Palm Beach on Mactan Island - Feb 2005

The week passed by very fast and soon it was the last day of the holiday season. Though the Malazarte family has Chinese blood in the maternal grandmother (Yong), they do not celebrate the spring festival. Chu told me that it was long time ago they observed the Chinese New Year but it was no longer significant. Being a staunch Roman Catholic family living in a Catholic country the main holidays were on Christmas, Easter, and the holy week of Good Friday. So there were no visitations to do and we spent most of our time indoors with the occasional visit to SM city to have a family dim sum dinner and also to top up on grocery. We also visited the pet shop twice to top up Meiden’s puppy food and to buy play things for the dogs.
On the last Sunday the brothers were back visiting and someone suggested going to the beach. As the weather was too hot to stay in door comfortably, we unanimously agreed. We packed up our lunches, brought along two crates of beer, coca colas and bundled the kids and the three dogs into the van and drove away to Mactan Island.
The island called Mactan was landed by the first Westerner called Ferdinand Magellan and since then Cebu was colonized by the Spanish for 400 years until the Americans came in the 20th century. It remained a beautiful island until the recent years when local fishermen started to use dynamite for fishing and in no time destroyed most of the coral reefs that lined the southern part of the coast. With government intervention and the imposition of a diving fee to view the beautiful reefs did the underwater living organisms slowly came back. More developments came with the growth of the tourism industry and the southern part of the island was designated as a tourist park. Here the beaches were privatized and walled up so that they became the haven of paid tourists who patronized the hotels lining the south. In between the hotels part of the beaches were opened to the public who came in swarms during the weekends to enjoy the clear crystallized waters.



It was in one of these public beaches that we arrived at one o’clock in the hot afternoon. We promptly set about renting a chalet, preparing the lunches for the hungry children. While they devoured their lunches Chu and I took a walk along the beach. We could see that many Cebuanos have the same idea that day as families were happily swimming in the cool water. The beach front was about 150 metres long and at the both ends of the stretch of sand were walls running from the land into the sea clearly demarcating where private property started. On the left of the beach and beyond the wall was the privilege beach of the tourists from Plantation Bay Resort and on the right that of Rendezvous Hotel. We were on Palm Beach and we paid five hundred pesos (S$16) for the chalet. The rest is free.
The cool swim in the water was very refreshing. The crystal clear water allowed us to see the bottom and we could pick up shells as we walked along. Someone was pushing a little boat in the water and in the centre of the boat was a container of marine fishes. We were offered fifteen pesos for a plastic bag full of fishes, one of which I remembered was called Nemo in the movie. Soon it was time to familiarize the dogs to the sea and as nature has it, the dogs took to the water like fishes. Meiden, Richie and Lucky were soon swimming laps after laps. Of course they were not that adventurous and I have to carry them to the sea and let them swam their way to the shore. For that I received countless scratches on my back from the bunch of panicking first timers.




We rested, ate more food, and took photographs and videos until the sun started setting in the horizon. We cleaned up and reluctantly make our way back home.
It was a great time at the beach and also soon after as we enjoyed a nice dinner on the garden at home sipping red wine and eating roast chicken. When the clock strikes twelve, I kissed Chu wishing her Happy Valentine’s Day and we exchanged gifts and cards. Before we knew it we were heading for the airport to catch my flight back to Singapore. I thoroughly enjoyed my Chinese New Year holidays in Cebu with the family. I am glad I have that break for when I reached Singapore I knew it would be a hectic month with trips lined up for me to go to Batam, Shanghai and Bangkok.

Meet Miss Mar Meiden

The Chinese New Year holidays fall on the 9th and 10th of February 2005 which is a Wednesday and Thursday of the week. Customary the Chinese would ensure there will be ample time for them to return to their home town to pay respects to their parents and also for the reunion dinner. As the two public holidays fall in mid-week, the company agreed therefore to declare the two days prior and the one day after as company leave. Added these five days to the two weekends will give me a total of nine off-days. Yippee!!
With the holiday season announced, I promptly rushed down to Qatar Airways to book a ticket for Cebu from the first Sunday (6th Feb) of the holiday season to the following Monday(14th Feb). Prior to my departure I visited my father and sisters and bought them some goodies.


Chu and I shared a common love for dogs. While she has presented me with Lucky and Richie last September, this year I presented her with a Golden Retriever puppy which we named Mar Meiden. Meiden came to our house in a strange turn of events. It was not meant to be her but due to the first puppy falling sick, she came in as a substitute. We purchased this girl from a reputable breeder from Iloilo City for a cool eighteen thousand pesos (about S$550). However it was worth the money after checking her papers and found out that she was from a family of championship winners. Her registered name with the Philippine Canine Club is Richson’s Miss Sister Megan. Chu liked her very much and I was to meet her on this trip.
Meiden turned out to be a cheeky little rascal. The first thing she did when we met was a nip in the toes. She loved chasing after everybody walking and before you knew it, would plant a snappy bite into the ankle of the unsuspecting person. She was also getting into the nerves of Lucky and Richie, if not for her size she would be given a rough wrestling by the two bigger dogs to put her in her proper place. All in all she was mischievous and hyper active and at her age (born 16th Nov 2004) of barely three months, I believed she could blossom into a beautiful adult dog. She was indeed of championship breed.

