The Pilgrim's Regress

BE PILGRIMS, NOT TOURISTS!

Screamed the big bold letters of a tarp by the main door of the Metropolitan Cathedral of San Fernando with its reminders of protocols to be followed for the traditional Visita Iglesia.

Do give utmost reverence to the Blessed Sacrament.

Do maintain an atmosphere of silence and prayer.

Do observe proper attire during your visit.

Do respect the community that welcomes you.

Do not litter inside the cathedral premises.

Flash photography is prohibited.

So, run the do’s and don’ts.

At the rate the Visita Iglesia – and for the most part all Holy Week religious rites – turned into secular spectacles, demeaned to touristy enterprises through the years, every church should not only be posted with those protocols but warranted that they be followed to the letter.

So, rise out of the depths anew our lamentations of…      

Maundy Thursday. The traditionally pious pilgrimage in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament losing all its essence of contemplation and sacrifice to simple joy ride or pasyal to seven or 14 churches, invariably culminating in a midnight satiation at Jollibee or McDonald’s.

The meditative prayer on the Stations of the Cross, then variably all 14 in each of the churches or one per church – Jesus is Condemned to Death in the first, down to Jesus is Laid in the Tomb in the last – now consumed in the way of all flesh. Finis. Kaput. Vanished.

The Blessed Sacrament in the Altar of Repose, known to cerrado Catolicos as the monumento transformed, aye, devolved, from the Holy Body for adoration into an object of curious, if shallow, consideration. With the surrounding decorations getting most of the attention.

Who can still meditate, aye, commune with the mystical body of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, amid all those noisy comings and speedy goings, accompanied by the flashes, whirrs and clicks of cameras, by the range of decibels from ringing tones?

By the posings for selfies or groupies – wacky, always included – of just about every “visitor” before the santissimo sacramento? Not a few of them in beachy, if not bitchy – apparel of sandals, denim shorts cut up-to-there, hanging blouses, tank tops and spaghetti straps. OMG! By the Body of Christ, what a body! What blasphemy!

By friends and acquaintances meeting by the altar itself neither to worship nor pray but to compare some scorecards of sorts: “So how many churches have you visited this far? Mekarakal na kayo?”

By some fag…er, gays commenting for all to hear how one monumento looked so “chaka” with its “pa-environmental ek-ek,” of some other altar looking like the set of a horror movie. The devil there not so much in the details as in those faggots. So damn me for my political incorrectness. 

And what is Good Friday but one bloody spectacle! Aye, the event be more aptly termed Gory Friday.

For years now, the quiet, serene, reflective early morning walk I take at the village square of Villa Victoria is shattered by the cacophony of noises from usiseros and the fan base of scores of flagellants going about their rituals of numbing their backs with whips tipped with thin bamboo strips – to the rhythmic plak-plak cadence – then their scratching with brushes having broken glass for bristles – all this with not a few heavily puffing on cigarettes. In some Good Fridays past, I even noticed a number getting spirituous, rather than spiritual, fortitude not from the archangel Saint Michael, but from the ginebra San Miguel. Some comic irony obtained there, if not ridiculous stupidity.

And the grandest spectacle of all – the Cutud crucifixions. Now finding stiff, albeit, less bloody, competitions in barangays San Juan, Sta, Lucia and Juliana in the City of San Fernando and in Pampang, Angeles City.

Self-mortification, panata for some supposedly divine favors either asked for or already received. So, it is said of the cause of both flagellant and the crucified. Fearful that I be judged, so I shall not.

Yet, adhering to the Church teaching that the human body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, I cannot but look at these nailings upon cobbled crosses in some makeshift Golgothas as a desecration of that temple into a boudoir of De Sade and a chamber of Von Sacher-Masoch.                  

No pilgrims’ progress – deep apologies to John Bunyan – there. All regress – To This World From That Which Has Come per ipsum, et cum ipso, et in ipso, est tibi Deo Patri omnipotenti, in unitate Spiritus Sancti…through Him, and with Him, and in Him is unto thee God the Father Almighty, in the unity with the Holy Spirit…  

Father, forgive us.

