PAUTWAS: A Postscript to a Community Praying the Our Father as a Synodal Church

 



The Golden Jubilee of the Diocese of Kalibo was not only a celebration of fifty years of grace; it was also an examination of conscience. In his homily, Jose Cardinal Advincula reminded us that a synodal Church walks with those on the margins. At the close of the Eucharist, Bishop Jojo Villareal asked the question that now lingers in our hearts: "Now that we're here to celebrate our golden jubilee as a Diocese, what now?"

Perhaps the answer is found in the prayer Jesus himself taught us. The Our Father is the grammar of Christian discipleship and the spirituality of a synodal Church. Every petition teaches us how to become the people God desires us to be.

"Our Father..."

The prayer begins not with my Father but our Father. Synodality begins there. Before we become administrators, ministers, or experts, we are brothers and sisters belonging to the same household of God. Balete’s story has long reflected this conviction. Its BCC/BEC, chapel presidents, finance committee, Panimbahon leaders, catechists, apostoles, youth leaders, and priests never built isolated ministries; they built relationships. The Church became recognizable because people knew one another by name and shared burdens.

"Give us this day our daily bread."

This petition challenges a generation convinced that security comes from accumulation. The people of Balete understood dependence differently. The transition from the Arancel system to the voluntary Pledge System was more than financial reform; it was an act of trust that God's people would sustain God's mission together. Capilya Presidents and Finance Committees became stewards of communion itself.

The Apostoles-Farmers discovered the same lesson. African Night Crawlers carried home from Bacolod became symbols of hope, teaching that daily bread grows from patient labor and healthy soil rather than expensive chemical inputs. Through dagyaw, neighbors literally became one another’s daily bread.

Today, in 2026, our hunger has changed. We are tempted by instant solutions, instant information, and instant gratification. Pope Leo XIV’s recent encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, warns against losing our humanity to economic utility and artificial tools. While convenience quietly becomes a modern temptation, we risk becoming consumers of spirituality rather than disciples who patiently cultivate it. Daily bread is still received, never manufactured.

"Forgive us our trespasses..."

A mature Church is a scarred Church carrying both grace and failure. Every parish has stories of misunderstood intentions, neglected voices, and misplaced priorities. Synodality demands the humility to remember that we need forgiveness before we can proclaim it. The Church of the Poor is evangelical because the poor know what vulnerability feels like. They understand that reconciliation is a daily necessity for survival. Perhaps the greatest poverty we must recover is the courage to admit that we need one another.

"Lead us not into temptation."

The greatest temptations facing the Church today often arrive dressed as success. We are tempted to measure ministry by attendance, budgets, and impressive infrastructure, mistaking visibility for vitality. We can easily become professional rather than pastoral, connected digitally but absent personally. Even our liturgies can become performances where choirs sing instead of the community.

The counter-narrative was found on the dusty roads of Balete. The image of Fr. Tito Gelito riding on his unpainted, customized paog-paog pickup—aptly named Pautwas—with only Nonoy's guitar and Kulas' voice, was not pastoral minimalism born of necessity alone. It revealed confidence that Christ remains the center of worship. The host communities were never burdened with providing ostentatious meals for an entourage. Relying on simple lay companions, Pautwas brought a ministry of presence where the people did not come to watch the liturgy; they became its living voice.

"Deliver us from evil."

Individualism whispers that we owe nothing to anyone, while modern distractions can slowly replace presence with convenience. Against these forces stands the historical witness of Balete: farmers choosing stewardship over exploitation, women of the Accu-Herbal Group healing through shared wisdom, lay leaders walking mountain trails, and musicians praying over Scripture before choosing hymns. These are acts of resistance against a culture that measures everything by profit and speed.

"For yours is the Kingdom..."

What now? Perhaps now is the time not to become a bigger Church, but a deeper one—courageous enough to choose presence over performance and communion over efficiency.

As we continue our pilgrimage under the banner of Kita ro Simbahan, Kita Kaibahan, the legacy of Era, Nay Tesing, Nong Donie, Fr. Tito, Msgr. Frac, Padre Marlon and those who once walked with us along the narrow path of Christian witnessing reminds us that the Kingdom grows from below. The answer to "What now?" is astonishingly simple: we pray the Our Father again. But this time, like the roaring community voices sparked by the arrival of Pautwas, we dare to become the prayer we have been reciting all our lives.

