By: Mozart Pastrano
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Almost an hour after abandoning the highway, we veer off the dirt road and bump our way into a dizzying network of mountainside roads that are little more than motorbike paths which try out one’s patience and plunge breathlessly into brooks (yes, no bridge to cross) that all too suddenly gurgle merely in one’s fond memory. And then, as we lurch down a steep embankment, the destination unfurls itself grudgingly, like a well-kept secret—a picturesque valley lapped by a tongue of riverine lushness. This is the hideaway of Mindanao’s well-loved beauty queen-turned-prayer warrior Maria Salome Salcedo-Aquino.
For months now, her friends at the Congressional Spouses Foundation Inc., where she is the socio-civic committee chair, have been calling and texting her, wondering why she has been missing in action from their whirl of necessary activities.
Mimi, as she’s called by family and friends, quips, “I am busy in the fields of the Lord.”
And so she is. Here she grows Japanese sweet corn, lettuce, romaine, ube, camote, chicharo, eggplants, sayote, radish, fancy lettuce, tomatoes, squash and watermelons. And, would you believe, she is just getting started.
But she also speaks metaphorically, too. At an open-air cottage perched at a bend in the freshwater stream yonder, she hosts prayer services for her guests and her neighbors in the yawning swath of the mountain village.
“I try to bring them back to the Lord,” she says.
Which is a somewhat unlikely thing for someone such as she to be saying or actually doing.
A welcome presence in the corridors of power, Mimi has been there, done that. She earned her stripes in the family business in Manila, where she helped manage their arrastre and stevedoring services, as well as customs brokerage. She used to be provincial tourism officer of Misamis Orientalin her hometown of Cagayan de Oro City. She later becametourism director of Region 13 or the Caraga region.
Heritage
“It (Caraga) is a haven of natural and historical heritage—from Masao in Butuan City, said to be the site of the first Mass in the Philippines, to such eco-adventure thrills as Lake Mainit, Siargao Island with its international surfing competition, the national marine heritage sites of Bucas Grande and Sohoton Cove, the mystical aura of Dinagat Island, and the thrilling wildness of the Agusan Marsh, the largest wetlands in all of Southeast Asia,” she recalls with relish.
It was during this time that she met José “Joboy” S. Aquino II, Butuan City’s most dashing, eligible bachelor—and now the city’s very accomplished and extremely popular lone congressman (his infrastructure projects—a network of wide, cemented alternative roads away from the flooded city streets and the new awesome bridge lording over the Agusan River and its unpredictable tantrums—have lifted not just the city from ignominy but also the city’s residents from a bleak outlook).
Well into their fairy-tale marriage, Mimi encountered what she now calls her “first calling.” It was a series of strange tingling sensations. As she puts it, “Parts of my face were getting numb. The doctors couldn’t figure out what was happening. At the back of my mind, I thought whatever this is, at least there’s Vicky Belo.”
As her condition dragged on and took what she thought was a turn for the worse, Mimi was thoroughly at a loss. And then her staff Becky Gonzaga had an idea. She brought her Love and Mercy prayer community to Mimi for a “pray-over.” Mimi was open to the idea. And thankfully, too—“I experienced instant healing,” she avers.
This wellness conversion was a turning point in her life. “The Lord renewed me and now I answer His call by doing my share. I preach the Good News, I participate in the healing ministry, I invoke fasting as part of my prayer regimen,” says Mimi.
She outlines her three W’s: “winning souls, witnessing and working for Christ.”
Spiritual center
And this is not just all talk. In Butuan City, the Aquino compound is known for the JM Building. The initials used to refer to José and Marcelina, Joboy’s parents. (His father José was governor and then congressman of Agusan province; it was he who, in the late 1960s, divided the province into what is now known as Agusan del Norte and Agusan del Sur.) Lately, the initials have come to signify Joboy and Mimi. “But now,” says Mimi, “we offer the letters for Jesus and Mary.”
The first floor of the building is the congressional district office. The upper floors, however, are for Joboy and Mimi’s work for the Lord. On the second floor is an adoration chapel whose exquisitely divine design came to Mimi in a dream. (“Politicians of national stature have come here to pray, shedding tears as they communed with the Lord.”) The entire third floor has been converted into a place of worship—a hall for community prayer. This is where the EGF, or the Experiencing God in the Family prayer community, comes together at 8 p.m. every day under the leadership of Brother Rolando “Boy” Yu.
“Conversion and faith—that is now the theme of my life,” affirms Mimi, a Bible ever ready in her hands, or at least within easy reach. In her getaway valley where she has just planted gladiolas from Holland in the pathway leading to her cottage that glories in vernacular architecture (how it is suffused with the clarifying whiff of mountain air), our lovely host regales us with her attempts to commune with the Lord in co-creation through stewardship of the land.
Her husband, Rep. Aquino, finds this a happy irony. “In the olden days, my family was into the logging business. But now, my family”—and he smiles at Mimi with pride—“here in the valley, my family tills the land and plants a good, healthy harvest. Instead of cutting trees, we take care of God’s creation.”
Mimi smiles back at him and says, “I have realized that going back to the Lord means going back to nature. Following the Lord also means following what he eats: vegetables and fish—no more soft drinks.” She can talk the whole day, and night, about this new lifestyle.
If this is peace of spirit, mind and body, let it flower profusely in this valley, and well, well beyond.
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