A New Friend Came to Iloilo City, have sharing on works & a new CPBC project was started....

M E M O R I E S: Life and Time of Pastor Rudy Bernal, his  Glimpses on History &  the People’s Struggle for Freedom

Chapter 40– A New Friend Came to Iloilo City,  have sharing  on our works  &  and a new   CPBC  Project  was Started…

After I arrived home that afternoon from the military detachment in Calinog, after the raid and arrests of UIM staff and participants at Cabudian Baptist Church, I talked with my wife Hesther and shared with  her the experiences we have the last two days. That night was  very restful night.

I slept well and long. I stayed for a day at home. I want to continue relaxing. The experiences of the raid and arrests, and my signing of a document “Released Prisoners of War” from the military the day, we were  released and sent home, continue to bother my mind. For on the records of the military, I and 7 other UIM staffs  that were arrested  were Prisoners of War.  I felt ashamed,  if later, it will be known that we were prisoners here  at detachment in Calinog, Iloilo.

My father, Restituto Bernal, Sr.,  was a prisoner of war, after they  surrendered  in Mindanao and sent later to  Capaz, Tarlac  and imprisoned for 2 ½ years. My father-in-law, Childe Alvarez from Bago City, Negros Occ., was part of the  Bataan Death March and imprisonedeld a seminar in Tarlac, the 3 arrested and detained for one night and 1 day and the others detained for 1 day. And we were released as "Prisoners of War" by the military. I decided to kept silent about it. 

Then,  3 weeks   after that  unfortunate incident of raids and arrests by the military at   Cabudian Baptist Church, I received a telegram.

It was delivered by RCPI that morning.   It was from a  Pastor in Australia. He was not a Baptist. I forgot his denomination.  And I forgot his name already.  I tried, but cannot recall his name.  It was really unfortunate that the, 10 feet inside our home, destroyed most of very important documents.   

The telegram, I recall  said:  “Dear Pastor Rudy Bernal. I am from Australia. I  just arrived this week in the Philippines. It was my first time to come to  your country.  I heard from some people at NCCP of your project in Iloilo. I would like to visit your place. Would you invite me to come?  I would like to see what you  were  doing.  And  see the real situations of the people,  how  they   worked and lived in your village.”  The telegram has has his  telephone number and the Hotel  Room Number   in Manila.

Immediately, I called him.  I invited him to come to Iloilo. I booked him at Hotel del Rio. I asked him to send me telegram when he is coming.

The following day, Friday, he arrived at 2:00 PM. I met him at the airport. We proceeded to Hotel del Rio.  He have lunch.  Then at 3:00 PM, we left for Calinog. We  rode on CPBC Pinoy Jeep. We visited several villages in Calinog. I introduced him to some people in the village of San Julian. Then we proceeded to  Barangay Owak in Calinog, where we have  a small congregation,  Owak Baptist Church.

During this time, the People’s resistance movement against President Ferdinand Marcos martial law regime has become quite strong. The villages in Calinog, from both sides of the highway, have already strong movements of the revolutionary movements. The NPA have organized  cadres in different villages in Calinog , Lambunao, Bingawan and other nearby towns.

Since he wants to see  the situations of people’s lives, we visited 3 families, around. I did not bring anything.  The family gave us  boiled balinghoy (cassava). He also eat cassava. At 5:00 PM, we attend a prayer meeting. About 8 people were around. The prepared boiled camote for our snack.   They led in the singing. Then sharing. We shared our life.  All those around shared their lives and experiences.  I interpreted for our visitors. One shared the life in the village. Hunger and lack of food under situations, where the people, were  pressured on both sides, the  military and the NPA. They have little rice and mixed  rice  with  corn grains. They have  sometimes, only cassava and comote  and other  root crops, which they plant on some little portions near the sugar cane plantations.

A pregnant woman shared  that   unborn child in her womb  was his 5^th child. She was still young. But every year, a child was  born. Family planning was not yet taught among couples.  This makes life more hard and difficult.  Another  young woman shared her difficulties as her sister, has not come home. Possively she  joined the NPA.   Her sister, has  not returned  home and military believed she joined the rebel group. And, the young girl, fears that she was also  suspected by th military. After they have shared their stories, I asked the Pastor if he have some questions.

