The sermon that is Apu Ceto

Zona Libre/Bong Z. Lacson

THERE IS something about the Most Rev. Paciano B. Aniceto, archbishop of San Fernando, that is indiscernible to the naked eye.

Of slight – very slight – built, his physique exudes fragility. The very antithesis of the stereotypical ideal of masculinity. Handsome – in the movie sense – he’ll be the first to laughingly dismiss that. Orator – in the televangelist’s fire-and-brimstone mold – he would not even think of it.

Apu Ceto is a priest in every bit not extraordinary. So what draws people of all ages, of all walks of life to him?

Being with him is always an experience in faith, an epiphany even. As that time in 2003 during his ten-day pastoral visit to California which was one spiritual journey, indeed a pilgrimage of renewal, of rekindling the fires of one’s faith.

Live the faith. Love the family.

His is a message so sincere in its simplicity. His is a message that indelibly touched those who reached out to him and those he reached out to. Hundreds of Kapampangans, scores of other Filipinos, and a sprinkling of Latinos, whites, blacks and other Asians in San Francisco, Antioch, Los Angeles and San Diego.

“The two priceless treasures of our people, coveted by other peoples…undiminished in value even through our worst economic dislocation,” Apu Ceto says of faith and family as the defining character of the Filipino.

“Modernism and materialism, especially in wealthy America, besiege increasingly the very foundation of the Filipino-American family. Against this onslaught, we need to return to our core values and be steadfast in our Christian faith to prevail.”

Apu Ceto has always made that call for the propagation of the Filipino core values of respect for human life, love for the elders, the bayanihan culture of sharing and malasakit, and family prayer, especially to those already born in America.

He denounced abortion and euthanasia as “pillars of the culture of death…high crimes against the family and against God.”

“The baby and the elderly are integral elements in the nucleus of the Filipino family. Take them out, fission ensues, and the nucleus suffers a total breakdown.”

In a clear jab at the pro-choice lobby in the US: “The baby in the womb is not a simple choice. It is a human being created in God’s own image and likeness and therefore should come into the world to fulfill God’s plan for him. Man has no business playing God, usurping His power over life and death.”

Of love and respect of the elderly: “Filipino culture puts premium in the wisdom of age. Thus, we take good care of our elders, never treating them like overused rags fit only to be shut in some retirement home, left to die alone, and as fast forgotten.”

And the attendant promise of a blessed long life for those who subscribe to the Fourth Commandment – “Honor thy father and thy mother” – “so that all may go well with you, and you may live a long time in the land.” So the Apostle Paul wrote to the Ephesians. So it was written in Exodus 20:12. So it has become Apu Ceto’s mission too.

Live the faith. Love the family.

Apu Ceto is his own message. Messenger and message fused into one. It is from that oneness that emanates Apu Ceto’s charisma – in its true essence of grace endowed upon a person owing to his privileged position with the Divine, to paraphrase the sociologist Max Webber.

Apu Ceto is a sermon we see, we feel, and – prayerfully – we live.

(First published in March 10, 2009 and reprinted on the occasion of Apu Ceto’s 75th birthday – March 9, 2012)

