Cardinal Sin back where he’s endlessly remembered
Sept 26, 2007
Finally, “Ame” is coming home.
(Inquirer, 08/26/2007) MANILA, Philippines -- Two years after his death, Jaime Cardinal Sin will make a much-awaited return to New Washington, a small port municipality in Aklan, where the charismatic religious leader cum freedom fighter was born and raised.
And this time, he’s staying for good.
The former Archbishop of Manila will return in the form of a 13.5-foot brass statue built by brothers Ronald and Jonell Castrillo, nephews and assistants of world acclaimed sculptor Eduardo Castrillo.
The statue, a donation of Ambassador Antonio Cabangon Chua, will be unveiled on Aug. 31—Sin’s 79th birth anniversary—at the old town plaza fronting the Shrine of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary.
The plaza itself has been renamed after the late cardinal by virtue of a town council resolution last year. The resolution hailed the outspoken Sin as “a great leader, patriot and Church dignitary” who “contributed much in the restoration of democracy to the Filipino people.”
No simple addition
The statue is no simple addition to already existing structures of Sin in his hometown.
To begin with, it’s the first sculpture of the cardinal to be erected in the town, according to Ronald Castrillo. Most of his images are in Manila, the latest of which is the Napoleon Abueva-made brass statue standing at the entrance of the Cardinal Sin Village in Punta, Sta. Ana.
For the townsfolk, the Castrillo brothers’ creation is the closest they can get to a remnant of New Washington’s beloved and dearly missed son, according to Dr. Ramon Sin, the cardinal’s younger brother.
“They really miss him so much,” he told the Inquirer in an interview.
The younger Sin said townmates would have preferred that the cardinal were buried in the town. But church tradition and protocol reserved him a slot at the crypt beneath the Manila Cathedral.
The statue doesn’t show the realism of a wax figure. Instead, it beams with the majesty of brass, naturally reinforced by the stature and arresting presence of Sin when he was still alive.
Patterned after one of his famous images, the bust shows the late cardinal in full vestment. His left hand holds his bishop’s staff, his right hand raised as if blessing the church before him, a structure he had rebuilt in 1984.
Cardinal’s ‘smile’
The Castrillo brothers, builders of around 20 statues at Eternal Garden memorial parks in Laguna and Batangas, paid particular attention to the cardinal’s “smile.”
“He had quite a serious smile and it was not easy to depict,” he said.
Anybody who really knew Sin, of course, knew that the idea of a “serious smile” could not pass even as an oxymoronic reference to him. Besides his marriage of spiritual guidance and political leadership, the man was famous for his joke and hearty appetite.
This knowledge of the “personal” Sin is not lost on the people of New Washington, at least, to those who are too old to forget, according to his brother Ramon. They know him, not in book and newspaper accounts, but in personal encounters that have left deep impressions about the man.
“In our town, he’s known to many people as simply Ame,” he said, referring to his late brother’s childhood nickname.
Sorely missed
Ramon said Sin had been sorely missed since he was ordained priest in 1954, an alternately joyous and downcast event—the former in the sense that any new addition to God’s servants was most welcome to the deeply religious town of New Washington, the latter on the idea that its people would also have to part with their beloved son.
Since acquiring his vestments, Sin had been out on religious missions, becoming bishop in 1967, and then moving to the Archdiocese of Manila—the country’s premier diocese—in March 1974.
“Our townsfolk had accepted the fact that he had to be away most of the time, but they longed for his visit,” Ramon said.
Fortunately for the people he had physically left behind, Sin seemed to have the uncanny ability to be all over the place.
Despite the great distance between Manila and Aklan, the cardinal took every opportunity in his hectic schedule to drop by for a visit in his hometown, his brother recalled.
Deeply personal
Visits were never confined to formal gatherings and ceremonies akin to the atmosphere of a returning politician. They were deeply personal, often having the cardinal receive relatives, friends and ordinary folks at the two-story ancestral home near the plaza.
And people knew how to touch the cardinal’s heart—they did so through his belly.
Ramon said visitors often brought native chicken and eggs, seashells, crabs and popular catches such as “tamilok” (white worms picked from mangroves and are eaten raw) and “mangla” (white shrimps that come out usually after a rain in the town).
These encounters between Sin and his people were often obscured in the popular memory by his so-called “feats”—his role in the restoration of democracy in 1986 and his fight for freedom and character renewal from the very beginning.
Grateful people
But not to New Washington’s folks, like the many nameless priests he had sponsored and still many other ordinary people he had helped get by Aklan’s tough life, according to Ramon.
“To this day, I’m occasionally approached by people I do not know,” he said. “Out of the blue, they say they would like to thank the cardinal for the help he had extended to them.”
Many of these people came by the busloads in Manila to visit Sin at his wake at the Manila Cathedral two years ago. Many others would have loved to come, but were too old, too weak, or too poor to make the long trip.
These same people, according to Ramon, are awaiting the formal unveiling of cardinal’s towering figure at the end of the month. In a manner of speaking, their collective memory of him will breathe life into the statue of Sin.
Cardinal Sin back where he’s endlessly remembered