But he said,  what he saw and what was shared have given him some fair  knowledge of the situations. He would just like to  go to the Confort Room. I told him to urinate only beside the tree. But he will not. He would like to use the CR.  The CR was at the side of planted bananas. The family put two big banana trunks at the back of banana plants. And they family use that as their toilet. There  was  sacks at the sides, that were hanged to make it a little bit private, while they were doing their things. Our friends, after urinating returned to the group. 

But on the way back, I showed him the new cement urinal.  This urinals was the project of the  community. Soon, the community  will have sanitary toilets.  In a few week time, some 20 urinals will be installed by them.  Then no more fowl odor on the toilets. The urinals will be “water sealed.” Families were worked together to build  toilets.  We closed our Prayer Meeting. The group leader prayed. And he asked our visitor to close our prayer meeting.  He thank God for the  opportunity to learn life here in Owak village.  Then, we went to another home. The home where we will have our supper and where we will slept  that night.  It was now 7:00 PM.

The  husband and wife have  2 dressed native chickens. They  cooked the  chickens for us. I told our visitors,  last year, we have dispersed 5 female chickens  and 1 roaster. And the chickens have eggs and have chicks that have grown.   So,  there  were lots of chicken moving around. About 1 ½  meters away from their house, were  sugar cane plantations.  And the chickens  lived mostly under the sugar canes and find their foods there – insects,  young grasses and grass seeds. He appreciated what we have done to improve the life of the village people with chickens. I told  him, in  Calinog, we were working in some  22  villages that year. 

At 7:00 PM, we have our supper. We have chicken with soap and young boiled  papayas. But they family cooked rice with ground  corn.  We eat together some 9 of us in the family together with the Vice President of the church. Two young people joined us.  After supper, we continued with our sharing  until  about 10:00. Then  we prepared  to slept. I told our visitor,  to  rest well that night for tomorrow,  we have  a scheduled seminar in a church in Bingawan, where some 40 participants will be coming for a 2- days seminar on  labor education the  whole to days.

We slept. We stayed in a small room with our visitor. At about 2:00 AM, our visitor  waked  me up. He suffers lossed vowel movements. And his stomach was aching. I accompanied him to the toilet. It was an Open Pit. There were 3 woods that were placed in the middle of the pit,  where  the persons sat while doing the thing.  And because it rained a little during the night, the surrounding was bit slippery.  The  3 woods were  wet and  bit slippery. He sat on the tree small woods.  He have a  small flash light.  He lighted his way. He lighted the “Open Pit”.  And there he saw maggots, thousands moving.  He asked me what were  those things moving down. I told him, they were maggots.  They were  inside the  “Open Pit” toilets.

Then we went back  to the house. After a few  minutes, he stood and went again to the  toilet. I also  accompanied  him.  Then, we went back to the house. I think , eating boiled   cassava, camote and rice mixed with ground corn, affected his digestions.   He has not eaten this kind of food  many, many years.  And also, he found it hard to digest  cassava and  corn.

The father of the family made  a concoctions for loss vowel movements. It was several pieces of  garlic  and ginder. It was boiled. Then a spoonful of honey was dropped into the glass.  He  made our visitor drink.  After about 30 minutes he was relieved. And he has a good slept until late morning. The honey was produced in the house, with some Honey Bees, we call “Kihot” living and making honey inside the bamboo tubes, that were made for the honey bees to live and make  honey. I showed our friend, the Kihot, or Honey Bees,  inside the bamboo tubes, the family made to produce honey. I told  him this project was done a year ago, with the “honey bees” cared to give honey.

 Some practical technology  on health care, for stomack aches, head-aches,  vomiting and body pressures were taught during the seminars by UIM and the New Frontier Ministries.  Some simple way to relieve pains, which are of scientific trainings on health, for those who do not have money to go to the doctors.

We have breakfast. Our landlady, borrowed a cup of rice from the neighbour. She made  “linugaw”, a rice soup. She made our friend  rice  soap for  breakfast, only with  pintch of salt. And it was good. Then, we went to  a church in Bingawan,  in  another municipality  where we attended the labor education seminar. After the introdcutions and  sharings from the participants and after some questions he made, we left .

