MY LATEST TRIP PANGASINAN

 
By Rene Calalang
Scarborough, Ontario
July 26, 2019
 




Lately, I have been travelling to the Philippines quite often – twice in a span of six months to be exact. The first one, held last February, an organized one, was to join in the celebration of our high school 55^th graduation anniversary; and the second one, to visit my ailing mother in law was only very lately, from June 28 to July 18 to be exact.

Travelling via Philippines Airlines Flight PR5119, the long sixteen hours straight flight from Toronto to Manila would had been quite an experience had it not for the availability of Business Class. This accommodation, though a lot more expensive, is worth every penny of it.

It was a smooth flight and everything was on time. Clearing the Immigration and Custom was no problem either. Even our “sundo” (those who fetched us) was also on time.

But this was the end of our pleasant trip and the agony of driving in the streets of Manila had begun as traffic was an enormous chaos.

Perhaps, because it was Friday afternoon, where thousands were leaving the city to relax in the provinces; and maybe because Joseph Estrada, then the Mayor of Manila, few years ago banned transport trucks on certain streets of Manila during the daytime, and because it was past 10:00 p.m. they are all over, their number perhaps almost the same the number of other vehicles, at least on the road we took.

What made it worse was it was June, and this month is part of the rainy season in the Philippines. While it did not rain continuously, it did rain sporadically, which meant flooding in some streets in Manila, and we passed on a few of them.

What made it even worse was like many other cities in the world, and Toronto is one of them, it was construction season, which meant reducing the number of lanes on the streets and roads, and in our case, a three lane road was reduce to two, which resulted in a bottle neck condition, with vehicles getting trapped.

And the worst reason of all this traffic nightmare was the lack of discipline of many of the drivers, as in this trip, it was free for all, as nobody seems to follow some traffic regulations and stay on their lanes as if the lines on the road were there only as decorations. It was amazing that I did not see any accident in that span, though I saw a few transport trucks that broke down.

These were all the factors why, a supposed to be a one hour trip to get out Manila became a five hours agonizing experience.

Conditions like this made a person like me became more observant and I did observe some sad and pitiful scenes, as passing through Roxas Blvd, I saw some mind boggling scenes and one of them was that of many homeless children living under any shelter they could find. They were haggard in appearance wearing those torn, ragged clothes, with some were even barefooted. All of them, though I don’t see any of them at close up personally, I am sure were malnourished.

I asked myself, “What have these children done to deserve such a fate?” Nothing of course, except they were born out of irresponsible parenting, that they were born because their parents knew nothing about family planning and birth control, or perhaps they were so poor that they had no place called home to live.

I saw a lot more sad scenes but those conditions were not the objectives of this article.

Finally we were able to get out of the city and entered NLEX (Northern Luzon Expressway). We told the driver to stop at the first gas station/rest area to relieve us of our discomfort. We also took the opportunity to refill our stomach at Chow King.

After almost a one hour pit stop, we again re-entered NLEX, where in Valenzuela City, our trip was again slowed down by a big bus accident, where according to the news, eight died and eleven injured. Though the accident happened on the other side, people, out of curiosity, slowed down to observe.

We finally overcame this minor delay and in the next two hours we would travel on a highway reminiscent of the superhighways we get accustomed to driving in North America.

Our NLEX trip ended in Concepcion, Tarlac where again, we stopped at a plaza and relieved ourselves of our discomfort.

What followed was travelling the old fashion way, that of travelling in a single lane highway and passing the town proper or poblacions in many towns in Pangasinan. How lucky we were to be travelling at this time, which was late at night, as there were no tricyles coming in all directions that would slowed us down.

In the town of Labrador, we took another pit stop where we dropped by at a 7 Eleven store and drink some coffee/chocolate milk to make sure that our driver would remain awake for the duration of the trip.

It was almost three o’clock in the morning when we reached the City of Alaminos where, even in this unholy hour, we decided to stop at the Alaminos Doctor’s Hospital to visit my ailing mother in law, the very reason why we made this trip.

What an emotional meeting it was, as the last time my wife saw her mother, who is now ninety four years old, was five years ago. Watching from the sidelines, I saw the close bond between a mother and a daughter, that time was not a factor to break that bond, and that bond would become stronger because of love and care for each other.

It was also an emotional reunion of hugs and kisses between my mother in law and us who were in the trip (my brother in law, Tony O; and his wife, Lita O.); of stories told, though short they were, as time at that moment was a big factor.

THE next day being Saturday, and because we were almost sleepless the previous night, was a rest day, a sleeping day, and time to recharge. In the afternoon, we again visited my mother in law to continue the bonding started only twelve hours earlier.

We had a big dinner at my wife’s ancestral home. It was so big that it’s hard to believe that there is a massive poverty in the Philippines. It was a dinner of selected Filipino dishes: dinuguan, menudo, relyenong bangus, fried and pinangat Malaga fish, and many other more I couldn’t remember. And as usual after dinner, delicious dessert of bibingka, suman matched with fresh fruits like mango and banana were available for us.

Sunday for us was a typical day. We woke up early to, as a practicing Catholic, discharged our sacred duty by attending the 6:30 a.m. mass at the newly expanded and renovated Catholic Church located in front of my wife’s ancestral home. For some unknown reasons, I noticed that the attendance was not that great. Ah, maybe it was too early in the morning, and worshippers were still sleeping and resting.

But it was not the attendance that attracted my attention but rather, it was how the church look now, compared to five years ago, which was the last time I was in this place and heard mass in this church, which was then under renovation, with plans designed by an architect, amount of donations collected posted on a visible area for the public to view. Also solicitation of funds, which was in the millions, was still underway during that time.

Then, under the leadership of shall I say a modern priest, my type of priest, a priest of actions and not just prayer, a priest of determination and courage, the renovation and expansion is now complete; with only the bell (which is the project of the new priest, who is another modern priest and my type of priest) which has to come from Italy, still missing.

With the approximately P800,000.00 needed to purchase and install the bell, almost P600,000.00 has been raised, and I am sure there is no problem raising the balance. So you see Maria, in any undertaking, if there is transparency and honesty, people will donate and participate. This situation reminded me of a Basilica in Barcelona, Spain, the Sagrada Familia, which is being built through public donations, meaning there is no money coming from the Vatican. These two places of faith, though so different in size and design, were both built and being built by the principles of Honesty and Transparency.

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TO BE CONTINUED