Walking away
WAS I surprised to find in print – in esteemed colleague Ram Mercado’s First Person column in Sun-Star Pampanga on Monday – my not-so-abrupt departure from the grand alumni homecoming at the Mother of Good Counsel Seminary last December 29.
“Just last week while the Gov was delivering a political homily before the former seminarians…activist journalist Bong Lacson whose idol is Che Guevara, walked out in the midst of the Governor’s address. It was a Tom and Jerry caper, live, with the naughty Jerry creating rain on Tom’s parade.”
Leave it to the erudite Ram to come out with a witty rendition of a plain by-the-by okay-there’s-nothing-for-me-here-so-I’m-going-home.
No, I could not be the ratty Jerry that rained on Gov Tom’s parade.
With the incident seeing print, I feel obliged to say my piece.
I did not walk out in the midst of Governor Eddie T. Panlilio’s speech. Along with a number of others, both ex-seminarians and priests, I left as he was about to start his speech. There were a greater number who left as soon as they saw the governor arrived at the hall where the reunion was being held. Over one third left, Don Robert David, who stayed, told me the day after. For whatever reason, I don’t know.
The governor and I had our usual fraternal embrace when he passed by me on his way to the table where the ex-seminarians now running Balas were seated.
So, why did I leave? I felt nabastos. Not so much by the governor’s presence but by his making a speech at the reunion.
I am not a stickler for protocol but I know and respect the bounds of courtesy. I do not have anything against the governor being there at the reunion, even if he is not an alumnus of MGCS. I have everything against the governor being allowed to and making a speech – political at that – before the assembly which main purpose was to reminisce, to relive if only for a day, the fond memories of life in the seminary and recommit ourselves to our youthful ideals to serve God and his people.
I don’t know whoever invited the governor. There was nothing ever said about any invitation to the governor in all those meetings of the executive committee of which I was a member. And of all the members, I alone, had the perfect attendance in all those meetings that started with only eight of us at a restaurant in Nepo Mart last October 12. So, there could not have been any way I missed even the slightest indication of the governor being invited to the occasion.
The program of activities, from its conceptualization to its finalization did not have the governor making a speech.
Scheduled to talk were the Most Rev. Pablo David, auxiliary bishop, on the role of the laity, particularly ex-seminarians in the Church; Raul Alejandrino, president of Miriam College and a representative of the Balas group as reactors to Bishop Ambo’s talk.
Yes, I made my objection to allowing anyone from Balas talk during the reunion. But I was outvoted by the other committee members and I accepted their decision. Only with the proviso that if they talked politics, I would ask for my time to talk too. Fair is fair. Nothing political there, I was assured. Everything fraternal and spiritual.
So the thoroughly political animal me had to be left home, in favor of the wide-eyed innocent altar boy that came to MGCS in the morning of December 29.
It was all fun reminiscing with our “big boys” and our “small boys” as well as those way ahead of us in the Guagua and Apalit campuses, and those who came long after us in San Fernando.
Truly, the re-bonding of brothers until the governor made his speech.
If those behind the move to insert the governor in the program only leveled with us in the committee, we could have happily accommodated them. No joke. I could have even volunteered to introduce the governor. As our Man of the Year. Just as I wrote in our first issue this year.
“Just last week while the Gov was delivering a political homily before the former seminarians…activist journalist Bong Lacson whose idol is Che Guevara, walked out in the midst of the Governor’s address. It was a Tom and Jerry caper, live, with the naughty Jerry creating rain on Tom’s parade.”
Leave it to the erudite Ram to come out with a witty rendition of a plain by-the-by okay-there’s-nothing-for-me-here-so-I’m-going-home.
No, I could not be the ratty Jerry that rained on Gov Tom’s parade.
With the incident seeing print, I feel obliged to say my piece.
I did not walk out in the midst of Governor Eddie T. Panlilio’s speech. Along with a number of others, both ex-seminarians and priests, I left as he was about to start his speech. There were a greater number who left as soon as they saw the governor arrived at the hall where the reunion was being held. Over one third left, Don Robert David, who stayed, told me the day after. For whatever reason, I don’t know.
The governor and I had our usual fraternal embrace when he passed by me on his way to the table where the ex-seminarians now running Balas were seated.
So, why did I leave? I felt nabastos. Not so much by the governor’s presence but by his making a speech at the reunion.
I am not a stickler for protocol but I know and respect the bounds of courtesy. I do not have anything against the governor being there at the reunion, even if he is not an alumnus of MGCS. I have everything against the governor being allowed to and making a speech – political at that – before the assembly which main purpose was to reminisce, to relive if only for a day, the fond memories of life in the seminary and recommit ourselves to our youthful ideals to serve God and his people.
I don’t know whoever invited the governor. There was nothing ever said about any invitation to the governor in all those meetings of the executive committee of which I was a member. And of all the members, I alone, had the perfect attendance in all those meetings that started with only eight of us at a restaurant in Nepo Mart last October 12. So, there could not have been any way I missed even the slightest indication of the governor being invited to the occasion.
The program of activities, from its conceptualization to its finalization did not have the governor making a speech.
Scheduled to talk were the Most Rev. Pablo David, auxiliary bishop, on the role of the laity, particularly ex-seminarians in the Church; Raul Alejandrino, president of Miriam College and a representative of the Balas group as reactors to Bishop Ambo’s talk.
Yes, I made my objection to allowing anyone from Balas talk during the reunion. But I was outvoted by the other committee members and I accepted their decision. Only with the proviso that if they talked politics, I would ask for my time to talk too. Fair is fair. Nothing political there, I was assured. Everything fraternal and spiritual.
So the thoroughly political animal me had to be left home, in favor of the wide-eyed innocent altar boy that came to MGCS in the morning of December 29.
It was all fun reminiscing with our “big boys” and our “small boys” as well as those way ahead of us in the Guagua and Apalit campuses, and those who came long after us in San Fernando.
Truly, the re-bonding of brothers until the governor made his speech.
If those behind the move to insert the governor in the program only leveled with us in the committee, we could have happily accommodated them. No joke. I could have even volunteered to introduce the governor. As our Man of the Year. Just as I wrote in our first issue this year.
posted by A.Caesar Z. Lacson at 7:51 AM
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