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IN
THE LAND OF THE ATI-ATIHAN
The Philippine Canon Law Society Holds 10th National Convention in Kalibo
by Fr Jim B. Achacoso, CLSP Secretary
 As
expressed in a Resolution during the 3rd National Convention in Bacolod
in 1995, the Annual National Convention of the Canon Law Society
of the Philippines shall be fixed in the second week of Easter. The
underlying reason for this was to provide the members of the society,
for the most part priests who would have had to combine a grueling
Lenten pastoral work with their judicial functions, a chance to rest
while getting updated on Canon Law. Thus the 10th National Convention
was scheduled for April 9-10 (Tuesday-Wednesday), with April 11 as
excursion day. The choice of the venue couldn't have been more fitting
for the festive season: Kalibo (Aklan), the airline entry point for
the world-famous Boracay Island and its fabulous beaches.
April 8, Monday
The first participants started arriving in the morning of April 8, although an
advance party-with Leah (of the CLSP Office), Sr. Dolly (of the Appellate Tribunal)
and some more personnel of the Tribunals of Davao and Manila-seems to have landed
even the previous day to set up shop and help the local coordinating committee.
But the bulk of the participants arrived in the afternoon flights of April 8,
all met by a crew of shuttle vans, courtesy of the Brotherhood
of Christian Businessmen and Professionals who manned the Welcome
and Transportation Committee, under the coordination of Fr. Joesel Quan of Kalibo.
By mid-afternoon, the convention site was alive with a motley crowd of canon
lawyers from all over the archipelago.
Venue was the Aklan Training
Center, in the Old Buswang district of Kalibo, Aklan. It is a cluster
of duplex cabins-air-conditioned, twin or triple sharing, with individual shower
and toilet-arranged around a central convention hall, dining hall, and offices,
interspersed with pools and greens, and all in the middle of a rustic setting.
Nothing luxurious, but functional and efficient (since everything was on site
and there was no need to travel)-all thanks to the Office
of the Governor of Aklan, which allowed us the use of the place.
At 7 p.m., punctually, dinner was served, preceded by a short blessing and welcome
by the Most Rev. Gabriel V. Reyes, Bishop of Kalibo. During dinner, some more
participants-who came overland from other parts of the island or the neighboring
islands-trickled in.
Dinner was followed by socials-basically small group talks, cocktails, and the
ever-popular karaoke.
A short brown-out at about 10 p.m. reminded the diehard karaoke kings-Fr
Gammy, Fr Jim and even Fr Javier-to get a good night's sleep since the following
day was really the big day.
April 9, Tuesday
 It
was Sr. Dolly's birthday, so the participants warmly sang her the traditional Happy
Birthday while waiting for breakfast, which was served about 7:30.
Despite the slight delay, we managed to get to the St John the Baptist Cathedral
for the 8:00-Inaugural Mass with only a slight delay. The newly renovated Cathedral
was relatively full, many members of the laity having been invited for the occasion.
The Solemn Mass was concelebrated by all the priest convention participants,
with Bishop Gabriel Reyes as main celebrant and newly-installed Bishop Nerio
Odchimar (former CLSP Secretary) and the other officers of the CLSP as principal
concelebrants around the altar. In his homily and keynote address, Bishop Odchimar
cited the current challenging situation of the lay participation in the church,
in the family and in the BECs. In turn, he presented the feasible roles in which
a canon lawyer is called to be of assistance to the bishops and to the church
as a whole. Thus, he outlined the main themes of the convention-i.e., the four
pastoral priorities with canonical aspects for the Catholic Church in the Philippine
at the start of the Third Millennium.
Back at the Aklan Training Center, the Convention proper started at 10:00, with
52 CLSP delegates and 155 delegates from the Kalibo diocese (composed of 91 parish
lay representatives, 15 parish priests and parochial vicars and 49 religious
organization representatives). Msgr. Adolfo Depra, Vicar General of the Diocese
of Aklan, gave the welcome address, followed by the Hon. Florencio Miraflores,
Governor of Aklan and the venue host.