 

THE ACCU-HERBAL GROUP, HEALING TOUCH OF THE ANAWIM: Reclaiming Health as a Communal Grace

 

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.

 

THE BUEOLIGAN SA PAROKYA: Something Small and Yet Beautiful Expression of Solidarity

 

Someone called my attention the other day. She gently pointed out that in all my recent storytelling about our parish’s history, I had left out a vital piece of the puzzle—a pillar that gave true flesh to Fr. Tito’s Theology of Life. She was right. I had spoken at length about the songs, the youth, the farmer-apostoles and the panimbahon, but I had quietly glossed over how we survived the cold, hard realities of daily economic life.

If you look back at our transition from the old Arancel system to the voluntary Pledge System, it was never meant to be just a spiritual or administrative reform. It was an act of survival. But Fr. Tito knew that a pledge on paper could not feed a family when sickness struck, or buy uniforms when school opened, or purchase seeds come planting season.

So, out of the pews of St. Rafael grew something revolutionary: the Bueoligan sa Parokya ni San Rafael.

The Bueoligan was our very own parish credit union, born directly out of our local oath—"Rong pagpas-an ku krus it pag-iegmanghuran". It wasn't a bank. It was a sanctuary against predatory loan sharks. When Msgr. Pet Frac took the reins, he refined it even further. He brought in the Grameen solidarity model of microcredit, weaving it together with the human-scale economic principles of E.F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful. Msgr. Pet showed us that economics didn't have to be cold or distant; at its best, economics is simply love made tangible in small, manageable doses.

Of course, our history has never followed a straight line. In a season of interregnum, when institutional centralization crept back into parish life, the Bueoligan was quietly cast aside. Yet its spirit endured, refusing to vanish. Years later, under the pastoral care of Fr. Jarvin Aguelo (2018–2024), that old spark was discerned anew. He sought to gather the scattered embers, rekindling its presence. The effort, however, leaned more toward fortifying the Pledge than advancing the vision of a revived credit union.

I tell you all this because as I listened to Jose Cardinal Advincula speak on synodality and hearing Bishop Jojo Villareal ask his haunting question—"Now that we're here, what now?"—my mind didn't drift to the grand choir singing majestically or to the sophisticated liturgical vestments of the ministers and the acolytes. 

My mind went back to the dusty roads of Balete of bygone years. I thought of Fr. Tito riding in Pautwas, with a seminarian on vacation and a convent boy riding beside him. There was no grand entourage, no lavish meals expected from poor host families in the barrios. Pautwas carried a ministry that traveled light, bringing a priest who smelled like his sheep, ready to listen to a community that didn't just watch the liturgy, but became its living voice.

That is why I keep coming back to the prayer Jesus taught us. When we pray “Our Father,” we are reminded that synodality isn’t a corporate strategy; it is family life. Before we are administrators or experts, we are brothers and sisters.

When we pray “Give us this day our daily bread,” I think of our Apostoles-Farmers bringing home a bed of Japanese Red Worm to build organic vermiculture plots through dagyaw, and I think of the Bueoligan shielding a mother from debt. Daily bread was never something manufactured by algorithms or instant conveniences—it was received through patient labor and human solidarity.

And when we pray “Lead us not into temptation,” I realize our greatest danger today isn’t open hostility to faith. It is the subtle temptation to measure our vitality by budgets, digital metrics, and grand performances where choirs sing and the pews stay silent.

Of the recent, Pope Leo XIV reminds us in Magnifica Humanitas to protect the majestic dignity of every person from being swallowed by economic utility, our own local past offers us a clear compass. The legacy of Church workers who have gone into the great beyond reminds us that the Kingdom of God has always grown from below—from calloused hands, shared tables, and communities that dare to walk together.

And so, the Bueoligan sa Parokya stands as a reminder that solidarity is not an abstraction but a daily practice. As E.F. Schumacher once wrote in Small is Beautiful: “What is needed… is the courage and wisdom to make decisions on the basis of human needs rather than abstract economic calculations.”

This is the heart of our parish story: something small, yet beautiful—an economy of brotherhood, a liturgy of daily bread, and a solidarity that makes the Kingdom visible in Balete’s dusty roads.

