CEBU CITY (MindaNews / 07 June) — When news of Fr. Amado “Picx” Picardal’s death broke out on social media early evening of Wednesday, May 29, the most common question asked was: “pinatay?” or “gipatay?” (he was killed?).
The Redemptorist Province of Cebu’s announcement of his passing, posted at 5:58 p.m., said nothing about the circumstances of his death, prompting a barrage of questions from friends.
When word got around that he was found dead in the garden just outside the Redemptorists’ retreat center up in the hills of Busay, a few meters from where his almost-finished self-constructed stone-cordwood-and-bottle hermitage is located, the next question asked was “may foul play?” (was there foul play?)
Apparently to address these lingering questions, the Redemptorist Province issued an update at 9:03 a.m. on May 30, that Fr. Picx “died of cardiac arrest.”
Fr. Ramon Fruto (beside Bishop Emeritus Emmanuel Cabajar) prepares to bless the casket of Fr. Amado Picardal during the funeral mass at the Redemptorist Church in Cebu on 6 June 2024. The 93-year old Fruto was Director of the St. Alphonsus Seminary in Cebu when the 13-year old Picardal entered the seminary in 1968. MindaNews photo by CAROLYN O. ARGUILLAS
Picardal had long accepted the possibility that he could be killed for serving as spokesperson and active member of the Coalition Against Summary Executions (CASE) in Davao City from 2003 to 2011, and for bringing to a wider audience, nationally and internationally, including the International Criminal Court (ICC), documentations on summary executions during Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody war on drugs which became the template of his even bloodier war on drugs as President of the Philippines from 2016 to 2022.
His friends and fellow Redemptorists had accepted the possibility, too, that he would be felled by a bullet.
He was felled by extreme heat, found dead at a little past 1 p.m. on May 29, the 47th anniversary of his religious profession, his fallen body lying beside a row of white and pink periwinkles, facing the heavens in his mountain retreat overlooking the city, the place he often referred to as “my sacred space, my sacred mountain.”
Kian, the son of the retreat center’s caretakers Joan and Rio, was about to leave on his motorcycle when he saw the fallen Fr. Picx in his construction work outfit -gray pants, rubber shoes and a neon green jacket that shone brightly under the blazing sun. Estimated time of death was 12 noon.
The heat index in Cebu that Wednesday was 42, but the 40s heat index had been so for weeks. Picardal had wanted to finish his hermitage and had even planned for its blessing in June or July.
“He had a heat stroke. For months now, he’s been building his hermitage and moving to installing the roof! No matter if told to avoid being under the sun, padayon gihapon (he still continued),” Redemptorist Brother Karl Gaspar, Picardal’s friend of 37 years, told MindaNews.
The area where Fr. Picx fell was not his usual route in returning from his hermitage-under-construction on a promontory, to his room in the retreat center. From that promontory, he would go down the steps without railings, hit the road, turn left but even if the main door of the retreat center on the right side of the road was open, would walk past it and enter through the kitchen, to wash his hands. From there he would proceed to the dining and reception area that opens to the main garden overlooking the city and turn left to his room, his temporary hermitage.
Joan Maranon, caretaker at the Redemptorists’ retreat center in Busay, Cebu City, shows to visitors where Fr. Amado Picardal was found dead on 29 May 2024. Picardal’s head was where candles and a vase of flowers are while the feet is where the white roses and a cross are. MindaNews photo by CAROLYN O ARGUILLAS
Joan said her husband Rio heard Fr. Picx typing on his computer when he passed by his room at around 10 a.m. She said he may have gone to the hermitage at 11 a.m.
Fr. Amado Picardal with Bruno, then a puppy, on 13 March 2023 in Busay, Cebu City. Photo courtesy of Fr. Picx
A few hours before his death, the media-savvy Picardal posted an anniversary poem on social media, addressed to Bruno his dog: “I’m grateful for your presence in the twilight of my life / as I prepare for my final journey to eternity / to meet face to face the One I love / to whom I sacrificed my whole life.”
DIM
Fr. Picx had referred to the building of his hermitage as “DIM” or “Do It Myself.”
“Ako ang architect, engineer, mason, carpenter, capataz, etc.,” he told MindaNews on December 11, 2022.
