in memoriam

FR. ENGELBERT VAN VILSTEREN

(January 16)

Engelbert Van Vilsteren was born on April 9, 1935 at Wijhe-Boerhaar, The Netherlands. He joined the Carmelite Order on September 10, 1956 and was ordained to the priesthood on July 9, 1961. He arrived in the Philippines as missionary sometime on April 1964.

Hein was known to the people of San Francisco, Agusan del Sur as “Big Hand” due to his huge strong hands that could easily lift the bumper of cars when it got stuck on the muddy roads of Agusan.

Engelbert is a strong person yet has a soft heart for the poor and the children. He goes around his parish for friendly visits and to comfort the needy. He was deeply concern with the people, especially those suffering from sickness or injustice. He would forget himself when called upon. There would be his hearty laugh, his arm around your shoulder, his kind word, his comforting presence whenever there was trouble and you come to him.

Another striking thing to know about him was a statement issued from the Office of the provincial Board of the Province of Agusan del Sur after his death. Upon his death, the Provincial Board was moved by his witness that they issued Resolution #9 dated January 17 in the year 1973 stating that:

Whereas, Rev. Fr. Engelbert van Vilsteren, besides devoting himself in the propagation of his faith and in the service of his Church, has always gone out of his way to extend a helping hand to those in need;

Whereas, during the entire period of his stay in San Francisco, Agusan del Sur, he has done much in educating our young, in molding their character and preparing them to become responsible citizens and future leaders of our country;

Whereas, his love for his fellowmen was so much, that on various occasions he braved inclement weather to help those in distress; he threw aside self-precautions just so he could could save life, and in his dealing with the people around him, he has always been fair and just – living a true Christian life;

Whereas, in his desire to be of service to his fellowmen, on January 16, 1973, he drove the ambulance to fetch a body of one Restituto Dollete who was reported to be murdered in cold blood. And on their way at around 6:00 pm, they were ambushed, and he was one of the innocent victims.

On that tragic January 16, 1973 at around 6:00 pm Fr. Engelbert and three others were ambushed by cult members driven by their lords who wish to pursue the tyranny of the powerful against the poor. They died instantly of massive hemorrhage due to multiple massive hack wounds at head, neck and extremities and a bullet wound at the left lumbar region.

BRO. ISAGANI MIRO VALLE
(May 14)

Bro. Isagani Valle was born on December 28, 1959 in Mahayang, Zamboanga. Originally, his parents were from Ormoc City but the search for greener pastures led his parents to leave their beloved city. New opportunities led the family to move again to San Francisco, Agusan del Sur where the siblings of the family continued their education.

He took his High School education from Father Urios, High School of San Francisco, Agusan del Sur which was administered by the Carmelite Fathers and Brothers. Gani showed exceptional intelligence and friendly character to his classmates. They would describe him a very patient person, smiling and always ready to help those in need, especially his poor classmates. Inspired by the priests, his vocation to become a priest grew in Isagani. At one time, when the family returned to Ormoc City, Brother Gani decided to take the examination of priesthood in Palo Diocese which he easily passed.

the year 1972, he was a seminarian in the seminary in Palo. His classmates (Monsignor Bernardo Pantin and Fr. Manuel Ocaña) testified that he always topped their exams when they were seminarians in Palo. When his family moved back to Agusan, he left the Diocesan Seminary to join them. He became active in the Parish of the Sacred Heart administered by the Carmelites in San Francisco, Agusan del Sur. This service in the parish, ignited in him once again, the passion to become a religious.

Inspired by the service the Carmelites rendered to the community of Agusan, Isagani decided to join the Carmelite Order despite of the fact that he passed other scholarships for College studies. From the period of 1977 until 1981, he studied as a Carmelite seminarian in the Our Lady of Angels Seminary (OLAS) and St. Joseph’s College in Quezon City.

