Brother Wilfredo E. Lubrico, FMS

"My father loved to comb my hair and cut it the way he liked it, a style which I resented when I was a young boy”, so began Willy's childhood musings. From the time young Willy was old enough to remember until he began his third year in high school, it was this haircut ritual that forged the bond between father and son. According to Rodolfo, Willy's brother four years his senior, their father was the barber for all seven Lubrico boys in Negros Occidental. So it continued when they moved to the island of Mindanao. They lived quite a distance from the Surallah town center, so the barber set up his "shop" under a tree at the yard of their farmhouse. "Cutting my hair would take my father two sessions," Willy wrote. "As he chewed his tobacco, he combed my hair until I fell asleep. Then, in the second session, my father cut my hair when I woke up. It would take him at least two hours as he narrated stories and asked me questions. I suspected he took his time to cut my hair to impart advice and to ask about my activities in school." My father liked his coffee and enjoyed his tuba (coconut wine) and shoktong – the medicinal wine made in the Philippines. Sometimes, he became talkative after a few drinks. He was a fan of sabong (cockfight). So he would invite one of his children to accompany him to the sabungan (fighting cock rink). He adored my mother so much. He would not eat without my mother. My mother would prepare his clothing, underwear, and towel before his bath. My mother treated him like he was her baby. She would not leave the house for more than one day because my father would not go near the dining table without my mother. He always looked after my mother to ensure she had food on her plate. He would cook chicken setting aside mother's favorites – atay (liver), legs, and ewing (pope’s nose) My sisters told me that I was my father's favorite son. ~~~~~ Why did Brother Willy become an "activist?" Briccio began: I could trace my friendship with Bro. Willy, way back in the middle to the late 1970s, at a time when some of us Marist Brothers in the Philippine Province were struggling and grappling with our identity, vision, and mission as Marist Brothers within the context of the Filipino Catholic Church. The Martial Law era was turbulent and fraught with anxiety and fear. Our students were restless; some became secular in their thinking and questioned everything the Church hierarchy and the educational system were doing. Specifically, they challenged the triumphalistic Church with its elaborate liturgical trimmings, gilded chalices and vestments, vast properties, and preferential options for the elite. In addition, they questioned the high cost of education perpetrated by catholic schools; reinforcement of elitism that favored the well-to-do students; the implementation of a curriculum that was alien to the realities of the times. During this period, the by-word or by-phrase was "signs of the times”. Some religious congregations recognized the signs of the times and exerted serious efforts in aligning their vision-mission towards the direction where the modern Church was heading and became progressive. Some remained wary and decided to be on the safe side by being traditional. Some congregations decided to march on the streets; some chose to pray in the chapel. Some congregations lost their members mysteriously or brutally; some congregations hid safely in the cocoon of their soutane or cassock. Bro. Willy later joined some progressive members of the clergy and religious. He organized the local communities and youth in the spirit of the aggiornamento – the Church in the modern world. They organized rallies and protests. Bro. Willy decided to effect change from the outside. I decided to stick it out from the inside. The 1970s were fraught with political turmoil in the Philippines. The tumultuous radicalism that pervaded the times was even more exacerbated by the rising popularity of the "theology of the laity" as expressed in Gaudeum et Spes (the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World) by St. Pope Paul VI and the Vatican Council II under St. Pope John XXIII. Bro. Willy was well informed of these documents, and his progressive consciousness ran alongside the mind of these two pontiffs. He was also rubbing elbows with the liberal members of the religious and clergy. He became a social worker in the parish, working with the youth of Bula – this to the consternation of the religious superiors. He was marginalized by the Congregation but was much appreciated by the parishes where he was involved. One of the best decisions Bro. Willy did in his life was to go out of the Congregation for a while. He applied for a one-year leave plus a two-year exclaustration from the Congregation. He tried to see more of what was happening outside the highly structured religious world… After three years of self-discernment and introspection, he returned to the Marist Congregation with much-renewed fervor and passion. It is very difficult to fathom the depths of a person's inner thoughts and feelings and his struggles and difficulties. But one thing is sure – somehow, somewhere throughout his life's journey, Bro. Willie has become stronger in the end. We see in him a man tried by fire. He has used his hardships and challenges as stepping-stones to make himself more mature, firm, and stable. They have become of him the very wellspring of his patience, understanding, and concern for others. In them, he has learned to value hard work and dedication. Through them, he will be able to reach the heights of success. ~~~~~~ His novice master Brother Ted Fernandez shared: I see in Willy through so many years that unending desire to go to the poor, help them in their plight, and even sacrificed his vocation to be with them. He took a leave of absence and left his comfort zone just to appease them. Being tagged as a leftist and at one with the communists did not faze him. The Brothers dared not criticize him because he was fighting for a cause. He was way ahead for most of us. The "rebel in him" indeed prompted him to take the road not taken. He came back to us filled with the Christian ideology of what it means for us to be a religious in this day and age. Finally, as he was inevitably given the role of leader of our tertiary institutions, he carried with him that vision. His point of interest was the Lumads [Cebuano word for Indigenous People], who we rank among the poorest in our society. He took many more initiatives for others, especially our young Brothers, to continue and hone this interest to serve the poor.