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Sunday, June 26, 2005
Missing the 'cardinal' jokes
By Carmen Urbina
A man who championed the rights of the poor, his face was prominent at the first Edsa Revolution, fearlessly tearing out from power President Ferdinand Marcos and the second one that took place, bringing down Joseph Estrada; and from another end, a presence so felt by the pobreng masa. Just ask the residents of the Cardinal Sin Village in Manila.
In a voice choked with tears, one woman said that they loved him. Need we need more words for Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin?
Larger than life, we are tempted to label him; and he really was large in life, his rotund belly reminding you of another rolly-polly good man with a big heart.
He was formidable but his humor tempered it. In self-parody he once said (and we paraphrase) that when he was a child, he was Venial Sin and when he dies, he would be known as Mortal Sin.
At 76 he died of renal failure on June 20 but he will not be forgotten as he is woven into the fabric of Philippines’ history.
He used his humor to pepper his attacks on the Marcos family, although at first he only attacked the government policies that strangled the people. But as time wore on, he became more peppery.
His was the joke about the “mining industry,” which revolved around a rich and powerful woman – the shades of former first lady Imelda R. Marcos – who pointed to things, proclaiming, “That’s mine! And that’s mine!”
Another joke of his had him seated between Ferdinand and Imelda. “I felt,” he said, “like Jesus; crucified between two thieves.”
Even after Martial Law was lifted, he was outspoken to the point that the media called him king-maker and unseen general.
Fortunately for this unseen general, accolades did not go to his head. Visitors to his home, he is often quoted to have said, were greeted with, “Welcome to the house of sin.”
The man from Aklan was destined to make a mark. Even his appointment as Catholic archbishop of Manila in 1974 stirred the waters. Of that he said, he was “ a small town boy lost in the big city.”
Not really. In fact, he saved a city and in the bigger picture, saved the people. His destiny to eternity is not for us to know but we want to believe that there, too, he will make the angels roar with laughter.
(June 26, 2005 issue)
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