Wagging God

"SINASADYA KO 'yan eh. You know why? This country is in doldrums. I am shaking the tree para mabuhay lahat, para makita ko. I am shaking the tree pati mga salita ko bastos and I am trying to go to the boundaries of hanggang saan."

An admission straight from the foul mouth of your President. Of some sly method to the outrageous madness of his calling God “stupid” over the creation story in the Bible, onto idiotizing the people in the Last Supper.

And then some iteration: "Your God is not my God kasi ang God mo stupid."

A case of the tail wagging the dog – public attention purposely being diverted from the critical concerns of the day to trivialities – descending to blasphemous depths with Duterte wagging God Himself.

Aye, no mere violation of the commandment not to take the name of the Lord in vain there, but gross violence heaped upon God. Okay, maybe not his and his minions’ god, but everybody else’s God.

Shocked, the nation fell for Duterte’s scheme with the collective and individual damnation of his deviltry getting the monopoly of public discourse. All other issues dumped on the back burner.

After days of silence – amid calls for him to make a stand “for God and His Church” – Luis Cardinal Tagle on Wednesday issued a letter to the clergy of the Archdiocese of Manila that carried, among others, precisely what we are talking about here in his caveat: "While these questions are extremely important for the dialogue between faith and current concerns, let us not be distracted from addressing other pressing concerns with the fervor of faith and love…”

Concerns, he exampled as “the increasing prices of goods, job security, exploitation of women and children, violence in homes and neighborhoods, different types of addictions, crimes, vulnerabilities of OFWs, the daily paralyzing traffic in big cities, flooding, reconstruction of destroyed cities, combating terrorism, corruption, and others."

Those “others” we can easily supply as the slumping peso, Philippine stocks plummeting to bear territory, the sharp fall in foreign investment pledges, the unceasing territorial penetration by the Chinese – their military planes now landing in Davao City – the debt trap poised on the nation by the Build, Build, Build program, the pandemic idiocy in the bureaucracy…

While mindful of Duterte’s blasphemies against our God, let us not lose our focus on the evils right in our midst.   

Indeed, the Cardinal: "Be at peace. Be calm. Don't let things disturb your inner peace. Let us read the situation with the eyes of faith."

Not with the eyes though – the all-too-weak Christian that I am – but with the prism of faith that I read the situation at hand and respond, correspondingly.

I am a Catholic and proud of it. My God is not stupid. So many have started wearing faith on their sleeves, be it in the web or on their shirts. Why, even my seminary brethren during our lunch-fellowship Wednesday at the Immaculate Conception parish church of my classmate, the Rev. Fr. Larry Sarmiento in Guagua town strongly considered coming out with I am a Catholic shirts of our own.   

A Church militant made the call of the day. But I begged to differ. 

The Church persecuted is the Church triumphant.

So, I declared during our short sharing. So, what else is new with all these slanders against the Church, these blasphemies against God? So, how many tyrants long, long before Duterte have ambitioned to destroy the Church?

All of them have fallen. The Church stands. And as promised: “…the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

Rife in persecution is the history of the Church, as it is now. And lest we forget, our faith is nourished by the blood of martyrs – our own Fathers Tito Paez, Mark Ventura, and Richmond Nito offered to the altar of supreme sacrifice only in recent months.     

So, it is written: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Redemptive suffering, one more way to Christian perfection. That which St. Augustine qualifies thus: “the profitable thing is not suffering those evils, but bearing them with equanimity and cheerfulness for the sake of Christ.”

No, I did not take offense on Duterte’s ululation of that stupid god. On the contrary, I took pity on him – on Duterte. Prayed, and still pray, for him.

Cardinal Tagle wrote, “God is the Savior. We do not need to save God. It is God who will save us."

Indeed, if there is anyone that needs saving, it is Duterte. To be saved from himself.

A pilgrimage

AT THE Wailing Wall, I wept.

Amid a babel of what can be supplications, lamentations, laudations, and benedictions, above the celebratory din of bar mitzvahs all around, I found innermost peace.  Soon as my palms touched the wall, radiated throughout my body that sense of the sacred, finding physical manifest in… goosebumps. And as I kissed the wall, a torrent of tears –   

All praise and glory to You, my Lord.

What am I to merit Your grace?

A serial sinner, enslaved with the world,

mired in wickedness, chained to iniquity.

Bowed down now before Your Temple

Awash in Your mercy and compassion

I beg Your forgiveness.

Help me keep steadfast to the Way.

Hear my prayers.

