Mitams

Spouse and I were invited to a birthday party in Zambales last Sunday. It’s a 3-hour drive from where we live. It’s also where my mother’s family is from, and where our family consider ourselves to be originally from even if we were not born there. In fact, the family doesn’t have its roots in Zambales, but in the old poblacion of Makati which is now the country’s primary business and financial district. Zambales though, is “our province,” as Filipinos like to say.

The birthday celebrant last Sunday is originally from Cebu, an engineer whom Eldest Brother-in-law used to work with in the old gold and copper mine in our town of San Marcelino. The mine shut down shortly after the Mt. Pinatubo eruption of 1991. That event caused utter devastation for Zambales and the neighboring provinces. I’ve never seen a catastrophe that wreaked havoc on so many lives, covering such a vast land area. I hope never to see it again.

But Zambales has recovered amazingly well. In the past, I always preferred the Southern Luzon provinces because vegetation was always denser there it seemed while Zambales seemed so hot and dry. Driving up to Zambales late last year, we were met with lush and thick vegetation that I didn’t recognize half the places we passed. Everything seemed so much closer than I remembered it was….the small emergency hospital has now grown and doesn’t seem so far away from the town proper.

The place we went to is a valley with a beautiful view of the Zambales mountain range. It’s not Colorado but it was nice to see the mountains again. The farm had two or three large fish ponds where tilapia is free to grow without danger of being fished commercially. There were several fruit trees around the property too. But the thing that caught my attention were the various bamboo clustes growing in and around the main house. They were tall and provided a large canopy of cool shade…I can only imagine what a lovely shade it makes in the dry, hot season of April and May.

In the first photo you’ll see the house, an old mango tree and a thatched bamboo gazebo. The owners built a small bungalow made of bamboo…nothing fancy. It had tiled floors, 2 bedrooms and a bathroom, corrugated roofing and a large open kitchen on the side where the breeze from one of the ponds made the air cool.

It was just lovely to spend time listening to the water flowing from the little creek dividing the property…and to sit under the “kakwati” trees on wooden benches sitting on the side of another fish pond. My dad came along and so did my nephews and we all enjoyed ourselves immensely.

In fact, we enjoyed the day so much we decided to check out my mother’s old riceland nearer to the town proper. It’s just a couple of pieces of property she inherited from her mother who was from a neighboring town….all the rest is gone. The other is what was once  a mango grove that Mt. Pinatubo washed away with its lahar. We have yet to visit it after all these years.

This photo here is the part of the property that can’t be planted to rice because it’s higher than the rest of the parcels around it. The man who has farmed the property for over 36 years plants peanuts, corn or sweet potato just so it doesn’t sit idle. It has a good view of the hills beyond and there’s an irrigation ditch surrounding the property. It also has three, one-lane dirt roads so you can go through the entire property from front, center and back and drive to main roads without a problem.

I think it’s a perfect spot to build a little bungalow with a sprawling screened patio and not much else. Question is….how long can I live without cable television and the internet?

My husband and I are going to a birthday party for my mom’s youngest sister tomorrow.  We’re all expected to go.  It’s RSVP and all our names are on the list to make sure we all go.

My Tita Mameng (Carmen) already called to make sure we’re going because she just flew in for her annual visit.  She’s the aunt who migrated to Australia after her husband retired more than a decade ago.  I love my Tita Mameng.  She’s the most colorful of all my aunts.  In fact, I wrote about her in my cooking blog.

The birthday celebrant is my Tita Chato (Rosario) who is another vibrant woman.  I loved how she told stories when it was just family and friends around, with her arms flailing and her face all animated as she suppressed a premature laugh.  Standing in the middle of the room, all eyes were always on her.  She’s a beauty too I always thought…a beauty with brains … always the level-headed member of the family you can rely on were there was a crisis.  There’s always one in every family, for ours, it’s Tita Chato.

But she’s also the aunt who always dresses just so and always smells pretty as she looked.  She’s also the only aunt who dropped by my office, not once but twice, and tried to enticed me to take the day off to make “lakwatsa” or fool around.  I should’ve taken her up on it.

My godmother, Tita Remy, won’t be there.  She passed away a few days after the last birthday party.  I’m still in denial about it so this is difficult to write.  She was the matter-of-fact eldest sister who seemed unperturbed by anything.  But she showed me she cared in so many different ways as I was growing up and later, as a grown-up.  I miss her.