Fr. Mark Beluso, Chancellor of the Diocese, introduced the first lecturer, Bishop
Gabriel Reyes himself, who gave quite a long lecture on The
Laity, covering not only theological aspects but going into canonical
matters as well, thus reducing the work of the next speaker. Because of lack
of time for an open forum, the second lecture followed suit. After a brief introduction
by Ms. Alice Bote, Fr. Jaime Achacoso gave the second lecture on The
Canonical Aspects of the Empowerment of the Laity. He affirmed
that the real sense of empowerment of the laity does not consist so much in allowing
the laity to participate or cooperate in the exercise of the ecclesiastical power
of jurisdiction-although the new Code does that-as in capacitating them to fully
live up to their vocation to enliven the temporal realities with the Gospel,
while staying in the middle of the world. This time a lively open forum ensued,
cut short only because of an overdue lunch at a little after 1 p.m.
At 2:30 p.m., the third speaker for the day was introduced by Fr. Pedro Rabonza.
Msgr. Romulo Vergara then gave a well-researched lecture on Canon
Law at the Service of the Family. He expounded on the idea of
the family as a domestic church that holds the foremost and primordial responsibility
to be the herald of faith to all its members. He identified some lacunae in
canonical legislation that need further attention for the law to be of better
service to the church's ministry in favor of marriage and the family. Again a
lively open forum followed, which ended with merienda at
4:00 p.m.
At 5:00 was the much-awaited basketball match between a CLSP selection and one
from the local clergy. Despite their well-known hospitality, the Kalibo clergy
managed to trounce their visitors by a respectable margin (at one time 30 but
eventually reduced to 18 points!). Msgr. Pangan, CLSP President and a main proponent
of the CLCP team, optimistically declared upon returning from the match that
the CLSP team (new every year) is "loosing by a smaller margin each time." Talk
about a fictio iuris.
Dinner was at 7:30 p.m., in
situ, followed by small talk over beer and cocktails. It was a
time for bonding-something which, as Fr. Javier would put it, is worth all the
effort of organizing a national convention yearly. It was no wonder that the
small talk would last well after 10 p.m.
April 10, Wednesday
 Wednesday
started-like the previous day-with a drizzle, just enough to freshen up the summer
morning. The 7:00 a.m. Mass with Morning Prayer (Lauds)
had Bp. Nerio Odchimar as main celebrant, with Msgr. Romulo Vergara and Fr Jim
Achacoso as principal concelebrants around the altar. Fr. Jim gave the homily,
which was a commentary on the episode of Easter Sunday morning-a call to faith
and hope, and a reaffirmation of our dedication to the priesthood at these trying
times.
After breakfast, the Convention continued with the fourth speaker being introduced
by Fr. Winnie Naboya. Actually, the lecture was assigned to Bp. Leonardo Medroso,
Chairman of the Episcopal Commission on Canon Law and member of the CLSP. He
prepared an incisive lecture entitled Towards
the Integral Renewal of the Clergy; but due to a historic affair
in his own diocese of Borongan, he could not attend this year's convention and
asked Msgr. Bernardo Pantin to read his paper instead. So Msgr. Pantin found
himself with the unenviable task of delivering a paper which read like a charge
sheet of the areas where the members of the clergy need to improve,
even just to be more in keeping with the provisions of Canon Law regarding the
life and ministry of priests. The discussion that followed, in the absence of
the paper's author, were simply addressed to the body and anybody could contribute
his own thoughts. Mercifully, the discussion somehow got orientated to the problem
of schismatic and suspended clergy, instead of the more thorny issues raised
by Bp. Medroso's paper.
By mid-morning, the open forum was done, and the body agreed to proceed-after
a brief coffee break-to the Business Meeting originally scheduled for the afternoon.
