It would have been an opportune time to reminisce the Christmas of my youth with all my siblings and relatives present, especially during Simbang Gabi (dawn Masses leading to Christmas in St. Nicholas Church across the Municipal Town Hall, followed by Pampango mouth-watering breakfast delicacies outside the Parish Church,) or the children Christmas caroling, and coming to our ancestral home on Christmas day, while paying respect and kissing our hands with 'mano po' by holding them on their foreheads, then waiting for us to give their 'aguinaldo,' either in dollars or pesos, like I always did when I was a young boy visiting my godparents, aunts, and uncles in our barrio of Sta. Rita, Macabebe, Pampanga, Philippines.
Gie was right though by reminding me to skip a Christmas side trip to the old country because we'll be attending our high school reunions in Guimba Nueva Ecija, and Sta. Cruz Zambales in early 2021.
On second thought, we can go to the Philippines early for Christmas and New Year in 2020, followed by our Ocampo-Diaz family gathering in early January, move Gie's flexible high school reunion in late January 2021, keep my high school reunion in early February, and no more cruise afterwards because we'll be doing pilgrimages around the country in between reunions (including meetings with my former students & colleagues in Acoje & Don Bosco, and Philosophy classmates & fellow professors in the Catholic University of Santo Tomas,) in celebration of the 500-year anniversary of Christianity in the Philippines.
Besides, I didn't want to insist, and spoil our recently-concluded 3-week marvelous and unforgettable 38th honeymoon cruise, and my 65th birthday celebration on board Norwegian Jade, after getting her to agree in attending my golden jubilee & reunion with my high school classmates in February of 2021.
How? First of all, I believe in the hierarchy of values; and my wife, children, and grandchildren come first (after God, of course,) before anything else. That is why I had to cancel my participation, not only during our high school reunion in San Diego, California at the middle of 2019, but also the 50th Anniversary or Reunion in the Philippines of Sta. Cruz Academy's Class of 1971, in February of 2021, because there was a conflict in perception between the two of us; and Gie and me ended up deleting each other's friend on FB, in order to avoid any misunderstanding.
In doing so, and unbeknownst to me initially, I was able to realize, and get rid of my unrequited concupiscence in high school, my intrinsic prejudice against Zambalenos as a Kapampangan, because of stark inequality between the rich and poor people when I lived there, favoritism in school, political patronage, and social bullying, which were not right; but that was 50 years ago, and it's more prevalent in Pampanga now, than in Zambales.
However, today's real problems in the Philippines are coming from China (and I don't mean the Chinese people, but the CCP or Chinese Communist Party.) I saw this first-hand, twice in the last four years, not only in the Philippines, but also more recently in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Sri Lanka, which were being dominated by their rich, powerful, and unscrupulous neighbor, in business & trade, science & technology, infrastructure, tourism & culture. Nowhere is this more pronounced than in the Philippines where Communist China seized some of its maritime properties and rich natural resources, which according to the International Court of Justice are within the economic zone of the Philippines; while some Chinese citizens manufacture or smuggle illicit drugs into the country.
At the World's Best Aviation Hub in the last 7 years, Singapore's humongous Changi International Airport, which has more amenities than any other airport, I was struck with the number of Chinese tourists on their way to different countries all over the world, including Europe and the United States, because we were there all over the place for nine hours, while waiting for our flight back to the US.
Finally, at 10:25 PM of December 15, 2019, we departed Singapore for San Francisco, USA, which we know now, as reported by South China Morning Post that "Chinese authorities had identified at least 266 people who contracted the virus last year and who came under medical surveillance, and the earliest case was 17 November - weeks before authorities announced the emergence of the new virus."
And, while we were cruising Asia the whole time, near Wuhan, China, where the Chinese coronavirus pandemic started.
(TO BE CONTINUED...)
Gie was right though by reminding me to skip a Christmas side trip to the old country because we'll be attending our high school reunions in Guimba Nueva Ecija, and Sta. Cruz Zambales in early 2021.
On second thought, we can go to the Philippines early for Christmas and New Year in 2020, followed by our Ocampo-Diaz family gathering in early January, move Gie's flexible high school reunion in late January 2021, keep my high school reunion in early February, and no more cruise afterwards because we'll be doing pilgrimages around the country in between reunions (including meetings with my former students & colleagues in Acoje & Don Bosco, and Philosophy classmates & fellow professors in the Catholic University of Santo Tomas,) in celebration of the 500-year anniversary of Christianity in the Philippines.
Besides, I didn't want to insist, and spoil our recently-concluded 3-week marvelous and unforgettable 38th honeymoon cruise, and my 65th birthday celebration on board Norwegian Jade, after getting her to agree in attending my golden jubilee & reunion with my high school classmates in February of 2021.
How? First of all, I believe in the hierarchy of values; and my wife, children, and grandchildren come first (after God, of course,) before anything else. That is why I had to cancel my participation, not only during our high school reunion in San Diego, California at the middle of 2019, but also the 50th Anniversary or Reunion in the Philippines of Sta. Cruz Academy's Class of 1971, in February of 2021, because there was a conflict in perception between the two of us; and Gie and me ended up deleting each other's friend on FB, in order to avoid any misunderstanding.
In doing so, and unbeknownst to me initially, I was able to realize, and get rid of my unrequited concupiscence in high school, my intrinsic prejudice against Zambalenos as a Kapampangan, because of stark inequality between the rich and poor people when I lived there, favoritism in school, political patronage, and social bullying, which were not right; but that was 50 years ago, and it's more prevalent in Pampanga now, than in Zambales.
However, today's real problems in the Philippines are coming from China (and I don't mean the Chinese people, but the CCP or Chinese Communist Party.) I saw this first-hand, twice in the last four years, not only in the Philippines, but also more recently in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Sri Lanka, which were being dominated by their rich, powerful, and unscrupulous neighbor, in business & trade, science & technology, infrastructure, tourism & culture. Nowhere is this more pronounced than in the Philippines where Communist China seized some of its maritime properties and rich natural resources, which according to the International Court of Justice are within the economic zone of the Philippines; while some Chinese citizens manufacture or smuggle illicit drugs into the country.
At the World's Best Aviation Hub in the last 7 years, Singapore's humongous Changi International Airport, which has more amenities than any other airport, I was struck with the number of Chinese tourists on their way to different countries all over the world, including Europe and the United States, because we were there all over the place for nine hours, while waiting for our flight back to the US.
Finally, at 10:25 PM of December 15, 2019, we departed Singapore for San Francisco, USA, which we know now, as reported by South China Morning Post that "Chinese authorities had identified at least 266 people who contracted the virus last year and who came under medical surveillance, and the earliest case was 17 November - weeks before authorities announced the emergence of the new virus."
And, while we were cruising Asia the whole time, near Wuhan, China, where the Chinese coronavirus pandemic started.
(TO BE CONTINUED...)
RSS Feed
