Of aging and waning: the passion of a Boholano bahalina maker
Marawi residents say amount of compensation not enough to rebuild properties
Three decades: GenSan vendor sustains pocketbook business to promote reading
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ABOUT THE COVER
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VANISHING TRADE
Of aging and waning:
the passion of a Boholano bahalina maker
DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 08 April)
— A famous bahalina maker in Davao City, spent more than half of his lifetime making and aging the popular local wine whose unique process he learned from his elders who were reputed masters of their craft.
Septuagenarian Hedo Arcay left his native town of Alicia in Bohol in the 1970s, in search of the proverbial greener pasture in the “Land of Promise,” finding work for a trader in the streets of the southern Mindanao city.
Bahalina, which has the usual appearance of a grape wine, comes from tuba or coconut toddy that undergoes a long process of fermentation, natural distillation and aging.
The aging process mellows the wine, gives it a better taste, aroma and color, the 71-year old Arcay said. As for the one who made the wine, “age not only mellowed, but also slowed me down,” he quipped.
Arcay was in his 30s in the 1980s when he decided to give a shot at what he does best – makingbahalina — while employed with a soft drink giant. He would later quit the cola-selling job and focus on making bahalina, hopeful then that he could earn more in spirits than in selling colas.
Bahalina
king
Forty years later, a wheelchair-bound Arcay realized in his old age that he already sold thousands of liters of bahalina to loyal customers and friends who jokingly call him the bahalina king of Agdao, a place in Davao where he built a multi-story concrete house, with a basement, courtesy of his bahalina earnings.
If there is one person in the world’s largest city (in area) who keeps a basement packed with jars upon jars of bahalina, that’s Hedo (Arcay), photojournalist Keith Bacongco said of his bahalina-maker friend.
Bacongco said Arcay had been aging bahalina for years in his basement which he turned into a bahalina cellar. “There are about 2,000 gallons (jars) of bahalina in that basement,” Bacongco said.
Arcay’s bahalina, which comes in different ages, presently sells at P150 a gallon, up three fold from a decade ago. “He sold me an eight-year old bahalina before, but rarely can you buy any older than that now because his bahalina is highly in demand,” said Bacongco who buys Arcay’s wine not to drink it but use it for cooking.
The earnings from bahalina provided for Arcay’s family and allowed him to send his children to school and earn their college degrees, the youngest to Ateneo, an exclusive school.
During the pandemic lockdowns, and almost a year of liquor ban in Davao sent Arcay’s bahalinasales plummeting, but the winemaker was quick to point out that the ban contributed to the bahalina’s aging process.
ROMMEL G. REBOLLIDO
BAHALINA KING. Hedo Arcay in this 2019 photo taken while working at the cellar of his house in Agdao, Davao City. Arcay has spent more than half of his lifetime making and aging bahalina since the early 1980s. MindaNews file photo by ROMMEL REBOLLIDO
Arcay’s bahalina were aged in glass jars, not in plastic, to ensure better quality wine. A clean glass jar is a must in making bahalina which can be tricky at times, he said.
“A bit of a wrong move in the fermentation process, you end up with vinegar instead of bahalina,”he pointed out.
admirable method of keeping tabs of his thousands of jars of bahalina, like which one is filled with a day old, a week old, three months old or a four-year old bahalina.
The thousands of four-liter glass jars are piled and arranged by Arcay according to age in shelf-like layers at his basement cum cellar.
FOUR DECADES. Now on a wheelchair, Hedo Arcay can no longer go to his cellar and no one is sitting at the cellar throne for a time now. His family is just waiting for the remaining stocks of bahalina to be sold so they can close the business that was started in the 1980s. MindaNews photo by ROMMEL REBOLLIDO
Tiresome process
Making bahalina needs patience to ensure that the tuba is really tuba and no contamination, properly strained to remove sediments and impurities, then placed in air-tight glass gallon jars, he said.
In storing the bahalina, the jar must be filled to the brim, sealed to prevent molds from forming which can turn the bahalina into vinegar.
Before he got sick, Arcay spent most of his time on a rattan chair, his throne of sorts in his cellar kingdom, carefully straining tuba and bahalina.
The straining process must be done every day for weeks before the wine is put in jars to age. Miss straining and the toddy turns into vinegar, Arcay said. One of his children admitted there were times before, they ended up selling vinegar instead of bahalina.
Aside from his skills in making bahalina, Arcay also has an
Three decades: GenSan vendor sustains pocketbook business to promote reading
GENERAL SANTOS CITY (MindaNews / 23 June) – Since his younger days, Jeanito Lintag is a bookworm whose love for books did not waver until now that he’s 64 years old.
He has been a vendor at the city’s main public market here, which is just a stone’s throw away from the Queen Tuna Park, a public beach front property within the city proper, since the 1990s.
Lintag has been renting Stall No. 2, Phase A for the past three decades, starting as a magazine retailer for titles he could not forget such as MOD, Women’s, Mr. & Mrs., and Panorama (an insert within the Manila Bulletin newspaper), among others.
He sold them along with comics, which were a hit among the youths of the 80s and 90s, who could now be in their 40s or 50s.
When Filipino pocketbooks became popular after comics, Lintag, naturally, sold them also.
