I am overwhelmed by the many felicitations for the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice award granted by Pope Francis to unworthy me. I am just an ordinary worker in the Lord’s Vineyard. This is why during the Mass on Sept. 18 at the Manila Cathedral presided by Manila Archbishop Jose F. Cardinal Advincula in my honor, I responded that the award did not belong to me.
THE AWARD REALLY BELONGS TO: First, those who helped me in the retrofitting, restrengthening, restoration, and renovation (four Rs) of the cathedral. And second, to those who plucked me from the misery of a Catholic ignoramus and brought me the joy of an ordinary worker in the Lord’s Vinery. Let me recap my response very briefly.
On the first, the four Rs were undertaken for three years (2012-2015) and since then, all of us who took part preferred anonymity per Matthew 6:1. But after the Vicar of Christ acclaimed our work, I requested Cardinal Advincula to invite the donors, contractors, architects, engineers, carpenters, masons, electricians, and my other coworkers to attend the Mass and savor the award.
In 2010, we brought down the 17-ton bells in the swaying belfry and relocated them in the new gardens on the right side of the cathedral. They were replaced by 23 much-lighter, computerized Carillon bells especially ordered from the Netherlands. But the shaking of the cathedral itself remained unabated.
Thus, one of the first things that Luis Antonio G. Cardinal Tagle did upon assuming his duties as the Manila archbishop in 2012 was to close the structurally weakened church lest, heaven forbid, it toppled down due to an earthquake. Cardinal Chito, as he prefers to be called, had since been assigned to the Vatican but texted me that he would “always treasure the communion and collaboration that I experienced with you and our team …”
DUE TO THE ABSENCE OF “AS-BUILT” PLANS of the cathedral, we did not know at the beginning why the marble floors, columns, and walls shook. Nonetheless, without much ado, without written plans and sometimes without any written requests, our donors gladly took our verbal assurances and gave generously. They were led by the families and companies of (1) Don Ramon Ang, (2) the late Dr. George S.K. Ty, (3) the brothers Jaime Augusto and Fernando Zobel de Ayala, (4) the spouses Bert and Sylvia Lina, and (5) a kind donor who preferred to remain anonymous. Our general contractor was DM Consunji, Inc. chaired by Sid Consunji who gladly donated their mark ups and margins.
Guided by our structural engineer Angel Lazaro, our coworkers—under the watchful eyes of Salvador Castro—discovered that the huge columns at the center of the church had been weakened by time. Thus, they carefully chipped off the beige marble covers of the columns and strengthened them with countless rolls of carbon fiber and gallons of epoxy. They also carefully chiseled and lifted the marble slabs on the cathedral floor, piece by piece, to lay out drainage canals, install plumbing pipes and electrical fixtures underneath. The miracle is that none of the marble covers broke or fragmented. All of them had been restored to their original places without any breakage or blemish. The sound and lighting systems were likewise modernized.
ON THE SECOND, I hailed those who helped, inspired, and walked with me in my humble spiritual journey. Essentially, they include my family, my brethren in the Supreme Court, the Foundation for Liberty and Prosperity, the FLP Scholars Society, and the joyfully praying and singing Bukas Loob sa Diyos Covenant Community.
I also acknowledged the late Fr. Michael Nolan who snatched me, as the youngest president of the FEU Central Student Organization, from the lures of Marxism to which, as an impoverished lad, I looked up to in my feverish search for economic equality. Moreover, he helped me organize and lead the National Union of Students that battled, ironically for them, the Marxist-leaning student movements at the time.
I singled out my late Leni who set aside her vocation to be a Benedictine nun to marry undeserving me, as well as the renowned Catholic lay leader and former envoy to the Holy See Tita de Villa, who gently ushered me to the inner sanctum of the Church, introduced me to our bishops, and got me elected to leadership roles in major Catholic lay organizations including the Vatican-based Pontifical Council for the Laity.
I also hailed CJ Alexander G. Gesmundo who had to forego a prior commitment to attend a judicial conference in Bangkok. And Tessie Sy Coson, who my Leni and I have admired since she was my student in commercial law at the Assumption College. We witnessed her rise to the very summit of her career; yet, she has remained simple, modest, unaffected, and unassuming.
Finally, I reiterated the vow I delivered when I entered the Supreme Court in 1995 without passing through the judicial hierarchy or any public office, “I hold office by God’s grace, and I pledge to serve Him and our people with fortitude, integrity, competence, and prudence. I dedicate all that I am, and all that I will ever be, to Him who is the Source of everything.” To God Be the Glory!
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