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Browning in Philippines: 'Visitation of a Friend'

Episcopal News Service. December 17, 1987 [87248]

Richard Henshaw, Jr.

"There is pain beyond these cathedral walls which most of us can barely comprehend. " (The Presiding Bishop at his Installation in January 1986.)

(Manila, DPS, Dec. 17) Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning ended a ten-day visitation to the Philippine Episcopal Church convinced that the Philippine Episcopal Church may be without equal among Anglican churches in its commitment to ministering in the face of violence, death, and oppression.

The trip, purposely placed early in the Presiding Bishop's 12-year cycle of diocesan visitations, developed into a profoundly moving journey to the cutting edge of the Church, in which much was given and received by both visitor and hosts.

The Presiding Bishop's low key personal style and obvious sympathy with the Philippine Episcopal Church's plight prompted the Bishop of the Northern Philippines, the Rt. Rev. Robert Longid, to tell a gathering of his priests: "now we know we have a friend in Edmond L. Browning. "

There were smiles and applause approving. That session, however, and others like it in each diocese the Bishop visited, revealed the deadly serious circumstances in which Filipino clergy minister.

The overt political dangers facing the Philippine Episcopal Church were dramatically brought home during the visitation when two car bomb explosions went off in Manila in locations where the Presiding Bishop or members of his party had been standing only days before.

The Presiding Bishop heard of a church that finds it "very hard to preach salvation in the midst of guns and death," as one priest described it, and, together with the United Church of Christ in the Philippines, is taking a leading role in social action and reconciliation ministries, especially among minority groups and tribal mountain people who until a generation ago were headhunters.

"At the same time," said the Presiding Bishop at a meeting in Bulanao, diocese of Northern Luzon, "no potential provinces looking to autonomy have done as much as the Philippine Episcopal Church to prepare themselves." The four dioceses of the Philippine Episcopal Church, now linked to Province VIII of the American church, are scheduled to attain autonomy as a province of the Anglican Communion sometime after Jan. 1, 1989.

Travelling with the Presiding Bishop were Mrs. Browning, the Rev. J. Patrick Mauney, Partnership Officer for Asia and the Pacific in the World Mission office at Episcopal Church Center, and this correspondent. Mauney, whose visits to the Philippine Episcopal Church and other churches in South and East Asia have been frequent since assuming his present post in April, was instrumental in laying the ground work for the visitation and served as the Presiding Bishop's consultant throughout the trip.

The Philippine Episcopal Church is a small Christian body in an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country (80 percent.) But since before the turn of the century, when U.S. Army Chaplain C.C. Pierce instituted a mission among minority people, its strength has been in ministering where the Roman Catholics have been reluctant to go.

There are now well over 400 congregations, the vast majority rural mission stations with minority or local tribal membership. Baptized members now stand at around 92,000, perhaps a third of whom are highly active in congregational life. There are 160 clergy, over 500 lay workers, and about 95 schools, hospitals, and other institutions.

The Presiding Bishop opened the visitation in Manila, diocese of Central Philippines, by paying calls on St. Andrews's Theological Seminary, which trains all Philippine Episcopal Church clergy and many from other Southeast Asian countries as well, St. Luke's Medical Center, one of the Philippines' leading hospitals, and Trinity College, all on the cathedral heights, close to Quezon city. An opening service was held also at the Cathedral of St. Mary and St. John. After autonomy it is probable that the diocese of Central Philippines will divide into two: the Diocese of Manila and the Diocese of Baguio to the north. The present bishops, the Rt. Rev. Manuel C. Lumpias, who is now serving a rotating term as Prime Bishop of the Philippine Episcopal Church, has not announced his personal intentions when the diocese splits.

An important aspect of the Presiding Bishop's visit to Manila was a dinner meeting with the Obispo Maximo (Prime Bishop) of the Philippine Independent Church, with whom the Episcopal Church is in full communion and continues to enjoy the most cordial relations. The Philippine Independent Church was founded in 1902 by nationalistic Filipino Roman Catholics following independence from Spain, and received the apostolic succession from the Episcopal Church. Philippine Independent Church clergy are trained at St. Andrew's Seminary. Its liturgical practice is catholic and there are now five million members in 33 diocese and one missionary diocese in North American, making it by far the largest non Roman Catholic body in the country.

One purpose of the Presiding Bishop's talks with the present Obispo Maximo, the Most Rev. Soliman F. Ganno, was to reinvigorate the 1983 Honolulu agreement signed by the Philippine Independent Church and the Episcopal Church in the United States, by which further cooperation is envisioned, especially relating to ministering among Philippine Independent Church members who have emigrated to North America.

The primary purpose of the visitation, however, was to pay extended visits to the Episcopal dioceses of Southern Philippines, the Northern Philippines, and Northern Luzon.