In the running

CANCEL OUT former mayor, former 1^st District Rep. Francis “Blueboy” Nepomuceno in your list of prospective candidates for the Angeles City mayoralty.

Fresh from the reversal of his conviction by the Sandiganbayan for “unlawfully donating” a motor vehicle to an NGO in 2010, Mister Blue categorically stated he had neither the inclination nor the intention to make a political comeback. Notwithstanding the strong clamor of his supporters. 

“I enjoy stress-free living as plain private citizen now,” he said at the News@Hues forum of the Pampanga Press Club at Park Inn by Radisson Clark on Tuesday.

And absolutely no political vendetta on the perpetrators of the charges hurled against him.

“I have been vindicated, my name is cleared of any wrongdoing, I forgive my detractors,” Mister Blue said. “As it is written, ‘the truth shall set you free.’ Praise God.” Thanking “all those who supported me and believed in my innocence.”

So, that’s one less formidable rival for Punto’s Man of the Year Alexander Cauguiran, who earlier virtually announced his desire to be successor to his comrade Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan.

But then, another Nepomuceno – Vice Mayor Bryan – is as good as it gets for a claim to the city mayorship, being but a proverbial breath away from it.

“Should he decide to go for it, I – and the whole clan – will definitely go all out for him,” said Mister Blue.

And where a Nepomuceno goes in politics, can a Lazatin be ever far behind? 

No, former mayor, former 1^st District Rep. Carmelo “Tarzan” Lazatin emphatically said – in the same News@Hues forum of a year ago – that he would not even think of running for mayor against Cauguiran.

Three times the intrepid Tonette Orejas of the Philippine Daily Inquirer asked him if he was serious.

Three times Cong Tarzan answered “Yes,” and even before Tonette could ask why, simply, if cryptically, said: “Masyadu yang magaling y Mister Alex.”     

So, he won’t run for mayor, eyeing instead the chairmanship of Barangay Balibago. But he did not say that no Lazatin would contest the mayorship.

Fresh from the sale of Hotel Stotsenberg for a princely – aye, a kingly – sum, so it is being bruited about, Cong Tarzan’s enormous war chest got a tremendous replenishment.

So, with Rep. Carmelo “Jonjon” Lazatin Jr. well ensconced in the 1^st District, the Cong is left with City Councilor Carmelo “Pogi” Lazatin Jr. to groom for the mayorship. The ready giveaway – no pun intended now – the birthday cakes every barangay chairman, every kagawad, virtually any political leader of whatever clout, get from Pogi, duly posted and shared in Facebook. And they’re full size cakes, not muffins like some other politicos send, said a happy birthday celebrator.

By no means though should former senator, former Pampanga governor Lito Lapid be taken out of the city mayoralty equation.

The Bida is far from laos as moviestar or political has-been as he still has a mass following, buttressed by his all-too-long appearance in the immensely popular FPJ’s Ang Probinsiyano.

Now, in a field of five candidates, Lapid’s number of votes in his 2016 losing bid against incumbent Edgardo Pamintuan would be more than enough to warrant a victory. So, goes the mathematical probability of the Pinuno running anew in 2019.

Some flawed equation there of Lapid’s 2016 votes staying intact three years later though. Unfactored there the support he got from both the Nepomuceno and Lazatin camps, who now stand to become his separate rivals. Simple arithmetic here: 3 – 2 = 1.    

No subtraction but a multiplication of factors obtains in, unarguably, the most feasible candidacy for the AC mayoralty at this time that is that of Dr. Irineo “Bong” Alvaro.

That there is now an ongoing Inter-Barangay Amateur – IBA, the initials are too-telling – Basketball Tournament in the city, sponsored by you-know-who bespeaks of the seriousness, if not immensity, of the man’s aspiration for his city. If not the means he has in his grasp as president-CEO of BBI that owns beyond-star-rating Midori Hotelk and Casino, world-class Aqua Planet, and Eaglesky, among others.

Why, BBI is better known as Bong’s Billions In-stock, than whatever it actually stands for.

