Wife, Mother and Reverend

Parishioners still have a lot of reservations about women priests, says Aglipayan pastor Reverend Ehravilla Maga-Cabillas

?I NEVER dreamed of becoming a priest,? reveals Rev. Ehravilla Maga-Cabillas, who grew up seeing many of her relatives in Tabuelan, Cebu being active in the Aglipayan church.

Life as a minister in the Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI) Church wasn?t easy, and she wasn?t just talking about the economics of it, says Maga-Cabillas. She recalls how, in her first year in college, she became exposed to issues of injustice and human rights which eventually led her to the seminary at the age of 20.

The bishop encouraged her. Go ahead, I will make recommendations so you can pass the exams, Obispo Maximo, Abdias de la Cruz told her then. ?Who knows? You might become the first Obispo Maxima, he said. We ended up laughing over that possibility,? she recalls in Filipino.

In truth, painting was her first love as was poetry, although she took up Commerce at her father?s insistence to fulfill his own dream of becoming an accountant. Two years and a semester later, Maga-Cabillas quit the course ? a form of rebellion, she says, against the goody-two-shoes image that her family had imposed on her, the eldest of eight siblings.

?It was like all my life, I?ve been boxed in a set of expectations as the eldest child,? she says in Filipino. She was always set up as the role model, a stereotype she finally had enough of. She quit the course and entered the seminary, the only woman out of seven applicants at the time. Despite his reluctance, her father gave his blessings.

There were very few women in the seminary but they were treated the same as the men, says Maga-Cabillas. The real pressure then was how to balance her academic studies with her extra-curricular activities.

It was at the seminary that she met seminarian Dionito Cabillas, three years her senior, who eventually became her husband. Fr. Dioni, as her husband is known, was once detained and tortured by the military on the instigation of a corrupt bishop, says Maga-Cabillas. But advocating change is part of their ministry, and it is what keeps them together.

She is well-prepared for the role, she adds. Under their curriculum?s Salubong Program, she was exposed to the prison ministry. She would also learn to live among workers, eating only twice a day for two months in their picket line. The goal was not to convert anyone but to immerse oneself in real life outside of the seminary. ?Eighty percent of what I know, I learned outside school. Real life deepened my understanding of classroom theory,? she says.

Maga-Cabillas remembers how she once joined a group that organized an exposure trip to red light districts, where they pretended to be customers and talked to prostitutes, learning about their way of life in the process. The group included not only seminarians but also some Roman Catholic priests as the activity was part of their ecumenical fellowship.

The result? ?Well, a lot of the participants left the priesthood. Some of them got married,? she laughs. ?Of course there were also those who persevered and pursued their vocation.?

Ordained as a priest in 2001, Maga-Cabillas sees the recognition of women priests as one of the challenges of her vocation. Women in the clergy are not treated equally, she contends.

?When they learn you?re a woman, you?re sent off to far-flung places where the community is so poor, there?s not even a church. Your assigned home becomes your church as well, with your congregation gathering in the garage, the storeroom, things like that. I?d always question that. It isn?t an issue of testing the priest?s capacity, but of equipping them [with management skills] before sending them [to their assigned churches].?

It?s not enough, she adds, to just say that ?we?re proud of our women priests.? The real recognition, she says, ?is to equip them to be part of the decision-making process. That remains our struggle, although there are some friendly bishops who are quite supportive of us.?

Although there are now 22 women priests in the IFI, there are still some reservations about them, says Maga-Cabillas. The doubts stem from fears that women priests would get married, get pregnant and give birth. To which this pastor counters: ?Are you ashamed of pregnant women??

As a theologian, Maga-Cabillas says there is no theological and Biblical basis for not ordaining women. The issue is really cultural. People are not used to seeing a woman behind the altar. This, despite positive feedback that women priests are alien to vices, unlike male priests who have sometimes been accused of having mistresses or committing sexual abuse against their flock.

Rejection is very common among women priests, says Maga-Cabillas. On her first Sunday last year in her present church, the Misyon ng Banal na Krus in Diliman, she was confronted by a petition from some of the parishioners who had asked for their former priest to be retained because of personal attachment to him. She decided to face the issue head on.