Nowadays, magazines, comics and pocketbooks are considered “havebeens,” seldom seen in the streets unlike in their heyday.
For many, the era of these reading materials may have been long gone, but not for Lintag, a graduate of Bachelor of Science in Commerce Major in Economics at the then Notre Dame of Dadiangas College here (now Notre Dame of Dadiangas University).
At Lintag’s stall, voluminous pocketbooks are still neatly stacked inside boxes, waiting to be rented by those who love to read.
Placed behind cellophanes, candies, biscuits and bottled water, among others, these pocketbooks, mostly with romance as the overarching theme, are written in TagLish, or Tagalog-English language, and have literally seen the good old days – wrinkled covers with yellow, stained or brittle pages.
Over a thousand titles remained in the only bookstore that literally survived in this public market since romance- or love-themed pocketbook reading became a hit three decades ago.
Comics or pocketbook reading was
BONG S. SARMIENTO
Hanging prominently above his stall, Lintag’s trade name represents two different eras — modern (tarpaulin) and the old (hand-written). MindaNews photo by BONG S. SARMIENTO
among the main pastimes of Filipino kids or teenagers of the 80s and 90s – if they were not playing the traditional games of “tumbang preso,” luksong “tinik,” “sipa,” and “tagu-taguan,” among others.
These traditional games do not require expensive equipment, but mainly the physical or mental agility, quickness, energy or ingenuity of the players. Tumbang preso, for example, needs only a slipper to hit a tin can so that other players can return to base.
With the advent of the internet in the early 2000s and the availability of cheap smartphones in the last 10 years or so, comics, Filipino pocketbooks and the traditional Pinoy games of the 80s and 90s have excruciatingly and gradually become extinct.
But for the love of reading, Lintag defied the odds and in the last 15 years, still continues to rent the thousands of Tagalog pocketbooks that he amassed all along.
It was only this year that he finally admitted to himself that the era of pocketbooks had ended.
Still, he did not throw or keep in the storage room his pocketbooks. He still displays them at his stall that screams the trade name “Glocen Pocketbooks Retailer” and “Jeanito M. Lintag Glogen Pocket Book.”
The presentation of both trade names represents different eras – the former modern as it is printed in tarpaulin and the latter in the age-old tradition of handdrawn design, written on plywood.
It apparently strikes a similar chord to Lintag’s reading-based business, which is now made archaic by the quick pace of technological advances such as the internet and smartphones.
In the heydays of his comics and pocketbook business until technology changed everything, life was good for Lintag and his family. They have two kids now, all grown-up.
But nowadays, Lintag barely earns from his pocketbooks.
“Very minimal, di ka na pwedeng mabuhay sa ganitong negosyo.
Karamihan sa ngayon zero ang kita kasi walang nag-aarkila (It’s very minimal. You can’t live with this kind of business anymore. Most days, there’s no income because nobody’s renting),” he told MindaNews.
His “suki” customers are housewives or storekeepers, who have been renting far and few in between now because of the advent of technology.
Lintag rents his pocketbooks cheap –from P3 to P5 each. There is no due date but he requires renters to deposit between P10 to P100, depending on the thickness or age of the pocketbook.
Unlike in its prime, he slapped a penalty of P1 per day for each book that’s not returned on time.
Death by technology
“Technology killed my pocketbook business,” Lintag stressed.
With the internet now common in many parts of the Philippines, even in the mountains where “piso wi-fi” is available, readers have resorted to online sites, such as Wattpad that offers free Tagalog pocketbooks.
Ninety-nine percent of the 114-million population owns a smartphone but only 7 in 10 Filipinos use the internet via mobile phones, according to the Media Ownership Monitor Philippines 2023 published by Vera Files.
Internet penetration is at 72.7 percent according to the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), the country’s national planning and implementing ICT agency, it added.
Lintag shared that he does not want to dispose of his pocketbooks because “reading is my major advocacy.” His collections include those published by Precious Hearts Romance, Special Valentines Romance, Valentines Romance, and Pinoy Romance.
When he ventured into comics and pocketbooks decades ago, his hope was for the Filipino youths to be wide readers even in their own language.
Lintag pointed out that citizens of Japan and South Korea loved to read in their own language, which he believed helped these countries become progressive.
His eyes beamed when he recalled those years in the local public market when young and old alike would rent newspapers, comics and pocketbooks, and sit down flipping through the pages, eventually drowned in their own worlds by the magic of words.
“Now you seldom see students or young people reading books,” Lintag said. “Mostly, they’re playing games or scrolling social media on their cellphones.”
Because of the “poor reading habits” of the new generations (Gen Z and Alpha), “they have poor vocabulary and comprehension, many writing in ‘jejemon’,” he said.
According to The Freeman, jejemon is a pop culture phenomenon in the country where an individual, usually young people, alters the established language – either English or Filipino – to the point of incomprehensibility by others who are not in such practice. The practice does not only cover language, either spoken or written, but extends to demeanor and fashion as well.
Basically not earning much from his pocketbooks, Lintag started selling cellophanes this year, aside from candies, biscuits, soft drinks and bottled water –like a mom-and-pop store – to augment his income. He also distributes orders from online shops (Shopee) just within the vicinity of the public market to make extra income.
