B i c o l
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We were not thrilled of my father's persistence to move and retire back in the Philippines
after having been gone for quite a long time. His arguments and
reasons were not well received nor well understood by us, his family. The desire to do so was
so strong that he went back - causing some reefs and strains. He touted the good values and the simple things that he found satisfying for an old man. He was somehow energized. Besides, there is this fertile farmland in Tabiguian that was very special to him and to which he felt needed tending and caring. |
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| The family, his children in particular, have now been used to the western world and modern ways. Why go back? - we questioned him. We never did quite understand his calling. So, despite our objections, he left the U.S. to go "home." | |
| Three months after his return to the Philippines, he passed away. He just turned 69. As if fulfilling his own prophetic remarks that we mostly took as a jest, indeed he died at the same house where he was born. I still wonder if this was the real reason why he desired to go 'home.' Like the salmon, his favorite fish, he returned to his origin after traveling the world. |
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| He was quite a romantic man, a proud and sometimes stubborn, over-protective man. Yet, he was a simple man and with the biggest of heart. He was full of life and a lover of nature. His hands have toiled farm soil since he was a child. His "green thumbs" even showed even in America, working on the terraced gardens at the back of the family home in Daly City.. | |
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A Pisces, he is quite an avid fisherman. I recall times when he would take me (and eventually my sons Michael and Russell) fishing -- as much as we wanted to go. He has taken us with him fishing on piers in Sausalito, San Francisco, and Pacifica and on pangas on Baja California's Sea of Cortez. |
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| It is unfortunate that my father's death was the catalyst for bringing me back to the Philippines. It would have been great to have spent some time with him in Tabiguian, perhaps even helped harvest the "first coffee crop" we were planning to start-up. I would have loved for him to have shown me the farmland again just like he did when I was a child, where every now and then as I point to a plant or a tree, asking him questions like "What is this plant called dad?" | |
| As he wished, I brought tokens of his ashes to Tabiguian where I scattered his dust into the river that borders the land. For the first time in my life, I finally grasped the meaning of the "circle of life." | |
| There is a re-birth of sort. As much as possible, I visit Tabiguian whenever I am in the Philippines. I find that by just experiencing the Philippines, I can feel his presence and his love the way he had showed me all along, through nature and its wonderment. | |
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I am grateful of my father's legacy. Because of how he was to me when he was alive and his passing, I have a re-awakened awareness and interest of my land of birth. |
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I dedicate these Bicol pages to him... |
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