?I heard I?m not welcome here,? she told them in Filipino. ?I just want to be clear on this: Are you rejecting me because I?m a woman, or because you don?t like me? You haven?t known what it?s like to have me as your priest, and already you?re rejecting me. Isn?t that unfair? And you?d be very much mistaken if you think it?s enough to make me leave.?

Being an assertive person, she was not afraid to confront issues, says the reverend. And to their credit, her parishioners have learned to respect her mix of forthrightness, diplomacy and honesty.

To be a priest, says Maga-Cabillas, is not just about saying Mass or performing the Sacraments. While other well-meaning priests chide her for going the extra mile ? taking charge of the church publication, for instance ? when her allowance is a measly P5000, this reverend says that going beyond what?s expected is part of making a difference.

This, on top of being wife and housekeeper, and sharing the struggles of other women, as well as their biggest pride: being mother to four children aged 16 to 21. ?My children are my best friends,? she says.

When not busy with her responsibilities at the National Council of Churches in the Philippines, she is finally focusing on her writing. She is in fact working on a coffee table book about motherhood, with a first chapter already written.

Still, the best reward of her vocation, says Maga-Cabillas, is being accepted ? not as a woman priest, but simply as a priest, period. ?

All Fired Up

WHEN Genalyn Tan?s son grows up, he wants to be just like his mom. She wears yellow boots and a helmet, shimmies down a pole and speeds down the road on a truck to unfurl a long thick hose that spews a column of water to douse a raging fire. She?s a role model for him, and she?s proud of that.

Senior Inspector Tan is the commander of the Comembo Fire Substation in Makati City. A graduate of the Philippine National Police Academy 2002 Sinaglaya batch, she is one of only a few women with this rank and responsibility in the fire protection force.

In her early years in the service, Tan recounts, she was assigned mostly administrative work. So when she was appointed commander of the substation in Comembo in 2008, she had initial concerns about the new assignment. She had her officer?s rank, but given the age gap between her and the rest of the male staff, she wondered how they would respond to her as a younger commander.

As commander, Tan explains, she has to make sure that the fire is completely out before they leave an area. That means personally checking the burned out sites to make sure no smouldering embers are left that might flare up once more. Live wires are particularly dangerous. She recalls one fire officer who lost his life when he accidentally touched a live wire during his inspection.

S/Insp. Tan counts as her worst experience a fire incident just 300 meters away from her station, which reached fire alarm level 2. The substation?s lone fire truck had bogged down and she could not immediately request support from the nearest substations because a dead spot in the area made mobile communications difficult. She was finally able to contact another female substation commander in Guadalupe, Makati for additional firetrucks.

Tan notes that many people are surprised, sometimes amazed, when they see a female firefighter at the scene of a fire. She finds it rewarding when she and her team are requested to train fire brigades that serve as frontliners in fire prevention and control.

So far, she considers her biggest achievement the award Substation Commander of 2009 in Makati. That, of course, pales in comparison to hearing her son say that he wants to be a firefighter just like her. ?

At the Peak of the Profession

SIDETRACKED from an engineering career in college, Dr. Perla J. De los Reyes settled for what she once thought would be a stepping stone towards her eventual dream. But the Geology course she enrolled in put her literally on a rocky path that she found fascinating enough to stay on for the past 24 years.

De los Reyes was a college sophomore when she first experienced field work. It was 1984 ? the year Mount Mayon threatened another eruption ? and for geologists, an exciting time to be out in the field.
A new hire at the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs), De los Reyes was immediately dispatched to do the mapping of the volcano. From then on, she fell in love with the work, and there was no turning back.

De los Reyes, supervising science research specialist and OIC of the Geology and Geophysics R & D Division, is in her element at the Phivolcs, where almost all geologists are women. There are more men, mostly engineers, in the seismology department, but the overall working environment is more collegial, she says, and gender has never been an issue, even in the early days under the late former Phivolcs director Dr. Raymundo S. Punongbayan

There are risks, of course ? but that also comes with the territory. The work involves taking flights, usually by military helicopters, over often hazardous areas that nonetheless need to be monitored. Once, she shares, the Huey chopper they had boarded on the way to Mt. Pinatubo developed engine trouble mid-flight, and they were forced to make an emergency landing in Basa Airbase, Pampanga.