After less than 48 hours in Manila, the Presiding Bishop and his party flew directly to the Southern Diocese on the Equatorial Island of Mindanao, the second largest of 7,000 islands in the Philippines. The diocese of Southern Philippines has about 20 parishes and missions, each supporting as many as 20 mission stations.

Mindanao is one of several danger zones in the Philippines. Some of the island's 85 percent majority of Muslims are attempting to turn the Mindinao into the Islamic Republic of Moro with help from Libya and elsewhere. The omnipresent Philippine Army persists, other guerilla groups seek their own political goals, and into this fray have marched many of the more active priests and lay leaders of the diocese, seeking to reconcile and save souls.

Flash points tend to vary from year to year. Now it would appear that Davao city, with about three political murders per night on the average, -- is the worst spot to be in. Several Episcopal priests are working in the Davao region -- but a continuing concern, according to priests discussed the situation with the Presiding Bishop, is the government's policy of fostering "low intensity conflict," by which paramilitary groups and vigilantes who acting on behalf of army regulars, commit "small" acts of terrorism and sabotage to keep the population on edge and the Muslim community destabilized. This policy, which is being carried out under President Aquino as it was under President Marcos, is thought by the priests to have the backing of the United States.

Low intensity conflict is of particular concern to the Philippine Episcopal Church on Mindanao, because the diocese has long had friendly relations with the Muslim majority - almost half of the students at the Brent Hospital School of Midwifery are Muslim, for example - and this puts the Philippine Episcopal Church and its members in physical danger.

The Rev. Fernando Boyagan, rector of St. Thomas', South Cotaboto, was anxious for the Presiding Bishop to know that some of his parishioners have been murdered by "people who thought they were communists -- probably by the military."

The Rev. James Manguramas, rector of St. Francis', Nuro, Upi, says: "We are marked people now. We are being watched. It is a very hot issue here. The moment we deal with people, i.e., minister to people regardless of their affiliation, we are confronted." These comments and others like them were made in an informal two-hour clericus with the Presiding Bishop at the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul in Cotabato City. It was the first in a series of similar meetings conducted by the Presiding Bishop in each of the three dioceses he visited. These gatherings would prove to be the cornerstones of the visitation and a source of valuable information for the Presiding Bishop and Mauney.

Of the intense witness being provided by the Church in Mindanao, the Presiding Bishop said: "I think the ministry of the church is to be in the midst of all that," i.e., conflict and strife. Then, sounding a principal theme of the visitation to the Philippine Episcopal Church, he added: "maybe it's just the ministry of presence -- offering the gospel of hope. Part of the answer is to 'stay there'." At Zamboanga City, the famous seafaring "city of flowers" at the top of the Sulu archipelago, the Presiding Bishop visited the Brent hospital, pleasantly situated on the beachfront overlooking the Basilan Strait, and preached at a service in his honor next door at Holy Trinity Church.

At Good Shepherd Mission on the outskirts of Zamboanga City, several hundred children from the mission school turned out to greet him and his party with song and dance. A pattern of huge and colorful welcoming parties such as this remained with Browning throughout the visit.

The third leg of the Presiding Bishop's visitation began with an all-day drive over mostly unpaved roads to reach the mountain province village of Bontoc. This remote place, nestled among spectacularly beautiful, rice terraced mountains reaching 3,000 meters, is an unlikely setting for one of Anglicanism's most important centers.

Yet, the mountain province region of the diocese of the Northern Philippines has produced about 75 percent of all Philippine Episcopal Church clergy in recent years -- even priests assigned to distant Mindanao will often turn out to be from the mountain province -- and the Cathedral of all Saints in the village of Bontoc, with 2,300 members, is the largest Episcopal congregation in the country.

That night the Presiding Bishop's party stayed overnight at St. Joseph's Rest House in Sagada, a commercial hostel that is operated by the Episcopal Order of St. Mary-the-Virgin. Mother Clare and the two sisters who help her maintain the facility not only run one of the best rest houses in Northern Luzon but share liturgical responsibilities at St. Mary-the-Virgin parish just down the hill. One quaint sign composed by the sisters for the St. Joseph's bathroom reads: "please close this door gently. If you close it hard, the whole building shakes."

Sagada is also the home of the last American missionary in the Philippines, a legend in his own time, Dr. William Henry Scott ("Scotty"). Choosing to remain in the lay rather than ordained ministry, Scott came to the Philippines in 1953 after getting booted out of China with other foreign missionaries. He is an historian, who has taught at St. Andrew's Seminary and written over two dozen books and papers on the Philippine Episcopal Church and Philippine Independent Church. By now there is hardly an Episcopalian in the Philippines who does not know him. Like so many others who are active in the human rights struggle and other reconciling ministries in the Philippines, he was jailed for a period of time during the Marcos years.

