in god's name

if someone were to ask me 15 years ago on what i felt most passionate about, i would have said god, country, family, people. it sounds like a mindless politician's slogan for another mindless election, but that was how i felt. in a religious country like the philippines, the concept of being religious and spirituality are completely interchangeable. to be spiritual is to believe in god, be a serious member of an established faith, in most instances catholic, and carry out the dictates of that faith.

in most instances, i followed that path as most young filipinos enrolled in sectarian catholic institutions. my catholic formation couldn't have been more hifalutin in the philippine setting. dominican friars were my role models as i was growing up in the conservative confines of santo tomas. we were bombarded with religious instruction every day not only on the generalities of the faith, but on the specifics of their dogma and how they apply to secular existence. in the pontifical university, we prayed before and after each subject with the entire rosary recited during the whole month of october. for such piety and loyalty to the holy mother the church, we were always graced by the Pope's presence every time His Holiness was in town. as the Church's primary agents of educating the faithful, our dominican mentors were the true soldiers of the church in their fulfillment of their holy mandate.

but besides making sure that i understood my faith's dogmas and doctrines, i thought that i was being consistent with being an ordinary, church-going christian. i believed that by being a good son of the church, my personal struggles would seem easier because of divine intervention. if it meant going to church every day to seek my personal petitions, so be it. if it meant praying the rosary every night besides those done in the classroom, so be it. every day, i was counting my blessings and seeking atonement for my sins. lest it be misconstrued, however, i was no saint. i approached religion from a more theoretical perspective, hence the obedience was more mechanical than practical, more distant than personal, and it banked on the whole premise that attaining eternal life had a fixed formula to follow.

my initial formation was therefore founded on a very stringent conservative catholic backdrop. my social principles all emanated from this orientation. rabidly anti-abortion regardless of the pregnancy's circumstances, i also believed that religious instruction must also be available in public schools. i believed that the Church had the divine right and responsibility to use the pulpit to push for what it deems is right and just. above all, i believed that the country's success all depended on its people's re-conversion. that any meaningful national recovery would involve arousing the people's faith and getting them to be involved in nation building with their conscience as the main driving force. and i trusted that my church was the logical positive force in that regard.

my christian formation proved indispensable in reinforcing that religious fervor. coupled with my parents' serious and sincere involvement with the church and the burgeoning charismatic movement at that time, i thought i would be a man whose ideals would unshakably be conservative.

but too much of something can indeed be a bad thing. while i continued to participate in activities that enhanced my own spirituality, i was noticing the dominant role the church was playing in my country's affairs. i agreed in theory with this principle in the beginning. but my exposure to the more liberal elements of society became more common particularly in the varsitarian, logic began to interfere in my faith. i started to reassess the "go and multiply" dictum of the church while i see the increasing misery of my countrymen in the face of such astonishing population growth. i began to view the hierarchy of my church as insensitive to the sufferings of the people despite the overwhelming science against unbridled, unchecked population increase. its vehemence in insisting its stand against responsible family planning was perhaps what set off my drift away from my church. how can a bunch of celibates credibly lecture other people about family planning? how can these supposed intellectuals of the church force the argument against the fact the when one million new filipinos are born each year, the nation's food production and job creation will be perpendicularly exhausted because they simply cannot catch up?

the impact might be ignored in the more secular societies in western europe and to a certain extent the united states, but in catholic philippines, this poses a real problem. to date, no philippine administration has successfully implemented a true family planning program save for the iron fist of marcos during martial law while protestant ramos' efforts at addressing the population issue was perpetually hounded by the church throughout his term.

then my stand on abortion shifted dramatically as well. it further hardened as my political ideology moved farther and farther to the left. i began to view the church as a force perpetually opposed to progress as it undermined embryonic stem cell research, the darwinian principle and the indisputable data of population overgrowth. it has consistently failed to respond credibly to challenges to long-standing disputes on these various social issues. it had continued to invoke the power of the pulpit and hide in the cassocks of blind faith. they have continuously derided its critics and those whose positions are not supportive of the church's as enemies of the faith. some have been so unfortunate as to be declared heretics and countless of them were burned to death.

