At the Golden Jubilee Eucharistic Mass of the Diocese of Kalibo, solemnly presided over on July 15, 2026 by the Papal Nuncio with fellow concelebrants, the newly enthroned Bishop Cyril “Jojo” Villareal rose before the faithful. Following communion, he spoke with a heart steeped in gratitude, and in his message entrusted to the clergy, religious, and laity of Aklan a resonant challenge—an open horizon framed in a single question: “After fifty years, what now?”
For the Anawim of St. Rafael the Archangel in Balete, the
answer is already inscribed in the soil. Bishop Villareal’s pastoral theology
insists that shepherds must not be “detached from the people.” Ministry, for
him, is about presence—simply being with the people, journeying alongside them.
This echoes the “Theology of Life” once championed by Fr.
Tito, who taught that salvation is not abstract but embodied. The work of the
Accu-Herbal Group in Balete is a tangible manifestation of this theology. By
harnessing traditional, endemic knowledge to produce remedies like Amiloy
(a ginger and coconut oil liniment) and General Pasmo (a therapeutic
blend of seven herbs and coconut oil), these women do more than brew
medicine—they enact a radical form of Christian witness.
The struggle for a New Heaven and New Earth requires
dismantling structures that keep the poor dependent. Too often, healthcare has
been commodified, turning basic wellness into a luxury. Rural families in
Balete are held hostage by costly, synthetic, multinational drugs.
Rooted in the Community-Based Health Program (CBHP)
pioneered by the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines in the 1970s, the
Accu-Herbal Group—led by Nay Floring, Nay Tesing, and women from other capelyas—offers
pastoral resistance to this dependency. By turning to the earth, using endemic
herbs and coconut oil, they proclaim that God has already provided healing
within the community’s backyard. This is diakonia in its most liberating
form: restoring health and self-reliance to the hands of the Anawim.
If the Pledge System embodies the structural grace of
justice, and vermiculture the organic grace of stewardship, then the
Accu-Herbal Group reveals the maternal grace of God’s healing touch made
visible in the community.
The Witness of Amiloy and General Pasmo
Traditional healing is relational. In the BCC-CO
orientation, these liniments are not commodities for profit but channels of
care. When the women gather to extract coconut oil and press ginger, they
transform ordinary plants into instruments of comfort. For a farmer or weary
mother suffering from pasma—a traditional ailment of exhaustion and
hunger—a bottle of herbal oil becomes a physical encounter with a Church that
cares. It is Augustinian grace applied as a fragrant balm to the weary body.
For centuries, colonial and modern scientific narratives
dismissed indigenous healing as primitive. By elevating traditional medicine
into a parish-supported ministry, the BCC-CO in Balete performs a prophetic
act. Guided by the biblical outlook of Fr. Carlos Abesamis, this is a
reclamation of the “goods of the Earth” as sacred channels in a communal
journey. It is Moltmann’s hope embodied: ancestral knowledge preserved as
memory of self-sufficiency. The Accu-Herbal Group bears witness to a future
where poor communities are not passive consumers of expensive systems but
active guardians of their own well-being.
The Magnificat of the Grassroots
The Magnificat is the ultimate song of the Anawim, sung by
Mary—a woman of the grassroots. Its lyrics proclaim that God “fills the hungry
with good things and sends the rich away empty.” The Accu-Herbal Group embodies
this song. Through simple vessels of Amiloy and General Pasmo,
they fill the physically and economically hungry with God’s healing, bypassing
commercial systems to bring low-cost, dignified health to the flock of St.
Rafael.
And so, as Bishop Jojo’s question lingers—“After fifty
years, what now?”—the women of Balete respond not with words but with hands
that heal, herbs that comfort, and a witness that proclaims: health is communal
grace, already given, already shared.
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