All praise and glory to You, my God.
AT BETHLEHEM, my heart leapt for joy.  
Prostrated to kiss the silver star marking the spot where Mary gave birth to the Saviour - 

Gloria in excelsis Deo,

Et in terra pax hominibus…

Sorrow, suddenly dawning –  

The peace of Thy birthing,

The peace of Thy preaching,

That peace Thou bequeathed to the apostles – and to the world,

Utterly rejected, in a conflicted world by our own undoing.

Why, the very place of Thy birth

A walled-in prison, a barbed-wired garrison!

Renew in us Thy Faith, where springs Hope,

whence Love grows, and reigns Thy peace.

Make us again worthy to be called children of God.

O, JERUSALEM!

How I rejoice at the mere sight of thee!

Thou fill my longings with joy, thy love overflows.

Thou sear my soul, my spirit soars.

Blessed am I, even as I stand outside thy walls.  

AT GETHSEMANE –

“Can you not stay awake with Me for one hour?

…pray that you will not enter into temptation. For the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.”

Too often have we succumbed – without so much a fight – to the call of the flesh. Aye, so have we made the weakness of our flesh as the very (ir)rationalization for our sinning: As we are but human, so shall we sin.

Lord, help us stay awake with You, let Your spirit strengthen our will, fortify our resolve to fight the snares of evil, not only for us not to sin but moreso, for us not to cause others to sin. 

AT VIA DOLOROSA – 

I fall, in sin. Thou fell to save me from my sin. Once, twice, thrice, it matters not. Endless is Thy mercy and compassion.

I can only seek Thy forgiveness.

Grant me the grace not so much as the Cyrenian ordered to help Thou carry the cross, but to take up my own cross – as atonement for sin, in testimony of faith, as a beacon of hope, and expression of love -- as I strive to keep to Thy Way all the days of my life.  

AT THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE –

Up a steep staircase, opens the Altar of Calvary where enshrined the rock on which the Holy Cross was raised. Kissing the rock in penitential prostration, the eyes swelled with tears.  

All too real now – the hammer strikes the nails that pierced Thy palms and feet. The crown of thorns sinking deeper into Thy head every minute. Thy wounds from the scourging at the pillar oozing with blood. Amid Thy suffering, the blasphemies of the mocking crowd…Consummatum est.

Father, forgive us even when we know the wrongness of what we are doing.

Lord Jesus crucified, have mercy on us.

Down the stairs, by the main entry to the church, a red granite slab – the Stone of Anointing – where the body of the Lord, taken from the cross, was washed and prepared for burial.

With a heart most contrite, I rest my head upon this rock. Lord, may I be cleansed from my sinful ways.

AT THE AEDICULE –

Long lines to the shrine housing the empty tomb where the Lord was laid and resurrected. Cacophonous murmurings, soft chanting, whispered prayers – in myriad tongues – intrude into contemplative meditation as one prepares the mind, the heart, the soul to enter the holy of holies.

Inside – Dear Lord, I have come to lay before Thy tomb my sins and weaknesses, my doubts and anxieties, all that burden my soul.

I have brought too the needs of family, friends, and benefactors.

May all our prayers – by Thy passion and cross – be lifted with the glory of Thy resurrection. Amen.

AT THE CHAPEL OF THE RESURRECTION –

In the culminating Mass officiated by our pilgrimage chaplain, the Rev. Fr. Bong Villarica of St. Augustine Major Seminary, Tagaytay City – 

Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.

As it all happened here, so have I been blessed to experience the deepest meaning of the memorial acclamation, the reality and promise of the mystery of our Faith.

Benedicamus Domino. Deo gratias.  

 

                                                                                                                  

     

       

 

Pasudeco, in passing

A BLOW that strikes the solar plexus. That is the impact of the news that one of the two remaining chimneys of the already dismantled Pampanga Sugar Development Company mill had to be demolished.

Disgust and despair – among the culturati, principally – have overtaken the excited anticipation over the promised The Capital Town that mega-developer Megaworld Corp. is building in the area.

So, what has happened to that blurb of “A Future Built on Heritage” upon which The Capital Town is grounded, when that bit of heritage that are the chimneys now face demolition?

Historic Pasudeco it is that has been bequeathed the distinct honor of being incorporated in the official seals of the City of San Fernando and the Province of Pampanga. May as well redo those seals and fit in Megaworld’s logo there.

Come to think of it, the very fears we expressed here ten long years ago have come to pass. Thus, on July 29, 2008:

Reinventing an icon

“SENTRAL.” That was how it was called for as long as I can remember.