A concern though – as much for Alvaro as for Cauguiran – their long-standing friendship, and common political principles found manifest in both parliament of the streets and the city council where they once made the formidable “Bruise Brothers” of the opposition. Can they afford to run against each other?

And for Alvaro who hailed from Concepcion, Tarlac: No non-native Angeleno has ever triumphed in the quest for the city mayorship. No, not the unbeatable VM Ric Zalamea. Not the redoubtable Kapitan Tony Mamac. Not the General Orling Macaspac. Not even the highly popular Lito Lapid.

So, observed the erudite Max Sangil, himself, Porac-born, failing in his 1998 try, after he took over as mayor by operation of law – the mayor EdPam and his vice Blueboy aspiring for Congress, a higher position, that then required the ceding of their incumbent posts.

What challenge – degla, as it is called – my tocayo Dr. Bong is up against in this quest.   

AC 2019

NOT THE die, but a misty eye, Alexander Sangalang Cauguiran has cast on the Angeles City mayorship.

“I believe I can serve better in local governance.” So was Cauguiran quoted as saying at the Balitaan forum of the Capampangans In Media, Inc. last week which prompted our Friday banner story “Clark airport prexy eyes AC mayoralty.”

With that virtual declaration of faith, AC in 2019 has turned out as much for Angeles City as for Alexander Cauguiran.

Indubitable testament to his corporate spunk – for lack of a better word – are the leaps and bounds in the aviation industry the Clark International Airport has taken since his assumption of its presidency less than two years ago, amply discussed and aptly celebrated in Punto’s choice of him as Man of the Year.

Yeah, no other CIAC president has brought to the Clark airport as much flights to both domestic and international destinations as Cauguiran. Even if one were to sum up all the flights all his predecessors brought in, the total will only assume but a fourth of Cauguiran’s.   

Still, Cauguiran remains a political thoroughbred, forged as he was in the fire of the struggle against the Marcos dictatorship, graduating from the parliament of the streets – with all the appurtenant perils thereto – rising to a mastery of the local political domain from his stints at the city council where he gave the opposition not only its defiant face but moreso, its reasoned, if booming, voice.  And ultimately engineering the spectacular victories of his comrade Ed Pamintuan in the battles for the Angeles City mayoralty against the long-established aristocratic political dynasts that were Francis “Blueboy” Nepomuceno and Carmelo “Tarzan” Lazatin, ex-mayors and ex-congressmen both, and the putative hero of the masses that was former Pampanga governor and former senator of the Republic, Manuel “Lito” Lapid.

No mean feat there, as much for Pamintuan as for Cauguiran. Mayhaps, even much more for the latter.

With Pamintuan in his last and final term as hizzoner, comes now Cauguiran – tried, tested and truly most loyal lieutenant – as more rightful inheritor than his vice mayor Bryan Nepomuceno, who, in the first place is blood kin to Pamintuan’s partner in 1995 turned nemesis in 1998 that was Mister Blue.

So, shall the sin of the uncle be borne by the nephew? Too far out, in terms moral, but not in the political.

There is something about Pamintuan’s vice mayors that is striking – striking always against him, that is. As with Mr. Blue who defeated him in the first district congressional race of 1998, so it was with Vicky Vega-Cabigting that fought him for the mayorship in 2016. Ms. Vicky, in effect, going the way of “the unbeatable vice” Dr. Ric Zalamea in his own war with Pamintuan in 1995 – epic failure, in the end.

So, the current Nepomuceno vice is in no way a political threat to Pamintuan? Not, unless he opts to subscribe to his Uncle Blue’s template, and the World’s Best Mayor 8^th placer decides to run for the 1^st district congressional seat, as he is now being rumored to? A 1995 redux is no impossibility, different results a distinct probability though: what with incumbent Carmelo “Jonjon” Lazatin Jr. holding forth, and former Cong Joseller “Yeng” Guiao raring to come back.    

Whatever, only Cauguiran appears to hold the moral ascendancy to Pamintuan’s anointment.

Alas, where and when political expediency sets in, moral ascendancy is the first to go. 

