Viva il Papa Francis!

Consider me one of the blessed few that was among the 100 chosen from the Archdiocese of Cebu to meet Pope Francis. But because of our deadlines, I will write about this once-in-a-lifetime experience in our next column. Towards the end of November, the Apostolate for Family and Life called an emergency meeting with the various pro-life organizations in the Archdiocese of Cebu. Honestly, no one had an inkling of what that meeting was all about, which is why less than 20 people showed up.

The meeting for the Archdiocese of Cebu was presided by Fr. Eligio Suico and it was there we learned that Pope Francis had a special request, that he wanted to meet with a spectrum of Filipino society in what has been called an “Encounter with Families.” Of course there was a catch. The Pope did not want to meet only the rich people…but the poor fisher folk, farmers, factory workers, whole families and yes Persons with Disabilities (PWDs). We were also told that there would be 100 people from all walks of life representing each archdiocese all over the country.

As my sister, Adela A. Kono belongs to the disabled sector, I volunteered to bring her PWD group to Manila. But when I told her this good news… she told me that she could not go because there was already a previous engagement, where the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) had a program to help fix wheelchairs in Cebu. So in the end, I had to chaperone the PWDs from the Archdiocese of Cebu.

As January was fast approaching we learned that there were many flight cancellations because of the Papal visit. Somehow, by some stroke of faith, Philippine Airlines (PAL) didn’t cancel our flights. But last Wednesday a PAL information officer called up to inform me that our flight PR 1850 that was expected to depart Cebu by 12:45 p.m. was suddenly moved earlier. It was a good thing that since I was accompanying disabled persons, we had to be at Mactan Airport at least three hours before because it was only then that PAL ticket counter informed us that the flight was once again moved much earlier at 11:00 a.m. Surprisingly the flight wasn’t full.

I have travelled with my sister even to Japan. But it was the first time for me to travel with five PWDs. It was great to know that we were given priority to board…but as the plane landed in NAIA, we were the last to deplane. What made things difficult was when the pilot informed us that all flight bays were full, so we had to park at the end of the Centennial Terminal. This meant that we had to take the stairs to go down in order to take bus to the terminal baggage claim. Being with PWDs means having patience.

I did make a request with the PAL Purser that upon deplaning, if the PWDs could be met with their own wheelchairs, as it would be less hassle for them to transfer from the PAL wheelchair to their own wheelchair. But because we had to take the stairs we had no choice but to use the PAL wheelchairs. Kudos to the PAL cabin crew for they were so helpful to the PWDs, and even took selfies with them, more so that they were told that we were going to Manila to see the Pope.

        Sky Logistics, PAL’s ground crew were also extra helpful in giving a helping hand in bringing down the PWDs to the bus and to the terminal. But all of this took a great deal of time. While we arrived at 1 p.m. we left the Centennial Terminal by 2:30 p.m. to go to the Heritage Hotel. We chose the Heritage Hotel as it was close enough to the Mall of Asia.

        On our way to the hotel you could see the thousands upon thousands of people in various colored T-shirts already lining up the streets to greet Pope Francis as early as 2 p.m. I was with Msgr. Achilles Dakay on the van and we were asking ourselves, who would feed those people, it was too early to be on the streets? I was listening to the radio as the plane bearing Pope Francis arrived in Villamor Air Base at 6 p.m.

        Along the closed streets in EDSA and Roxas Blvd. I noticed that my Globe phones suddenly had “no service.” It was obvious that shutting down cellphone service was probably part of the security arrangements for the Pope’s visit. Then Globe Telecom came out in the evening news warning subscribers of weak or no phone signals during the Papal visit.

        As I said earlier, I cannot yet write about the events that happened inside the Arena at the Mall of Asia due to our respective deadlines. Incidentally DSWD wrote me a letter in response to the article about the clearing of children in Pasay City. Then DSWD Sec. Dinky Soliman also came out in the press vehemently denying that report from UK based The Daily Mail that showed a photo of children caged to keep them from the streets during the Pope’s visit, which had gone viral in social media network. Now if the DSWD officials did their job we wouldn’t have children begging in the streets right? Let’s see what happens after the Pope leaves.

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