Artemio B. Manuben, a member of the Third Order of the Franciscans (OFS), grew up in a community in Binondo, a district in Manila, where neighborhood quarrels on the streets and houses being lapped by fire were usual sights. Wanted criminals took refuge in the communities around him. People respected these criminals, not because they built houses for the poor and fed them, but because they were scared of them.
Many villagers, especially youth, slid down into the world of drugs and crimes as a result of pressures from the cold and uncaring environment. In the spring time of his curiosity, Artemio smoked weed and did other drugs with friends who wore threadbare pants that were a fashion among punks in Manila in the 1990s.
The pressures from the fallen quarters of the society were so strong that Artemio, a son of a police lieutenant and a brother of a police captain, got involved in fraternity wars. “In school, there were times, some fraternity members would strike me with the chair in the canteen,” he said.
He even joined his friends to extort money from students walking down Recto Avenue. The cops also chased them when they were under the influence of drugs. “On one occasion, my family sent me to jail for being high on drugs and violent,” Artemio recounted. “But they took me out after I clashed with the inmates.”
In college, he nearly lost his life in a fraternity war. He narrowly escaped an angry mob of fraternity members who wanted to settle a score with him. Enraged fraternity members in black shirts stood by outside the school for his exit. Artemio waited for hours for the fraternity members to leave, but they did not. And most of the students had already gone home.
“That was the time I talked to God,” he said. “I begged him to let me leave the school safely.”
GOD’S INSTRUMENT
His prayer was granted not through a fraternity brother, nor a close friend, but a person he had not expected would be God’s instrument to save him from the enraged fraternity members. A classmate he always bullied and who rarely stayed in school late because he was a working student was still in the campus hours after the classes were dismissed.
Artemio was told to go inside his classmate’s car, lay on the floor, and pushed himself under the back seats. His heart rammed his ribcage as the car rolled through the gate. As the vehicle gathered distance, he rose and looked through the rear windshield–dozens of fraternity members were still standing at the gate, waiting for him to show up.
Finally, his classmate dropped him at a safe place, far from the school.“I thanked God as I stepped out of the car,” Artemio said. “He sent a vehicle to pick me up to safety. He revealed to me He’s a true God.”
MIRACLE OF FAITH
He recognized God’s intervention in his escape from the enraged fraternity members. From then on, he started reforming himself. He joined the Jesus Is Lord Church, a Protestant Christian denomination, while he sang in a choir in a Catholic Church in Binondo.
He later retraced his way to fully rejoin the Catholic Church, where he was baptized. Back inside the Catholic Church, he met lay and religious people who inspired him to deepen his faith. “There was also a miracle when I was not yet closed to God,” Artemio said. “A man pointed an Uzi at me outside another school. When he trained the gun on me, I felt like an unseen force swept me to safety inside the school.”
Reforming himself surrounded by violence and crimes had not been easy. He recalled being invited by friends to drink fermented tomatoes to get intoxicated.
On one occasion, holduppers declared a holdup in a passenger jeepney Artemio was in. The holduppers grabbed the belongings of the passengers and one of the holduppers used force against him. In defense of his life, he stained his hands with blood with a knife.
In that incident, the holdupper died and Artemio surrendered to the police. He waited for someone who would bring him to court, but it did not happen. “He died. It was long ago. Until now, no one came,” he said.
Artemio always remembers the incident, so he buried the knife beneath Recto Avenue, where he and his friends usually hung out. He never saw it again.
Despite the challenges, he kept reforming himself and deepening his faith. He volunteered as a catechist, given P50 pesos after teaching catechism. He later went to San Carlos Seminary for a course on catechism. “By this time, I became a true Catholic,” he said. “After my studies in San Carlos, I went to Divisoria and interviewed people. I learned a homeless couple met each other there and raised children on the street.”
He met his future wife, Liza, at the seminary when he was about to graduate from the course. Liza was about to take the exam for the course. They both finished the course on catechism. “We looked at each other,” he said. “I dreamed of marrying a fellow catechist when I was studying at the seminary. So, I courted her. After two years, she said ‘yes’. Then after two years more, I asked her we get married.” So, they tied the knot in 2004.
Liza, a native of Capiz, had dreamed of becoming a nun. But when she met a nun, she was told that she was too young to enter the convent and advised to teach catechism and finish her studies. Artemio was his first and last boyfriend.
In 2008, Artemio happened to meet the members of OFS. Drawn by the fire of the order, he later stepped into their fold. Liza also joined the order. They professed their vows in 2012. While praying on the feast day of Saint Gregory the Great in 2012, he saw an educational cart at a church.
“Many kids at the pier who do not go to school crossed my mind,” Artemio recounted. “So, I had my first kariton (cart) built and had it blessed on the feast day of Mother Teresa. Then I went around the pier. After a month, I took the cart to the pier, brought chairs, candies for the kids, and an image of Mama Mary.”
“Some places did not welcome us,” he said. “They slammed the cart in protest.” But these rude gestures did not demoralize him to go on. Since 2012, he taught catechism to children on the streets, near the garbage, and in the midst of topless and tattooed men. Together with his wife, he carried on. He pressed on for years, bringing children closer to the church and God.
Aside from catechism, he and his wife brought food for the children and other less fortunate people on the street from their own pocket. “Because of Saint Francis, I invested for our catechism on the streets,” Artemio said.
His ministry on the streets had drawn the attention of charitable people and groups who still send them financial support so that they can continue with the work and reach more children and people. Some people donated clothes and toys that he gave to kids on the streets.
STREET CATECHISM
When the Catechetical Foundation of the Archdiocese of Manila (CFAM) saw his ministry on the streets, they built for him a cart made of iron, replacing the wooden one. He taught catechism in areas where drugs were rampant and on streets where snatchers thrived, like Abad Santos Avenue, a major arterial road located in the district of Tondo and Recto Avenue, a commercial thoroughfare in north-central Manila.
He parked the kariton for a period of time during the time of COVID-19 pandemic due to the restrictions by the government. “But after the restrictions relaxed, blessings came,” he said.
Fr. Ramon Jade Licuanan, rector and parish priest of Quiapo Church, approached him and gave him alcohols that he handed to people in return. “After that, many people whom I did not know started giving us financial support,” he said. “Our house started to be filled with rice. We gave the rice to people who were most affected by the pandemic and had nothing to eat.”
During the lockdown, they bought rice, noodles, canned goods from Divisoria and distributed them to the less fortunate people. Riding a motorbike, he also handed food packs to children and people on the streets during heavy rains and flooding in Metro Manila.
With the financial assistance from charitable individuals, Artemio and his wife currently shelter in a rented house, a family that was once homeless on the cold streets. Artemio and his wife, Liza, carry on the ministry of teaching catechism on the street of Manila, the country’s capital, praying to reach and form more children and people and bring them closer to God.
Deeply aware of the poverty gripping the homeless, Artemio is looking at providing them a warm roof. “I dream of building a shelter where more homeless can sleep, take a bath, eat decent food, spend leisure time, and rebuild their lives,” he said.