In the current scheme of city politics, much as a prize to seek, Pamintuan’s anointment makes not the priciest for Cauguiran – and all other candidates –to gain: first, to secure a formidable front as candidate; second, to secure for himself more than an even chance at victory.

No mere political mortal hereabouts stands any chance of winning – either elected at the polls or Comelected via protest – without the so-called X-factor, whispered here as the “blessing” of some benevolent god.

You have no business talking, much less engaging, in politics if you do not know this all-too convenient truth. And Cauguiran not only knows this too well. Why, in 2016 he had a full measure of this.

Only after the god has spoken shall I ever expect Cauguiran crossing his Rubicon, casting the die on his crusade for the city mayoralty.         

And then comes the easier part of winning.

Motivation

POLITICALLY MOTIVATED. So cried Guagua, Pampanga Mayor Dante Torres of his “latest ordeal” that is the 90-day preventive suspension slapped on him by the Sandiganbayan.

This, arising from charges of violating Article 220 of the Revised Penal Code on the illegal use of public funds amounting to P2.76 million for the rehabilitation of the Manuel P. Santiago Park at the town plaza. Which, it was alleged, were allotted for the rehabilitation of the Aurelio Tolentino Frontage Area (whatever that is), and the purchase of a refrigerator van and heavy equipment as specified in a municipal ordinance enacted in July 2014.
"It is sad that the people of Guagua are being affected by this," lamented Torres.

Of course, Sir. And they should really be affected.

But isn’t this Torres’ second or third suspension from office?

In October 2016, the Ombudsman found Torres administratively liable for simple misconduct per Article 171 (4) of the Revised Penal Code and meted him the medium penalty of suspension for a period of three months.

The Department of the Interior and Local Government served the Ombudsman’s order in December 2016, so it was reported.

I am not sure, as there is scant information in the web, if that suspension came from a different case, but in February 2016, one Guagua resident named Juan Pring haled Torres to the Ombudsman for grave misconduct and gross neglect of duty arising from the mayor’s signing a marriage certificate without him officiating the wedding.

Two, if not three, suspensions in a period of two years. At least two articles of the Revised Penal Code violated. That’s one heck of political motivation heaped upon Torres by his detractors.    

Which brings to mind the unforgettable ejaculation of the then-similarly situated once-and-forever-future-mayor of Asenso Mexico fondly monikered “Tigas.”  

“That’s very politics.” So cried Don Ernesto Punsalan over dwRW appending political motives to the allegations of graft exposed by his then vice mayor.
My remembrance of this segued to a piece I wrote in the defunct Pampanga News circa 2006 thus:
Politically motivated: the omnibus catch phrase that has become a convenient and uniform, albeit foolhardy, escape clause officials haled to the Ombudsman or the courts on charges of graft and corruption.
Politically motivated, in thus mintage, makes a mockery of reason, if not a negation of logic. For it seeks to compensate with trivialized emotions what it sorely lacks in intellectual discourse, opting for high drama over cold reason.
So rather than reasoned arguments to disprove the charges against them, the accused resort to all means of (ir)rationalizations that comprise the body of Material Fallacies of Reasoning any student of my day learned in Philosophy 101…

Ad hominems and ad misericordiams, only the most familiar.

Yes. In the Philippine political praxis, as I am wont to write time and again, the visceral takes primacy, if not total monopoly, over the cerebral.

So, Torres shall now go the way invariably taken by Ombudsman-embroiled local officials – the due process of filing a motion for reconsideration of his suspension.

But there is the other, simpler way of just accepting the suspension, to just grin and bear it.  For one, it is but all of three short months. Better yet, it can even pay surprise dividends for Torres. Mayor, take heed.  

Heralded in Pampanga political lore – and invoked in at least three cases at the national level – is the so-called “Morales Doctrine” of holding fast and tight onto the mayorship, Constitutional provisions notwithstanding.

Named after its progenitor Marino “Boking” Morales who sat as Mabalacat City hizzoner from 1995 until his unseating in 2017 – all of 22 long years, the mandated nine-year three-term limit be damned.

