent ideologies.