LEISURE AND TOIL, STILL IT’S CANVAS AND OIL
Papa has been working in geothermal plants for as long as I can remember, even up to a few months before we left for Singapore. He programs the processes that go into the production of electricity from steam and here is where you don’t ask me what these processes are. He’s been working with PNOC, in their plants from Bicol to Davao, for so long that he has seen people in this company come and move up the hierarchy, or leave.
In those days, he would be gone for such lengths, sometimes for as long as 2 months, every time he had a project. I’d be left in the city wondering and worrying how he was doing, how his days went, how safe it is where he was. Luckily I was a working girl back then so there were things that preoccupied my mind and time and that did a lot to help me keep sane.
He would always tell me it is safe but of course, ‘safe’ is such a relative word. I could have wished for these projects to stop, for him to not go away every so often anymore. But then, it’s his job and to wish that would be like wishing for him to quit. And I know he can’t, he won’t. He loves it. He’s always been happiest working on a project, somewhere in the provinces, where things would be elemental, almost primeval. He’s always been happy traveling too. Somehow I knew that I couldn’t ask him to stop, not even for my peace of mind. I guess I’d rather have kept on worrying than to have him with me, antsy and restless.
And then we moved to Singapore and guess what… the traveling and the going away didn’t stop. If possible, it even became more frequent and this time, every trip took him out of the country. If I thought I had it bad in the Philippines before, then I had another thought coming. At least here, I had an idea of how it was in the places he would go to… no matter how vague, he was still in the country. This time, I had no idea at all.
Sometimes I’d have a chance to visit the places he went to and gauge for myself whether it was indeed safe. Fortunately, it would always be, and it would be one place less on my worry list. If only we didn’t live in such precarious times…
On our last week in the Philippines, Papa had another opportunity to do a project with PNOC, out in Davao, or more accurately, in Kidapawan, towards where Mt. Apo's base trailed. Again, the old fears that never quite left me came back to the fore, until he invited me to come along. I jumped on the chance. Not that I would be more equipped to keep him safe from anything more than he is himself, just that I would feel more at ease being in the same place with him. If anything should happen, it would also happen to me… I wouldn’t be left safely behind, but clueless and worrying. Morbid reassurance, I know, but some measure of reassurance just the same.
I needn’t have worried. The moment I stepped off the plane, I could see and feel that Davao was a safe metropolis indeed. And if only for its cleanliness, I would say it’s even better than Manila. The airport alone seems more up kept.
The people are so friendly and pretty much kept to themselves. It still makes me smile whenever I remember how every female is addressed as ‘ma’am’ and every male is addressed either as ‘ser,’ ‘bai’ or ‘dong.’ They would almost always start anything they say with ‘palihog’ which means ‘please.’ Especially up at the PNOC camp, about 99.9% of the people I met were male. It’s a power plant after all and fundamentally a man’s world. It amused me how almost every one of them seemed unable to look me in the eye whenever they had to address me. They’re such a shy people. Visitors won’t get as much as a furtive glance and yet there is no mistaking the warm welcome that comes with their smile when they’re spoken to.
I don’t have the exact term for what I consider their charm, so evident in every person I met. They will see to your comfort and your needs, but they are not pretentious. They will offer you what they have but they will not go out of their way to amaze you with impressions that might otherwise be false. It’s like they’re telling you, ‘This is what we have. It’s yours if you want it. Take it or leave it.’ No apologies for whatever might be lacking, just a quiet pride that they had something to offer at all.
Like where we were shacked up for our stay. It’s a dormitory-type building with a lot of rooms and a huge restroom with several shower stalls and toilets. Every shower and toilet is clean and all faucets, showers and toilet flushers are working. And to top it all, they got hot water running 24/7. The rooms are fairly-sized with just the basic necessities… beds, a table, cabinets, a mirror, and a rubbish bin. Oh but they do provide bath towels, toilet paper and bath soap. The sheets may be threadbare but enough to keep out the chill and the reading lights provided for each bunk bed is a real winner! I don’t even have that in my own room. Outside the rooms, you would find a maze of corridors, no lounge or lobby. For me, the place itself makes a statement… ‘You are in a power plant and this is a place of work. You can rest in these rooms but you cannot linger.’ Even the name they’ve picked for the place gives out the same message… ‘tempfacil’ for ‘temporary facility.’
And the food they serve in the mess hall? No doubt they are nutritious as there would always be a balance in the meals… a fish dish, a meat dish and a veggie. They don’t put in fancy ingredients, just the very normal, very mundane things. But one thing’s for sure, when you’ve had a full day and you’ve put in a decent enough amount of work, all you will need is hot food for your growling stomach. That, at least, will be taken care of. They don’t have piped-in music in the hall, just a television, which picks up only one channel, Channel 2, as is the case all around the plant. But you know, when work is honestly what you have in mind, not entertainment or an excuse to laze around, you wouldn’t really mind these things. It’s nice enough to have something to watch while you’re having your meal, if you do not have the pleasure of somebody else’s company. It doesn’t really matter ‘what’… just that there IS something.
