Having a very holy, holy week retreat

Today we celebrate our National Heroes Day or Araw ng Kagitingan. It is the day we honor our fallen heroes. Those brave Filipinos who died fighting for this country, a country we more often than not doubt whether it is worth dying for, until the late Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. died from an assassin's bullet in his struggle against the Marcos Dictatorship who destroyed our Democratic processes. But it is very important to remember those that have fallen in the night because otherwise, we could never hope to enjoy the freedom that democracy has given us today. It cost us the blood of Filipinos.

Today, the Filipino soldier continues to die for his country, but the enemy is not a foreign aggressor; rather they are being killed by their fellow Filipinos who espouse a foreign, but discredited ideology. I refer to the still ongoing Communist insurgency and of course we still have the Muslim separatists and extremists to battle within our midst.

To talk on the significance of the Araw ng Kagitingan from a soldier's perspective, we are honored to have with us one of the brightest generals that I have ever met (he is a Wharton graduate), he no less than Lt. Gen. Cardozo Luna Commander of the Central Command (CentCom). Let me predict that someday, we shall see Gen. Luna rise up to the top level of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). Watch this very interesting show tonight on SkyCable's channel 15 at 8:00PM.

* * *

First of all, allow me to greet my faithful readers a very Happy Easter to one and all. I do hope you had a very Holy Week. Allow me to share my Holy Week experience with you. Last Holy Wednesday, we rode up to the Community of St. John in Banawa Hills right beside the Celestial Gardens as my daughter Fara and her husband Atty. Jennoh Tequillo invited us to experience a retreat with this French congregation. What I didn't expect was, we truly got a very Holy Retreat. Thanks to Fr. John du Cenacle. It was a retreat aimed to be closer to our Lord Jesus and Mama Mary. Accommodations were at best, Spartan and it was no Holy Week vacation!

On Holy Thursday, we woke up very early for the early morning prayers made all the more solemn because the sisters sang most of the prayers very beautifully. By evening, there was a Holy Mass in commemoration of the Lord's Last Supper, followed by a small procession of the Blessed Sacrament for an overnight Adoration at the Sister's chapel. I didn't realize that the priests, brothers and the sisters of St. John gave so much reverence to the Holy Eucharist… more than most of the clergy I know.

After a very solemn mass, which didn't officially end because Jesus had to be arrested, we took the Blessed Sacrament in procession and quite coincidentally as we got out of the main chapel it rained cats and dogs. Though it was only a few meters away to the sister's chapel the rain stopped as we entered the chapel. Though it was a very brief shower, it was for me a great blessing from God, as it has not rained in Cebu for sometime now and it helped cool the summer evening as we stayed overnight for our Adoration and vigil. It was like being around with Jesus as he was imprisoned and staying and praying with him in a night-long vigil.

Friday morning after the dawn prayers, there was a Way of the Cross. The young folk, like my daughter and son-in-law opted to climb the peak of Banawa Hills, which is almost like mountain climbing. Though I think I'm still physically fit, I opted to go with my wife to the Way of the Cross at the nearby Jesuit Retreat House. It was there that I saw the multitude of people who went to the Celestial Gardens as their sacrifice for Holy Friday.

I have never gone up there during the Holy Week because I know traffic would be bad and there would be a huge crowd. I was right, but since I was already there, during our spare time, we walked into the Celestial Gardens. Somehow, the late Santiago Tanchan has turned this cemetery into a huge park… something that Cebuanos direly needs. Right now it looks more like a park since there are still very few people who are interred there. The only person I used to know that is buried there is the late Brig. Gen. Eddie Foronda whose grave is near the fence of the Community of St. John.

Watching the multitude of Cebuanos (easily, there were more than ten thousand in one count) go up to Banawa should be an eye opener for our politicians, that it is high time that we develop more parks, parks that are secure and easily accessible. However if you went to the Celestial Garden last Friday, you would also see the ugly side of the Cebuano… how dirty we are as a people. There was not a square meter that did not have any rubbish - plastic cups, wrappings and the like littered the entire Celestial Garden. We hope that someday, the ordinary Cebuano would learn to throw their waste in a proper manner. It is high time that we as a people ought to learn that cleanliness is next to Godliness.