Ropes
Ropes
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the December 13, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
THE EULOGIES delivered during Fr. Cha Colendres' wake last week drove home one thing to me again-the heroism of the priests and laypeople who have built the Church of the Poor in Infanta. The real story about how Father Cha died is that he perished in a column of water full of logs that fell down on him and his assistant, Dionisio Cadungog, as they tried to make their way to Infanta by foot through the rice fields in the middle of the storm. But the things said about Father Cha during his wake showed me the original story, which was that he tied himself to a tree and threw the other end of the rope to a group of drowning folk, wasn't completely off the mark. It might not have been the story of his death, but it was the story of his life.
As well indeed as the lives-most of them happily still continuing ones-of the other priests and laity who have laid a stone or two in the edifice, or hillside shack, that is the church of Infanta. Chief of them Bishop Julio Labayen. The Church of the Poor owes in great part to him: he is its chief architect and stone-layer. It was his vision, determination, and self-sacrifice that raised it almost literally from the mud to what it now is today, a beacon in a windswept sea.
When Bishop Labayen and many of his priests came to the Prelature in the 1960s and 1970s, that part of the world was pretty much a land God forgot. Real got its electricity only in the late 1970s. Before that, one picnicked on the beach in the warm and breezy summer nights only by the light of the moon and stars. One really appreciated that light when winding one's way to one's cot after many swigs of lambanog, the kind made from nipa. People slept early. I remember a companion waking up in the middle of the night after having gone to bed early and demanding to know in the pitch darkness, "(Expletive) how long does a night take to end here?"
More to the point, going to Real was like taking a slow boat to Jolo, with the additional rigors of a land trip. It carried with it the same amount of hardship and uncertainty. The road after Siniloan was a narrow and dusty path that wound around the mountains. I recall that the trees in those mountains in the 1970s were tall and lush. In this Alice-in-Wonderland country, backwardness is often the poor's greatest defense. (The highway that came later wiped those trees out.) The buses that plied the route literally rumbled on, they creaked and groaned and sputtered. When they broke down, as they often did, people got down and walked the rest of the way. No one demanded to get his fare back on the ground of a contract not having been completed. One merely looked up to heaven and asked plaintively why.
It was into this world that Bishop Labayen, Fr. Nonong Pili, Fr. Boy Makabenta, Fr. Pites Bernardo, and others found themselves thrust decades ago. Father Pites died in the 1980s from a motorcycle accident, though some say the accident might have been staged by Marcos' henchmen. The others have their own stories to tell about the near-death experiences they had while building a church there. Father Boy nearly died there too one stormy night, when a flash flood swept him and his motorcycle away. He managed to survive only by straining mightily to tear off his raincoat, which was dragging him downward, and swimming to solid ground. For weeks after that, we called him the Incredible Hulk.
No, the story about Father Cha throwing a lifeline to drowning folk isn't entirely off the mark. But there is a twist here. There is another dimension I've since glimpsed, or that has tumbled into my brain like a flash flood, particularly after hearing Dionisio's story about what really happened. It was in fact Dionisio who tried to save Father Cha from the rampaging water, he was in front, he took the brunt of the onrushing water logs. Alas, he was hit badly and lost consciousness: it was no small miracle he himself survived. He still doesn't how he did.
But his experience drove home to me that the rope-throwing isn't exactly a one-way street. It isn't just Bishop Labayen and his priests who have thrown a lifeline to drowning folk, it is the folk of Quezon who have thrown a lifeline at a drowning Church. In the end, that is what the Church of the Poor really means. It is a reaffirmation of something deeply vital that has been forgotten over the centuries of religious life in this country. Which is that the Church is not the clergy or the Church officials who materialize from palaces on grand occasions in grand clothing; it is the folk themselves, often a little patronizingly treated, and not just called, a flock. It is the people who constitute the Church, as bone and blood and sinew constitute a body, and thought and feeling and ecstasy constitute the soul.
Bishop Labayen might have been the chief architect of the Church of the Poor in Infanta, but he had no small amount of help from everyone, not just the priests who took the journey with him on the rock-strewn road that wound around the mountains. All of them raised that Church, and all of them have kept that Church on its feet. Despite the lash of wind and rain, despite the yoke of hunger and martial law, despite the whims of God and government. A true Church beats in the heart of the storm- and greed-ravaged land, one that shows how faith can truly move mountains.
Government in fact is that too, or should be. It isn't the public officials who strut around while saying blindly the loggers are not to blame for the deaths in Quezon; it is the folk who seethe through their tears that well up in their eyes at seeing their children buried in the mud. Government is the people.
But the one that's there right now, you think of another kind of rope to throw to it. The one that tightens round the neck.