Fr. Amado “PIcx” Piicardal takes a break from construction work on his hermitage to pose for a souvenir photo on January 6, 2023. Photo courtesy of Fr. Picx
He has two siblings who are architects but the stubborn Picx wanted to DIM and was so proud of his achievement.
On March 30 this year, he sent a photo of the hermitage, proudly declaring “next week mag-atop na ko” (next week I will do the roofing). On May 5, he sent another photo of the hermitage, with the same message “mag-atop na” (about to install the roof).
The unfinished hermitage of Fr. Amado “Picx” Picardal on Thursday, June 6, 2024. MindaNews photo by CAROLYN O. ARGUILLAS
The slow progress in the roofing could easily be attributed to the extreme heat Cebu and the rest of the country has been experiencing for several months now, but the extreme heat did not deter Picx.
Joan said Fr. Picx used to spend only two hours a day for construction work, but starting May, he spent more hours up there on the promontory, working from around 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. every day, then come home to prepare his 3 p.m. lunch. He ate once a day.
The slow progress was more likely because of health problems. The ever stubborn Picx was also into DIM regarding his health. He had diabetes and a heart condition, he was having problems with his right leg due to arthritis but shunned consulting doctors and taking maintenance medicines. Joan said Fr. Picx took a break from construction work for a few days last month as he had fever and cough.
That noon when he collapsed, “it was very hot and we still wonder what he was doing in the garden patch under that intense heart,” Gaspar said. They could only surmise that Picx may have been disoriented. Among the manifestations of a heat stroke are headache, dizziness, nausea, confusion, and being disoriented.
“Sacred space”
Busay was Picardal’s “sacred space” since he was ordained priest in 1981. He built his first hermitage there in 1989, after serving eight years on missions in the communities, mostly in Mindanao, including Iligan City, where he was born and raised and where he served as altar boy until he left for the seminary in Cebu at age 13.
The hermitage he built in 1989 was a simple hut made of coco lumber and bamboo but he stayed there for only a few months as he had to leave for the University of California in Berkeley for masteral studies in Theology from 1989 to 1991 and from there to Rome’s Gregorian University for his PhD in Sacred Theology from 1991 until 1995, graduating magna cum laude.
The first hermitage built by Fr. Amado Picardal in Busay, Cebu City in 1989. Photo courtesy of Fr. Picx
That first hermitage was destroyed by typhoon, prompting him to think of building a stone house that would withstand typhoons. When someone pointed out that he should strengthen the foundation to ensure the structure does not crumble during an earthquake, Picardal brushed off the comment.
Inside his unfinished hermitage on Thursday afternoon, several cracks could be seen on the wall. Not a single roof panel had been installed.
For decades, Fr. Picx would keep returning to his “sacred space” to live as a hermit, even as the remote Busay of 1989 had become a tourist destination by 2024.
While in Busay on May 1, 1989, he wrote: “What am I doing here? Why am I doing this? Well, I came here to spend time in solitude, silence, prayer, study, writing and rest. I need to be alone. I want to be in touch with my deeper self — and with Someone whom I’ve been longing for. Busay is my sacred space, my sacred mountain. It is the place for a more intense encounter with myself and with God. Coming here regularly has become part of the rhythm of my life. There is a time for action and a time for contemplation. Ideally, action and contemplation should be integrated in my daily life — like yin and yang — but the dominant mode during the mission is action. I need an extended period of inaction — of contemplation and rest. I can not be an apostle all the time — I also have to be an occasional hermit.”
Seven years earlier, on July 2, 1982, in his mission area in Jimenez, Misamis Occidental, Fr. Picx spent his day off alone at the beach “for rest and reflection” and listed under “Lifetime Commitment,” 10 “personal resolutions, promises and hopes for a lifetime,” that he referred to as his “personal vision and mission statement.”
In number 8, he wrote that every year, he would “spend at least two weeks in the hermitage that I will build in Busay. This will be a time for solitude, silence, contemplation, prayer, study and reflection. This will be a time for evaluating my life during the past year and plan for the coming year.”
He vowed to cook his own meals and spend some days fasting.
“Every three years of my priestly life I will take a two-month sabbatical. This will be spent in the Busay Hermitage. This will be a period of solitude, silence, prayer and reflection. I will reflect on and evaluate the past three years and look forward to the next triennium. There will be more time for study, research, writing theological reflections, articles, booklets and poetry. This could also be the time for composing hymns and painting. As usual, I will do my own cooking and also go on extended fasting,” he wrote.