But he could not let go or throw his pocketbooks, even if he is the only one renting it now in the public market. His competitors have long stopped from the trade because it is no longer feasible with the technological advances.
“Di ko maiwan ang business na ito kasi love ko (I could not leave this business because it’s my love. Ngayon (Now) it’s not for profit already. Advocacy ko ang reading,” Lintag said.
Marawi residents say amount of compensation not enough to rebuild properties
FROILAN GALLARDO
MARAWI CITY (MindaNews / 24 May) – Acmad, 45, was given a job to guard a ruined three-story building in downtown Marawi city and four years later he is still there keeping a watchful eye.
Acmad shares with his family a small dilapidated room with a gaping hole on its walls, a reminder of the bloody five-month fighting between government troops and ISIS-inspired Maute militants who took over Marawi City on May 23, 2017.
“The owner is still waiting for the money to repair this building and he has been waiting for four years,” he told MindaNews as he pointed at the damage of the battle-scarred building.
Seven years after the fighting between the militants and government forces ended, many of Marawi’s more than 200,000 residents are still living in villages and temporary shelters that sprouted outside the city.
Drieza Liningding , chair of the Moro Consensus Group said most of the city’s residents who were affected by the 2017 fighting are unable to rebuild or repair their properties and houses.
Liningding said this is one of the reasons why many affected residents could not return to what is referred to as “Most Affected Area,” where the fighting took place.
“The reparation money paid by the Marawi Compensation Board (MCB) to pay for the lost properties and houses is not enough considering the inflation in the Philippines,” he said.
Fatma Baraocor, a claimant, said she rejected the P200,000 given to her by the MCB to repair her two-story house in Barangay East Marinaut.
“The prices of cement, gravel and building materials have gone up since the time my house was damaged seven years ago,” Baraocor told MindaNews by phone.
The MCB was established under Republic Act No. 11696 or the Marawi Siege Victims Compensation Act of 2022 that was enacted by Congress on April 13, 2022.
It is tasked to distribute the amount of P1 billion as payment for the lives, properties, houses and jewelries lost during the fighting.
During a press conference in Marawi City last January, MCB Board Member Mabandes Diron Jr. said the government would pay 35,000 pesos per square meter for any concrete building destroyed or damaged and about half of that amount for wooden houses.
He said those who lost a relative or a loved one in the fighting are eligible for a compensation package of P350,000.
MCB Secretary lawyer Sittie Raifah Pamaloy-Hassan said the MCB has processed the applications from 20,000 claimants since January this year.
Hassan said that of the claims, 379 cases were death claims for relatives allegedly killed during the fighting.
She said the MCB has paid more than P175 million for claims that were approved after rigorous scrutiny.
She said the MCB has chosen to adopt the real estate appraisal of the Lanao del Sur provincial government instead of Marawi’s as the basis for the payment of properties lost.
“The province has a higher appraisal of properties compared to the city. We chose the highest syempre,” Hassan told reporters during a press conference.
The payment scheme is wracked by complaints from affected residents who held press conferences and attended the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee meeting in Manila on Tuesday.
Seeing the reunited treasures of Surigao
ROEL N. CATOTO
MAKATI CITY (MindaNews / 23 June)
– One of the promises I made to myself was fulfilled upon seeing the exquisite Surigao Treasures on June 20 at the Ayala Museum. I felt lucky as these treasures are being retrieved by two institutions and exhibited in one place.
But the visit almost never materialized due to time constraints. When I arrived at the museum I was told by the entrance gate staff that it would open only until 2 pm that day, which happened to be its 50th anniversary. I arrived at almost 1 pm.
I don’t have any time left as I was leaving the country later that day for the United States. So I skipped my lunch and eagerly dashed to the 4th floor where the Surigao Treasures are exhibited. The tour started with a cinematic audiovisual presentation about the significance of the finds.
At the end of the audiovisual presentation, I stepped into the galleries, one after another, and I’m totally awed by what I saw. It’s truly amazing!
I couldn’t remember seeing anything that would match its opulence and value in any museums or jewelry stores I’ve been to. The intricate designs forged, formed and shaped from malleable precious metals dating back to the 10-13 AD were astonishing.
Back in 1981, heavy machinery operator Edilberto “Berto” Morales, who was part of the government irrigation project, came across golden objects in Barangay Magroyong in the town of San Miguel in Surigao del Sur, leading to a sudden gold rush, according to Ayala Museum.
A huge chunk of the discovered items eventually made its way to the Ayala Museum thanks to collectors Leandro and Cecilia Locsin, a National Artist for Architecture, while others ended up with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
Many other priceless ornaments were hacked into pieces and divided among
treasure hunters or melted to be sold as bullions.
First time
The “Reuniting the Surigao Treasures” exhibit is the first time those treasures are all gathered together in one place in the Philippines. It is much larger than the joint exhibit in 2015 in New York City’s Asia Society Museum co-curated by Drs. Adriana Proser and Florina Capistrano-Baker. The latter is the curator for the Ayala Museum’s exhibit.
Bringing together the Surigao Treasures will give Filipinos a “fuller” story about the country’s pre-colonial history, such as artistic traditions and practices, as well as the social hierarchies before the arrival of the Spaniards.
