The Replacement

A cyberspace novel by Tony Perez

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Welcome to my novel, "The Replacement", the first serialized Filipino novel in cyberspace!

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Other Cyberspace Books by Tony Perez

The Antique Shop Without A Name (Volume 1)
The Pamela Quests: Ella (Volume II)
The Pamela Quests: Pam (Volume I)
Magic for Squares
Cubao Midnight Express: Mga Pusong Nadiskaril Sa Mahabang Riles Ng Pag-ibig
143 Gayuma
Ang Maluwalhating Orakulo Ni Chuko Kung Ming (Translation)

More Cyberspace Books by Tony Perez on:

Tony Perez Philippines

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THE REPLACEMENT

The First, Serialized, Filipino Novel in Cyberspace

By Tony Perez

Authored June 2013 –

Posted in cyberspace June 2013 –

Classification: For General Reading Public

Category: Fiction

IPR of Tony Perez

Important Notes:

This is the only legitimate, electronic version of this cyberspace book.

This cyberspace book does not exist in any other format.

This cyberspace book may not be reproduced or adapted in part or in whole without the written or electronic permission of the author.

2013

Chapter 1

We buried Father Leonard at 6:00 PM. Word had gone round that his specific wish was to be interred on a Wednesday. Father Leonard was 38. The bishop informed me, before sending me here as his replacement, that he passed away in his sleep due to cardiac arrest. He had no relatives that anyone knew of in Molo, Iloilo, where he was born, or elsewhere. It seems, the bishop said, he chose to be reclusive at a later point in his vocation. I thought of how contemplative hermits lived in medieval times, inside caves or in huts built in Nature.

The sun had not yet set, but already in the month of June the weather indicated the advent of rains. A downpour descended upon us before Mass. I wondered if that was the reason only a handful of people showed up, over and on top of the dozen members of the youth choir who brought along their Cebu guitars and occupied the front seats in the left transept. I was thinking that the demise of a priest who had served at a parish for the past six years would have urged a major portion of his congregation to attend his funeral. The public relations officer of Amatores Dei assured me, however, that the leading figures of the community were there.

The elegies were delivered at the lectern used for readings and homilies. The municipal mayor of San Lazaro spoke first, then someone who read a message from the local division of the Department of Education, then the owner of apparently the longest chain of shopping centers in Bacolod. I must confess,

my attention dwindled. Everything was a litany of names, organizations, activities, and anecdotes that still meant nothing to me. The combination of personages was typically dissonant, as are the layers of different art inside the church, and as are the varieties of architecture of the houses and commercial buildings in the streets.

I had arrived that very morning from Dumaguete, whence I had been summoned and temporarily promoted from assistant parish priest of Bacong to parish priest here. The diocese of Western Visayas had little choice. The sudden loss of Father Leonard comprised a pastoral emergency since San Lazaro has a population of 22,000 and is relatively distant from the towns surrounding it. I read the episode of Lazarus from Luke, wishing afterwards that I had been more resourceful, and certain that other parish priests before me, including Father Leonard himself, had dwelt on the same.

After the first asperging quite a few inside the church came up to the steel trestle for a final viewing. I closed the casket and nodded to the senior ROTC officers, whose precise movements were seen to by their commandant. Outside, the rain had slowed down to a fine drizzle, but the sky remained overcast. A tent had been set up over the open grave. I read passages from my breviary and performed the final asperging. There was no overt grieving. Although no one here was related by blood to the deceased, I expected some show of emotion, at least, from parishioners who worked closely with him and had come to know him well.

I paid my silent respects to my predecessor as they lowered his casket into the ground. The first few, token shovelfuls of earth were tossed over it. The undertaker and his helpers would complete the job later. I caught myself hoping that they would do so soon. The earth, mingling with rainwater, had already turned to mud. I began wishing that my own death would occur in a hot summer, that I would be buried not to the bass voices of frogs but to the tenor voices of cicadas. It suddenly occurred to me, this is how I shall die. In a remote church. Having renounced all earthly connections, like Father Leonard, no one should grieve for me.

The cortege dispersed. Most of the youth departed the church grounds through the graveyard gate. The elders briefly lingered under their umbrellas, shaking hands with one another, whispering words that may or may not have been connected to the evening’s affair. The parish staff had laid out reception fare on two long tables in the parish hall, an elongated room with iron-braced casement windows, on the second floor of the office building. Though completely exhausted and aware of my duty to pray Vespers, I felt obliged to join the company of esteemed members of the community. This reception, after all, was both for a departure and an arrival.

Chapter 2

My name is Nino Portus. I entered the seminary at age 18. That was when I desisted from spelling and pronouncing the second “n” in my nickname as a Spanish “ñ.” My cognomen, after all, is Antonino, which does not bear that Spanish letter. The parishioners of Bacong call me Father Nino. Now the people of San Lazaro will call me that too. I majored in Philosophy with particular interest in Kant in college, but later wished that I had studied something more immediately useful to pastoral counseling, which priests are now compelled to be doing especially if they are assigned to a parish or a school.

I rode on the first ferry early this morning with all of my possessions in one valise. I arrived at the Bacolod pier an hour later. A young woman met me there. She introduced herself as a parish volunteer. She drove me all the way from the pier to San Lazaro, located several miles from the city, pointing out to me significant places along the way, including the municipal halls, the banks, the utility centers, and long stretches of sugar plantations and the surnames of the wealthy clans that owned them. The crops were still in full bloom, the earth all around us a creature whose green feathers fluttered now and then in the breeze.

Upon arrival at the church office the volunteer turned me over to a staff member, who leapt from his desk and greeted me with profuse welcome. He introduced me to the rest of the personnel, all seven of them, including the caretaker who also functions as gardener. We had but a few minutes for me to set down my valise inside my room, which has a window that looks out onto the church graveyard, where Father Leonard would be buried. We then made a quick round of the sacristy and looked into its supplies and proceeded to the interior of the church, where I paid my obeisance to the remains of Father Leonard.

The local mortuary had everything arranged since last night. The casket was already surrounded with decorative, funereal grass and the obligatory sprays of flowers from condolers. A well-dressed, matronly woman had been kneeling at one of the pews. She was waiting for me to complete my initial inspection. As soon as I turned away from the altar she collected me and gave me a detailed tour of the municipality. Her name is Elizabeth Duena. She brought me to the single, reserved, function room on the upper floor of what she referred to as “the best restaurant in San Lazaro.” Two men were already seated at the lunch table and were evidently anticipating our arrival.

Mrs. Duena first apologized that her husband was stationed somewhere in Europe and so could not be there to meet me. The two men rose and introduced themselves. One is a bank official, the other the manager of the local TV station. Mrs. Duena said that all three of them are members of the lay organization Amatores Dei, and that the organization assists the parish with its material needs. I noted that the men had been having appetizers of three varieties of baked oyster, and lemonade with twists. The lunch, they said, was in my honor. The main fare, of course, was chicken inasal, which Bacolod is known for.

The hour was spent mostly with Mrs. Duena and her colleagues plying me with questions about myself, eager to know about my roots and my personal interests. They asked nothing about my work as assistant parish priest in Bacong. They hardly told me anything about themselves. I thought that this was natural, since I was the newbie. They were secretly eager to know how they could best accommodate me, and how they could help me accommodate the community. We discussed the rest of the day’s events and their sequencing, from Father Leonard’s funeral Mass to his burial in the graveyard.

I asked a few, prodding questions about Father Leonard, since he was in fact the only topic that we held in common. Mrs. Duena gushed that he was “a wonderful priest” and that both of her children, one of them the young, female volunteer who met me at the pier, “loved him.” The bank official and the TV station manager were equally equipped with praises about the deceased priest, describing him as “most cooperative.” They hoped that I would easily “fall in love” with San Lazaro. I reminded them that I was only a replacement, and that the diocese would send them a more suitable parish priest as soon as they could find one.

Chapter 3

It is late at night between Compline and midnight prayers. I am seated inside the dortoir, at the table beneath the window that looks out onto the graveyard. I have memorized another name today, Agapito Cayron. He is the staff member who effusively welcomed me at the office this morning. He used to be called Pete, but everyone calls him Mister Crayon because his name is frequently misspelled. He mentioned that Father Leonard called him Mister Carry On because, whenever he sought the priest’s approval to proceed with some task, Father impatiently waved him away and say, “Carry on, carry on!”

And so this is Mister Crayon “Carry On” Caryon, the church secretary and the parish priest’s general factotum. He escorted me to my quarters after the last guests departed the reception this evening. He informed me that the table I am sitting at is an import from Thailand, donated four years ago by Amatores Dei, on a Christmas Eve. It has been evacuated of all its contents except for an edition of the Holy Bible, the year’s Ordo, and a pewter crucifix on a stand on its top ledge. The only other items on it now are my breviary, notebook, disposable ball pen, and a sheaf of the parish’s weekly schedules over the past two years.

I am unable to doze off between prayers and am conditioning myself to my surroundings. There is something significantly different between this room and the room that I vacated in Bacong. The writing table and window are to the west. A single-size, four-poster bed is against the opposite wall. On the narrow, south, wall, there is a Fil-Hispanic-type commode, also evacuated of everything and now containing my personal clothing, toiletries, and valise. The door to the grilled catwalk leading to the left transept of the church is on the remaining, narrow, wall. I pace around the tiny room and suddenly realize what the difference is.

Two pieces of furniture have been shrouded with the flower-printed remnants of old curtains, either to keep off dust or signify mourning for the dead. I set the pieces of cloth aside. There is a credenza at the foot of the four-poster. On top of it is a small, flat-screen TV. The wiring tacked very neatly on the wall suggests that it is cabled. To the left of the writing table is a computer console with a curved keyboard. It is hooked up to a laser color printer on a lower shelf. I note that there are no fans, neither a stand fan nor a ceiling swivel fan such as what I had in Bacong, which was my defense against mosquitoes and my sole comfort on baking, summer nights.

Instead, there is a discreet, elongated, air-conditioning unit above the single window of the room. It blends well with the color of the wall. I did not notice it this morning, and it had not been necessary for anyone to turn it on for me because of the chilling rain. In Bacong there were an office TV and computers, but not air-conditioning. My parish priest did not have the luxury of having any of these in his dortoir. Most certainly the sugar barons and baronesses of Bacolod are affluent enough to have provided these. The only other explanation would be that Father Leonard had been keeping a personal bank account before he chose to become a recluse.

I pick up the Bible from the top ledge of the writing table. It is the only object in this room that has ever been left of Father Leonard. I carefully flip through its pages. There is a tiny slip of paper inserted between the Old and New Testaments. An e-mail address and a password are penciled on it: leonard_leonard@_____.com and SanLazaroParishPriest34. I get on the computer immediately and go to the e-mail system's Home Page. I am not surprised that the church, as most of the municipality may be, is in a Wi-Fi zone. I enter the e-mail address and the accompanying password. They lead me, indeed, to leonard_leonard’s account, but everything in it has been deleted.

There is nothing in Inbox, Drafts, Sent, and Trash. Spam contains only 50 advertisements of dubious commerce. If there were Folders in this e-mail account, they are no longer there now. All that it contains is the holder’s personal information, which clearly points out to have been Father Leonard. I wonder, first of all, why the account was not deactivated. I search the back of the computer and underneath it in case any other secret clues have been taped there. I revisit the Bible pages, going through them more thoroughly this time. All I find is a monicker scribbled in at the end of the Book of Daniel. Faintly penciled, in block letters, is the name Darnel. Surely not a deliberate misspelling of Daniel?

Chapter 4

The first entry arrived at the church office the following morning. After the second Mass of the day I conducted a cursory audit of accounts with Mister Crayon. He knew and reviewed the monthly account of collections and donations vis-à-vis the church complex’s utility bills and overhead and maintenance expenses. Everything seemed in order. Nothing had been splurged on a flat-screen TV, a computer and laser printer, and an air-conditioner. Like the teakwood table, I surmised, all of those had been donations as well. I looked through all the correspondence as well.

I was secretly hoping that I would come across a name or an acronym or a coined word that spelled Darnel, but I found nothing. I went online at the work station. Ensuring that the staff were engrossed in their Thursday duties, I opened Father Leonard’s e-mail account once again. This time around I checked his Contacts. There was nothing there as well. As a matter of fact there was only one contact listed, his own e-mail address. Had there been other addresses listed during his lifetime, they had already been deleted by himself, or by someone else. On an impulse I looked up and asked aloud, “Who is this person named Darnel?”

But, all I merited from Mister Crayon and the three office workers were merely blank stares, and I felt constrained to apologize. “Never mind,” I muttered, and vaguely uttered, “It must be someone from the parish in Bacong.” It was then that I looked at the inbox tray on top of my desk, which I knew contained routine paperwork, most of them documents that required my signature. On top of the sheaf was a thermally-sealed, plastic, courier envelope. It was addressed to “THE PARISH PRIEST” and bore the mailing information for San Lazaro. It had come a long way. Its return address indicated the basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Cubao.

Cubao, of course, was in Quezon City, in Metro Manila, the country’s capital, on the main island of Luzon. I hastily picked up the letter opener that I found inside the desk drawer, a hefty, rhinestone-studded affair from The Vatican Library. I felt somewhat flattered that someone from the basilica had already acknowledged my existence, although he or she had not acknowledged my name. I was also eager to open the first snail-mail item that was rightfully mine as the new parish priest, albeit a replacement, of San Lazaro. The envelope contained only two pages that were stapled together at the upper left-hand corner.

It was a printout of an e-mail message that Father Leonard had composed and afterwards sent to himself, and was apparently dated his first day as parish priest, some six years ago. It was the first entry of an electronic diary. I pondered whether I should read this deeply private message, yet it was a message that was clearly intended for me, or for whoever would be the priest’s replacement. Father Leonard himself could not have printed this out and mailed it from Metro Manila. That would have seemed illogical and unnecessarily melodramatic. Had he wished me to read his diary, he could have merely retained his e-mail account without deletions.

He could also have hidden a hard copy of his diary, or any other document, where I was certain to encounter them. Yet, Mrs. Duena had informed me inside her car, as we were driving through the municipality, that the former parish priest’s cardiac attack was unexpected. He had been bedridden for two weeks at the Medical Mansion, a private hospital, before he passed away. I read, with a chill in my spine: “My name is Leonard Ugoy. I entered the seminary at age 18. That was when I desisted from spelling and pronouncing my baptismal name with its last letter, ‘o.’ My cognomen is Leonardo, and I was named not after any saint but a great artist.

“This is my first assignment as parish priest, and the parishioners have begun to call me Father Len. I correct them every now and then, for I prefer to be called Father Leonard. I majored in Philosophy with particular interest in Kant in college, but later wished that I had studied something more immediately useful to pastoral counseling, which priests are now compelled to be doing especially if they are assigned to a parish or a school. I flew on the first, connecting flight from Cebu early this morning with all of my possessions in one valise. When I arrived at the Bacolod City Airport, a woman met me there and introduced herself as Elizabeth Duena.”

Chapter 5

“Mrs. Duena introduced herself as a parish volunteer. She impressed me more as a doyenne accustomed to giving orders rather than as a humble volunteer accustomed to receiving them. I have no sense of female fashion and cosmetics, but the dress and the jewelry she was wearing and her heady perfume, I thought, were meant to convey to me that she was a figure to be reckoned with in San Lazaro and that she dealt a heavy hand in community affairs. ‘It’s my driver’s day off, Father Len,’ she said in her breezy way after starting her car. ‘Please call me Father Leonard,’ I countered.

“‘All right,’ she smiled, looking me straight in the face, ‘Father Leonard. That’s a beautiful name. Len does sound uncomfortably androgynous to me.’ Her voice and her manner of speaking were measured and coy, but her body language and gaze suggestive of condescension. She drove us all the way from the pier to San Lazaro, which is 15 miles from the city, pointing out to me and commenting on landmarks along the way, including the municipal halls, the banks, the utility centers, and the inevitable sugar plantations and the surnames of the families who owned them. The crops were in full bloom, the earth around us a sea of green.

“At the church office Mrs. Duena announced my arrival to a male staff member who jumped up from his seat and greeted me with effusive welcome. He introduced himself as Pete Caryon. I remarked, ‘Caryon is not Visayan, I believe.’ ‘Very good, Father Len,’ he replied. ‘My grandfather is from southern Luzon.’ ‘Please call me Father Leonard,’ I corrected him as I earlier did Mrs. Duena, ‘or I shall call you Mister Carrion.’ He snickered, mentioning that his high school teachers used to call him that. He then introduced me to his co-employees. There are seven, including the caretaker-et-gardener.

“Mrs. Duena followed us when Pete took my valise and led the way to my room. It looks out onto the church graveyard. I suddenly thought to myself, I will be buried here. I was about to mention this in a joking manner, but the thought was arrested by the dismayed look on Mrs. Duena’s face. She began fussing, apologetically, about the state the room was in and how it could be improved. ‘I’ve been in worse,’ I truthfully responded. ‘But it’s not as presentable as it should be,’ she rushed in, ‘for a parish priest of your stature. Amatores will do something about it.’ ‘Who is Amatores?’ I asked, looking at Pete, expecting him to enlighten me.

“It was Mrs. Duena, not Pete, who answered my inquiry. ‘It’s a what, Father Leonard, not a who.’ I looked from one to the other. ‘Amatores Dei is a volunteer group of devout citizens of San Lazaro, Father Leonard. It assists the parish and the parish priest when necessary. It augments the parish budget with privately-generated funds, also when necessary.’ She hastily added, ‘We’ve been wanting to do more improvements since our last parish priest completed his term and was reassigned. We’ve donated five computers to the parish office. Now we’re thinking of refurbishing your room.’

“‘That won’t be necessary,’ I said. ‘We’ll discuss this some other time,’ she quickly replied, perhaps her carefully-rehearsed, often-used answer to everything. ‘But after this church tour, some lunch? To introduce you soonest to the people who matter. A meeting with the mayor can eventually be arranged. But today Amatores reserved for us a room in the best restaurant in San Lazaro.’ ‘Who shall I meet there?’ She appeared bemused. ‘My husband is stationed in Rome, so there will be just the two of us, the president of the largest bank, and our TV station manager. The money and the media, Father Leonard,’ she added, ‘the greatest allies of the church.’

“I had no objections to that, I rationalized, as long as I could be back early enough to celebrate the afternoon and the evening Masses that day and be able to perform other duties. ‘All in a day’s work, Father Leonard,’ Mrs. Duena laughed. Inside the church she informed me that the bank president had the altar refurbished with ‘brown and black marble tiles imported from Italy,’ that the TV station manager had ‘the Communion railing’ replaced with ‘wrought iron and polished narra,’ and that she had the tabernacle replaced with one ‘in brass, with double doors and a lock, all of it gold-leafed, and shipped to Bacolod all the way from Rome.’”

