ZAMBOANGA CITY – Anyone who gets elected to head a civil society network of peace-building networks in Mindanao has to be one of the foremost, if not the foremost, peace champions in the region. That man is Fr. Angel Calvo, who has been the lead convenor of Mindanao Peaceweavers (MPW) coalition for the past three years.
Last Monday, Fr. Calvo marked the 50th anniversary of his profession as a member of the Claretian Missionary Fathers congregation. On the same day, the congregation’s missions around the world – including one based in Basilan and Zamboanga City – also observed the 163rd anniversary of the founding the religious order by the Spanish St. Anthony Mary Claret.
The lofty role and reputation that Fr. Calvo enjoys today as prophet of interfaith solidarity and harmony and benefactor of the poor is something he earned from out of unrelenting missionary work since he first set foot in Basilan in 1972.
He studied sociology in Salamanca, Spain, a city renowned as a leader in education in Europe. Hence, he came to Basilan as a 27-year old religious missionary rather well scholastically prepared for the tremendous peace and poverty challenges he would face there.
In 1973 and for some years thereafter, the Bangsamoro rebellion convulsed the island – as well as many other parts of Mindanao – and many civilians were killed and families were forced to flee from their homes and farms. The few, newly-arrived Claretian priests undertook to resettle the displaced Muslim and Christian families in their original communities or started new ones for them, aside from providing other basic services, notwithstanding the ever-present physical danger. This extraordinary experience definitively determined the later course and career of Fr. Calvo’s priestly mission.
After a stint in foreign posting in 1986, he returned to Basilan in 1992 to continue his mission. Two years later, he moved to Zamboanga City to organize together with a few community leaders Peace Advocates Zamboanga, which he has since headed as president. Soon after, he organized the Katilingban Para Sa Kalambuan, Inc., which has since built 600 low-cost houses for the city’s urban poor. These were the housing projects Queen Sofia visited when she came to Zamboanga recently.
In 2007, he initiated the establishment of the Zamboanga-Basilan Integrated Development Alliance, Inc., a community development and peace-building consortium composed of Nagdilaab Foundation (operating in Basilan), Reach Out to Others Foundation (under Western Mindanao State University), Katilingban, and PAZ.
The Claretians continue to run a parish and an elementary-high school in Tumahubong barangay in Basilan – one of their most dangerous missions. That courageous effort as well as Fr. Calvo’s for peace and social justice constitute an ever-unfolding parable of hope for human redemption and liberation, by the grace of God. (Rey-Luis Banagudos)
20