During his novitiate formation, he got involved in different student organizations which demanded change in the unjust structures of the Philippine government. He received his temporary profession to the Order in the year 1982. Gani is remembered by us through his advocacy with the poor and the marginalized. His words of passion for people so reflected in the following excerpts from one of his study-group reflections expressed his unwavering stance for justice:

“We still have to see a theology that proceeds from the people and goes back to the people; a theology which contains the lives and experiences of the masses; a theology that is dialogical. This needs real immersion in the lives, sufferings and struggles of the people. It is being written in the midst of the slums, in dialogue with the poor and their life-situation: It is that place where we, seminarians, have to listen and learn. It will, for sure, be different from a theology written in airconditioned rooms. We must work and struggle for this theology – liberative and developmental of the people, and transformative fo reality.”

He lived out these words. The Carmelites let their seminarians experience the poorest of the poor during their exposures that they may live out like Jesus Christ who once preached, "foxes have holes, birds have nests but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head." During one such exposure in Mindanao specifically on May 14, 1983, he was killed by the police while having his exposure/immersion in Buenavista, Agusan del Norte. He wanted to get a first-hand experience of what life was like for poor people living on the edge between military violence and liberation.

While attending a fiesta in Buenavista, he was seen strolling around with two companions farmers who were suspected to be members of the New People’s Army. Following a tip of an informer, the police force of Buenavista suddenly swooped upon them and mowed them down under a rain of bullets.

Their bullet-ridden bodies were displayed in front of the Municipal Hall of Buenavista and buried afterwards without a coffin in a common grave at a cemetery. His life inspired his religious friends. Sr. Asuncion Martinez, ICM to write a tribute for him:

Brother Gani!
With pride and deep reverence
We salute you,
Our youthful hero and martyr.

With longing you had desired to be a PRIEST.
A priest of God, with a heart of flesh –
To love, to serve, to pray, to sacrifice for our oppressed,
and exploited dehumanized BROTHERS.

Brother Gani,
In this crucial time of our people’s history,
You wanted to plunge yourself
into the stream of our struggle
to be ALL things to all.

Perhaps, you wanted to be the priest of the slums,
Among the homeless and jobless;
To be the labor-priest
standing by the striking workers,
Or the priest crawling and groping
In the black tunnels of collapsing mines.

You wanted to be a priest among
Our uprooted peasants, dumped and herded
Inside company plantations; harassed and
driven away from their smoking villages.

Or a priest
ministering to the Tingguians and Kalingas
at the foot of the Cordillera mountains.
Or somebody among the Manobos and T’bolis
of Mindanao, withering and starving in
their dried cracked gaping fields,
having nothing to harvest, nothing to eat
nothing to plant.

Surely Gani,
Your supreme desire
was to be a priest
among our brother revolutionaries,
stationed in the jungles and mountain passes,
fighting for JUSTICE-FREEDOM
for our COUNTRY and our PEOPLE.

Brother Gani,
As you saw the vastness and urgency of your mission,
You could no longer wait for your ordination day!
You boldly ventured into treacherous paths
and forbidden grounds to bind
the wounds of those who had fallen
by the wayside, to defend the scattered sheep
against the hungry wolves.
But above all you craved and hungered
for the glorious embrace
of your brothers in the struggle.

Brother Gani, this was your last and deepest dream.
Yet a dream that was suddenly blasted by the gun,
and by a traitor’s bullet
snatching you away from us and our people.

Brother, that day became your solemn ordination day.
You then became truly a priest,
Our prophet, our martyr –
Anointed with your own blood,
vested in priestly robes of bleeding scarlet.
As your temple, you had only the open skies
and as your altar the very soil
moistened by your blood.

No bishop to consecrate you
but only the loyal and daring poor
who tenderly and reverently lifted
your broken body
for the salvation and liberation of our people.

Brother Gani,
people thought you were alone
for your solemn mass –
no, you were not alone.
You passionately carried in your heart
Your downtrodden brothers
and all your faltering fellow religious

and church workers,
to celebrate with you,
in your first and last Mass,
your Mass of Resurrection.

Gani,
infuse into the very depths of our being
your indomitable courage!
Courage to dare to speak out the truth,
Courage to fight for justice
Courage to work relentlessly
for Freedom of our country!

