BENCHWARMER
Ramon
Dacawi
As did then United States Ambassador to the
Philippines Kristie Kenney, I, too, rooted for Efren Penaflorida, the pushcart
teacher who was CNN’s “Hero of the Year” in 2009. Since then, it’s been a
year-end treat to watch the giant television network’s annual tribute to
ordinary people who quietly live out extraordinary lives.
For celebrities, it’s truly double honor for
them to be chosen to present and personally shake hands with these seemingly
ordinary mortals who fit novelist Richard Paul Evans’ observance that “the
greatest acts are done without plaque, audience or ceremony”.
Still, CNN sees the need to bring to the fore
and celebrate the lives of these heroes as a counterpoint to another troubled
and tragic year ending with a Christmas His Holiness, the Pope, lamented for
being commercialized and materialistic.
In a supposedly universal culture that seems
to frown on men shedding tears in public, I found relief being alone watching
the tribute in the house the other year, while again hoping my kids
and grandkids were also witnessing such sacraments of the ordinary from their own
sides of the globe our poverty here had forced them to be.
Over the years, I’ve been blessed to have
encountered heroes like those in CNN’s annual list. I list some of them again,
as I do - to draw strength and lessons from them each time
uncertainties, like the new year, loom dark:
Mongilit Ligmayo – He was an unlettered
farmer, originally from Banaue, Ifugao, who resettled in a remote area in
Lamut, Ifugao. As more farmers followed him, the wasteland grew into
community that is now Ambasa Barangay. They elected the no-read, no-write
pioneer as village chief. Not wanting their children to become like him, he
built a primary school on a lot he sliced off his property. Soon, they needed a
high school so he knocked on doors and built one on a lot he again sliced off
his land. After selling most of his cattle to pay the teachers, he traveled to
Baguio to ask then education regional director Stephen Capuyan to please
include the teachers’ pay in the regular education budget. After Lakay Mongilit
died, Lamut town officials led by Mayor Angelito Guinid renamed the elementary
school in honor of the diminutive, unlettered visionary. Then Ifugao Rep.
Solomon Chungalao also authored a bill renaming the high school in memory of
the pioneer of Ambasa.
***
Lorie Ramos and Noney Padilla-Marzan – When
she heard Noney was battling cancer, Lorie, then a 43-year old widow with a
10-year old son, contributed to the cost of treatment. “I know how your wife is
suffering,” she told Conrad Marzan, Noney’s husband to whom she handed her
support. “This is my own second bout against cancer – from breast to bone,” the
widow said, her apparently bald head wrapped by a turban. The two
women of substance became the best of friends, texting each other until they
were too weak to do so. Noney called me once, asking if I could call Lorie, who
had deposited her son so he could live with her sister in Quezon city after she
had gone.
Not knowing what to say, I never rang her up,
an omission I regret to this day. Noney spent her last two years
supporting children of the cancer ward, now and then comforting parents who had
just lost a child to the big C. She prepared a death wish that Conrad and
friends followed to the letter: short wake, sealed casket, no gambling and
drinking liquor at the vigil; cremation, with her ashes strewn at the top of
Mt. Pulag which the couple had climbed when she was already limping; for Conrad
to marry again, “so someone would give direction to your life”.
***
Kids for Central Luzon – In 1991, months into
“Operation Sayote”, the five-year media-initiated relief mission for
lahar-devastated Central Luzon, I opened a box of donations for sorting before
shipment at the Philippine Information Agency here. Inside were small plastic
packets of white, green, red and black beans. Each packet was sealed by a
string, at the end of which was a pad paper tag, on which was pencil-written
the young donor’s name, grade, section and elementary school. The box came from
Bontoc, Mt. Province. Another box contained an over-ripe pineapple, with a tag
on which was written a boy’s name. It came from Sablan, Benguet. Products of
good breeding, these kids are adults now. Whoever and wherever you are now,
thanks for the inspiration that comes with that image of your
contributions after Mt. Pinatubo blew its top over Central Luzon in
June, 1991.