Every ten years of his priestly life, he vowed to take a one-year sabbatical,seven months of which will be spent as a hermit in Busay.
Advocacies
Reports about Fr. Picx’ death focused mostly on his campaign against Duterte’s bloody war on drugs. But this was not his only advocacy. It was part of his continuing advocacy for justice and human rights, for peace and integrity of creation. Since his days in the seminary, he had been joining pickets and barricades in solidarity with the poor. He was with farmers of San Fernando, Bukidnon in their fight against logging. He walked/ran or biked for peace and the environment, for justice. He wrote books, among them on the Basic Ecclesial Communities (BECs), culled from the experiences of the communities that he served; he composed songs such as “Awit sa GKK” (Song of the BECs).
Fr. Amado Picardal (2nd from left) at the picketline during the fight against logging in San Fernando, Bukidnon in 1987. Then Environment Secretary Fulgencio Factoran revoked the timber license agreements of the loggiers who were prominent politicians, and declared a log ban in Bukidnon province. Photo courtesy of Fr. Picx
He was a missionary, an activist, a poet, a mystic, a pilgrim, a preacher, a teacher, a mentor (“and sometimes tormentor,” according to Fr. Edilberto Cepe, the Redemptorists’ provincial superior, who was once a student of Fr. Picx), a friend, a prophet, a community organizer, a composer, a marathon man who later went around the country and sacred places abroad on a bicycle or on foot, did karate and later tai chi, learned scuba diving in his 40s, climbed mountains and loved to play the piano, organ, guitar, harmonica. He was also into pranic healing.
“He lived his vow of obedience as obedience to God and to do God’s will. Coupled with his advocacy for justice and human rights, he could be determined to do what he thinks is right, even if, at times, this could bring him into disagreements with his superiors. It was said that Picx could be stubborn. Yes, but always on the side of justice, of what is right, of what is good,” Cepe said in his homily at the wake on June 5.
Picardal consistently fought to uphold human rights since his student activism days in the seminary, an advocacy that landed him seven months in detention (including getting tortured).
Writing from his detention cell on November 10, 1973, he asked his mother Nicole to stop dreaming about him becoming a bishop or cardinal someday. “That’s an impossible dream. I don’t have any desire for these high positions. I only want to be a simple priest, working among the poor, facing life with them.”
His exposure to the slums of Cebu as a seminarian, and the farming and fishing communities as a priest in their mission areas in Mindanao (Jimenez in Misamis Occidental, Hinatuan in Surigao del Sur, Iligan in Lanao, Arakan in North Cotabato, and San Fernando in Bukidnon) as a member of the Redemptorist Mission Team (later renamed Redemptorist Itinerant Mission Team), firmed up his mission to become a priest for the people in a church for the poor.
Lifetime Commitment
Until the end, Picardal honored the 10-point “Lifetime Commitment” he wrote in 1982. It is a detailed list, and these are mere excerpts:
1. I will always be faithful to my religious commitment to Christ and to his people as a Redemptorist priest.
2. My primary preference is to live out my entire religious life as a missioner preaching the Gospel to the poor and oppressed and helping build Basic Christian Communities.
3. Prayer and contemplation will always be an integral part of my life.
4. I will maintain the habit of ongoing personal study, research and reflection, updating constantly my knowledge in the field of social sciences and in theology, reading books and writing theological reflections. From this I hope to develop a theology from the grassroots.
5. I will strive to be more personal and warm in my relationship with others, more kind, compassionate and affectionate.
6. Music, poetry and art will always be an important part of my life.
7. I will try to be physically fit at all times so that I may be more effective and long lasting in my work and enjoy life more fully.
8. Every year I will spend at least two weeks in the hermitage that I will build in Busay.
9. This is the basic path and direction that I will follow throughout my life. The concrete and specific ways of living this out may change but the basic commitment will remain.
I hope to be doing all these things – living out my vows, giving missions, being in solidarity with the poor in their struggle for justice and peace, meditating, living as an occasional hermit, theologizing from the grassroots, writing poetry, running marathons, cultivating deep relationships, etc. — throughout my whole life, even in my old age.
10. I will live life to the full. I will strive to become fully alive, fully human, continually growing up as human being and as a Christian. I will live out the demands of the Gospel in a radical manner so that Christ and his Gospel may become incarnate in my life.
