Thursday, April 03, 2008 Wenceslao: Conflict in Inayawan By Bong O. Wenceslao Candid Thoughts
MY wife Edizza is from Inayawan, and I lived there for several months after a big fire burned our house in Sitio Kawayan. We would go to mass every Sunday at the Inayawan chapel, carrying our first son Edison Khan, who was but a year old. Even with the church in Laray, the chapel remains the center of Inayawan’s religious activities.
Only a few years ago heirs of the supposed owner of the lot where the Inayawan chapel stands moved to regain control of the area. As a result, the existence of the chapel has been put in jeopardy. Which is unfortunate because this is one structure that has defined Inayawan’s existence since it was built by former barangay chief Emilio Jaca Sr.
The chapel is under the Our Lady of Consolacion parish in Sito Laray, San Roque, Talisay City. The parish assigns priests to hold the regular Sunday masses at the Inayawan chapel. Recent developments have however forced the assigned priest, Fr. Domingo Saladaga to celebrate mass outside the chapel, at the open basketball court.
It is not difficult to see where the root of the conflict that has erupted over the Inayawan chapel lies. I understand that owners of the lot or their representatives, aided by a court order, are moving to take over control of the chapel’s finances. That is not bad if the money is used for the operation of the chapel and improvement of the structure.
One can even say the setup is an improvement from the one wherein the parish gets the donations and priests use these for purposes other than for the needs of the chapel. This was probably the reason why it was only lately that the conflict on how the chapel should be run heated up. A wait-and-see attitude must have prevailed initially.
But money issues are always tricky. Questions on how money is being spent spark conflicts that are often difficult to resolve. In the case of the Inayawan chapel, I think any resolution to the conflict has to deal with this tricky issue. That is aside from the need to settle fully the matter of lot ownership considering the versions one hears on this point.
I won’t attempt to put my take on these tricky issues because of their complex nature. Suffice it to say, however, that residents of Inayawan should work together to prevent their chapel from becoming irrelevant. The Jaca patriarch must be turning in his grave now considering that the chapel is one of his legacies as public servant.
(khanwens@yahoo.com/ 0915-9228651/ my blog: cebuano.wordpress.com)
