FEBRUARY 25TH

The Kalayaan Hall of the Malacanang Palace

The celebration of People Power every 25th day of February is beginning to lose its significance on the younger generation. Is it because we, the generation that lived through the Marcos regime, have dwindled in number and interest in it after a succession of mediocre presidents? Or is it because the experience of living under Martial Law is lost on the youth who were never even conceived at that point in our history?

Lunch at the Metropolitan Museum hosted by Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas  

Either way, it is exciting for us Mabuhay Guides to be involved in a "balik-bayani" (returning heroes) tour for the 3rd Conference of the Filipino Diaspora which was conducted on that very same day to commemorate our renewed independence from the Marcos dictatorship  29 years ago. Participants to the Balik-bayani tour were overseas Filipino workers who have returned to Manila after self-imposed exile in different countries all over the world. All seven jeepneys had at least 20-30 participants. A lot of them left the Philippines to seek protection from other governments or to establish a base from which to launch a mechanism to counter the abuses of the Martial Law regime of many years ago.

Me with Chef Laudico

The pick-up point was at the historic Manila Hotel.  The first stop was supposed to be at the Malacanang Museum. However, because of the volume of participants we were asked to delay the tour of the palace until 11 a.m.  We had to make a short stop at the San Miguel Pro Cathedral within the periphery of the presidential palace.  It was quite a stretch as the museum staff had to accommodate earlier tour groups that packed the museum. 

Menu Card of lunch served by Chef Laudico's 

After a winding tour of the Kalayaan hall and museum we had to gather all the participants and proceeded to the Metropolitan Museum of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas complex. The main focus of this part of the tour was the gold collection of the museum and the works of the 17th and 18th century masters on display at the Met. 

fish fillet on a bed of pasta with malunggay pesto

After the short tour, the guest were treated to a sumptuous lunch by renowned husband and wife chefs Roland and Jackie Laudico. By two p.m., guests were led to their assigned jeepneys and given a brief tour of the National Museum and then back to the Manila Hotel. It was interesting to see how the guests observed the many changes that Manila has undergone after 29 years. Some participants had not been back in the country since they left. Some, who had entrenched themselves as upstanding citizens of their adoptive countries, have managed to make yearly visits if only to touch base with their native land that seemed to be choking under the Marcos regime. 

For those of us who have stayed behind and surived... the more things change, the more they stay the same...

ASH WEDNESDAY IN BINONDO

This year's Ash Wednesday and Chinese New Year are a day apart. And so, as I had accepted a Binondo Tour for students of Assumption College, I expected a day of merriment and confusion as residents of the area were in the thick of preparations for the beginning of Lent and a rousing start to the Chinese Lunar year of the wooden goat.

My dear friend, Anne Vera now teaches Cross Cultural Communications at the Assumption in San Lorenzo Village, Makati. I gladly accepted the tour assignment since it would mean the opportunity to be right in the center of all the action on an ash Wednesday and the eve of chinese New Year.

There were four Mabuhay Guides on the first day of the tour (this was a Tuesday): Lovely Reynoso, Jeff Velasco, Ronnie Gador and myself. The next day's tour had Yael fernandez, Ronnie Gador and myself leading the students divided into three groups. 

We did our usual Binondo route with the girls in tow and we enjoyed the company of Anne's students. They were all willing to learn and intently listened to commentaries of the Mabuhay Guides along the way. Such well-behaved girls! Naturally, our commentaries centered on the mixed influences of the Filipinos, Filipino-Chinese in the area. After all, Binondo is a microcosm of the mixture of culture, traditions, norms, mores, economy, architecture, and religion of the common tao living within its 66.11 hectare boundary.

By noon (on both days), everyone had converged at President's for a sumptuous lunch that had the girls and the guides eating their fill... and then for some last minute shopping for fried siopao and more boxes of Tikoy... We jostled our way in and out of the thickening crowd that ignored the heat and humidity of the busy Binondo streets. Some of the students even got media exposure from the networks covering the festivities... Now, that's priceless!