Your mantra for the week: “I now bloom and grow where I am.”
On July 31, 1999, Reuters published an article titled: “John Paul II: Sinners bring hell on themselves.”
This is how it went:
“Vatican City—Forget the flames and the devils with pitchforks. A week after telling the Roman Catholic faithful heaven was not up in the clouds, Pope John Paul II said hell was not a physical place either.
Lest sinners think they can get off lightly, though, the Pontiff said hell was for real and, rather than being inflicted by God, it was something sinners brought on themselves.
“Hell is not a punishment imposed externally by God, but the condition resulting from attitudes and actions which people adopt in this life,” he said.
“More than a physical place, hell is the state of those who freely and definitely separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy,” the Pontiff said in a weekly audience. “So, eternal damnation is not God’s work but is actually our own doing.”
The Pontiff’s end-of-millennium guidelines on hell came a week after he told pilgrims heaven was not “a physical place in the clouds but a living and personal relationship of union with the Holy Trinity,” and that a foretaste could be had here on earth.
“If we are able to enjoy properly the good things that the Lord showers upon us everyday of our earthly lives, then we have begun to experience the joy which will be completely ours in the next life,” he told pilgrims.”
Only one heaven to go to
I remember that only one publication ran this article. I guess most were shocked because many of my very-Catholic friends were unwilling to accept that this was for real, and even then they were claiming it was “fake news.”
One said, “I refuse to believe that, because it would mean that all these years I had been behaving because there was a hell to confront.”
I ended the conversation by asking, “Have you never considered being good for the sake of being good?”
In IAMISM, there is only heaven to go to, and it all begins right here on earth when we can make it so.
Unforgettable conversation
Last year, at Sal Panelo’s birthday party held at the palatial home of Philip and Ching Cruz, I met Honeylet Avanceña, the charming lifetime companion of President Rodrigo Duterte. I had a very lively conversation with her.
As my custom, I asked for her birthdate, which she gave without hesitation but with a questioning face before she inquired: “Why did you ask?”
I replied quickly, with a smile, that it was my habit to find out the birth sign of the person I am meeting so I can get an immediate insight as to his/her qualities.
Having identified her as an Aquarian, I said, in the vernacular, that such women had balls. She laughed, agreed wholeheartedly, and said, “Ang galing mo ha!”
I dared ask, if ever she found out that Mr. Duterte was fooling around, what she would do.
She promptly countered, “Subukan niya kung hindi bukas meron nang karatula sa bahay namin na for sale. Wala na siyang mauuwian at wala nang magsususporta sa kanya (Let him try and he will find out, the day after, there will be a big for sale sign hanging outside the house. No more place to come home to and no one to support him.”
After which, she asked me to go to Mr. Duterte, pointing to where he was sitting a few feet away and tell him exactly just what she had said, to which I acquiesced.
I was very glad Frannie Jacinto was there to accompany and introduced me to Mr. Duterte as the one who wrote that he would win the 2016 elections.
As we shook hands, to make him feel more at ease, I told the President that I was, on my father’s side, a cousin of Joma Sison, and on my mother’s side, to Gibo Teodoro—trusting that he would receive Honeylet’s message more comfortably with no awkwardness because we were meeting for the first time.
So, I proceeded to gently relay him Honeylet’s message. After which, he looked at her sheepishly with a gentle smile and Honeylet said, “Totoo yan!”
Then he looked at me, apparently remembering my Joma and Gibo relations, and uttered: “Puntahan mo ko sa Malacañang at mag-uusap tayo (Come to the Palace and we will talk),” which by the way, has not yet happened.
The Duterte that you meet in a social gathering is not the same person that you see on TV while he is letting off steam. He does not only seem docile but quite gentlemanly.
After the short conversation, Frannie and I rejoined Honeylet and continued our lively tête-à-tête. Honeylet promised that we would get together soon when she visits Manila.
This never came to pass, and last week, during the Asean Summit when she hosted a luncheon for the First Ladies of the visiting heads of state, she looked like a Honeylet who had blossomed into a woman fit to be a First Lady.
Based on that first meeting and conversation and how she has evolved since then, I am sure Mr. Duterte will never let Honeylet go.
‘Galing mo,’ Mare
Glenda Barretto of Via Mare, after 40 years of success, is now considering putting up another chain of restaurants and naming it “Via Pare” for lower-end consumers.