It is one thing to suffer from Alzheimer’s and totally forget about your roots; and another to be deliberate about it, even as you have perfect health and above average means.  Which is what happens to some Guinaronanhons.  Some of them have families who figured well in Guinarona’s history and were active in the affairs of the community. Somewhere along the way, they encounter the Born Again paradigm or some other religious happenstance, and they just throw their roots under the bus.  They become aloof, and the worst part is that they assume the air of a know-it-all, of being self-righteous.  As a consequence, they have this bad habit of spitting on Guinarona’s name, on San Pascual Baylon, Guinarona’s patron saint.

Granted their sect forbids idolatry, or the worship of inanimate things.  Somehow, one has to have visualization props, like a photograph maybe in order to connect to a concept.  For all we know, the visualization can take the form of sacred geometry, even numbers.  In these instances, one has to have the prop.  Others have the image of the deceased or the saint or god or anito, as the case maybe.  Which leads us to wonder, how do the Born Again do their thing?

Buddhists have their sutra scrolls, also a visualization thing.  Others have the image of the Lotus flower as prop.

So why do some Guinaronanhons become so uptight about “craven” images, such as that of San Pascual Baylon? Do they have the right answers to the mysteries of the universe?  Do they even know how perception originates?  Or are they like the fly on top of the carabao that thinks it is the carabao?

This exclusion thing among the religious sects is a disease–it infects the body politic, it poisons relationships.  It is like damning one’s environment, the air he breathes.  If one cannot operate within the environment, he might as well live like a hermit.

Which brings to light the example of Salvacion Aguillon.  Ate Salve, as Aguillon is known, is the head of the sect, Ang Banal na Pagaaral (The Holy Study) and is from Guinarona.  Hers has become an international organization and is involved in humanitarian out reach.  And Guinarona has become a primary beneficiary of Ang Banal’s programs.  Aguillon is an example of a head of different religious sect, but whose heart has always been for her hometown.  Clearly, she doesn’t  discriminate as to whether her publics venerate photographs, paintings or what not.  It is also clear that she follows her heart, which belongs to Guinarona.

Say, why can’t we be like Ate Salve?  Heaven forbid we have feet of clay.