The exhibit features a four-kilogram chain (Ayala Museum) reuniting with its pronged finial (BSP), woven waistbands with seven belts (BSP) meeting partial and complete sashes and buckles (Ayala Museum), and a balance scale (Ayala Museum) paired with a scale pan (BSP).
Other items the BSP is loaning to the museum include a 4.5-meter kamagi chain consisting of 12 connected necklaces, bangles with semi-precious stones, necklaces with suso beads, and more finials.
The exhibit, which will run until 2027, coincidentally begins with the 50th or golden anniversary of the Ayala Museum.
Both the Ayala Museum and BSP have entwined the curated finds.
“The gold collections of Ayala Musuem and Banko Sentral Ng Pilipinas were assembled at the same period and have been referred to as twin collections. Both feature an important object that relates to each other through chronology and geography. The ties are sometimes literal as dismembered fragments split between the two collections are physically brought back together. This collaboration reunites, for
A 91.5-cm long neck ornament weighing 812 grams. MindaNews photo by ROEL N. CATOTO
a limited time, entwined treasures of the country’s two important gold collections,” said Ayala Museum curator Dr. Florina Capistrano-Baker.
Seeing these priceless, precious collections left me with so many unanswered questions in my mind. Were these gold adornments from the goldfields in Surigao or nearby provinces? Did the forgotten kingdoms reign supreme in Surigao?
If you’re in Manila, find time to see the Surigao treasures of the forgotten kingdoms. Seeing up close and personal the Surigao treasures being reunited for the first time in the country is a treasure of a lifetime.
A goblet weighing 41.9 grams with a height of 3.1 cm and a diameter of 7.8 cm. MindaNews photo by ROEL N. CATOTO
Fr. Amado “Picx’ Picardal walking along the highway in Bukidnon during his “Solo Trans-Mindanao Run/Hike for Peace and the Environment” from Davao City to Iligan City in the summer of 2010. The next year, he did a walk-run from Davao to Aparri via the Cordilleras for 57 days. MindaNews file photo by BOBBY
Fr. Amado “Picx” Picardal: Missionary of Hope in the footsteps of the Redeemer
CAROLYN O. ARGUILLAS
TIMONERA
JUNE 2024
CEBU CITY (MindaNews / 07 June) —
When news of Fr. Amado “Picx” Picardal’s death broke out on social media early evening of Wednesday, May 29, the most common question asked was: “pinatay?” or “gipatay?” (he was killed?).
The Redemptorist Province of Cebu’s announcement of his passing, posted at 5:58 p.m., said nothing about the circumstances of his death, prompting a barrage of questions from friends.
When word got around that he was found dead in the garden just outside the Redemptorists’ retreat center up in the hills of Busay, a few meters from where his almost-finished self-constructed stone-cordwood-and-bottle hermitage is located, the next question asked was “may foul play?” (was there foul play?)
Apparently to address these lingering questions, the Redemptorist Province issued an update at 9:03 a.m. on May 30, that Fr. Picx “died of cardiac arrest.”
Picardal had long accepted the possibility that he could be killed for serving as spokesperson and active member of the Coalition Against Summary Executions (CASE) in Davao City from 2003 to 2011, and for bringing to a wider audience, nationally and internationally, including the International Criminal Court (ICC), documentations on summary executions during Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody war on drugs which became the template of his even bloodier war on drugs as President of the Philippines from 2016 to 2022.
His friends and fellow Redemptorists had accepted the possibility, too, that he would be felled by a bullet.
He was felled by extreme heat, found dead at a little past 1 p.m. on May 29, the 47th anniversary of his religious profession, his fallen body lying beside a row of white and pink periwinkles, facing the heavens in his mountain retreat overlooking the city, the place he often referred to as “my sacred space, my sacred mountain.”
Kian, the son of the retreat center’s caretakers Joan and Rio, was about to leave on his motorcycle when he saw the fallen Fr. Picx in his construction work
outfit -gray pants, rubber shoes and a neon green jacket that shone brightly under the blazing sun. Estimated time of death was 12 noon.
The heat index in Cebu that Wednesday was 42, but the 40s heat index had been so for weeks. Picardal had wanted to finish his hermitage and had even planned for its blessing in June or July.
“He had a heat stroke. For months now, he’s been building his hermitage and moving to installing the roof! No matter if told to avoid being under the sun, padayon gihapon (he still continued),” Redemptorist Brother Karl Gaspar, Picardal’s friend of 37 years, told MindaNews.
The area where Fr. Picx fell was not his usual route in returning from his hermitage-under-construction on a promontory, to his room in the retreat center. From that promontory, he would go down the steps without railings, hit the road, turn left but even if the main door of the retreat center on the right side of the road was open, would walk past it and enter through the kitchen, to wash his hands. From there he would proceed to the dining and reception area that opens to the main garden overlooking the city and turn left to his room, his temporary hermitage.
Joan said her husband Rio heard Fr. Picx typing on his computer when he passed by his room at around 10 a.m. She said he may have gone to the hermitage at 11 a.m.