Thanks to the quick response of the Convention Secretariat-staffed by the Kalibo
seminarians and the Diocesan Catechetical Ministry and chaired by Fr. Cesar Echegaray
himself-the projector, screen and transparencies were made ready per
breviorem. Everything went like clockwork and by 12:30 the Convention
proper ended. Lunch followed, punctuated by various arrangements for the members
who were leaving in the afternoon-taking advantage of the early finish of the
business meeting to catch afternoon flights and bus trips. But the majority stayed
behind, to make an afternoon tour of some spots Kalibo had to offer, and to go
to the much-awaited excursion the following day to Boracay Island. But that was
not canonical anymore.
Summary of the Business Meeting
The meeting started with a 10-minute report read by the President, Msgr. Bong
Pangan, which centered on the 2-Year Plan of the new set of CLSP Officers and
the ECCL-CLSP National Pastoral Plan-i.e., the program for realizing the 4 Pastoral
Priorities where the CLSP can be a lead agent as far as the canon law component
is concerned. This was followed by his presentation of the proposed new
CLSP seal (which was accepted with suggested modifications from
the body) and the Mission-Vision
Statement (which was also accepted with minor modifications introduced
right there). At this stage, the President asked the Secretary to read an e-mail
message from Prof. Luis Navarro of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross-who
was the main lecturer in the Naga Convention last year and is a registered member
of the CLSP; he expressed his regrets for not being able to attend the Convention
this year, thanked the Society again for inviting him last year, and expressed
his solidarity with the CLSP in its role in the Pastoral Priorities for the millennium.
The Vice Presidents in turn gave very brief reports for their corresponding geographical
areas of responsibility, highlighted by the holding of Regional Conventions for
Mindanao (organized by Fr. Florio Falcon and held in Cebu City) and for the Visayas
(organized by Fr. Boy Opalalic and held in Borongan City, Eastern Samar).
The Treasurer, Fr. Sam Silloriquez, next took the stand and gave the shortest
report-summarized in one page that was furnished to all the members present.
In his own words, "there's not much money to account for anyway."
The Secretary, Fr. Jim Achacoso gave a short report on the three areas of immediate
concern: the systematization of the very nice Secretariat Office at the CBCP
Bldg. in Intramuros (Manila)-inherited from the previous Executive Committee-,
the cashflow for the maintenance of the office and the salary of the office secretary,
and the establishment of an e-based network for the members of CLSP. He announced
the registration of the Canon
Law Research Foundation (in lieu of the never-registered Friends
of CLSP)-a non-profit foundation whose main task is to help CLSP
with its operational and publication expenses-and the launching of www.canonlaw.org.ph -
the new website of CLSP.
Committee Reports took a bit longer, the lion share going to the Committee on
On-going Development. Committee chair Fr. Javier Gonzáles presented the fourth
and latest issue of the Philippine
Canonical Forum-at 314 pages, the most extensive and handsomest
volume so far-and informed the body of the warm acceptance of the Journal in
the canon law academic community worldwide. He announced that the Journal will
not be sold as is, but will be given free to members who are up-to-date with
their dues. He also presented the latest issue of The
CLSP Gazette, reminding everyone of the new volume numbering system
which shows both the volume or year number and the issue number (Volume 7.13
means the 7th volume and 13th issue).
Fr. Gamaliel Tulabing, chairman of the Committee on Membership, first introduced
the newly enlisted members, highlighting the changing profile of the membership-i.e.,
almost half are already new and there are fewer and fewer charter members (those
who were present in the Charter Convention of 1992). He then outlined his plans
in order to address the dwindling attendance to the national conventions and
the seeming loss of interest of the older members, while at the same time really
culling the roster of those who have repeatedly failed to show interest.
Finally, as if to buoy up Fr. Sam's sagging spirits (and the Society's depleted
bank account), Fr. Ross Olaybal, chair of the Ways and Means Committee, took
the stand and after a flambouyant introduction, launched the Millennium
Plus Raffle, distributing them on the spot in batches of 100 raffles
at P100 each to all the members present, "considered as sold". He also appealed
to the members to tap their moneyed friends to give sizable endowments to the
Foundation.
The meeting ended with a Resolution to hold the 11th
National Convention (2003) in Surigao City (Mindanao), with Fr. Florio Falcon
as Chairman of the Convention Coordinating Committee.
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