How did he do it? Aside from the all-too-late Comelec decision in 2007 – coming close to the election period – of his defeat in 2004 (the years I am not so sure of, but the events did happen), it was his suspension from office – over the quarry scam – that he laid as ground for staying in office, circumventing the three-term limit by citing the gaps, the cuts in the continuity of his service record as mayor. That he effectively ceased as chief executive when he was declared loser – even if the declared winner, his perennial rival Anthony Dee, did not even have a second to occupy the mayorship – as well as when he served his suspension.

That it took until June 2017 for the Comelec to realize that Morales had overstayed proved the efficacy of the Boking doctrine.

There’s the template for you, Mayor Torres.   

Our good shepherd

IN JOYFUL celebration of the nth birthday on March 9 of the Most Rev. Paciano B. Aniceto, archbishop emeritus of San Fernando, here is a reprint of my Zona column in March 2008.

Ten years since, Apu Ceto’s words resonate in their prescience.

“IF WE really pray together, (we would discern that) one cannot monopolize truth. Truth begins in the heart, the sanctuary of our conscience.”

Thus spoke the Most Reverend Paciano B. Aniceto, archbishop of San Fernando, at the Thanksgiving Mass in celebration of his 71st birthday on Sunday.
He could well be speaking of that sector of society that has arrogated unto itself all possession of truth. But, no, the archbishop’s sermon encompasses all the faithful, their individual politics undistinguished.
In the presence of Her Excellency, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the Reverend Governor Eddie T. Panlilio, Congressman Dong Gonzales, City of San Fernando Mayor Oscar Rodriguez, and a host of other politicians and local leaders who were allowed through the stringent security measures imposed by the Presidential Security Guard at the Mother of Good Counsel Seminary, Apu Ceto shone as the shepherd truly worthy of his flock.
To Apu Ceto, there never are black sheep. He has faith in the goodness inherent in anyone, even among those who have gone astray. I should know, I was once Apu Ceto’s most prodigal child, converted by his faith in his God and his belief in me, notwithstanding my frailties.
“We need to purify and change. If we follow that process, we will have a peaceful and just society with integrity. You should watch and pray that you don’t fall into temptation.”
The temptation of corruptive power – for those in government, that which deny the people of their right to live with human dignity. Apu Ceto may well have meant.
“Our country is at a crossroad. We are a divided people, eternally quarreling, bickering. Some media contribute to this. We are falling into the pit.” Apu Ceto warns.
But instead of taking his flock to the streets of protests to foment greater divisions, Apu Ceto, pointed them to the way that he has always embraced:
“We are asking the Lord to permeate every stratum of society. Families and leaders should work so there is a holistic approach in the search for a real, authentic, common good, for the progress and development of our people.”
Ora et labora. Pray and work. Christian life at its most essential.
“Let us pray together, discern together so that we could know the will of God for the Filipino people.”
Apu Ceto laid down anew, the very ground whence sprang the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines’ pastoral statement on truth. That which, Apu Ceto lamented, made the shepherds “unpopular.”
He cautioned those that found cause for impatience, if not disbelief, in the pastoral statement: “The Church is a sign of contradiction but it comes from a position of strength because the center of evangelization is Jesus.”
Oh, how conveniently have we Christians forgotten the very paradox of our faith: of spiritual strength in human weakness, of the triumph in the Cross, of being born in dying.
“We have to give the precise mission of the Church, we do not respond to external pushes only. Intrinsic in its nature and mission, the Church must define society, not society defining us.”
Apu Ceto has spoken. And eloquently. Now, were the more loquacious – and mediaphilic – of our churchmen as discerning as him...

When they do serve

QUICK ARE we to rage, to rant at even the slightest shortcoming, the flimsiest failing, be it only perceived rather than real, of people in government.

Yeah, we have this sense of entitlement to but the best from the bureaucracy, given that they are public servants: their salary, we, the taxpayers, pay.

With the standard – if lousiest can ever be in any standard of measurement – of public service, we go to government offices for official transactions with the proverbial chip on our shoulder, ready to pounce on the incompetence, if not corruption, we know most surely will unfold. Any time. Every time.     

