I can’t stay away. I’ve been debating whether or not to go to the Philippines in February. Just when I thought I could put off my next visit until 2011 HBO has started their 24/7 Pacquiao – Cotto series for the upcoming fight
http://www.hbo.com/boxing/events/2009/1114_pacquiao_cotto/index.html
As luck would have it, Manny decided to train in Baguio City in the northern province of Luzon so the show has amazing footage of the Philippines in the aftermath of the recent typhoons. In the fifth minute you’ll see about ten people floating on top of the remains of their house. That footage is the last image of them alive. In the 14th minute you’ll hear Buboy saddened by the thought of people who vanished in a mudslide. In the 15th minute you’ll hear someone say, “I’m so tired already. I’m all alone to clean this side.”
It’s all a part of me: the rain dripping from the sky; the Filipino-accented english; the images of the schools and the countryside; the mud at their feet; the fast moving rivers; the people, humbled but with wide smiles & the oh-so-sad-and-tired eyes; the children who move forward into the biggest unknown imaginable; and the adults who have experienced so much. I’ve walked among those sights, those scents, those people. It’s the only place I can truly blend in to the crowd. I speak the language. I understand the people. I feel the emotions. Everytime I go back, my soul and my heart become one. The experience is inexplicable.
The only possible explanation: my father’s love for the old country is within me too.
I could’ve done many things with my life and I could’ve been so very different today. But of all the different paths I could’ve taken, my life now with all its choices made is the only one that has allowed me to visit the Philippines so frequently.
I don’t know what is in store for my future. I can however tell you that I’m going to look back at all the time I spent in the Philippines and recall walking through the streets of Manila and Malabon and Libmanan and I’m going to know that my life has been fulfilled many many times over. Each time I stepped off the plane into the thick, warm, moist night air I knew I was home.
