Rogationists reach out to poorest of poor

The Rogationist College in Silang, Cavite has quietly been making an impact on the lives of the most desperate of Filipino children. They have graduated pilots, teachers, accountants, and professionals in many different fields. They have managed to survive and grow since 1987 on their own, and with the help of benefactors from the local community. And they have also been mightily lifting the spirits and lives of God’s most precious, children who have not been protected from the harshness of life.

In a school of over 2,000 students, 120 are assisted interns, children, teens and young adults who came from the poorest of the poor, among them orphans who were exposed to the most dire situations in their most tender years. Four of the children were literally found on the streets after their parents were swept away by floodwaters. But this is the spirit in which the Rogationists were formed in southern Italy. The children are their most sacred charge, cared for at St. Anthony’s Boys Village, named after the group’s first treasurer.

“Our order’s name comes from the imperative “rogate ergo”, explains Fr. Gabriel Flores, their superior and president of the college. “It means to pray hard, and in praying for workers, we devote ourselves to the children and their needs as well as their spiritual formation.”

The Rogationists have made it their mandate to help these children by providing them the means to better their lives, initially through education, most recently, through sports. The school opened its fourth sportsfest Sunday with ten basketball teams and athletes in other sports. The school is also starting to expand its athletics program, seeing the success in previous basketball competitions. Young basketball player Glenn Michael Capacio, son of KIA coach Glen Capacio, was a guest speaker.

“We started a clinic for girls’ basketball, and two of our students were recruited by FEU and UST,” reveals Flores. “The students are learning that sports helps them learn the values that will help them in life.”

In addition, their men’s varsity basketball team has qualified for regional championships in Cavite, and is targeting sending its best players to the Palarong Pambansa next year. Not bad, considering the school gets no external support for sports. Help comes from the alumni who end up working in big corporations and overseas. With its spiritual formation, Rogationist is gaining a reputation for integrity and professionalism from its graduates.

“The companies where our students have their on-the-job training end up hiring them,” explains Fr. Danny Montaña, who handles external affairs for the school. “They tell us that they don’t need to watch over our graduates because of their development and formation as persons, so they don’t want to let them go anymore.”

Montaña spent 12 years in Davao, where he worked closely with the city sports director and former Philippine Sports Commission chair Butch Ramirez. The Rogationists have another house for poor children there, too. Montaña was part of Ramirez’s group that formulated a “sports for peace” program that spread throughout Mindanao, that used sports competitions to break down the walls between Christians, Muslims and the indigenous peoples of southern Philippines.

Helping the Rogationists on their noble work is Rogate, their store for religious items, filled with incredibly detailed statuary of the most popular saints in the Philippines, including the rare Maria Bambinella, or infant Mother Mary, which is venerated in the regions of Italy where the order originated from. The store shares space with Caffe Sant’Antonio, a coffee shop that serves original authentic artisanal pizzas made from Italian recipes.

But the proceeds don’t just support the school, they also help the Rogationist head office, and satellite communities in Malaysia, Indonesia, India and Papua New Guinea. The Rogationists will soon be independent, and will have to find more allies to expand in their mission to turn the lives of our less fortunate children around. And in the last few years, they have started to realize the big impact that sports can play in the destiny of their school. After all, angels are everywhere, even on basketball courts and football fields. And in the most powerful boardrooms.

They certainly live among us, as well, very visibly in the Rogationists of Cavite.