Write…!

The words still echo in my mind to this day.  I knew it was an order – no, a strong nudge – for me to believe in what I can do. 

This was 2007 and seventeen months have passed since my last article.  My work at that time in a UN agency was relatively new territory and I did not want to engage in anything outside it. As I was highly opinionated, I was extra wary that anything I do, including writing, would be misconstrued as conflict of interest. 

“Yes Father; I will pray about it,” was my feeble reply.

Father Alfonso Carino, OMI casually talked to me – giving corrections, proposing options – about my weekly articles on the Editorial Page of the Mindanao Cross where I wrote since 1991.

One time in 2003 I submitted an article about a friend who was gunned down because of some transparency and accountability issues in their office.  On that particular day we were just coming from the field with colleagues distributing relief goods somewhere in the Liguasan Marsh.  We passed through a military checkpoint where a convoy was just ambushed an hour earlier.  These were indeed difficult times in Maguindanao and Cotabato.

Surprisingly I did not shed a tear seeing my friend, a devoted worker -- bloodied and lifeless in the hospital morgue.  I thanked him for the friendship and the dedication he had shown in making sure that humanitarian assistance reached their intended beneficiaries.

I rushed to beat my deadline with the Mindanao Cross.  I had my topic ready for the day, but I needed to pay tribute to my fallen friend by writing another article. The experience must have rendered me incapable of churning out comprehensible sentences.  The editor did not have time to check my article thoroughly as well, and all of us realized it only when it saw print:  it lacked a concluding paragraph.


“This is ugly,” was the only thing Father Al told me. But it was clear to me that I should come up with either better excuses or better articles next time.  Emotions would have to take a back seat if I have to make one good tribute.

Over and above the grammatical corrections, or views on certain issues, he told me my articles were “down-to-earth”.  I think it was an affirmation of how I wanted my articles to turn out: simple, easy to understand.  With all the information overload, I made sure I understand an issue first before I pass on my confusion to readers.  I cannot pretend to be scholarly when I'm not.  

"How can I improve, Father?"  I ask often ask for his guidance.

"Just continue with what you’re doing,” was always the curt reply.

I was somewhere in the Zamboanga Peninsula when I got news that he was in the ICU, and I can only murmur my prayers and speak to him through the wind.  He went ahead, and I got to visit him in his wake at the OMI Spiritual Center in Tamontaka, Maguindanao shortly afterwards. 

"Write." I hear him in my head, from behind the glass pane of his coffin.

As fate would have it, my work sent me to Basilan and Sulu on the day of his burial.  Every time I visit his grass-covered grave at the Lourdes Grotto I still hear his voice reminding me to write.

In God's time, I will, Father.

* * * * *

Postscript:

I wrote this article on 10 October 2010 after Notre Dame University blessed the Fr Alfonso Carino Building.  With breakthroughs on social networking, I think it's high time I slowly heed my mentor's message.  AMDG.