THE BOHOL CHRONICLE
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2015
7
Opinion A Boholano's View
This Day “Do you know what day this is?” asked the frail, seamy-faced Trappist monk. “Don't bother me old man,” snapped his fellow prisoner, Jean Pasqualini. Both were trudging toward work fields in 1961 from their prison camp south of Beijing. It was Christmas, Pasqualini suddenly remembered. He sensed the monk wanted to pray. “You're mad,” he erupted. “But I must,” was the gentle reply. “We're the only two here to whom this day means something.” “Fifteen minutes, old man. No more. Understand?” Pasqualini hissed as the monk limped down from the ridge. Any minute a guard's whistle could blow. Pasqualini squirmed. But only the winter wind ruffled poplars. He peered into the valley. Below, the monk used a rock for an altar. A mug served as a chalice and a flattened tin can a paten. He had fermented wine from saved summer grapes. An unleavened loaf came from scrap grain. Tattered prison garb were his Mass vestments. “He knew he could be shot,” Pasqualini recalled for Reader's Digest years later. “And whenever it is Christmas, once again I see him standing serenely in that freezing wind, holding wafer and wine, declaring his oneness with God.” In Christmas 2015, more people in China will “go to church than in the whole of Europe” where church attendance continues to dip, notes the British Broadcasting Corp. How many Chinese Christians are there? asked Tim Gardam in a BBC Radio 4 program. Beijing claims 25 million. Roughly, 18 million are Protestants and six million Catholics. “This is a vast underestimate,” the BBC said. A conservative figure is 60 million. Converts range from peasants in remote villages to sophisticated middle class youngsters in booming cities. Mao Zedong described religion as “poison.” The Cultural Revolution attempted to eradicate itand failed. Driven underground, Christianity survived. With its own martyrs, it spread. In the 1980s, religious belief was again permitted, albeit with shackles. The State Administration for Religious Affairs oversees “official churches.” Christians are corralled into designated places of worship. “Love the countrylove your religion” is the slogan. The Communist Party promotes atheism in schools. It undertakes “to protect and respect religion, until such time as religion itself will disappear.” This post-Mao rewrite renders unto Caesar what belongs to God. The official Church has carved elbow room. But numbers attending official churches are dwarfed by “house churches.” These sprouted like mustard seed. “They unnerve the official Church which fears their fervor may provoke a backlash.” There is a large Catholic underground Church. The officially sanctioned Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA) appoints its own bishops with agreement by the Vatican. Inch by inch, Rome and Beijing strived to come to an accommodation where no one yielded what it deemed
Christmas Family Reunion and Some Memories According to our Claretian Bible Diary 2015, today is the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. According to the Gospel: Lk 2:41-52: “Every year the parents of Jesus went to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover…and when Jesus was 12 years old, he went up with them…. After the festival was over, they returned but the boy Jesus remained in Jerusalem and his parents did not know about it. … As they did not find him they went back to Jerusalem…and after three days they found him in the Temple….His mother said to him, “Son why did you do this to us….” Then Jesus said: “Whey were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?” Our Christmas family reunion. Our own Global Family took advantage of Christmas 2015 for our very brief get-together in our ancestral home in Beverly Hills, Antipolo City. Jonas our youngest again lives with us. Otherwise the whole family can only get together by email and global telephone and very occasional visits. Daughter Lanelle, our eldest, lives in her own home in Beverly Hills, Antipolo and she hosted our Christmas Eve Noche Buena dinner and family reunion. Son Jobert, our second eldest, came home from Pennsylvania. Rossana our third family member came home from Singapore. We were joined by closest family friends Monique and Bruce. We also had Christmas day dinner in our Ancestral Home in Antipolo where my wife, Coring (going 84) and I (going 88) are the ancestors. What a blessing and joy it is to be all together on Christmas, howsoever briefly. Especially because we, the ancestors, are very senior and still reasonably healthy, by God's grace. From December 26 to 30-31, some of us also took our vacation in Panglao and Duero, Bohol. Duero is where we have Handurawan, Balay Abueva, the ancestral home by the sea where my brother and sisters are the living ancestors. My sister Ching Abueva Floro, the widow of Martin Floro, has retired in our Handurawan after living in Australia for some 35 years. Yearly she visits Sydney for three weeks to validate her Australian citizenship and avail herself of her generous medical benefits. The original Abueva ancestral home was built on the same memorable site by the parents of my father, Teodoro Lloren Abueva: namely Manuel Abueva (Capitan Awing) and Leocadia Lloren (Mama Cadia) Abueva. As youngsters before World War II (1941-1945) we used to spend our school vacations there with Papa (Lolo) Awing and Mama (Lola) Cadia. We still have fond memories of those vacations. We were living permanently in Tagbilaran, the capital town of Bohol. Happiest and saddest memories of Duero. Our evacuation in Duero during the Japanese occupation
