Try to visit Banaue. It is famous for the Rice Terraces - a showcase of Filipino resilience and ingenuity, and a United Nations world heritage site. It's about 8 hours from Manila. At around dusk, we passed by Lankawe, the capital of Ifugao. The place was still sleeping so we went on. Then at about 6:00 am we passed the welcome arch of Banaue. The kids were ecstatic. It was drizzling but they preferred sitting at the open back of the pick-up. They didn't like to miss any scenery. They were aching to see the rice terraces as they craned their necks at every zigzag turn. Then we headed for Baguio.
If you are interested to visit the place, better hurry up because modernization and neglect are about to obliterate what has seemingly stood with impregnability and practical usefulness for centuries.
Banaue is a tourist place. Affordable lodges that cater to families and big groups abound. An authentic 'ulog' can also be rented for an authentic Ifugao experience. Curio and antique shops dot the streets.
The Rice Terraces that was printed on the PhP 1000 bill is about 2 kilometers further atop the mountain. There are other postcard perfect terraces which could be visited. A Tourist Assistance Bureau office is near the market. The office can arrange tours, usually walking tours, to any detination.
My family, composed of my wife, siblings and our respective kids, visited Banaue last April during our annual long travel. This is a time for our bonding. (Our bonding time or annual long travel, which I initiated in 2002, requires a separate post.)
We left Manila aboard 2 vehicles at 10:00 pm. As we exit Manila at the SLEX, we passed by the usual gasoline station to gas up, and take our midnight snacks and coffee from the adjoining fastfoods. This could be the last decent meals we had as we ascend the Mountain Provinces in the middle of the night. The kids love and look forward to this long travel. And to them the meaning of long travel is literally days of non-stop travel.
At 2:00 am, we stopped somewhere atop the mountains of Nueva Ecija, where most of the cargo trucks were parking for rest and quick meals. We had some coffee in a small restaurant, which was open and lighted but deserted. The caretakers woke up and attended to us when we were already seated and and tinkering with the wares they were selling. We stretched, used the CR, then continued with our travel.
We stayed in Banaue for 2 nights and 2 days, more than enough to explore what most tourists wanted in Banaue - the rice terraces.
Baguio City is less than 4 hours via paved roads. But there is no public transportation linking the 2 tourist destinations. The answer is obvious. The roads maybe asphalted/cemented, alright. But there are no side bars. And as the road zigzags precariously on the sides of the tall mountains, it is easy to imagine that you are in an airplane because the view from the car is the same view from the window of an airplane on crusing altitude. With a small miscalculation, the land vehicles may just be literally flying offroad. And offroad means hundreds of feet of sheer vertical drop.
I think the best view from Banaue on the way to Baguio was atop the gigantic Ambuklao Dam. Don't forget to stop and take pictures on the rest spots. I you are faint hearted or if you love your family too much, this could be the only chance you pass this way. The roads maybe good but very risky. @
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
What to do this summer? Have money. Will travel to Banaue.
class reunion
Mga klasmets,
Ti rigya ang pirambilog nga pictures kang aton alumni homecoming. Mangita pa ako iba. Nalimtan gid namon magpa-buol picture kay tama gid kasadya. Ang group pic nga diya urihi ron madumduman. Ti mayad man tshirt ta? Siyempre ako nag-design.
Si Veronica Salinga gali ang muse ta. Baw grabe gid tumbo nya kay naka-muse ron tana. Handom niya gid halin hi-skol nga ma-muse tana. Ti marikulkul pa gid tana eh.
Salamat gid sa tanan nga nag-contribute para magsadya man ang aton homecoming. Sa sunod ibutang ko ang listahan ka mga nag-atend.
Sa mga waay ka-atend, ti kitaay ta sa sunod ah. Happy grey hairs!
Pls click on pics to enlarge.
Friday, April 10, 2009
The next generation of astigs
Call it the improvement of your angkan. If you can't make it during your time, be sure your children carry on the baton for you. And succeed where you miserably failed. But without rituals, you still can be a father/mother of an intellectual. You got a personality bursting with x-rated hormones, that you can arouse the primal desires of even the most anti-social geeks in school? If you have such a personality, then marry yourself into a family of board topnotchers, summa cum laudes, or academecians wearing horn-rimmed glasses with half-inch thick lenses. It will be hard to adjust in the beginning. But you can always try reading Time and The Economist when your partner or family is around. And switch to jologs komiks and vernacular tabloids na kaya mong intindihin when alone in the toilet.
This is the story of many of our classmates. Grabe gid handom nanda mag-valedictorian. O mag-honorablemention man lang. Pero daw di gid kaya. Kahit ano pang klase ang gagawing pagsusunog ng kilay.
The past hohor roll only had names like Aurora, Henry, Roselle, Bambi, Helen, and Marilen. It had no names like Edward, Lydia, Ephraim, Magdaleno, nor Gemma.
Ti, ano bala natabo kay Edward M, he with the short semi-atrophied tongue, bcoz kahit name niya di kaya i-pronounce. Kaya tawag sa iya Edwald. Anyway, handom gid niya mag-honor student pero pang section 2 lang gid ang IQ. So after marrying, he schemed night and day to father a would-be valedictorian. Ambot ano ginhimo niya. Siguro ginputos sa encyclopedia or pages of Advance Algebra ang inunlan sang baby niya. O siguro he read the whole of Canterbury Tales and the Legend of Lam-ang, inspite of his atrophied tongue, in front of his infanticipating wife. And presto! His son became the valedictorian of his CNCHS class. Kitam? Di man nakaya ng Tatay, kinaya naman ng anak.