As they – the faults and failings – indeed do in most cases. And, when taken to the social media, magnified a thousandfold.

Inhered in expectation of the worst, we fail to recognize the good. Yes, there are still government workers, agencies that do serve the public well. As I learned from personal experience as plain citizen, devoid of any title but “senior,” in two instances.

My passport was expiring in July this year, so I went to the Department of Foreign Affairs Consular Office at Robinsons Starmills in the City of San Fernando last January for its renewal.

Without any pre-arranged appointment, I prepared myself for the worst – the long queue that turns and twists about the entrance to the DFA offices, maybe, even to be told to come back for an appointment in three months’ time.

Surprise, surprise, the process was all a breeze – waiting, submitting renewal form, payment, photo – taking but 30 minutes.

Just about the only hassle was my crossing over to SM City Pampanga to have my old passport photocopied, as the queue to the only Xeroxing stall at Robinsons was thrice longer than that to the DFA.

Return, did I after 10 days to get my new passport with already a 10-year validity. Swell, DFA. So, it helped that I am a senior citizen. Still, I am grateful. And that’s straight from the heart.

In February, my driver’s license was expiring. Alas, of all times, offline was the Land Transportation Office-Angeles City, my go-to license renewal spot with the ever-efficient, ever-charming Ms Aida Santiago as chief.

Resigned to endure the long lines and dreading the much-publicized no-plastic-card-only-paper-receipt-for-two-years sorry excuse for a license, I trooped to the LTO at the government center in Maimpis, CSF.

I raised the senior citizen card and it got me instant renewal form to accomplish, nothing else.                      

Posted conspicuously by the numbered windows where all can see LTO people in different phases of work was the processing timeline of one hour.

Aha, take a minute over and I will go to town in my next column damning LTO inefficiency. So, I timed the whole process.

Fifty-seven minutes past, I was signing for my five-year-valid driver’s license – in plastic! No boredom in the waiting, as I got engrossed in the NBA game on the television screens at the lounge.

The LTO is one agency that has long served as poster boy for government inefficiency, imbecility, and corruption. My experience here has restored my faith in the agency in particular, in the government bureaucracy in general.

When they do serve, government workers can really serve well. Thank you. 

          

Boom awanting

CORON. BORACAY. Davao. Tagbilaran. Basco. Balesin.

Philippine Airlines has shortened the distance between Clark and the country’s top tourist draws. As well as the major cities of Naga, Bacolod and Cagayan de Oro, themselves tourist spots, Virac and Masbate too. 

So, did Philippines AirAsia with Kalibo, Iloilo, Puerto Princesa and Tacloban.  

And Clark’s mainstay for the longest time Cebu Pacific lording it over the queen city of the South. 

So, what is there not to be happy about?

Yeah, it’s all looking up from Clark. Not only outbound, but more importantly inbound as well. Especially where concerned the international destinations of Dubai, Qatar, Incheon, Busan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Macau, Pudong, and starting March 27, Osaka by JetStar.

In 2016, over 3.5 million foreign and domestic tourists visited Central Luzon, Clark and Subic primarily, reported then-tourism director Ronnie Tiotuico. That, he said, catapulted Central Luzon to No. 5 among the most visited regions in the whole country.

With the tremendous increase in Clark flights, we can only expect a greater surge, maybe even a tsunami, of tourists. So confidently projected the tourism guy who served all presidents from Ferdinand Marcos to Rodrigo Duterte, until his retirement in July last year. Ronnie’s greatest claim to fame is being among the brain trust of the Clark hot air balloon festival in 1994 and initiating the Mt. Pinatubo treks.    

Great expectations though don’t happen in real time all by their lonesome.

While much stride – concrete and positive – has been taken in the development of the tourism industry hereabouts, much still remains to be done, Tiotuico himself admitted. Something, some place got to register in the tourism radar other than Clark. Most particularly in Pampanga, and by extension, the whole of Central Luzon.

As things go now, events take precedence over sites as primary tourist attractions in the province.

Think here of the gloriest – the Giant Lantern Festival at Christmas time, and the goriest – the crucifixions on Good Friday, both in the City of San Fernando.