It will be nice to see the aunts again, along with the cousins.  It’s been too long.  There’s a new generation already starting their individual lives and a few who are just learning to take their first steps.  It’s their turn to be introduced to the rest of the family.

In the Philippines, as in most parts of Asia, we hold deeper respect for our elders than in most parts of the world.  It’s so ingrained in the Asian psyche, we don’t even think twice about it.  It’s a simple philosophy based on affection more than obligation. They took care of us when we were unable to take care of ourselves, hence, we take it upon ourselves to do the same now they have advanced in age.  If that sounds like an obligation, I assure you it’s not.

At this stage in my life when my parents are in their late 70′s and their older siblings are passing on one by one, nothing scares me more than the thought of losing one of them.  My niece said the same thing in our family Yahoo! group.  I feel so badly for my two sisters who are in the US, far away from our parents.  Everytime we have a medical emergency here, I know their fears because I felt it once before.

I lost an aunt last June.  At the very same time, my mother’s doctor wanted her confined for a minor infection.  My mother was also suffering depression at that point and I knew to confine her then would not have helped at all.  So I begged and bargained with her doctor until he agreed to an outpatient arrangement where we shuttled my mother every other day to see him.

My mother has been a diabetic for years you see.  The disease is taking its toll on her body and her emotions.  Diabetics suffer from depression more than the average person. There were times when she refused to eat because she had no appetite at all….not for anything.  There were times when not even my little nephews, whom she loves  dearly, could get her out of her funk.

Taking care of a woman like my mother is not easy.  For all our lives, she was the strong, formidable presence who made all the decisions.  When she said no, which was rare, we had no choice but to acquiesce.  That’s become a problem now that she needs more medical care.  When she refuses to do something, we cannot just give in like in the past.  To do so could cost her her life.

We had another scare last week.  Pneumonia.  That killer of an infection, especially for the elderly.  Diabetics are more prone to infection.  My aunt died of pneumonia in June.  And oh God were we all scared when the doctor said my mother had pneumonia last week! I could hear the gasps of fear in my sisters’ emails and text messages when they were told.

Luckily,  it was caught early and her doctor is good.   My mom loves her doctor and thinks the world of him.  She can be coy with him and lie straight to his face about her diet or what she’s been up to, but he’ll wiggle it out of her like none of her children can.   She’s naughty that way you see.  The young tomboy who bullied her classmates into giving her their gourmet lunches or prized goldfish will still surface every so often.

When she first got sick over 5 years ago, she disliked the first doctor who saw her so much she called her “Brownie” – after all the brown outfits and accessories the lady-doctor seemed to wear on a daily basis.  Hemming and hawing was never my mother’s style and this is what the good doctor seemed to be doing with her.  My mother has always been  a straightforward, no nonsense woman who speaks her mind but is also very charming when she wants to be.  She could’t find it in her to even be slightly charming with “Brownie” and told me to contact her niece in Cebu who could refer us to another doctor.  And so we found Dr. Ed.  We all go to him now – for anything that ails us.

I’ll always be grateful for finding Dr. Ed.  He’s truly a lifesaver. My mother is back home now, sitting in her usual place at the table.  Her blood sugar is going back to normal and she’s her old cheerful, sometimes naughty self.  She’s not being naughty when it comes to her diet though…the will of steel  is showing again and she’s sticking to her low-carb diet until she’s off insulin.  And all is right with my world.

Women rule in the Philippines. I’ve always known it and before I get into the nitty-gritty of why it’s so….here’s just one thing to prove it:
MORE women than men occupied the top positions in Philippine companies in 2006—2.257 million of them compared with only 1.629 million men, according to a labor department survey.

The study, by the department’s Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics, also showed that the number of female bosses ballooned to 2.257 million in 2006 from just 1.86 million in 2002, and that compared with 1.4 million male bosses the same year.

The number of male executives and supervisors totaled 1.613 million in 2004. By contrast, the number of women holding the same posts increased by 97,000, bringing their total to 2.162 million for the same period.

Labor Secretary Arturo Brion said female bosses had been steadily outnumbering their male counterparts over the last five years, and mainly because they were better educated.

He cited another department survey showing that one out of every three employed women in 2006 had a college education.

By contrast, only one out of every five men employed during the period had some college education.

“With higher education, women have better chances of also getting better-paying and higher positions,” he said.

Brion also cited an international report early this year that showed 97 percent of all businesses in the Philippines had women in senior management positions—the highest among 32 countries surveyed and also significantly higher than the 59 percent global average.