Remember Lydia M, the one with the frizzy hair, dark skin, and motor mouth? She too had hidden valedictory desires. Pero bisan section 1 siya, the IQ had never risen from the level of the average section 1. Kaya kahit anong memorize niya ng Periodic Table, Pythagorean Theorem, and Oh Captain, My Captain, hangang imagination lang talaga ang pagiging valedictorian niya. O delusion. Kahit honorablemention, di niya nasungkit. So just like Edwald, she schemed night and day to conceive a valedictorian. Secret daw niya. Methinks she listened to Beethoven, Mozart and Bach the nine months she was pregnant even if her neighbors thought the sonatas were funeral hymns heard only in the funeral parlors of Crisme, Puga, and Baylon. Pero success naman. Her son was the valedictorian of his CNCHS class. Lydia is now prim and proper, minus the frizzy hair and motor mouth. Daw Nanay gid kang valedictorian.
Si Paray, aka Efraim P, may pabugal man. Salutatorian ang bata niya sa Regular Class. Hiposun lang si Paray sang hayskol. Pero grabe bunal. He married young sa isa ka beauty sa lower year. Possibly, they too attended seminars and yoga sessions on how to make an intellectual from their so-so genes.Probably, they consulted astrologers on how to time their libido with the ripening of their priciest seeds. Or read Shakespeare, or Edgar Allan Poe, or the Atlas before they switched off the lights or before they consumated their desires, whichever came first.
Not to be outdone, Magdaleno I, aka Magdo, also produced bright kids, one of them a Salutatorian. To note, his elder kids are all studying in UP. First time I saw his daughter in an inter-school IQ competition, I could not believe that Magdo was her father. Up to now I still referred to her as Magdo's adopted daughter. Bcoz, during our time, I could not imagine Magdo representing CNCHS in any interschool IQ challenge. Bisan sa contest nga patayog-tayog ihi daw indi gid siya ka-qualify. Pero, back to my opening thesis. I commend Magdo for reading the dictionary cover-to-cover in front of his pregnant wife, and for doing all the rituals sa libro kang mga mal-am to produce honor students because he could not become one during his time.
This observation was only based on the students of Cabatuan National Comprehensive High School. There was no formal study yet, nga pang-thesis sa graduate school, on the children of other classmates who are studying in other schools. It is possible that there are other surprises that await us. I heard that the children of a high school classmate from Barangay Bacan were honor students in the Laboratory School of the West Visayas State University.
BTW, remember Gemma B, the one who was so silent in section 1, she could be mistaken as a mannequin or a cloth thrown over a desk - waay gid abi ga-hambal bisan maglabay pa balabaw sa atubang niya indi gid mag-ek! Poise man gihapon nga gapungko nga daw mannequin. But her son was also a valedictorian in Puyas Barangay High School, was a DOST scholar in college, and he aced the Electrical Engineering board exam on his first try. Gemma could have followed her own ritual to produce such an intellectual. A talk with her mother revealed that since day 1, Gemma hammered on the psyche of her son that she is a close relative of her class valedictorian.
So, sa mga frustrated valedictorian diyan, if you didn't make it during your time, don't lose hope. Your kids just might clench it, kon ginhimo mo ang ginhimo ni Edwald, et al. If not, your grandkids just might. Or your great grandkids. Mga astig gid. But, frankly, if you happen to be laon, baog, or madre, I rest my case.@
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
ST. CLEMENT'S CHURCH
St. Clement's Church is like an oasis in the desert of the city. Its serene spirituality and simple elegance are welcome respites in the surrounding chaos. It is one of the three places of meditation near Iloilo that I like to visit. The other two are the quaint chapel atop Balaan Bukid, and the simple and quiet Trappist Monastery chapel with a bare rock as an altar. In these three places, I can really feel the spiritual and celestial ambience a church is supposed to offer. In other churches, I am usually awed by the trimmings - the ornate altar, the hodgepodge of images, the unending parade of worshipers, the mendicants and mentally ill who are supposed to be taken cared of by the government - all make a church visit an ambivalent experience.
St. Clement's is famous for its Perpetual Help novena every Wednesday. Many profess that their prayers are answered because of the novena. My mother would not argue.
Mother used to bring me to St. Clement's when I was a kid. She put on her veil (those days women still covered their heads with a veil when they attend a church service) and we had to kneel on the grass outside the church as we could no longer enter because the church was packed with devotees. Mother was pregnant and she prayed that this time she be given a girl. Already with 3 naughty boys borne in a span of five years, mother prayed for a girl in order not to add more chaos to our house. Every Wednesday she attended the novena masses. After a few months, she gave birth to a healthy baby girl. In gratitude, Mother appended Perpetua (in honor of the Perpetual Help) to her new baby's name. Today, my sister loves to hate her long and unusual name.
The Redemptorist Fathers private quarters form the left extension of the church.
Behind the private quarters is the building which was once the St. Clement's College, an exclusive boys' school. After the college folded up, the building was up for rent. It now houses the offices of the Department of Agrarian Reform and the Saviour International College (School of Nursing).
To the right of the church is the entrance to the St. Clement's Retreat House.
When I was a college student, the Sunday evening mass in St. Clement's was the occassion to be seen especially for students who have just arrived from their hometowns. Their clothes were freshly pressed with the fold marks still perceptible. They looked refreshed and healthy after eating homecooked foods as opposed to instant noodles and carinderia fares. Above all the students looked confident because their one-week allowances were still intact with nary a deduction.
Best time to visit St. Clement's Church is from 8:00 am to 9:00 am when only a handful of people are around. If you need to light a candle, there are candle stands to the right and to the left of the front entrance. Candles are available near the stands. No payment are exacted. Only drop a donation, if you feel like it, at the designated boxes.
There are morning and afternoon masses in English and in Ilonggo. @
Ga-patad ka sa LOTTO? I-memorize ang numero nga ini....
