Introducing to you a friend like no other.

Kenkoy

He never impressed anybody.

He never wrote a book. He never preached a good sermon. Never led a strike, never organized a protest against anything or anybody. Never defied Ferdinand Marcos. Never fought Martial Law. He was just Kenkoy.

Kenkoy was really Rev. Fr. Giuseppe Venere of the Society of Jesus, but we called him “Kenkoy” (pronounced as if written “KINGKOY”). Yes, we called him “Kenkoy,” and the very respectful among us called him “Reverend Father Kenkoy”.

The original Kenkoy was a popular comic strip character of half a century ago — and was someone like Forrest Gump.

We called Father Venere “Kenkoy” because he called EVERYBODY “Kenkoy”: the Governor, the Mayor, the palahubog, the Archbishop, the hilot, the Sacristan, the bulad and binignit vendor — all were called “Kenkoy” by Fr. Kenkoy.

And he called them all “Kenkoy” because he always forgot their real names. So, to simplify matters, he called everybody, everybody — including the Governor’s Mother — he called everybody “Kenkoy”. And that’s why we called him “Kenkoy”.

By the time I met him, he was already an old Jesuit, working as a Missionary in the Municipality of Valencia, Bukidnon, with an even older Italian Jesuit Missionary, Fr. Manlio Caroselli, S.J., who at that time was busy founding and constructing his San Agustin Institute of Technology.

Kenkoy — loose pants, a T-shirt that used to be white, and the ever-present belly-band: he always had this strip of cloth which, night and day, he wrapped around his tummy to keep the cold air away.

Very often, Father Kenkoy would seem amused, a naughty twinkle in his eyes, as though everything were really good, and evil only temporary.

In the years that I knew him, I never heard him preach or philosophize or theologize, or say anything profound or earth-shaking. He never harangued a crowd or led a demonstration, or a protest, or a hunger strike. . . .

He was just smiling and laughing, never striving to convert or change anything — the world, or anybody’s morals or ideology or politics. He was there only to serve his people. And serve them he did. For Kenkoy, that meant helping his parishioners in all their needs, where they were, as they were.

Other Priests would insist on inflexible discipline — specific times and schedules for baptisms and weddings. And if ever the poor parishioners are late or have no appointment, then they do not get their babies baptized! Good church order and formation would insist that the parishioners become mature and responsible and come exactly on time for the baptism, and the wedding — yes, precisely as scheduled by the mighty Padre Cura — the mighty Parish Priest.

Not so for Kenkoy. He was there, after all, to serve. Besides, he had compassion on the poor people in his 54 distant barrios, and he was always mindful of the mountains and rivers and vast distances the poor peasants and their families had to traverse in order to get from their faraway homes to the parish church in the poblacion. The people are late? Poor people. They must be very tired. Let them catch their breath, and Kenkoy will be with them. Then the smiling Father Kenkoy would come and baptize their babies.

His convento was usually full of children and catechists, and poor peasant farmers, and they were always served and helped — by Father Kenkoy, who smiled a lot and spoke little and welcomed all. He was most happy when he could be of service to them.

Like a good Parish Priest, Father Kenkoy would read the communications and directives from persons in authority — civil and ecclesiastical — and always, he followed their commands — more or less. Usually less.

His main value, aside from God, was the people he served. The people. God’s people. Kenkoy’s people. Father Kenkoy was not there to control or to dictate, at the cost of trampling down his people, their rights, their dignity, their tradition, their participation, and their peace of mind.

Kenkoy saw good in everyone. And maybe everything. He was a Missionary. And the Missionary, like Jesus Christ, did not come to be served, but to serve, his people.

Father Giuseppe Venere, S.J. . . . .

Surely, when he was a teenager, the lively Father Kenkoy must have had his own worldly dreams and ambitions. And he had a mother and father, and brothers and sisters who loved him and whom he loved. Surely, there must have been the alluring signorinas who liked him, and whom he liked. Surely he must have had his own exciting kingdom, where HE was the KING.

But he left all, all, all — for people like you and me. To share with us his wonderful God, God with His infinite forgiveness and trust and love!! Kenkoy yearned and chose to be a Jesuit Missionary in China and the Philippines.

Father Venere must have had a high degree of intelligence, for he successfully passed the Jesuit course of studies. And he often wrote impressively and brilliantly in international Mission Magazines regarding missionary life. But among us, he managed, very successfully, to hide his intellectual acumen.

From Valencia, Fr. Kenkoy was assigned to Maramag. Then Manolo Fortich. Always, he built churches and convents and barrio chapels. And he sent poor children to school, and he served everyone.

A slave to no theology and no ideology. Only service . . . with total commitment, and love. Year after year after year. For his family — the People of God.

And then, Kenkoy disappeared.

He was very sick, we heard. And he had to be rushed back home to Italy. For medical treatment.

A few months passed.
And then we heard the bad news.
Kenkoy was dead.

v v v

In God’s Providence, and because of the Society of Jesus’ kindness, I found myself in Italy in 1980. I was in Rome, but I was not at home with all the ceremony and all the show and all the rubrics of the capital of Roman Catholicism. I longed instead to spend time visiting and praying in two places which were very special to me — Assisi and Torino.

– Assisi, because I always found edification, inspiration, and the heart of Christ in St. Francis of Assisi.

– Torino, not because I wanted to venerate the Shroud, but because I wanted to visit and pray at the place where they buried Father Kenkoy. And maybe thank him and maybe tell him we love him.

There was a very kind Jesuit Lay Brother there in Turin, who welcomed me when I arrived, and showed me the room — and the bed — where the Reverend Father Giuseppe Venere had spent his last days on earth. His sickness was cancer of the stomach and the intestines, and he knew the cancer was far advanced and irreversible and he was told he had only a short time to live. Soon Death would come. Kenkoy waited for him.

And I sat down beside his empty bed, and I pictured my friend, Fr. Kenkoy, lying down there, day after day . . . just waiting . . . for death.

The Jesuit Brother told me that during his last days, Kenkoy’s only happiness was receiving and reading and re-reading and again re-reading the love letters from Valencia and Maramag and Manolo Fortich in Bukidnon. Love letters? Yes, from all the Kenkoys in the barrios he had served when he was a Missionary in Mindanao.

LOVE LETTERS which the poor peasant farmers had dictated to their children and which they had painstakingly written on Grade III or Grade IV pad paper — about the farmers’ MGA ANAK, their ANI, their MANOK and their BABOY and their KANDING, and their KABAW NGA NABOROS and were now big and expecting their little babies.

I thought of Kenkoy painfully languishing in that lonely, faraway room and I pictured him reading his precious love letters from the barrios of Mindanao.

And I pictured Father Kenkoy thinking of all the simple people he had loved and served.

And I thought of him in agony, as cancer and death invaded him. . . . And then for the last time I looked at the burial place of Fr. Giuseppe Venere, S.J. . . . Father Kenkoy.

His body was in there, resting in peace. And outside — outside were some flowers in cheap ceramic vases, flowers that had dried up and wilted . . . vainly saluting and crowning a framed, faded picture of the young Father Kenkoy, laughing as usual, eternally happy with the privilege of pouring out his life as a Jesuit, and a Priest — a Brother and Friend of the people he served so much, and loved so well — THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES.


Daghang salamat, Padre Kenkoy.



JUNI JESENA, S.J.