Chapter 6

My reading of Father Leonard’s narrative was interrupted by Mister Crayon and two volunteer acolytes, who reminded me that the noon Mass would begin in a quarter of an hour. I returned the printouts to the courier envelope and brought these to my dortoir, where I resumed reading them there afterward. The remainder of his electronic diary entry was comprised of a description of the restaurant he was brought to, his not-unpleasant meeting with his lunch hosts, his gustatory appraisal of chicken inasal in Bacolod versus chicken inasal in other places in the Visayas, and his return to the parish church for the rest of the day.

I had planned to get to know better the parish staff members by having coffee with them, one or two at a time, and later on paying them house visits. Our parish priest in Bacong did this, and encouraged me to do the same not only to the staff members but to parishioners as well. I decided, it would be logical to begin with Mister Crayon. After Mrs. Duena, he was the second person I had met in San Lazaro. He was on top of the parish calendar and my own, liaised for the church with public- and private-sector organizations, and, being public affairs officer, was supposed to know everyone whom Father Leonard and others before him had ever met.

The cook prepared simple fare for us in the refectory, knowing we had no special guests for afternoon tea. Mister Crayon was nervous, perhaps too eager to inform me of whatever I wanted to know. He is, as he initially confessed, an ex-seminarian. He received educational sponsorship from a donor through high school and college in Cainta, where he was supposed to major in Philosophy. He was unable to finish his freshman year due to the sudden demise of his donor. Circumstances brought him to Dipolog, his mother’s hometown, where he met the woman he fell in love with and married. After a few years they migrated to San Lazaro.

Mister Crayon became visibly relaxed while sipping his cup of ginger tea and telling me about his family. They live with his wife’s aging grandparents. His wife is a TESDA-accredited midwife. They have five children, three girls and two boys, all of whom are enrolled in school. I learned that Father Leonard was already parish priest when Mister Crayon was hired for the job he currently holds. Had there been any person named Darnel or any group for which those letters formed an acronym in Father Leonard’s life, that person or that group either would have existed in Father Leonard’s distant past or would have been his personal secret.

The man, of course, would not volunteer anything untoward, at least not during our first tea together. Rather than inquire about people other than his family, I asked him whether any special relationship between the Parish of San Lazaro and the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Cubao existed. He was visibly thrown off and was at a loss for words, embarrassed that there might have been something he should have known but missed. He knew nothing about the basilica other than that it belonged to a diocese in Central Luzon. I quickly explained that I mistakenly thought there was regular correspondence between our parish and that diocese.

“Did Father Leonard give you access to his personal e-mail?” I prodded. “In case something happened, I mean, and you needed to obtain contact information for him.” “Only his calendar, Father ,” was the reply, “in the office system.” “What about the work station in the dortoir? Was that only for his personal use only or did he allow others to use it?” A long pause. “I think, it was only for personal use, Father.” “You saw no one else but Father Leonard using that station, then?” A longer pause. And then he said, “I’ve seen Inday Cely, our accountant, use it a few times, but with Father Leonard’s permission, of course.”

Here was an opportunity to close in. “Inday Cely and who else?” “Sometimes Father Leonard’s guests, to play games when visiting.” “Father Leonard’s guests?” “Parishioners, Father. Mostly students.” “Would you remember who?” “No, Father, I cannot.” “What about Mrs. Duena? She seemed familiar with the dortoir.” “She was often there when it was being remodeled, Father.” “Did she herself donate the station?” “I have no idea, Father. All donations from Amatores are not declared as gifts from individuals, Father.” “Please call me Father Nino.” “Yes, Father Nino.” I suddenly felt that I was speaking like the dead priest.

Chapter 7

Mrs. Duena attended the evening Mass followed by a novena for the intercession of Saint Jude Thaddeus, popularly known as the patron of “impossible cases.” The novena was quite well attended. It was led by an Amatores Dei officer whom I recognized as the proprietor of the chain of malls, and as one of the elegists at Father Leonard’s funeral. Mrs. Duena effusively invited both of us to breakfast in her house the day after tomorrow, a Saturday. We both accepted. The proprietor seemed to breakfast regularly at the woman’s house. On my part it would be a fulfillment of a house visit.

The following morning was opportune for having tea with Inday Cely at one of the small coffee shops on the church plaza. Like most concessionaires the shop opened at 10:00 AM and had hardly any customers at that time. We were allowed to stay in a quiet nook on the upper floor. Its huge, glass windows gave us a view of the front of the church, across the plaza. Unlike Mister Crayon, Inday Cely is garrulous and offers superfluous information without prompting. She is in her early sixties, “retiring soon” a frequent phrase in our conversation, and has served as chief accountant, collector, and auditor of the parish funds and disbursements.

Over coffee and wedges of dubious mango pie Inday Cely explained that the parish maintains two bank accounts: one that contains subsidies from the diocese and another that receives collections and funds from private-sector donors. Both accounts are authorized in the name of the current parish priest, and so she further explained that I would have forms to sign, and that I would have to report to the bank in person after the weekend. Predictably, the former account is smaller and is subjected to quarterly auditing by the diocese. It pays for the employment of Mister Crayon, Inday Cely, a housekeeper, a cook, and a caretaker and gardener.

The second account, for the past six years, has covered the salaries and bonuses of additional personnel, a receptionist and a security guard. It also allows purchases by the parish priest. I asked, at this point, if she believes that the parish finances are being properly disbursed. She said that she does believe so, that they are, that they have always been, and that everything is fine, but that is the kind of statement, of course, to be expected of an employee who wishes to give the impression that she has been performing her job well. “Aside from Father Leonard’s expenditures for his personal needs, were there other items that were charged to this account?”

“Soap and toilet paper for the rest rooms, Father. A lot of bleach. And cleaning things, like mops that really don’t last long, you know—” “I meant bigger expenditures.” I was thinking of the air-conditioning, the work station, and the color printer, for starters, and was therefore astonished by her reply. In a plaintive, distressed tone, she murmured, “Well, there was the motorbike, Father.” “What motorbike?” “Two years ago, he purchased a motorbike.” She halted, implying that there was more. It was actually not inconceivable to me that some parish priests purchased motorbikes, bicycles, or even bantam cars, and I do know of quite a few who do that.

“I haven’t seen any motorbike,” I said. “Well, Father, he sold it a month before he passed away. I don’t know to whom, and where the money went.” “I wouldn’t fret too much about a secondhand motorbike, would you?” “But, Father, it was a Ducati. It cost a little less than a million!” “What? You allowed that to be withdrawn from the bank?” “It wasn’t like that, Father.” “Please call me Father Nino,” I said, “and please advise everyone else to do the same.” “Yes, Father Nino. It wasn’t like that, Father Nino. Only 20,000 was withdrawn from the second account.” “Where did the rest come from, then?”

And finally, her suspicion was out. “I believe, Father, someone very generously paid the balance. Someone very special to him.” “Was this blatant enough to be noticed by all?” “No, Father Nino. They were never seen together by themselves.” “Was the staff aware of it?” “The staff notices everything about the parish priest, Father Nino.” “Was there ever any scandal involved?” “Oh no, Father Nino, everything was so discreet. People could only surmise it.” “And is this someone I know, or have already met?” To which she looked straight at me and gave me an apathetic but knowing smile.

Chapter 8

I took one last look at the front of the church, across the plaza, through the huge, glass windows of the coffee shop. There seemed to be something there, something important, but something I could not put my finger on. Was it the door of the church? Was it the whitewashed, stone statues in niches on both sides of it? Inday Cely noticed my lingering gaze and looked that way too. “The entrance to the church was refurbished last year, Father Nino. We were told, it was pale pink since the 17th century, but we felt it would look better in beige. Our office sought approval from the diocese.” We went down the wooden staircase and walked back to the office.

The second entry was waiting in my Inbox. It was also in a courier envelope, and also addressed from the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, in Cubao. The packet contained a printout of Father Leonard’s account of his succeeding day in San Lazaro, from his electronic diary. “What time did this arrive?” I asked the young receptionist, taking care to sound neither too enthusiastic nor too distraught, but managing to startle her a little nonetheless. The receptionist, a well-dressed woman named Hilda, replied that all mail items come in during the mid-morning delivery, along with the newspapers, from Bacolod City.

Hilda conveyed such a sincere and innocent interest in my question that I ruled her out as being privy to the arrival of the mysterious documents, two of them so far. Already I knew, in the back of my mind, that more were to come. I slid the desk drawer open, once again, to retrieve the letter opener and free the document from its waterproof casing. I looked round me. No one seemed to be observing my actions. Hilda had resumed encoding office correspondence. Inday Cely, now at her desk in front of the steel filing cabinets in the back of the room, was working on her ledger. Mister Crayon was on the telephone, scheduling a meeting for a youth council.

Father Leonard wrote: “Mrs. Duena attended the evening Mass followed by a devotional novena to the Sacred Heart. It was a First Friday. The novena was well attended, and was led by an Amatores Dei officer. Afterward, Mrs. Duena invited me to breakfast in her house the following day. I accepted. During our previous lunch meeting I was informed, after all, that the wealthy officers of the group are taking interest in pooling funds to pay the salaries, including bonuses and raises, for a receptionist and a security guard for the parish church. I see these as prospective assets.

“Up early the following dawn, I celebrated a succession of two morning Masses. In the refectory I partook of the light breakfast that the cook prepared for me, brewed coffee and two pieces of toast. The early repast at Mrs. Duena’s would surely be more substantial, but was scheduled for 8:30. Mrs. Duena had informed me the previous evening that she would send her driver and a car to pick me up at 8:15. I assured her that I was all set to walk or take a tricycle, but she insisted on providing me this service. The driver and vehicle arrived at 8:10. I was let into the back seat. We drove through San Lazaro, and into its outskirts, to an ostentatious villa on the slope of a hill.

“A maid received me in the foyer, from where I could see that the interior of the villa, though Hispanic on the exterior, was predominantly Italian. A faceted, full-length, gilt-framed mirror greeted me as I entered the double doors. It was flanked by two blackamoors bearing globe lamps. Everywhere there was lush drapery. The maid left me seated on a chintz-upholstered chair and disappeared into the recesses of the mansion, which were already being lighted up by sunshine through the windows. The maid will be gone for five minutes, I told myself. And, sure enough, as though often rehearsed and often performed, she did.

“I was led into the reception area, where the walls were in baize with white trimming. A massive, twin staircase led to a landing, then to another twin staircase, to the upper floor. Originally varnished and oiled, it must have only lately been enameled white to complement the faux Italianate décor. The house was a caricature, a hybrid of ideas taken from an assortment of magazines. The over-carved and over-stuffed sofas, chaise-longues, occasional chairs, parqueted consoles and credenzes, not to mention the dark statuary, were undoubtedly shipped from some bargain center in or outside Rome, where Mrs. Duena said her husband was currently stationed.”

Chapter 9

“Five minutes later Mrs. Duena’s only daughter descended the left side of the staircase, her footsteps muted by the Moroccan carpet that was fitted to the treads and risers. She was smiling as bright as the morning sunshine. She was barely 12. I would discover her age later. She was dressed in a white, tennis outfit. She came up to me to shake my hand. ‘Father Leonard? I’m Mrs. Duena’s daughter. I’ve seen you at Mass, of course.’ She led me back to the sofa, where another maid, also in uniform, proceeded to serve us iced lemonade. Our conversation centered on the private, Catholic schools in San Lazaro. She was a high school freshman in one of them.

“We were discussing the school she was currently enrolled in when Mrs. Duena’s commanding voice rang out from the upper floor, complaining to yet another maid that she had neglected to open the windows to her second-storey parlor. This was meant, of course, to signal to us her arrival. She paused briefly at the landing with an effusive, ‘Father Leonard! Such an honor to see you here,’ then stepped down the right side of the staircase, which was carpeted in blood red. Her arms were extended to me as she approached, revealing freshly-painted nails and sapphire rings on her fingers.

“Mrs. Duena sat on an imposing armchair, picking up a silver-plated bell on the coffee table once in a while to stir the maids to adjust the speed of the ceiling fan, add more ice to the lemonade pitcher, and serve us drinking water. Both her lemonade glass and her water glass were twice the height of mine and her daughter’s. We conversed about the Bacolod weather, noting that it was the height of summer now but that the rains would follow all too soon. After she had sufficiently wallowed in displaying her coiffure and her sparkling jewelry, she abruptly changed our topic of conversation and suggested that we repair to the dining room for breakfast.

“As to be expected, the dining room was splendid. Its focal point was the narra table that seated eight, and that had additional leaves on the side to accommodate 18. Two chandeliers with crystal-cut emerald pendants hung from the ceiling, which was hand-painted with cherubs and floral swags. Two, tall glass cupboards filled with porcelain were located at both ends of the room. A maid seated Mrs. Duena at the head of the table. Her daughter, Delphine, sat at her left and I, on her right. Rather than our being served a dish at a time the breakfast fare was laid out on the table, Filipino style. The food was more than enough for the three of us.

“Delphine excused herself afterward. A friend was arriving to play a set of tennis in the private court, presumably somewhere on the villa grounds. As soon as my hostess and I were left to ourselves she abruptly changed our topic of conversation again, this time from Bacolod’s indigenous food to Delphine. Mrs. Duena began a litany of difficulties raising an only child, how young people’s Catholic values have been changing over time, and what plans I had for the parish’s various youth groups. I became conscious that she was exploring my attitude to the youth, young girls in particular, and how liberal my own views were.

“She brought me up a tower that led from the ground floor to a fourth level. From its parapets we could see an overview of her villa all round, her sugar plantations to the south, Bacolod City to the northwest, and the town proper to the northeast. I could make out the top of the steeple of the parish church beyond clusters of tin rooftops. She pointed out a structure behind the villa, and proudly informed me that that was their family’s ‘tiny chapel.’ She asked me if I would be good enough to celebrate her birthday Mass there next month. She was turning 70, and desired that it be a memorable event.

“I replied that Masses outside the church were no longer permitted by local dioceses, via a directive from the Arzobispado in Manila. She seemed a little upset by this, mentioning that previous parish priests had granted her this ‘innocent’ favor, especially during Easter, Christmas, and her birthday. She took me by the hand and insisted that she show me their ‘tiny chapel,’ hoping that I would be ‘inspired’ by it. We descended the spiral staircase, crossed a garden, and entered the chapel by its main doors. Everything so far had been as predictable as opening scenes from a low-budget movie. What I saw inside the chapel was a shock to me.”

Chapter 10

“The exterior of the chapel was a post postmodern, whitewashed cinder shoebox. It did not prime first-time visitors for what was within. Mrs. Duena, opened the black-iron, stable-style doors in the façade, flicked on several light switches on an inner wall. I followed her inside and stood speechless at what I saw. The ceiling, the floor, and the interior walls were all in white. From within, the rectangular windows framed bright, stark patches of trees and sky. Five long pews, mere strips of blackwood, were in diagonal counter point, two on the left and three on the right. Directly in front of us was the focal point, the altar.

“She was a clever she-devil, and I knew that this was a deliberate, malicious move on her part. The first question I asked myself, in my mind, was, ‘Where did all of this come from?’ The with five arched niches, each niche flanked with braided columns. The niches contained, on the upper tier, antique statues of the Seven Sorrows, the Crucifixion, and Saint John the Beloved. On the lower tier, antique statues of Saint Isidore the Farmer and Saint Lazarus. The center of it all was a finely-carved tabernacle.

“I asked her, and I knew that she was expecting me to do so, ‘Where did all of this come from?’ I noted the slight echo in my voice, which bounced against the walls. She emitted an apologetic, girlish laugh. It bounced against the walls also. ‘Oh, Father Leonard, that was too long ago. Ten or fifteen years, I don’t remember. Really, so long ago. We had things inside the church upgraded, and we started with the altar. Everything was deteriorating, what with termites and all. The parishioners were complaining that everything looked drab and dismal and backward. We had no choice but to modernize.’

“‘Couldn’t you have fixed all of it?’ I asked again. Again, she laughed. ‘Oh, but we did. It was the best solution. The new altar is now so easy to clean. We installed black and brown marble slabs, all of them imported from Italy. The new statues, as you’ve seen, are fiberglass. They’re very light and cost almost nothing to maintain. We have them repainted, and gold-leafed, once in a while.’ She took a step toward the altar and flung out an arm. ‘Not like those! I spend thousands a year just having the vestments and silk hairpieces cleaned for those! And all those silver potencias, I have them polished on a regular basis.’

“She shuddered, turned back to face me, and lowered her voice. ‘And we can’t have them there as constant temptations for petty thieves, Father Leonard. The church doors aren’t always locked, you know. They need to be—protected, Father Leonard. By someone whom the church and the community can trust. For years! For generations!’ ‘And I take it that you are that person?’ I interjected in as mild a voice as I could manage. ‘Not I alone, Father Leonard. Amatores Dei. We want you to know that we have every best intention for the church, for the community, and for you.’

As we exited the chapel she assured me that funds would be transferred to one of the parish accounts to enable the hiring of a much-vaunted receptionist and a much-needed security guard. She inquired whether there was anything else the parish needed. I reminded her that I’d just been assigned there and would have to inspect everything, first, very carefully. She nodded gracefully, then spewed forth a litany of projects Amatores Dei had been envisioning. The renovation and refurbishing of the dortoir, for starters. Very clearly Amatores Dei had plans of their own, and that they had had their way with other parish priests before me.

“She drove me back to the church. During the ride I learned, as I’d already suspected, that Amatores Dei was comprised of other collectors of antiquities. The bank manager who would ‘immediately release funds’ to the parish account, for instance, was in possession of the ‘communion railing,’ ‘parts of which’ divided the living and dining areas in his Bohemian mansion. ‘Oh, Father Leonard,’ she whispered, ‘but it is very well taken care of, and that mansion is something you should see!’ She reiterated, or rather reminded me of, her request before we parted. ‘My birthday, Father Leonard. Please. We turn seventy only once.’

Chapter 11

Father Leonard’s narrative ended with a subsequent visit to the municipal mayor’s office that afternoon. The mayor himself received him. He was regaled with the mayor’s version of “high coffee,” which consisted of local beans and a serving of candied banana with syrup, fresh milk, and ice chips. After civil niceties Father Leonard went down to brass tacks and consulted the mayor regarding the possibility that the church had been pillaged, over the years, of its treasures. To his chagrin he discovered that the mayor was an honorary official of Amatores Dei, and that he had purchased “the old monstrance, the old ciboria, and the old chalices and patens” in exchange for new ones from Manila.

The following day the parish priest made an unannounced trip to the local diocese, in Bacolod City. Upon his request he was shown all documents indicating legitimate sales made by the parish to various individuals. According to the bishop’s office, parish priests are authorized to dispose of any or all properties deemed to have become depreciated and obsolete, as long as the disposals bore the bishop’s signature of approval. Such properties included furniture, appliances, vestments, kitchen ware, decorative items, and ecclesiastical objects, particularly if they were damaged, in serious disrepair, in disuse, and had no other reason for being other than to remain in storage and use up space.

The second entry to Father Leonard’s electronic diary ended there. Again I took the sheaf with me to secrete inside the dortoir. Someone in Luzon has been mailing these sheaves to me, all the way to San Lazaro, in the Visayas. Is it because Father Leonard was a special case and that I should be alerted to it? Is it because previous parish priests found themselves in the same situation? Is it because I am about to face the same dilemma now? Is it because someone is hoping that I can amend things and institute reforms, even if I am only a replacement? I know that at least one person on the office staff must be privy to all of this.

