It was a few dots before eight, and there was already a buzz of activity in the highway roadside in Cabad, Balilihan.
A lady, wielding a midrib broom, was sweeping the grass in the lawn, the sweet rustic aroma of freshly mowed grass rise in contra-point with the scent of cooking caramel and burnt grass.
Moments later, men carrying a collapsible tent marched in to put up a makeshift sunshade for the early morning activity.
Judging by the number of monobloc chairs arranged under the tent, this would be a social event.
Activity buzzed in the dainty green-painted native house of woven bamboo and finished hollow blocks peeping behind a closed and abandoned shop, in front of the tent set up.
Ladies hang curtains, swept the cement floor, while in the kitchen, on a low fire was a vat where biko was cooking.
Married after being swept off in a chance romantic encounter with a betrothed guy from Desamparados Calape, Manang Cristobala or Bala to her neighbors, sure knows that the handsome Juan Lozada, with a bagful of cash for his supposed wedding, can only be serious with her, if he persists.
A full summer of courting, staying with her family in Balilihan for the fiesta, their Bohol vacation ended with a civil marriage that marked the end of their commitment to live through thick and thin, with a thick wad of prayers everyday.
Now, with their five children already having families of their own, the bouncy Manang Bala, who wears a crown of silver hair, can hardly be imagined to be turning 70, something a stressful life could not give.
Apart from the disconnect in her age and physical bearing, anyone knowing her would hardly believe how she would survived fate she has gotten into.
Both Bala and husband Juan slid through the peak of comfortable wealth: her face now still bearing the cool aura seasoned by years as sales lady at the Aristocrat Lamps, the forefathers of Aristocrat Home of Lamps in Manila, while Juan, a brilliant millwright of Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific (AG and P) working in Qatar.
For them, with her husband wanting her to go full time as a housewife, she tended a small retail store on Paranaque, where they were made care takers of a house in a subdivision.
Later on, it turned out that the money used to build the house was dirty money, they were evicted. And she continued to pray.
As fate would have it, good things do not last. Then things started to spiral out of control.
With her husband in Qatar, she decided to bring the kids home to Balilihan.
Juan followed them there, making use whatever he can earn cash on, determined to do everything firmly believing that somebody would provide for them.
And then, Juan fell ill with cancer.
Unable to work, she has to singularly support the family and the medical needs of an ill husband.
In 2004, after using up all their savings, her husband died.
But yet with unrelenting faith and trust in divine providence, Nang Bala has to singularly bring up the kids, find a job and feed them.
From then, doing odd jobs, keeping prayer in her pockets, the kids grew and had families of their own, leaving her and her youngest in their small house.
And then, Odette happened.
She was teary-eyed, sometimes pausing to control her trembling lips as she recalls the hard times she has been though, especially during the hardest test of all.
It is quite a wonder how, all through the years, Manang Bala continues to keep to a clockwork schedule, praying after waking up at the break of dawn, slicing bananas into splits, cooking for the kids and preparing them to school.
Now that she is alone, working for her own and sometimes to share to her grandchildren’s needs, is what she is preoccupied, like all grandmas.
With a house totally ravaged by Odette, Bala met with social workers from the Department of Social Welfare and Development who saw her totally damaged house, her being a senior citizen, and alone.
For this, she was considered her for a P15,000 livelihood assistance.
I was interviewed and it went well, so I was expecting that I can finally get something to start up again, that, I prayed like I never had prayed earnestly, she shared.
Living on a P700 weekly capital, Bala makes sure that she could profit so she could buy her food, and habal-habal fare to the nearby state college as she vends snacks: banana splits.
Bring the bananas here on the table, she instructs to the lady neighbour cooking in the kitchen, as the community helped her prepare for the VIPS in the turn over ceremonies.
The bananas they are cooking are those that she is supposed to sell so she can buy a few kilos of rice for tonight.
No, this is my humble contribution, my way of thanking those who helped me rebuild the house, she insisted, when somebody said, she could sell the bananas instead.
And thinking of the DSWD help, she already had in mind what to do with the money. The livelihood assistance could be a big help, she mused.
Unfortunately, she said she was scraped from the final list, something she tags to local politics.
Aho nang gitugyan tanan sa Ginoo, kon kinsay makahatag naho og gikan sa financial, ug uban pa, labi na karon nga nagkinahanglan ko og puhunan sa ahong gamay nga negosyo. Giinterview man unta ko sa livelihood, nakapasar man unta ko adtong panahona, sa panahon sa Odette, pero natingala ko ngano nga apil man unta kos interview, nakapasar man unta ko, pero ngano nga pag-abut didto sa Balilihan, gi-erase man ang akong ngalan?
But in her draining luck, along came Governor Erico Aristotle Aumentado who met the community of Cabad.
Using the last ounce of courage and humility, she asked the top official to help her rebuild her house.
A few weeks later, that P80,000 house which is slightly bigger than the old Lozada house stands.
Funded solely by Aumentados, the house is one of the 145 houses which the police and the top leaders, wanted to build under Aumentado’s Balay sa Paglaum and the PNP Libreng Alagad og Balay in 20024.
Another 152 are slated to be built in 2026, says Police Lieutenant Colonel Norman Nuez, at the side lines of the turn-over.
I am so happy I have good neighbors, even happier that the governor and his family gave this house, she said as she entertained a pastor and her church members after s short house dedication before the turn-over.
For her visitors, she bought pilit and cooked biko. She also cooked the last of her ripe cooking bananas for her neighbors, from her P700 capital
In fact, she spent the last P200 of her 700 capital for the guy who mowed her lawn.
Wala na ko makahibaw asa ko ani, pero, ingon man ang ginoo, tan-awa ang mga langgam, wala sila magtanum apan makakaon, mao nga salig lang ta, she said.
She may have spent the last of her P700 which is her means to get food for the morrow, but like her namesake San Cristobal, keeping the faith amidst the hardships, and a prayer coming in handy, Nang
Bala does not think she will be hungry or starve to death.
Not now that she has a decent house, that is one less worry. (PIABohol)
LIVING ON A PRAYER. Widowed now, Cristobala Lozada could not contain her happiness for getting a free decent house to live in, after years of having to settle in a kitchen that was left of their house after Odette. She thanks Libreang Alagad og Balay and the Balay sa Paglaum benefactors. (PIABohol)
BENEVOLENCE. Manang Cristobala poses with her house benefactors: the Philippine National Police in Bohol, the Aumentados and the Barangay Officials’ free labor, here represented by Cabad Barangay Chairman.(PIABohol)
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