By Fred J. Reyes / Philippine
Panorama, 15 April 1984
Photography: Joey
de Vera
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| THE SEATED CHRIS OF GUIMBA |
How “Tatang”
Brought Peace and Prosperity to a Family in Nueva Ecija
In Guimba, Nueva Ecija, enshrined in a chapel beside a
rice mill, is a life-size crucifix that has drawn throngs of devotees the past
6 years. People reverently refer to the fgure on the Cross as “Tatang”.
“Tatang” is no ordinary
version of the Crucifixion. Unlike most other representations of the Holy
Cross, Christ here is nailed on both wrists and feet. A block of wood juts out
between the thighs, serving as a seat and propping up the upper portions of the
body.
The most common crucifix shows Christ nailed on His palms
and His feet, and His body pressed flat against the cross.
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| PHOTO BY JOEY DE VERA |
Some Biblical researchers say that this could not have
been the way Christ was crucified. His nailed palms, they say, could not have
been sufficient to carry the rest of His six-foot frame and would surely have
been torn loose after a short time on the cross. Thus, the seat-like projection
between His thighs, which the Roman soldiers as an afterthought, both to
prevent the palms from being torn apart and to prolong Christ’s agony.
These researchers further say that the French sculptor
who made the first such depiction claimed he had seen it in a dream. This
crucifix is said to be known in many parts of Europe as “the seated Christ”.
“Tatang”, as the
seated Christ in Guilba is beter known among residents and visitors, was
sculpted by a Filipino—Rey Estonatoc, who has a studio in Pag-asa, Quezon City.
The wooden image shows so profound a suffering that many first-timer to the
place, including wizened old men, have been seen crying unashamedly before it.
Rosario Divino Sta. Inez vda. De Santos, matriarch of the
family which owns the chapel, says Tatang
has brought peace and prosperity to her household and perhaps to hundreds of
other people since His arrival there in 1978. She is particularly thankful for
the change in the life of the youngest of her four sons, Fred, who she says was
once a black sheep of the family.
Fred, she says, used to be unemployed but also was invoLved
in some michief or other. “He used to bring nothing into the house but trouble,
all kinds of trouble”.
At the height of Fred’s youthful escapades in early 1977,
well-meaning friends succeeded in making him enter a cursillo. They had unsuccessfully tried to make him do so twice
before.
When he finally attended one, he noticed, after a few
sessions, a crucifix of the Seated Christ that had been brought into the cursillo house by a certain Delfin Cruz.
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| A wooden image of profound suffering. |
It was the first time that Fred saw such a crucifix and
his curiosity was aroused.When he asked around, one cursillista, Jose Dijamco, told him that as far as he was concerned
that was the faithful reproduction of the Crucifixion. Impressed, Fred made a
vow to have a replica of the crucifix someday.
Two weeks after the cursillo,
Fred became a changed man he ceased to be the troublemaker that his family used
to know and now went all over the barrios of Guimba doing apostolate work. In one of his sorties, a friend came up to him to offer a
wo-and-a-half acre farm for cultivation. “It was my very first job offer,” says
Fred,”and I readily accepted.”
He had just finished planting the farm to rice when a kumpadre offered him 4more hectares for
cultivation. Again, he accepted. “Kaya,
eto, umitim na ako, kakatrabaho sa bukid”., he now says, calling attention
to his deep tan.
The harvest in both farms was bountiful. He reaped 105
cavans to a hectare , which set him off to a good start in the rice business.For the first time in his life, Fred says, he found
fulfillment: “So this is how it feels to sweat and get rewarded for your own
labor”, he recalls saying to himself.
Still, something seemed lacking in his life. Often
thinking about it, he soon began to have dreams about the crucifix, sometimes
with the Virgin Mary floating with it in the clouds. When he recounted his
dreams to Dijamco, who by then had become his spiritual adviser, the latter
reminded him of his promise to acquire a replica of the Seated Christ. N Fred’s
request, Dijamco eventually found a sculptor to make one for him.
The crucifix was finished in October 1978, and Fred,
along with Dijamco and a close friend, Cris Ang, drove in a van from Guimba to
estonactoc’s studio in Quezon City to get it.“A storm was raging then”, recalls Ang. “But on our way
back, it seemed to have calmed down.”
He also remembers that the crucifix they brought back
with them attracted lots of curious (and awed) onlookers along the way, so that
they had to stop a number of times to enable people to take a close look. As a
result, it took them 8 hours, instead of the usual 3, to get back to Guimba.
The crucifix also seemed to have grown heavier, according
to Ang. Only 4 people were needed to load it into the van in Quezon City but
when they arrived in Guimba, 12 pairs of hands had to bring it inside the
chapel owned by Fred’s family.
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| NAILED AND BOUND FEET. PROLONGING CHRIST'S AGONY. Photo: Joey de Vera |
Fred says his dream about the crucifix has never recurred
since its arrival and he now feels completely at peace with the world. “I used
to attend mass only 5 or 10 times a year and I stayed outside the church at
that. Now I remember God through Tatang every
day of the year.”
And instead of scaring people away during his days of
mischief, Fred now seems to draw people to him—people in need of help,
especially. But Fred doesn’t mind giving them help. “When you give to the poor,
you’re fulfilling the tithe required by the Church.”
His mother, Rosario, who tends a small sari-sari store
besides managing the family rice mill, says she is the happiest about the
things that Tatang has done fro her
sons and the rest of her family.
“We used to have every kind of problem, financial and
other wise,” she says. “Now all these problems seem to have vanished. We’ve
paid all our debts and sent our children to the best schools and have something
lef to buy lands and other properties.”
Here 3 other sons—Renato, Oscar and Albert, who had their
own “youthful flings” have also grown prosperous, apart from being law-abiding
and God-fearing men. Oscar, a town councilman and military officer, assists at
Mass every Sunday. A son of Fred and a son of Roberto are in the seminary,
studying for the priesthood.
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| Matriarch Rosario vda. De Santos, with granddaughters. Peace with the coming of Tatang. |
Tatang, for his
part, has become something of an institution in Guimba. Every now and then,
people attribute “little miracles” to him. Sometime, in 1979, when a rift
divided the town’s cursillistas, the
statue, made of hard ipil, reportedly developed a crack on the face, from
the forehead to the bridge of the nose. The crack was said to have closed only
after the cursillistas had settled
their differences.
The chapel, while privately owned, is open to everyone, and Fred says, that like
him, countless other people may have been moved by the seated Christ to change
their ways.
He attributes to tatang all the good things that have
happened to him and his family. “He is as powerful as the man-God he
represents.”
Fred says, however, he never asked Tatang directly for the material things that he has now. “Ask him
for anything, except material things.”
All that he prayed for, Fred recalls, was faith,
fortitude and endurance in the “rat race”
of this world.
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