Gani, they have killed you
but they can never silence you.
Your prophetic voice resounds
in every church, school and seminary

Oh! May it never stop!
Until the last priest and nun, brother,
pastor, deacon, seminarian, pastoral worker
has valiantly joined the struggle,
the march to freedom,
towards our final Resurrection
as a fully liberated people in a land
where there are no more tyrants
no more slaves,
“where there will be no more death,
no mourning nor crying no pain.” (Rev. 21:4)

Father Isagani,
we proudly salute you
our PRIEST, our PROPHET,
our HERO and MARTYR,
our very own BROTHER!

Brother Isagani's body has been transferred from San Francisco, Agusan del Sur to the Catholic cemetery of Ormoc, Leyte. He is buried beside his father and other relatives. On his tombstone is written the words, "IN OBSEQUIO IESU CHRISTI" for indeed he died IN ALLEGIANCE TO JESUS CHRIST whom he followed even unto his death.

FR. CRISPIN OFFERMANNS
(August 15)

Antonius Joseph “Joep” Offermanns was born on October 17, 1935 in Geilenkrichen, Germany. His family moved to the Netherlands where his father worked as a shoemaker, sacristan and organist of the parish church in their village. At an early age, he learned to play the organ. After his elementary education, he entered the minor seminary of the Carmelites.

Upon entrance to the novitiate, he was given the name, Crispin, the patron saint of the shoemakers, which reminded him always on the work of his father. He did his profession on October 3, 1955. He was ordained priest on July 10, 1960. In preparation for his future work for the school in the Philippines as a missionary, he was sent to the United States to take up Master of Arts in English and Education.

He arrived in the Philippines on 1964 and was assigned in Mount Carmel College, Escalante, Negros Occidental. Later, he worked in Magdalen Hospital as a Director and after a long process of self-examination, he opted to work in the social action center in Iligan City.

He was elected the Commissary Provincial in 1985 and served in this position up to his death. He was greatly involved in Justice and Peace work and task forces and other mission partners of the Association of Major Religious Superiors in the Philippines.

After suffering from lung cancer, he passed away at the age of 55 on August 15, 1991 in Heerlen, Netherlands, where he underwent cancer therapy for a short while. He was buried on August 20, 1991 in Landgraaf, Netherlands. On the occasion of his silver anniversary of ordination, he said:

“My message today is one of struggle. Always, I have been a man of struggle. My objective always is to do everything that should be done. So, I am a mixture of patience and impatience. Hence, I wish to renew my commitment as a prophet and not a diplomat for the true total freedom of our suffering people.

It is the task of the religious to witness and bring life, of equality justice and peace for all. Otherwise, we would be guilty of their deaths. We should be prophets and not diplomats… the consequences can demand a high price.”

FR. SIMON WESTENDORP
(November 21)

Simon was born on November 19, 1936 at Hengevelde, Municipality of Haaksbergen, The Netherlands. He entered the Carmelite Order on October 18, 1955 and made his profession on September 10, 1956. After being ordained priest on July 9, 1961 he left for the Philippines and arrived here August of 1964.

Simon’s first assignment in the Philippines was in New Escalante, Negros Occidental where he served as an assistant parish priest. Here, he was involved in the usual parish activities and apostolates but was also actively involved in the establishment of credit union cooperatives. Simon was also appointed Rector in the Carmelite Minor Seminary during these period.

In 1976 of his own free will, he was transferred to Agusan del Sur, where he became parish priest of a “frontier” underdeveloped town called San Francisco. Simon the Prior of the Carmelite community in Agusan del Sur while also serving on the Carmelite Commissary Council.

What kind of a man was Simon? What were his feelings, principles and values? He was quiet, but clear. Reflective, yet active. He, too, kept himself open to being taught by the people and by history. He keep searching for the “what” and “how” of being priest, being Church at his time in the Philippines.

