Lino Parone, former CDN reporter and city editor, (left) shares his experience in covering Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal (right) in early 2000s whom his batch of church beat reporters affectionately called “Lolo Cardi.”
I would take calmly a wild Camaro cut on my lane on the I-10 freeway anytime, but the other day, nothing prepared me for this sudden pain in my gut while I was driving home.
“Bernadette Parco, Lino Parone and Gheia of CDN; Linette Ramos of Sun.Star and Jovy Taghoy, I think of Freeman… mga stars at the turn of the millennium og paborito ni Msgr. Dakay … asa naman mo ron? Nasantos nas Pedro og ni ba-bye nas Tatay Ricardo… (Where are you now? Pedro has been made saint and Tatay Ricardo has now bid us goodbye),” appeared on my smartphone screen.
The message came from Fr. Marvin Mejia, secretary-general of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, knocking on my consciousness from somewhere in Cebu on the heels of the unexpected passing of a towering figure in the rich nursery of faith that is the Cebu Archdiocese.
Tatay Ricardo was also the one person whose looming presence in Cebuano society defined my journalistic years on the island, a job now effectively in the backburner. But the memories are now just bubbling up, fondly, of our Tatay Ricardo or Lolo Cardi, who was the Archbishop Emeritus Ricardo Cardinal Vidal, my then main source of news information on all issues pertaining the Catholic Church in one of the oldest dioceses in the Far East.
Church beat
Former publisher Ms. Eileen Mangubat assigned me the church beat of Cebu Daily News then, and together with Ms. Parco and Ms. Ramos now Cantalejo of the other regional papers, we affectionately stalked, egged, bribed with sweetness and cajoled him till he agreed to talk, almost always, like a grandfather to his impressionable grand kids, except that as journalists, we were actually trained to sift through his “Cardish” characteristic statements and get that headline-potential gist.
This troika mutually agreed to the affectionate term Lolo Cardi so as not to agitate him on prickly issues that we had to pick his brains on. The priests of the archdiocese called me Siloy after the CDN mascot, not affectionately though, because of the same issues that I had to ask them about. I couldn’t believe that this was already two decades ago.
Tri-media bigwigs
Former CDN publisher Eileen Mangubat (left) is one of the tri-media bigwigs who covered Cardinal Vidal during her time as a reporter. Above, she and CDN columnist Ricky Poca (behind her) gave offerings during a Mass for the Press Freedom Week in 2006.
CDN FILE PHOTO
Before our batch were tri-media bigwigs Ms. Eileen, Ms. Malou Guanzon-Apalisok, Atty. Pachico Seares, Sam Costanilla, Bobby Nalzaro, Jerry Tundag, Nini Cabaero, Cherry Ann Lim, Cherry Thelmo-Fernandez and Ms. Edra Benedicto, among others, waiting on the fatherly Vidal every New Year’s Eve at the Archbishop’s Residence Chapel.
Then came the generation of Jason Baguia, Cris Evert Lato Ruffolo and Ador Mayol who took over our tired, beat up trails.
The cardinal’s youthful appeal just won over them quiet as effectively as they clearly got so much from his guidance rich nuggets of learnings to catapult them over to new heights in their faith and profession. I am mighty proud of these Siloys.
Calungsod Shrine
Last Saturday, the late cardinal’s body was brought to the Saint Pedro Calungsod Archdiocesan Shrine inside the Archbishop’s Residence on Jakosalem St., in time for the 5th anniversary of the canonization of the young Cebuano saint.
We witnessed how this shrine rose from the first marker to the last floor tile, and how an agile Lolo Cardi walked us through the physical and institutional plans towards Calungsod’s promotion of devotion, beatification and eventual canonization. With Fr. Marvin and the Calungsod team we witnessed spontaneous manifestations of deeply resonant devotion to the new candidate all throughout the islands of Cebu, Bohol, Limasawa, Negros and Mindanao, where farmers, fishermen, women and children lined dusty trails bedecked with paper colors and rusty loud speakers tied to coconut trunks blasting the air with Fr. Rudy Villanueva’s Gozos to Pedro Calungsod.
“Pedro Calungsod ikaw among gisangpit, isip katagilungsod, dinhi sa yuta, og ingon man sa langit…”
Yes, this was the triumphant culmination of Cardinal Vidal’s servanthood to the Cebuanos — Pedro Calungsod’s sainthood, a fitting last stop before he joins him in eternal convocation of the faithful.
On occasions that we met here in Los Angeles, I inquired from Msgr. Achilles Dakay, Cebu Archdiocese spokesman, about Lolo Cardi’s health, with him conveying that Cardinal Vidal was never a burden to his nurses and doctors proven by test results so clean he was told he could indulge in more bisdak native delicacies than he could have his hands on.
He has really turned deeply Cebuano now, I joked.
Transformation
Born in Marinduque, Cardinal Vidal was Tagalog-raised and trained in a seminary in Sariaya, Quezon. He later on became rector of that seminary where my former seminary spiritual director Fr. Jerry Bitoon was enrolled and trained under him. But many who didn’t know this always thought that the humble cardinal was a native-born bisdak.
In many years that he served us, he mutated lovingly into the humblest of Cebuano prelates, who mastered not only the Cebuano language but acquired our deep spirit immersed in the love and bottomless affection to the Santo Niño, with unhinged freedom of a humor-filled paisano indulging in sikwati’g puto, masi, bibingka, empanada, ngohiong and occasional lechon.
Wisdom, counsel
His wisdom and gift of counsel was always sought by the powerful and the rich, his humble appointments in the confessional even by his superiors in the church. Most importantly perhaps, his fatherly presence, his Lolo Cardi appeal, was all what the Cebuanos wanted, needed, in this increasingly confounding world. But now he’s gone.
I guess an era has indeed passed, but the prelate’s legacy lives on. Cardinal Vidal’s mark is indelibly etched in the hearts of so many generations of Filipinos, so with the bisdaks who have known no other prelate in their lifetime. My family and I have known nobody else as fatherly as he was, either, and as we grieve his passing, we celebrate his love, his life most of all.
(Lino Gilbert K. Parone is a former City Editor of Cebu Daily News, and wrote for the Philippine Daily Inquirer, and the Union of Catholic Asian (UCA) News. He and his family now reside in Rosemead City, Los Angeles County, California. An active parish musical director for church music in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, he also works as a tax preparer in Lynwood, CA.)