The Value of P10,000

Every month of October, I couldn’t help but remember the strong typhoon (signal number 3) Dading that knocked down every electric post in Binangonan. It lifted Ka Chayong’s galvanized iron roof including its rafters and wooden trusses and dropped it on our roof. Many people lost their roofs, walls. The smaller nipa huts were lifted off from the ground and dropped in rice fields by the strong winds.

Our house was intact except for the portion where our neighbor’s roof landed. But my father’s livestock farm suffered the most damage.
A big portion of the fence in his itikan (duck farm) was blown away, pushing the thousands of ducks into the overflowing river (still clean during that time), then lost into the bigger Laguna de Bay.

Some of his shipping boats were torn into pieces, some drifted away to the other side of the lake. He recovered one or two somewhere in Siniloan, Laguna. It was not an easy recovery because some fishermen invoked “finders keepers”.

His poultry was also affected. And his piggery. And his ice candy factory.

The typhoon left the whole province of Rizal with no electricity. The thousands of ice candies In our freezers melted and the fresh ingredients perished. My father had no choice but to temporarily shut down the ice candy factory because we could not make ice buko and ice candy without electricity.

It’s been a month and still we had no electricity. My father went to Meralco several times to follow up. He even went to the house of the town mayor to ask for his help, so that our town’s electricity would be restored soon. But the mayor told him he had no control over it.

With his funds dwindling, my father tried to secure a bank loan from the Binangonan Rural Bank. I remembered he came home looking so distraught and quiet. For the next two weeks, I would see him in deep thought, sitting on our big and wide banggerahan inside the bedroom.

If my memory served me right, he didn’t secure a bank loan. I heard him telling my mother that the bank officer gave him a mouthful. Marami daw sinabi na mga pasaring. Hindi magandang mga salita. Baka daw hindi kayang bayaran yung pera, etcetera. He walked away and didn’t pursue his plan of securing a P10,000 loan. Or maybe his application was turned down. I wouldn’t know for sure.

My kuya Lito was an executive at a trading company in Makati. When he found out that my father’s businesses were down and he needed funds for his business and for our sustenance, my brother advanced money from the company.

Ten thousand pesos nowadays is the equivalent of a one month salary in the province, or a little less than the minimum pay in Metro Manila.
It could buy 5 cavans of rice. It’s not much because of the high cost of living in the metropolis. It could stretch longer if spent in the remote areas.

I couldn’t help but feel emotional every once in a while when I see some cash in my bag. The image of my father, staring blankly in deep sadness. His humiliating experience while trying to take out a ten thousand peso loan from the rural bank. I just couldn’t help it. I wished I could go back in time, on that particular day, and hand out P10,000 pesos to my father “Pa, eto po oh, kung kailangan nyo.”

Three mornings ago, my husband lectured me on bitterness. After breakfast, our conversation went to my father’s livestock business.
I was just about to start my story which he probably had heard dozens of times, that’s why he immediately cut off my sentence and told me to stop being bitter. He sad I should refrain from telling those stories because every single time, naaalala ko na naman and sumasama na naman ang loob ko.

Para kasing naawa ako sa kanila. Parang naiiisip ko ngayon, I have ten thousand pesos and more. I could give them what they needed at that time. Maliit pa kasi ako non. I couldn’t help them yet.

Edmund was right. My parents survived their own challenges and came out well. They rode through the waves and succeeded.

I should stop thinking about the sad experiences of the past and live in the now.

I’ll try.