So far I’ve had casual but long conversations over tea with Mister Crayon and Inday Cely. I must rule out for now the cook, the housekeeper, the security guard, and the gardener and caretaker based on my initial perception that they have little IT skills and may not be computer-savvy, at least in comparison with everyone else on the office staff. It is not likely that Father Leonard would have chosen any one of them as confidante. It is even more unlikely that any of them had access to the parish priest’s electronic sites. My next interviewee, then, shall have to be the receptionist, Hilda.

After the noon Mass I gave Hilda a heads-up to have coffee or tea with me later that day, in the refectory. She cheerfully obliged, knowing I intend to chat with individual members of the staff. The cook prepared chocolate rice broth and dried fish for us. Hilda is 24. She was born in Bacolod City but moved to San Lazaro “for a slower pace.” Despite her being an attractive woman she claims to be unattached. I asked her if she was aware that some church items had been replaced, to which she positively and enthusiastically responded. She used the word “upgraded,” which, in Father Leonard’s diary, Mrs. Duena used. This made me somewhat wary.

Hilda gave me a rundown of “the many wonderful things” Amatores Dei had done, and has been doing, for the parish. The “upgrading” of the main and side altars. The installation of modern rosettes of the four evangelists on the ceiling of the dome. The installation of new, stained-glass windows. The repainting of the church interior and the church exterior. I asked her if she were not disturbed by the mix-matching of the old with the new. She replied that she saw that as a normal part of the “upgrading process,” and that it seemed to satisfy and reflect the diversity in taste of the motley congregation.

I became more directive and asked her whether anyone in the staff had access to the parish priests’ electronic portfolios. She denied this, pointing out that, albeit only recently, a stand-alone had been placed inside the dortoir. She confessed to being adept at different forms of social media. She said that some of the parish priests had expressed interest in them, and had many social media friends among the parishioners. Father Leonard, she stated, was not one of them. “Such a shame,” she added, “because he was popular with everyone, and would have had thousands of friends in cyberspace.”

Chapter 12

We sat quietly, steeped in our own thoughts, watching a group of joyous school children at play on the grass outside. This was the view from the refectory. Beyond it were the elementary school building to the left, the high school building to the right, and wide, open space straight ahead leading to an abandoned sugar cane plantation. Hilda was gazing wistfully into the distance. “I was the last person to be hired at the parish office,” she said. “Father Leonard had just arrived. They took on Manong Vic, the security guard, a month before they announced an opening for my job. Thirty applied for it.”

“Which should give you an idea how hard it is to get a decent occupation here, Father. As it is, I’m sure, in Bacong,” she appended. “Please call me Father Nino,” I urged her. She turned her head and looked at me. “I was the lucky one, Father Nino. That makes me the newest on the staff, yourself excluded. But I talk to people, old and young. My work requires it. The seniors remember how it was here, a long time ago. When nobody cared. When the parish was in shambles. Now, look at all of this. Do you see that piece of land in front of us? If we’re fortunate, Amatores Dei will raise enough funds to build a college on it, a parish college.”

“We do receive some assistance from the Rotary, the Inner Wheel, and the Knights, I suppose,” I interposed the half-question. “We do, Father Nino,” was her reply, “but they also have their limitations. Whatever we receive from them is pittance compared with what we are receiving now. Besides, what happened, was,” and she took a sip from her cup of coffee before proceeding, “most of the members of those organizations came together and decided to create a body that could more aggressively extend assistance to the parish, and to the community. That was how Amatores Dei came into being.”

“Which makes most of the members of those organizations also members of Amatores Dei as well,” I concluded. “Yes, Father Nino.” “Do you like your job?” “Very much so, Father Nino, because I feel useful. And there are perks.” She grinned, and I decided that it was a lovely, impish grin. “Not the way you would mean, Father Nino. I mean birthdays, and Christmas time, and all other special occasions, when we’re given parties and such and have loads of fun. It didn’t promise to be like that at first. Father Leonard was so serious during our job interviews. Eventually, he changed. He became more upbeat.”

‘That must have been about the time he acquired the motorbike, I suppose,” I said. A red flag was raised, as I hoped would happen. “The motorbike,” she murmured. “I did see something about a motorbike in the office receipts.” “Of course.” “I never did see an actual motorbike,” I quickly added. “I don’t know what happened to it, Father Nino,” she said. If a receipt for it is in the parish files, then it must be parish property. I’d always assumed that it was personal property.” “Either way is a mystery to me,” I said, “but I hope to find out. “I can’t help you there, Father Nino. I have no idea where the motorbike is, or who has it, now.”

“There is something you might be able to enlighten me about,” I requested Hilda at the end of our session. “You would know about it, being at the front desk of our communication matters. Does the parish church of San Lazaro have any direct relations with the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Cubao?” “In Cubao?” she repeated. “A long way from here, I know,” I assured her. “There is nothing in our dossier that proves that, and I thought I’d ask you.” She paused. “I’m trying to recall whether anyone I know is from Cubao,” she mused. “All I can think of is Mr. Davila, the station manager. His sister has a house in Quezon City.”

I walked Hilda back to the parish office. We conversed about trivialities, such as the fruit shrubs that thrive best in San Lazaro soil. Before we reached the office building I asked how active a participant Mr. Davila is in Amatores Dei. She informed me that he seldom comes to church but provides regular funding assistance and media support, by way of publicity. “I met him once, at a welcome lunch,” I said, “and would like to meet him again. I hope, Mrs. Duena can arrange for me to visit him.” “I can also do that, Father Nino,” Hilda offered. “He is my godfather.” Suddenly I reminded myself that, in every town, almost everyone is related to one another.

Chapter 13

A message had come in for me while I was at the refectory. Because Hilda had been with me, Mister Crayon took the call and placed a note on my desk. It was from Mrs. Duena, informing me that she would send her driver and a car to pick me up at 8:15 tomorrow morning for the breakfast at her place. I did not bother to return her call. I was up early the following dawn. After celebrating a succession of two morning Masses I took a light breakfast of brewed coffee and toast. The meal at Mrs. Duena’s would be heavy. Not yet long in service as a replacement I’d come to know that she liked impressing other people by overdoing things.

The driver and car arrived 8:10 AM. The driver opened the door for me and urged me to take the back seat. We drove to Mrs. Duena’s villa on the hill, as Father Leonard described it. There was the maid who received me in the foyer, and her timed movements, and my being made to wait and sit in various places on the ground floor. As in Father Leonard’s visit Mrs. Duena’s only daughter, Delphine, came down first to meet me. She is no longer 12, she is 18. She was the young volunteer who met me at the pier when I arrived in Bacolod and drove me to San Lazaro. “Father Nino?” she smiled and took my hand. “So nice to see you again.”

Another maid came to serve us tangerine juice. I learned that Racquel is home in San Lazaro for a trimestral break. She is currently enrolled in an exclusive university in Manila. We were discussing her course, Animation Technology, when Mrs. Duena called from above. ‘Father Nino! Welcome to our home!’ She struck a pose at the landing before stepping down to us. She motioned for everyone to sit, and the maid served her tangerine juice. She was as loquacious as ever, commenting on the course Racquel had chosen and perceiving it as her shady excuse to abandon their plantation and escape from Bacolod to live in America.

After bantering with her daughter Mrs. Duena suggested that we proceed to the dining room. A maid led her to the head of the table, where she sat between Delphine and me. Mrs. Duena encouraged me, over breakfast, to share with her any ideas that I had to improve the parish. I reminded her again that I was only a replacement, and that I preferred to leave any definite plans to whomever the diocese would designate as the new parish priest of San Lazaro. “But has it never crossed your mind that you could eventually be that new parish priest, Father Nino?” Mrs. Duena asked.

“Not at all,” I responded. “I was made to understand, when they called on me at Bacong, that this assignment was not a permanent one.” “That’s how some things are at first,” she remarked. “But the people of San Lazaro might like you, Father Nino. Or you might like the people of San Lazaro. In either case, a few strings could be pulled here and there.” She winked at me shamelessly, then rushed on before I could protest, “Amatores Dei has plans, big plans, for this parish, Father Nino. The school swimming pool is next. And then the park. And the museum. I meant that you would surely be delighted to see all these good things happening here.”

She picked up a crystal bell and tinkled it, and a maid arrived. Mrs. Duena nodded at the maid, who, comprehending, withdrew. “I have something for you, Father Nino. Before I forget,” Mrs. Duena whispered to me conspiratorially. The maid returned with a box on a silver-plated tray. Mrs. Duena lifted it off the tray and placed it in front of me. I could see, from what was printed on the box, that it contained a brand-new mobile phone. Mrs. Duena opened the box, took out the mobile, and handed it to me. “Amatores Dei provides these to our new parish priests, Father Nino,” taking care to add, “whether they are permanent or temporary.

“It helps us keep in touch,” she tittered. “Here. Let us try it out.” She picked up her reticule and fished for her own mobile inside it, then punched a series of toggle buttons. The mobile in my hand lighted up and emitted a Gregorian ring tone. On the screen flashed the letters, Elizabeth Duena, Secretary, Amatores Dei. Mrs. Duena laughed, exceedingly pleased with herself. “Now we can always be in touch,” she tittered again, “with each other, and you with the other members of our community.” “I’m afraid, I’m not allowed to accept expensive gifts,” I replied.

Chapter 14

Mrs. Duena appeared rather confused, and blustered, “This is hardly my idea of an expensive gift, Father Nino,” she said, and pressed the mobile on me. “Consider it merely as an item on loan. It will, after all, help improve communications between you and the parishioners. Father Leonard had one too. I have no idea where it is now. And so did all the other priests before him.” She cleared her throat and sipped some water from her goblet. “Delphine programmed your phone, because she’s home from school. I don’t know how to use these things except to make calls and receive them.”

“And does everyone in San Lazaro get in touch by other electronic means as well?” I ventured. Mrs. Duena looked lost. Delphine responded with a smile, “My mother is an ignoramus when it comes to digital matters, Father Nino. I am, in the family, supposed to be the only expert in that field.” The maid poured us a second round of coffee, and I considered whether Delphine, now 18, had some kind of access to Father Leonard’s electronic accounts, and whether it was she who arranged to have segments of his diary mailed to me. In which case, I inferred, it is she who is my secret ally. But if so, I pondered, of all people, why she?

I asked Delphine why she hadn’t preferred to go to college abroad, like many of the children of the affluent do. “Ah, Father Nino,” Mrs. Duena answered for her, “my daughter loves Bacolod. My daughter loves, loves, loves Bacolod. Like I do. Life is so much better here. Also, she loves me too much. She can’t bear to leave me here.” She sighed. “As for my husband, he’s having a love affair with Europe,” she added, with veiled implications in her tone. “Which has its advantages, Father Nino. We can order anything we want from Europe, and quickly. Anything at all, Father Nino. Whatever your heart desires.

“We acquired several items for Father Leonard, as I recall. His rosary, his crucifix, his pyx. Some disks and coffee table books. I have no idea where those are now too.” “Maybe he gave them away,” Delphine, “like the priest before him did.” “As they very well have the right to do so,” Mrs. Duena replied. “They are, after all, their personal property.” “The priest before him gave away everything. Including his cell phone.” “Ah, but that priest was something else,” Mrs. Duena said with disgust, and encouraged us to partook of the fruit plate for dessert. “I don’t even remember his name. Either that or I don’t want to.”

“Was there anything special about that priest?’ I inquired. “Ah, Father Nino, you wouldn’t want to know,” Mrs. Duena shuddered. “He was amusing to have around, but he wasn’t very well liked by the community. His room was always filled with boys.” She said this, I noted, in a timbre that suggested that Father Leonard’s room, on the other hand, was filled with girls, but I attributed this to an impure, subconscious, mental quirk on my part. “And so the tragedy happened,” she shuddered again. “What tragedy?” I asked. A few beats passed before Mrs. Duena decided to enlighten me.

“All of it is, as they say, confidential,” she began. “Only the diocese is supposed to know. But, you might hear about it, accidentally or not, from your personnel. You know how small talk goes round in a relatively small town. Although all of it was more than a decade ago. I was barely in my sixties then. The priest, it seems, fell in love but was jilted. And then, one morning, a Sunday morning I think it was, someone came to deliver something. They called him on the intercom, it was the system in use at the time, but he wasn’t answering. The caretaker let the boy go on to the priest’s room, and the boy found him there. Apparently he overdosed on maintenance meds.”

“Was there a scandal?” I asked. “It was all hushed up,” Mrs. Duena replied. “The manner of death was kept secret, even to the priest’s family. They brought his cadaver to his hometown, in Cebu. But, Father Nino, ever since then, when everyone comes out to meet a new priest, the first question they ask themselves is, What is this man’s sexual orientation? It seems to be the key, you know, Father Nino, to really understanding someone. It isn’t supposed to matter, yes, but, in the back of everyone’s mind, it does. You find the key, you turn it in the lock, and the lock opens. Everything else then follows smoothly, and the man is completely comprehended by all.”

Chapter 15

I knew that they would take me to view the private chapel afterward. Like the house, it was just as Father Leonard described it in his electronic diary, so much so that I could not help feeling overcome by déjà vu. We stood in front of the altar in silence, contemplating its wooden carving and the five, elaborately-finished statues. “It’s beautiful, don’t you think, Father Nino?” Mrs. Duena asked me. Even her whisper echoed on the walls. “It is,” I countered, “and did Father Leonard think so, too?” “Father Leonard adored this chapel!” she gushed. “He celebrated Holy Mass here from time to time.”

“I thought, he had issues about the antiques,” I plunked a verbal pebble into her mental pond. Both women turned to me. “What do you mean?” Mrs. Duena asked. “I believe,” I explained, “that he was uncomfortable about having antiques in the church transported to private homes.” Her jaw dropped. “How do you know that?” she asked again, incredulously. “I may have read about it somewhere,” I said vaguely. I observed the horrified look on her face, then looked at Delphine and expected to see a conniving look on her face. The younger woman, however, seemed just as shocked as her mother was.

“I must assure you, Father Nino, that everything here is on the up and up. We have papers to prove it,” Mrs. Duena reasoned out, defensively. “It may be that, in the beginning, Father Leonard’s conviction was that the objets d’art remain in the parish custody. Eventually he was convinced, they are now in good hands. No one would be able to take care of them like we do. They would constantly be exposed to candle smoke, and to incense smoke, and to acidic sweat from the hands of devotees, and, yes, because of where we are, to sea salt in the air. All of these are much better off in the custody of Amatores Dei.”

She took a step toward me. “Amatores Dei is the friend of the church,” she exclaimed. “We are your brothers and sisters. We are your protectors, your warriors.” She stopped to catch her breath, then continued, calmly, “I know that you will eventually see the light regarding this matter, Father Nino. I believe in it. I have faith in it.” She laid a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “One more coffee for the road?” “You’ve been most kind,” I said, “and that was a wonderful breakfast. I need to be back in the church now.” “You are welcome, Father Nino, you are always welcome!” she declared as we walked out the chapel.

A fine drizzle descended while we were crossing the garden. None of us seemed to mind it, but Delphine expressed her concern that her mother might catch cold because of it. “Nonsense!” Mrs. Duena retorted. “It’s the cool drizzle that keeps my skin fresh and moisturized.” She turned to me coyly and added, “I’m going 77 next year, Father Nino, but nothing will ever put me down.” Which sounded, after I thought about it much later, somewhat like a threat, despite the fact that she clung to my arm and patted it repeatedly and kept saying, “Stay here, Father Nino. Stay in San Lazaro. You remind me of one of my favorite nephews. He’s in Australia now.”

She prattled on about scholarships and how the diocese and her husband in Rome could help me obtain short study grants, if not in Rome itself, then in Belgium, where she had other relatives and friends. Had I been a more naïve and more vulnerable person I would have believed her completely and drunk her every word, placing my hope chips in her patronizing pledges for a brighter future in my vocation. Even at my age I have seen it happen several times, rich sponsors boasting sponsorship to an awed young seminarian or priest and afterward forgetting what they promised. It dashed the dreams of many a co-priest I have known.

Delphine drove me back to the church. During the ride I was anticipating her confession that she is, in fact, my ally, but that she’d been unable to relay anything of relevance to me because her overwhelming mother was always present. This was only wishful thinking in my mind, for she said nothing of the sort. Our conversation centered round her father, who is a businessman and imports abalone shell handicrafts from Bacolod City to Europe. Delphine informed me that, once upon a time, her father was a seminarian, but that he left the vocation because his faith had not been strong enough. Had he not married, of course, there would be no Delphine.

Chapter 16

The following Monday a visiting priest was scheduled to arrive. I was looking forward to being relieved of my duties for a few hours. I made, unannounced to the parish office, a trip to the National Museum branch, in Bacolod City. Upon a request I had previously made by telephone the branch director received me in his office. We were served a special variety of piaya, wafer-tin and crunchy, and blueberry tea. After briefly mentioning the wet weather and how the Negrenses were coping in the rain I went straight to the point of my consultation and inquired about the legality of the transfer of ownership of antiques that originally belonged to the church.

The branch director’s response was disappointing. “We all wish, Father Portus, to be in a position that enables us to save as many of these antiques as we can. Most of them, however, end up in the hands of private excavators and collectors. Only ten percent of these find their way to public and private museums, and usually as donations from the excavators and the collectors themselves. It therefore is a matter of civic awareness, cultural passion, or charity on their part. Sadly, we do not have the financial capability to outdo their projects, outbid them, or preserve antiques on-site, and so, they are always several steps ahead of us.

“There are hundreds of old churches in the entire country. Our museum is concerned, with the small subsidy that we have, with world heritage sites, cultural heritage sites, and national treasures. I regret to say that the church of San Lazaro does not fall under any of these three categories, unless otherwise indicated by the government. The only consolation I can offer is that the antiques might be better off, indeed, in the hands of collectors who can afford to maintain them. No church, after all, has neither the extra expertise nor laboratories that can handle restoration, conservation, and treatment.”

I repaired, undaunted, to the Department of Tourism branch, inasmuch as I was already in the city. Four of their officers sat with me inside a conference room. They listened to my case, but pretty much delivered the same message that the museum director had given me. I perceived, even as the meeting was proceeding, that this office was even more difficult to appeal to. Its mandate was to promote attractive locations in Negros to prospective tourists willing to spend money to be in places where they could have fun. San Lazaro was not one of those places. It was too uninteresting, too far away from the city proper, and too inaccessible to the market.

I departed the office feeling that I’d been left with the bag. I received twice, that morning, the very same message that Father Leonard received from the municipal mayor during his first week in San Lazaro. On the way back to the parish I mulled over everything that had transpired, and deliberated what I should try to do next. I wondered what Father Leonard did immediately afterward. I did not have the liberty of investigating this among the parishioners, and it would be unethical of me, if not in poor taste, to confront Mrs. Duena with her seeming improprieties. I had no choice but to wait for Father Leonard’s third entry in the mail, if and when it did so.