A few hours before his death, the mediasavvy Picardal posted an anniversary poem on social media, addressed to Bruno his dog: “I’m grateful for your presence in the twilight of my life / as I prepare for my final journey to eternity / to meet face to face the One I love / to whom I sacrificed my whole life.”
DIM
Fr. Picx had referred to the building of his hermitage as “DIM” or “Do It Myself.”
“Ako ang architect, engineer, mason, carpenter, capataz, etc.,” he told MindaNews on December 11, 2022.
He has two siblings who are architects but the stubborn Picx wanted to DIM and was so proud of his achievement.
On March 30 this year, he sent a photo of the hermitage, proudly declaring “next week mag-atop na ko” (next week I will do the roofing). On May 5, he sent another photo of the hermitage, with the same message “mag-atop na” (about to install the roof).
The slow progress in the roofing could easily be attributed to the extreme heat Cebu and the rest of the country has been experiencing for several months now, but the extreme heat did not deter Picx.
Joan said Fr. Picx used to spend only two hours a day for construction work, but starting May, he spent more hours up there on the promontory, working from around 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. every day, then come home to prepare his 3 p.m. lunch. He ate once a day.
The slow progress was more likely because of health problems. The ever stubborn Picx was also into DIM regarding his health. He had diabetes and a heart condition, he was having problems with his right leg due to arthritis but shunned consulting doctors and taking maintenance medicines. Joan said Fr. Picx took a break from construction work for a few days last month as he had fever and cough.
That noon when he collapsed, “it was very hot and we still wonder what he was doing in the garden patch under that intense heart,” Gaspar said. They could only surmise that Picx may have been disoriented. Among the manifestations of a heat stroke are headache, dizziness, nausea, confusion, and being disoriented.
“Sacred space”
Busay was Picardal’s “sacred space” since he was ordained priest in 1981. He built his first hermitage there in 1989, after serving eight years on missions in the communities, mostly in Mindanao, including Iligan City, where he was born and raised and where he served as altar boy until he left for the seminary in Cebu at age 13.
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Fr. Amado “Picx” Picardal: Missionary of Hope in the footsteps of the Redeemer
The hermitage he built in 1989 was a simple hut made of coco lumber and bamboo but he stayed there for only a few months as he had to leave for the University of California in Berkeley for masteral studies in Theology from 1989 to 1991 and from there to Rome’s Gregorian University for his PhD in Sacred Theology from 1991 until 1995, graduating magna cum laude.
That first hermitage was destroyed by typhoon, prompting him to think of building a stone house that would withstand typhoons. When someone pointed out that he should strengthen the foundation to ensure the structure does not crumble during an earthquake, Picardal brushed off the comment.
Inside his unfinished hermitage on Thursday afternoon, several cracks could be seen on the wall. Not a single roof panel had been installed.
For decades, Fr. Picx would keep returning to his “sacred space” to live as a hermit, even as the remote Busay of 1989 had become a tourist destination by 2024.
While in Busay on May 1, 1989, he wrote: “What am I doing here? Why am I doing this? Well, I came here to spend time in solitude, silence, prayer, study, writing and rest. I need to be alone. I want to be in touch with my deeper self — and with Someone whom I’ve been longing for. Busay is my sacred space, my sacred mountain. It is the place for a more intense encounter with myself and with God. Coming here regularly has become part of the rhythm of my life. There is a time for action and a time for contemplation. Ideally, action and contemplation should be integrated in my daily life — like yin and yang — but the dominant mode during the mission is action. I need an extended period of inaction — of contemplation and rest. I can not be an apostle all the time — I also have to be an occasional hermit.”
Seven years earlier, on July 2, 1982, in his mission area in Jimenez, Misamis Occidental, Fr. Picx spent his day off alone at the beach “for rest and reflection” and listed under “Lifetime Commitment,” 10 “personal resolutions,
promises and hopes for a lifetime,” that he referred to as his “personal vision and mission statement.”
In number 8, he wrote that every year, he would “spend at least two weeks in the hermitage that I will build in Busay. This will be a time for solitude, silence, contemplation, prayer, study and reflection. This will be a time for evaluating my life during the past year and plan for the coming year.”
He vowed to cook his own meals and spend some days fasting.
“Every three years of my priestly life I will take a two-month sabbatical. This will be spent in the Busay Hermitage. This will be a period of solitude, silence, prayer and reflection. I will reflect on and evaluate the past three years and look forward to the next triennium. There will be more time for study, research, writing theological reflections, articles, booklets and poetry. This could also be the time for composing hymns and painting. As usual, I will do my own cooking and also go on extended fasting,” he wrote.
Every ten years of his priestly life, he vowed to take a one-year sabbatical,seven months of which will be spent as a hermit in Busay.
Advocacies
Reports about Fr. Picx’ death focused mostly on his campaign against Duterte’s bloody war on drugs. But this was not his only advocacy. It was part of his continuing advocacy for justice and human rights, for peace and integrity of creation. Since his days in the seminary, he had been joining pickets and barricades in solidarity with the poor. He was with farmers of San Fernando, Bukidnon in their fight against logging. He walked/ran or biked for peace and the environment, for justice. He wrote books, among them on the Basic Ecclesial Communities (BECs), culled from the experiences of the communities that he served; he composed songs such as “Awit sa GKK” (Song of the BECs).