And I do remember well having had a really personal attachment to the place.
In my boyhood, from the green rice fields of somnolent Sto. Tomas, lounging at the backs of carabaos we took to pasture we eagerly anticipated the first signs of black smoke from its twin chimneys signaling the start of the milling season, cabio it was called in Kapampangan, usually in mid-October.
It would be time for my father to store in our lalam-bale his farm implements and report to the sentral as seasonal worker, a bagon driver. No, he never referred to himself as a freight train engineer. It was, to him, too lofty and presumptuous a title.
Pre-elementary – we were too poor for me to enter kindergarten – Tatang routinely took me along whenever he was on the primera shift. I enjoyed those downhill rides especially when he allowed me to pull the lever that sounded the horn. On the tersera shift, the family anticipated Tatang coming home early morning with cans of inuyat which we ambula in steaming rice and gatas damulag.
That Tatang served the sentral well was given testimony on his 25th year of service: some cash award, a certificate of recognition for his loyalty signed by the president of the sentral, the respected Gerry Rodriguez, and a black-dialed Seiko 5 watch.
That our family was served well by the sentral was seen through our family having coped with the hard times, all seven of us kids getting through high school and college before Tatang retired.
That the sentral served well not only the capital San Fernando but the whole of Pampanga was manifested in its chimneys made a part of the official seal of the province.
Ah, those smoking chimneys. The very signs of progress in my youth turned to be the symbols of environmental degradation in my early adulthood. The sentral became the scourge of Pampanga that poisoned the air with its smoke, and the river with its acrid and acidic effluents.
At the Department of Public Information, Region 3 office where I sat as bureaurat-mediaman, the sentral became public enemy number one from the late ‘70s through the ‘80s. And a war we did wage in the press, in various fora, up to the National Pollution Control Commission until the sentral was ordered to buy and operate some pollution-abatement devices.
Segue now to the ‘90s: the sentral not spared from the aftereffects of the Mount Pinatubo eruptions of lahar and floods, the take-over of its management and operations by a new company, and the subsequent establishment of the Sweet Crystals sugar mill in the hinterlands of Porac. And the sentral looked more like a rusted relic of a long past industrial age, totally alien in a City of San Fernando bursting with prosperity and aspiring to be the habitat of human excellence in the near future.

Last week, at a solidarity forum in the city, came word on the hoped-for reinvention of the sentral.
On its 90th year of serving the province, Pampanga Sugar Development Co. (Pasudeco) plans to transform its 35-hectare property into a multi-use facility to be of greater relevance to the times and contribute more to the development of Pampanga.
“We would like to remake the old Pasudeco as the new center of San Fernando to make the city a nicer place to live and work in.” So announced Michael Escaler, company chair and president, stressing, “We will not be guided by what is most profitable, but by what will be good for San Fernando.”

Adjacent to the Heroes Hall, the city hall annex, the Pasudeco property is planned to be developed for light industries, commercial enterprises, business offices, housing and parks.”
“We have been part of the history of the province. All our ancestors and the whole community benefitted from Pasudeco, so our generation, the direct beneficiaries want Pasudeco to give back to the community by reusing the area so we can make San Fernando a better place to live in,” Escaler was quoted as saying.
Now, I am back as the pasture boy, in awe of the sentral anew. Here’s hoping the chimneys will be preserved as heritage, as reminders of the sentral's part in Kapampangan history.

He too shall pass

“SO, ‘YUNG God that I believe in, ‘yang God diyan, ka-putahan na istorya ng Katoliko. Kalokohan. May bago tayong relihiyon na pag labas natin. Iglesia ni Rodrigo tayo lahat. Walang limit. May obligasyon ka sarili. Make yourself happy,”

Buried in the din over the kissing brouhaha in South Korea is this (un)presidential rant on the Catholic Church and allusion to founding his own church.

Iglesia ni Rodrigo. That was not the first time though that the President verbalized such messiahnic delusion.

In Sept. 2016, he laid down the core – no way they could ever be values – vices of his Iglesia ni Duterte thus: “Walang bawal. Inom, sige inom. Babae, ay, sige hanggang patayin ka ng asawa mo. Madali man na magpatay ng asawa, ‘yung husband ninyo, ‘yung 'lega.'”

In May 2016, yet to take his oath as president, Duterte already declared: “Di na ako miyembro ng Katoliko. May bago ako, lipat na lang kayo dito sa Iglesia ni Duterte."

Comes to currency anew, G.K. Chesterton: Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God.