I preoccupied myself, over the next few days, with having tea with the housekeeper, the cook, the security guard, and the caretaker and gardener. Apparently the housekeeper and the security guard have social media accounts but seldom use them, and do so merely to keep in touch with their children and their friends. All four personnel speak very highly of Father Leonard. He was sullen at first, later sociable, and even much later outgoing. He was everything a good parish priest was expected to be, said the housekeeper. He was quite “unlike” the parish priest before him, according to the cook, but I desisted from asking why.

The next installments of the deceased priest's electronic diary arrived a week later. I'd been caught up with reading updates to the parish calendar and having to monitor activities of parish groups. The sheaf that came in the mail was heftier and covered several days into the next three months. Father Leonard had ceased writing daily entries by then. What he managed to encode during respites from his work was nonetheless revealing, "It is 9:00 PM and the Net cafe will shut down in two hours," Father Leonard wrote. Then, "Two days after the breakfast in the villa, Mrs. Duena came to me at the parish office, looking a little distraught.

"She is of course never really distraught and only pretends to be, believing that this expression conveys deep seriousness and sincerity. She announced to me that the dortoir would finally and soon be renovated. I had actually been aware of this because a missive from the diocese arrived yesterday, informing me that this project had been approved by the bishop and that I was to make immediate arrangements to move my sleeping quarters temporarily to any convenient location. I thanked Mrs. Duena for her affirmation and her concern, and told her that I would be moving my bed to the elementary school building's director's room. She was horrified."

Chapter 17

“‘You cannot, Father Leonard!’ she shrieked. ‘You simply cannot! It just won’t do! It’s a school room, it’s not appropriate! The noisy children, and all! But, not to worry. I’ve taken care of it already, and the bishop agrees.’ I had visions of her gathering my things into my single suitcase and hustling me off to the nearest inn, but I was wrong. She transported me, right then and there, to her villa on the slope of the hill, and led me back to her private chapel. I did not notice, on my first visit there, that the white, rectangular block conceals a room behind the altar. A priest’s room.

“It is hardly ascetic, from my point of view. To begin with, the room is air-conditioned. There is an escritoire against the window and a single-size, four-poster bed with a carved canopy on the opposite wall. A credenza is at the foot of this four-poster. On it is a small, flat-screen TV. To the left of the escritoire is a work station. Beneath the computer is a color printer. On the third wall there is an antique highboy. Mrs. Duena slid open the drawers for me. I saw within fine toiletries, completes set of pants, shirts, underclothing and socks, and blankets. The compartment on the left contained jackets and sweaters. The one to the right, a Bible and liturgical objects.

“‘We’re having this replicated for you in your church, Father Leonard,’ she proudly announced. “To the best that we can, anyway. It should be finished in a month’s time. In the meantime, I hope you like it here, Father Leonard. A car and driver are completely at your disposal. You will join us, course, at all meals.’ And so did I spend the succeeding month in the post postmodern chapel on the grounds of the Duena villa. I felt that I was being treated like royalty by the local aristocracy, and I said so more than once to my hostess, who always replied, ‘But you are a man of God in our home, Father Leonard. You cannot expect less than what we are giving you.’

“The renovated dortoir was a close replication, indeed, of the priest’s room at Mrs. Duena’s. I felt some regret at having to leave the chapel and move into it, and meditated on what exactly I was be missing. Was it the brief illusion of living in the First World, of feeling like being in Rome rather than being in San Lazaro? Was it the frequent gatherings by Amatores Dei officials on the villa’s terraza, where business and current events and socials were discussed over tea? Was it the ‘little odds and ends’ that Mrs. Duena found among her husband’s belongings?

“These ‘little odds and ends’ from Mrs. Duena were quite amusing, and, I must confess, harmlessly pleasing to me. An old Rolex wristwatch that still worked and was ‘a mere bauble.’ A gold crucifix pendant on a chain that was ‘just languishing, forgotten by everyone, in a corner.’ A red carnelian ring that was ‘worth nothing at all’ that she ‘accidentally came upon’ and handed over to me. These were, to her, trivialities that were due to be disposed of and, should I feel the slightest guilt about receiving them, were to be considered merely ‘on loan.’ The clothing and accessories in the chapel were to be used whenever I was a guest at her house.

“We held a little blessing ceremony for the new dortoir, followed by an afternoon party with the parish office staff, school officials, and Amatores Dei board members. The local TV station manager was there. He was curious as to whether we are now ready to announce an opening for a parish office receptionist. He introduced me to a very personable young lady who had just graduated from college in Bacolod City. Her name is Hilda. She expressed interest in applying for the job. I replied, of course, that Mister Crayon would make arrangements to announce the opening first, and then schedule interviews for applicants.

Father Leonard’s narrative then segued to a lengthy enumeration of accomplishments by Amatores Dei and how laudable the organization was in all aspects. I found this change of tone abrupt and uncalled for, considering that it comprised two-thirds of this sheaf that had recently arrived in the mail. Why did it seem that he was now “dancing to the music”? Did he stop fighting and resign himself to the situation he was in, going the way of the apparently gay priest before him, who might have discovered that it was unacceptable to “come out of the closet” in a municipality with small-town mentalities? Did he finally see in himself a King Leonides with a broom, endlessly sweeping whitecaps back into the sea?

Chapter 18

When I arrived at the church I was perturbed by peculiar goings-on at the main doors. The carrier of a high-power crane was parked there. Two men were guiding the crane operator. Another two were riding in the upper’s carriage and were working with plaster on the base of the cement statue in the uppermost niche on the façade of the church. I looked about for whoever was in charge of this activity I had not been informed of, and spotted Mister Crayon across the plaza, squinting up at the statue and shading his eyes with a cardboard folder. “Mister Crayon,” I confronted him, “exactly what is going on?”

He let down the cardboard folder looked at me with mild surprise. “It’s the statue of Saint Lazarus, Father Nino.” “I know it is,” I retorted with impatience. “So, are they taking it away?” “No, Father Nino. On the contrary, Father Nino. They are putting it back in place.” I was stymied by this response. “The statue was restored, Father Nino. By Amatores Dei. It was hit by lightning some time ago.” “I wish, Mister Crayon, that I had been apprised of this.” “My apologies, Father Nino. It must have slipped my mind. The statue was retrieved a month before Father Leonard’s demise. I myself was not informed as to when it would be reinstalled.”

“Neither Mrs. Duena nor Delphine told me about this restoration,” I said, “and I’ve just been to their villa for breakfast.” “It may also have slipped their mind, Father Nino. Mr. Davila was the officer who spearheaded the restoration.” I halted. Here, then, was an Amatores Dei officer who may have had no interest in acquiring antiques. Could he be the person responsible for mailing me the entries in Father Leonard’s electronic diary? “Next time, Mister Crayon, kindly alert me to anything that entails any physical changes to the church, even if these had been agreed on before my arrival.” “Certainly, Father Nino.”

I made a quick self-examination of conscience to determine whether I was secretly relishing the ability to power-trip on subordinates. I therefore added, “Even if I am only a replacement, Mister Crayon. It disturbs me, you see, that the crane is parked directly in front of the Blessed Sacrament, though it is most definitely outside the church.” He gasped. “I understand, Father Nino. My apologies again, Father Nino.” He hastily retreated to instruct the two guides to move the carrier to the side of the crane. I looked up at the top of the crane, and at the façade of the church, from where I was standing.

I was on a lower vantage point, but this was almost the same view of the façade of the church that I saw through the glass window of the upper floor of the coffee shop yesterday morning, when Inday Cely and I were having our little snack. There are two niches flanking the main doors of the church. The niche on the left contains a cement statue of the Immaculate Heart, the one on the right, a cement statue of the Sacred Heart. Both have multi-tiered, vigil-candle iron stands in front of them. High above the main doors is a third niche, where the two men in the carriage were plastering the base of the statue of Saint Lazarus.

Could this be why I felt, yesterday morning, that there was something important there, something I’d been missing? Because the niche was empty then? I walked up to the two guides, whom Mister Crayon introduced as engineers. “So pleased to meet you, Father,” one of them greeted me. And the other one said, “We hope, you like the work that we’ve done, Father. It took us a week longer than originally projected. It’s all done now.” One of the men in the carriage waved a hand to the operator, and the crane slowly folded like a steel arm flexing its bicep. We stood in front of the main doors and looked up at Saint Lazarus looking out over the horizon.

The engineers explained that the statues in the niches are not “cement” but a mixture of lime, ground shells, sand, and pig’s blood. They were fashioned in what antique dealers label “primitive,” which, on the other hand, art professors refer to as “naïf.” The same mixture, the first engineer pointed out, was simulated in restoring the statue of the saint. The second engineer informed us that the crutches under its arms are made of iron and could have been responsible for the electric attraction that resulted in the lightning strike. I thanked the gentlemen, and expressed further thanks that no further damage had occurred.

Chapter 19

Hilda made an arrangement for me to visit her godfather, Mr. Davila, a few days later. It was pointless to make this appointment on my own and then go on the sly because, by now, I was a familiar face to the majority of people in the streets of San Lazaro. My visit was to be purely social. The TV station manager designated a senior production staff member to function as docent and give me a tour of the four-story office building, which had two studios on the second floor. After the tour the docent led me to Mr. Davila’s inner sanctum, which was ultramodern and showcased an array of broadcast competition trophies on glass shelves.

Mr. Davila offered me a Scotch and water, which I declined. He invited me to join him for lunch at the same restaurant that I was brought to upon my arrival in San Lazaro, and which Mrs. Duena described as “the best restaurant in town.” We drove there in his limousine. Apparently Mr. Davila’s wife owns and operates this restaurant, which also runs a profitable catering service, not only for the general public but for Amatores Dei functions, including those at the parish and at Mrs. Duena’s villa. I thanked him for the restoration of the statue of Saint Lazarus on the façade of the church. I asked whether we should not have had it formally unveiled.

He demurred, stating that it makes him feel uncomfortable to make any show of religiosity, a reason why he prefers to remain in the background rather than be seen attending Amatores Dei events. I sensed that, beneath his hat as TV station manager, there is, paradoxically, a shy and laid-back man hiding behind a mask of social finesse. I candidly disclosed to him that, upon seeing the crane in front of the church, I mistakenly thought that the statue was being taken, not returned. He smiled and assured me that he had no interest in acquiring ecclesiastical antiques and that I was welcome to visit his house at any time and see that for myself.

Here then, or so it seemed, was one person who came across as proof that not Amatores Dei officers are alike. I informed him that I intended to visit Quezon City on official parish business sometime soon. As I expected, he offered hospitality at his sister’s house, located in New Manila, where he visits at least once a month. It appears that his eldest, 28-year-old son, Lucky, went to college in Quezon City and taught in secondary school for a few years before pursuing a master’s degree. “I keep forgetting and still call him Lucky,” Mr. Davila slowly shook his head, “but, since he entered college, he prefers to be called by his real name, Ralfe.”

“Mrs. Duena has a house in Makati,” Mr. Davila said. “That is where Delphine stays during the school year. “It is, however, a bit far from Quezon City.” I did not tell him that it was also my intention to travel incognito, and that I would not inform anyone of my itinerary. After we’d consumed most of our club sandwiches I learned that Mr. Davila is the president of Amatores Dei, something that I remembered reading in a parish office document but that had escaped me. “Mrs. Duena was our previous president,” Mr. Davila explained, “but I let her do her thing. She is a more dynamic person.”

I wondered to myself whether which officers held which positions really mattered for Amatores Dei. There was, I reflected, a hundred-percent breeding, as perhaps there was in all of San Lazaro. The officers were simply rotated amongst themselves, because their elections were also exclusively held amongst themselves. After signing the bill and enclosing his credit card within the leather bill folder, Mr. Davila leaned forward and asked me whether I were interested in jumpstarting a pastoral-evangelical show to be broadcast on the local TV channel. He’d broached the idea to Father Leonard, who initially did not express any interest.

“We could try out a 30-minute program and eventually expand it to an hour,” Mr. Davila went on with his spiel, and I saw the shy and laid-back man transforming once again to the slick station manager. “I’m talking prime time, Father Nino. We could pre-tape or go live at 9:00 PM, after everyone in San Lazaro has gone home and has nothing more to do than watch TV. It wouldn’t entail a lot of preparation on your part, and would increase the flock of the faithful in the municipality. We could feature interviews and dialogue sessions with parishioners, with the Legion, with the youth groups, and, of course, with Amatores Dei.”

Chapter 20

I planned to take a morning flight to Manila, spend the afternoon and the following day in Quezon City, and then take the evening flight back to Bacolod City, the following week. I would be gone two days and a night. I could travel on personal funds if I wanted to, but, being entrusted in the interim to head the parish due to the circumstance of a death, I deemed it appropriate to obtain the blessing of the diocese. After my initial visit there regarding the transfer of ownership of antique objects I was wary of taking anyone in confidence. One or more than one person there, for all I knew, could be in connivance with collectors.

Yet, I was bound by my vow of obedience to seek approval for my little mission in Cubao, which was to locate, as best I could, whoever has been sending me hard-copy installments of Father Leonard’s electronic diary. The avenue I chose was the Sacrament of Confession, befittingly a sacrament of the dead. The bishop himself was confessor to all parish priests and therefore mine. I collected all the documents in my possession in a leather satchel, which I took with me to the diocese to back up my story. As it turned out, the bishop was sympathetic and very much willing to support my projected investigation.

I received full authority to travel undercover, unbeknownst to the parish. The diocese made arrangements for my return ticket and my lodging at the guest quarters in the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, in Cubao. A priest from the diocese would celebrate Mass in San Lazaro during my brief absence. All I told Mister Crayon was that I was needed for consultation at a sister diocese. No further questions were asked, for that was how life plodded on in San Lazaro. With acceptance and with lethargy, if not with indifferent resignation. Neither Mr. Davila nor Hilda were privy to my trip.

I did look up and find Mr. Davila’s sister’s New Manila address somewhere amongst the parish’s correspondence, and I copied it. I felt that a surprise visit rather than an anticipated one would yield more substantial results. There was of course the matter of Mrs. Duena, who was a key figure in this brouhaha and who herself had a house in Metro Manila. Thankfully I had no time to incorporate Makati in my schedule. Besides, such a visit would consequently elicit curious prying from Mrs. Duena herself. She would chastise me for not availing of her house’s hospitality. And, my trip would raise more questions than reap answers for everyone.

The plane from the Bacolod City Airport departed on schedule, and I had a safe flight to Manila. Metro Manila was not entirely unfamiliar to me because I have traveled there before. I knew which buses to take to the basilica of my destination. After washing up in my room in the guest quarters I attended the mid-morning Mass. I then presented my credentials, so to speak, at the parish office. A senior clerk received me there, and ably assisted me in my effort to locate any indications, in their files, of relations between the basilica and the deceased Father Leonard. Or the basilica and an organization in San Lazaro called Amatores Dei.

We drew a blank each time. We found nothing in connection with the surname Duena. We searched for anything in connection with the surname Davila, using the TV station manager’s sister’s address as reference. Oddly, a name surfaced on the computer. Ralfe Davila. This is the name, if I am not mistaken, of the station manager’s son, whom the station manager used to call by his boyhood nickname Lucky. Ralfe Davila’s name came up in connection with a youth summer camp that the basilica organized four years ago. That was all that we could ever find, despite that fact that Ralfe lives in New Manila and is, in effect, of the adjacent parish.

“Do you remember this boy?” I asked the senior clerk. “Only vaguely, Father,” he replied. “He was a drifter. I conversed with him only once, after the summer camp ended. Yes, I remember him mentioning that he is from Bacolod. He was interested, at the time, in pursuing a master’s degree.” “He was in college here, I understand.” “Yes, Father, at the state university. His B.S. was in Behavioral Sciences. Which is why, I also remember now, he qualified as summer camp leader.” “Was he interested in pursuing his master’s degree in Behavioral Sciences as well?” “No, Father. He was considering Religious Studies. I believe, he wanted to be a priest.”

Chapter 21

The Davila house in New Manila, like most houses in that area, is enclosed by ivied, adobe walls. The neighborhood would otherwise qualify as a quaint, 1950s version of Beverly Hills. In truth the house is Mr. Davila’s. That is what his spinster sister told me. Mr. Davila purchased the house, completely furnished, from a childless couple who were migrating to Malaysia, just as his son Lucky was graduating from high school to college, from Bacolod to Manila, from Lucky to Ralfe. Cynthia Davila, naturally, was not expecting me, but she did receive word that a replacement had been assigned in Father Leonard’s stead.

“Father Leonard was such a nice, reliable priest,” she said, as we sat in their Muslim-art morning room, waiting for a maid to serve us coffee. “I am sure, we all miss him. I could not attend the funeral, sadly, forgive me, Father Nino. Flying terrifies me. As for Ralfe, he’d gone mountaineering with a group of friends. Something they’d scheduled long before, and couldn’t change. Long before, I mean, Father Leonard, you know, passed on.” She grew more flustered when the maid arrived and served tea. “I should have asked, have you had your lunch, Father Nino? Do forgive me, Father Nino, but you have proper accommodations here?”

I assured her that the arrangements for my brief travel in Manila were in order. That was when we heard a car glide in through the gate, flashing fragments of bounced light from a steel-gray sky through the glass windows. “That would be my nephew, now” Miss Davila flashed me a nervous smile. “He drives for his fiancée three times a week. They’re both behavioral psychologists, but only she has a job.” She sighed. “My nephew is quite the hedonist, I believe. He seems to do only things that give him pleasure. It is, I suppose, why Gianina keeps putting off any discussion about their getting married.”

She prattled on about how Ralfe was her favorite nephew, and how she took care of then baby Lucky and practically raised him because his parents were too engrossed in their work schedules. We waited a few moments, and then Ralfe came in through the back door. He found us in the morning room, and Miss Davila introduced us. “You’re the replacement priest,” Ralfe said. “Yes, I am,” I said. I noted that he is one example of human offspring that resulted from a perfect combination of his parents’ facial features. He had his father’s Spanish-mestizo nose, lips, and long, curly hair the color of Omani dates, and his mother’s Chinese eyes and complexion.

“Did you have lunch somewhere?” his aunt asked, suggesting to me that he often ate out. When he replied that he did not, she called the maid to set lunch for him in the dining room. In the meantime he plopped himself on an ottoman and asked why I came here all the way from Bacolod. “I needed to check out something at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, in Cubao,” I replied, and it was not a lie. His eyes sparkled, and he told us about how his girlfriend, Gianina, and he volunteered to be resource persons at a summer camp sponsored by that parish.

“That was some years back, Father Nino,” he elucidated. “It was for out-of-school youths. It was a wonderful, inspiring experience for us.” The maid announced that lunch was ready, and Ralfe invited us to sit with him while he lunched at table. Miss Davila and I partook of papaya slices while we conversed. I asked Ralfe when he’d last been to San Lazaro. He replied that he’d never gone back since he enrolled in college. “I haven’t gone back to San Lazaro for years, Father Nino, and I’ve never missed it. I love Manila. I love this house. I love Aunt Cynthia. I love Gianina. Everything and everyone I love are here.”