He was a missionary, an activist, a poet, a mystic, a pilgrim, a preacher, a teacher, a mentor (“and sometimes tormentor,” according to Fr. Edilberto Cepe, the
Redemptorists’ provincial superior, who was once a student of Fr. Picx), a friend, a prophet, a community organizer, a composer, a marathon man who later went around the country and sacred places abroad on a bicycle or on foot, did karate and later tai chi, learned scuba diving in his 40s, climbed mountains and loved to play the piano, organ, guitar, harmonica. He was also into pranic healing.
“He lived his vow of obedience as obedience to God and to do God’s will. Coupled with his advocacy for justice and human rights, he could be determined to do what he thinks is right, even if, at times, this could bring him into disagreements with his superiors. It was said that Picx could be stubborn. Yes, but always on the side of justice, of what is right, of what is good,” Cepe said in his homily at the wake on June 5.
Picardal consistently fought to uphold human rights since his student activism days in the seminary, an advocacy that landed him seven months in detention (including getting tortured).
Writing from his detention cell on November 10, 1973, he asked his mother Nicole to stop dreaming about him becoming a bishop or cardinal someday. “That’s an impossible dream. I don’t have any desire for these high positions. I only want to be a simple priest, working among the poor, facing life with them.”
His exposure to the slums of Cebu as a seminarian, and the farming and fishing communities as a priest in their mission areas in Mindanao (Jimenez in Misamis Occidental, Hinatuan in Surigao del Sur, Iligan in Lanao, Arakan in North Cotabato, and San Fernando in Bukidnon) as a member of the Redemptorist Mission Team (later renamed Redemptorist Itinerant Mission Team), firmed up his mission to become a priest for the people in a church for the poor.
Lifetime Commitment
Until the end, Picardal honored the 10-point “Lifetime Commitment” he wrote in 1982. It is a detailed list, and these are mere excerpts:
1. I will always be faithful to my religious commitment to Christ and to his people as a Redemptorist priest.
2. My primary preference is to live out my entire religious life as a missioner preaching the Gospel to the poor and oppressed and helping build Basic Christian Communities.
3. Prayer and contemplation will always be an integral part of my life.
4. I will maintain the habit of ongoing personal study, research and reflection, updating constantly my knowledge in the field of social sciences and in theology, reading books and writing theological reflections. From this I hope to develop a theology from the grassroots.
5. I will strive to be more personal and warm in my relationship with others, more kind, compassionate and affectionate.
6. Music, poetry and art will always be an important part of my life.
7. I will try to be physically fit at all times so that I may be more effective and long lasting in my work and enjoy life more fully.
8. Every year I will spend at least two weeks in the hermitage that I will build in Busay.
9. This is the basic path and direction that I will follow throughout my life. The concrete and specific ways of living this out may change but the basic commitment will remain.
I hope to be doing all these things –living out my vows, giving missions, being in solidarity with the poor in their struggle for justice and peace, meditating, living as an occasional hermit, theologizing from the grassroots, writing poetry, running marathons, cultivating deep relationships, etc. — throughout my whole life, even in my old age.
10. I will live life to the full. I will strive to become fully alive, fully human, continually growing up as human being and as a Christian. I will live out the demands of the Gospel in a radical manner so that Christ and his Gospel may become incarnate in my life.
Interrupted hermit’s life
Picardal would spend 16 years in Davao City after his graduation in Rome, serving various roles as professor, dean, promoter of Basic Ecclesial Communities (BECs, previously known as BCCs), assistant parish priest, acting parish priest, superior, pro-life and peace advocate, Christian-Muslim dialogue participant and spokesperson of CASE.
He and Fr. Bong Dublan were among those who lobbied with Archbishop Fernando Capalla to issue a statement on the summary killings in 2001. Picardal would serve as spokesperson of CASE when it was launched in 2003 although documenting summary executions was done by a member-organization as early as 1998.
Picardal biked across the country in 2000 (from Davao to Pagudpud), across Israel in 2005, around Mindanao in 2006 and around the Philippines (over 5000 km in 56 days) in 2008. He ran/walked alone across Mindanao (400 km in nine days) in 2010, and few months later as a barefoot pilgrim on the Camino de Santiago from the French Pyrenees across the north of Spain (800 km in 27 days), and across the Philippines from Davao to Aparri via the Cordilleras (2,080 km in 57 days) before reporting to his new assignment in Manila in 2011 as executive secretary of the Committee on Basic Ecclesial Communities of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines. He resigned in 2017 to start his eremitical life – “a life of silence, solitude, prayer and writing.”
In August 2018, he was forced to abandon his hermitage and his superiors, fearing for his safety, sent him overseas.
“Two weeks ago (August 11), I almost became a victim of extrajudicial killing and the fourth priest to be killed under the Duterte Regime had I stuck to my routine,” he wrote from abroad on August 27, 2018.
“For over four months, I have been living a quiet life as a hermit on top of the mountain overlooking the city of Cebu, spending my time in silence, solitude, prayer and writing. I usually go down to the Redemptorist monastery in Cebu
twice a month to bond with my fellow Redemptorists, check my email and FB, get my food supplies and go to the coffee shop nearby before dinner. At first, I didn’t realize this routine would put my life at risk,” Picardal said, adding that since his return to Cebu from Manila in 2017, “I had been receiving information that the death squad was going to target priests and that I was on top of the list.”
