The Ministry Years: Chapter 8: The Gilopez Kabayao Violin Concert w/ MCEC Choir & the Struggle for

Chapter 8

The Gilopez Kabayao Violin Concert w/ MCEC Choir & the Struggle for Justice

We also dreamed of visiting churches in Negros and holding musical concerts. Not all our plans were realized. But we made one big efforts, that reached most of Bago City residents and churches in the City. The news was heard in most of Negros Island and Panay.

It was Maao Central Evangelical Church partnership with Dr. Gilopez Kabayao & Mrs. Corazon Kabayao, pianist, to hold the Gilopez Kabayao Violin Concert in Bago City Auditorium, with Maao Central Evangelical Church choir singing gospel songs, during the two intermissions numbers on the Kabayao Violin Concert.

The Kabayao Violin Concerts gaves beautiful music –classical musics, kundimans, Filipino songs on Violin – where the audience included the Mayor, Vice Mayor and some City Councilors of Bago City - entertaining more than 3,000 residents of the city and villages. Maao Central Evangelical Church choir sang gospel and spiritual songs that reached and touched hearts and souls of Bago City residents.

The Kabayao Violin Concert and Maao Central Evangelical Church Choirs were the great affairs in Bago City that year. About 2 months before, I met Dr. Gilopez Kabayao in Baguio City. We attended a Baptist Ministers Conference in Baguio City. I think about 300 of us from Panay, Negros Occidental and Guimaras attended the conference.

It was during this conference that I met Dr. Gilopez Kabayao and Mrs. Corazon Kabayao. They have just arrived from their violin cocerts in the USA and Europe. I think, the were away for about 2 years. They visited the Baptist ministers assembly. I saw them. I went to them. I introduced myself. We have some conversations. I told them, I am pastor of Maao Central Evangelical church and we hope to visit churches and do music concerts.

Dr. Gilopez Kabayao, I think was long out of Negros. He wants to see Negros again more. He asked me. “Pastor, what if we will have a Violin Concert in your church? Will it helped your church? Will it help your ministry?” I told Dr. Kabayao, we will make this a joint effort –Central Maao Evangelical Church and the Dr. Gilopez Kabayao & Company.

I thought, we will have the Kabayao Violin Concert at Maao Central Evangelical Church. The church will be full. We made a tentative date for the violin concert. I told Dr. Kabayao, I will communicate with him in a week’s time after we left Baguio City

When I arrived from Baguio City, I talked with the church officers. We will sponsor the Gilopez Kabayao Violin Concert at Maao Central Evangelical Church. We have discussions. They supported the plan. We brought the plan to the church that Sunday. We decided to have the concert held at Bago City Auditorium. Then we can invite more friends and visitors with City Auditorium as venue.

I gave a short message. The need for our surrender of our lives to Jesus Christ. He will gave us the right and true directions for our lives. I asked several thousands of our listeners to think on the message songs with the violin and the piano. I asked them to reflect deeply on the message of the choirs's songs. I asked them all to pray for our churches ministry in the whole of Bago City.

The Concert was known all over Negros thru “Hour of Discovery” Radio program announcements. DYHB Radio also reported the Kabayao Violin Concerts during the mornings, noon and evening news reports. Pete Rivera gave a continuing report of the Kabayao Concert & on his daily news reports over MBC radio. The news informed listeners in Negros Occidental of Maao Central Evangelical Church Choirs partnership Gilopez Kabayao Violin Concert, jointly reaching out to Bago City. It was one of the great events of the year.

I also tried to learn deeper the works of Maao Sugar Central Labor Union, involving the workers and laborers in the sugar industry. Maao Central Labor Union, was considred a “yellow union”, as the President of the Labor Union, was the brother of the Manager of Maao Central Sugar Company. But the leaders of the union, many of them members of our church, tried hard to get the best benefits labor can get, in the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) that was signed with the sugar central management.

As Pastor to MCEC, I helped Rev. Floripe Herradura of Maao Evangelical Church organized new churches in Maao area. In our time, Maao Evangelical Church was able to build 4 village congregations in neighboring sitios of Maao in Bago City.

With some young people in village churches, we visited the foot of Mt. Canlaon. There were church members living at the foot of Mt. Canlaon. They have community churches there, part of the ministry of Rev. Floripe Heradura. There, I learned some hunter’s technics in catching wild pigs, in the vast forest lands at the northwestern side of Mt. Canlaon.

The bones of the wild pigs caught were cleaned and dried. They kept these for months. And there were times, mostly on the dry seasons, when foreigners who joined mountain climbing in Canlaon, visit the village and buy bones, skeletons and scalps. The mountain climbers bought these wild pigs bones and brought when they returned to their countries in Europe, Ausrralia, USA and Canada. They made these a decorations in their homes.

The seemingly useless bones of wild pigs, on dry season, provide business for hunters at the foot of Canlaon.

It was also in the hill villages of Maao, with Rev. Herradura, that we met NPA cadres, both men and women. They were young. Many of them from Negros Occidental. A few came from Manila. They were helping build the structures of the revolutionary movements in Central Negros. They were fighting for equality, freedom, justice and liberation of the people from slavery and oppression in the sugar industry.

There, several times, we met and go the same way, traversing the hills. They were going the distinations in the far flung village. I am going to a village church, where I have preached before. I was invited by a woman lay pastor, to baptize 14 young people that afternoon.

I shared with the young revolutionaries our dreams as pastors. They shared with us their lives and struggles. We were travelling the same road. The road, a pathway on the mountain trail, like where Jesus Christ traveled the rocky paths of Galilee sharing his faith and dreams with young men and women of his time, under King Herod’s deadly "martial law" regime.

We were together in the journey. They were mostly members of Kabataang Makabayan in Negros Occidental colleges. I was older than them. I also joined KM in 1966 in Manila. We were working together to build a new Philippines, where elites and oligarchs will not be the ruling powers in the new communities. These were dreams, we were trying to build – equality, freedom, justice and liberation.

I shaked hands with the young revolutionaries when we parted. Our small village nipa church was on the slope of the mountain side, three hundred meters away. My young friends, were travelling further up the hills. They were building there dreams of a progressive society. Silently, I breathe words of prayer for them. We parted. I told them, I do not knew if ever, I will met them again.

But in my heart, I felt, our path will someday cross again. They moved on, with their task of educating people for equality and justice.

I went that afternoon to the small chapel. There 14 young men and women, who followed Jesus were waiting for me. We will have a final study before we go that afternoon for baptism. I believe, some of them will join the liberation struggle in the coming years. It was during the last months of my ministry in Maao Central Evangelical Church that big workers strike at La Carlota Sugar Central, assisted by the National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW) in Bacolod City, happened.

I joined other church pastors and priests and leaders –Aglipayans, Catholics, Baptists and other groups giving prayer supports to the workers in the Picket Lines of La Carlota Sugar Central and in the sugarcane fields.

We joined their struggles. We prayed for God’s protection for workers in the Picket Lines. We joined the sugarcane workers congregating in different areas, some distance from the sugar central, ready to assist the picketers when it will be needed. We stood with them and prayed with them. We prayed for the leaders of NFSW as they led the strike in the struggle for equality, better wages and justice. We prayed for the management, that their hearts will open and give the legal benefits tot he workers.

We helped strengthen there struggles. We prayed for God’s guidance and protection. It was a hard struggle. The workers were fighting to give their families, opportunity to live better lives and better futures. The success of the workers’ strike will help make these possible.

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Part of the series The Ministry Years (chapter 8 of 48)

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