 

THE CHURCH OF BALETE: Ruins, Resurrection, and the Sacred Rubble

 

The tragedy that pulverized the centuries-old churches of Bohol and Cebu on October 15, 2013, echoed an older, deeply intimate memory in our local church history—the sudden collapse of St. Rafael Parish Church during the 6.3 magnitude earthquake that jolted Panay Island on June 14, 1990. While our structure may not have carried the formal title of a National Cultural Treasure, its total destruction reshaped the physical and spiritual facade of the Baleten-on community, affording the faithful a new face for their Catholicity.

Today, children play across the modernized, paved plaza without any inkling of the sacred rubble buried beneath their feet. They are robbed of the innocent pastime known to toddlers of old, who gathered chips of crushed brick to polish their fingernails.

For generations, loose blocks of red brick and sea-corals (goso) lay scattered around the church and convent grounds—remnants of the original colonial church destroyed during the upheavals of the early American period, when Balete was laid to waste during the Filipino-American War. Those historic ruins were eventually cleared by order of the local ordinary to provide supplemental building materials for rebuilding the Cathedral of Kalibo, leaving Balete stripped of its historic sanctuary.

Without a physical church, our parish suffered a painful forty-year interregnum. The broken community, besieged by poverty and local skirmishes, saw its religious and civil administration routed back to Batan. It was only in November 1939, under Rev. Fr. Paterno Valguna, that a concrete church was finally erected and the independent Parish of St. Rafael the Archangel was re-established. It is why our parish archives of baptism, marriage, and death begin abruptly in late 1939; anything prior remains buried in the registers of Batan or Banga.

That 1939 structure was the very building that collapsed in 1990—the exact era when Fr. Tito Gelito’s pastoral program and the Theology of Life were taking deep root in our town. The physical loss of the church building during those years served as an unintended, profound parable: it forced the parish to realize that the Church is not a fortress of stone, but a living body of believers. When the walls fell, the Church retreated into the open convent, aboard Pautwas, into the Bueoligan credit union, and around the table of con-venire where the weary, the sick, and the poor found sanctuary.

Today, the modern church building stands quietly in the heart of town, a silent witness to the multi-faceted, fast-changing life of Balete. At its appointed hours, as in days of old, its belfry tolls its heavy iron bells—inviting the busy, distracted parishioner to cease awhile and turn their minds toward the Divine.

And as John Donne reminded us, when a brother or sister finishes their earthly race, those same bells ring out a dark knell. They convey solemnly across the valley that another faithful traveler has left the trials of this world to join the venerable dead, journeying beyond our congested town cemetery toward the ultimate promise of our faith: a New Heaven and a New Earth.

 

THE PLEDGE SYSTEM: A Christian Witnessing in Struggle for the New Heaven and the New Earth

 

The structural and pastoral history of the Parish of St. Rafael the Archangel in Balete provides a perfect, concrete incarnation of the theological reflections we have been tracing. When Fr. Tito S. Gelito (1987–1997) and Msgr. Pedro C. Frac (1997–2004) affirmed the Offering (Haead) method introduced during the time of Msgr. Jose Parohinog (1976-1982) and initiated the radical shift from the commercialized Arancel system to the voluntary Pledge System, they were not just changing a financial mechanism; they were executing a profound pastoral reform rooted in the theology of the Cross, Grace, Struggle, and the structural realization of a Small Christian Community (SCC) orientation. The Second Plenary Council of the Philippines (PCP II) and the First Diocesan Synod of Kalibo serve as the definitive ecclesial affirmations for this bold pastoral shift. Both landmark documents explicitly confront the pastoral wounds caused by the Arancel system, validating the community's struggle to reclaim the true nature of Christian witnessing.

In the Arancel system, sacraments and spiritual services are tied to fixed, individual fees. In the context of liberation theology of Fr. Gutierrez, this represents a form of structural barrier that commodifies grace and exacerbates the daily "thorns" and anxieties of poor parishioners. It turns the church into a marketplace rather than a sanctuary for the flock. By abolishing these mandatory transactional fees and opting for a system where parishioners gave voluntary assent according to their resources, the parish eliminated discrimination based on economic status. The priests afforded all sacraments without additional obligations. This structural shift was an act of Christian witnessing that declared: God's grace is a free gift, not a commodity. It repositioned the parish to stand in solidarity with the Anawim (the poor of the Lord) of Balete, removing the financial friction that often alienated ordinary families from the life of the Church.