He would later tell MindaNews that his movements were tracked down in Cebu through the smart phone he was using.
Exiled
Instead of spending the rest of his life in his hermitage, Picardal was forced to spend the next four years as an exile, first in the United States, next in Rome where he served as Executive Co-Secretary of the Commission for Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation of the Union of Superiors General.
On June 15, 2021, Picardal told MindaNews he tendered his resignation after two years, effective July 7. He said he was allowed to cut short his term because sitting in front of a desk computer seven hours a day was “not good for my mental and physical health.”
A sedentary lifestyle, he wrote, is “depressing.”
On July 6, 2022, six days after Duterte stepped down as President, Picardal was finally back in his “sacred space” in Busay, to continue his interrupted eremitical life after nearly four years as an exile. But only those in his family, the Redemptorists, and a circle of close friends knew he was back in Busay.
In May and June 2023, Picardal had to flee Busay again due to security concerns. He stayed in the Redemptorist convent in downtown Cebu but was getting depressed by the day. He missed his “sacred space,” his hermit’s life, the scent of the morning air and Bruno, the dog he cared for since its birth in January last year. Joan recalls how Fr. Picx doted on Bruno, buying him a sleeping mat, toys, shampoo and dog food.
His plan to do a Camino de Cebu, a 400-kilometer walk from south to north
Cebu in October 2023 (to celebrate his 69th birthday on October 6), caused a stir in the Redemptorist community due to health and security considerations. His proposal was initially turned down.
Asked by MindaNews on October 5 what his heart’s desire was for his birthday aside from his dream Camino de Cebu, he replied: “That’s my only heart’s desire busa balik na lang sa bukid ug (so I will just return to the mountain and) celebrate my birthday with my dog.”
On October 10, he sent this message:
“Ok na. Confidential Pilgrim Hike Camino Cebu / South to North (Santander to Daanbantayan) 400 km 20 days.”
Despite his health concerns, Joan said Picardal still planned on joining a marathon in December this year.
“You can never imprison God’s word”
In his homily during the funeral mass on June 6, Pagadian Bishop Emeritus Emmanuel Cabajar, described Fr. Picx as “a teacher, well conscientized on social realities, deeply committed to do justice and peace. Above all, he was a missionary, who followed St. Alphonsus’ example by preaching God’s word to the most abandoned, especially the poor.”
Fr. Picx was Cabajar’s “longest partner in mission work.” They had worked together from 1975 while Picardal was still a seminarian, until 1989.
“Fr. Picx was passionate in serving the poor, even willing to risk his life for them,” Cabajar said, recalling their mission days in Hinatuan, Surigao del Sur in 1983 when black propaganda against the church made it too risky to continue the mission. But Picardal volunteered to stay on, along with Cabajar.
The two had to devise ways to reach out to the people who were afraid to attend seminars but were willing to attend mass.
“Picx and I devised a Misa Pamalandong (Mass-Reflection) in which the liturgy of the word, incorporating some reflection, discussion and input on biblical passages, lasted four to five hours before moving on to the liturgy of the Eucharist. The Misa Pamalandong became our main vehicle for sharing the word. You can never imprison God’s word!,” Cabajar said.
Picardal lived simply, owned a few clothes, and considered peanut butter a major treat. But he had this fetish of dipping his finger into the bottle of peanut butter that Redemptorists talked about during his wake. According to Joan, Fr. Picx stopped eating peanut butter in January, as part of his self-medication.
“Amazing Redemptorist, Missionary of Hope”
An amazing Redemptorist, a Missionary of Hope in the footsteps of the Redeemer” is how the Redemptorists’ General Council based in Rome views Picardal’s life.
Speaking on behalf of the General Council after the 8 pm mass on June 4, Fr. Joseph Ivel Mendanha spoke about the Parable of the wise and foolish virgins and how five lamps “shone brightly in the life of our beloved Picx.”
These five are the lamps of witness of life, missionary availability, simplicity of life rooted in the evangelical councils, humanness, and service to the poor and abandoned.
“To witness not just to speak but to live. Picx walked the talk,” he said.
On the lamp of missionary availability, Mendanha noted that one aspect that
most of the Redemptorists need to work on is to be “available constantly for the mission” and Picx was “always available for the mission.”
On the lamp of simplicity of life, he said Picx was “a man of integrity who lived his vow of poverty, didn’t just speak about it; who lived his vow of celibacy, who lived his vow of obedience with simplicity of life.”
On the lamp of humanness, Picardal “lived hopefully, joyfully.”
“Our Father Picx was truly human… He lived, joyfully and happily in his own humanity. He didn’t have to be someone else. He was happy the way he was.”
On the lamp of service to the poor and abandoned, Mendanha said the love for the poor and abandoned is what characterized Fr. Picx. “No wonder he was chosen to be associate secretary at the Commission for Justice and Peace and Integrity of Creation. He made himself available to our Filipino immigrants here in Rome who needed someone to listen to them. He accompanied so many people struggling with difficulties, with challenges, with troubles, the poor and abandoned. I can honestly say, on behalf of the General Council, that our Father Picx was a voice for the voiceless.”