In May 2017, the haughtiness in Duterte’s “prophecy” of: “That religion (Catholic) will become passé in the next 30 years. Lalong lalabas na ang mga abuses nila."

Indeed, recurrent refrains have become of Duterte’s spastic ululations against the Catholic Church. None though comes close in spiteful arrogance, in abomination to his campaign vow: “I will destroy the Catholic Church!”

Passé in 30 years. A destroyed Catholic Church. It shall not come to pass.

For neither God – at least ours in this Church – nor history takes Duterte’s side of his irreligious divide. Twice already published here, yet gaining currency at each Duterte diatribe against the Church, this personal witnessing, titled Destroy the Church? What nut! 

DEFENSELESS ROME at the mercy of the rampaging barbarian horde, the seat of Christendom ready for the sacking, for scorching, for reduction to rubble.

The populace cowering in terror, their armies having long abandoned them to the slaughter. Who stands against the impending mayhem and murder? None but the Santo Papa, in his full papal regalia meeting the Barbaro at the very gates of the Holy City. Whereupon heaven opens, San Miguel Arcangel with flaming sword descending, scaring the wits out of the invaders. And Iglesia Catolica Apostolica Romana was saved.

The earliest tale of the invincibility of the Catholic Church I heard from my maternal grandmother, Rita Pineda Canlas vda. de Zapata, as part of my catechetical studies at age 4.

It did not matter that my Apu Rita did not even know the characters in the story, neither did she care of its veracity. All that counted was that it came from the cura parroco of her youth, the saintly Padre Daniel and served as an affirming moment of her Faith. And assured that I, her beloved apo, believed and would live up to that Faith.

I was already in high school, in the seminary, when grandma’s story found flesh in the encounter of Attila the Hun and Pope Leo I at Mincio – outside Rome – where the pontiff successfully convinced “the scourge of God” to withdraw from all of Italy. No Archangel Michael appearing in the clouds there, but “divine intervention” still cited – at least by my History professor Ciso Tantingco – in the famine and disasters visited upon the Hun tribes that gave Attila the scare to call off his invasion and plunder of Rome.

In those formative years, Attila’s story made one manifestation of gospel truth on the impregnability of the Church, as in Matthew 16:18: “And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

Thus, the Church not only surviving but triumphing over every persecution, its persecutors cast to damnation: from its earliest days in the pagan Rome of Nero onto Diocletian and Galerius, to the Visigoths of Alaric, from the reign of empires and authoritarianism, to the spectre of communism. 

Stalin

“The Pope! How many divisions has he got?” Famously, and haughtily, asked Stalin dismissing the relevance of the Vatican in the post-WWII restructuring of Europe.

Less famously but as disdainfully, he told Churchill: “God is on your side? Is He a Conservative? The Devil's on my side, he's a good Communist.”

But, apparently, not good enough when it comes to sustainability: Stalin’s pride -- the monolith that was the USSR – totally disintegrating on its 74^th year. Though outliving the Soviet supremo by 38 years. 

Afflicted with the worst case of odium fidei – hatred of the Faith – was Hitler who subjected Catholics – second only to the Jews – to his persecutory perversity. The Church having stood up and spoke against the Fuehrer even at the very beginning of his ascendancy.

History still holds that Hitler ended a suicide in a bunker under the rubble of Berlin; his thousand-year Reich lasting but a decade.

Truly, G.K. Chesterton with his usual paradox: Faith is always at a disadvantage; it is a perpetually defeated thing which survives all its conquerors.

Indeed, as that anecdote -- currently trending in the web – of Napoleon boasting to a Cardinal how, if he, Bonaparte, so desired, could destroy the Catholic Church in an instant. And the Cardinal responding with a laugh: “We the clergy, with our sins and stupidity have been trying to destroy the Church for 1,800 years. What makes you think you can do better?”

That the Church has not imploded with all the vicious battering from within, incessant through the ages – from the heresies to the schisms, the forgeries, the decadence of the medieval papacy finding its zenith in the depravity of Alexander VI, the excesses of the Inquisition, the impact of the Reformation, all the way down to the cases of priestly paedophilia – can only bespeak of, aye, witness to, its divine foundation.

The Rock

Taking on Matthew 16:18, St. Augustine wrote in Interpreting John’s Gospel:

“Peter, because he was the first apostle, represented the person of the church by synecdoche…(W)hen he was told ‘I will give you the keys of heaven’s kingdom…’ he was standing for the entire church, which does not collapse though it is beaten, in this world, by every kind of trial, as if by rain, flood and tempest. It is founded on a Stone [Petra], from which Peter took his name Stone-Founded [Peter] – for the Stone did not take its name from the Stone-Founded but the Stone-Founded from the Stone…because the Stone was Christ.”       