I observed, aloud, that he was the opposite of Mrs. Duena’s daughter, Delphine, who flew back to San Lazaro every opportunity there was. “Delphine,” he blurted out. “You’ve met Delphine? Of course, you have. And her mother too.” He laughed. “Did you know, Father Nino, that Delphine’s parents were hoping that she and I would be a match?” He turned to his aunt for corroboration, but she remained silent. “I’m years older, but her mother insisted that no one but I could take her to her high school senior prom.” Then he quickly changed the topic. “You must meet Gianina, Father Nino. You’re not flying back until tomorrow, are you?”

Chapter 22

Ralfe very kindly offered to drive me back to the basilica. He parked his car near the bishop’s residence and walked me to the guests’ quarters. He looked round, remarking that he’d never been in the quarters before and had always been curious as to what the rooms looked like. I let him in to see mine, which was hardly of five-star quality. He commented that the rooms are befittingly austere. And then he imparted to me that, once upon a time, he dreamed that he would be a priest someday. “Like you, Father Nino,” he said. “A parish priest in a faraway town, not necessarily in the Visayas.”

I asked him whatever happened to that dream. A long silence followed. I thought it best not to break it until he was ready to speak again. He said, “I haven’t gone to Confession in a long, long time. Do you mind, Father Nino?” “Not at all,” he replied. He sat on the single wooden chair inside the room, I, on the edge of the narrow bed. “I fell deeply in love,” he said, “and got myself into a commitment.” I would remember that sentence and study its meanings carefully in the future. “I have to tell you this, Father Nino, I have to tell you everything. I haven’t told anyone this before. But, in this house, when you were talking with Aunt, I felt that I could trust you.

“First, I want you to know that I hate my father. I hate him very much. He is everything I don’t ever want to be. You’ve surely met him, I’ve no idea how many times by now. You may have been deceived by his meek disposition. It’s a front. They’re all the same. The Amatores folks, I mean. They’re power-hungry, they’re domineering, they’re greedy, they’re everything I’ve tried to avoid being, ever since I was a child. They’re meddlesome. They’ll do anything to get what they want. In business, in government, in the church, in their families. After high school I had to get away. I promised myself, I’d go anywhere on my own if my parents wouldn’t let me.

“My father bought the house in New Manila so I’d have a place to stay while schooling. My mother suggested it, and Aunt insisted. They both said it would be wise to have a place my brothers and sisters could also stay in, should they later want to study here. Instead of staying in hotels, like we used to do, I mean. Now they like the house. My parents have a room there, and so does Aunt, and so do I. It’s a big house, you saw that. There are guest rooms that my brothers and sisters sleep in when they come. Way back in high school I already told my father that I was considering the priesthood. Naturally, he objected. I’m the eldest in the family.

“My parents have big plans. They want me to carry on what they’d put their money in. They bought the house and sent me to university here on the condition that I take up something useful to them, like Business Ad, which is like Pre-Law, or Econ. I tried Econ a year, then shifted to Behav without telling anyone. That’s where I met Gianina.” He reiterated his desire that I meet her. He offered dinner at an Italian restaurant in Cubao. “I want to know what you think of her, Father Nino.” From a pastoral perspective it was improper to decline, and so I accepted his invitation. He said that he would pass by for me after picking up his fiancée from work.

“There is something else, Father Nino. I’m not sure if I’m still in love, and I’m not sure if I want to eventually get married. I’ve been thinking about it these past few months. I’ve been wondering whether everything I’ve been doing so far is on some kind of rebound, or is some form of revenge against my father. Gianina, for instance, is a woman my father would never approve of. She’s not a traditionalist. We’ve, no one else knows this, not even Aunt, but, after we graduated, she, we both learned that she was with child. It was unplanned. It was unwanted.” “Did you—” “—It’s gone, Father Nino. I’m sorry. And so I wanted to confess this.

“Is this something that we, that I can be absolved of, Father?” “Do you repent?” “Yes, Father, very much so. We haven’t touched, we haven’t done anything since then. We’re friends, but we’re careful now. I don’t want it to happen again.” “Did she repent?” “I would not speak for her, but, as far as I know, yes.” A slight pause. “Is there proper penance for this, Father?” “You must abstain, as you should have been doing. You are not yet man and wife.” “And we may never be,” he said, “but I don’t want this to be unfair to anyone, especially Gianina.” I felt that he had given me an earful. Yet, I also felt that he was still holding something back.

Chapter 23

“Ralfe, I must also take you into confidence,” I said, before ending our session. “I’ve been receiving entries from Father Leonard’s electronic journal in the mail. Would you have any inkling as to who has been sending them to me?” He looked bewildered and shook his head. I felt deflated because I was hoping that he was my secret ally. “Or anyone—anyone at all who you think had access to Father Leonard’s passwords?” He named the usual suspects. Mister Crayon. Hilda. Mrs. Duena, even, because she was most often on the church premises. Other than that, he had no clue. He did not even mention his father or his mother as possibilities.

“Is it urgent, Father Nino?” he asked, a translation from, “What was in the electronic journal?” “Yes and no,” I replied, with deliberate ambivalence, a translation from, “None of your business for now, if you aren’t involved in it after all.” I added, “It was personal.” “Was there anything about the church and Amatores Dei?” he prodded. “What makes you say that?” “I did mention earlier about their user mentality.” He stopped and thought awhile. “Put it this way,” I conceded. “I am engaged in its contents as the temporary replacement for the parish priest of San Lazaro.” “I wish, I could be of help,” he said. “Is there anything I can do for you?” “Not at the moment,” I replied. And I left it at that.

Our dinner at Bellini’s was pleasant. The restaurant was only half-full, the lighting and the music were sufficiently subdued, and the food was wonderful. Gianina, moreover, was great company. She is an intelligent woman who is sure of what she wants and what she is doing. I could actually see her married to Ralfe, raising with him their equally intelligent children. I could not see her, however, living in San Lazaro and being adulated by its conservative community. Our conversation was restricted to the behavioral sciences, Gianina’s work as a personnel officer in a television production company, and Ralfe’s and Gianina’s plans for the future.

While they referred to each other as their fiancée, they were not in a hurry to tie the knot and settle down. They seemed content in their current relationship, which was one between equals.
Early on in their friendship Ralfe had told Gianina everything about his family dynamics. Gianina, who is from northern Luzon, has no interest in visiting Bacolod or getting to know anyone there, based on the stories Ralfe had told her. That was one indication, it seemed to me, that a marriage with the right blessings could not be possible until things drastically changed. Only time would tell.

Time. It is a crucial element in the unfurling of this mystery. Yet, whenever I pause to analyze things, it shifts like sand, and, just as I think that things are within reach and will fall in place, they just as quickly elude me. Father Leonard ran out of time before he could do anything. Time itself transformed him. Even my current responsibility as his replacement is a temporal arrangement, and I may run out of time itself before I can accomplish what I must. “Dessert, Father Nino?” Ralfe suggested. “The gelato is good.” Even this young man, I thought to myself, has been transformed by time, from Little Boy Lucky to Young Adult Ralfe.

The next morning, after my religious duties, I took a tricycle to the courier service’s address indicated on the back of the envelopes that Father Leonard’s diary printouts came in. I introduced myself to the attendant and presented my usual, three items of identification. “My name is Father Nino Portus,” I said. “Over the past two weeks I’ve been receiving these envelopes, mailed from here, addressed to the parish priest of San Lazaro, in Bacolod. I am that parish priest. There is no sender’s name on any of these envelopes. I wish to know who has been sending them to me.”

The attendant suspected nothing amiss and cheerfully checked the numbers of the delivery slips against entries in a log book. “Only one name was given each time, Father, for all three times. The name is Lorena Guyod.” Someone likes playing games, I thought. Lorena Guyod is a scrambled form of the name Leonard Ugoy. “Did she present identification?” “I believe so, Father. It was a school ID.” It is easy, however, for someone to fabricate an ID at any time. I asked for a description of Lorena Guyod. “A decent young woman, Father.” The attendant described her. The closest match I could think of was Gianina.

Chapter 24

I thought that no more entries to Father Leonard’s diary would arrive in the mail then after. Word surely would have gone round that I’d been inquiring at the courier service. Moreover, if Gianina was the person responsible for sending me the entries, and if Ralfe was part of it, Ralfe would keep her up to speed by informing her that I’d taken him in confidence. I consoled myself with the assurance that I had no other choice but take the straightforward measures that I’d taken. If nothing else materialized, I was on my own to take further action based on information I already had. Serendipitously, I was wrong.

Another sheaf was waiting in my office inbox the night I came back to San Lazaro. Meaning, that same sheaf was dispatched to me at the parish office even while I was at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, in Cubao. While I was but enplaned to Manila? While I was searching the basilica office files with the senior clerk? While I was conversing with Cynthia Davila in her morning room? While Ralfe was having lunch in the dining room, or telling me about his love life in the guests’ quarters? I had shown the courier service attendant merely the envelopes already in my possession. We’d neglected to check if anything else had been sent to me after.

This, and succeeding entries I would receive thereafter, were no longer directly printed off the previous parish priest’s e-mail account. They were copied and pasted onto a blank document sheet. They were all unidentified, and could very well have been edited or authored by a person other than Father Leonard, except that I could tell that they were written in his distinct style. Father Leonard wrote: “I am not at peace in the new dortoir. I wake up in the middle of the night, thinking I am still inside the private chapel of Mrs. Duena. I expect to hear her voice beyond the walls at any time, calling my name.

“She came to me thus several times during my stay in her private chapel, insisting on being comforted for some scruple she’d committed, wanting to know whether it was a mortal or a venial sin, incorrigibly seeking my absolution. I cannot help reliving the days and nights, especially the nights, I spent in the villa. And that night of all, God forgive me, when the girl Delphine came into my room. She said that she had something to confess. She was in a new set of tennis clothing. Now that I think of it, I recall that her arms were bare and her skirt very short, but that she may have been dressed for a different kind of game.

“She began by telling me about her life in school, her relationships with her teachers and her peers, and insecurities experienced by a girl turned thirteen. I could not blame her for any resentment that she harbored against her overwhelming mother and her absent father. She then asked me about the changes in her body, particularly her menstruation, which seemed to have come to her late because her schoolmates had it a year or two earlier. I admonished her to bring these matters to her mother or to any older female whom she trusted. I said that I was not in a position to guide her along those lines, being not only single but a cleric as well.

“And then tears started welling in her eyes. I urged her not to be offended. I had no other wish but for her complete well-being. She wept silently for a while, then asked, haltingly, if I would not grant a favor for her. I asked her what it was. She said that she missed her father very much, that the last time she saw him was on a Mediterranean trip with her mother, and that she longed to be hugged by him again. I said, that would be all right insofar as I’d be giving her a fatherly hug. She thanked me, and rushed into my arms, and hugged me, and hugged me even tighter when I hugged her back.

“I waited for her tears to subside, not wanting to release her prematurely lest she misconstrue it as rejection. Young people are oversensitive that way, injured by the smallest, wrong move from people they choose to place their trust in. She leaned back on her chair and thanked me. Then she confessed something else, that she had an intense crush on me from the very first time she saw me. I calmly replied, it is normal for girls to have crushes on older men, usually relatives or teachers. She rose and bade me good night as though deciding she’d told me enough. Closing the door behind her, she said she’d made up her mind and would love and marry only an older man.”

Chapter 25

“I was unable to rest that night. My mind was queasy, as though I’d neglected to take care of some trivial, unfinished business I was unwilling to forget. I tossed. My body did not succeed in locating a position that would bring it to a full stop. I could not lull myself to my usual, nocturnal, hypnogogic state, that level of tranquility in which I am utterly devoid of all awareness, even of my own identity. My sleep was fitful. I dreamt disturbing scenes from my past, in my half-awake state, asking myself obsessively whether they were actual dreams or products of my conscious mind.

“In those dreams, mere snippets, I recalled instances when family, loved ones, and friends were disappointed with me as a youth. I recalled that my father was against my entering the priesthood, that my mother was heartbroken after I turned my back on my beloved fiancée of fourteen-some years, that my fiancée married my greatest rival for her hand and then spiraled into a state of depression and moral dishabille. That the closest friends I’d ever had began changing toward me because I’d become a priest and could no longer do and say and laugh about the things we used to do and say and laugh about.

“Most of the dream snippets were set in my hometown. I cannot remember the details, not even whether those details were real or imagined. I rose the following morning with a vague sense of being tired and sad. After my morning ablutions and prayers I emerged from my room into the villa compound, which was silent and empty. One of the maids informed me that Mrs. Duena and Delphine took a drive to Bacolod City for a morning of shopping and would not be back until later that day. The maid led me to breakfast alone in the dining room. The driver afterward took me in a smaller car to the parish church.

“That same night, when I arrived at the villa, Mrs. Duena dropped her atom bomb. She met me at the foyer with a sullen look on her face. ‘Father Leonard, I need to have a talk with you,’ she said in a hurt, official tone I’d never heard her use before, and she brought me upstairs to her second-storey parlor. She locked the doors behind us as soon as we entered, and silently motioned me to a pair of conversation chairs upholstered in red. I took one chair. She waited for me to do so before gripping the lion-clawed arms of the other and letting herself slowly onto the cushions. ‘Are you all right?’ I asked, for she made a show of keeping her equilibrium.

“Having settled into the chair directly in front of me, she closed her eyes and held up a hand as though to silence me, the other hand on her neck. She remained this way in silence for some time, her chest heaving steadily, as though she were willing herself to control her blood pressure. She then opened her eyes and looked directly at me. Her gaze was cold and unfriendly. ‘Father Leonard,’ she candidly stated, ‘I understand, from what my daughter Delphine told me, that you tried to molest her last night?’ I was so taken aback by this charge so bluntly leveled against me that I was unable to respond to her accusation.

“My dear, woman,” I managed to say, “in the name of God, you are terribly mistaken.” I proceeded to narrate to her what actually transpired in the room behind her private chapel last night, in as objective a manner as possible. Regardless of what I said, she maintained her stand. ‘Father Leonard, the girl is thirteen and vulnerable, as all young people are. Last night she came to my bedroom weeping, weeping, weeping. She said, she asked to hug you as a daughter to a father, but you stroked her, you aroused her. She moved away from you immediately, and politely left. But when she came into my room, she was trembling, she was terrified.”

“The rest gushed forth from her like water from a dam. ‘I took her like a baby into my arms, I gave her a bath, I let her sleep beside me. I took her to the city so that we could go shopping all day, so that she could forget. But I, I, Father Leonard, I cannot forget. How could you do this to me? I, who have been so kind to you, who cared for you, who gave you hospitality, who made sure that you were always comfortable and fed? And to my own daughter ? Thirteen, Father Leonard, not yet of legal age. And you? A priest? Our parish priest? I don’t know what action to take, but, I feel, I should. It is my duty as a Catholic, as a civic-minded citizen, as a parishioner.”

Chapter 26

“Under Mrs. Duena’s fiery tirade, waves of mixed emotions crested within me, seeking for release. I was outraged. I was ashamed. I was incredulous. I was helpless. I was defeated. Mother and daughter were close to each other. More secrets were exchanged between them than would ever be exchanged between them and their confessor. I was amazed by my reaction. I wept. Involuntary tears welled up in my eyes. I covered my face with my hands and waited for them to stop streaming. Afterward, I said, calmly, ‘Very well. I will submit my resignation from this assignment and ask the diocese to have me replaced.’

“‘Your daughter,’ I appended, ‘seems to have been traumatized due to a perceived indiscretion on my part, that I should have foreseen. That is why I might as well leave.’ I was expecting her to accept this concession as an act of justice, as vindication on her part, as something that she and her daughter could triumph over. Instead, she exclaimed, horrified, ‘Oh no, no, no, Father Leonard! We need you here! We want you here!’ She quickly rose, strode toward me, sank on her knees beside me, took my hands in hers, and cooed, “You’re a lonely man, Father Leonard. A lonely, lonely man. I know that. I understand that. I want to help you. Let me. Please.’

“Two weeks later I celebrated Mass in the private chapel on the occasion of Mrs. Duena’s 70th birthday. Since all of her relatives and associates, and a few guests, were in attendance, it was necessary to keep the chapel doors opened wide and add rows of chairs on the lawn round it. Apparently, on special occasions like these she has the multi-colored vestments of the altar statues changed to a suite of gold, hand-embroidered all over with real gold thread from Spain. She also has brilliants, rubies, and emeralds added to their crowns and haloes. All these are afterward carefully replaced in their respective boxes and then deposited in a vault.

A flamboyant, six-table buffet with two bars was set up in the main garden behind the villa, and lunch followed. Live musicians played Vivaldi in a gloriette. Mrs. Duena retreated to her private rooms to change her dress, briefly appeared on the balcony to throw largesse, and re-emerged to join us in the garden for daytime cocktails and lunch. She’d imbibed more pink champagne than she should have had on an empty stomach, and was already quite tipsy before she progressed to scotch and water. This was, unfortunately, the wrong time for one of the young guests who flew in with her friends from Makati, and made the mistake of introducing her tag-alongs.

“‘Ninang,’ the young guest beamed, ‘these are my friends from Urdaneta Village. They’re conducting yoga sessions in Bacolod City this weekend. We’d like you and Delphine to join us. It’s good for the health.’ ‘Yoga?’ Mrs. Duena queried, her eyes glazed, looking lost. The young guest began explaining what yoga is. Her companions piped in on the origins of yoga and the physical, mental, and spiritual benefits it offer. Mrs. Duena slowly scrunched her eyebrows, a sure sign of impending danger to anyone who knows her. ‘Please,’ she asserted, ‘I’m a Catholic. I don’t do those things.’

“The informal panel of guests, challenged to the defense, explained that the sessions had nothing to do with the practice of any religion, and was a mere program of exercise. Their voices rose as Mrs. Duena’s voice also rose, misquoting passages from Scripture as even the most stalwart lay practitioners do. I was embarrassed. I moved away to hide behind other guests lest she remember my existence and use me as a shield, as I had conveniently been avoiding Delphine. Mrs. Duena was, to my advantage, too inebriated to even remember my name. She kept yelling, at the top of her voice, ‘I am a Catholic, I do not practice yoga! I am a Catholic, I do not practice yoga!’

“She then proceeded to recite the Apostles’ Creed, still at the top of her voice. Never have I ever heard the creed recited with such venom and such hatred. None of this seemed to make the other guests feel awkward, not even Delphine, who could have stepped forward to try to restrain her mother. Either they are accustomed to this emotional theatricality on Mrs. Duena’s part or are fundamentalists like she is, the types who insist that they know more about Holy Scripture, canon law, and liturgy than their parish priest does. Here was a prime example, I told myself, of how Amatores Dei members band together and ostracize their perceived enemies.”

