Franciscan Health Care Crossing Borders Incorporated (FHCCBI) and Friends of Francis and Clare recently stepped into the lives of the Ati indigenous peoples on Panay Island, offering medical aid and feeding programs to a community that has known suffering for far too long.
Fr. Daniel Borromeo and his team visited four communities, addressing the immediate health and nutritional needs of 175 families. But their mission wasn’t just about medicine and meals—it was about bringing hope that reminds people they haven’t been forgotten.
The Ati of Panay Island live in extreme poverty and have faced generations of oppression. It’s hard to imagine the depth of their struggle, but Fr. Daniel and his team understood that to walk into these communities was to walk onto holy ground. As the theologian Kenneth Cragg once wrote, “Our first task in approaching another people, another culture, another religion is to take off our shoes, for the place we are approaching is holy. Else we may find ourselves treading on another’s dream, more serious still we may forget that God was there before our arrival.”
Over the course of the mission, Fr. Daniel and his team visited four communities, providing for the immediate needs of 175 families. Fr. Daniel presided over Mass, and volunteers distributed meals and 10 kg bags of rice to each family. The gratitude from the communities was deep, a reminder of the quiet grace that exists in even the hardest of places.
This mission was made possible through the generosity of local benefactors, the Order of Secular Franciscans, and donors who believe in showing up for those most in need. Reflecting on the experience, Fr. Daniel spoke of encountering the presence of God in this work—in the faces of the Ati people, in the act of giving. And, as he continues, his mission is clear: to keep spreading hope to those still waiting to be seen.
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