Interrupted hermit’s life
Picardal would spend 16 years in Davao City after his graduation in Rome, serving various roles as professor, dean, promoter of Basic Ecclesial Communities (BECs, previously known as BCCs), assistant parish priest, acting parish priest, superior, pro-life and peace advocate, Christian-Muslim dialogue participant and spokesperson of CASE.
He and Fr. Bong Dublan were among those who lobbied with Archbishop Fernando Capalla to issue a statement on the summary killings in 2001. Picardal would serve as spokesperson of CASE when it was launched in 2003 although documenting summary executions was done by a member-organization as early as 1998.
Fr. Amado “Picx’ Picardal walking along the highway in Bukidnon during his “Solo Trans-Mindanao Run/Hike for Peace and the Environment” from Davao City to Iligan City in the summer of 2010. The next year, he did a walk-run from Davao to Aparri via the Cordilleras for 57 days. MindaNews file photo by BOBBY TIMONERA
Picardal biked across the country in 2000 (from Davao to Pagudpud), across Israel in 2005, around Mindanao in 2006 and around the Philippines (over 5000 km in 56 days) in 2008. He ran/walked alone across Mindanao (400 km in nine days) in 2010, and few months later as a barefoot pilgrim on the Camino de Santiago from the French Pyrenees across the north of Spain (800 km in 27 days), and across the Philippines from Davao to Aparri via the Cordilleras (2,080 km in 57 days) before reporting to his new assignment in Manila in 2011 as executive secretary of the Committee on Basic Ecclesial Communities of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines. He resigned in 2017 to start his eremitical life – “a life of silence, solitude, prayer and writing.”
In August 2018, he was forced to abandon his hermitage and his superiors, fearing for his safety, sent him overseas.
“Two weeks ago (August 11), I almost became a victim of extrajudicial killing and the fourth priest to be killed under the Duterte Regime had I stuck to my routine,” he wrote from abroad on August 27, 2018.
“For over four months, I have been living a quiet life as a hermit on top of the mountain overlooking the city of Cebu, spending my time in silence, solitude, prayer and writing. I usually go down to the Redemptorist monastery in Cebu twice a month to bond with my fellow Redemptorists, check my email and FB, get my food supplies and go to the coffee shop nearby before dinner. At first, I didn’t realize this routine would put my life at risk,” Picardal said, adding that since his return to Cebu from Manila in 2017, “I had been receiving information that the death squad was going to target priests and that I was on top of the list.”
He would later tell MindaNews that his movements were tracked down in Cebu through the smart phone he was using.
Exiled
Instead of spending the rest of his life in his hermitage, Picardal was forced to spend the next four years as an exile, first in the United States, next in Rome where he served as Executive Co-Secretary of the Commission for Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation of the Union of Superiors General.
Fr. Amado L. Picardal, CSsr in Rome just before the COVID-19 outbreak that eventually led to a lockdown in 2020. Contributed photo
On June 15, 2021, Picardal told MindaNews he tendered his resignation after two years, effective July 7. He said he was allowed to cut short his term because sitting in front of a desk computer seven hours a day was “not good for my mental and physical health.”
A sedentary lifestyle, he wrote, is “depressing.”
On July 6, 2022, six days after Duterte stepped down as President, Picardal was finally back in his “sacred space” in Busay, to continue his interrupted eremitical life after nearly four years as an exile. But only those in his family, the Redemptorists, and a circle of close friends knew he was back in Busay.
In May and June 2023, Picardal had to flee Busay again due to security concerns. He stayed in the Redemptorist convent in downtown Cebu but was getting depressed by the day. He missed his “sacred space,” his hermit’s life, the scent of the morning air and Bruno, the dog he cared for since its birth in January last year. Joan recalls how Fr. Picx doted on Bruno, buying him a sleeping mat, toys, shampoo and dog food.
Bruno takes a last look of Fr. Picx, with (L-R) Bro. Jhade, Fr. Pio Makabenta, and Fr. Edilberto Cepe, the provincial superior of the Redemptorist Province of Cebu. MindaNews photo by EIZEL HILARIO .
His plan to do a Camino de Cebu, a 400-kilometer walk from south to north Cebu in October 2023 (to celebrate his 69th birthday on October 6), caused a stir in the Redemptorist community due to health and security considerations. His proposal was initially turned down.