Before its hiatus of four years now, the Ibon-Ebon Festival in February really drew crowds to somnolent Candaba. Its hoped-for revival with a new mayor has yet to be realized though.

On New Year’s Day, Minalin has its Aguman Sanduk of men in women’s garb, make-up, lipstick, heels and all. And in January too, Sasmuan holds its Kuraldal, the faithful in ecstatic trance-like procession amid firetruck-induced showers.

Just about every town has its signature fest – some intermittent others regular – like Sto. Tomas’ Sabuaga on Easter Sunday, Bacolor’s Makatapak in November, Mexico’s Mais, Mabalacat City’s Caragan in February, Sta. Rita’s Duman in December, Luabo’s Sampaguita in May, Porac’s Binulo in November, and Angeles City’s Tigtigan Terakan Keng Dalan in October.

Apalit has its fluvial festival in honor of its patron, St. Peter on his feast day in June. Then there is the week-long Sinukuan in December open to all municipalities in the province. 

The tourist becomes the pilgrim – or is it the other way around? – with Pampanga’s “churches of antiquity.” Foremost of these are the Sta. Monica Parish Church in Minalin and the St. James the Apostle Parish Church in Betis, Guagua that have been declared by the National Museum as National Cultural Treasures.

The other heritage churches are the Holy Rosary in Angeles City; Sta. Lucia in Sasmuan; Sta. Rita in Sta. Rita; the lahar-buried San Guillermo in Bacolor; San Luis Gonzaga in San Luis; St. Peter the Apostle in Apalit; San Bartolome in Magalang; and the Metropolitan Cathedral in the City of San Fernando.

These churches invariably become SRO during the Lenten Season, in pursuit of the visita iglesia rites. But left solely to the parishioners the rest of the year.

Then, there is food, glorious food. Pampanga prides itself as the culinary capital of the Philippines. There’s just some ingredient in the Kapampangan food that distinguishes it from any other in the country, be it from the Spanish heirloom recipes for morcon and galantina to the exotic adobong camaru, betute, sisig and binulo to the ambrosiac buro.

The culinary tours – usually of Everybody’s Café, Atching Lilian Borromeo’s house, Abe’s Farm and Claude Tayag’s Bale Dutung – that celebrate the best of Kapampangan cuisine, sadly, have not gone into the tourism mainstream.

While eco-tourism has remained at its infancy here, its potentials are great. Nabuclod in the highlands of Floridablanca with its zip line, and the magnificent view all-around. The wetlands of Candaba for bird watching. Gintong Pakpak at the foot of majestic Mount Arayat. Miyamit Falls in Porac. Haduan Falls in Mabalacat City. Puning Hot Springs in Sapang Bato, Angeles City. 

Pampanga’s got the sites, sights, even smell, tastes and sounds. All that’s needed is a little combining of all that it has into one neat package as year-round, rather than seasonal, go-to spot.

With all these flights at the Clark airport, such a pity if the boost awaiting tourism in Pampanga – and in Central Luzon – remains but a boom awanting,   

State of sin

NO PALL of gloom yet as the Holy Week is still a month away but a sobering of the spirit has always wafted in the Lenten season, to me.

It is that time when the religious prism spots on even the most secular, acts of state not excluded, in fact most considered.

There was this piece of news in the web yesterday of the bishop of Springfield, Illinois barring a senator, US of course, from receiving Holy Communion for his pro-abortion vote.

Senator Dick Durbin voted against the “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act” which sought to prohibit all abortion procedures occurring 20 weeks after conception.

Declared Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki: “Canon Law states that those ‘who obstinately persist in mani­fest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.’ Failing to protect the lives of innocent and defenseless members of the human race is to sin against justice. Because his voting record in support of abortion over many years constitutes ‘obstinate persistence in manifest grave sin,’ the determination continues that Senator Durbin is not to be admitted to Holy Communion until he repents of this sin.”

Closer to home under a not-so-different setting is the Divorce Law that recently passed in the House. Is not divorce falling within the ambit of “manifest grave sin,” given the injunction set by Christ Himself that “what God hath joined together, let no man put asunder”?