The Step Children

Chu has two children from her previous relationship whom I promptly adopted as my own. They called me Tito or Uncle as Daddy would sound strange to both of them and also to me.
The elder of the two girls, Bimferchu, is 15 years old while the younger girl, Katherina is a year younger. Both of them were staying at the Malazarte residence since young while the elder were also brought up by the paternal grandfather. The responsibility of bringing up the children has fallen on Chu’s shoulders as the couple has separated as a result of the failure of the father to shoulder the family’s burden. This has often resulted in brawls over the guardianship of the children.
While the two girls were caught in parental disputes, they were old enough to recognize that it is to their future that they should look forward to. Chu has talked to them often about studying hard so that they can get a good job when they are older, not unlike the girls of yesteryear who would end up inadvertently as GROs in night clubs.
Bimbim was good at singing and wanted to become a singer. I have advised her that while it is good to excel at singing, making it as a career is out of the way. I told her that Filipinos are very good singers in other countries but most of them can hardly earn a decent living. Similarly Tina is also very good at playing the guitar and would often accompany Bimbim in performing duets in the school concerts.
All Chu wanted for her children was to finish school with exceptional good grades so that I can sponsor them for a career in nursing studying in Singapore. That was the promise I have made to them.
On the next Christmas, the girls bought for their Tito presents which I thought were very kind of them. For my next birthday they each bought me a card and in their own words wrote ‘thank you for everything you have done for us’ notes and personally handed them to me. I felt touched by the words they have wrote and the cards would often remind me of my new fatherly role to guide the girls to become useful and responsible adults so as not to let Chu’s hope down.

Starting a Family Business

When Chu was in Cebu and I visited her in September 2004, we discussed ways to start a small business for the family. Mama Marina was already tending to a sari-sari shop Chu has built for her when the house was re-built. However the house was located away from the main road and with that away from the crowd; she was just able to make some money to keep herself busy. Papa Mario was driving the multi-cab and the earnings from plying the route from Mandaue City to Liloan has already paid for the installments. The earnings were extras to the family income on top of the allowance I gave to Chu twice every month. Brother Mark was staying with the family and running errands and was not contributing financially. With Chu’s two children already in high school, Mark’s three year old kid, and the house bills, the family was not self sustainable.
Chu has mentioned that many Cebuanos has started buying up land as the real estate price was at an all time low – 500 pesos per sq m in outlying area. She has been approached by the neighbor Carolina who has offered her plot of land in Paknaan for sale. Another neighbor offered her 100 sq m plot next to our house at 2500 pesos/sq m. That would have cost us eight thousand dollars. If we later would like to buy the whole plot of 200 sq m we could buy the remaining 100 sq m at 2000 pesos/sq m. The total investment would be closed to fourteen thousand dollars.
We talked about the offers every night and I queried if land at this location would really appreciate overtime. Fourteen thousands dollars is not much where I come from and could not even buy me a car COE in Singapore and yet we could become land owners of a 200 sq m plot with that sum. It was really a mouth watering offer. Even if we threw in another fifty thousand dollars and built ourselves a double level bungalow like the ones you see along Serangoon Gardens, it would have been a damn cheap investment. For me, indeed a dream comes true.
But then who needs a big house and lot when we have no sustainable income. After many ponderings we decided to put our money to better use.
Chu’s friend Ginging who worked at the airport as a taxi canvasser has suggested to Chu to try for an airport taxi since the airport taxi franchise was now opened for bidding and if we are interested she could put in some good words to the franchisor. We were unfortunate and disappointed to learn later that the franchisor has elevated the requirement that self-own taxi have to be new and Japan imported and that would put us in a disadvantaged position compared with existing Korean taxi. The pay back time would be longer and financially not sound. We backed out of the plan.
Chu made more inquiries and learned that V-hire franchise for passenger vans was also available to ply from SM city to other towns along the North and South Highway. We calculated that for a given the number of trips per day with a minimum number of passengers we could break even within a year. We therefore made the decision to purchase a second hand Toyota HiAce 3 liter combo van and appointed Papa Mario as the bus captain.



Consequently Mark was asked to drive the multi-cab which turned him immediately into an income earner killing two birds with one throw.
Did the investment turns out well? We were to find out later to our bitter disappointment that first we have to overcome state bureaucracy and then local syndication before you could even started exercising the franchise ship. It took us four wasted-income months and still we are waiting for the answer. What a big let down!