The most recent thrill was flying over Mt. Mayon at the height of its activity just a few months ago, to check lava flow and validate the data gathered by their remote sensing equipment. For this, they had to get as near to the slope as possible in the thick of volcanic activity.

Before, during and after the historic eruption of Mt. Pinatubo, their team was in Clark Air Base monitoring its activity. By mid-afternoon, the volcano finally erupted, and they had to race away in the sudden darkness, their vehicle covered with ash and pelted by pumice stones the size of one peso coins. Back at the Air Base, they had to use soft drinks to clear up the windows of their vehicle.

In retrospect, De los Reyes says, the things they had to go through out in the field were dangerous. But back in the office, there was simply no time to dwell on the fears and dangers. After all these years, they?ve learned to be more cautious, she adds.
De los Reyes? eyes momentarily tear up as she recalls that day in April 2005 when the chopper carrying several of her colleagues, including Punongbayan, crashed in Nueva Ecija during a mission to assess a resettlement area.

The tragedy has tempered her aggressiveness, she adds. She no longer rides helicopters. ?You learn? some things you have to think of before science.?

These days, De los Reyes is busy with liquefaction mapping along flood (prone) areas. No regrets, she says, over having spent years with a disaster-monitoring government agency when she could have earned a lot more in a private company or even abroad. It?s enough reward to know that her work could, in some way, spare people from death and suffering. ?

Weighing in for PWDs

IN A neighborhood gym in one of the inner streets of Cubao, Quezon City, Adeline Dumapong, 36, lifts weights equivalent to two sacks of rice while lying on a bench. Testing her grip, she does several rounds before carefully lowering the weights back onto the rack. At 211 pounds, she doesn?t even break a sweat.

Ordinary scene in an ordinary gym? Could be. Except that when she?s done, the powerlifter reaches for the wheelchair unobtrusively parked to one side of the workout bench, and nimbly slips into it.

Dumapong?s saga in powerlifting began in 1997 when a colleague suggested she try her hand at it. She had lost use of her legs at age 3 due to polio, but she had a fit and sturdy upper body build that was ideal for the sport. In her first local competition held in a mall, she nailed the 30k division.

In her first international competition, she won a silver medal in the 67.5-k category during the Far East and South Pacific Games (FESPIC) in 1999, the equivalent of the Asian Games for PWDs held in Thailand. It was the first time ever for the Philippines to send a powerlifting representative to compete abroad.

At the Paralympic Games 2000 in Sydney, Australia, she again won a medal, a bronze in the 75k category. It was the first medal ever won by a Filipino in what is regarded as the Olympics for PWD athletes.

These twin feats, on such a grand international scale, created greater awareness and support for Filipino PWD athletes.

Most people are amazed when they find out what her chosen sport is, Dumapong reveals. She has never felt the need or pressure to surpass her male counterparts, or even prove herself to them, she says, because she is well aware of her own capability. Gender has never been an obstacle, nor has it imposed restrictions on her performance, she says, adding that the only challenge she entertains is staying on top of her game.

Besides the athletic achievements, Dumapong also finds great reward in doing volunteer work. She founded the Orthopedically Handicapped Athletic Association of Quezon City (OHAAQC) and the Women on Wheels Club of Quezon City, which provide livelihood projects for women in their sector. With the OHAAQC, she plans to hold sports clinics to discover and encourage promising recruits for different sports.

Admittedly, powerlifting has its dangers. She has seen athletes break their bones or get painful dislocations. She herself has experienced chronic back pain both from powerlifting rigors and from being seated most of the time in her wheelchair.

There have been times when she has considered quitting. But she feels that her visibility is one way to draw attention to the plight of PWDs in general.

This year, Dumapong plans to begin law studies in a university, hoping for an opportunity to do more for the people who share her challenges. ?I hope the time comes when I can help PWDs assert their rights,? she says in Filipino. ?