Bobby Tañada: A good and grateful man

I don’t expect politicians to be grateful. They’re very busy – either serving the people or stealing from the people. Both are done with dexterity and panache. And it’s hard to tell who’s doing good and who’s committing a crime.

Politicians are amorphous. They are extremely complex. They’re a different breed of humans. They dance in the darkness like bats dancing in the black night. Beware, and watch them carefully, intently and relentlessly. Use your flashlights or searchlights if you smell something foul! By now, we must have learned it is our sacred duty to take care of this country. Because if we don’t, no one will.

I voted for Bobby Tañada. He is a good man. He is also grateful. As I’m writing this, he’s not in the top 13 in the Comelec and Namfrel counts. But I am still hopeful that at the end of the counting, he will win. Then it will be a simple validation, as far as I’m concerned, that not everything is lost on the Pinoy. If he doesn’t make it, I will escape for a day to a deserted seashore. I will weep with the sharks, seahorses and mermaids – not for Bobby but for me and this country. After I commune with the sea, I will come back with hope that Bobby Tañada will still be around to serve this country.

So what a surprise when, the other week, I got a card from Bobby. It said, "Para kay Boy, maraming salamat sa inyong tulong at suporta! Asahan ninyo na gagawin ko ang lahat upang isulong ang kapakanan ng ating bansa at ng mamamayan sa loob at labas ng Senado. (sgd) Bobby Tanada."

I felt good. Win or lose, he says, he’s going to be around. I may not go to the sea anymore.

I remember, weeks before the election, I bumped into my good friend Dr. Vicky Belo in Baclaran. Incidentally, Vicky, in my book, remains the best in her field. And like me and my soulmate-sister Kris Aquino, she constantly finds comfort in the kindness of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In that Baclaran encounter, Vicky was literally pleading that I support Bobby Tañada in his bid for a Senate seat. "Why?" I asked. "Are you a friend of Bobby? Do you know each other?" You know how personal politics in this country can get. "No," she replied. "We don’t know each other! But I believe in him."

I swore in the name of goodness that I was going to vote for Bobby Tañada!

Albums of faith

In 1996, a gentle subversion took place. With words of praise and reverence, a small green cassette was passed from friend to friend, as a community was built without words, of those who fell in love with praying without words. The name of that cassette recording was Lauds, which, in the liturgy of hours, is the morning praise. And so, like rays of sun that break through the anguish of night, Lauds began the gentle subversion, the revolution of spirit that led many to pray without words.

And the gentle subversion continues led by its founder, young Jesuit Arnel de Castro Aquino. Now, there are four recordings in the Lauds series.

Lauds I features songs like Pagsibol, Anima Christi, Panalangin sa Pagiging Bukas-Palad; songs that have lifted us from sadness or have borne us on wings of prayer.

In Lauds II, Aquino takes us on a journey to Bethany and Jerusalem, journeys of faith and healing, reminding us that there is always a time for everything.

Lauds III, also called First Prayers, revisits the songs of our childhood’s faith while Lauds IV leads us to a lonely place to pray, where our pain and anguish knows no words and where we encounter the God of solace and comfort and love.

You know that your heart’s deepest stirrings are prayers without words. Allow the gentle subversion to consume you. Allow the music of Arnel Aquino to draw you deeper and deeper to a place of peace and prayer.

The Lauds series, featuring Arnel de Castro Aquino, SJ on piano, is produced by the Jesuit Music Ministry and the Jesuit Communications Foundation, and is distributed nationwide by BMG Records.