When Simon was asked his feelings and expectations about the near future in the Philippine contet, he gave this response:

“Our feelings and expectations regarding the near future are closely linked with the people’s struggle for liberation. Regarding religious life, we see no future unless we religious can integrate ourselves in the struggle of laborers and farmers for liberation. It should become ever clearer that this is a question of faith. This should be basic to our spirituality.”

Since 1970 Simon had devoted himself to the causes of the barrio people who were in danger of becoming the victims of land expropriation in favor of the Guthrie Palm Oil Project. He made it clear what standpoint the parish had taken: opting for the small farmers. With some co-workers, Simon recorded the complaints of these people. A brother Carmelite said about him:

“He was a very modest person, and was not a talkative man; but when he had something to say it was a sensible thing to listen to him.”

When Simon started his work in Agusan del Sur, he went to live in a slum area of the badly neglected town of Prosperidad, about 14 kilometers north of San Francisco. His truggle for the right of the outcasts and his way of life deeply influenced the way he looked on things. One of the consequences for him was that he resolved to travel as the poor travel: by boat. On November 21, 1983, Fr. Simon was among the hundreds of victims who drowned when the merchant vessel Doña Cassandra sank in the Pacific Ocean between Butuan City and Cebu. From the passengers’ manifest, 12 were found dead, some 207 were missing of the 345 listed passengers. The ill-fated passenger vessel includes two priests one of which was a Carmelite priest in the person of Fr. Simon and seven religious sisters who were on their way to Cebu to attend a Religious Convention.

According to the testimonies of some survivors, they could have saved themselves but they opted to save others instead. Some survivors in the sinking of Doña Cassandra off from Surigao Strait gave witness that these church workers distributing life vests and calming passengers. Other witnesses recounted that the priests and sisters were trapped in cabin as they frantically tried to save the children.

Among those known religious to have perished with Simon were: Sr. Nanette Berentsen, a nun of the Congreation of the Sisters of Julie Postel; Sr. Consuelo Chuidian, RGS; Sr. Concepcion Conti, RGS; Sr. Virginia Gonzaga, RGS; Sr. Catherine Loreto, RGS; Sr. Josephine Medrano, FMA and Sr. Amparo Gilbiena, MSM.

At the memorial service in his native place of Hengevelde, his brother who is also a Carmelite friar said:

“I hear members of the family say: If anything worries you, go to John (Simon); you can count on him. He is thoughtful and has wise things to say.”

FR. CHRISTOPHER "TOPI" EXALA
(June 6)

Fr. Topi Lao Exala was born on February 27, 1967 in Davao City, the 3rd among the five children of George Exala and Anatolia Lao of Maniki, Kapalong, Davao.

He went to Maniki Central Elementary School from 1973 to 1979 for his elementary training and Maryknoll High School of Maniki from 1979 to 1983 in Kapalong, Davao. Fr. Exala finished his Master of Arts in Pastoral Ministry degree from the Inter- Congregational Theological Center- the Graduate Program of Our Lady of the Angels Seminary (ICTC- OLAS), Quezon City in 1996 with his thesis entitled “Immersion: Encountering the human Face of God (A Theological Reflection of Being with the People)”; and his Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy degree from the Queen of Apostles College Seminary in Tagum City, Davao in 1988. He also followed courses from the Socio- Pastoral Institute and most recently from the Ateneo de Davao University.

He entered the Carmelite Order in 1990 as a pre- novice (postulant) after his aspirancy program in 1989 in Agusan Carmel, was accepted in the novitiate in 1991 in Manila and made his simple profession of religious vows as Carmelite on May 30, 1992 and solemn profession of religious vows on July 27, 1996, and was ordained deacon by Bishop Julio Xavier Labayen, OCD of Infanta on July 28, 1996 at Titus Brandsma Center in Quezon City. Subsequently, he was ordained priest by Bishop Juan de Dios Pueblos, DD of Butuan on December 29, 1996 at Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish in San Francisco, Agusan del Sur.

In the many years of his religious and priestly life; he was appointed:

- Formator at San Alberto Carmelite Formation Center, Cebu City and became Rector and Prior of the monastery from 1996 to 2001 and 2006 to 2007. He also taught Philosophy and Theology at Rogationist College Cebu.