Name game

“LET US rise from the last vestiges of our colonial past…How can an American pilot who died in a plane crash in Panama in 1919 supersede the greatness of President Diosdado Macapagal, the father of land reform, the emancipator of the peasants from the bondage of the soil?
“Downgrading the name Diosdado Macapagal (at the Clark airport) is against the guidelines of the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) pursuant to Republic Act 10086 that strictly forbids the renaming of public places already named after presidents to people of lesser importance.
“You spoke of international acceptance, of the popularity of Clark over DMIA, using the analogy of Bangkok better known than Suvarnabhumi, of Hongkong preferred over Chek Lap Kok, of the practice in Asia of naming airports after their location rather than people, as in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.
“You spoke of the naming of airports after people as practiced more in the West, as in JFK and La Guardia in New York, as in Ronald Reagan in Washington D.C.
“I could not care less however way they name their airports, that is their prerogative. But naming our airport is also our prerogative, following our own laws and guidelines.”
The printed word cannot capture even but a quarter of the eloquence, even just half of the passion with which Alexander Cauguiran laid out the historical and legal bases that demolished – before the assembly of Pampanga mayors and Clark International Airport Corp. President-CEO Victor Jose Luciano last Friday – all arguments for the renaming of the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (DMIA) to Clark International Airport (CIA).
Aye, were the prosecution team in the impeachment trial as thorough, as logical, and as impassioned as Cauguiran in their presentation, the chief justice would have been readily convicted even before the first article of impeachment was rested.
No one – Luciano, included – was unmoved by Cauguiran’s rhetorics.
No one – except Luciano maybe – was unwon by Cauguiran’s logic.
Thunderous was the ovation that followed the conclusion of his speech.
But now that the passion of the moment has passed, necessarily comes some review of the facts at hand.
It was Clark Development Corp. President-CEO Felipe Antonio Remollo, acting chair of the CIAC Board that initiated the move to restore the original name of the airport to CIA. So Luciano disclosed.
On October 14, 2011, the CIAC Board approved Resolution No. SM-10-05, Series of 2011 that:
“RESOLVED THAT, the restoration of the name ‘Clark International Airport (CIA)’ to refer to the Clark Aviation Complex within the Clark Freeport Zone to enhance its international acceptance and to preserve its historical significance, be APPROVED, as it is hereby APPROVED.
“RESOLVED FURTHER THAT, Terminal 1 will be named as DIOSDADO MACAPAGAL TERMINAL (DMT) in recognition of the legacy of former President Diosdado P. Macapagal as the first Kapampangan to become the (sic) President of the Republic of the Philippines.”
The operative word there is “restoration” which any decent dictionary simply defines as the “act of bringing back to an original condition, existence or use.”
Aye, absolutely no mention whatever of “renaming” which has an altogether different meaning grounded on “change” in nomenclature, if not in character.
Implied – and inferred – in the resolution is the CIAC Board’s non-recognition of the DMIA.
So where did the DMIA come from?
A previous CDC Board – headed by President-CEO Emmanuel Y. Angeles – approved in 2001 Resolution No. 07-08 stating thus:
“RESOLVED THAT, Management’s recommendation to rename Clark International Airport to Diosdado Macapagal International Airport in honor of the late President Diosdado Macapagal, be APPROVED, as it is hereby APPROVED, subject to required legislation.”
“Subject to required legislation.” That clause made all the difference.
Angeles’ board and all succeeding boards through his successors at the CDC – Tony Ng, Levy Laus, and Benny Ricafort – all failed to effect the required legislation for the DMIA.
The NHCP “Revised Guidelines on the Naming and Renaming of Streets, Public Schools, Plazas, Building, Bridges and other Public Structures” states under the heading “Who may name or rename” that: “All public places may be named or renamed by the President, through a proclamation, or by Congress, through legislation.”
Pursuant thereto, DMIA for the Clark airport – which neither presidential proclamation nor an act of Congress covered – was void ab initio. What binding effect could obtain from a mere board resolution when its object is nothing less than national territory?
Which, in turn, negates all arguments for keeping the name DMIA for the Clark airport. How can you keep something that is never there in the first place?
Which effectively, and sorely, reduces to irrelevance Cauguiran’s eloquent, impassioned and spirited defense of the DMIA. As my good friend, former Board Member Don Robert David, was wont to say: “Ustu ya pero e ya makatud.”
Still, it is to Cauguiran’s credit that a number of us in media – mayors as well – came to know that naming or renaming public places is covered by strict guidelines from the NHCP. I, for one, have thought all along that that depended on the whimsy of the congressmen, the governors, the mayors or the sanggunians.
Under the title “Naming and Renaming After Persons” we read: “Public places such as those already named after presidents and national heroes cannot be replaced with names of people of lesser importance…”
Yeah, Cauguiran was right: Clark can’t supersede Macapagal. That is presuming Macapagal had been established first.
And then the NHCP guidelines also hold: “No local governments, institutions, places or buildings shall be named after a living person.”
So what will that make of the Delfin Lee Building in Xevera, Calibutbut that was supposed to house the Municipality of Bacolor? I am not so sure now if the new town hall of Mabalacat is also branded in brass as “Delfin Lee Building.”
Indeed, what will that make of the Alexander Cauguiran Building in Sameerah, Angeles City that – during its inauguration – was proclaimed as the new barangay hall of Sapang Libutad? As well, the Alexander Cauguiran Avenue in Xevera, Mabalacat?
Necessarily, the NHCP guidelines declare: “In the naming of public places after people, the use of the word ‘memorial’ should be deleted as it is already understood that the person being honoured is already deceased.”
Horrors! The Delfin Lee I esteem and the Alexander Cauguiran I admire are very much alive! So I must be wrong. No way that those buildings were named after them. No, not the way Cauguiran subscribed to the NCHP guidelines – as though they were Moses’ own tablets – in his speech before the mayors, the media and Luciano.
An aside: I have this eerie feeling about the name Diosdado Macapagal appended to public places. Is there some jinx attached to it?
Diosdado Macapagal Boulevard. Reputedly the highest priced road in all the world.
Diosdado Macapagal Provincial Hospital. Reputedly a “Mona Lisa hospital,” the strains of the song “they just lie there, and they die there” applied to the patients. That was, of course, before Gov. Lilia Pineda upgraded the hospital with specialists, modern equipment, enough medicines, and new facilities.
And then DMIA. Dead Macapagal International Airport. Di Matuluy-tuloy na International Airport. DiMalas a International Airport. Per definitions from the Pinoy Gumising Ka Movement.
Whatever, with its current status – malfunctioning toilets, hardly-used airbridges, dilapidated plywood tunnels as passageways to boiling-hot embarkation ramps, idiotic immigration agents – to name the CIA as DMIA is not to honor the legacy of Diosdado Macapagal. It is to insult his memory.