10/07/2023
Rev. Hernando replaces Dr. Fernandez as UTS president: A CPP-dictated choice
Many concerned UCCPians could attest the fact that the Union Theological Seminary (UTS) in Brgy. Palapala, Dasmariñas, Cavite has been turned into a primary recruitment center of the Christians for National Liberation (CNL), the underground mass organization (UGMO) for the religious sector and one of the 16 composing the National Democratic Front (NDF).
Since the CPP-NPA-NDF completely captured and controlled the national leadership of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) in 1986, hundreds if not a thousand of UTS student-seminarians were initiated into the revolutionary underground mass movement before they even graduated.
In the classrooms of UTS, professors openly teach to innocent students the essence of the Liberation Theology, a Marxist derivative of the Bible that purports to give a socio-political dimension to the Christian Gospel.
In UTS, in Silliman University Divinity School (SUDS) in Dumaguete City, in IFI's St. Paul's Theological Seminary (SPTS) in Jordan, Guimaras Province, and in most of the theological schools ran and administered by UCCP, the United Methodist Church (UMC), the Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI), the Convention of Philippine Baptist Churches (CPBC) and some of the 10 affiliates of the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP), the Liberation Theology doctrine that the Church should get involved in the struggle for economic and political justice particularly in Third World countries is always taught as a standard fare along with the entire political spectrum. The main thrust in the teaching, however, is PRAXIS - deriving theology from social situations of history.
Hence, a seminarian's resolve to advocate "a preferential option for the poor" as he or she learned in the classroom is hardened and galvanized when he/she undergoes summer immersion and integration (with the masses) program either in a geographically isolated and disadvantaged area and/or in an urban poor enclave or an exploitative workplace.
In the process, however, not a few seminarians from UTS, SUDS, SPTS and other theological schools around the country are aroused and organized as members of legal front organizations for seminarians and church workers like SERVE and SOTANA.
But for UTS under the leadership of Dr. Eleazar S. Fernandez, Ph.D. the last decade is crucial as UCCP fights off a growing discontenment and dissension among the ranks of conservative church workers and laymen over ideological, organizational, financial and proprietary issues.
The UCCP national leadership has to whip the lash to keep its reign on conferences and local churches; and one effective way of doing it is to ensure the loyalty of incoming pastors and ordained ministers. Where else, however, to start but in the seminaries or theological schools itself.
UTS as a self-proclaimed "school of prophets" must lead the way in so far as UCCP and UCM are concerned. And the best way to accomplish the objective of ensuring a continuous supply of socio-economically conscious, politico-ideologically attuned and blindly loyal church workers is to arouse, organize and mobilize the seminarians while they are still young, vibrant, receptive and idealistic.
This is where Dr. Fernandez fits the picture the last decade. As UTS president, he ensures for the UCCP national leadership that the school would serve as eternal spring of national democratic (natdem) activists who are recruited into the CPP once they are on the ground. This practice is best illustrated in the Southern Western Leyte Conference (SWLC) - the home conference of Dr. Fernandez where he started as local church pastor. Many a young apprentice and regular pastors coming from UTS and SUDS that are deployed in SWLC are harboring unexplained ill-feeling and bias against the state and the government. Mostly coming in as CNL-NDF members, party cadres initiated these fresh church workers into the CPP. One best example is Rev. Roel Lebios, current president of the SWLC's United Church Workers Organization (UCWO), SERVE member and administrative pastor of UCCP Bangcas Church in Hinunangan, Southern Leyte which according to Rev. Edward Sauro, its former admin pastor, has supported the local CPP-NPA-NDF in many ways than one.
However, there is only one Dr. Fernandez who is aging, tiring and retiring. He has to be replaced and the due date is on Saturday, July 15, 2023. So the UCCP national leadership is making sure that the next tutelage of their premiere seminary would be on good and reliable hand - better than Dr. Fernandez if possible. And the choice is Rev. Frank Hernando, executive secretary to the General Secretary since 2019 and a confirmed CPP fullfledged member even before he and his wife, Rev. Gloria de la Cruz Hernando, also a party member, were deployed as ecumenical co-worker to North and South Korea for 15 years since 2004.
