Pahibalo

Imagine, I was invited by my cousins to their house for an intimate family reunion. I live downtown, you know, and the moment it’s beyond North Drive of olde Bacolod, that means more than 30 minutes of traffic and chaos before I reach the Carmelite monastery and another 20 minutes before I reach Bacolod’s first “gated” community, surviving floods, mayhem and a dent in my pocket from the high cost of gasoline, nowadays. 

By the time I passed Pepsi, I was cursing the zigzagging motorbikes that make up most of the early evening traffic that marks Talisay City as the emerging “boarding house” for minimum-wage workers who toil daily in our booming metropolis.  But then, I was going to a cocktail, you see, not dinner.

I arrived at my destination, exactly on time—or so I thought.  The guard looked at my harassed face and asked who my name was.  OH!  I felt like I was lining up for the American Embassy. Next, I was asked where I was going. Then, I was asked to wait because they had to call the second gate. After three minutes of talking to their army through walkie-talkies, I was given the go signal, with a suspicious stare. At the second gate, I was stopped again. They had to check the owners of the house. I thought they would have a phone to do so. NO! They had to radio again the “roving” guards to call the residence of my cousin. After five minutes, I was informed that my cousin was not in the house. She and her mister’s two cars were out. I must have looked quite stupid, not knowing what to do. I called my cousin on their cellphone; indeed, both spouses were on their way home and would be arriving shortly. But, they said that our cousin who jetted in was in the house and they will send the maid to the guard house pronto.

Obviously, the maid didn’t know what to do because I was waiting at the gate for more than 10 minutes. After that, I just told the guard to tell my cousins I went home because I hate waiting at the gate for an approval. He immediately radioed the army and after some major hesitation told me I could get in. 20 MINUTES to be admitted into a subdivided piece of land where I was supposed to be a guest. I must have looked like an errant hawker driving a Camry trying to get some rarified air outside my air-conditioned vehicle.

Two weeks after, more cousins arrived from abroad. I had the most delicious coconut pie I just discovered in Silay and thought it would make a delicious exotic breakfast treat for our visiting relatives. In my spontaneous nature, I forgot to give my “gated” cousins a call that I was delivering them a gift. I didn’t give it a thought that we would be meeting later that night and I would save some gasoline, which hit $111/barrel that week. I was already at Carmelites for some sundown meditation with interior designer and Negros Heritage Foundation president Raymond Fuentes, and with my chauffeur, the drive would be a good way to go back to the real world. 

Anyway, I ended up going through the same routine of the two gates to Neverland. Only this time, both cousins were in the shower and couldn’t call the maid to tell the guard at the second gate… I gave the prized coconut pie to the guard’s bare hands, not trusting him either with my heirloom Limoges china where the pie was beautifully presented, sana. Whoever is in charge of this homestead should get their acts together. Not even in Imperial Manille's’ poshest properties with the Philippine’s multibillionaires have I been made to wait at the gate for more than two minutes. Not even in Versailles Palace where I had dinner with the King and Queen of Sweden was I made to wait and undergo such degrading scrutiny. OH! And I will never go to that vedy, vedy exclusive barrio ever again unless I get picked up in a limousine with a bottle of champagne, no less. After all, isn’t that where millionaires live? Or so the Manila-based sellers would like us Negrenses to believe… As our social doyenne would say—“O.A.!”

MY PRAYER

In this time of crisis, Lord, help those who have no food to eat.*