A State College in Camiguin and coming to the deep mystery of the island

In 1996, after my years of service with the Mindanao Polytechnic State College ( now, a university), I was invited to head the newly created state college in Camiguin island. I asked then Congressman Pedro Romualdo who invited me, why he chose me? And he said: “Because I heard you are clean.” “OK,” I said, “I will come to your island.”

There is a deep mystery in coming to an island. One feels that one is coming to a place of quiet or rest, leaving behind the hustle and bustle of the world. I did not tell him that I needed such an island to rest in. As I crossed the sea, I begin to understand that indeed I am going away from men to God, to rest in His silence, to pray at His feet. My task here is to recollect myself ( nurse my wounds) so that tomorrow I might return to them, to love them and to serve them for Christ’s sake, for God’s sake.

I began to realize too, that I have yet another task to perform on my island: I must set my mind at rest and quiet my heart: detaching it from all created things in order to turn it to God, the Creator and Lover. This is what islands are for. Not everyone has an island to live on, to come from, to go home to.

But all of us must make our own islands within our hearts. Islands where fear cannot dwell, islands where we can cross over the bridge of our days to rest at the feet of our Beloved, to drink of His silence, to be made whole again and ready for the battle of tomorrow. I thank God everyday for my island.

It took me quite a while to be “healed” in my island. Years earlier, when I had fallen in love with my island, I thought that it was just a passing thing, of no moment. That must have been sometime in 1989, and I mentioned it to Gov. Nieto Gallardo, when we visited Barangay Ytum at the foot of Mount Hibok-Hibok, where he was reforesting the mountain.

When I finally lived and worked in Camiguin, in my heart I thanked God for honoring my yearning for more solitude and quiet. Because, you see, when I was recovering from my experience in that state college in Cagayan de Oro, after my family and I had evacuated to a safe house in front of St. Mary’s School; after I had “lost” the power, the perks, the prestige, etc., I now walk down that hill, instead of being driven by my personal driver, in my presidential car, so I walk down forlorn and utterly alone, and I cling tightly to my brown leather office bag, and not knowing what to do or where to go, and I then simply and quietly and possibly in tears, asked Our Lord: “Lord, where are we going now? What are we to do?”

For you see, I had reached not only the bottom of that hill but also the bottom of my life and I had to decide: “Should I turn left? Or, right?” And so I asked Him, “Lord, where do we go now?” The Lord was silent, as usual. He always is. Like when I asked Him when I was in Grade 4: “Lord, can I see your world?” Or, when I was on board an American Airlines jet from New York to LA, in 1963 after my studies in Nova Scotia, when I asked again, “Lord, why me? Why did you choose me?” Or, in 1967, when I saw my bride walking down the aisle and I said, ” Thank you, Lord, for giving my Angelita to me.”

I told you: I remember “everything,” like how I miss my love in the morning light, like roses miss the dew.