The transition to the Pledge System was explicitly anchored on a pastoral program defined by a "theology of life and love command"—expressed locally as "Rong pagpas-an ku krus it atong pag-ieigmanhuran kay Kristo Hesus". This is Augustine’s reflection on grace translated into pastoral action by Fr. Tito. Instead of coercing compliance through canonical fees, the system relied on the internal conversion of the faithful—believing that "love responds to love" and that the sacrifices of the shepherd would be freely requited by the outpourings of generous hearts.  Bearing this cross (pag-pas-an ku krus) meant accepting the vulnerability and historical struggle of trusting the community's collective conscience. It proved that grace is a powerful, organizing force capable of sustaining the material and spiritual needs of a local church without institutional coercion.

The First Synod of Kalibo provided the pastoral mandate for local parishes to experiment with and transition to participatory financial models like the Pledge System. It recognized that a Church cannot truly be a "Church of the Poor" if its administrative structures mimic commercial entities. By anchoring the Balete reform in the Synod's vision, the parish transformed its financial structure into an ecclesial act of diakonia (service) and koinonia (communion).

The success of the Pledge System in St. Rafael the Archangel relied heavily on a decentralized, participatory parish structure that mirrors the BCC-CO/SCC orientation. The parish was subdivided into chaples (capilyas), each with its own chapel president and finance committee, while a core group and education committee communicated the program. The chapel leadership carried out the personal household-level legwork to clarify concerns. 

This decentralized structure sustained by Msgr. Frac transformed the financial upkeep of the parish into a communal act of worship. By allocating 25% of the collections directly as a local Chapel Fund and distributing stipends to local chapel leaders, the system empowered the grassroots.  When the community gathered in their respective capilyas for Sunday or monthly Masses to drop their specially made Pledge Cards into the offering, it was no longer an anonymous, institutional duty. It was an expression of Moltmann’s active hope and Fr. Abesamis's historical engagement. The poor, ordinary families of Balete became active subjects—the "rich soil"—managing their own local church resources, ensuring that the catechists were funded (10%), and proving that a "little flock," when organized and united under one Shepherd, can fully sustain its own historical journey.

Through the Balete experience, the text of Psalm 95 takes on a vivid local color: "Come, worship the Lord, for we are his people, the flock that he shepherds." Under the pastoral care of Fr. Gelito and Msgr. Frac, the Parish of St. Rafael demonstrated that to be the flock of the Shepherd means to share the weight of the cross together at the chapel level, converting the struggle of daily life into a collective witness of radical, self-giving love.

 

 

OF SHEPHERDS AND HOUNDS: A TRIBUTE TO MSGR. PEDRO C. FRAC

 

Local celebrity Alfred Vargas once recalled getting lost during his pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago, only to be ambushed by an irate German Shepherd. Expecting the worst, he soon realized the dog wasn't attacking—it was actively guiding him back to the trail. The animal was simply being true to its nature as a shepherd dog: keeping the traveler from straying.

 Like Alfred, I have known the saving grace of being found and nudged back onto the right path. Few people embodied that persistent, guiding presence quite like Msgr. Pedro C. Frac—“Lolo” to those of us who knew him dearly—whose memory and legacy we now honor as he lays at rest at St. Jude Thaddeus Parish in Kalibo.

 When Lolo arrived in Balete in August 1997, truckload of belongings in tow after twelve years of service in Libacao, he stepped into a new assignment with immediate humility. As convent boys hauled his things upstairs, the outgoing parish priest, Fr. Tito Gelito, walked him through the established pastoral program. Lolo’s response was simple and steadfast: “Don’t worry, Doy. I’ll support and continue the program you have developed here.”

 He made good on that promise for seven fruitful years. But Lolo did not merely maintain; he built. In his quiet, unassuming way, he proved to be a master community organizer and animator. He strengthened the parish Pledge system, empowered Basic Ecclesial Communities (BECs) to manage their own finances, and championed radical transparency. He established Apdo, a monthly organ detailing every peso of parish income and expenses, appointing me as its editor.

 Serving as his scribe was a front-row seat to his quiet genius. He forged international partnerships with institutions like the University of Hohenheim to foster local development, invited the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception (SFIC) to establish a footprint, secured funding from Kirche in Not for a new rectory, and oversaw the completion of the San Rafael Parish Church. Under his watch, chapel masses expanded from sporadic monthly visits to a steady weekly rhythm.