- Parish Priest of the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish in Escalante City, Negros Occidental from 2001 to 2005. He was also elected Prior of Mount Carmel Monastery of Escalante from 2003 to 2005.

- Formator/Rector of the St. Elijah Student Friary, the formation program of the simple professed Carmelites in the Philippines based in Quezon City from 2007 to 2009.

- He was involved at Batang Pinangga Foundation in Cebu; and other NGOs during his student days and as priest.

He also served as member of the Commissary General Council from 2005 to 2008, and concurrently served as convener of the Commission on Initial- Formation, Commission on Mission and Commission on Apostolate; and has been a member of the Formation Teams in the Aspirancy, Postulancy programs of the Order for many years.

In January 2008, he was appointed member of the General Commission for Evangelization of the Carmelite Order.

On June 6, 2010, on the great feast of Corpus Christi, at around 6 in the morning, Fr. Topi as he was fondly called, was proceeding on his motorcycle to San Miguel Parish, in Tibal-og (Municipality of Sto. Tomas, Davao) for the 7am Sunday mass when he was accidentally hit by a fast approaching motorcycle near a bridge. Fr. Topi sustained fractures all over the left side of his head and body and died on the spot. A five- day wake was condcuted at the Exala’s residence in Poblacion Maniki, Kapalong, Davao and he was brought to the Carmelite Monastery in San Francisco, Agusan del Sur for an overnight vigil on June 11.

Fr. Topi was well loved by his peers, colleagues, parishioners and friends because of his simplicity, openness to learn and relearn, principled resolve in many things especially in justice, peace and integrity of creation issues, critical involvement and unwavering option and love for the poor, sense of humor, and love for life. He was very straight forward and frank.

Fr. Topi plays tennis, basketball and billiards and always loved hard boiled eggs, hamburgers, grilled fish, “kambing (goatmeat),” “talaba (oyster),” “bulalo (beef soup),” with some “drinks” and jokes and laughter. His favorite song was “Kanlungan” by Noel Cabangon. He will be surely missed by his family members, relatives, the Carmelites, classmates, peers, co- workers, associates and friends.

Memorial Masses and Necrological services were held in Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish, Escalante City, Negros Occidental on June 8, 2010; San Alberto Formation Center Cebu City on June 9, 2010; Titus Brandsma Center, Quezon City on June 19, 2010. It was well attended by brother- priests, religious sisters and brothers, seminarians, colleagues, friends, parishioners, local government employees, city and barangay officials, tennis mates, and “buddies” of Fr. Exala.

The Mass of the Resurrection was held on June 12, 2010 at 2pm, at Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish, San Francisco, Agusan del Sur after a necrological service, the interment followed at San Lorenzo Ruiz Memorial Gardens in San Francisco, Agusan del Sur.

Rest now Topi, our brother… rest now in the Lord!

These Carmelites together with our Lay Partners and those confreres that helped shape Carmel Philippines are hallmarks of our true dedication to God and His Church. They are models that we could look up to as inspiration as we continue the cycle of sowing and reaping in the vineyard of the Lord.

Their lives were offered for the Mission, for the Order and for the world. In a very special way we also remember the names below who are part of building-up Carmel Philippines:

SALVAGED CARMELITE LAY PARTNERS

Manoling Malicay
Boy Lagurin
Loloy Algunas
Ani Mariano

CARMELITE CONFRERES WHOSE LIVES SHAPE CARMEL PHILIPPINES

Richard Vissers – the first friar to arrive in the Philippines
Jan Lansink – First Carmelite parish priest of San Francisco, Agusan del Sur
Jan Mulder – Bible scholar and Theology teacher
Theodulf Vrakking – Teacher, Translator, 2nd Commissary Provincial in the Philippines
Cor Hendriks – Missionary to San Mariano, Isabela
Werenfried Viester – companion of Fr. Vrakking

Benetius Egberink – First Director of Mount Carmel College, 3rd Commissary Provincial in the Philippines