US chaplain gives back blessings to Negros poor
BACOLOD CITY—He had never experienced celebrating Christmas when he was young.
Then 10-year-old Manuel Biadog had to work to help his mother and nine other siblings after his father, a sugar farm worker, died of a stomach ailment which could have been treated if only they had the money.
But poverty didn’t prevent Biadog from turning his life around. Now 55, he serves as chaplain of the US Naval Base Kitsap in Washington with the rank of commander.
In early March, Biadog returned to Negros Occidental to hold a series of medical missions and feeding programs for residents of the cities of Talisay, Cadiz and Sagay and the towns of Salvador Benedicto and Isabela. It is his way of giving back the blessings he has been receiving.
“I am what I am today because of the good Lord and the caring I received from others in my journey through life,” he said. “This is my way of paying back those who were kind to me during my difficult journey from riding a carabao to becoming a commander in the US Navy.”
Biado and his group of 20 volunteers also gave blankets, towels, candies, slippers, toys and educational materials to poor children in remote barangays and in orphanages. “I know what it is like to go without Christmas, so bringing Christmas to the children, even if it is March, is great,” he said.
When his father, Manuel Sr., died in 1967, Biadog had to plant vegetables which he sold along with boiled bananas to help his mother earn a living. He was on his third year at Talisay National High School in 1974 when he made a commitment to follow Jesus Christ.
He studied at the University of Saint La Salle in Bacolod City and at the Baptist Missionary Association of the Philippine Bible College in Silay City on a scholarship. With the help of American missionaries Linda and Doyle Moore, who were based in Bacolod, he acquired a scholarship grant to study in the United States.
To reach higher education, he had to work at school libraries and, as a maintenance man, cleaned toilets. “If you work hard regardless of your condition in life, you can get out of the poverty you are in,” he said.
Biadog received his degrees in biblical studies and social science when he graduated, cum laude, from William Carey University in Mississippi in 1983. He also obtained masteral and doctoral degrees later.
He married Kathy Lee of Mississippi, and they have two children—Daniel, 23, and Cindy, 21.
As a US Navy chaplain, Biadog has been involved in humanitarian missions around world. But he never forgot the country of his birth. Over the past 22 years, he has led medical missions and brought assistance to poor Filipinos, mostly children and orphans.
In 2006, he joined the US Navy in searching for survivors of the massive mudslide that buried over 1,000 people in Barangay Guinsaugon, Saint Bernard, Southern Leyte.
In recognition of his humanitarian efforts, Biadog was given the Gawad sa Kaunlaran Award, the Philippines’ 7th highest military decoration.
Biadog stressed the importance of conducting medical missions in the poor communities. If his father had received medical help then, the chaplain said, he would have been alive today.
