Samar when it sizzles

As Paris freezes at almost below-zero, Samar sizzles at a high of 33-degree centigrade.

Holy Week is the best time for a homecoming so off we hie to Las Navas (Northern Samar) mon amour. After years of absence, it’s like going back in time. And then, culture shock!

 Like yellowing photographs, old familiar places have ceased to be familiar. Five more have been added to the two long streets parallel to the Catubig River (yes, a river runs through the old hometown, and that’s where we learned how to swim!) and the now-decaying (no pun intended!) cemetery in the periphery, packed with mostly unmarked graves, is now at the heart of the town, and most of the wood-nipa huts have given way to big beautiful houses, leaving almost no trace of my beloved small town lit at night by Petromax lamps and fireflies that turned the trees into  millions of sparkling diamonds.

As our family guest Raoul Tidalgo and I take a stroll in the moonlit night, the soundtrack of my memory keeps playing a Paul Anka song, and as I walk along the thoroughfares, I hear music playing everywhere. The music comes from within my heart, how did it happen how did it start? Yes, indeed: Home is where the heart is!

Second day. After offering flowers and prayers at the graves of my parents and two brothers at the over-populated eternal resting place, and that of my sister on a lonely hill nearby, together with my nieces Girlie and Lovely with their sons we take the 30-minute motorized-banca ride to the Pinipisakan Falls nestled at the bottom of a thick forest, a beauty born to blush unseen (or so the poet wrote, which could be about the irresistible beauty of Mother Nature).

How time flies! So much to see and to revisit but so little time left.

Next stop is the popular (among Warays and those from neighboring provinces) beach in San Antonio, an island town off Victoria town where you take, again, a motorized-banca crossing the Balicuatro strait which can be treacherous during bad weather. Another short motorized-banca ride (which we dispense with due to lack of time) and we shall have been in Biri Island (where Waray director Chito Roño has a rest house), which was the setting of a Richard Gomez movie.

There’s also the White Beach near the University of Eastern Philippines (UEP) in Catarman.

From Las Navas all the way to Tacloban (Leyte, Samar’s sister province) where we take the PAL flight back to Manila, we make sure on Maundy Thursday that we do the traditional Visita Iglesia, with the Sto. Niño Cathedral as our last stop.

On the way to the Leyte Parks Hotel (by the sea) where we spend the night, we pass by the Sto. Niño Shrine which was, during the former First Lady Imelda Marcos’ time, spic-and-span, but now left to the mercy of Time. Last time we were in Tacloban (upon the invitation of Mayor Alfred Romualdez and his wife, Councilor Cristina “Kring-Kring” Gonzales), we marveled at the Marcos-Romualdez memorabilia and the rooms where the then ruling family slept when they were in town. Now, the Shrine is off limits.

Oh well, that’s another story better told another time.

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