Enablers

It was close to a red carpet event but instead of high government officials and celebrities, the VIPs I spotted in the Grand Convention Center for the 6th Ramon Aboitiz  Foundation, Inc. Triennial Awards were people from the academe, business, local government units, media and non-government organizations most of whom were being feted in this year’s RAFI Triennials.

The indigenous look of the RAFI ladies, Joy Guerra, Evelyn Nacario-Castro, Lis Baumgart and Marites Catipay  who were garbed in Tinalak clothing, lent a very festive air to the event.

“It’s that time of the year,” I told Mr. Roberto “Bobby” Aboitiz, President of the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc. from the sidelines of the RTA celebration.  I think he was happily surprised to see the Grand Convention Center full of people celebrating the Triennials’ 6th edition together with the Aboitiz family.  In many ways the event validates his take on the Triennials, “A celebration of what is good with humanity.”

The event had for its guest speaker Dr. Chelsa Cacaldo, the RTA exemplary individual awardee in 2012.  I had the honor of meeting Dr. Cacaldo when she was invited as guest in CCTN Channel 47’s co-op advocacy show sometime in June.  In the episode, the public health doctor was unable to hold back her tears when asked, “Why do you do what you do?”

All the RTA winners and laureates past and present will each have their own take on the subject, but I think it is also good to reflect on why and how they were enabled to undertake their mission.

In the case of this year’s RTA winner in the exemplary individual category, Anita Castillon, a teacher with Visayan roots working in Lake Sebu, South Cotabato, it was an American Catholic congregation who gave her the needed exposure and experience in the Santa Cruz Mission School.

The Passionists arrived in Lake Sebu in 1968 and were appalled by the impoverished conditions of the T’bolis.  The missionaries were out to gain converts to Christianity but steered clear of proselytizing.  Instead, the congregation built the Santa Cruz Mission School and developed a special formal and non-formal learning program that integrated the unique cultural heritage of the indigenous tribe.

The school’s lofty aim, “to provide quality and relevant formal and non-formal education that will develop productive and self-reliant community members through comprehensive instruction, research and extension”, is virtually and literally inscribed in a big stone by the main entrance to the school building made of hard wood.   Apart from basic education, the Passionist missionaries together with lay staff and volunteers gave the IPs tools for farming and fishing.

Nanay Anit’s stint in the Catholic school gave her the tools to rally the T’bolis to embrace basic education that integrates their unique culture.

I happen to know the history of the Santa Cruz Mission School because I documented the ICTUS Premier Cooperative in Surallah, Cotabato, a self-help organization established by professionals and lay people who worked as volunteers in the Santa Cruz Mission School.  At the end of their volunteer teaching work, they decided to form an organization which later became a cooperative.

The honor conferred by RTA on Nanay Anit could not have happened without the work of the Passionists who arrived in Lake Sebu decades before Nanay Anit served the Indigenous Peoples who, around the 1980s, had been pushed to live in the mountains because their lands were either sold or grabbed by businessmen from the lowlands.

The great challenge to build 3 schools for the IPs and guide them with a special curriculum developed by the Passionists is the story behind Nanay Anit’s heroic exploits.

Asked why she is passionate about serving the IPs, Nanay Anit said, “Ako lang ning tabang sa Ginoo” (It’s my way of helping God).   Although the Passionists are no longer present in Lake Sebu and the school is run by the government, the congregation as enabler, shares in the honor bestowed upon Nanay Anit.   In many ways too, RAFI becomes an enabler in the sense that Nanay Anit has committed to use her prize money to build IP schools in islets located in the lake that bears the name of the town.  There are 40 families living in Lake Sebu islets according to Nanay Anit.

I thought of writing about the work of the Catholic missionaries with respect to Nanay Anit’s continuing after Maria Cristina Aboitiz, RTA executive committee chairperson, led the audience in reflecting on the prayer “A Step Along The Way” to end the celebration.

I share the beautiful prayer attributed to Blessed Oscar Romero of El Salvador, hailed as the saint of the poor and marginalized, to inspire the Nanay Anits in our midst to continue working on the ordinary and make it extraordinary, to borrow the words of Gina Garcia Atienza, chairperson of the 6th RTA search committee.

A Step Along The Way

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.  The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work. Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us. No statement says all that could be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection. No pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the Church’s mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything. This is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development.

We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities. We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.