“Fr. Picx was a voice of the voiceless… an example for all of us Redemptorists on how to be a missionary of hope in the footsteps of the Redeemer.
“Fr. Picx, I salute you,” Mendanha said, adding he is confident that “you stand before the Lord with your lamp burning brightly. Come and enjoy the kingdom prepared for you. My dear Fr. Picx, go to God, go to the Redeemer.”
Fr. Ramon Fruto (beside Bishop Emeritus Emmanuel Cabajar) prepares to bless the casket of Fr. Amado Picardal during the funeral mass at the Redemptorist Church in Cebu on 6 June 2024. The 93-year old Fruto was Director of the St. Alphonsus Seminary in Cebu when the 13-year old Picardal entered the seminary in 1968. MindaNews photo by CAROLYN O. ARGUILLAS
Devcon Mindanao Summit slated for June
ANTONIO L. COLINA IV
DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 17 April)—Tech players from the cities of Iligan, Cagayan de Oro, and Davao have joined forces to organize Mindanao’s biggest technology summit slated for June 29 to 30, organizers said on Wednesday.
Speaking during “Wednesdays Media Forum” at the Habi at Kape, Peng Sumarago, president of DevconDavao chapter, said that the Devcon Mindanao Summit 2024 at the SMX Convention Center in Davao hopes to highlight the existing technologies and innovations employed by various industries in Mindanao.
She said that there will also be foreign technopreneurs invited to talk about the latest innovations in the world to help businesses, individuals, and startups.
The Devcon Mindanao Summit 2024 will be organized by the chapters of Devcon Philippines in Mindanao in the hopes of providing an avenue where participants can learn from
each other.
“We have a lot of industries here that are actually using innovation and technology inside their company and they are not yet highlighted. We want to highlight them during the conference so that one city can learn from another,” Sumarago said.
She said Devcon envisions to organize a big conference with attendees from public and private sectors to help them keep abreast with the latest innovations across the globe, providing solutions to problems through technology.
As the biggest community of tech enthusiasts in the country, Devcon is composed of nine chapters across the country, including Davao, Iligan, and Cagayan de Oro.
“The goal of the chapters of Mindanao is to really deliver a big conference that we can showcase what is the tech and innovation inside Mindanao and to bring as well tech speakers to speak about the latest
techs all across the globe. It would be a two-way street wherein Mindanao can learn from them and we can also showcase what’s inside Mindanao,” she said.
Jaymar Somosot, vice president for technology of the Devcon Philippines, added that for the summit in Davao, organizers will highlight generative artificial intelligence and machine learning to capacitate Mindanawon stakeholders on how to effectively use these tools.
He said they are expecting 800 to 1,000 attendees from all over the country and abroad to the summit this year.
“In terms of technology, we are bringing generative AI and machine learning because right now people are adamant to use AI because of its ramifications but we want to show people that this tech actually is really good if used properly in business,” he added.
Davao ICT industry looking for more workers
ANTONIO L. COLINA IV
DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 24 June)
– The shortage of workers in the information and communications technology (ICT) industry continues to widen as demand for workers continues to increase, an official of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT)Davao said.
Engr. Albert Gabriel, information technology officer of DICT-Davao, said during the Kapehan sa Dabaw on Monday that the demand for ICT jobs is rising amid the rapid expansion of existing companies and the entry of new players in the city.
He said the city continues to attract new investors as the Davao region produces “quality graduates who can readily meet the qualifications of employers, particularly the call centers or the information technology-business process management (IT-BPM) sector.
“One of the biggest sectors is IT-BPM. The good thing about the IT-BPM sector is that they don’t need to have a specific course because the requirements come
from a bigger discipline,” he said.
He said that the agency continues to conduct caravans across the region to promote the opportunities in the industry and to encourage more workers to consider finding ICT-related jobs.
He said that there were 75,000 workers directly employed in the ICT industry last year but local stakeholders hope to increase the total workforce to 150,000 by 2028.
“Right now, we have a shortage because the demand of our clients abroad increases, knowing the high-quality work performance of our Filipino workers. The more the IT-BPM sector expands, the more jobs will be needed,” he said.
He added that DICT-Davao is helping the industry close the gap in demand by collaborating with the academe to produce more graduates who can meet the qualifications of ICT companies, particularly jobs that require highly technical skills.
Gabriel said the agency is organizing a
National ICT Month Job Fair from 7:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on June 26 at the SM City Davao-The Annex Event Center in the hopes of finding more workers for the industry.
He said that 31 local employers would participate in the fair where a total of 4,049 job vacancies would be available to job seekers.
He said among the most in-demand jobs include customer service representatives, customer sales representatives, customer service champions, technical support experts, virtual assistants, healthcare consultants, accounting, cashiers, telco consultants, and riders.
“Davao City is the main hub in which our workforce comes not only from Davao City but also from the different parts of the region,” he said.
One of the biggest IT-BPM participating companies is the Sixeleven Global Services and Solutions, Inc., which has a total of 1,049 job vacancies, he said.