But, along the way,  I  remembered, in one village in Bingawan, we have a  project on Fresh Fish Culture.   Pastor Sulpicio  Morales has rice farm,  corn farm and banana plants. We  have  started  “Fresh Fish Culture” in his farm.  That time the fish he was caring, has more than 5,000 growing fish. They were now about 2 inches wide. We visited the farm. The fish farm   was  serving as demo-farm that will  enable us to make  the training on fresh fish culture easy for the church and community people to learn the technology. But that time, there were some 8  Fresh Demo Farms that  we have  developed, as training center  for the  community people. Our visitor  expressed  his thanks for enabling him to see some  ways,  what we  were doing to  help people  learn some practical technology to improve their income and lives. Then we proceeded to Iloilo City.

We have lunched at Hotel del Rio. He will stay there for the night. Then he will go back to Manila in the afternoon.  And in 2 days, he  will back to Austrialia.

He told me to write a  short project  proposal. The need, the people who would are target to be participants, the community, the projects needed to help them, how many villages and people will be involved, the number of staff involved  and  the possible project  cost.  He told me to make it simple.  And  to send  it to him immediately when I have it finished.

That night at home, I told my wife Hesther, we will make a Project Proposal.  We will send it in the morning to our  friend  from  Australia. We began to conceptualized the project – a piggery breeding project, that will be used as base for raising pigs and piglets for the CPBC pig dispersals project in Iloilo and Panay. It will be based at  Camp Higher Ground. We called the project,  Convention Baptist Pig Projects and Dispersal. It target to raise 35 female  piglets to be raised as sows, with 5  male piglets to be raised as boars, using 3 hectares of farm lands. It has a plan for 2 pig houses, one house for raising 35 sows and 5  boars. And another house for the piglets that will come about a year  later.  It has a component of 3 full time staff and 1 part time helper   to do needed works on a call basis.

The piglets that will come after 1 year and 4 months, will be dispersed to different projects now being  implemented  by the CPBC.  It was  part of the concept  earlier conceptualized and now being implemtned, as a response to the CPBC General Assembly in Roxas City, calls to help raise income of the church members and community people, suffering  hard  under the economic situations in  martial law.

We  planned for Camp Higher Ground pig raising project,  to provide the needed manure and composts to fertilize some of the 50 hectares farm of CHG, that were not productive due to lack of top soil on the land, and  only cogon grasses   grows. I signed the project proposal. It was not countersigned by the General Secretary for I sent it early the next morning, when  I sent off our friend in the airport  on his way back to Australia.

He  told me, he did not expect,  I will bring the proposal that  morning.  He was expecting I will send it a few weeks later. But we decided to move fast.  For time is of the essence.  Our friend left   that morning.

That day, in my office at CPBC, I sat and thanked God for answering our prayer. God have  spoken softly through happenings.  He  do not want us to stop working and surrender after a raid and arrest. We were needed in the work with the UIM and URM   in Central Iloilo and Antique.  God  do not want us to leave the work.  He wants us to pursue the work we have started. And he was opening another way to expand our ministry.  A   possible project, a   Pig Raising Project and Dispersals for Iloilo and Panay. 

I learned, our  friend sent  the Project Proposal  to his partners in Australia.  After, six months,  the  Baptist World Aid in Australia, sent us letter informing us, that they will  support  the CPBC Project Proposal we  sent.  With  their  support  we started and  implement the Piggery Raising  and Dispersal Programs of Camp Higher Ground. My friend from Australia has very close friendship with Rev. Joffrey Parish of BWA in Australia. They joined resources and assisted  the  New Frontier Ministries of the Convention.

The experience made me realized how God works. He taught me not to succumbed to fears.  And we  must strengthen the staff, despite the dangers we faced, working mostly in the hinterland villages, with martial law implemented with the military growing very dangerous  and brutal  in their dealings with those working for  development and  transformational  education.

I prayed. And asked God to give us  the strength and courage to go on. For God  will always lead and guide  the way of His people.