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Thursday, January 22, 2004
Of faith or fraud: 4 strange chronicles from 2003
OF ALL the extraordinary characters Sun.Star covered in 2003, faith healers and cult leaders were the most surprising.
Or, perhaps more accurately, it was surprising how they could convince others to trust them, considering how strange their ways were.
When “Tita Brenda” laid his (yes, his) hands on patients, he had a Celine Dion ballad for inspiration. Florencio “Boy” Canoy claimed he was only massaging a young woman to cure her of “kabuhi,” but she accused him of sexual assault.
Daddy Divine convinced some 30 people to live with him in the caves of Buhisan. And Sister Nenen persuaded her followers to believe she could channel the voices of the Sto. Niño, the Virgin Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
All four have their followers, many of whom are grateful to them for all sorts of things: from healed kidneys and happy homes, to peace of mind and pacified tumors.
Healing hands or sleight-of-hand? It’s difficult to say. Any follower will tell you it’s his faith, not the plain facts, that matters.
Tita Brenda’s crusade
We begin with Gecilo Adefin, 55, who visited Carmen, Cebu for a few weeks last year to minister to ailing persons, some of whom had come all the way from Olango Island and Bohol just to see him.
After checking his eyeliner and blush-on, the beautician-turned-faith healer made his rounds. He introduced himself as Tita Brenda.
“The room took on the familiar smell of Lent as Adefin put on the purple robe of the Nazarene, moistened his hands with Eternity and started thumbing beads of stones and amulets,” wrote Lorenzo P. Niñal in Sun.Star’s Oct. 9, 2003 issue.
For his troubles, Adefin got P10 per patient. Some could afford no more than a thank you.
It was Barangay Councilor Gabino Brigoli, recovered from liver cancer, who invited Adefin to Carmen. Not everyone was convinced, though some swore Adefin had done more for them than many doctors.
Like many self-professed healers, Adefin said the Sto. Niño had come to him in a dream, telling him to cure the sick.
For his trip to Carmen, Adefin brought along 30 assistants whom he called his “apostles.” He also brought with him his Mitsubishi Lancer, Sun.Star observed.
Brigoli paid for the trip.
No healing hands
At least it was an expense he apparently welcomed.
Unlike Brigoli, a young woman paid dearly for her encounter with another faith healer.
The 24-year-old Fe (not her real name) had gone to Banilad sometime last September to see a man who not only read palms, but healed people as well.
When Florencio “Boy” Canoy saw her, he immediately warned her about a contagious disease—this without even reading her palm—and offered to heal her.
But that’s not what happened, a stunned Fe later told the police.
Instead, he barred the door of her bedroom with a table, told her to take off her clothes, then massaged her.
“Fe realized that something was wrong when she felt pain in her genitals. That was when she said she found out that Canoy was probing her,” reported Sun.Star’s Mia E. Abellana.
A medical certificate from the Cebu City Medical Center showed that Fe had lacerations in her genitals.
Police arrested Canoy, 44, in Consolacion town. He denied the accusation, and told police investigators he was only massaging her because she was suffering from “kabuhi” and “panuhot.”
He found no follower in Fe, but a complainant for rape instead.
Life with Daddy Divine
Which is not to say that all cults and healers reap only trouble. Some, for mysterious reasons, draw followers who stay loyal, whatever controversy the group figures in.
Consider Daddy Divine.
Alfredo Verano was, by his own account, a former volunteer for the military and an “international landscape artist.” He was also the leader of some 30 men, women and children who lived at least five years in the caves of Sitio Nazareth, Buhisan in Cebu City.
They called themselves the “Salva Me Pater Omnis Oculos Meus.” (Roughly translated, that’s “Father, save us from all our offenses.”) They kept a stable of horses, goats, chickens, a television set, a transistor radio and a VCD player.
The public remained unaware of the cult until some 150 residents signed a petition demanding that Alcover and company be ejected from the barangay. They accused him of sexually abusing the minors among his followers.
At least two former members supported that complaint.
“You believe them? They tell lies to cover their inability to live the life of the Father,” Alcover told Sun.Star’s Niñal in an interview last January.
The Department of Social Welfare and Development “rescued” 14 minors from the cult, but the court later ordered the children returned to their parents, also members of Salva Me.
The judge, however, told the parents to send their children to school, have them examined by a doctor and spare them from hard labor.
And so the children returned to Buhisan, and their life with Daddy Divine.
Sister act
In Barangay Bingay, Borbon, it was a more solemn figure that Hermina Mante cut.
When the media spotlight hit them, followers of Mante, a widow and mother of 12, quickly said they were not a cult, but merely Sto. Niño devotees.
They believe that the Holy Child, the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Virgin Mary have instructed their leader to spread the gospel, reported Sun.Star’s Linette C. Ramos last July 10.
Mante, whom her followers call Sister Nenen, said she was under orders from the Sto. Niño to spread peace in Mindanao and stop abortion and drug addiction.
Since 1982, Mante and her pastors have led their community in praying the rosary, reading the Bible everyday and preaching during Sunday prayer meetings.
More mainstream Catholics, however, are not comfortable with certain practices, including “things that only priests are allowed to do,” a member of the Parish Pastoral Council told Sun.Star. As examples, she cited the blessing of homes, or the exorcism of evil spirits.
Mante said she has sometimes asked the sick to drink holy water, but that her practices are all, well, in good faith.
“If we were a cult, the Sto. Niño wouldn’t have allowed us near a church. The more they label us as a cult, the stronger we become in our faith,” Mante said.
(January 22, 2004 issue)
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