In the camp, I noticed that there is never a shortage of vehicles and of drivers to bring you where you need to go, and it is a certainty that these are needed as it would be quite a walk from one facility to the next. The vehicles are all SUVs, and I’m presuming all are 4x4s, again a necessity, given the terrain. And consistently, there is not an ounce of pretension in the way these things are regarded. They are there because they need to be there. They are not there for show or to make an impression. You will see that in the way the vehicles look. They look used, like they’ve been driven up the mountains, like they’ve been ground through mud puddles. They clearly don’t need justification for being there. And why bring up the justification point at all? Well, I don’t think you really need to ask, not when you know what’s happening in some other government agencies. And that, we all know, is common knowledge… no matter how much the fact is denied.
But over and above all these, what really caught my attention is the dedication I saw in the engineers that Papa worked with. See, they had to squeeze in a 2-week job into one because that is all the time Papa had. You wouldn’t believe the hours they are capable of putting into their work when needed. I’ve seen them start at 7 in the morning and not end until 3 am the following day. And this they do in all kinds of weather and in whatever condition they have to work in… throw in cramped spaces, no working tables and having to sit on the cold, bare floor and you’ll have a general idea.
I know that there are probably other people just as incredibly dyed-in-the-wool about their jobs. But they are not the people I saw and I cannot vouch to be amazed with them just because. The people I’ve been with are the people in PNOC and their work is what I saw. And I am so happy with what I’ve seen. Filipinos from different regions, of different beliefs, of different ethnic backgrounds… all coming together with one and only one goal, to make things work. The absence of politics is so palpable, it’s so refreshing. Here, where the people survive largely on no more than the basic necessities, you can feel hearts so pure and intentions so clear. Here, where the people you encounter are workers down on their hands and knees, where there are no contraptions of the suave and the flamboyant, you can count on things to function as they are expected to, and more.
I am glad to have come, obviously. Not only because of the novelty in the experience, but because of what I’ve seen. I think it’s a very fitting image to feed the more favorable sentiment I’d like to bring with me now that we are embarking on a new beginning, in another foreign land.
On a more personal note, I am happy to have come because this is one side of Papa that I haven’t ever witnessed, until now. Now I know how he can be so enthusiastic about these projects, to the point of favoring these assignments over being stuck in the city and the comforts of home. I am glad I never asked him to stop. I think that now I know why I chose to just let him keep going in spite of all the sleepless nights spent laden with worry. I think that if he would choose to go back and do this on a more regular basis, I would still let him go, now more than ever. I think that being in places like this, with its weather-beaten people in a climate of sobering austerity, has done a lot for him to become the man that he is, the man that I would like him to always be.
I am proud of him.
I am proudly Pinoy!
Papa has been working in geothermal plants for as long as I can remember, even up to a few months before we left for Singapore. He programs the processes that go into the production of electricity from steam and here is where you don’t ask me what these processes are. He’s been working with PNOC, in their plants from Bicol to Davao, for so long that he has seen people in this company come and move up the hierarchy, or leave.
In those days, he would be gone for such lengths, sometimes for as long as 2 months, every time he had a project. I’d be left in the city wondering and worrying how he was doing, how his days went, how safe it is where he was. Luckily I was a working girl back then so there were things that preoccupied my mind and time and that did a lot to help me keep sane.
He would always tell me it is safe but of course, ‘safe’ is such a relative word. I could have wished for these projects to stop, for him to not go away every so often anymore. But then, it’s his job and to wish that would be like wishing for him to quit. And I know he can’t, he won’t. He loves it. He’s always been happiest working on a project, somewhere in the provinces, where things would be elemental, almost primeval. He’s always been happy traveling too. Somehow I knew that I couldn’t ask him to stop, not even for my peace of mind. I guess I’d rather have kept on worrying than to have him with me, antsy and restless.
And then we moved to Singapore and guess what… the traveling and the going away didn’t stop. If possible, it even became more frequent and this time, every trip took him out of the country. If I thought I had it bad in the Philippines before, then I had another thought coming. At least here, I had an idea of how it was in the places he would go to… no matter how vague, he was still in the country. This time, I had no idea at all.
Sometimes I’d have a chance to visit the places he went to and gauge for myself whether it was indeed safe. Fortunately, it would always be, and it would be one place less on my worry list. If only we didn’t live in such precarious times…
On our last week in the Philippines, Papa had another opportunity to do a project with PNOC, out in Davao, or more accurately, in Kidapawan, towards where Mt. Apo's base trailed. Again, the old fears that never quite left me came back to the fore, until he invited me to come along. I jumped on the chance. Not that I would be more equipped to keep him safe from anything more than he is himself, just that I would feel more at ease being in the same place with him. If anything should happen, it would also happen to me… I wouldn’t be left safely behind, but clueless and worrying. Morbid reassurance, I know, but some measure of reassurance just the same.
I needn’t have worried. The moment I stepped off the plane, I could see and feel that Davao was a safe metropolis indeed. And if only for its cleanliness, I would say it’s even better than Manila. The airport alone seems more up kept.
