Archbishop Mabutas: A Servant of God and of the People (Part 4)

SIXTH: Early in 1981, Pope John Paul II visited Davao City. This was the only place in Mindanao the Pope would visit and the official host was the Archbishop Mabutas. Again, he was at the right place at the right time.

SEVENTH: On April 19, 1981, 2 months after the Pope’s visit and 2 months after he became the C.B.C.P president, a bomb exploded in the center aisle at the last mass of Easter Sunday at the San Pedro Cathedral.

16 died and about 170 wounded or maimed for life. The Archbishop was at the back of the Cathedral trying to get in when a second blast occurred. The escalation of violence continued leading to issue several sad Pastoral letters.

On December 26, 1994 at around 6:30 P.M. the San Pedro Cathedral was again bombed, killing and wounding scores of persons. The Archbishop rushed to the Cathedral and saw a dead bloodied baby. He wept Fr. Giordano, S.J. wrote “few bishops had to live through two bombings of the same Cathedral during his term”. His pastoral letters gave comfort to the people. The theme was: “God loves us, God will protect us and with prayers and sacrifices, God will save us.”

EIGHTH: On November 4, 1982 he called for an Archdiocese Pastoral Assembly of Davao (APAD) ONE, the purpose was to see what the Church problems were, especially in Davao and what to do about it. On May 9, 1994 or 6 years before 2000 he convened APAD. TWO, in a way, he was preparing the Archdiocese for the year 2000, by identifying problem areas, looking for solutions and making plans of actions on several Vatican mandated issues.

NINTH: He allowed the archdiocese to participate in the May 1995 elections as a local arm of the National Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL) through the vision 2000. Comelec Commissioner Maambong said during the 1995 Cebu conference that the Davao’s Vision 2000 was rated number one in all aspects, among the volunteer groups. Not all the dioceses joined but the statistics showed that there were fewer or no election protests in places where a diocese participated in poll watching.

The Comelec records show that the cities with populations of one million or more, Davao Visions 2000’s reporting was the fastest and most reliable in 1995 and 1998.

On June 13, 1996 Mrs. Choleng Albay wrote that the Archbishop wanted me to give a short talk at a Bistro Rosario luncheon on the occasion of his 50th Anniversary as a priest in case the guest who was supposed to do it failed to arrive. I did not know that it would be my first and my last chance to say something about him. I visited him last October 1998 at RM. 213 of San Pedro Hospital. He looked tired and weak but he smiled when I got his hand and asked for his bendicion. When I left, I remembered a passage a passage from the second letter of St. Paul to Timothy, Chapter 4, verse 6 to 8, “the time is here for me to leave this life. I have done my best in the race, I have run the full distance and I have kept my faith. And now there is waiting for me the victory prize of being put right with God, which the righteous Judge will give me on that day.”

Talk given on November 3, 2019 as part of the program celebrating the Founding of the T.D.M. sisters 50th anniversary.