Fund the parishes

While Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma sees nothing wrong with the fund raising campaign aimed at buying  vehicles for Philippine bishops, two ranking members of the Cebu clergy have expressed reservations about the  fund drive.

Msgr. Achilles Dakay, media liason officer of the Cebu Archdiocese and Msgr. Esteban Binghay, episcopal vicar, differed with Archbishop Palma on the issue.

As we know, two staunch allies of former President Gloria Arroyo initiated a fund drive to buy vehicles for seven bishops embroiled in the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) controversy. After the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) publicly apologized for the mess, the seven  returned the PCSO-issued vehicles.

Since then, former Manila Mayor Joselito “Lito” Atienza and Arroyo election lawyer Romulo Macalintal went around the country to raise money through the “Funds for Church Unity” campaign and to sign in their names in a manifesto titled, “Unity Pledge.” I gathered the campaign ended yesterday, July 31.

Atienza served in the Arroyo cabinet as environment secretary while Macalintal, as everyone knows, is the election lawyer of the former president. Macalintal used to be in the forefront of defending the former President when she was hounded by legitimacy issues after the Garci tapes scandal broke out in 2005. Accusations that she stole the presidency  from Fernando Poe Jr in the  2004 elections are being resurrected after a former police official blew the whistle on the Election Returns  switching.

Monsignor Dakay does not support the drive because “it may cast the Catholic Church in a negative light.” He also said there’s no need for the fund drive “since the bishops can raise money through their own initiatives.”

In effect, Dakay is saying if fund campaigners want to raise money to buy vehicles for Butuan Bishop Juan de Dios Pueblos and six  others, they can very well do so in their own areas of jurisdiction.

For his part, Monsignor Esteban Binghay said the fund drive “should have been launched at a separate forum to avoid misleading parishioners into thinking the Catholic Church supports it.”

The views of Monsignor Dakay are significant because many diocesan priests are forever scrounging for funds for parish projects and social action programs. I’m sure Archbishop Palma is familiar with the situation in very remote places, where parishioners are very poor and barely have any food to eat. The situation is rather contagious, one that affects the parish priest assigned in the area.

I remember a story that Msgr. Cristobal Garcia once told an assembly of Catholic charismatic groups. During his early priesthood, he was assigned in a remote barangay up north where food was scarce and in the convent where he stayed, the main dish was always utan bisaya.

The recipe of local vegetables galore (kamunggay, okra, kalabasa, talong, etc.) is made less bland by putting a dash of ginamos (fish paste) or pieces of dried fish to a pot of boiling water. In order to save on expenses, Monsignor Garcia told his audience that his aide who doubled as cook devised a way by which their weekly supply of dried fish would not run out fast.

The cook had the medium-sized dried fish tied to a small piece of wood and once the water in the kaldero started to boil, he would dip the dried fish to allow its meat to shed off in the boiling water. After one or two minutes the dried fish, with some of its meat still in pace, is removed and then the array of vegetables is added one after the other. Meanwhile, the dried fish stays tied, set aside and aired, ready for next cooking.

The good monsignor’s story is descriptive of the adversities of Christian life, and overcoming it can lead one to have a stronger faith.  I didn’t quite catch the end of this story, but I believe the faith-based experience has enriched the monsignor’s personal life and religious vocation. In barangay Cansojong, Talisay City where he leads a religious community called the Society of the Angel of Peace, Monsignor Garcia has a weekly feeding program for poor families.

Diocesan priests,especially those in far flung barangays are not speaking out of respect for the newly installed Archbishop Palma, but I think that if given a voice, they will say that if there’s a campaign that the archdiocese should adopt, it is to raise funds for poor parishes.

For example, one of the huge tasks that parishes have to grapple with is the Basic Ecclesial Communities. A mandate of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference in 1991, the BEC calls for the mobilization of lay people in the task of evangelization. A good parish priest has to be a skilled manager in order to make the BECs operational because it requires plenty of logistical support.

Between the need for vehicles by bishops and the pressing needs of many parishes around the diocese, like ensuring basic necessities in the parish or running its BEC programs, it is clear which work is urgent and more important.