Chapter 27

“The days passed swiftly. Amatores Dei had more electric fans installed on the pillars of the church and provided an additional, monthly stipend to cover the increase in electricity bills. I was invited to grace the organization’s many occasions with my presence, including a house blessing for a new bungalow owned by the Davilas. I officiated at an evening wedding in Mrs. Duena’s private chapel. It was, I must say, one of the most visually pleasant weddings I’d ever seen. I noted that Mrs. Duena had the altar table of her chapel replaced with veined, earth-toned marble. It had a relic chamber with a lock on its surface. I dared not ask what it contained.

“On the occasion of my own birthday Mrs. Duena drove me to lunch at a renowned seafood restaurant in Bacolod City. Delphine was back to university in Manila and it was the driver’s day off, and so we drove in her little car. She let me have the keys. I was expecting other members of Amatores Dei to join up with us in the restaurant, and so I was surprised that she had reserved a private function room for only the two us. ‘You know how I detest having so many strangers around me, Father Leonard,’ she rationalized. We had clam chowder, shrimp salad, braised eel, and a huge lobster dish.

“We conversed only about shallow matters. The weather, the restaurant décor, the food, local gossip. I noted that she carefully avoided any topic that would potentially start her off on any of her diatribes. This otherwise high-strung woman I have known, when deliberately trying to be sober, transforms into a dull, dry, conversationalist. I pondered this, for these sober fugues had become frequent of late, and I began to think that something might be wrong. Only much later would I put two and two together. This is how she is when she in love. This is how she is when she is romantic. Muy secca.

“Suddenly I understood why her husband might have crossed the seas to stay in Rome and keep away from her under the guise of business and of financing their luxuries, and how other relationships she might have attempted had been destined to fail. A pushy woman, putting on a meek, sweet act, comes across as a cold fish. I had no inkling of this during that lunch. The more I tried to entertain her with stories of my early experiences as a priest, the more she sank into a studied stupor, telepathically urging me to coax her, to woo her, to tease her out of her hard shell. It was the first time I ever learned that, even at 70, a woman can feel that she is merely 30.

“She took the wheel after lunch and drove us to the customs building of the pier, where she said that she had something to attend to inasmuch as we were already in the city. I loitered behind while she called to attention a male employee who jumped up from behind his desk and ran up to her. Two laborers led us through a maze of container vans into the back of the building, where a crate on a wooden pallet had been set aside. At her signal the men unscrewed the panels from the crate and carefully unwrapped the huge, bulky item that was inside. It gleamed in the sunlight. It was a sleek, handsome, motorbike.

“Mrs. Duena turned to me as the employee and the laborers went round the motorbike, expressing how much they admired it. ‘Do you like it?’ she smirked. ‘It’s a fine motorbike,’ I responded. ‘It’s from Italy,’ she grunted. She signed some papers and instructed the employee to have it delivered to her villa in San Lazaro. I was under the impression that her husband had sent the motorbike for Delphine. We walked back to the car. She handed me the keys again, conveying that I was to drive on our way back. ‘It’s for you,’ she said. ‘I hope, you use it well. Happy birthday, Father Leonard.’

“‘Mrs. Duena,’ I countered, ‘you have been most kind, but I really cannot accept a gift like that.’ ‘Oh, but you can, Father Leonard,’ she said. ‘You need something to drive in, instead of having to be driven around or driving other people’s cars all the time. What do the parishioners expect, anyway, a Mercedes? It’s just a motorbike, after all.’ ‘It is not just a motorbike. It is an extravagantly-priced motorbike.’ ‘It is just a motorbike, because I say so,’ she said with finality. ‘Declare it as a parish purchase at nominal cost. Make it appear that the balance was paid as a donation from me, under the name of Amatores Dei.’”

Chapter 28

“The motorbike was delivered that afternoon. I rode it from the villa to the parish. I managed to get over my sense of guilt by telling myself, over and over again, that it is not my personal property but the parish’s, and that I, and other parish priests after me, would be using it for house visits, official business, and short trips to the city. When I arrived at the office Cely, our accounting clerk, informed me that the diocese had sent approval for the motorbike’s purchase for the parish priest, that the parish would pay for only a fraction of its price, and that Amatores Dei would pay the balance in donation.

“‘I was instructed, Father Leonard, not to tell you until you’d gotten it,’ Cely sheepishly grinned. ‘They meant it as a surprise for your birthday.’ I did not bother to ask whom she was referring to with the pronoun ‘they.’ That, however, was not the only surprise for me that evening. After the 6:00 PM Mass the office personnel took me to the meeting hall, where a light dinner spread had been set on the tables. Some parishioners and the heads of our youth groups were there. Conspicuously, no Amatores Dei member was present. But, I could sense that the hand of someone, someone I knew, was behind all this.

“I am no longer surprised by Mrs. Duena’s whims after the lunch, the motorbike, and the dinner spread. I am slowly becoming inured to her flights of fancy, dismissing them as harmless, though I am constantly unsure whether this is a good thing or not. Well into the week she fluttered into my dortoir on a sweltering afternoon and breathlessly suggested that I escort her on a trip. I reminded her that I had parish duties, but she insisted that our trip would be evangelical in nature. According to her, a small community of Filipinos comprised of unwanted children and wayward youths urgently need regular, pastoral counseling. This, of course, I could not refuse.

“She looked immensely pleased when I finally consented, and assured me that her secretary would coordinate all the necessary paperwork with Mister Crayon. She fluttered out before I could ask her what she meant by paperwork and what that would entail. As it turned out she had invisible minions who were having my passport renewed. We were to fly in and out of Hong Kong one day in the middle of the following month. Visas would not need to be obtained, but our passports would be required as proper identification. She had carefully packed a small suitcase for me filled with everything I would need from the priest’s room behind her private chapel.

“We took the earliest morning flight from Bacolod to Cebu, and then from Cebu to Hong Kong. During the longer flight I asked her if she traveled to Hong Kong often. She vaguely replied that it was not only easier to fly there than to Zamboanga or Batanes, but that it was also more pleasant. We arrived Hong Kong late that morning. She’d hired a car and driver to pick us up at the airport and take us on a short tour, for my sake. During our Cantonese lunch at an expensive restaurant she played the somber-faced, quiet, maiden once again. That was when I figured, she was infatuated with me.

“Her claim that our trip was evangelical in nature was not untrue. Directly after lunch we were driven to a back-street office building, where we took a narrow lift and walked through long corridors into an empty, old room that had nothing but stacks of white, plastic chairs. Twenty young people of varying ages were gathered in the room, all of whom introduced themselves to me as Filipinos. A few of them said that they were overseas workers hired as domestic servants. Others were their visiting relatives. One of them, I especially remember, was a serious-looking Chinese girl. She was 18 going on 19. Her name is Malina Chan.

“Mrs. Duena explained that most in the group are expatriates of San Lazaro, some of whom are living permanently in Hong Kong and some of whom intend to go back to their hometown sometime soon. I asked them to sit with me in a circle, and I delivered a short homily with reflections that I’d prepared the night before. Afterward Mrs. Duena suggested that I make myself available for individual counseling. I was happy to do so. I said, that would be very feasible, and that I could move to a corner of the room for us to be able to do that. Everyone seemed agreeable to the arrangement.”

Chapter 29

“Mrs. Duena said, she would leave me with my present company and come back to pick me up in two hours. Her tone implied that she would be doing some shopping. And so I remained in that clean, white room, and brought my chair to a corner, and advised everyone to take turns for Confession or for clerical advice.” Father Leonard’s latest narrative ended there, quite, it seemed to me, abruptly. And then a strange passage followed, evidently written and encoded at a later time. “I am no longer myself. I have decided to cut myself off from the few, remaining relatives and friends that I have.

“I wish to be alone. The rest of my life can be heaven or hell, a blessing or a punishment. In either case, no other person has the right to judge it but myself.” I carefully re-inserted the pages in the waterproof sheaf. The rain began falling heavily outside. I watched it through the office window nearest me, cascading in a silver sheet. I half-expected images from Father Leonard’s life to be projected on it, as on an old-fashioned movie screen. What? I asked myself. No closure to the Hong Kong episode? Did Mrs. Duena come back on time from her shopping escapade? Did they fly back to Manila, as scheduled, the same day? And after that, what?

Why five sentences that suddenly take the reader to an-other, phenomenological, realm of thought? What transpired between those and the meeting with young Filipinos in Hong Kong? Clearly the answer may lie in succeeding installments of Father Leonard’s electronic diary, which my mystery sender has yet to send me. If, that is, there will be succeeding installments. What happens if there are none? Do I flounder by myself, and sense on my own how I must go with and against the mainstream? Who is my mystery sender, and where is she at this time? Or he, if the female sender who goes to the courier office is but someone else’s messenger?

I rose and walked to the door on impulse, feeling that the rain was not being helpful. Hilda came up to me and urged me to borrow her umbrella if I was thinking of stepping outside. I thanked her and took the umbrella, and said that I would not be gone from the office long. My feet took me, in the pouring rain, to the plaza. I looked up the façade of the church. There was nothing there but the stone statues in their niches, all of them dominated by the restored statue of Saint Lazarus in the topmost niche. There is something here, I kept telling myself. Something important. Something I think I don’t know. Something I already know.

I ducked into the coffee shop where Inday Cely and I had a little snack a few mornings ago. The proprietor greeted me warmly and profusely, fussing over my flight from the drenching rain. He took the umbrella from my hands, shook it outside, and set it to dry on the floor at the entrance. “Come in, come in, Father Leonard,” he beckoned. A waitress hurried to greet me and bring my hand to touch her forehead. They managed to take away the rain from my hair and shoulders with paper napkins. The proprietor then very kindly insisted that I have a coffee and a slice of egg pie on him. “We will take it to your favorite place, upstairs, if you like, Father Leonard.”

“Upstairs” seemed to be the magic word. I knew that there was something there I needed to take a closer look at, the very first time I was there. I sat in the same chair and at the same table and imagined that Inday Cely was seated in front of me. Beyond her, the glass window of the coffee shop. Beyond that, across the plaza, the church façade. Then, suddenly, it dawned on me. It wasn’t the façade of the church after all. It was the glass window of the coffee shop, on which the letters of the coffee shop’s name were stenciled. And were viewed normally from outside the shop, but viewed in reverse from the interior of the shop.

That is how thousands of netizens spell out their names, I told myself. In reverse. What if, instead of entering “leonard_leonard,” I enter “dranoel_dranoel”? The waitress brought up my coffee and egg pie and set them on the table in front of me. She asked a few polite questions, but I was too dazed to focus on them and muttered senseless pleasantries instead. My hands were trembling. Enter dranoel_dranoel, I told myself. And then what? I thought again. What is the password? Is it Father Leonard’s first password, also in reverse? If not, what? And then I remembered the “name.” Darnel.

Chapter 30

As soon as the rain stopped I left the coffee shop and went back out onto the plaza. I knew the exact location of the Internet café that Father Leonard patronized when he first arrived at San Lazaro, before Amatores Dei renovated the dortoir and installed a standalone for his personal use. To proceed there was out of the question. The café would have an attendant with access to all units, and who could monitor screens. I went back to the parish office instead and returned my borrowed umbrella to Hilda. Then I repaired to the dortoir, locked the door behind me, and activated the standalone.

An e-mail account with the address of draneol_dranoel indeed existed. Its password was the reverse of Father Leonard’s first password, SanLazaroParishPriest34. This account was replete with entries, mostly commercial trivialities and Spam messages. It contained nothing about parish affairs, and could very well have been the account of a single, inactive, uninteresting man. Nothing, apparently, had been deleted, for even the Trash Folder contained a minimal amount of messages. Clearly, this was an account that my mystery sender or senders had no idea existed. Why, then, did Father Leonard find it necessary to create it?

I Scrolled down the list of Inbox messages and came upon only one private message with the obscure return address “amelia@” and no Subject line. It had only one, cryptic sentence: “I am being made to believe that my purpose in life is to devote myself to God by becoming a nun.” Nothing else followed. Scrolling upward a few Subject lines, however, I came upon a “Welcome” message to a social media account. Using the same dranoel_dranoel address and its password, I accessed the account. A page showed up. A page belonging to a man who called himself Darnel. All of the photos of this man were photos of Father Leonard.

I explored this account with an open mind, paying close attention to its photos, notes, and private messages. There are photos of one other person other than the man called Darnel, a.k.a Leonard Ugoy. These are of a young woman I’ve never seen before, showing her in church, in a park, in front of a shopping mall, in a restaurant, in what looks like a condominium unit, and in what must be her bedroom. The woman is with other people in some of these photos. None of them are people I know, and I doubt whether any of them are parishioners whom I’ve seen in church. There are no photos that showed Father Leonard together with this woman.

I shut down the computer and quickly prepared for the evening Mass. While walking to and from the church I mulled over the possible relationships between Father Leonard and the young woman. Who was this woman, whose name must be Amelia, as her e-mail address suggests? Is she a member, or a relative of a member, of Amatores Dei? Is she the young woman named Malina Chan, whom Father Leonard met, among others of a Filipino community, in Hong Kong? In any case, surely she was aware that Father Leonard was a priest. Why the line, “I am being made to believe that my purpose in life is to devote myself to God by becoming a nun”?

The housekeeper had just finished cleaning when I returned from Mass. I met her on the pathway as she was about to leave for home. I greeted her a good evening. She complimented me on how neat and organized I keep my room, and I thanked her. She replied that men are not ordinarily neat and organized. “Men are supposed to be neat and organized,” I chided her. “Was not Father Leonard?” “Father Leonard was all right,” she grunted, “but not so much the parish priest before him.” I became aware once again of the parish priest before Father Leonard, he whose name no one could remember or wanted to forget, and so was never mentioned.

“He was fond of clutter,” the housekeeper sniffed. She went on to describe how she frequently had to pick up after him, and how, at one point, they had to make a spare room available to fill with clutter until Amatores Dei suggested that they sell off everything. “I understand,” I probed, “that he was in the custom of receiving many visitors.” “Not at all, Father Nino,” she said, rather surprised at my statement. “At least, no more than parish priests are expected to receive. I’d say, he kept to himself most of the time. He was the anxious type. The doctor prescribed pills for him, so he could sleep at night.” She gave me a meaningful look, then left it at that and turned away.

Chapter 31

Some time that week I printed out one photo of the young woman in Father Leonard’s secret account. It was the photo of her inside a church. I showed it on separate occasions to Mister Crayon, Inday Cely, and Hilda. None of them recognized either the woman or the location. “This might be a church in Manila, Father Nino,” Mister Crayon suggested. “Makati, maybe?” In my conversations with him and with Inday Cely I also brought up the subject of the parish priest who had preceded Father Leonard. I did not do so with Hilda, who was a recent hire and had never met that priest who, in my mind, I now referred to as “The Priest Without a Name.”

Mister Crayon and Inday Cely affirmed the housekeeper’s impression of the priest. He was gay but hardly as promiscuous as Mrs. Duena described him. I wondered why the Amatores Dei officers did not think too highly of him. I took Mrs. Duena aside during a break in her organization’s subsequent meeting, the venues for which were rotated among the officers’ homes. This meeting was held in the Davilas’ beach house. “Prying about Father Someone again?” Mrs. Duena smirked. “You were singing a different song about him,” I said. “The office staff casually mentioned him. Their references to him were rather different from yours.” “

“He was just another parish priest,” Mrs. Duena dismissed the topic in a tired voice. “Useful in some ways, like knowing the provenance of antiques and having a flair for church décor.” Mr. Davila had approached us with his glass of four seasons juice by then. “But, as I understand it, he was discreet.” “He may have been,” Mr. Davila interjected, “but the people were uncomfortable with him.” Mrs. Duena conveniently flitted away. “Not enough to protest his assignment,” I said. “He was on his sixth year,” Mr. Davila nodded, “and would have completed his term, except for that tragic ending.”

Later that evening, before Mr. Davila himself drove me back to the church. I contemplated the ocean waves gently washing on the shore of San Lazaro. There was a drizzle, but it was fine enough for the torches, staked into the sand, to remain aflame. Mrs. Duena came up to me again, and it was then that she told me about Father Leonard’s “mission on the side” in Hong Kong. She invited me to pursue this mission, and described to me in detail the expatriate community of Negrenses there, who were hungry for an occasional visit by a Filipino priest. I did not reveal to her that I’d already read that episode in Father Leonard’s electronic diary.

I was torn between leaving well enough alone and gathering more information about Father Leonard’s saga. Mrs. Duena dangled pledges of “an unforgettable tour” and “a scrumptious lunch,” both of which I declined, for what interested me was the small community of twenty or so that Father Leonard counseled. This, in the end, was the turning point that made me agree to try one visit. I expected her face to beam with the studied radiance she usually exuded. She merely nodded, looking pleased but ashen, and thanked me for being so agreeable.

“Father Leonard and I took so many trips to Hong Kong,” she whispered wistfully, her eyes on the dark horizon, where we could no longer discern the divide between the evening sky and the evening sea. “We used to go there only to have lunch, and then fly back again.” She paused. “I’m an old woman, Father Nino. I think that we should stay overnight in a hotel this time round. Separate rooms, of course.” She cackled. “That would give you more time to spend with the expatriates. They would truly appreciate your presence and your concern for them. They need your guidance. Only you, the parish priest of San Lazaro, can do that for them.”

We enplaned for Hong Kong the month that followed. Mrs. Duena’s sense of urgency was perplexing. During the flight she babbled about how times are changing, and about how the Church has a great need for truly devoted shepherds. “Young people who can serve God,” she went on, “who can serve Him the rest of their lives. Not like that rebel son of Edgar Davila. Do you know, Father Nino, that he used to court Delphine?” “I seem to recall,” I carefully said, “that he is a lot older than Delphine.” “How could that have stopped him?” she snorted. “And look at him now, living a life of promiscuity, a life of sin!”

Chapter 32

I learned, during the short flight from Cebu, that Mrs. Duena frequently took Father Leonard to lunch with her in Hong Kong, sometimes with a few other officers of Amatores Dei and their relatives or friends who wanted “a change of atmosphere” or were celebrating someone’s birthday. The priest’s excursi were either made whimsically and on the pretext of counseling the “flock of expatriates,” as Mrs. Duena referred to them, or made deliberately and particularly because of it. I did not bother to find out which one was true. Mrs. Duena referred to her albeit expensive devotion to the community of expatriates as her “secondary vocation.”

Much time had passed, of course, since Father Leonard last stepped on the Red Rock, and so I was only a little surprised to discover that the multi-story, office building that Father Leonard described in his memoirs no longer existed. Mrs. Duena mentioned that “the flock” used to meet in an empty structure that had been scheduled for demolition, where a language studies center now stands. After declining the obligatory tours of Hong Kong and Kowloon I was brought, instead, to a tiny chapel in a residential area. Filipinos, mostly Negrenses, congregated here. This is where “the flock” gathered, in a multi-purpose hall adjacent to the chapel.

I recognized the chapel immediately. It was the “church” in the electronic photo, one of many of the photos taken of “Amelia.” I inquired as to the parish priest who used the chapel. Mrs. Duena sniffed that they chapel had no resident priest. A Taiwanese priest shared by other districts would come from time to time, since there were not many practicing Catholics in Hong Kong. “I have met many people here who do not believe in God,” Mrs. Duena said to me in her ominous voice, “and I am afraid to even think of what punishment awaits them in the afterlife. Can you imagine that, Father Nino? Can you imagine it? To live a life without God? It’s inconceivable!”

