A topsy-turvy morning in the "City of the Living God"

An early morning view of the 

I am not a regular patron of pancakes, although I like the fluffy feeling inside the mouth.  But that particular morning, I decided to have one as soon as I saw the store signboard of one of the known fastfood chains that serve pancakes after some stroll at the bayan of that city I was new at. 

This is the selfie that almost had me lose my celphone

Fifteen minutes tricycle ride away after my last bite of pancake and sip of the complementing pineapple juice, I realized that I do not have my celphone.  Recall! More recall!  I was sure I took a selfie with my phone before my first bite.  At a building opposite the street and clearly visible from where I was seated at the fast food store, the wall was painted boldly with “Every knee shall bow, every tongue confess, Jesus is Lord.”  I wanted a remembrance of that wall so I took a click.  May this was one of the reasons why the city styles itself as the “City of the Living God,” I thought.  After taking the picture, I laid the phone on the table and forgot about it when I went out.

                The tricycle I rode was already gone so I had to flag another.  Since the hotel we were in was not in the main thoroughfare of the city, it took some time before I got a ride.  St. Jude was my favorite saint when it comes to lost things and I kept pleading his intercession while inside the tricycle back to “bayan”.  My mobile phone was cheap and definitely not in the line of high ends.  But nevertheless is very important to me.  Losing it means new contact numbers, phone contacts to be established again, and definitely its hard to set aside at least two thousand for such a unit that I learned to like.

                Earlier in the day, after a walk and some photographs at the Puerto Princesa Baywalk, I attended mass at the Immaculate Concepcion Cathedral.  I had with me a thousand peso bill and two fifty peso bills.  During the offering, I was deciding whether to drop something or not because if I will drop the small bills, even if I drop only one, it will leave me with no small bill to hire a tricycle back to the hotel.  I would need at least sixty to hire a tricycle as I do not know the routes of the public utility jeepneys.  My dilemma soon brought me to the fast food for smaller bills for my fare.

                As soon as I checked back at the store, my eyes immediately scanned the table where I sat earlier.  It was clean, no phone or anything on it.  I asked an attendant if they might have seen a phone when they were cleaning up that table.  She immediately went inside their office probably to refer me to someone else.  She came back with another lady probably the store manager as distinguished by her uniform.  To my relief, this new lady was coming with a familiar phone on hand I recognized to be mine.  I said my “Thank you” and immediately rushed back to the hotel.  Indeed, this city is the “City of the Living God” with honest people around.

                There was already too little time between my arrival and the call time for the seminar.  I allotted it to taking a bath, change clothes, and preparing things I need like ID and note pads.  I had barely a time for breakfast so I decided to skip it.  I am conscious about showing up late for the seminar especially to my companions from the institution I work.  When they asked if I had breakfast, I said “yes”.  I did not lie - I took breakfast of pancakes although I knew that what they mean was breakfast at the hotel.

                The speaker wasn’t yet called at the podium although I knew he was already as he has also spoke the previous afternoon.  I tried scribbling the title of the next presentation on my notepad from the program paper but my pen cannot move as my mind is still with my experience earlier in the morning.

                Inside the Cathedral, I knelt a little longer after communion.  Loreen, my daughter who passed an infant two years ago, was on my mind.  I do not know exactly why but perhaps because it was her death anniversary two days ago, the time we flew to Puerto Princesa.  I felt like she was there seating beside me.  After her death, I reflected on what might be her role given by the Supreme One in wherever she might have gone.  Somewhere within the compounds of that church is one image depicting the Immaculate Concepcion, that parish being named after the feast.   The  images depicting the Immaculate Concepcion is the only other image of Mother Mary I know that includes cherubs upon her feet, the other being the image of Our Lady of Covadonga.   This made vivid my imagination of my daughter.

The frontage of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Concepcion in Puerto Princesa

                

Then the microphone sounded.  It is already the speaker’s time.  He is to continue his presentation which according to him was prepared by a “student assistant.”  His emphasis that it was “prepared by student assistant” annoyed me a little bit.  But there then I knew I had better things to be annoyed at.  I knew that my pieces of pancake experiences in this city is already worth my nuisances that morning.