How providential for this to be written at the time of Corpus Christi Sunday, imbuing a deeply personal meaning to that truth long revealed and ever revealing: The Church is the Body of Christ. We are the Church. We are the Body of Christ.

Then, who can be against us? Indeed, not even the devil can destroy us?

Lest I lapse into some Catholic conceit, and dare all self-proclaimed wanna-be-destroyers of the Church to “Bring it On,” let me just leave it to Luke 1:52: “He hath put down the mighty from their seat, he hath exalted the humble.” 

The arrogance of power. Hubris, it is called in Greek tragedy. Finding its full meaning in Proverbs 16:18: “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”

So, shall it come to pass. So, he too shall pass. Have faith.         

Power corrupts, scandals erupt

"AH, HINDI pa naibabalik (It has not been returned). As of now, 'di pa ata (I think not yet)."

No, the fire-breathing, brimstone-spewing brothers of resigned tourism secretary Wanda Tulfo-Teo have not yet returned the P60 million they received from the Department of Tourism for advertisements in their Kilos Pronto show. This, despite their announced promise to do so in the wake of the controversy that drove their sister out of her family-enriching turf.

So, announced new DOT Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat last May 30. Fielding a reporter’s question, Puyat said: "I leave it up to the COA kasi sila magsasabi kung may disallowance (because they will be the one to issue a notice of disallowance.)"

Ah, the COA! The Commission on Audit, by all appearances current, has never worked as hard as of late in flagging one government deal after another that reeks of corruption, hence:

Tourism Promotions Board COO Cesar Montano’s alleged mismanagement of the board and misuse of funds coming to a head with the P80-million sponsorship of the Buhay Carinderia food tourism project.

Montano has since resigned, but not after telling one and all that it was Teo that endorsed the project.

The Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) for releasing P14.8 million worth of "reimbursibles and other expenses" to its 32 members sans authority from either the Office of the President or the Department of Budget and Management.

COA specially cited over P5.2 million in representation and travel expenses extended to the Board, who each received P41,500, despite a provision under Section 2 of Presidential Decree No. 1986 which states that allowances of board members cannot exceed P5,000 a month.

Less hunger than gluttony impacted the National Youth Commission incurring some P300,000 in meals and snacks during 126 meetings, 122 of which were not official.

PhilHealth may have lost P9 billion in 2017, but this did not prevent its interim president Celestina Ma. Jude Dela Serna from spending P627,000 for travel in that same year. Why, she was even reported to have stayed for one year in a hotel that charges P3,800 per night. Please do the math.

COA said the disbursements were not in accordance with the agency’s circular on the disallowance of irregular expenditures. 

Under the wigman himself -- Vitaliano Aguirre II – the Department of Justice had some P65.69 million maintained in three ATM bank accounts at Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) without authorization.

COA said this is contrary to Section 2 of Executive Order No. 338 and Section 4 of the General Appropriations Act of 2017 mandating that all revenues from government agencies must be deposited to the National Treasury.

That these bank deposits account for the DOJ's Inter-agency Transfer Funds and grants and donations, Victims Compensation Fund, and for the Witness Protection Program instantly raises the red flag. Trust funds, grants, donations, compensations – milking cows all!

And then, there is Solicitor General Jose Calida’s excess honoraria and allowances amounting to P7.46 million.

COA noted that Calida received a total of P8.376 million, which ran in conflict with a 1985 COA circular that prohibits him from receiving additional fees exceeding 50 percent of his annual basic salary, that at P1.827 million should have been only maxxed at P913,950.

Calida’s excessive honoraria is but the latest impingement on his putative honor, coming in the wake of the expose of his company, Vigilant Investigative and Security Agency Inc., bagging P150.815 million in contracts from six government agencies, including the DOJ, since he became the government's top lawyer.

Not to mention his alleged extra-marital dalliance that allegedly cost the government P1.8 million.

So, COA has flagged so many, so costly, so anomalous transactions in government. So, what?

Malacanang has as easily let go of some of the personalities involved as it has steadfastly vouched for the character of the others. Not even a minute in the graft court in store for all of them.

What else is new?

Comes here once-Senate President Jose Avelino’s word that have outlived him in infamy: What are we in power for?

Better yet, Lord Acton’s immortal dictum: Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Best yet, some wags take of it: Power corrupts. Scandals erupt.

So, should we applaud?