The Champion of the Poor

I was teaching in high school some two years ago when I was commissioned by our assistant principal, now in New York, to write something about Fr. Al so we can present it during the opening of the SMS National Academic Challenge, which we hosted in 2006.

For the uninformed, Fr. Al is the founder of the Sisters of Mary School, where I graduated in high school. To us, the beneficiaries of his goodwill, he is a saint who opened the door to the community which was to change of lives forever. Founded purposefully for the poorest of the poor, The Sisters of Mary School, operates in South Korea, Mexico, Brazil, the Philippines, and only recently, in Guatemala. This international presence easily gives us the privilege of sharing with millions out there a common father, who will always be remembered as our "Champion."

But before this becomes a biography of some sort, let me go back to that article Ms. Cabanero asked me to write. I was digging on my files and happened to chance upon it and thought may be I should post it in my blog. Please forgive the hyperbole on poverty but I thought I write it that way to convey the message more meaningfully and forcefully. Read on...

Darkness... Ignorance... Hunger... Poverty... In a word, hopelessness. These were the things that greeted my every sunrise. Each day brought a promise not of recreation, but of back-breaking toil; not of the finer things in life, but of the coarse, harsh realities whose hungry fangs had taken deep cuts into my young existence. For how could you even admire the resplendent beauty of the sun caught in a dewdrop when the same sun mercilessly scorches your back as you toil for your next meal? How could even smile and love the rain when it is the same rain that finds its way through the roof overhead right into where your head is when you sleep, making you dismiss a beautiful dream and scamper to another "safer" place? How could you even appreciate what good education can bring when everyone else around you permits passivity and mediocrity as they themselves have succumbed to the seemingly irreversible despair in the wasteland of poverty.

As I looked around, I saw that I was not alone. There were thousands, perhaps even millions who shared the same fate as mine. Surely, God must be away filling the coffers of the rich children, making their lives brighter, more comfortable, more promising. Surely, God must have forgotten us...

Then in the total darkness that enveloped us, just when we were about sink into the mire of hopelessness, then came a man who made us believe that God hadn't given up on us; then came a man who cuddled us in his arms and made us taste how it was to live a dignified life, full of beauty, full of promise, full of hope; then came a man who believed in us, who never undermined our worth, who loved us without question; then came Fr. Al.

It is not without reason that we will forever call him the Champion of the Poor. These grounds, this school will always be a testament to that great love of Fr. Al, his zeal for the abandoned, his passion for the deserted.

God, You were never really far. Because of Fr. Al, and all the selfless people who sent with him, we thank You. We will never be able to You enough.

God bless us! God bless the Sisters of Mary!

There was a confusion as to who will deliver this piece during the program. The final days approaching the opening saw one of our co-teachers reading this on the background as a group of students gave life to it in an interpretative play. But as our principal found the intensity of emotion lacking in his delivery as the piece required, she asked for a replacement. They later found that there was no one else who could give justice to this piece but the writer. I ended up doing the voice-over and saw the welling of tears from the audience during the kick-off.