A Tribute To Bishop Fortich at Diocese of Bacolod, Philippines, Bacolod City, Philippines 6100 PH - Larger than life

Fortich was big in all ways. Tall with a nose veering to Roman stature. He walked with gravitas and laughed with his belly. His playful slaps on the back could hurt. Every day at the Bishop’s Palace and his Domus Dei residence was open house. He was charismatic and earned admiration worldwide when he persuaded the visiting conservative Pope John Paul II to include in his 1980 homily a denunciation of institutionalized injustice in the sugar industry and the Marcos dictatorship in general. Fortich’s humor put him in good stead as he tried the almost impossible task of mediating between the haves and have-nots among his flock. He would stride out to greet demonstrating landowners, grinning and dishing out gruff jokes. Journalists would be reduced to laughter as men and women who’d screamed at Kumander Tony minutes before would be reduced to kissing his ring and laughing at his comments. His championing the poor led to earlier brushes with death. In 1987 members of a right-wing vigilante group lobbed a grenade into the Domus Dei. The attack was clearly aimed at the bishop, who survived only because the grenade landed on the branches of a nearby tree. Past midnight, he greeted journalists with a slain sparrow cradled in his hands. The bird, he told us, was just like any poor citizen caught in the crossfire of contending ideological forces. The next day he had the sparrow stuffed and mounted on his desk. Even his critics were horrified by the attack and Negros’ elite sent out a firm message: rallies were all right but the bishop was untouchable. The incident did not douse Fortich’s fire. At the height of Operation Thunderbolt in 1989, when military officials tried to block Church food missions to evacuees, claiming supplies were being diverted to communist rebels, the bishop delivered another classic line: “A hungry stomach knows no color.” Fortich would eventually broker the return from the hills of Brig. Gen. Raymundo Jarque, the officer who masterminded Thunderbolt and then joined the rebels when caught between feuding landowners. Surveying Jarque’s press conference, Fortich laughed. “Surreal,” he said. “Only in the Philippines.”

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