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the December 13, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
THE EULOGIES delivered during Fr. Cha Colendres' wake last week drove home one thing to me again-the heroism of the priests and laypeople who have built the Church of the Poor in Infanta. The real story about how Father Cha died is that he perished in a column of water full of logs that fell down on him and his assistant, Dionisio Cadungog, as they tried to make their way to Infanta by foot through the rice fields in the middle of the storm. But the things said about Father Cha during his wake showed me the original story, which was that he tied himself to a tree and threw the other end of the rope to a group of drowning folk, wasn't completely off the mark. It might not have been the story of his death, but it was the story of his life.
As well indeed as the lives-most of them happily still continuing ones-of the other priests and laity who have laid a stone or two in the edifice, or hillside shack, that is the church of Infanta. Chief of them Bishop Julio Labayen. The Church of the Poor owes in great part to him: he is its chief architect and stone-layer. It was his vision, determination, and self-sacrifice that raised it almost literally from the mud to what it now is today, a beacon in a windswept sea.
When Bishop Labayen and many of his priests came to the Prelature in the 1960s and 1970s, that part of the world was pretty much a land God forgot. Real got its electricity only in the late 1970s. Before that, one picnicked on the beach in the warm and breezy summer nights only by the light of the moon and stars. One really appreciated that light when winding one's way to one's cot after many swigs of lambanog, the kind made from nipa. People slept early. I remember a companion waking up in the middle of the night after having gone to bed early and demanding to know in the pitch darkness, "(Expletive) how long does a night take to end here?"
More to the point, going to Real was like taking a slow boat to Jolo, with the additional rigors of a land trip. It carried with it the same amount of hardship and uncertainty. The road after Siniloan was a narrow and dusty path that wound around the mountains. I recall that the trees in those mountains in the 1970s were tall and lush. In this Alice-in-Wonderland country, backwardness is often the poor's greatest defense. (The highway that came later wiped those trees out.) The buses that plied the route literally rumbled on, they creaked and groaned and sputtered. When they broke down, as they often did, people got down and walked the rest of the way. No one demanded to get his fare back on the ground of a contract not having been completed. One merely looked up to heaven and asked plaintively why.
It was into this world that Bishop Labayen, Fr. Nonong Pili, Fr. Boy Makabenta, Fr. Pites Bernardo, and others found themselves thrust decades ago. Father Pites died in the 1980s from a motorcycle accident, though some say the accident might have been staged by Marcos' henchmen. The others have their own stories to tell about the near-death experiences they had while building a church there. Father Boy nearly died there too one stormy night, when a flash flood swept him and his motorcycle away. He managed to survive only by straining mightily to tear off his raincoat, which was dragging him downward, and swimming to solid ground. For weeks after that, we called him the Incredible Hulk.
No, the story about Father Cha throwing a lifeline to drowning folk isn't entirely off the mark. But there is a twist here. There is another dimension I've since glimpsed, or that has tumbled into my brain like a flash flood, particularly after hearing Dionisio's story about what really happened. It was in fact Dionisio who tried to save Father Cha from the rampaging water, he was in front, he took the brunt of the onrushing water logs. Alas, he was hit badly and lost consciousness: it was no small miracle he himself survived. He still doesn't how he did.
But his experience drove home to me that the rope-throwing isn't exactly a one-way street. It isn't just Bishop Labayen and his priests who have thrown a lifeline to drowning folk, it is the folk of Quezon who have thrown a lifeline at a drowning Church. In the end, that is what the Church of the Poor really means. It is a reaffirmation of something deeply vital that has been forgotten over the centuries of religious life in this country. Which is that the Church is not the clergy or the Church officials who materialize from palaces on grand occasions in grand clothing; it is the folk themselves, often a little patronizingly treated, and not just called, a flock. It is the people who constitute the Church, as bone and blood and sinew constitute a body, and thought and feeling and ecstasy constitute the soul.
Bishop Labayen might have been the chief architect of the Church of the Poor in Infanta, but he had no small amount of help from everyone, not just the priests who took the journey with him on the rock-strewn road that wound around the mountains. All of them raised that Church, and all of them have kept that Church on its feet. Despite the lash of wind and rain, despite the yoke of hunger and martial law, despite the whims of God and government. A true Church beats in the heart of the storm- and greed-ravaged land, one that shows how faith can truly move mountains.
Government in fact is that too, or should be. It isn't the public officials who strut around while saying blindly the loggers are not to blame for the deaths in Quezon; it is the folk who seethe through their tears that well up in their eyes at seeing their children buried in the mud. Government is the people.
But the one that's there right now, you think of another kind of rope to throw to it. The one that tightens round the neck.
posted by Dante at 12:00 AM
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