 Through all this work, Lolo was subtly mentoring me—teaching me his craft and shaping my character without ever making it feel like a lesson. It called to mind the famous lines of Francis Thompson’s The Hound of Heaven:

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;

I fled Him, down the arches of the years;

...From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.

But with unhurrying chase,

And unperturbèd pace,

Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

They beat—and a Voice beat

More instant than the Feet—

‘All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.’

In Thompson’s poem, the "Hound" is not a threat, but the relentless, loving pursuit of God—refusing to let us stay lost in the labyrinth of our own minds. Lolo was precisely that kind of shepherd-hound in my life. He didn't bark or coerce; he nudged with "deliberate speed" and unhurried grace. He saw potential in me before I recognized it in myself, channeling my youth into purpose.

 Like the pilgrim on the Camino, I didn't always realize in the moment that I was being watched over, formed, and directed by a steady hand. Now, as Lolo completes his earthly pilgrimage, the trail feels quieter, but the path he laid out remains clear.

 Rest well, Lolo. Thank you for chasing after my potential when I was still wandering, and for showing us all that the grace of God often reaches us through the quiet, relentless devotion of a true shepherd.

 

Ro Bueoligan it Logo

 

Bueoligan – Sa experyensya it Parokya ni San Rafael, nagatimaan ra ku programa ag sistema it “Balik-Haead” ag “Tithing” nga suno man sa dekreto kung Ikaywang Plenaryo Konseho it Pilipinas (PCP II Art 118-119) ag kung Nahaunang Synodo ku Dioseses it Kalibo, (Decrees on Temporalities No. 17-18) eamang nga rong mga tumueo hay makiparte sa misyon bilang parianong mga tawo (Temporalities No. 9) agud sa rato makapatigayon kita sa paghimaya sa Dios, sa pagbantala ku mayad nga balita, sa pag-ulikid sa pinakakubos katon ag sa pagsuporta sa kinahang-eanon kung aton nga mga kaparian ag Obispo (Mt. 10:7-11; Can. 281;1274 as cited under Temporalities No. 10).  Ruyon ro gusto ipaabot nga paghangop ku kabilugan ku logo.

10 nga katawo – baye, eaki, unga, magueang, may asawa ag owa, madre, pari – nagsimbolo ku Katilingban Kristiana riya sa Parokya halin sa napueong ka kabarangayan it Balete

Nagapas-an ku Simbahan nga nagapamanawon - isaeang ka paghimakas ku Katilingban it Dios eamang madangat rong kahimtangan it “Bag-ong Eangit, Bag-ong Eugta” (Isaiah 65:17 & 66:22; 2 Pet. 3:13; & Revelation 21:1); Pag-aeaengay ag paghueueogan it abaga ag rong pagpas-an ku “Krus it Pag-eigmanghuran” kay Kristo Hesus.

Si San Rafael nga Arkangel – ro manugbueong it Dios, ro ginpadaea it Dios sa pag-iba sa aton nga pagpamanawon ag paghimakas ag makabueong sa aton nga pagkabulag sa kamatuoran; ro Patron ku Katilingban it Dios sa atong Parokya.

Berde  – Kolor ku Espiritu Santo, ku kabuhi, ku sa gihapon ag ku pag-eaum. Kolor nga makita naton sa simbahan sa tiempo ordinaryo sa aton nga pagpamanawon sa adlaw adlaw nga paghimakas, nga nagatimaan ma ku aton nga pag-uli sa baeay ku aton nga Amay sa mga Eangit.

Puea – timaan ku aton nga hamdum nga madangat ag mabaeay rong “Bag-ong Eangit, Bag-ong Eugta”; rong kaeayo o baga (nga angay kabkaban, suma ay nagakaugdaw eon) sa aton nga dughan; ro Paghigugma it Dios; ro Kasakit ag Kamatayon ni Hesus; ag rong kaisog naton sa pagpas-an ku Krus it Pag-eigmanghuran kay Kristo Hesus.

Bueawan  o Puti (The backdrop of the Logo) – Pagkaputli ag pagkasantos; Si Maria nga owa it dagta nga saea; ro pagkabanhaw it katilingban pareho nga nabanhaw si Hesus.