Remembering Ricardo Vidal, Cebu archbishop
News sources and media
SunStar Cebu photo, Oct. 19, 2017
Remembering Ricardo Vidal, Cebu archbishop
(Feb. 6, 1931-Oct. 18, 2017)
Rowena Capistrano, trained as a parish journalist, with the cardinal. Now an active local news reporter, Capistrano credits her “journey in the media” to Vidal.
1. Cardinal Vidal provided training for parish journalists
ROWENA CAPISTRANO
Oct. 18, 2024
Capistrano is a correspondent for Banat News and The Freeman.
“I was a graduate of the Parish Journalism Program of the Archdiocese of Cebu (under its Social Communications Commission.) Every time Cardinal Vidal and I met, he’d joke about my weight, saying, ‘Pumapayat ka yata.’ Bisan wala.”
Cardinal Vidal who initiated the program aimed the parish journalists to help the church spread the Gospel in their respective communities. Volunteers from parishes went through two months of training and workshops at University of San Jose Recoletos College of Arts and Sciences. On Nov. 22, 2008, the first batch graduated.
“Of the more than 100 graduates, I am the only one that joined and is still with media. The cardinal’s program was the beginning of media journey.”
‘Walay Rowena Capistrano kong walay Cardinal Vidal.’
To the first group of graduates, Vidal said they must “be responsible in the job they assumed in a spirit of volunteerism” and tasked them “to report only the truth.” They were supposed to do that in the newsletter that each parish was encouraged to publish or continue publishing. Most of them did but Rowena Capistrano joined private media instead, where truth-telling could still be put to good use.
“In gratitude, I still pray for the cardinal and other persons who helped bring me to where I am now.’
A bit of trivia, which she might not have included in her story about Vidal’s death on Oct. 18, 2017: “When he died, I was able to touch him before they wrapped his body.”
Some news media were generous in their praise of the cardinal but were also open in the few times that he, or his staff, was criticized.
2. He took effort to know the media workers
MICHELLE P. SO
Oct. 18, 2024
Former editor-in-chief of SunStar Cebu and SunStar Superbalita [Cebu], MPS is also a CJJ editor. She had watched up close Cardinal Vidal as a news source.
“Cardinal Vidal understood media work and took effort to know the media workers of Cebu. He made himself accessible to reporters, especially on pressing issues.
“He may not have liked the questions at times but he answered them. He would give jocose answers. He had wit and he was quotable, to the delight of the desk.
“If he could not be available for an interview, he would refer reporters to Msg. Achilles Dakay who could articulate his thoughts.”
A SunStar photo taken on Dec. 9, 1989 at the first Mactan-Mandaue Bridge, now known as Serging Osmena Bridge, where a meeting between rebel leaders and military officials took place. The rebels had occupied the Mactan Air Base, in effect controlling the island, since Dec. 1. No deaths or injuries were reported but the local economy was in shambles, said SunStar.
3. ‘Cardi’ adeptly negotiated through disputes in Cebu and elsewhere, including the 1989 siege on Mactan
EDRALYN L. BENEDICTO
Oct. 18, 2024
ELB spent almost four decades with news media: one year with GMA-7 (1985), eight years with SunStar Cebu (1986-1993), and 30 years with Philippine Daily Inquirer (from 1994). Or a total of 39 years. She’ll retire from PDI in December 2024.
“I covered the so-called ‘church beat,’ mainly anything and everything that had to do with ‘Cardi’ (how we called Cardinal Vidal then) as a reporter of Sun.Star Daily, SSD during my time with the Cebu paper.
“In all those years, I saw how Cardinal Vidal adeptly negotiated his way through numerous disputes in Cebu and elsewhere and shepherded his flock with grace and humor. Yes, he had a very funny side and a child-like chuckle for anything that he found amusing, even as he was also very serious about his responsibilities as archbishop.
“It was the way the cardinal helped resolve the Mactan crisis that became a defining moment for his life in the church, which we who covered the church beat were privileged to witness.”
Helping negotiate to end the 1989 Mactan coup crisis was a defining moment of his life in the church.
Veteran journalist Edralyn Benedicto remembers it thus: “The cardinal quietly and slowly paced around the garden at the Archbishop’s Residence on D. Jakosalem St. in Cebu City, hunched up and deep in thought. It seemed like he was just out for a relaxing walk, except that it was close to midnight and he had his mediator hat on, because Cebu — the whole country in fact, was in crisis…”
Cory Aquino was assaulted with coup attempts, among them, one that spilled from the NCR to Mactan Cebu, resulting in a nine-day siege on the island, which had been seized militarily by rebels.
The Cory Aquino administration was then facing its most serious challenge after a group of rebel soldiers launched a coup attempt on Dec. 1, 1989 and Mactan Air Base (MAB) had fallen into rebel control when Brig. Gen. Jose Comendador, the base commander, defected. On the same day a shipload of rebel soldiers from Mindanao, led by then police colonel Tiburcio Fusilero arrived in Mactan. With soldiers from MAB, Fusilero took over the Lapu-Lapu City side of the Mandaue-Mactan bridge, putting up a checkpoint that symbolized their control of the whole island.
Banner headlines in SunStar and the Inquirer.
“I could not recall what day it was during the siege that Cardinal Vidal was called upon to help negotiate and resolve the crisis. Gen. Renato Palma, then the AFP’s Viscom chief, based in Cebu City, was all ready to launch what could be a bloody offensive that could turn the island into a heavily bombed island. And the cardinal was asked to mediate. ”
RELATED: Cebu’s role in the 1989 coup by Clarence Paul Oaminal, June 26, 2025.
The siege ended peacefully. And that was after Comendador and Palma met with Cardinal Vidal at the center of the now historic bridge at 2 p.m. of December 9 1989, a Saturday. Rebel soldiers in Mactan were the last to give up while those in the National Capital Region either surrendered or were suppressed by government forces loyal to Cory Aquino.
Atty. Frank Malilong Jr. and Cardinal Vidal
4. He moved his prayer time to watch Michael Jordan.
FRANK MALILONG JR.
writes an opinion column for SunStar Cebu, used to write for The Freeman
“Unknown to many, Cardinal Vidal was a basketball fan, at least while Michael Jordan was playing for the Chicago Bulls.”
During one of Atty. Malilong’s “very rare visits” to the cardinal’s official residence, Vidal told him, “I’m sure the Lord understood.”
“The game that Jordan last played as a Bull was also the last basketball game the cardinal watched. ‘It was not the same anymore,’ he said, not even when Jordan emerged from retirement and played with the Washington Wizards.”
The cardinal with members of Frank Malilong Jr.’s family after a wedding at the Archbishop’s Chapel on Dec. 22, 2005. “It was the children he asked to pose with him. The adults are photo bombers.”