***
Bernard Dicang and Family – The eldest of 12
children, Manong Bernard opened his home in Dinalupihan, Bataan as midway
station for volunteers in “Operation Sayote”, the five-year Baguio-based relief
mission for Central Luzon. His family has kept a tradition of sharing gifts
with kids who line up infront of their home every Christmas Day. His eldest
son, newly retired Army Gen. Alex, established a Christmas program for
street-children when he was public information officer and logistics chief of
the Philippine Military Academy. Alex also worked out the donation of eight
buses from Korea. Like his father, Alex never acquired material acquisitiveness
and is now a farmer.
***
Samaritans from all over – Pupils of Brent
School would now and then fashion out recyclables for what they call a
“thrashion show” and turn the proceeds to a boy or girl battling
cancer. Friends of Brent alumnus Carlos Anton would match what the kids would
raise to double the donation. For years now, expats the likes of Freddie de
Guzman in Canada and Julian Chees in Germany would send over amounts for
seriously ill patients back home. So did local folksingers and their
counterparts sing for years with Conrad Marzan. Mike Santos and Joel Aliping
here or at Fr. Leonard Oakes’ parish in Northern California. Kids of Westmont
Montessori here sold kimchi and cried when, despite their efforts,
they lost 13-year old kidney patient Ashley Sabling of Kayan, Tadian, Mt.
Province. Sunshine and Paolo Balanza stood for hours with donation boxes on
Sundays and, with other young Cordillera expats, raised $4,195 which
went to victims of Typhoon Pepeng that hit Northern Luzon in 2009. A
smart-looking, leather jacket-wearing Samaritan two years back bankrolled
dialysis patient Genevieve Gano’s treatment until the New Year. A
patient herself who requested anonymity once wrote a check for P50,000, asking
that it be distributed to patients who needed support the most. Many
others remain an anonymous, too.
***
Inmates of the Baguio City Jail –In May,
2012, they came up with P4,000 which they coursed through the Philippine
Red Cross for victims of the earthquake, tsunami and radiation victims in
Japan. Earlier, they passed the hat for two young heart patients, proof that
one’s own suffering need not blind us to the pain of others.
***
Elena Solis, laundry woman – She came
some years back to seek help for her daughter needing protracted treatment for
lupus. Months after, at Christmastime, she came back, saying her child has been
healed, thanks to Samaritans from all over. She then handed P2,000, saying it
came from the year-end bonus of her husband who was working as a security
guard. She asked that it be given to a patient needing support. It was her way
of passing kindness forward.
***
Alex and Annabelle (nee Codiase) Bangsoy –
One of the brightest young couples hereabouts, their initial and impressive
success in business hasn’t gone to their heads. Goshenland, their
real estate and housing venture, is living up to its name, after the biblical
fertile land and sanctuary. They have elevated social responsibility to heights
far greater than even some of the most successful and profitable corporations
ventured into. They are into development of football as a means of providing
concrete ground on which street-children can pursue their dreams for a better
life. The couple brings to mind the comparison by the late Baguio
lawyer Art Galace who said the difference between “involvement” and “commitment”
is found in a plate of ham and egg. Art said the chicken contributed the egg
and that’s involvement. The pig contributed the ham and that’s
commitment.
I had met many other gentle souls, and will
encounter many more along this journey to the grave called life. Now and
then I write about the medical support outreach of former world traditional
karate champion Julian Chees. No stranger to poverty since childhood, this
Bontoc and Baguio boy earned the distinction of being the only non-German to
have been drafter to the German national karate team. So far, his Shoshin
Kinderhilfe Foundation has distributed some P7 million support to patients in
the Cordillera over a 10 year period.
***
Only the other week, Bauko and Baguio boy Bob
Aliping passed the hat among Cordillera women on their way from San Diego,
California to Las Vegas, Nevada, pooling $230 which converted into 11
peritoneal hemodialysis boxes for 19-year old kidney patient Shaly
Bantas.
I’ve been and will continue to be blessed by
them. They include the numerous Cordillera and Filipino expatriates who readily
take you home wherever they are, making you feel they never left home in the
first place. (e-mail:mondaxbench@yahoo.com for comments.)
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