The homily delivered by Pastor Larry Pabiona at
last Sunday’s evening worship service at Greenhills Christian Fellowship
reminded, or taught, us about how Mary teaches us about true worship as gleaned
from Luke 1:46-55. The pastor, himself a story of wonder, was once a successful
surgeon who decided to become a church minister, said that The Magnificat, which we know is Mary’s song expressing her
wonder of her God’s choice of bearing the baby Jesus, is the longest and most
comprehensive statement made by Mary in the Bible, and so, said Pastor Pabiona,
“it is worth studying when we want to learn the truth about Christmas worship.”
Mary sings, “My soul glorifies the Lord and my
spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” This shows her wonderment over her role, a
bondservant though she is. Pastor Pabiona asked, what then should our attitude
be of worship? “A deep heartfelt inner spring of intense gratitude and joy that
bursts forth habitually from a humble soul who knows its utter unworthiness.”
(This a quote from J. F. Macarthur Jr.)
Mary bursts out, “From now on all generations
will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me — holy is
His name.”
Pabiona challenged the worshippers: “What is the
spirit of Christmas? In a word, Worship . . . nothing more and nothing less.
But it demands the right Recipient above all things, because worship can be
misdirected, even by well-meaning people. May the words of Christ’s own mother,
whom God used to bring Christ into this world, show us the way.”
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Towards the end of the pastor’s homily, a
well-applauded testimony was delivered by Col. Cesar Hawthorne R. Binag CEO VI,
police senior superintendent of the Philippine National Police. He spoke about
what a group of officers is doing to reform the public image of the police
establishment. He said the peaceful conduct of the May 10, 2010 election was
partly brought about by careful monitoring by the police. The role of the PNP
in that election is the subject of a book the colonel is about to finish writing.
The public had long have
an image of the PNP as lacking in credibility and engaged in corruption. In
1993, former President Fidel V. Ramos, forced 40 officials, superintendents and
deputy directors to resign as part of the so-called police moral problem.
Four young captains went
into a huddle. They agreed with the president’s intention to institute reforms.
But theydid not like the thought that those generals who dedicated their lives
to the police service would be dismissed perfunctorily. Capt. Cesar Binag, one
of the four police senior inspectors, told me after the GCF worship service.
Like Binag, police
senior inspectors, Benigno Durana, M.O. Aplasta and Lyndon Cubos, were all
Philippine Military Academy graduates. They had meetings with Boy Manuel,
missionary with the Campus Crusade for Christ, who had been looking for PMA
graduates to help them with life-changing strategies. Binag said, “We wanted a
group to do the right thing.” I asked, what right thing? “We observed, we heard
so much talk about corruption, about the lack of credibility in the service,
that’s why President Ramos had to fire officers.” His group wanted to avoid the
pits senior officers had fallen into, and this they could do by putting God in
every policeman’s heart.
With Boy Manuel as their
facilitator, they met once a week at Boy’s house or at a McDonald’s store, for
Bible study and to review books on leadership (the books included “Finishing
Strong”by Steve Farrar; “Temptations Men Face” and “Seven Habits of Highly
Effective People” by Stephen Covey). “Our strength was conducting trainings on
motivational and leadership management,” said Binag.
Word about the reforming
group’s intention spread, and in no time, many officers joined them, seeing the
group as “a refuge group.” “Our strength was conducting trainings on
motivational and leadership management.”
Who could tell a cop to
walk the strait and narrow path but a fellow cop? When some of them made
mistakes, or did unseemly things like going to bars, “we confronted them, but
with love,” said Binag. Believing in right relationships, spouses and families
are now part of the organization.
The group, called
Christian Officers’ Reform the Police Service Movement (CORPS), was registered with the
Securities and Exchange Commission in 2000.
“Our battle cry is ‘God
in every Cop.’ And our mission is to help build a God-centered,
service-oriented and family-based Philippine National Police,” said Binag.
The CORPS has two major
programs. First, My Brother’s Keepers, set up in 1999, adopts young graduates
of the Philippine National Police Academy in Cavite to be living in the ways of
the Lord; some 300 graduates are now assigned in different areas of the
country.
People used to tease
them about there being no building two years after the groundbreaking
ceremonies for the CORPS’ training center had no less than President Ramos as
guest of honor. The reformed officers’ prayer was answered when Citiland
president Andrew Yuson donated funds for a building.
The second major
project, called Bless Our Cops (BOC), begun in 2011, challenges church leaders
to pray for the police,instead of just criticizing them. The dream is to have
one local church cover a police station to establish good relations with the
staff and talk about life changes. So far, the movement has covered churches in
15 regions; the goal is to cover all 1,526 stations in the country.
There are many spiritual
groups doing the same spiritual purpose. Binag says the prayer is for all these
Christian groups to form a network for coordination to stop the impression of
their being in competition.
In 2005, the PNP, in
coordination with UNDP, set up an Integrated Transformation Program, and tapped
CORPS organizers Durana, Cubos and Binag to organize the Center for Police
Strategy Management.
As if working for the
right way were not enough, the CORPS organizers pursued post-degree courses.
Aplasca and Binag finished masters degrees in development management at the
Asian Institute of Management, Durana a masters inpublic ad at the University
of the Philippines. Cubos became a lawyer. Durana and Binag also were given
scholarships in public administration at the John F. Kennedy School of
Leadership at Harvard University.
Cesar, one of seven
children, grew up in a Christ-centered family that attended the United Church
of Christ in the Philippines in Taguig.His dream was to become a missionary,
and he distributed candies and played the guitar during church functions. His
father was a master sergeant in the Philippine Army, and told his son Cesar to
enroll instead at the PMA where he would not have to pay for school expenses.
A new assignment ‑
rather a blessing — for Cesar is that he was recently appointed to be Deputy
Police Commissioner of the United Nations Mission in Liberia. We are sure that
in his new post, or wherever he is assigned, he will help influence people to
do “the right thing.”
Colonel Binag asked his
family to join him on the GCF stage as he talked about the CORPS and COP story.
There was his wife, Agnes, a dentist, and sons Zark, a senior Inter- Cultural
Studies student at Messiah College; Cesar Hawthorne Jr., a sophomore political
science student at the Ateneo de Manila University; Czar Robert, a junior at the
GF International Christian School, where the youngest boy, Paul, is a
sophomore. Paul, said the colonel, “I would like to become a cadet.”
