Diyos Mabalos Bicol

We went to Sorsogon to celebrate our daughter's 8th birthday. We booked our flight with Cebu Pacific for the price of the bus fare. We planned to stay in Sorsogon for two nights and another night in Albay. We really had no plan except to see Paguriran Island in the Bacon District in Sorsogon City. Our trip was from 27 November to December 1 so we only had to get a one day leave because it was a long weekend.

We left Manila early in the morning and after about less than an hour flight, we arrived in Legaspi City, the jump off point to Sorsogon. We took a tricycle to the Legaspi City Grand Terminal where we took a van going to Sorsogon City. The flight was so early that Angel slept on our way to Sorsogon.

Bantayan Island - a slice of paradise

Bantayan Island has always been one of our dream destinations. However, time and money constraints have always prevented us from going there. Finally, last March my officemate and I planned about going there with my family and her siblings. We searched the airline websites and checked out the only available long weekend after holy week, June 11 - 14, 2009. We will be applying for a one day leave in order to have a 4-day weekend. We finally booked our tickets with the Philippine Airlines: The first flight going to Cebu and the last flight returning to Manila in order to maximize our time in Cebu.

In search of Digyo Island - Inopacan, Leyte

Our plan to go to Tacloban started when we were able to buy our plane tickets from Cebu Pacific last October 2008. It cost us less than P3,200 for the the round trip flight for the three of us.

As we love going to beaches, we set aside a day to visit one in th Leyte-Samar area. We started surfing the web and finally decided on Digyo Island in Inopacan, Leyte. Without any idea on how to get there, we started researching via the internet. Luckily, there are a couple of sites in Multiply with pictures of Digyo Island, so we were able to ask for directions and cost of staying there.

Death of a bird

My daughter, Angel, found out how to lose someone she loves yesterday. No, its not a person. Its her pet mynah bird, Ak-ak. We went to her mother's home town in Laguna last Saturday, Nov. 1 to visit her dead relatives in the cemetery and returned home yesterday afternoon, November 2 to find my daughter's bird dead in her cage. Apparently, someone placed her cage outside and forgot to put her under the shade in the afternoon. I guess she died of heat stroke.

When we got home, she immediately went to check on Ak-ak and we were startled when she started crying aloud. She ran to us and said that her pet is already dead. This was the first time I saw her crying this hard and for so long. She went to our room and just sat on the bed and continued crying. Her mom cried along with her.

I promised Angel that we would just buy her another Mynah and she replied that she doesn't want to have a pet anymore because it will just die as Ak-ak did.

We explained to her that death is inevitable and that she will just have to accept that her pet is now in heaven.

Ak-ak was already learning how to speak and her first word was "hello" together with the usual whistle.

Later in the evening, Angel was supposed to sleep with her grandmother and in fact already brought her toys and pillows there. But when it was already time to sleep, she went back to our room and told us that she missed us and her pet. So, she just lied there between her mom and me and we talked some more about her pet until she went to sleep.

I think that the whole experience, although sad, was good for my daughter in that it taught her how to handle losing someone she loves.

Journey to Culion, Palawan

One of the benefits of my previous work is I get to travel for free around MIMAROPA (Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon, Palawan) as part of my job. A chance to travel to Culion materialized this month. We were to conduct a semestral performance review of one of our agency coverages and its attached hospitals, Ospital ng Palawan (ONP) and Culion Sanitarium (CS).

When one hears Culion, he is immediately reminded of a colony of lepers thrown in a faraway and isolated island. Culion today, however, has changed a lot since the Sanitarium there was established over a hundred years ago.

The travel to Culion is not a simple one. You have to travel by air, land and sea. First, we took a Cebu Pacific propeller plane at the NAIA Terminal 3 bound for Busuanga, the airport that services the entire northern Palawan.

our team waiting to board at NAIA terminal 3