‘Apo Rufing’ observes 85th birthday
SAN FABIAN — Members of the Crusaders of the Divine Church of Christ Phils, Inc. whose international temple is based here, and thousands of well-wishers will fete Mons. Dr. Rufino Magliba on his 85th birthday anniversary tomorrow, September 25,.
Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr., former Agrarian Reform Minister Conrado Estrella Sr., General Alberto Braganza (ret.), Gov. Victor Agbayani, and Mayor Mojamito Libunao are expected to celebrate the occasion with Mons. Magliba, fondly addressed as ‘Apo Rufing’, in a thanksgiving prayer and program at the CDCCPI temple in Barangay Nibaliw West, now named Barangay Magliba.
Mons. RegaladoDoctor, archbishop of CDCCPI in Pangasinan, traces the history of the CDCCPI to the founding of the church “from the time Apo Rufing obeyed God’s instruction to found a church there while he was healing several afflicted people in Pangasinan and many parts of the country.
The CDCCPI has, by the latest count, 260 churches or temples of worship worldwide.
Called the ‘Chosen One’, Apo Rufing has been the object of veneration by his thousands of followers. He is reputed to be gifted with divine and healing powers.
Apo Rufing’s story began when as an infant of about four months he was discovered abandoned beneath a clump of rosal plant in Asingan, Pangasinan by Felipe Magliba and Petronila Sarmiento of that town.
The couple registered the child at the Asingan local registry and christened him Rufino Sarmiento Magliba.
When he was in Grade 3, Rufino again vanished to the chagrin of his foster parents but was discovered at the boundary of Binalonan and Asingan towns by a Dagupan trader couple Andres and Jacinta Morante.
The couple found the child talking to an invisible “visitor”, who, according to Rufing, was his “real father”. The Morantes, who were filled with dread, turned him over to a prominent fishing magnate, Marcelo Vidal of San Fabian who found the boy unusually precocious, generous, healthy, and skillful in arnis and fishing.
Later, he heard a voice which told him to stop being a fisherman but to be a “fisher of men”. Apo Rufing, reports said, was able to restore to life some patients who were declared “clinically dead”. He was besieged by patients suffering from all kinds of ailments including terminal ones but who were miraculously healed.
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