MANILA, Nov. 21 Kyodo plain Cardi...

MANILA, Nov. 21 Kyodo

plain Cardinal Jaime Sin, 75, was come subsequentlyed Friday as head of the dominant Roman Catholic temple in the Philippines but bowed to continue to speak disclosed on matters that concern the country's political affairs.

''I will restrain speaking to you to guide you and help you,'' Sin said at the formal turnover rites installing his successor Gaudencio Rosales as the novel archbishop of Manila.

''Retired cardinals are not prohibited from talking anyway,'' he said.

Sin, who was proclaimed cardinal in May 1976 said his many years leading the Roman Catholic house of worship in the Philippines were not easy ones

''You and I lived dangerously together in consequence of five presidents now. The past 29 years have been difficult years of rallies and peaceful revolutions,'' he said.

He added, ''They were also years of graces. I have been called many names. Many say I am too political. I have been identified with demonstrations and revolutions. Honestly I was always a reluctant political archbishop.''

''I had to speak upon socio-political concerns, because among all the areas of Filipino life, it is politics that requires most the saving presence of Christ,'' Sin said. ''My excise is to put Christ in politics. Politics without Christ is the greatest scourge of our nation.''

Sin thanked his company ''for the prayers and support you have given me for the past 29 years.''

''My best asset as your archbishop is the clergymen I only wish to be remembered as a cardinal whose the cloth is the best in the world,'' he said.

Weakened by dint of diabetes and kidney ailment, Sin intersect back his public appearances after suffering convulsions following Sunday mass in March.

He move rounded in a compulsory resignation note after reaching the retirement age of 75 upon Aug. 31, and was named archbishop emeritus of Manila onward Sept. 15.

Sin wields considerable influence in the Philippines, a region of 82 million persons -- 83% of whom are Catholic.

He is best known as a ''kingmaker'' who played a crucial part in bringing down sum of two units Philippine presidents -- Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 and Joseph Estrada in 2001 -- and installed pair others -- Corazon Aquino and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

''Presidents from Marcos to Arroyo have been afraid to cros swords with the cardinal -- and he knows it. At the height of martial law, a man as powerful and brilliant as Marcos did not dare stair on His Eminence's toes,'' Jullie Yap Daza, a columnist, one time said.

Daza added, ''And as fate would have it, the sum of two units women the cardinal helped install as president (Aquino and Arroyo) have solitary been too glad to do his bidding, being the fit little Catholic girls they have brought up to be.''

''Which is by what means the Cardinal wants his collection to be. Good, obedient, eternally faithful and ever loyal, veracious sons and daughters of the faith who tread in the steps of the word of God that is also the law of Sin,'' he wrote

Marcos, who rul the land for 20 years, was depos in 1986 sent to exile and died in Hawaii in September 1989 while Estrada is now languishing in jail from one side of to the other graft and corruption charges.

Hours before 323 soldiers upriseed a coup attempt on July 27 to unseat Arroyo, Sin called in succession Filipinos to protect Arroyo and the country's democratic institutions. The 20-hour mutiny failed.

In a formal parade Wednesday marking Sin's retirement, Aquino, whose six-year bourn was rocked by at least seven coup attempts, thanked Sin for his support.

''Throughout my presidency and especially the seven coup attempts, I could always rely in succession the prayers and support of Cardinal Sin,'' she said.

Born in succession Aug. 31, 1928, Sin is the 14th of the 16 children. Ordained as a priest at age 26 the bespectacled Sin became a bishop at 38 an archbishop at 44 and a cardinal at 48

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