A BATCHMATE I BARELY KNEW, AND THE POPE HE HELPED SOMEONE REACH

[Published with permission]

I do research for a living. Not the glamorous kind. I get paid to read, trace sources, cross-reference, and verify, one link at a time. It's the kind of work that fills the silence between meals. And lately, commissioned work has been rare. Not impossible, just thin.

So when a priest friend approached me a few days ago and offered a small fee to do a research piece for him, I said yes without hesitation.

I would have done it for a mass and a prayer, honestly. But I have maintenance medications to pay for. The money helps. So yes.

I was scouring sources manually for that research, the way I always do, one page at a time, when I came across a newspaper clipping screenshot.

The headline read: "Filipino priest helps disabled woman to get near Pope Francis."

Wait...I know that name.

Fr. Jonathan Bailon.

I stared at the screen. Then I read it again.

My eyes lit up the way they don't usually light up during research work. You know that meme of Leonardo DiCaprio pointing at the TV? That was me, except I was pointing at my monitor going:

"KILALA KO TO AH!"

We went to BUPES (Bicol University Pilot Elementary School) together. BUPES was in Daraga, Albay, a public school that no longer operates under that name (it’s Bicol University now).

We were batchmates, not classmates. He was in the upper sections. I was at the other end of that arrangement, and I'll leave it there.

We didn't move in the same circles. But in a small school, you know who stands out.

Jonathan was one of them. He was smart, the kind of smart that teachers noticed and students respected without a lot of noise about it. He was gentle. And he was good-looking. I mean actually, genuinely good-looking.

“Crush ng bayan” is not a phrase you throw around lightly when you spent your elementary school days in the ’80s, but in Jonathan’s case, nobody argued with it.

After elementary school, we went our separate ways. Years later, a batchmate mentioned he had entered the seminary. A few years after that: ordained.

That didn't surprise me. He had always struck me as someone with a clear sense of where he was going, even when we were just kids in school uniforms.

That was the last I heard of him. Until a few days ago, while researching something else entirely, I came across a newspaper clipping with his name on it.

COPACABANA BEACH, JULY 2013

WYD (World Youth Day) 2013 was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from July 23 to 28. It was the 14th international Catholic youth gathering, and the first one Pope Francis attended as pontiff, his first apostolic trip abroad after being elected in March of that year.

Over three million people gathered along Copacabana Beach for the closing events.

Fr. Jonathan was there as a delegate-priest of the Diocese of Legazpi.

During the Welcoming Ceremony at Copacabana, he came across a woman in a wheelchair.

She was a car accident victim who had traveled to the beach with her mother and her aunt.

They weren't registered WYD pilgrims with passes or credentials.

They came because they wanted to see the Pope.

Security was already moving people along. The woman's family was about to be turned away.

Her mother approached Fr. Jonathan and asked him to help them stay. He talked to the policemen. He showed his priest ID and whatever good grace he could muster to convince them to let the woman and her relatives remain in the area. After some back-and-forth, the policemen agreed.

What happened next, Fr. Jonathan said he did not expect.

When Pope Francis passed through the area, those same policemen carried the woman toward him.

Pope Francis stopped. He kissed her. He embraced her. He then blessed the policemen who brought her forward.

Fr. Jonathan, standing close, was able to touch the hand of the Holy Father.

He recorded the whole thing on his iPad.

These were his words after: "I've met this woman in a wheelchair, a car accident victim. She wanted to see the Pope. I helped her and her companion. And God answered our prayers. Pope Francis stopped and kissed the woman. What an abundant blessing!"

I never got to ask Fr. Jonathan what he felt in that moment. But I think I have some idea.

Back in 1981, I was around seven years old when Pope John Paul II visited Albay.

I didn't fully understand religion yet. I knew he was the supreme pontiff, but that was about the extent of it.

What I remember is the feeling. Something washed over me. Something light. I couldn't explain it then, and I still can't now. I was too young to make sense of it, but I never forgot the feeling.

In 2015, when Pope Francis visited the Philippines, I was living in Alabang and couldn't get to where the crowds were. I watched it on TV. And that same feeling came back, just from watching a screen.

So when I read that Fr. Jonathan, standing close enough to touch the hand of the Holy Father, said "what an abundant blessing," I didn't need him to explain further. The presence alone feels like it's already doing something to you.

Whatever that is, I don't think words get all the way there.

WHAT HE SAID WHEN I ASKED

Before writing this, I reached out to Fr. Jonathan for permission.

He agreed, but reluctantly.

He told me the story was never meant for any kind of news coverage, local or otherwise. He wasn't acting in any official capacity that day.

He was just a man who saw a woman in a wheelchair who wanted to see the Pope, and he tried to help.

He asked me not to make it bigger than it was.

I write about politics for a living. And if there is one thing you learn fast in this advocacy is how to spot a managed moment.

A politician in a flooded barangay, sleeves rolled up, handing a relief pack directly to a crying lola, camera positioned just right, lighting somehow perfect despite the rain.

You've seen it. We've all seen it. The effort that goes into looking effortless.

I've grown tired of those photos. Not because I'm cynical, but because I've read enough press releases to know when something is produced for the crowd.

So when I reached out to Fr. Jonathan and he said yes, I could write about it, but almost immediately added that it wasn't a big deal, that he was just trying to help, I had to laugh a little.

Here is a man who stood a few feet from the Pope. Who helped a stranger get kissed by the head of the Catholic Church in front of three million people.

The kind of moment that, in political circles, would have a communications team drafting a press statement before the Pope even finished the embrace.

And his reaction was: it was a small thing, please don't make too much of it.

I'm trying to honor that.

But the smallness of it is the whole point.

He had no instructions to help her. No one was watching to see if he would. He just did it, and because he did, a woman with no special access, no press pass, no connections, got to be kissed by Pope Francis in front of millions of people.

"It only goes to show that when you help others, you will also be helped in return."