Ben Isay Ngipon

 

Ben Isay Ngipon

At the tender age of 12 in 1946, Ruben Ecleo or better known in his youth as Ben Isay Ngipon embarked on his first mission in the Visayas, a fact that is not widely known even to the second generation members. With nothing but the clothes he wears and no place to call home, he set out on foot, driven by his pure missionary spirit to reach the poor and needy in the mountains of Visayas and Mindanao. Despite his youth, Ben Isay Ngipon never had the chance to enjoy a typical boyhood. Instead, he spent his days traveling from town to town, barrio to barrio, and even to remote sitios with no roads leading to them. He endured hunger, thirst, fatigue, and uncomfortable sleep in his quest to bring the good news to the spiritually weary and blind to spirituality. Although many witnessed Ben Isay Ngipon's mighty spiritual deeds, no one recorded them in writing. Even the millions who experienced his powers failed to put them on record. While there are audio recordings of his messages, they are nowhere to be found. Imagine if a historian were to study the deeds of our Divine Master thirty-seven years from the time of his demise. Using the historian's method of authentication through multiple attestation and criterion of dissimilarity, they would likely dismiss his powers or miracles as mere legend or myth, just like in the case of Jesus. Unlike Sai Baba, we do not have an official collection of the Divine Master's messages in audio or written format, nor do we possess a video of him. All we have is a 13-second video from YouTube!