i am not saying that this institution has lost all its usefulness in society. for a people who rely on religion as their source of hope, the church remains an instrument of moral formation. its deeply held beliefs on what is right and wrong are useful guides for people who truly regard them as a genuine source of goodness. despite the catholic church's sometimes atrocious record to humanity in causing death and suffering to people with a set of beliefs separate from the christian hegemony, much can be learned about its history. while it has never really apologized to its victims during the crusades, the inquisition and its painful silence while the carnage that was the holocaust was underway, there might be signs of atonement from the institution that has always taught about humility and the value of forgiveness. two popes have now revisited the lands that christianity's former princes were perpetually trying to "recover" from the moors in a gesture of reconciliation and maybe, forgiveness.

but my drift away from faith seemed unstoppable. i was simply unable to reconcile certain truths about humanity and salvation. about the preponderance of one faith over the other. about the improbability of the absoluteness of each truth against another truth. while similarities in the stories of most faiths and the commonality of the three major religions' (judaism, christianity and islam) root history of a single deity, one's claim against the other as the one true faith creates doomsday scenario for those who happen to belong to what ends up as false religion. this parochial and arrogant claim to exclusive salvation based on creed defies logic and is very divisive. despite our level of social advancement,this divisiveness has brought us to all these sectarian strife that are erupting everywhere. from palestine to northern ireland, kosovo to banda aceh, today's religious extremism is but a snapshot of all the crimes committed in the name god.

i might never go back to the day when i completely surrendered my destiny to a force other than what i see. i might never again believe that my catholicism is the one true path to where everyone imagines they want to be. perhaps one day, however, we can just respect other people's beliefs and try to imagine that we might all end up in that one place. that one true place.

passing on

i saw the face of death almost everyday in medical clerkship. every time the word "mayday" was yelled across the medicine ward of the clinical hospital, the smell of death lingered incessantly until the senior medical resident called the effort to revive the half-dead patient over. from minutes to an hour or so, we believed it was our christian duty to spare no time and expense to bring back those who nature are calling back into its bosom. it was our professional duty too that we do everything physiologically possible to see to it that death does not become necessary all the time.

but in almost half of these cases, death was indeed necessary. either due to longstanding conditions that have taken their toll on their non-superhuman bodies or to sudden turns of fate like a stabbing or a gunshot, life ends and we all move on. the ritual of pumping their chests to stimulate renewed heart activity is so ingrained in my memory that i can do it anytime even after 10 years without practice. whenever i did cardiac pumping, i always looked at the patient's eyes in an attempt to peek into what was going on deep inside them. most of the time i found the pain in their faces that was probably brought about by the failure of the various systems in their body. unlike other people, however, i do not find poetry in their eyes as they struggle for their own survival. when i had to do CPR on my own father, i sensed the peace and closure that he had longed for. his five years of sufferings were probably enough.

these days, i hear of people passing on more frequently than i did several years ago. maybe because i have reached an age when the people i knew when i was growing up are reaching their "life-expectancy" limits. the cycle is being completed. i would learn that my godfather from this place has died or my mother's friend from that place has also passed on. my aunt from colorado, my uncles from bicol and laguna, even my very first friend in our neighborhood in sariaya has fallen victim to a violent end.

i myself do not expect to live forever. i become more conscious of my own mortality every time i hear about people i know passing on. my own bout with a life-threatening condition 11 years ago always reminds me of my own vulnerability. every potential infection, every fever that i have, every joint pain, every bruise are all warning signs that are important markers for my own survival. nothing can be left to chance. my immune system is not as tough as my classmates in med school nor my co-residents in rehab. so i had more precautionary measures than everybody else whenever one or more of our patients are suspected to have some kind of infection.

but death is hard to cheat. it is a lingering presence as we drive at 90 mph in the freeway. it is our constant companion every time we fly even on the safest planes. it is always a threat whenever we let ourselves go under the knife even in the most benign of procedures.

and most of the time we escape death and move on. only to move ever closer the the thing we have always dreaded. closer and closer.