The members of “the flock” put together a Cantonese buffet lunch in the multi-purpose hall financed, I presumed, by Mrs. Duena. There were more than 30 Negros expatriates among them, which made it seem to me that their numbers had been growing since the first time Father Leonard saw them. All of them spoke fondly of him. And then I saw “Amelia.” She looked exactly as she did in her photos. She appeared to be standing patiently in line, her eyes roving the room then looking wistfully at me, waiting for the others to exchange pleasantries and settle in available seats at the table. I pretended not to have seen her face before.

She introduced herself as Malina Chan. She was, therefore, one of the young women whom Father Leonard mentioned in his electronic journal. She came up to me with her barely-laden plate and asked if she could talk with me a while. We sat near the door, where there was an iron bench for two looking out onto the postage-stamp courtyard. “Is he really dead?” she asked, in a half-whisper and in a tone that suggested that she was wrong about everything. “Father Leonard, you mean?” I prodded her. “Yes,” she replied, and fought to hold back tears. “You seem to have been close to him,” I said, “as most of the people here seem to have been.”

She remained silent, as though deliberating something very upsetting to her, and, in that moment my eyes caught Mrs. Duena observing us with her keen gaze from across the room. I wished that she would leave us all, get on, and go shopping as she did the first time she’d brought Father Leonard here. Her presence here, as in San Lazaro, was forbidding. “Father Nino!” she called out, both a request and a command. I excused myself from Malina’s presence and promised that I would have a chance to talk with her later. I walked up to Mrs. Duena. She quickly took me aside and said that she would be leaving me with “the flock” for an hour or two.

She discreetly thrust a wad of Hong Kong dollars in my hand. “Here,” she muttered, “this is for you.” “I don’t understand,” I replied. “I won’t need this.” “It’s emergency money,” she insisted. “In case something happens and you need it.” Since declining it further would take up time, and since I knew that it was useless to argue with Mrs. Duena at any time, I took the money and put it in my jacket pocket. “May I donate this to the chapel instead?’ I asked, making a great effort not to sound sardonic. “Whatever,” was her flippant reply, and she was bustling out of the room, calling out to everyone to “be good to Father Nino” and that she would “be back later.”

Chapter 33

Mrs. Duena came back to the multi-purpose hall in mid-afternoon, with just enough time for us to say goodbye to the small congregation and dash to the airport. Inside the cab, she leaned back and closed her eyes as though shopping were a curse to be suffered. “Did you have a good time?” she asked me, her eyes still closed, in attempt to rest and grill me at the same time. “I was able to converse with all of them,” I answered. “Some in groups. Some individually.” She opened one eye. “Which ones, individually?” she queried, as I knew she would. I made of show of trying to recall names and describe faces.

I mentioned Malina Chan last, and she instantly opened both eyes and sat up, again, as I knew she would. “She is of Chinese descent,” she declared in an ambiguous tone. I countered, “Father Leonard seems to have made a deep impression on her. She speaks very highly of him.” “Of course, of course,” she waved a hand, dismissing any insinuations there may have been in my statement. “I requested Father Leonard to pay special attention to her. She has a calling. A vocation.” I remarked that Malina had mentioned nothing of the sort to me. “She must be guided, Father Nino. You are a priest, and it is your duty to do so.”

At the airport, I checked in for both of us, as she expected. She sat primly in a plastic, bucket seat while I paid the extra dollars required for her preferred, exit-row seats. There were times when she was over-solicitous and overprotective of me, as though I were the Son of God Himself. Yet, there were also times when she played the queen and directed all men round her to wait on her, and things would not go smoothly if I did not play-act serving her and acting like her general factotum. I am sure that Father Leonard was treated similarly, and that she had him groveling at her feet. Father Leonard knew her so well. So did I, by this time.

Inside the plane she searched inside her hand-carried, shopping bag and retrieved an elongated box, which she then carelessly placed on my lap. “Here,” she said, “this is for you.” “What is it?” I asked, not without trepidation. “Take it,” she said, “I bought a little something for you.” A slight pause, after which she added, “It’s just a Parker rollerball. You have such a terrific guilt complex over anything that’s given you. It’s just a small gift, that’s all. I like buying gifts. That’s not too much, I hope, and that should do.” I opened my mouth to say something but managed only a decisive, “Thank you.” I opened the box and admired the handsome pen inside.

She caught me grinning while slipping the box into the inside pocket of my jacket. “What’s so funny?” she demanded. “Nothing,” I said, proclaimed innocence. She stared at me, deciding whether I were secretly making fun of it or not. Then she rearranged her crepe skirt and raised her chin. “I gave Father Leonard a Montblanc. He was such a good priest. He deserved it.” “I’m only a replacement,” I reminded her. “Stop saying that,” she hissed. She cleared her throat and said, “You are to guide Malina to her true vocation. The Sisters of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Hong Kong are waiting to receive her, should she so decide to become one of them.”

“I will, naturally, sponsor her entry to the ranks of the holy,” she informed me, as though it were an afterthought. “She is now twenty years of age,” I said. “Surely she can decide that for herself.” “Our duty is to guide her, Father Nino, not make decisions for her.” She left the conversation at that, and so did I. I had no intentions of disclosing everything that Malina had confided in me inside the multi-purpose hall. How she had been brainwashed, through middle school, to dedicate her future to the nunnery. How she had qualms and misgivings after that, and had wanted to pursue a degree instead. How she now stood at a crossroads.

Father Leonard had been supportive of Malina and not of Mrs. Duena, but Mrs. Duena did not know that. That much, I gleaned from my conversation with Malina. Mrs. Duena had insisted that Father Leonard “guide” Malina to her “true” calling, but he counseled her to blossom into a self-assertive young woman instead. I assured Manila that I would do the same, and that she need not be afraid of Mrs. Duena’s preconceptions about “the flock” of Negrense expatriates. After all, I reasoned, many of them would eventually come home to Bacolod soon enough. I obtained Malina’s e-mail address and promised that I would keep in touch with her.

Chapter 34

The truth was, I paid careful attention to Malina because I knew that she was one of the keys to the mystery of Father Leonard. We took a stroll through the narrow, courtyard garden while conversing. She disclosed that Mrs. Duena, whom all of them looked up to as a godmother, was resolute in envisioning her as a Catholic nun and attempted to use Father Leonard as an instrument in achieving this. In the last portion of the electronic diary that I received, Father Leonard made mere casual mention of this young woman named Malina Chan. There was no other indication that she was a major player in his saga.

Back in the dortoir, I jumpstarted a message chain on e-mail to Malina, at first thanking her for her congeniality and inquiring about the welfare of her co-expatriates. She responded with a long missive describing everyone else in the congregation, and what they thought of me, which was, for the most part, quite flattering. Wanting to probe deeper about her life, I asked her about her family in Hong Kong, and whether she had relatives in Negros or in any other part of the Philippines. She replied that, as far as she knew, her parents were both born in Hong Kong. Her father, a trader, had died while traveling at sea two years after she was born.

Malina’s mother was still living. Now in her seventies, she made ends meet by working as a chambermaid in a hotel. The young woman had no other siblings. I asked her how she came to be involved in the congregation of Negrense expatriates. She wrote back that it was her father’s wish that she be brought up Catholic. Since her mother was an atheist, and since the Filipino congregation in Hong Kong was the closest, Catholic community that they had access to, Malina’s mother requested them to take in little Malina for Sunday schooling. That was when Mrs. Duena first took an interest in her.

Mrs. Duena developed the notion that Malina would be suited for the nunnery. She monitored her spiritual development with this objective in mind. Malina believed, since the beginning, that Mrs. Duena was using the expatriates merely as an excuse for her Hong Kong junkets. She was touched, however, by Mrs. Duena’s generosity and apparent sincerity. Mrs. Duena ensured, for one thing, that all of the children in the community were properly baptized, confirmed, prepared for Holy Communion, and could avail of Confession and the Eucharist. It was difficult for Malina to perceive Mrs. Duena as a “holy” woman, but her noble intentions could not be denied.

My electronic dialogue with Malina continued over the next few weeks. I thought of all the ways that Father Leonard could have been of assistance to Malina, whom he bothered creating a separate e-mail account for, if only to see and read her social media page. I theorized that Mrs. Duena’s concern for her was a reflection of her own, subconscious desire to serve God by becoming a nun. It was a state she could no longer achieve herself. Alternatively, she may have subconsciously wished that her own daughter, Delphine, become a nun, though imaging Delphine as one seems to me more difficult than imagining Mrs. Duena.

No more entries from Father Leonard’s diary came in. I began to miss receiving them. Well into my cyberspace conversations with Malina, nonetheless, I knew that no more entries would arrive, primarily because my investigation at the courier office in Cubao might have scared my secret informer for good. I had a trump card in my hand, which was Father Leonard’s existent e-mail account, an account that, I was certain, my informer had no knowledge of. Otherwise he or she would have tampered with it as well, and would have deleted most, if not all, of the entries after furtively making printouts of them.

I saw very little of Mrs. Duena during this time. She was not present even for the monthly meetings of Amatores Dei, which were held, in rotation, at the bank manager’s house and at the house of the owner of the chain of malls. When it was Mrs. Duena’s turn to host the next meeting, she was still absent. According to Mr. Davila she was spending a lot of time in her house in Makati between alleged visits to their family doctor there. It was not a kind thought, but I wondered what she was cooking up this time. I began to miss her in the same manner that I missed reading Father Leonard’s electronic diary.

Chapter 35

Mrs. Duena returned to Bacolod in the pouring rain. She summoned me to her villa via a text message, saying that she was terribly indisposed but that she had brought a few items for the parish and wanted to discuss something urgent with me. She sent her car and driver to pick me up after the morning Masses. On the way to the villa I could not help feeling highly amused. There was no Ducati motorbike for me as there had been for Father Leonard. Father Leonard, after all, had been “most cooperative,” and also had been the target of her romantic flirtations. One of the maids met me at the front door and immediately escorted me to the upper floor.

I was brought to Mrs. Duena’s drawing room, adjacent to her bedroom. I recognized it as the setting for that brutal encounter, or was it more appropriately a mis-encounter, over Delphine. Mrs. Duena was draped over an abundance of throw pillows on a chaise longue. She was swaddled in a huge, fancy shawl. A second shawl was artfully wrapped round her head, like a Renaissance madonna. And then I detected, under it, surgical bandage on her face and neck. She looked pale, her complexion sallow. “Are you all right?” was my initial greeting. The maid withdrew and quietly shut the door closed behind us.

“Good morning, Father Nino,” she managed to croak. “Please, please, sit down.” I made a move to cross the room and open the windows, but she protested like an anguished child. “No!” she wailed. “I cannot bear the sunlight this morning.” And, again, “Please, sit down.” Another maid entered with tea things and, after serving us, just as efficiently exited. “Mr. Davila informed me that you’ve been quite ill.” “Davila is such a gossip,” she retorted. “He puts even me to shame.” I spontaneously laughed out loud, and wondered why she didn’t. Her face remained stoic and motionless.

It was then that I surmised why she had been away from San Lazaro for such a long time. I am no expert in cosmetics, but it was clear that she had had a facelift. “I dare not smile, Father Nino,” she said, “lest it stretch my skin and split open my sutures. I need to stay within until I ensure that there will be no scars.” I suppressed the urge to laugh out loud again. I could imagine her miserably waiting in the dark, temporarily unable to bark commands at her servants. “I sympathize, Mrs. Duena,” was what I said. “A mere necessity, Father Nino,” she replied. “A mere necessity. A true servant of the Church must shine!

“I am thankful to God that other priests see it my way,” she added, with emphasis on the word “other.” “This is called, living well as a Catholic. And why not? It is a high form of praising God. Look at the Pope adorned with gold, look at The Vatican, which is an entire country in itself! Look at all the art treasures and antiques they have. We have nothing, we are nothing, compared to all of that! Look at our cardinals and our bishops, and the jewels on their fingers! Look at our statues crowned with diamonds, emeralds, and rubies! So, why not a parish priest? Why not us? This is not a poor municipality, after all, despite its old-town ambience.”

True, San Lazaro is rich, and that was what Father Leonard and, perhaps, his antecedents, saw. “We work hard to have what we can have, Father Nino. And to deserve what we already have.” As though to demonstrate her theorem, she followed with a litany of items that she had shipped to Bacolod from Makati. Among them were large, flat-screen TVs for the parish office and the conference hall so that everyone “could be attuned to the news”; additional chandeliers for both sides of the transept, and a container van full of ceramic tiles to replace the floor tiles of the entire church.

“My understanding from Pete Cayron is that those tiles are antique, and called ‘mochacas,’” I protested. “As acting parish priest of San Lazaro I must object to any further desecration of cultural heritage objects in the church or elsewhere in the parish. “’Desecration’ is such a strong word, Father Nino,” she sighed. “I can think of other, stronger words,” I said. “My decision is firm. It will stand as long as I am the acting parish priest, and it will also be my recommendation to the new parish priest as soon as they identify one.” She sank back on the throw pillows and sighed. “Father Nino, Father Nino,” she moaned. “You still have a lot to learn.”

Chapter 36

I met the senior members of the parish staff the following morning and voiced my concern over what I felt was the improper acquisition of church properties, albeit with the approval of the diocese, by private collectors. The staff was well aware, as I was, that these activities peaked during the reign of Father Something, who had a penchant for amassing church objects, placing them in storage, and then putting them up for disposal. I mentioned only the few items of concern that I took note of since my deployment in San Lazaro. Among these were the tabernacle, the Communion rail, and the statues. Heaven knows, I suspected more.

The next meeting of Amatores Dei was scheduled to be held, once again, at Mr. Davila’s. This time we met not at his beach house but at his residence in a modern subdivision in the suburbs. Although it offers no view of the sea, it is much more pleasant. The architecture is post-modern. It has no antiques but for a few Chinese blue-and-whites. It certainly has no ecclesiastical objects. Like many homes I have the honor and the pleasure of visiting, Mr. Davila’s was filled with framed photographs of his family. The most prominent of these were his wedding photos, the children’s graduation photos, and those of Lucky/Ralfe and his siblings.

“How do you like this house of Davila?” Mrs. Duena asked me. Sometimes, in her autocratic mood, she referred to other people by their surnames, as though they were her co-students in school or as though they were her servants. I’d actually overheard her private conversations in which she referred to Father Leonard as “Ugoy” and to me as “Portus.” “It’s a charming, functional house,” I said, stressing the word “functional” while keeping my face inscrutable. “You should see the new one he’s building in Pasig,” she let slip, “it’s his ultimate castle.” I silently marveled at how some people had so much wealth.

Mrs. Duena made it a point to look different that evening. She had her hair dyed, trimmed, and coiffed differently. A make-up artist had probably done up her face differently as well. All this was meant to showcase her unspoken, unmentioned, and un-discussed “surgical operation,” which, I must say, succeeded in making her look some twenty years younger. “I have to look beautiful,” she flippantly told everyone. “Surely, I’m entitled to look beautiful. I’m a married woman. I need to look beautiful for my husband. I seldom see him, and I’d like to visit him again in Europe soon.”

During the meeting, Mr. Davila brought up, once again, the idea of a Catholic evangelical hour on local TV. He reminded the group that this was a pending project that had been forgotten when Father Leonard was taken ill. “I voted for that!” the bank manager exclaimed. “I still do! We need to align the Church with the media. Only then can we wield true power, and control the people!” I suddenly recalled the precaution that Ralfe gave me in Cubao, which was to distrust his father and his father’s motives. “Don’t you agree, Father Nino?” the bank manager brashly turned to me, completely unaware that I was completely revolted.

“Hear, hear!” a few officers called out, and there was applause. “It is a question of scheduling, and how much time we have to plan the program content,” I said in as non-committal a timbre as I could manage. “The real war is in the media!” Mr. Davila affirmed to everyone. “Every major church has a TV channel, if not a TV station. That is where they implement their psy-war strategies to win the people!” “Life is a war of churches,” Mrs. Duena nodded, splaying a sandalwood-scented fan. She turned to me and commented, “Don’t you ever worry, Father Nino, we are all on your side! On the side of the One, True, Church!”

The next item on the agenda was the month of October, which everyone conceded was mandatory to continue celebrating as “the month of the Most Holy Rosary.” And then the unwritten rationale emerged. “We need to quash Halloween” Mrs. Duena declared. “We need to make people forget all about it. It’s the Devil’s holiday. It’s diabolic. We mustn’t let our children celebrate it.” Before the meeting was adjourned, there was a move to disapprove all Halloween advertisements, parties, and village trick-or-treat visits. An hour later, after lingering goodbyes, I arrived at the dortoir feeling drained and exhausted.

Chapter 37

Lying in my bed and hoping that sleep would eventually overcome me, I reflected on the members of Mr. Davila’s family who came up to me for blessing before dinner. There was his wife, Lucille, whose eyes and upturned face above her swan-like neck always gave me the impression that she was in a state of deep suffering. There were Ralfe’s younger siblings. And there was a two-year-old baby boy, who could not have been Mr. and Mrs. Davila’s because they were just past their prime. Mr. Davila informed me that the baby belonged to a sacada couple who already had a dozen children too many, and so the Davila’s decided to adopt him.

“A noble gesture, Davila,” Mrs. Duena cooed. “We should have brought Father Nino here much earlier, to see him.” “And the biological parents?” I inquired. “Do they have rights to visit the child?” “The child is legally adopted,” Mr. Davila stated. “His adoption will not be kept a big secret from him. His family is always most welcome to come and visit him, except that they are quite hesitant and bashful.” “Understandably so,” Mrs. Duena affirmed. “I suggest that you move the child to your new castle in Makati to prevent them from being too attached to the child. They might develop, you know, improper, ah, ideas.”

The evening’s dinner was not catered, rather, prepared by Lucille herself. Perhaps that was why she looked so strained, despite the servants who attended her at kitchen. She asked me, in a tentative voice, how I liked her cooking. When I replied that it was magnificent, I saw her, for the first time, smile. “I understand, Father Nino, that you visited our house in New Manila a few weeks ago,” she said. “You were extended hospitality there, I hope?” I nodded vigorously and said that I was. “How is Lucky? I was told that you had a chance to meet him?” “I did,” I replied, noting that she still used her eldest son’s boyhood monicker. “He is a fine boy.”

Lucille Davila sighed. “He likes it in Manila,” she appended to her sigh with resignation. “I suppose I can’t blame him. He likes the action there.” “But he never comes home, Mama,” her daughter piped up. “We always have to go there to see him.” “He seems quite happy there,” I quickly interjected, in order to defuse any possible, emotional melody the conversation might lead to,” and I told them of Ralfe’s participation in a summer camp and his current plans of furthering his studies. “He tells us only what he thinks we needs to know,” Mr. Davila said in a half-joking manner, and grinned.

