Every Saturday afternoon, just about when the sun is caught between mid-afternoon and dusk, I always find time to visit Rizal Park. It’s a family leisure park just across the famous Sto.Nino Church in Tacloban City, a metropolitan city along a fish sanctuary, north western part of the Leyte Gulf. For a yuppy like me who would choose to exhaust myself with work during the long weekdays, a lazy visit to the park is already a treat that could not amount to any. While some will muse themselves over window shopping in the city’s department stores or kill time inside the theater with the latest cinema, a quiet time in the park has become my religion.
I always pick on the wooden benches between the swing area and the huge fountain. I sit there clandestinely as if I wait the floating debris inside me to settle first. Then I let my eyes pass through the images before me: a family in a weekend picnic over pansit bihon, puso and barbeque; a young couple in their blossoming sublunary love; a group of teenagers packed on one corner of the park goofing around while another clique of young blood enjoys the guitar. Some pubescent are biking while still some play badminton. Some children flock the swing and slides and just somewhere under the low hanging Gemelina tress, I thought it was a lovely sight to see a young father guides his infant to start walking on solid ground. The child’s feet were woggly but they were covered with white soft walkers. When the child started to make his first step, his little fingers held his father’s thumb tighter as if seeking affirmation for his father’s love and security. I thought the father felt it because his face showed up a radiant smile. And so the child attempted for the second step and then the next step, and the next step after that. Soon the little unsure tip toes became little paces of determination. In turn, the father was indulging his young son with more little steps as they walked beside each other. When I saw the ecstatic feel on the young father’s face, I thought my heart melted. Something inside tickled my kindred spirit.
For a hopeless romantic such as I am, these are the moments that say I love being human. I love the feel of the grass when I step on it barefoot and how I enjoy the ticklish touch. I love the smell in the air of the newly baked ensaimada of Panaderia San Pablo or the inviting crispy crust of bibingka in Paterno. I love ginat-an and the beauty of the collision of the colors from several root crops bathed in the milky river of coconut cream. I am in love with the countless lazy walk along Magsaysay Boulevard and how the serene acacia trees bring petal showers of pink when the lazy wind whistles to the beat of the howling waves of Kankabato. I am just madly in love with everything in this city that may have been small or less important but speaks enormously how the city started from a quiet community to a bustling metro now.
Today, the city has started implementing the electronic traffic system in the metro and eventually in the city outskirts, as planned. This improvement was born with many other good signs of modernity. Two giant malls are expected to be operational by January 2009. Another international call center outsourcing agency will be in business by October this year. These and many more will determine the new pacing of the city lifestyle. While I’m not against the progress of the city by the bay, I am on the other hand afraid to see that the Taclobanons get lost in the process of the urbanization. I am scared that people will soon forget their identity as a group of people and soon become oblivious with what used to be good: bibingka, ginat-an, Mags, Kankabato and the lazy afternoons in the park.
We need to remember what used to be good for it might hit us in the eyes and fail to recognize it. We need to search our hearts and recall its own beauty after all, what used to be good brought us to how we live now, what we believe in and why we keep the faith even to the littlest of our own causes till now.
