On Distant Shore

By Val Abelgas

The Kalesa

As a young kid spending my annual summer vacation in my home province of Oriental Mindoro, I always looked forward to riding the kalesa, the horse-drawn carriage that trodded ever so slowly on the capital town, Calapan’s sand and gravel road.

As soon as the rickety ferry that regularly crossed Batangas City and Calapan docked on the pantalan (pier), my brothers and I would race down the plank to get the best seat on the kalesa, and that would be the one beside the kutsero (rig driver). It was one of the highlights of my trip everytime the kutsero would hand me the rope that steered the horse. It was like when you first sat on the driver’s seat of your father’s car, and you imagined yourself driving. It was sheer delight!

You can imagine my disappointment when a few years later, instead of a kalesa taking us from the pier to my aunt’s home, a motorized pedicab awaited us as we disembarked from the ferry. There was no thrill nor fun nor comfort in squeezing yourselves in that tiny marvel of technology, as it trudged the now asphalted roads with all the noise and smoke belching from its exhaust.

Riding a kalesa was one of the joys of my youth. And it is with mixed feelings that I read a news report recently that the kalesa may soon be gone from Metro Manila’s streets. The report said that from around 2,000 kalesas in the 1980s, only some 300 of the horse-drawn rigs are currently plying Metro Manila’s streets.

To be honest, I am surprised that there are even 300 kalesas still plying Metro Manila’s busy streets. With all the jeepneys, buses, taxicabs and pedicabs serving Metro Manila’s millions of commuters, why would anyone ride a kalesa? I thought the kalesa would have long been extinct in the metropolis by now.

Doesn’t the noise of engines roaring and horns blaring distract the horse? Doesn’t the horse get restless when drivers suddenly cut in front of it? I thought only a hopeless romantic like me would enjoy riding a kalesa at this time of leather seats and airconditioned cars.

But 300 kalesas still ply Metro Manila’s streets, and that means hundreds of commuters must still be riding them on the way to work, the market or someplace every single day!

Don’t get me wrong. I love the kalesas, and would love to ride beside the kutsero again, and listen to his never-ending tales (remember the term kwentong kutsero?), but not in Metro Manila. I would love to ride the kalesa in a remote barrio in the province, where I can smell the scent of newly milled rice or watch Mang Ambo as he gets tuba from atop the coconut tree. I would love to ride the kalesa in a remote village, where only a jeepney jampacked with people and farm produce would pass us by once in a while.

But not in Metro Manila’s asphalt jungle, where the lord is not the kutsero, but the reckless psychopath who doesn’t seem to relish even a little space between his vehicle and the one in his front or his side. Not in city streets where that same psychopath could smash onto the rickety rig and kill both the kutsero and the kabayo. Not when I am in a hurry to get out of that traffic jam and get to work or appointment on time.

There is a time and place for everything. The kalesa had its time. It must now give way to technology, the same way that horse-drawn carriages are now used only to carry the Queen during royal ceremonies, or to carry the casket of Da King and presidents during a funeral procession, or to bring enjoyment to tourists in New York. The same way that the rickshaw of Asia is used only for tourism purposes in Penang and Hongkong.

The kalesa must now move back to remote barrios, where the folk need not worry about being late for appointment or work, where the kutsero can still lord it over the dusty road. And to give hopeless romantics a taste of nostalgia every once in a while, kalesas should be allowed to roam the old Intramuros, where tourists will be thrilled to experience riding in that centuries-old mode of transportation while basking in the historic beauty of the Walled City.

(Send comments to valabelgas@aol.com)

The One Who Stayed Behind

By Marisse G.Abelgas


I have known Dr. Jennifer Mendoza-Wi since grade school. She was always first in academic honors, was always first to volunteer for charity work at PGH or Welfareville in Manila, was always first to put a sense of leadership to the test in trying situations. When we headed off for college, it hardly came as a surprise to know that she had decided on becoming a doctor, taking up internal medicine and specializing in pulmonary medicine at the University of the Philippines-PGH.

Knowing her potential for success, I half expected her to try her luck abroad, perhaps in Europe or the U.S. Instead, Jennifer proudly announced one day that she and husband Zen, an ENT specialist and fellow UP graduate had decided to go back to their roots, to establish their medical practice in the province of Pangasinan, where she would pioneer the practice of pulmonary medicine.

“Actually, I was offered a two-year research scholarship after my fellowship but I chose to take up the challenge,” Jennifer says.

She is still quite active at the Department of Internal Medicine at the UP-PGH, having been elected President of its Alumni Group and Board Member of the Sagip-Buhay Foundation which raises funds for the department’s medicine and blood bank.
In Dagupan meanwhile, Zen and Jennifer’s patients are mostly farmers, fishermen, vendors, tricycle drivers, teachers, students, office workers. Oh yes, they treat overseas workers too, including patients from Guam who come for check ups because “they trust the Filipino doctors more than the health care providers there.”

“Zen calls them the regular people,” Jennifer says, adding that these “regular people are normally the honorable ones when it comes to paying the doctors’ fees.” Those who can’t pay, come to the clinic bearing gifts of live chickens, succulent bananas, fresh or dried fish or other native delicacies that warm the doctors’ hearts.

Between the couple’s constant travels abroad and regular commutes to Manila where their three sons live, Jennifer has been mightily busy with charity work. For the past 18 years, she has been seeing the TB patients of the Sisters of Charity for free, every Friday. For this, she has been given the Governor’s Community Service Award by the CHEST Foundation of the American College of Chest Physicians in the U.S. and the College of the Holy Spirit Community Service Award by our high school alma mater. She established the Asthma Club in Dagupan, which conducts free education programs for asthmatics and helps out with their medication. She is also advocating for a lung function machine in every major district hospital.

She has put her household helpers through school and so far, has graduated three midwives, one nurse, two in hotel and restaurant management, one in computer studies, with yet another midwife nearing completion of her course. Most of them have nailed good-paying jobs because of their college education and have put their own siblings through school, which is the only thing Jennifer asks of her “scholars” in return.

Why am I writing about her?

Because maybe it’s time we acknowledged the new unsung heroes like Jennifer and Zen, who, despite their great chances for wealth and success in other countries, have chosen to stay in the homeland. To serve, to heal, to change things for the better.

The mass emigration of Filipinos, especially medical workers, is “a sad reality of life,” Jennifer concedes. “I don’t blame anyone, not even Philippine politics because I believe it’s a personal decision to stay in the Philippines and try to make life for Filipinos better, and conversely, to leave for greener pastures to make life better for one’s self and one’s family. In the end however, it’s how the community takes care of its own that makes a difference.” That, for the most part gives her hope, sustains her optimism, fuels her advocacy. She has seen it happen in many places all over the country, and she’s inspired.

As the Filipino diaspora transmutes tragically from an economic solution into a social problem, a new breed of heroes has emerged to hold the fort : the ones who could have left, but didn’t...the ones who, like Jennifer and Zen, are truly making a difference.