MANILA, Sept. 6 -- A seven-man commission formed by the Catholic Church on Wednesday declared an man's claimed to be a medium of the Virgin Mary a hoax, but it was careful not to pass judgement on the lady's supposed apparitions in a northern Philippine town. The committee concluded its two-year probe into the alleged apparitions saying Judiel Nieva, 18, who claims Mary first appeared to him in 1989, was not a visionary and the supposed messages from the mother of Jesus Christ were copied from previous ones. Although the commission said it could not determine the veracity of the apparitions in Agoo, La Union, 150 miles (240 km) north of Manila, it declared the phenomenon as fraudulent because it did not pass all requirements that would have made it completely authentic. Rev. Samuel Banayat, the head of the commission, said it reviewed four aspects of the phenomenon: the vissionary, the messages, the alleged miraculous statue of Mary and the effect on the community. He said the so-called Agoo phenomenon failed in all four characteristics. The commission said the messages relayed by Nieva were 'gramatically incorrect, inconsistent and too lengthy.' It added that Nieva spoke in English, a contrast to previous Marian apparitions worlwide where the lady's messages were relayed in the native tongue. A hole with a tube was discovered in Mary's statue, which shed tears of blood at the peak of the apparitions. Hundreds of thousands of people flocked to San Miguel Mountain in Agoo from 1989 to 1993 to witness the events.
The crowd grew to an estimated two million in September 1993 when Nieva said Mary was supposed to make her last appearance. Now under fire from Catholic leaders and believers, Nieva says Mary will appear once more in Agoo on Friday. 'I accept all things that have been happening in my life,' Nieva was quoted saying. 'Suffering makes me stronger in faith.' But another member of the commission has raised doubts about Nieva's self-declared suffering, pointing out that his lifestyle was not reflective of his claims. 'His lifestyle has changed in such a way that we don't see already the values of simplicity and humility,' said Rev. Alfonso Lacsamana. 'He is living a high-tech lifestyle and enjoying the luxuries of life, which we find not in congruence with what should be.' Nieva now lives in a large compound, owns two cars and plans to build a four-story Marian shrine from donations he received from millions of devotees. Many in the Philippines, where 88 percent are Roman Catholics, have been known to be quickto believe declarations of apparitions and other miraculous events. Local newspapers carry stories daily of people claiming to be vissionaries, and many pay homage to these people in the hope of improving their lives. Prior to the alleged Agoo phenomenon, the last supposed miraculous event in the country occured in the 1970s when Catholic nuns claimed they saw Mary and rose petals that dropped from the sky. Many believed the Agoo phenomenon was real because they claimed they saw the 'dancing light' in the sky referred to by Nieva as the sign from Mary. But theologian Vitaliano Gorospe said the sun's movement could be explained. 'There is such a thing as collective hallucination, that's an explanation,' he said. 'Another explanation is that the atmospheric conglomeration of light and sound can produce those effects.'
