But after digging for a day and a half, their labor was fruitless. They dug a hole seven to 10 feet deep.
“All they found were bones,” said Gelbolingo, who took over the cathedral in 2004. He revealed that the land occupied by the cathedral was once a cemetery.
Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal visited the prayer room yesterday morning and told reporters in an ambush interview he will not involve the police in this case because there is “no need to investigate.”
Foiled
Gelbolingo, for his part, said the renovation work on the prayer room is suspended until “the air is cleared.”
“The good thing is I noticed it only one day and a half into their work. Had it gone beyond a week, wa na, kuyaw na kaayo,” he told radio dyLA yesterday.
Gelbolingo narrated that the security guard of the cathedral heard unusual sounds coming from the prayer room last Tuesday morning. When the guard couldn’t get into the room, he peeped through the window and saw a hole being dug up inside.
Gelbolingo, who was immediately informed by the security guard, rushed to the room. He later learned that the additional lock was ajar but there was a block wood on the other side, preventing the door from being opened.
After asking the workers to stop the excavation, he called up Cardinal Vidal, who later advised him to stop the digging.
Connections
When the monsignor asked Fr. Teogenes Herrera and Fr. Dominador Dosdos about the excavation, both priests denied being connected with it. They, too, denied knowing the four workers. Both priests work for the cathedral.
The workers were allowed to home.
Sto. Nińo Barangay Councilor Pancho Ramirez Sr. said there have been reports that seven Samurai swords and gold bars were buried there during the Japanese occupation.
He said that during the term of former mayor Alvin Garcia, a Japanese national who claimed to be a son of a Japanese soldier assigned in Cebu, asked for help from the Cebu City Government to retrieve the swords and the gold bars.
However, Garcia told the Japanese national to get the permission of Cardinal Vidal, who reportedly did not allow any digging.
Not in list
Fr. Herrera of the cathedral had requested that the prayer room, where the digging took place, be renovated.
Gelbolingo agreed because he noted that the roof was leaking and the air conditioners were in bad shape.
Its renovation, which was expected to be finished before Holy Week, was not part of the planned list of new and ongoing projects to be done in the cathedral.
Cardinal Vidal approved the list in October 2005.
It includes facilities for the Cathedral Rectory, repairs of the church’s walls and façade, improvement of the public comfort rooms, painting of the cathedral and water supply.
Construction jobs in the list include a new altar, new center tabernacle, throne of the archbishop, new baptismal chapel, development of the church plaza, and a fence fronting the cathedral.
Among the finished projects of the cathedral are its P1.8-million plaza and the Immaculate Conception Shrine, which costs P432,000.
New faces
Gelbolingo also said there were two donors for the renovation of the prayer room. The first was a woman from the United States who came to Cebu for a vacation and wanted to contribute to the beautification of the cathedral as a sign of thanksgiving.
The other donor was someone Gelbolingo never met or knew, but he said the donor is the same person proposed to him by Fr. Dosdos.
Gelbolingo explained that in his two years as parish priest of the cathedral, he has always relied on the same set of carpenters. They finished the walls and ceiling of the prayer room.
Last weekend, however, four new workers came over when construction materials arrived, and added a lock to the prayer room’s door. (NRC)
