kulas dayaw

When I read this gospel I remembered immediately the late Fr. John van Leewen, the priest who lovingly called himself ang carabao sang Dios. Probably the old folks here would remember this Dutch Mill Hill priest who had served St. Paul’s Hospital for the longest time. And he is known by a lot of people because he is one of those very rare breed of priests who loves to hear confessions. Anyway I remembered him because whenever someone goes to confessions but instead of admitting outright one’s fault would twist a few facts here and there in his or her confessions so as to make oneself look good, nga ang gwa daw ikaw pa maayo. When somebody did this, Fr. John would softly sing inside the confessional, kulas dayaw. And that would remind the person that in confessions you just have to admit your fault without going through a litany of justifications to make yourself look better. Kulas dayaw.


But you see kulas dayaw is a natural reflex to us human beings. In a book by Daniel Coleman he called it a natural tendency in us to make ourselves look more important. So he said we distort and twist specifics in our stories to make ourselves look more important. That is why he entitled the book Vital Lies, the Psychology of Self-Deception. Vital Lies - mga importante nga mga butig ukon mga ginakabig naton nga importante nga mga kabutigan nahanungod sa aton kaugalingon and we tell this to make ourselves look good, to make ourselves look more important, probably as part of our strategy for survival. Kulas dayaw.
A kulas dayaw works using two strategies or method. First is, you make yourself look good by subtly praising yourself even twisting facts a little bit, adding little lies, in order to highlight one’s heroism and thereby one’s importance. Kon waay ko to . . . Sang tiempo namon sang una . . . ako gid to ya nagpatigayon . . . twisting facts to highlight one’s importance. Indi mo gid man sia matawag nga butigon pero we have an more appropriate term for it - tikalon.
The second strategy is you make yourself look good by making others look bad, by despising and belittling others. We lift ourselves above others by stepping on others. Sometimes you get to wonder why some people would resort to maligning people to make themselves look good to others and a hero. Puede man na siguro nga dayawon mo kaugalignon without resorting to this dirty tact? But you see these are the two strategies of a kulas dayaw. The objective is to assert self-importance. The strategy can either be a little deception and manipulation of the truth and belittling and even despising others. Most often we use a combination of both.
Our parable today has a kulas dayaw. He did it before God. He uses a combination of both strategies - a little twisting of the facts palapaw, kon sa aton pa, and belittling the poor tax collector whom the Pharisee used as a point of comparison - he wanted to look good before God at the expense of others.
It is bad enough to deceive other people. But it is worst to deceive oneself and to deceive even God himself who knows all things.
Our redemption lies in accepting with humility the truth about ourselves, the truth of who we really are. And the tax collector was right when he prayed Lord, have mercy on me a sinner. He knew who he was and was not afraid to accept who he was. And Jesus was correct in observing that this man went home justified rather than the other, for healing and growth can only come when we have learned to lovingly accept our real and true self even in all its ugliness.
Tomorrow is barangay elections day. Kulas dayaw with its two strategies is going full blast and has been so for almost two weeks now. Elections in the Philippines has always been like this ever since - making oneself look good by praising oneself to high heavens by twisting the facts here and there, and making ourselves look good and important at the expense of others. We call these dirty politics, dirty campaigning. This time, however, that which we call dirt is closer to home, in our very own backyards and in our neighborhood, and it can hurt even greatly, and the hurt can divide our communities for a longer time. Please be mindful of this tendency, let us be conscious of this tendency not just during these elections though, but even in our prayer, in our relationship with one another and in our relationship with God and with ourselves. With this tendency sometimes going out of hand I can only imagine Fr. John van Leewen smiling at us now in heaven singing softly kulas dayaw.