The people are so friendly and pretty much kept to themselves. It still makes me smile whenever I remember how every female is addressed as ‘ma’am’ and every male is addressed either as ‘ser,’ ‘bai’ or ‘dong.’ They would almost always start anything they say with ‘palihog’ which means ‘please.’ Especially up at the PNOC camp, about 99.9% of the people I met were male. It’s a power plant after all and fundamentally a man’s world. It amused me how almost every one of them seemed unable to look me in the eye whenever they had to address me. They’re such a shy people. Visitors won’t get as much as a furtive glance and yet there is no mistaking the warm welcome that comes with their smile when they’re spoken to.
I don’t have the exact term for what I consider their charm, so evident in every person I met. They will see to your comfort and your needs, but they are not pretentious. They will offer you what they have but they will not go out of their way to amaze you with impressions that might otherwise be false. It’s like they’re telling you, ‘This is what we have. It’s yours if you want it. Take it or leave it.’ No apologies for whatever might be lacking, just a quiet pride that they had something to offer at all.
Like where we were shacked up for our stay. It’s a dormitory-type building with a lot of rooms and a huge restroom with several shower stalls and toilets. Every shower and toilet is clean and all faucets, showers and toilet flushers are working. And to top it all, they got hot water running 24/7. The rooms are fairly-sized with just the basic necessities… beds, a table, cabinets, a mirror, and a rubbish bin. Oh but they do provide bath towels, toilet paper and bath soap. The sheets may be threadbare but enough to keep out the chill and the reading lights provided for each bunk bed is a real winner! I don’t even have that in my own room. Outside the rooms, you would find a maze of corridors, no lounge or lobby. For me, the place itself makes a statement… ‘You are in a power plant and this is a place of work. You can rest in these rooms but you cannot linger.’ Even the name they’ve picked for the place gives out the same message… ‘tempfacil’ for ‘temporary facility.’
And the food they serve in the mess hall? No doubt they are nutritious as there would always be a balance in the meals… a fish dish, a meat dish and a veggie. They don’t put in fancy ingredients, just the very normal, very mundane things. But one thing’s for sure, when you’ve had a full day and you’ve put in a decent enough amount of work, all you will need is hot food for your growling stomach. That, at least, will be taken care of. They don’t have piped-in music in the hall, just a television, which picks up only one channel, Channel 2, as is the case all around the plant. But you know, when work is honestly what you have in mind, not entertainment or an excuse to laze around, you wouldn’t really mind these things. It’s nice enough to have something to watch while you’re having your meal, if you do not have the pleasure of somebody else’s company. It doesn’t really matter ‘what’… just that there IS something.
In the camp, I noticed that there is never a shortage of vehicles and of drivers to bring you where you need to go, and it is a certainty that these are needed as it would be quite a walk from one facility to the next. The vehicles are all SUVs, and I’m presuming all are 4x4s, again a necessity, given the terrain. And consistently, there is not an ounce of pretension in the way these things are regarded. They are there because they need to be there. They are not there for show or to make an impression. You will see that in the way the vehicles look. They look used, like they’ve been driven up the mountains, like they’ve been ground through mud puddles. They clearly don’t need justification for being there. And why bring up the justification point at all? Well, I don’t think you really need to ask, not when you know what’s happening in some other government agencies. And that, we all know, is common knowledge… no matter how much the fact is denied.
But over and above all these, what really caught my attention is the dedication I saw in the engineers that Papa worked with. See, they had to squeeze in a 2-week job into one because that is all the time Papa had. You wouldn’t believe the hours they are capable of putting into their work when needed. I’ve seen them start at 7 in the morning and not end until 3 am the following day. And this they do in all kinds of weather and in whatever condition they have to work in… throw in cramped spaces, no working tables and having to sit on the cold, bare floor and you’ll have a general idea.
I know that there are probably other people just as incredibly dyed-in-the-wool about their jobs. But they are not the people I saw and I cannot vouch to be amazed with them just because. The people I’ve been with are the people in PNOC and their work is what I saw. And I am so happy with what I’ve seen. Filipinos from different regions, of different beliefs, of different ethnic backgrounds… all coming together with one and only one goal, to make things work. The absence of politics is so palpable, it’s so refreshing. Here, where the people survive largely on no more than the basic necessities, you can feel hearts so pure and intentions so clear. Here, where the people you encounter are workers down on their hands and knees, where there are no contraptions of the suave and the flamboyant, you can count on things to function as they are expected to, and more.
I am glad to have come, obviously. Not only because of the novelty in the experience, but because of what I’ve seen. I think it’s a very fitting image to feed the more favorable sentiment I’d like to bring with me now that we are embarking on a new beginning, in another foreign land.
On a more personal note, I am happy to have come because this is one side of Papa that I haven’t ever witnessed, until now. Now I know how he can be so enthusiastic about these projects, to the point of favoring these assignments over being stuck in the city and the comforts of home. I am glad I never asked him to stop. I think that now I know why I chose to just let him keep going in spite of all the sleepless nights spent laden with worry. I think that if he would choose to go back and do this on a more regular basis, I would still let him go, now more than ever. I think that being in places like this, with its weather-beaten people in a climate of sobering austerity, has done a lot for him to become the man that he is, the man that I would like him to always be.
I am proud of him.
I am proudly Pinoy!
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