He is best remembered for being an indefatigable “letter to the editor” writer, sharing insightful views and humorous takes on contemporary issues in epistolary messages that established him as a spokesperson for the Church, even if he carried no title. He soon earned recognition as a commentator and columnist, beloved not just for his writing skills but also for the simplicity of his lifestyle and his person.
Fr. Ben Villote is also remembered for the many innovations he adopted in his journey through the priestly apostolate, gathering about him friends and supporters who marveled at his creativity as a pastor and leader.
His last posting was as founder and chaplain of the Center for Migrant Youth, established in 1982 to provide temporary shelter, education opportunities and community life for rural and migrant street youths.
And it is this last assignment that may have provided him with the comforts of human compassion and care as Father Ben faces the closing chapter of his fruitful life. Now ravaged by the effects of Alzheimer’s disease, Father Ben is confined at the Cardinal Santos Hospital. A friend and mentor visited him recently and found two former wards of the Center for Migrant Youth looking after him. The two young men, now adults and gainfully employed, have been taking turns with other former Center residents in caring for Father Ben. After all, he is the man who saw them, members of a faceless population of homeless youth in the city, and discerned their special needs and promise. Where others saw only “juvenile delinquents,” petty criminals and pests, Father Ben saw in the young men future productive citizens who needed only a guiding hand and a caring environment to blossom to their full promise.
Perhaps even without his asking, those young men are now repaying Father Ben for his kindness and generosity. It was this selfless caring that so inspired the visitor and prompted her to call and ask that I write of Father Ben.
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I do remember receiving, for many years around this time of the year, a letter from Father Ben soliciting for his wards at the Center. He would ask for his friends to prepare a bayong (or two or more) filled with essentials like rice, canned goods, soap, toothpaste or anything that could be distributed among the Center’s residents. Along with the letter of appeal would come an invitation to share in a Christmas Eucharist and celebration at the Center, just one way for Father Ben to hold together his “family” of friends, former parishioners, supporters and fans.
In his book “My Crazy Dream” (Claretian Press, 2002), one of many consisting of his collected columns, reflections and letters, Father Ben wrote of his plan to embark on a “Pilgrim’s Thanksgiving Marathon” in which he would visit all the important places in his life to mark his journey through 70 years of a sickly childhood, happy youth and priesthood filled with service. Along the way, he said, he would bring “a small healing and feeding team to visit some bedridden and house-bound children and elderly as my way of remembering gratefully the times past when I too was remembered with love in those places in my journey through seven decades.”
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The pilgrimage, wrote Father Ben, would begin at the Mary Johnston Hospital in Tondo where he was born and confined for two weeks for infantile pneumonia, “before antibiotics!” he notes with alarm. “My panic-stricken mother (deceased) piously and perhaps mindlessly made a vow offering her first-born son to the Santo Niño of Tondo—if I survived.”
But if prayers and promises ensured his survival, Father Ben’s vocation was sealed by happy boyhood experiences at the St. Joseph Parish in Gagalangin, Tondo where he received his first call to the priesthood. “Then off to Mexico, San Fernando, Guagua and Sta. Rita in Pampanga where we evacuated at the start of World War II and where I knew what it was to survive on corn and sugar cane, and how it felt to be scared while being pursued by the Japanese soldiers through the corn and sugar cane fields.”
From there, it would be a “quiet homecoming” to San Jose Seminary where he spent the “best years of my youth” with his Jesuit mentors. After Father Ben’s ordination in 1959, he was first assigned to San Felipe Neri Parish, noting that he should visit Barrios Hulo and Barangka “by the River Pasig, now progressive and independent parishes.”
Then it would be on to the Chapel (now parish) of the Holy Sacrifice in the UP campus in Diliman, where Father Ben, I believe, first achieved public renown as a letter-writer. His next assignment was at Santa Rita Parish in Philamlife Homes, re-connecting with the Association of St. John Maria Vianney, which supported his priestly studies and continued to support the Center for Migrant Youth.
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It was while pastor of Parokya ng San Juan Bautista in Tipas, Taguig that Father Ben proved his innovative approach to building Christian communities. With his parishioners, he built the Dambanang Kawayan (Bamboo Altar) for the fisherfolk and bamboo growers of Tipas and Napindan. After six years, Father Ben moved on to the Parokya ng Ina ng Laging Saklolo in Punta, Sta. Ana, where once again he helped conceive and put up the Dambanang Bayan (People’s Altar) for “factory workers and small government employees and their basic communities.”
At the end of his article, written for the Sunday Inquirer Magazine where he was a columnist, Father Ben said that henceforth he would keep this pilgrimage a “a private and quiet project—no publicity, no flourish of trumpets, no tongues of fire, no rush of wind, nothing spectacular.” So did he live his life, away from the limelight.
For those who wish to help Father Ben and his caregivers, you may get in touch with him at Tel. No. 428-6529.