my calesa rides

when i was a small boy, every trip to manila was a treat. my father would bring me to his escolta office, shop the nicest clothes for me in what was then manila's finest shopping district, buy me gold fish that i never learned to take care for, and we would always dine in his favorite restaurants. sometimes my mother would tag along. it was not necessarily good news since my mother tended to control my father's spendings for me. sort of the family's conscience for fiscal discipline. in those times, family was just me, my father and my mother. my sister was not due to arrive until i was about ready to go to school.

in my moments of toddler whim, i'd ask my father to go home from his office on board the traditional calesa. and in his moments of deep fondness for his only son, he would gladly oblige. to the amusement of our neighbors in manila, my father and i would grandly arrive in the not so fashionable calesa. in those times in the early 70s, pollution was not much of a problem, traffic jams were unheard of, but riding the calesa was still not a lifestyle statement.

so early in life i've developed a taste for traveling and all its trappings from a person who hardly went anywhere. my father liked good food, nice clothes, very fancy shoes, but never went very far. literally. it maybe that he lacked the opportunity, but there's no doubt in my mind that he would have been everywhere only if he wanted to. stubbornness is a trait truly native to the cadiz gene. ironically too, he initially constrained my freedom of movement for sheer fright that i might be hit by a bus or by lightning. but my tantrums proved more powerful than his fright, so i was able to go around provided his appointed chaperone for me would hold me on a short leash. my father wanted to make sure that i would make it into adulthood unscathed, undamaged by any natural or man-made accidents. perhaps my frequent rides on the calesa my father started what would be an enriching voyage throughout my chaotic but beautiful country.

so i began a long and productive journey as soon as i stepped out of high school. modestly in the beginning with low-budget trips to places like baguio and sagada, each trip would educate me in more ways than i would learn inside the box in the university. even a short ride to intramuros with my cousins was such a fulfilling undertaking at that time. industrial laguna, nowhere in the travelers' guide for places to see in the philippines, was such a respite from my hectic days in college. day trips such as those encouraged me to see my country more and crave for the more exotic destinations in the 7,107-island archipelago.

exotic like banaue and surigao. magnificent like mayon in albay and boracay in aklan. secluded and pristine like narra and el nido in palawan.

and tucked in a hidden peninsula in bicol right at luzon's southern edges, i discovered a tiny settlement with an out-of-this-world bay that would put phuket to shame. inhabited by poor bicolanos in what is probably a 5th class municipality, getting there was no easy task. we went there on a medical mission with my brothers so little was expected as far as accommodations were concerned. but when the work was accomplished and it was time to hit the local attractions, there beaconed towering limestone formations typical of what can be found in some of central china's provinces. scattered along the coast for a few miles and into the bay itself, these limestone formations provided a backdrop to a beautiful white sand beach. the crystal blue waters of the tiny peninsula gleamed in front of such an untouched, undisturbed peninsula. the wonderful thing about this place is that getting there is a major project in itself with a very inhospitable terrain making sure that development would have extreme difficulty in encroaching into this secret, unexpected treasure.

up north close to the taiwan border lies batanes. certainly one of my best trips, local and otherwise, the sheer vista of this tiny province is phenomenal. every inch of this rugged archipelago of five major islands is worth every minute spent on getting there. its unique architecture is nothing like the one found in all of the philippine islands. thick-walled houses with thatched roofs that last generations is what the local people, the ivatans, call home. they add much character to the already breath-taking view of the islands. underwater, the scenery gets even better. with visibility of up to 50 feet, communing with batanes' marine wildlife is another experience all its own. for some reasons, its corals are more brightly colored, far larger, and so full of life and vigor than anything i've seen in all my years of scuba diving. the coral reef would start just a few feet from the shore and extend far into the sea. it contains such a variety of marine life in very clear waters that i wondered how in the world did this place escape the attention of scuba divers. well, that's not such a bad thing anyway. maybe batanes is better left to the ivatans than to the dangerous hands of tourism.

these trips were what made my life in the philippines worth the 35 years that i lived there. every plane that i boarded, every boat that i took, every tricycle that got me to these places were my tools in the voyages i did to see my country of birth before i move on to the world beyond.
someday i hope to resume my trips in the philippines. perhaps on a calesa, but a 747 will do just fine.