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Proclamation and dialogue Chaplain Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE) Talamban, Cebu City Email: roycimagala@gmail.com THIS is both the task and the challenge of a good teacher. He has to know how to proclaim the truth about the subject he teaches. He has to dish out the pertinent data, information, and other trivia. But he also has to wage a continuing dialogue with all the relevant references of his job, so that his stock of knowledge would not grow idle, stagnant, if not dead. A teacher who has been teaching the same subject in school for years has to make continuing research and study, and be sensitive to the developments of his field that these days are in a galloping state. He has to pay attention to the authorities and experts of his field, as well as to his students in their concrete situations and conditions. In a sense, he is like a mediator, a bridge. In fact, if he has to stay afloat in his work or business, he has to continually find new frontiers. He should not be contented with what he already knows and has achieved. Though there are things that by their nature will stay permanent and unchangeable, he should not forget that there are also things that can and should change depending on the circumstances and developments. In this regard, it might be relevant to cite some words of that Chinese business wonder by the name of Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba: “What I said on the occasion of our IPO last year when we raised US$25 billion bears repeating. What we earned was not money, but trust. Maintaining that trust means we must listen carefully to the views of others. It also means we must reflect on the challenges we have been communicating with our shareholders and the public.” And this task of engaging in continuing dialogue with others is especially true when we have to preach the living word of God. We should not only proclaim it. Sooner or later, if we just contend ourselves with proclaiming it, we will realize that in spite of our best efforts at rhetoric and oratory, it will sound stale and meaningless, and our proclamation will just fall on deaf ears. One has to make his preaching an occasion to dialogue vitally with God and with others. Otherwise, what is living and life-giving in it can freeze and become ineffective. When we notice that our preaching does not have some sensible impact on us and on others, we have good reason to suspect that our preaching has not been a dialogue with God and with others. When our proclamation of God's living word is also a dialogue with God and with others, there will always be some palpable effects, some transformation, some conversion. That's because God's word is always effective, as the Letter to the Hebrews says: “For the word of God is living and active…” (4,12) We have to understand that this living word of God is both old and new, divine and human, supernatural and natural. It embraces both time and eternity. There are things in it that will never
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Time Line Year 2015: Changes and No Changes Proem It is said that the only permanent thing in life is change. Some changes are abrupt and we can notice it. However some changes are imperceptible and we can notice it only after a passage of a long time. When the M7.2 Bohol earthquake occurred on Oct. 15, 2013 the changes were abrupt that we can notice that the Churches of Loon, Maribojoc, Loboc, etc. are already gone. However the way Boholanos celebrate their town fiesta has only imperceptible changes. The civil officials of the towns still join in the celebration using public funds even if the Philippines Constitution mandated a complete separation of Church and State. During the Spanish era, the civil aspect of the town was under the religious aspect of the town. The civil officials were required to spend for the celebration of the town fiesta. Until the present the mentality of the people has slightly changed. Did I Cause Changes? I started writings this column “Sundry Chronicle” in June 1991. After almost 25 years, I have written not less than 1,200 articles regarding Bohol. However, starting year 1985 I already contributed articles in this newspaper “The Bohol Chronicle”. Many towns in Bohol have given me a Certificate of Appreciation for determining the date of establishment of their towns, like Tagbilaran City, Baclayon, Alburquerque, and Lila. Many towns are using my data and it is alright with me if I will not be given a Certificate of Appreciation. My articles that caused major changes where those about the Eskaya of Bohol and the Sikatuna-Legazpi Blood Compact site. My series of articles regarding the Eskaya became the basis for its recognition as a “Cultural Minority” and eventually the granting of their “Ancestral Domain” in the hinterlands of Bohol. My series of articles regarding the Blood Compact site and date convinced the National Historical Institute (NHI) that the actual site was in Hinawanan, Loay, Bohol and the date was March 25, 1565. For this feat, I (Jes B. Tirol) and my co-advocate Prof. Emmanuel Luis Romanillos were granted by Loay, Bohol as their “Adopted Sons”. What is not yet changed is the date of creation of the Province of Bohol. According to the records in the National Archives the date is March 3, 1854. It is found in the Royal Audiencia file and the Governor General's file. The Province of Bohol still continue using the wrong date July 16, 1854. It is the date of the arrival of the decree from Spain after the decree of creation was approved by the Queen of Spain. Changes in Communication Nowadays the younger generation seems to assume that the method of communication is the cell phone and the internet or facebook. Only very few could correlate with the telegram and mail of a few years ago. Even the telephone or what is now called “land line” is used only in relation to the internet. During Spanish times there was already the telegraph and the telegram. It was a combination of wire connections and semaphore signaling. The Americans introduced the telephone system, which for long distances were done by relays of communication. The telephones were sensitive enough that the Bisayan word for telephone
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