“Diskarte”

“This is something new, and we do not see the enemy,”

said Fr. Anton Pascual, who chose to be at the frontlines when the country waged a war against COVID-19. He stayed in Bicutan, where he founded the multipurpose cooperative Simbayanan ni Maria in 2010.

Fr. Anton was born on June 3, 1959 to a middle-class family. His father, Gregorio Pascual, was a military colonel, and his mother, Rosalina Bautista, was a pharmacist. The latter died when Anton was one year old.

 Gregorio remarried and Anton grew up in a disciplined household that highly valued faith and integrity. His parents taught him diskarte, which helped build Anton’s insatiable appetite for leadership.

“I am an above-average dude with out-of-the-box thinking. I was obsessed with leadership as a service to others,” Fr. Anton said.

Fr. Anton has always lived and thrived in the community surrounding him. When he is not busy founding and managing cooperatives for the less fortunate, he is engaging with the communities he serves.

“My time with the poor gives sanity to my priesthood. It is with them that I feel the calling very strongly,”

he said. The road to good leadership had not been an easy path for Anton. As in every journey, failure was inevitable. “Painful experiences are when you fail, but I look at them as opportunities because I learn from them,” he said.

He experienced failures in the past. His soap-making and microfinancing initiatives did not take off, and the cooperative failed to pay the loan. But instead of discouraging him, these failures only challenged Fr. Anton to work harder and achieve more.

As the head of Caritas Manila, Fr. Anton is facing the biggest challenge of this generation––a pandemic that has claimed many lives and crippled economies.

When the government announced the enhanced community quarantine, Caritas Manila immediately put out calls for donations and quickly gathered volunteers to distribute relief goods to affected families. Project Ugnayan connected with Fr. Anton for the distribution of Php 1.3 billion worth of gift checks to the poorest of the poor of Metro Manila.

“We had to do it quietly because of the ban on mass gatherings. The government could easily stop us,” Anton recalled, as they started to network and get the support of Metro Manila mayors, barangay officials, and the Philippine National Police. Fr. Anton even made sure that the Palace was aware of this project.

To avoid crowding, Fr. Anton asked the parish priests to distribute the vouchers on a house-to-house basis. It was a challenging task for everyone, given the size and population of Metro Manila. Again, it was diskarte that helped them move forward.

“It is dangerous and risky––we could get infected. The priest and the volunteers could be infected, that's the first risk that we have to face,” he said.

Fr. Anton recalled that some of the priests were initially afraid to go out on the streets. But a bandwagon effect bloomed as more priests joined in the distribution of the gift checks.

After distributing the gift checks, “many priests would say, ‘I never thought I have so many poor people; I have so many responsibilities’,” said Fr. Anton. 

Fr. Anton spends much of his time in his office, organizing the relief operation and the house-to-house distribution. Yet, whenever he can, he still goes out and face the people.

“To be in touch with the poor is very crucial for authenticity and for being sure that you have the right impact. You may have a lot of projects in mind, but does it really have an impact on the poor? The only way to ensure that is to go down and check on them,”

he said.

In his visits to the community, Fr. Anton’s first words were to remind everyone to practice social distancing and wear face masks. He spoke with everyone and happily bantered with the kids. He knew their names, occupations, and life stories.

“They will teach you about reality and how to be more impactful in your intervention with the poor,”

he said.

Fr. Anton is, indeed, not your regular priest. His energy is infectious, and his love for serving is evident.

Fr. Anton Pascual wears different hats—priest, leader, friend, and brother. He mentioned that his sister, Lulu, was infected with the virus. “I prayed so hard when I learned that she got the virus,” Fr. Anton recalled, and his prayers were answered as Lulu recovered.

 “I hope that this pandemic will make us better Filipinos,”

he quipped during the Easter Sunday Mass. It was a day to feel hopeful and to restore faith.