Barely two weeks after former President Joseph Estrada had his spiritual healing session at the Mother Ignacia center in Caloocan, it was President Arroyo’s turn yesterday to undergo the "pray over" with her namesake, Sister Gloria, at Malacañang.
Herself a deeply religious person, Mrs. Arroyo went through the "healing session" with the Filipino-French nun and two other nuns from the Religious of the Virgin Mary (RVM) at the mini-chapel of the Palace yesterday morning before she convened the year’s first Cabinet meeting.
Sisters Gloria, Rosita Fernandez and Connie Albino held the pray-over for almost three hours with Mrs. Arroyo, lasting till 10 a.m.
But before the session, Bishop Nestor Cariño celebrated Mass for the President, whom he extolled in his homily for her "selfless" act in bowing out of the 2004 presidential elections.
It was a decision, coincidentally, that she arrived at on or about Christmas Day, the same time her friends tried to contact the sisters from Mother Ignacia.
The bishop and the three sisters were accompanied to the Palace by former ambassador and opposition leader Ernesto Maceda, who had earlier introduced Estrada to the wonders of bathic healing.
Close friends of the President, it turned out, sought out Maceda to arrange the visit by the RVM sisters to conduct the pray-over with 55-year-old Mrs. Arroyo, not out of any sickness as in the case of Estrada.
Told by The STAR later that Mrs. Arroyo also had a healing session, Estrada quipped: "That’s good. She follows my lead."
The pray-over session was generally kept under wraps by Malacañang. Only a select few, including the members of the First Family led by the President’s husband, Jose Miguel Arroyo, were present at the Palace chapel for the healing.
"It was just a healing Mass," Mr. Arroyo said but declined to elaborate.
He refused to be interviewed further, citing that he would prefer to go on with his resolve to "keep a low profile" especially after Mrs. Arroyo’s declaration to pass up on the May 2004 elections.
Since his own retirement from politics at the end of his second term as senator in 1998 and joining the former Estrada administration as ambassador to Washington DC, Maceda late last year became actively involved assisting Sister Gloria and her congregation.
Maceda though was the original convert, having gone through a similar "prayer healing" session with Sister Gloria.
Maceda remarked that he felt "the very strong presence of the Holy Spirit" during yesterday’s pray over session.
The apostolate of Sister Gloria has been working for the beatification of Filipina religious martyr Mother Ignacia at her shrine where believers are being made to bathe after the spiritual healing process.
Estrada himself was transformed into a believer and faithful of the spiritual healing after being bathed in the miraculous fountains of the Mother Ignacia Healing Center last Dec. 19.
An elated Estrada broke the news to The STAR earlier that he is, in fact, now able to do 30-minute stationary biking everyday at his hospital detention at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC) in Quezon City.
Estrada also showed off his newfound knee power by doing ten counts of pumping squat in rapid succession.
"I could do it 50 counts," bragged Estrada, who can now walk briskly without any trace of his old limp.
All this since Dec. 19 when the Sandiganbayan granted him pass to have himself submitted to the ritual involving "pray over" and a bath in what is considered miraculous spring water.
"It’s not only physically but also spiritually, what happened to me is like a miracle," Estrada enthused.
"I no longer even take my painkillers since I took that spiritual bathing," he said.
The 65-year-old Estrada used to undergo steroid treatment to ease the pain in both his knees whenever he stands up too long or walks.
Because of this miraculous healing, he said, he would no longer push for his request to undergo knee surgery.
The fallen leader has been a Mother Ignacia devotee after he was introduced to Sister Gloria who came to visit him at the VMMC for a "pray-over" last October.