With an INC officemate

I am a Catholic. Born and raised. I studied from kinder to college in a Catholic school.

When I started to work, that was when I was exposed to the different religious beliefs. There were the INCs, the Dating Daan, Christians, Rizalitas.

Oftentimes, the INCs and the Dating Daan believers were the ones always in argument inside the office. And I would just listen, here each other's point of view.

I am an open minded one. If that's your belief, I respect it. But in all the religious views in the office, I was biased with the INC at that time. Until this one officemate.

As a Catholic, I go to novenas. I am a believer of the teachings of Saint Augustine. Every August, I tend to shift my working schedule to 7am to 4pm so I can travel home and attend mass for 9days. The novena masses were at 5:30pm

I never thought that the INCs understood the belief of Catholics with Saints as "sumasamba sa diyos diyosan". When in fact this never happens, we just hope that the saints will hear our prayers and intervene and relay them to God.

So this officemate, saw me leaving my post early. As I was about to leave, he asked me why I was early to go. I just said, I am going to attend church.

With him familiar with the area I was living in, he knew that it was Augustinian Season.

Then he suddenly shouted, in front of around 70 customers, "sasamba ka na naman sa diyos diyosan niyo. Kaya hindi ka maliligtas, kami lang maliligtas, mapupunta ka sa impyerno sa panahon ng paghuhukom".

I was literally red in the face. I know he was INC, but I never thought he would go that length to embarass me that I don't share his beliefs within me.

I was angry, but he was angrier. To the point that our security guard told me to just let it go for the meantime and that they would just report the incident on the officers. He was also told to calm down and go ahead with his work.