"All we might leave behind is a barren desert," a Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines pastoral warned in the late 1980s. "Where is the soaring eagle circling our land?"

Last January, a reply of sorts came. "Hineleban", a Philippine eagle released in Mindanao's Mount Kitanglad, was killed in Lupiagan village. Released with eagle "Kulabago", both carried tracking devices. "Report of new eagle death shakes conservation efforts," Central Mindanao Newswatch reported.

Vanishing birds signal ecological stress. Scientific insight, anchored to moral principles in CBCP pastorals, owe much to the handiwork of a Jesuit anthropologist: Bishop Franciso Claver, SJ.

The 81 year-old "Cisco" died earlier this month at 81. He was the first Filipino Igorot bishop. At his death, he served as emeritus Apostolic Vicar of Bontoc-Lagawe, having retired as bishop of Malaybalay, His research among Manobos anchored his doctoral dissertation at University of Colorado. He lectured at Boston College and East Asian Pastoral Institute.

Some recall how DXBB, the Malaybalay prelature's radio station, flayed martial law abuses when most preferred safe silence. The military padlocked DXBB in November 1976.

"The pretext was (DXBB) secretly sent messages to NPA guerillas, "Fr John Carroll, SJ recalls. Claver responded with pastoral letters, critical and hard-hitting, "one every week, read in his name in all the parishes. (They bore) his trademark calm but powerful language and even more powerful thought."

Others marvel at the clarity, skill and speed of his drafting the 1986 Catholic Bishops Conference pastoral on the rigged snap elections. That gutted the Marcos dictatorship's pretensions.

"The tense CBCP "emergency assembly" broke up after six", theologian Catalino Arevalo recalls. Bishops turned to Claver to express their conclusion on massive electoral fraud. By eight pm, his draft was ready.

The statement still resonates 34 years after then CBCP Cardinal Ricardo Vidal released it. "These…point to a criminal use of power to thwart the sovereign will of the people. Yet, despite these evil acts, we are morally certain the people's real will for change has been truly manifested…"

"A government that assumes or retains power through fraudulent means has no moral basis. Such an access to power is tantamount to a forcible seizure. (It) cannot command allegiance of the citizenry.

"That same government itself has the obligation to right the wrong it is founded on….The wrong was systematically organized. So must its correction be…We, the bishops, stand in solidarity with them…

"Our acting must always be according to the Gospel, that is, in a peaceful, non-violent way.. But as in election itself, that depends fully on the people, on what they are willing and ready to do.

Edsa One was what Filipinos did . Cisco "was well prepared by training, painful experience, and prayerful reflection to draft the post-election statement of the CBCP", Fr John Carroll recalls. "It stunned the Marcos regime - and the Apostolic Nuncio as well. It laid the moral foundation for EDSA I.

That triggered similar peaceful revolts, Lech Walesa of Poland told Corazon Aquino in Florence in 1995. After EDSA came Czechoslovakia's "Velvet Uprising," Ukraine's "Orange Revolution" and Georgia's "Rose Rebellion." These toppled pro-Soviet governments without bloodshed. Lebanon's "Cedar Revolution" drove out Syrian occupiers.

Claver authored other texts, less dramatic but no less compelling from the Second Plenary Council document to papers on faith and culture.

His book "The Making of a Local Church" reflects effort at building "basic ecclesial communities" - small groups, at parish level, discerning what is right, then acting. Here are excerpts from an interview:

Have we failed to tap People Power to eliminate evil? "For evil there is in the Philippines, great evil". Corruption is systemic.

There is a strong appreciation now that people power, first exercised in the political sphere, is basically a moral power. When used mainly as political power, it fails.

People often regard graft as "standard operating procedure.' Corruption is not defined as a sin. This is a huge problem of values change. The task will not be done by simply speaking out. Only organized, persistent action will do,

BECs are the vehicle for change. It is humdrum, even thankless work. Christians must be concerned, not just with personal spirituality, but with social transformation.

He insisted on vernacular liturgies. Ordination of married men would "make the Eucharist central to lives of those in isolated mountain communities". Not all in the Church accept them. "But he never tried to impose such views.

"If there is one defect common to the corrupt it is their utter shamelessness", he wrote. Can laughter, even ridicule "help re-enkindle in them an ordinary Filipino sense of hiya?

"Christ himself constantly used ridicule against Pharisees of his time. So did Paul . . . For laughter and humor can indeed be salvific - for both the corrupt themselves and the victims."

In Jesuit cemeteries, only four lines are etched on each simple headstone. Name is followed by three dates: birth, entry into the Society of Jesus and death. Enough for a man who, as Fr Arevalo says, saw "wider horizons and built well, purposively, enduringly".

(E-mail: juan_mercado@boholchronicle.com)