Asked by MindaNews on October 5 what his heart’s desire was for his birthday aside from his dream Camino de Cebu, he replied: “That’s my only heart’s desire busa balik na lang sa bukid ug (so I will just return to the mountain and) celebrate my birthday with my dog.”
On October 10, he sent this message: “Ok na. Confidential Pilgrim Hike Camino Cebu / South to North (Santander to Daanbantayan) 400 km 20 days.”
Despite his health concerns, Joan said Picardal still planned on joining a marathon in December this year.
“You can never imprison God’s word”
In his homily during the funeral mass on June 6, Pagadian Bishop Emeritus Emmanuel Cabajar, described Fr. Picx as “a teacher, well conscientized on social realities, deeply committed to do justice and peace. Above all, he was a missionary, who followed St. Alphonsus’ example by preaching God’s word to the most abandoned, especially the poor.”
Fr. Picx was Cabajar’s “longest partner in mission work.” They had worked together from 1975 while Picardal was still a seminarian, until 1989.
Pagadians’ Bishop Emeritus Emmanuel Cabajar delivers his homily at the funeral mass for Fr. Amado Picardal on 6 June 2024 at the Redemptorist Church in Cebu City. MindaNews photo by CAROLYN O. ARGUILLAS
“Fr. Picx was passionate in serving the poor, even willing to risk his life for them,” Cabajar said, recalling their mission days in Hinatuan, Surigao del Sur in 1983 when black propaganda against the church made it too risky to continue the mission. But Picardal volunteered to stay on, along with Cabajar.
The two had to devise ways to reach out to the people who were afraid to attend seminars but were willing to attend mass.
“Picx and I devised a Misa Pamalandong (Mass-Reflection) in which the liturgy of the word, incorporating some reflection, discussion and input on biblical passages, lasted four to five hours before moving on to the liturgy of the Eucharist. The Misa Pamalandong became our main vehicle for sharing the word. You can never imprison God’s word!,” Cabajar said.
Picardal lived simply, owned a few clothes, and considered peanut butter a major treat. But he had this fetish of dipping his finger into the bottle of peanut butter that Redemptorists talked about during his wake. According to Joan, Fr. Picx stopped eating peanut butter in January, as part of his self-medication.
“Amazing Redemptorist, Missionary of Hope”
An amazing Redemptorist, a Missionary of Hope in the footsteps of the Redeemer” is how the Redemptorists’ General Council based in Rome views Picardal’s life.
Speaking on behalf of the General Council after the 8 pm mass on June 4, Fr. Joseph Ivel Mendanha spoke about the Parable of the wise and foolish virgins and how five lamps “shone brightly in the life of our beloved Picx.”
These five are the lamps of witness of life, missionary availability, simplicity of life rooted in the evangelical councils, humanness, and service to the poor and abandoned.
“To witness not just to speak but to live. Picx walked the talk,” he said.
On the lamp of missionary availability, Mendanha noted that one aspect that most of the Redemptorists need to work on is to be “available constantly for the mission” and Picx was “always available for the mission.”
On the lamp of simplicity of life, he said Picx was “a man of integrity who lived his vow of poverty, didn’t just speak about it; who lived his vow of celibacy, who lived his vow of obedience with simplicity of life.”
On the lamp of humanness, Picardal “lived hopefully, joyfully.”
“Our Father Picx was truly human… He lived, joyfully and happily in his own humanity. He didn’t have to be someone else. He was happy the way he was.”
On the lamp of service to the poor and abandoned, Mendanha said the love for the poor and abandoned is what characterized Fr. Picx. “No wonder he was chosen to be associate secretary at the Commission for Justice and Peace and Integrity of Creation. He made himself available to our Filipino immigrants here in Rome who needed someone to listen to them. He accompanied so many people struggling with difficulties, with challenges, with troubles, the poor and abandoned. I can honestly say, on behalf of the General Council, that our Father Picx was a voice for the voiceless.”
“Fr. Picx was a voice of the voiceless… an example for all of us Redemptorists on how to be a missionary of hope in the footsteps of the Redeemer.
“Fr. Picx, I salute you,” Mendanha said, adding he is confident that “you stand before the Lord with your lamp burning brightly. Come and enjoy the kingdom prepared for you. My dear Fr. Picx, go to God, go to the Redeemer.” (Carolyn O. Arguillas / MindaNews)