Cabletow 4th issue - GM Ebdane - Grand Lodge of the Philippines

The Cabletow
MW Fajardo’s love for Masonry knows no bounds. In April1998, he was requested
by the PGMs to accept the position of Grand Secretary. The office of the Grand
Secretary is the nerve center of the Grand Lodge and the position demands the
most generous offering of time, talent and treasure. MW Fajardo did not hem haw
before accepting another call for sacrifice for the fraternity. Indeed, Ancom after
Ancom until his earthy time was no more, the brethren continuously elected him
Grand Secretary. We can count on our fingers the PGMs who have been bestowed
this rare honor of serving as Grand Secretary.
Let me likewise talk a bit about MW Fajardo as a public official. An alumnus of
the UP College of Law, MW Fajardo could have engaged in the lucrative private
practice of law and, given his legal acumen, I am sure success could not have
eluded him and he would now be wallowing in wealth. But MW Fajardo belonged to
a different breed; he was an incessant idealist, an incorrigible dreamer who took to
heart the romanticism that law is the great leveller of human differences; he was
an incorrigible dreamer who believed that equality before the law of the prince and
the pauper is not only a constitutional creed but should be robust reality. I reckon
that this is the reason why from the intellectual mecca that was the UP College of
Law, he joined the legal staff of the Court of Agrarian Reforms and cast his lot with
our lowly farmers. I like to believe too this is the reason why he devoted the best
years of his legal life in the Department of Justice where his crowning glory was his
appointment as Chief of the Public Attorney’s Office, the office that extends free
legal assistance to the indigent sector of our society. It is said that the PAO is the
biggest law office not only in the Philippines but in the whole of Asia. Its inescapable
meaning is that MW Fajardo has helped the poor and the powerless in the region
more than any other Filipino lawyer.
What then is the common thread in the life of MW Fajardo? I respectfully submit
that his public and private life has been driven by love — love, one of the highest
virtues in our hierarchy of Masonic values. I carried many conversations with MW
Fajardo during his lifetime. I cannot forget the occasion when we tirelessly talked
about the biggest factor that can cancel the virtue of love or charity. After revisiting
the fields of law, politics, the social sciences and theology, we agreed that it is
greed or covetousness — the spirit that is always wanting more - that destroys love
or charity.
If you come to think of it, the major problems of life are greed-related. Graft and
corruption are rooted on greed. Lust for flesh is rooted on covetousness. Crimes
have economic etiology that goes all the way to the spirit which is always wanting.
We agreed that greed or covetousness should be a special Masonic concern for it
poisons the well-spring of every worthwhile virtue in our hearts. The virus of greed
causes our amnesia of other men’s needs. It blocks our sight of others’ needs.
Greed is the steel that supports the vertical pronoun, I, I, and I, which dominates
17 Cabletow