If Rev. Hernando's choice as Executive Secretary to then General Secretary Bishop Reuel Norman Marigza and the current Bishop Melzar Labuntog was bad as some UCCPians would claim, his five-year appointment as UTS president is worst as his credentials paled in comparison to Dr. Fernandez.
However, it is not UCCP national leadership's choice alone but of the CPP-NPA-NDF which, according to many PAGMATA UCCP members, completely captured and controlled the reign on the church that has an overly bloated membership claim of 1.5 million composing 2,564 congregations, served by some 1,600 pastors (meaning a false claim or a big lie).
The CPP-NPA-NDF, otherwise known as the communist terrorist group, is reeling from a military defeat and is trying to recover from the heavy losses it suffered since the time of the Duterte administration that issued Executive Order No. 70, Series of 2018, "Institutionalizing the Whole-of-Nation Approach in Attaining Inclusive and Sustainable Peace, Creating a National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, and Directing the Adoption of a National Peace Ftamework."
The church which serves as CTG's umbrella (payong), front (prente) and source of money (pera) the past half a century is always vital in CTG's process of recovery and reconstruction. Assigning a trusted hand to a significant church institution like UCCP's UTS is a strategic move we rather expected than surprised us in the Katawhan, Simbahan ug Kagamhanan (KaSIMBAHANan) Batok Terorismo.
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Rev. Eleazar S Fernandez, PhD was appointed as full-term Seminary President in 2013, the first such appointment since 2005. He was re-elected in 2018. After 10 years of leading UTS through arguably its most challenging years and ensuring the seminary's future, he is retiring.
The School of the Prophets has its own roster of heroes and heroines. Sir Ely is our own Moses and he has led us through our own wilderness experience.
Thank you very much, Sir Ely. God speed and enjoy your retirement!🤍💚💛
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Rev. Dr. Eleazar Fernandez’ despedida and retirement service will be on Tuesday, 11 July 2023, 10:00AM at the Salakot Chapel.
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CLOSING A CHAPTER
There are no beginnings without endings. Every beginning ends something. Beginnings and endings are intertwined, just as welcoming and saying goodbye are intertwined. I know this. But it’s not easy. “All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind is part of ourselves…” says Anatole France. And “[n]othing is so dear as what you’re about to leave.”
My personal aspiration for legacy seems to simplify with age. I would like to leave behind strong shoulders. Shoulders strong enough for the next generations to stand on and carry them forward. After decades of yearning and aspiring to change the world, which we must continue, this simple aspiration just feels right. I hope you can stand on my fragile embodiments of "the good, the true, and the beautiful."
It's not easy to leave but I must. I must let go and say “goodbye.” To say “goodbye” is to close a chapter, that I know. Like a book, there may be other chapters, but “not this chapter."
I look forward to the next chapter....
Eleazar S. Fernandez
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"He was and is still a part that strengthens the captivity and control of the NL by the CTG. Let's not forget this truth."
Rev. Al Magno Tinio, Jr.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=242133828611657&id=100084451246267&mibextid=Nif5oz
Rev. Eleazar S Fernandez, PhD was appointed as full-term Seminary President in 2013, the first such appointment since 2005. He was re-elected in 2018. After 10 years of leading UTS through arguably its most challenging years and ensuring the seminary's future, he is retiring.
The School of the Prophets has its own roster of heroes and heroines. Sir Ely is our own Moses and he has led us through our own wilderness experience.
Thank you very much, Sir Ely. God speed and enjoy your retirement!🤍💚💛
——
Rev. Dr. Eleazar Fernandez’ despedida and retirement service will be on Tuesday, 11 July 2023, 10:00AM at the Salakot Chapel.
