Dapitan - then and now

Sarri, my daughter, was determined to visit Dapitan, the place of Jose Rizal’s exile.  So Friday of the past week we got on a plane and took our own quiet trip there.

The road from the Dipolog airport to Dapitan was charming, winding dotted with trees and beige and red gumamelas, occasional glimpses of sea and fishponds.  The government hotel we stayed at was fading somewhat majestically, an old hotel by the sea.  Something about it implied that it might have been built during the Marcos era.  The bedrooms were big, the ceilings high.  The air-conditoners were worn down.  Plants grew between the tiles on the roof.   The garden was pretty and got its fair share of people on Saturday night.

The first afternoon we took a long-ish nap then a short-ish walk. I don’t walk too long any more and declared myself tired when I saw a truckful of construction workers down the road.  I didn’t want to expose my daughter to that.  The next morning when we took our tour, we laughed to see how close we were to the statue of five men in garish gold marking the place where Rizal first landed.  Staring at their features I told Sarri I guessed the sculptor worked first on Rizal, who looked churlish, then worked backward.  “Look at the two men at the back, they are better sculpted.”  She agreed.

We headed off to the Rizal shrine, on the way passing by the home of the gobernadorcillo and a beautiful heritage house made of wood.  Finally we arrived at the park.  Near the gate to our right was an atrocious building painted in an atrocious shade between turquoise and aqua.  It was the museum.  We walked past it to explore the replicas of where his students lived and where he held their workshops.  Then we headed for his house where, from a distance, I saw first a slim young lady wearing white, a long white veil around her head.  “Look,” I whispered to Sarri, “there’s a white lady.”  As it turned out there were three and eventually more.  These white ladies must be the watchdogs around here.

The replica of Rizal’s house is beautiful, small, made of bamboo with a wooden floor.  There is within the house an atmosphere of permeating peace.  I sat on the bench at the top of the backstairs and could have stayed there all day just staring into space.  It was beautifully, magnificently and yet humbly peaceful, a peace that envelops and embraces you, making you reluctant to leave. 

But we had to take the full tour so eventually I got up, climbed up and down the stairs that surround the property, went up the rock where he and Josephine used to sit then ended up in the museum where we read about all the wonderful things that Rizal had done there.

From the second floor I looked out the window and saw a man wearing a white suit and a white bowler hat.  He stood with his back to me so I could not see his face.  He had a walking stick and was standing surrounded by a group of men and a woman who was dressed similar to the women in white but she was in red.  Who is that?  I wondered.  What is he doing here?  Is there a photo shoot?

Curious, I meandered towards the park’s security guard and asked what those people were doing.  “I think they’re planting,” the guard said.

“Who is the man in white?”  I asked.

“That is Haring Filemon.  He wears white all the time because Rizal’s soul entered his being.  He is a new god.  He is a Rizalian.  See these vehicles here?  They belong to him,” the guard said, waving his hand at the two vehicles parked beside our rented van.  One of them had something like International Foundation of Spiritualist Massage and Therapy written on it.

At this point I was on the verge of a mad giggling fit, I don’t know why.  So I ran back to Sarri and whispered what the guard had told me.  She began to sing, Si Haring Filemon nagpunta sa karagatan, and we both burst out laughing at our own silliness.  Sorry, we have an irreverent sense of humor.  It is a family trait.  I was tempted to go up to Haring Filemon and introduce myself as a descendant of his soul but thought better of it when I saw that he was now surrounded by a cluster of white ladies as well.  No, we’d better just go.

We stopped for a late lunch at Dakak and there I saw a fortuneteller.  Sarri wanted to look at the beach.  I wanted to have my fortune told, something I had not done in at least 10 years.

Finally together on the way home Sarri asked what the fortuneteller had said.  “She said I will find my soul mate this year,” I replied, suppressing a giggle.

“Wait, wait,” Sarri said, a broad smile lighting her eyes, “I know his name.  It’s Haring Filemon.”

And that is the story of our trip to Dapitan – then and now.

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