The running priest

IT WAS ONE of those typical—but quite rare—times for me when I force myself to attend a press briefer event. And since this was an event which fellow IT columnist Shermon Cruz and I have discussed before, I really had to force myself to go.

The venue was NWU’s Hostel; the guest was the “running priest”, Fr. Robert Reyes.

 

As the guy is very popular since time immemorial, I thought I would again ran into a personality who is just so full of himself—just like other popular people. Going into the briefer, I had this perception of Fr. Reyes as a person who would protest for protest’s sake—and in the same vein, literally run for whatever reason he deemed fit.

He was in the forefront during Erap’s ouster; and he donned his running shoes again to seemingly run from Batanes to Tawi-tawi in protest of the very person he—and his cohorts—successfully installed to replace Erap.

So in hindsight, I already have a quite not-so-rosy mental picture of the man—and as such I did not expect much, save maybe for motherhood statements and banal reasons for his protests.

As Jay Ramos, Steve Barreiro and I arrived fashionably late in the briefer, Fr. Reyes was already in the process of enthralling his listeners with his stories, experiences and stand on issues. To be brutally frank and honest, I was not really listening when we arrived and as I warmed my seat, my attention towards his words hardly improved. Probably since I’ve heard those before from another person who supposedly espouses good deeds but who is actually just another self-righteous prick.

The briefer droned on and I had to struggle just to keep awake; never mind the conversations that have not really registered into my mind. Thanks to Bernie Ver who was seated beside me and who was telling me jokes that I managed to stay awake. Time moved too wickedly slow for me then and I was so glad that after two hours, the briefer was done.

As we prepared to leave after the customary picture-taking and selfies, Fr. Reyes began talking to our group. Without the cameras and recorders, he was somehow a different person. The conversation went from the environment, to priests and bishops, to politics and politicians and of course, to the Mamasapano event.

This Fr. Reyes was then a more no-holds barred person and I was slowly realizing that he was not what I really pictured him to be. I understood the fact that he has to maintain a sense of decorum when talking in public—especially to the media as he is often misquoted and his interviews cut drastically that his statements are taken so way out of context. The conversation lasted for another hour before we all decided to meet again later that night.

The dinner that followed made me fully realize that Fr. Reyes is a person who not only lives out his ideas and beliefs but more so acts on them. He does understand that his voice alone would not amount to anything which is why he tries to affect others to firstly understand his points of views and when they do, to help him help others understand too.

The fact that we all mostly wanted the same things made conversations subtler and understandings deeper. The only significant difference we had was that he was walking—or running—the talk while I mostly lost my will to act to apathy and indifference.

 

Fr. Robert Reyes and NWU Pres. Freddie Nicolas

Fr. Reyes was in Ilocos Norte for two days in an attempt to save hundreds of trees in Currimao from murderous chainsaws. During his short stay, he also learned—from Governor Imee R. Marcos herself—that hundreds more trees in Burgos are also in peril from the wind farm operator there.

He was told that thousands of seedlings would be planted for every tree cut but he stressed that this will never be enough as this would be akin to “killing a mayor and then trying to replace him with 10 new mayors.” Truth be told, most of those trees have been there before most of us have been born. Not only are they here first; they have also been supporting our ecology long before we understood what that word meant. Cutting them and replacing them with hundreds of seedlings would not guarantee that their place in the ecology would be filled immediately. Rather it would take those seedlings decades before they can get up to the same level. And with climate change bearing down on us, cutting the only living things that can help us stop or even mitigate its effects is nothing short of sheer idiocy.

The solar power project is a “green” project designed to help wean away this world from carbon-polluting power sources in the long term. But cutting hundreds of trees for this project poses the most extreme irony of all: an environment-friendly project that needs to destroy the environment first.

The two-day stay will never be enough to make every Ilocano—or even most Ilocanos for that matter—in Ilocos Norte understand the importance of trees and thus the need to save them from being cut. And he can run from the farthest corner of the province to the other corner and he may still fail in his attempt to save those trees.

The only persons who can save those trees are us. And Fr. Reyes is simply making us understand why we need to save them. We can either listen or shut our ears; but in the end it will be us who will have to face the consequences and no one else.