m a n i l a g i r l

Today, Monday, February 5, 2007 marks my return from MT. PULAG in KABAYAN, BENGUET alive, healthy...and glowing with joy and an inner peace (and not just from the windburn I got from climbing the highest peak in Luzon and second highest in all our land!). The weekend was an opportunity to pay forward the kindness, helpfulness and steadfastness of our mountain guides. These Mt. Pulag guides are the guardians of one of the most revered and beloved places of Filipino mountaineering and outdoor enthusiasts. I feel indebted just being able to visit Mt. Pulag (home to most indigenous northern communities in Kabayan) and reach the summit with its awe-inspiring vista.

I am happy to be part of a large, extended team that worked extremely well together - Bato Balani Director CHING JORGE through MS. MARDY HALCON-CRISTOBAL, who responded to the request of Abucot Elementary school for replacement textbooks and their warehouse overseer MR. RANDY FABIANO at the DIWA LEARNING SYSTEMS, INC. Operations Center (note: this is the only company who fully responded to the community's call for help), my enabling family (MA, DAD, SISTERS LEA AND ATE THEA, COUSIN ATE MARIE AND HELPER ATE FE), my dear friend SHERYLL "you are the best!" CORDERO who helped me transport the books from DIWA Operations Warehouse in Paranaque to Victory Liner Bus Station in Cubao early last Friday morning, a sizable group of mountain climbing enthusiasts (21 adults AND kids total) from ad agency CAMPAIGNS & GREY and TV Network ABS-CBN (two of the main reasons the textbook delivery was even made possible are team leads PATRICK "crazy, but it can be done" GUTIERREZ and MIKE "all-around, dependable Mt. Pulag enthusiast" TRINIDAD respectively), inspiring DENR Benguet Superintendent MS. TAMIRAY EMERITA, hard-working, straight-forward MANG NARSIE ADAIS and the COMMUNITY OF ABUCOT and our Baguio-to-Banguet-roundtrip "biyaheng langit" driver, MANG ROGER - to deliver 46 boxes of textbooks for the children (Grades 1 through 6) of Abucot Elementary School, the community to which Akiki Route mountain guide Mang Narsie belongs.

My mind can't comprehend the enormity of the blessing, possibility and hope this trip has come to symbolize for me. To leave Mt. Pulag (hopefully) a little bit better after trodding through its trails and burdening it with our human presence for a couple of days is one of the best things a mountain climbing enthusiast can ever ask for. I'm truly happy to bring this good news to all of you today. Each and everyone of you - all of us, really - and the Supreme Being (however you call your higher Power) deserve a deeply felt, whispered or shouted "MARAMING SALAMAT!" ("Thank you!"). Cheers to all of us, then, who continue to seek, discover and contribute to make Life what truly is - full of blessing, possibility, hope, beauty and love. Let's all continue this work in our own ways, in our own lives.

And if you forget everything I've said in this letter, just please remember this in whatever you do, especially for social or outreach work: "It IS possible. It CAN be done. As that Nike ad so wisely states and what our work has proven: 'JUST DO IT!' "

Sincerely,