"KINSAYGALUTO ANI?!"

“KINSAY GALUTÔ ANI?!”
(“Who cooked this one?!”)

“Kini moy sabaw! Kinsay galutô ani?!”
(“This is the best soup! Who cooked this one?!”)

It all started when Fr. Manol uttered these lines during my birthday celebration last December. From that time on, this has been the language we used to make fun with every time the famous and all-time favorite seminarians’ menu halang-halang (very very hot and spicy native chicken meat in large volume of coconut soup) is served during coffee breaks and birthdays in our GY community.
Just exactly one month after the event, Ate Myrna, one of our “dieticians” (the other “dieticians” include Ate Venus, SJVTS Formators, Ate Eva, Ae Jopay, Retreat Directors, Tatay Mat, Fr. Nilo, Ate Inday, etc.) on the 3-month (and more) Transformative Pastoral Leadership Training Seminar (TPLTP), brought in a “kolon” (pot, palayok) with a hope and promise of a menu that will not just match the mouth-watering halang-halang but will even be more delicious and will even go beyond its usual and common flavor. With her was the distinguished “nutritionist” Archbishop Tony who provided all the “nutrients” (presence, hope, all-out support, resources, etc.) needed for a healthy “go, grow, glow” (integral) ministry. Inside the “kolon” were us, the Galileans on to a menu that will hopefully turn hungry stomachs heavy and full. Inside the “kolon”, they made us see how the first months of this formation year allowed the “meat” to be put to the painful yet worthwhile boiling water of the Psycho-Spiritual Integration (PSI), Hospital Ministry, and Family Dynamics Seminar in order to soften and cook the hard and raw “chunks of meat” in us. And through the 30-day Retreat, the Master Chef made us realize that every ingredient in us, even before we were born, was purposely, worthily and carefully picked from the choicest crops organically fertilized with His love and grace.
Then, the “meat” started to soften. It was time to open up the “taklob” (cover). However, it still lacked a lot of flavor. It needed the appropriate (pagpahaom) spices of prayer, people, and experiences in our urban and rural immersions in order to integrate (pagpatibuok) with the meat’s flavor so that those who would taste it will be able to share (pagpa-ambit) with others in the broad (pagpalapad) wide world that once in their lifetime, a taste of its soup penetrated deep (pagpalalom) into the core of their bones that will make them exclaim, “Kini moy sabaw! Dili parat!…Kini moy pari! Sakto’ng lider!” (“This is the best soup! It has the exact salt!...This is the best priest! He’s the exact leader!”)
“Asa man ni gilutô?” (“Where is this cooked?”) “Where else?” In the “kolon”, the Galilee Year (the re-structured SHuPfy) which is firmly put on top of the “sug-ang”, the SJVTS, that is determinedly planted on the same ground-soil where squatters and subdivisions also stand.
And beneath all these, the Holy Spirit who constantly burns firewood to maintain the heat of the soup guides the “luwag” (ladle), Fr. Manol, that in his slow, still, and serene “pag-ukay” (mixing), those who would taste it could not help but irresistibly ask, “Kinsay galutô ani?!”

Well…WHO else? Thanks to the Master Chef! Thanks to the “kolon”!



leonilo a. dagpin, jr.
03.10.09