“He has a girlfriend,” the second daughter volunteered. “I believe, I met her, too,” I said in a cheerful voice, then scanned her parents’ faces to determine which direction I should bring my next sentence too. “We don’t know her,” Lucille said with some wistfulness. “Lucky tells us nothing about her. I’m afraid,” she stammered, “he’ll marry her, or someone else, someday, and won’t even tell us either.” “Try the tiramisu, Father Nino,” Mrs. Duena offered, slicing a sliver of pastry and handing it over to me on a saucer, seeing that Lucille was holding back tears. “And some coffee. I know, you like it black,” and she motioned to a servant to bring us coffee.

I was unable to sleep that night. The darkness and the silence were no help. I went on-line again, checking for new messages from Malina, though there were none even if she liked staying up through dawn. I entered key names and phrases on the Internet, which yielded nothing. I needed more information, and I felt I was up a dead-end road. And then I went back to the Father Leonard’s secret Inbox, which contained spam-subject lines such as “HELLO DEAREST,” “CAN I TRUST YOU?,” “FREE CASH LOANS,” “SAVE UP TO 85% + EXTRA 10% DISCOUNT COUPON,” “INCOMING PAYMENT,” and “GREAT BUSINESS DEAL.”

Thank God, I did not give in to deleting those messages the first time around. Clicking on each one of them, I discovered that they were not spam messages at all. They were disguised-subject messages from Malina to Father Leonard and from Father Leonard to Malina. I read them all in chronology. Day was breaking behind rainclouds by the time I finished up and shut down. I had to go back to Manila again. There was an opportunity for me to do so. The Arzobispado had sent out an announcement for a seminar on God The Father, to be held in Manila next week. I could go there, and make a furtive side trip to the National Bureau of Investigation.

Chapter 38

Mister Crayon assisted me in having my trip to Manila approved and cleared by the provincial diocese. There was a slight delay at Bacolod City Airport due to inclement weather. When our plane finally coasted on the runway in Manila, the sun was out, and I felt that I had wakened from a rainy dream. I attended the first day of the seminar, sponsored by the Arzobispado, in a small hotel in Pasig City, where the out-of-town delegates had also been booked. During the midday buffet in the dining hall, I espied Delphine Duena and a boy probably a few years than she lunching at a corner table in the area outside the stanchion poles.

This was not the Delphine I remember from San Lazaro, but that is usually the case whenever one comes across a young person out of the context of his or her family. Her hair and her make-up gave her a mundane. Her dress was more revealing. She was not quite coquette, but neither was the young man with her the least bit bashful. I am not certain that Mrs. Duena would have approved, either of Delphine’s appearance or her company. But, then again, Mrs. Duena was not easy to please, particularly with matters pertaining to her family. I recalled her bitter criticism of Ralfe Davila. I was not certain whether the young man in Delphine’s company would merit less.

The other diners were aware that a religious seminar was ongoing. There was signage in the lobby, and several nuns and priests had chosen to wear their orders’ traditional attire. Delphine and her companion, however, were completely disinterested in their environment. I tried to catch her eye several times but not once did she look my way. This certainly was not the Delphine who cried on Father Leonard’s shoulder, nor the Delphine I had breakfast with when I was recently arrived in San Lazaro. I wondered whether Father Leonard had not been unusually attracted to Delphine after all, even when she was a mere adolescent.

I also wondered whether, like her mother, Delphine was capable of personality changes, moving from one extreme to the other. Yet, I ask myself same thing of many women, including Ralfe’s girlfriend, Gianina, whom I initially suspected of sending me the printouts from Father Leonard’s diary, and Malina Chan, whose e-mail exchanges with Father Leonard filled the gaps in what was, at first, a mystery. My thoughts were still on the Negrense women when, after lunch on the second day, I dashed to the National Bureau of Investigation and sought audience with no other than the director.

There are advantages to being a priest. One of them is having access to meeting with persons of high office. Another is not having to pay fees for urgent services. I recited my narrative to the director and his deputy, supporting it with whatever evidence I had when necessary. They listened to my story with much interest. I was then introduced to the operations manager who covered Negros Occidental, where San Lazaro is located. He pledged that his operatives would act immediately and look into the specific areas that I especially recommended. I left the bureau and returned to the seminar. I completed it without further remiss.

Back in San Lazaro, the parish organizations, including Amatores Dei, the Legio Mariae, and the youth groups commenced their activities for the month of October. The parish office hired workers to install a giant rosary comprised of light bulbs on the façade of the church. Amatores Dei was engrossed in reviving block rosary sessions, to be conducted, typically, within the homes of the rich. I was invited to jump-start it at the bank manager’s house. Mrs. Duena invited me for coffee afterward. I asked her if she minded having it at the shop across the church plaza. True to her unpredictability, she acquiesced. The shop owner was delighted to have us.

We were served on the upper floor, with the glass windows looking out onto the plaza and the brightly-lighted bulbs in rosary formation on the front of the church. “Isn’t that a wonderful sight!” Mrs. Duena cooed, then looked sharply at me and said, “You’ve been gallivanting in Manila again.” “‘Gallivanting’ is a most inappropriate word,” I calmly protested. She laughed. “I don’t trust you, Father Nino. You’re a naughty boy. A naughty, naughty boy.” I raised my coffee cup, pretended to toast her, and grinned. I told her all about the seminar, mainly to dispel whatever suspicions she had of my trip to Manila.

Chapter 39

“How about gallivanting once again on the Red Rock?” Mrs. Duena suggested. “Surely we could manage to fit one in, this month. I have a package of 200 rosaries we can give the flock.” I declined, and she arched a penciled eyebrow. “What’s the matter, Father Nino?” she asked, but I didn’t miss the slip she almost made, beginning to call me “Nino” rather than “Father Nino” but quickly managing to catch herself. “Are you getting tired of Chinese food?” I explained that her hospitality and the Chinese food were marvelous, but that my mission in Hong Kong was over. “How can you say that?” she blustered. “Our people need you there!”

“It is you who needs me there,” I said, “and not for the people, but for only one person in particular.” “She must be guided to her true vocation!” “How sure are you that it is her true vocation?” “It must be! It would ensure not only her physical safety and security, but her spiritual salvation as well!” “I’m afraid, it’s too late for that,” I said grimly. “No amount of visitations to Hong Kong can change anything now.” A short silence. “What do you mean, Father Nino?” she finally asked. I told her about my discovery of Father Leonard’s secret password and social media account, and about the photos and e-mail messages therein.

She blanched. “It’s not possible,” she stammered. “But it is,” I asserted. “They were in love. She perceived him first as a father figure, then as a lover. They saw each other apparently casually, and apparently not enough, during your trips to Hong Kong. They carried on their relationship on e-mail. Even that would not suffice. He made at least three extra visits to Hong Kong. Alone. Without anyone else’s knowledge. Except Malina’s.” “That scheming pedophile!” she smoldered. “I must remind you that Malina is hardly a child,” I said, “though you insist on treating her as one.” A pause. “She is now as adult as your only daughter, Delphine.”

“I must fly to Hong Kong at once!” she snapped. “I said that I’m afraid, it’s too late for that,” I repeated. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t be telling you all this.” She gripped the edge of the table as though preventing herself from toppling over, and waited for me to continue. “Father Leonard may be buried in the ground, but his baby lives. In Malina’s womb. She and her mother are safely out of Hong Kong as of this time.” “Where are they? Where did they go?” she groaned. “Where you cannot find them. Where Malina’s father placed them somewhere, in his custody. In Rome.”

“No!” she shrieked. “Not that! Not that!” “Your husband had an affair with a Chinese woman on his business trips to Hong Kong,” I proceeded, “and Malina was the result of that. You discovered this long after you were wed, after Delphine was born. You must have looked into his correspondence and come across this. You learned that half of his estate would go to Malina Chan. You would not allow this. You drove him away. He left for Europe on the pretext of having other business there. In fact, that was merely a mask for your separation. He continued to send money to Malina and her mother for them to live comfortably, but not luxuriously.”

“Not luxuriously,” I repeated, “as you do, and as you raised Delphine. He wanted at least one child to be raised uncorrupted by wealth. In the meantime, you searched for her and her mother in Hong Kong. When you found them, you pretended to be interested in organizing a community of expatriates that could serve as your personal charity. At the same time, you tried to engineer Malina’s entry into the nunnery so that she would revoke all material things and everything she stood to inherit.” She broke out in tears. I let her wail and expend her anguish. The waitress and the shop owner hurried up the stairs and gawked at us. “Water for Mrs. Duena, please,” I pled.

I prepared to leave after she had calmed down somewhat. “Let me go now,” I said. “I agreed to have coffee with you, but only because, I thought, you should know.” She caught my arm and begged me not to go. “Please, please stay a little longer,” she gasped. “I must compose myself. I must talk to someone.” I asked if she wanted another cup of coffee. She vigorously nodded. I called the waitress to pour us two more cups. “I really cannot figure you out, Father Nino,” she said, in an offended tone. “You are so unlike Father Leonard. And unlike Father Someone. And I cannot clearly remember the other priests before then.”

Chapter 40

“I do not allow myself to be purchased,” I replied. “I think, it is as simple as that.” “Can anything really be that simple?” she sighed. I gazed out the window, at the front of the church, once again. The statue of Saint Lazarus glowed in the center of the yellow, incandescent bulbs strung like rosary beads. “Do you think, Saint Lazarus enjoys being surrounded with so many lights?” I asked. “You have to admit, he’s shining.” “Like gold.” I turned to look at her. “What do you mean?” she asked. “I’m sure, I would like being surrounded with so much light. Or with so much gold.” “The real Saint Lazarus, I mean.” She leaned back. “Don’t ask me. Ask Davila.”

She sipped her second cup of coffee. “Are you satisfied now?” she challenged me. “After your fine show of how clever you are?” “Not fully. Not yet,” I replied. “You, of all people, would know that.” “And what else, might I ask, would you still need to know?” “It’s what I do know already that counts, is it not?” “What else, then, do you already know?” I continued looking at her, without wavering. “What you’ve always thought I didn’t,” I said. “Why did you send me printouts of his diary?” She looked ashen. Strangely, it may have been the first time that I’d ever seen her speechless like that.

“What would it have accomplished, other than to have piqued my curiosity?” I added. She lowered her eyes, sitting quietly as though contemplating something grave. Afterward she looked up at me again and said, “I thought, it would have spared all of us the trouble of having to start from scratch.” “I’ve said it before, I do not allow myself to be purchased. Or blackmailed in any manner.” “How did you find out?” she asked. “A matter of elimination,” I replied. “You were the sole protagonist in Father Leonard’s life. You stood the most to gain, and you stood the most to lose. You were up against someone who had just arrived, someone new. A replacement. Me.

“Later, I deduced that you were capable of spinning webs. I saw what you spun to entrap Father Leonard. And another, to try to entrap Malina. Everything became crystal-clear.” She started sniffing and quietly weeping into her lace handkerchief. “You make it sound as if I’m so bad,” she sniveled. “I don’t mean to be. It is I who am the victim, Father Nino. I have always been the victim.” “Ironically, you became entrapped in the webs you spun yourself.” She wept some more. And then, “Father Nino. I have to say this. I’m sorry, but I miss him so.” Her tears flowed copiously, her shoulders convulsed. “I miss him so!”

She dabbed at her eyes and made an effort to sit up straight. “I loved him. So very much. I had jealous fits whenever his attention was on others. I adored him secretly for some time. You know, I’m very good at that. I learned to read people over the years. I noted his weaknesses. He had no relations. He was lonely. His eyes sparkled when I gave him treats. He was a real man, too. Not like Father Someone, who liked boys. He was so energetic, so alive, whenever he was surrounded by women. Especially young women. Very young women. They flirted with him, and he, he could be a flirt, too.

“I tried everything to make him see me as his special friend, his best friend, his only friend. I wanted him that much. More than anyone else. I would have given him anything, if only he could agree to want me also. Yes, to want me. Sometimes, in his room, I would make advances toward him, but he always put me off. Civilly. Politely. With a fatherly smile. Which only made it worse for me. It made me want him so much more. I asked him, ‘Don’t you get the urge sometimes? You must be human too!” He’d only shake his head, slowly, and smile that smile again. I went crazy.

“‘There are ways of dealing with it,’ he told me. ‘You should know that.’ Nothing more. I could not sleep at night, Father Nino. I got sick. Very sick. I told no one else, of course. Until now, because, I’m telling you. Seeing that you’ve done a lot of homework. This much, you have a right to know. But you were wrong in thinking you’d surprised me about Malina Chan. Because, you see, I knew he loved her. Not their correspondence. Not his secret visits to Hong Kong. Certainly not the baby. I suspected that he felt for her, as a man feels for a woman. I caught it once, when he told me Malina has the right to dream her own dreams.”

Chapter 41

“I resented Malina. You cannot imagine how much. It was she who destroyed my marriage, and now, she was taking away from me the man I truly loved, the only man I was willing to have as a replacement for my husband. I wished her dead. I would have killed her, had I the chance.” She drank some water from her glass, and thirstily. “I can believe that,” I said wryly. “Oh, but you haven’t heard anything yet,” she sneered. “I might as well tell my story to the very end.” The waitress came upstairs to clear our things and asked if we would like more coffee. We declined, but I asked if we could be left alone for some time. She hastily withdrew to the ground floor.

“After one of our evening meetings in the city I insisted he drive me home on his motorbike,” Mrs. Duena continued. “It was, after all, my motorbike too.” She cackled. “I told him to swing by Palapala. I felt for dinner there. I let him choose our fare at the wet market and have everything cooked the way he wished. And then, after we had eaten, I had too much to drink. I asked him whether I had not taught him to live well and serve God at the same time. I asked him whether that were enough or whether that left him still wanting for more. I asked him to consider leaving the priesthood and living with me. I said, I would work on my annulment.”

“He laughed at me. He called me a crazy, shameless woman. I wept. I stood up and screamed at him. I called him an ingrate, a hypocrite, an ineffective priest. Oh, such a scene I made! Thank God, it was too late at night for anyone else to have been there to see me! The police were there, but they knew who I was and would not touch me! Leonard, Father Leonard, rose and suggested that he drive me home now, but I would have none of it! I demanded then and there that he give me back everything I’d ever given him, every last dollar, every last peso! He laughed again. He said that he could start by giving me back the motorbike.

“‘Very well!’ I said. He handed me the keys. ‘Here, take them,’ he said. And I said, ‘I will not drive that hellish thing! I want you to destroy it in front of me!” She paused, and panted. She fumbled for one of the pink chrysanthemums in the vase and cupped the flower in her hands, and mindlessly began fretting its tiny petals. “And then,” she stumbled forth, “and then he strode out the hut and leapt on the motorbike. And drove it to the pier. And sped over it. Into the water.” She paused again. It wasn’t so dark out there that others couldn’t see what happened. Someone said he tried to do an acrobatic feat by leaping off the motorbike before it hit the water.

“It took some time before they rescued him. An ambulance arrived. We rushed him to hospital. The doctor said he’d banged his head on something and suffered a concussion. I stayed with him, of course. And then I felt afraid. Once, by his bedside, I wangled his password from him. In case something happened, I said. In case I needed to take care of urgent matters of him. The sneak. He never let on that he had a second account, and a second password.” She sighed, looking as though she were unwilling to say anything more. “That’s the story, Father Nino.” She glanced at her watch. “Oh my goodness, how time has flown!”

She dropped me off at the church before proceeding to her villa. I stopped by the office, unlocking the door with my key, to check my calendar for the following day. Mister Crayon had penciled in an appointment with a civic group leader before the mid-afternoon Mass, while I was away. Back in the dortoir I stood at the open window and looked out onto the cemetery grounds. I contemplated how many secrets all of the dead had managed to bring to their graves with them. It is the reason, I told myself, why life and death are always mysteries. Sheet lightning glimmered in the sky, and it began to rain again.

The seasons have not crossed yet, but I live them both as the replacement of the parish priest of San Lazaro, in Negros Occidental. Father Leonard’s peak of service here was under the silver skies of summer, in the sweet heat of the plantations, on the dusty roads, in bright days and sweltering nights. I, on the other hand, arrived and took on my duties under cloudbursts and downpours and torrential rains and drizzles. He to the songs of the cicadas, I to the crooning of frogs. And what of Father Someone, and of the other parish priests before him? Did they, too, take the challenges of their vocation in the dry season, in the wet, or in semi-seasons in between?

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tony Perez in 2012

Photo by Victor Talastas Reyes

Courtesy of Plaridel Bible School

Plaridel, Bulacan, Philippines

TONY PEREZ is a creative writer, playwright, poet, lyricist, painter, portraitist, fiber artist, and psychic journalist and trainer. He is one of the 100 Filipino recipients of the 1898-1998 Centennial Artists Awards of the Cultural Center of the Philippines. His other awards include the 13 Artists of the Philippines, the Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas from the Writers Union of the Philippines, four National Book Awards from the Manila Critics Circle, a FAMAS Award for Best Story, five prizes from the Cultural Center of the Philippines Playwriting Contest, the National Fellowship for Drama from the Creative Writing Center of the University of the Philippines, the Irwin Chair in Creative Writing from Ateneo de Manila University, and a prize in photography from the Children’s Museum and Library, Inc. He was a member of the first official Philippine delegation to the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in Bali, sponsored by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, in 2010.

Some of Mr. Perez’s works in Filipino have been translated into English, French, and Polish. His artworks have been showcased in 21 individual and group exhibits curated by Marian Pastor Roces, Nonon Padilla, Bobi Villanueva, Judy Sibayan, Lalyn Buncab, Nilo Ilarde, Ernie Patricio and Jun Veloso, Chari Elinzano, Reverend Father Loy Divino (CICM), and Raven Villanueva.

Mr. Perez holds an A.B. in Communication and a Cand. M.A. in Clinical Psychology from Ateneo de Manila University, an M.A. in Religious Studies, magna cum laude, from Maryhill School of Theology in New Manila, and certificates in Publication Design and Production from the Department of Journalism at the University of Wisconsin and Fundamentals of Graphic Design from the University of California at San Francisco. His master’s thesis, titled Pagsubok sa Ilang: Ikaapat na Mukha ni Satanas, was awarded the National Book Award for Theology and Religion by the Manila Critics Circle in 2006.

In 2013, Mr. Perez decided to post all of his new and old works in cyberspace so that they could be available not only to Filipinos but to the entire world.

Mr. Perez has been working as a full-time Cultural Affairs Specialist at the Public Affairs Section of the Embassy of the U.S.A. in Manila since 1979. He conducts workshops titled “Writing from The Heart”, “Writing from The Creative Unconscious”, “Dramatherapy”, “Community Theater”, and art classes nationwide.

Mr. Perez has two sons, Nelson I. Miranda and Chito I. Miranda, and four granddaughters, Angelique Pearl Miranda, Nielsen Tegelan, Aubrey Rose Miranda, and Chevy Keith Miranda. His daughters-in-law are Agnes Tegelan and Ivy Vercasion. They live in Cubao, Quezon City, where Mr. Perez has resided since 1955.

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