The Presiding Bishop, who had extended talks with him during the visit, expressed the importance of Scott's published and unpublished work making their way into the archives of the Episcopal Church. ("Scotty" is also organist at St. Mary-the-Virgin parish church in Sagada.)

At the much smaller and even more remote, St. Michael's Mission, Guina-ang, the following day, the Presiding Bishop ate mudfish for the first time, and in a steady drizzle he was treated to another huge celebration of his arrival. Nearly everybody from surrounding mountain villages attended, along with the 300 members of St. Michael's. One dance for this occasion was performed by a group consisting of mothers of young children.

The diocese of the Northern Philippines, largest in the Philippine Episcopal Church, has 35,000 baptized members, about 40 parishes and missions, supporting scores of additional mission stations, and 45 clergy. Its bishop since 1983 has been the dynamic Rt. Rev. Robert L.O. Longid, who is generally assumed to be next "in line" to become Prime Bishop of the Philippine Episcopal Church and will probably be the first of the newly autonomous Province of the Philippines.

Throughout the Cordellera Mountain region of the diocese, the Presiding Bishop, Mrs. Browning, and the rest of the party were welcomed by huge gatherings of church people, usually dressed in native Bontoc or Kalinga costume, and elaborate celebrations were staged to honor the guests. As the days passed, the Presiding Bishop began to recognize subtle differences in Bontoc versus Kalinga customs and spirituality, but he was especially touched when well-trained choruses of school children or Episcopal Church women sang welcoming songs, some composed in English especially for the occasion. At one of the first such ceremonies, nearly 2,000 people welcomed the Presiding Bishop to St. Bernard's parish at Kin-iway, Besao.

The men of St. Anne's aided parish, Besao, led the welcoming procession dressed only in the traditional loincloth, each hitting his gong gently with a wooden mallet. The 15-inch gongs are the most important traditional instruments of Bontocs and Kalingas, each family passing down its own valuable instrument from generation to generation.

The enormous crowd that surrounded the performing area was for the only time during the course of this visitation -- so far as is known-peppered with armed guerillas from the Cordillera People's Liberation Army, a relatively small paramilitary insurgency force that is combatting the Philippine Army. The militiamen were in Kin-iway to recruit new members.

Despite the warmth and joy displayed by one parish and village after another, the centerpiece of the Presiding Bishop's visit to the diocese of the Northern Philippines was the scheduled off-the-cuff meeting at diocesan headquarters with clergy and lay leaders. As in the Southern diocese a few days earlier, he heard of a church that is determined to help people find faith in Jesus Christ, but one whose time, energy, and resources are first of all, needed to help save homes, families and even lives.

Twenty villages in the area have started wars with each other in recent years, and the diocese, through its priests, is taking an active role in mediating.

The Northern Philippines region contains the headwaters for eight river systems, bountiful minerals, forests, and other resources, but corrupt officials in the government, which owns 82 percent of the land, are giving it to big contractors, and multi-nationals. The Bontocs, meanwhile, are being squeezed out of their ancient land holdings and into towns and cities where there are no jobs. The social concerns office of the diocese is attempting to do what it can to lead government officials to find more beneficial development policies and practices, and to convince the people to participate in decision-making processes.

In certain deaneries of the diocese, insurgency movements are a major concern. Incidents flare up regularly, usually involving the new people's army, the primary communist-backed guerilla movement, Philippine regulars, or the indigenous Cordillera People's Liberation Army on the right.

The machete that was used to hack to death a priest only last year has been recovered, and is now in Bishop Longid's keeping in the diocesan office at Bontoc. The Presiding Bishop met the Rev. Gabino Mamilig, vicar of St. Mary's Mission, Addang, Mountain Province, who earlier this year had narrowly avoided being shot by pushing the rifle away with his out-stretched arm as it went off at point blank range.

Among the most active departments in the Northern Philippines diocese are those of social concerns, community development, and resources. Community development alone employs three people although it was organized only this year. An important water works program for Mountain Province is serving as an entry point to organized community development. It is stressed that most development projects are designed to be self-supporting. The people have no confidence that local or national government agencies will provide meaningful services at any time soon.

Nearly all diocesan offices are staffed with lay people, because the extreme shortage of priests requires that they be involved in parochial work almost exclusively. All priests oversee, at the very least, a cluster of mission stations and possibly a parish or mission church as well.

In Mountain Province, it is clear that the Episcopal Church long ago staked out its position in the society it seeks to serve: the side of peace and justice, or, as Filipinos prefer to put it, "justice and peace."

[thumbnail: The Presiding Bishop (rig...] [thumbnail: The village elder (right)...] [thumbnail: Members of the Cordillera...] [thumbnail: The Rev. Gabino Mamilig,...]