Day 1- Where’s the Plane?
Stranded in Laoag. Spent the night at the Pacific Air office-slash-store-slash-canteen, on folding beds generously provided for by the owner.
Flashback to a few hours earlier, Dick “Flash” Gordon himself came parading by with his campaign entourage. How sweet it was of him to push his weight around and make that arresting phone call to god-only-knows-where, if only to get more planes out here because about three dozen people were currently stranded on their way to Batanes.
In between his impressive, commanding tone and false hopes, I managed to squeeze myself somewhere a few paces near Dick and had my friend sneak a candid photo of him behind me with a wicked smile:
Dick saw this and was quick to say, “Iha, sayang naman ang film mo, halika picture tayo.” And before I could blink, on-lookers and Dick’s alipores automatically gathered around him like voice-automated robots. I absolutely abhorred making congenial poses with politicians but still stupidly gravitate towards the frame. The last time was when I posed with Imee Marcos. And I was smiling, too. Somebody hit me with a palo-palo.
Later that night: (naturally, no additional planes came despite Dick’s call. I wonder if he tried the Hall of Justice.) Despite being stranded, all was not lost. Mang Caloy, the husband of Aling Myrna, the reservation officer, probably sensing our disappointment and desperation waiting for hours for a no-show ride, took us to an unsolicited tour of the Laoag Air Transportation Office, right up to the top where the main viewing office was. He’d been the Air Traffic Controller here for 30 years. Just one phone call and he could command his team to switch on the runway lights. Up here with a 360- degree view, he was God.
Mang Caloy also took us to a tour of Fort Ilocandia, the famed five-star hotel-casino of the north, which is now owned and operated by a Taiwanese. Small wonder that there are more Taiwanese than Filipinos per square meter of the place.
We were not appropriately dressed that night (my friends and I were hoping that by this time we would be in Batanes wearing what we were wearing that night – beach clothes), so we didn’t get to go inside the casino. Not that we intended to play anyway since we were on a shoestring budget.
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