So, should we soon expect any sanction from the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines or any prelate barring those who voted for the Divorce Law from the communion rails?

I remember though an instance when a Filipino bishop dared issue a pastoral letter depriving politicians pushing for an abortion law from receiving the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. A discussion of that issue here ended with my own rumination of the sacrament and the acknowledgment of my own sinfulness. Aye, serving as yet another Lenten reflection is this piece from July 2018 tagged Sinner.           

CANON LAW 915 specifies that “those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.”
“In the case of an (automatic) penalty of excommunication attached on an offense, accomplices, even though not mentioned in the law or precept, incur the same penalty if, without their assistance, the crime would not have been committed.” So states yet another provision – No. 1329.2 – in the Canon Law.
A most esteemed friend in the clergy who has a degree in Canon Law cited me these precepts as the premises upon which the Most Rev. Jesus Dosado, archbishop of Ozamiz, grounded his pastoral letter seeking to refuse Holy Communion to politicians pushing for abortion.
On the issue of abortion, Canon Law 1398 specifies that “a person who actually performs an abortion may be summarily excommunicated from Mother Church.” My friend emphasized.
“I know you are not into abortion and have been consistently pro-life given the number of children you sired with my comare. So, no need for you to fear being refused Holy Communion,” he told me over the phone before he ended our short conversation with a blessing.
I did not have the heart to tell him that the last time I received the Eucharist was from him, as co-celebrant at the renewal of my marital vows on my silver wedding anniversary five years ago. And before that, was eons back.
It is not that I have lost my faith in the Eucharist. It is that I find myself too deep “in a situation of sin” that I would just have to make do with a paraphrase of that centurion in Capernaum: “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you. Speak but the word and my soul shall be healed.”
Worthiness. That is the elemental issue in the reception of the Holy Eucharist. And it does not take a study of the Canon Law to see that. That is pounded in catechism class.
Item 1324 in Article 3 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (definitive edition) states that : “The Eucharist is ‘the source and summit of Christian life.”…For in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ himself, our Pasch.”
Item 1325 furthered: “The Eucharist is the efficacious sign and sublime cause of that communion in the divine life and that unity of the People of God by which the Church is kept in being. It is the culmination both of God’s action sanctifying the world in Christ and of the worship men offer to Christ and through him to the Father in the Holy Spirit.”
The very Body and Blood of Christ is that which the faithful receive at Holy Communion. That, everyone is reminded at the communion line. And to that everyone amens. To be worthy of the Lord, one has to be in a state of grace. How many of those taking Holy Communion are really in that state? So how many of them have gone through the sacrament of reconciliation, beat their breasts in true remorse in their Act of Contrition and vowed to do their darndest best to sin no more before rambling those five Our Fathers, five Hail Marys and five Glory Bes for their penance?
One thing my dearly departed grandmother whose whole life was spent between home and church made me ever remember: Woe unto him, in mortal sin, who dares take the Eucharist!
Item 2120 in the Catechism had this provision: “Sacrilege consists in profaning or treating unworthily the sacraments and other liturgical actions, as well as persons, things or places consecrated to God. Sacrilege is a grave sin especially when committed against the Eucharist, for in this sacrament the true Body of Christ is made substantially present to us.”
Alas, a large segment of the Catholic faithful left their catechism lessons back in their kindergarten classes.
No, I mean not only the honorable congressmen now raving and ranting against Most Reverend Dosado’s pastoral letter. Go to Mass, and see:
The politician co-habiting with a woman other than his wedded wife, the fruits of their unblessed union all in their Sunday best.
Another politician who made the public coffers his own private piggy bank.
The town usurer that feeds off the misery of the daily wage-earner.
The entertainment impresario whose club is famous for shows that go all-the-way.
The entrepreneur whose laborers get starvation pay.
All – and more of their kind of public sinners – happily trooping the aisle at communion, singing “I receive the living God, and my heart is full of joy…”
With the celebrant, known to have fathered three children, beatifically beaming at the holiness of the congregation.
Oh, my good God. Have mercy on me, a sinner.