Covering the Canonization of San Pedro Calungsod

CEBU, Philippines -  Call it a historic time for a Cebuano journalist like me, 25 years in this business, to be able to cover the rare occasion of the canonization of San Pedro Calungsod in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican in Rome. It is difficult enough to cover live events in places outside our studio but going to Rome when many Filipinos were also going for this event posed its own problems.

The first problem was to get approval in covering the event from the Vatican itself, as this is a service that even our most experienced travel agencies cannot help provide. In short, we had to do it ourselves… emailing first the Archdiocese of Cebu, then directing our emails to the Vatican itself. Of course our contacts with the Cebu Archdiocese helped under Cebu Catholic Television Network (CCTN).

When we finally got the nod from the Vatican, it was time to get our ticket and visas from the Italian Embassy. Lo and behold, the flights to Rome were already full two months before the event. So with a little Internet search, my daughter Katrina found a route, which was not only open and available, it was also dirt cheap. So we took an Air China flight from Hong Kong to Beijing and then to Rome and back.

With me in Rome, I scrambled to form a new TV crew bringing along SkyCable's Albert Dajab, my director and editor, together with Nath Ybañez, MyTV's Creative Director and Jojoff Escobal our talkshow host for My Wealth Show. In Rome, security was tight. Even as we already got our badges from the Vatican office, we were still stopped from taking video shots.

On the big day itself October 21st, we left the hotel around 6:00AM only to find out that while the lines to go inside the Vatican was very long, there were no lines for the International media covering the event. As we got inside, we were posted 50-yards from the main altar… or so I thought. We stayed there for an hour and a half until Vatican security (Swiss Guards in plains clothes) requested us to move out, over on top of the Colonnade.

We then took a rickety construction elevator to the left-hand side of St. Peter's Square for that great vantage view of the entire canonization proceedings. But due to the construction up there, we had very limited spaces for the International media. SkyCable cameraman Albert Dajab had to hang on to his camera for the entire proceedings not only because he was in a difficult position, but also so that he won't lose his space.

When it was time to take Holy Communion, we had to go down the elevator again to receive it from one of the hundreds of priests giving out Holy Communion inside the square. All told, covering the canonization of San Pedro Calungsod (and the six other Saints canonized with him) was a hectic, tedious but unforgettable event in our lives… that we can tell our grandchildren that during this historic day when a Visayan Saint was canonized, we were in Rome not just to attend the ceremonies, but also to cover the event, which, we showed on Straight from the Sky as we returned to Cebu.