Wiron Demate

On April 17, 2005, I went to Barcelona to take pictures of and interview Weewee, for i know that he will not have the time nor the inclination to post his life story here. For those not in the know, Weewee is serving as the Administrative Assistant of the Parish Priest, Rev. Fr. Cecilio "Butchoy" Datar and concurrently acting as Parish Youth Advisor, for almost a year now. No, he is not a priest. Neither has he gone back to the seminary.

Wiron stays in a room in the attic of a function hall located beside the church. It is separated from the "convento" by the church. When I arrived around 3 pm, Weewee was lying with eyes closed on a hammock inside his room. [In my book, Weewee's room is an ideal place for sleeping,relaxing and drinking. You don't need an electric fan to cool the place. The breeze from the sea which is only about a hundred meters away is enough to do the job.]

I immediately asked him to write down a chronology of his life from the time he left the seminary. It took him a while to reconstruct the events in his life, claiming that his memory has become hazy (from an overdose of protein, perhaps. he-he-he). Even as i write this, i cannot vouch for the completeness and accuracy of significant periods and the dates he cited.

From the Coke Major Seminary, he went to UP College of Music. After 1 semester, he transferred to UST Conservatory of Music and studied there for 8 years. From UST, he moved again to another school. This time, he enrolled in the Philippine School of Interior Design in Makati and finished 4 semesters in a year there. (Heard about a school with 4 semesters in a year?) As a student in this school, he mentions as an accomplishment the showroom he designed for Collier’s Encyclopedia.

After school, he returned to Casiguran and worked in the Youth and Music Ministry of the Parish from 1997-2000. Manila beckoned again, and in 2001 he worked as Operations Manager of Kimju’s Music Lounge. His stint lasted only 3 months, saying he had differences with the floor manager and the manager of the club. He found himself in Casiguran again and resumed his work at the Parish under Fr. Datar until 2004.

When Fr. Datar got assigned to Barcelona in 2004, he brought Weewee along with him from Casiguran.

I asked Wiron to answer certain questions that many of us in the batch have been asking. Like, what has kept him connected to the church? Is he still having thoughts of becoming a priest? Why is he not driven to seek work that would give him success in the way that most of us understand the term-—money, prestige and/or fame, since many of us are convinced that his work in the church will not get him anywhere?)

His answer was short:

DI KO ARAM KUN NAKAY ADI AKO SA SIMBAHAN. BASTA AN ARAM KO MAOGMA AKO.


Posted by Junie on April 17, 2005