Photos et lettres des Philippines, de France et d'ailleurs

  On September 5, the month began with an invitation as our friend Roland invited us to the inauguration of the small grocery store he had made built to Annabelle, his wife, as a complement of income after his disappearance.
To get from Sibulan, 5 kilometers north of Dumaguete, to Lilo-an, south of Cebu, we took the pump boat which is a big local boat with 2 outriggers and engine. It usually takes less than half an hour to travel the 4.3 nautical miles by a calm sea.

(The pumpboat from Sibulan to Lilo-an)

It was a real pleasure to meet and talk with some of these seadogs who one day dropped anchors and had not left the Philippines since, most often for a woman.

(Part of Roland's guests)

(Our guest Roland)

My wife Dhana arrived in Dumaguete on September 14, for his four weeks of annual vacation and the house was full of life again.

(Our friends at home for coffee after our lunch at the Malatapay market)

Her stay was shared between rest, some errands and a few meetings with friends.

(The swimming pool. From left to right, Dhana, Flor and Virgie)

(The dinner. from bottom up the men, James, Jean-Claude and Léon)

Thus we made the acquaintance of Flor and James as his name does not indicate is a native of Besancon in the east of France. Born into a Catholic family practitioner, he immigrated to Canada in 1967 but was disillusioned with the materialism of North America. He then met and joined some youths who had decided to spend some time in an Israeli kibbutz. He remained there for over twenty years. There he found his first wife with whom he had four daughters, he learnt Hebrew, converted to Judaism and became Israeli citizen. Thus, after already having spent sixteen months of national service in the French army, he again was drafted for three years in Tsahal (Israeli army) where he did regular training periods until the age of 45.
Subsequently he worked in India and finished his career with ten years in China. Now at 65 years, he is retired in the Philippines.  What a busy life!
On September 25, Leng, my wife's sister, arrived from the suburbs of Manila to spend a week with us. She made her first studies to become a teacher and she remained in education until the age of 32 years. At that time she began a whole new career in order to live her vocation. So she went to Silliman University to complete four years of theological studies and become a pastor in the UCCP (United Christian Church of the Philippines). Resulting from the merger of several Protestant churches, I have mostly retained that UCCP traces its roots in the Protestant Reformation when Martin Luther, John Calvin and others led the movement to reform the Church according to Scripture.

(The Mag-abo house. On the left Dhana, James and Flor. On the right, Leng, Léon and Virgie)

The current politico-religious news gave us the opportunity to have interesting conversations. Indeed President Aquino had been threatened with excommunication by the Catholic Church for wanting to pass a law allowing Filipino families the choice of the number of their children through the distribution of contraceptives. This measure concerns especially the poorest and least educated as others have hardly waited to limit the birth rate.
Thus, against this law, the Philippine Catholic Church does not hesitate to make an amalgam between the pill and abortion. She continues to advocate natural methods while in rural areas or slums of large cities with high population density, many women can not even read a calendar.
As my sister –in law said, this type of natural birth control is far to be a success to Catholic priests who continue to procreate many children out of forbidden love affairs. They would do better to use these condoms or pills so down cried in their sermons to avoid making their mistresses pregnant.
I also can not resist the pleasure to narrate the misadventures of a friend, Jean M., whose girlfriend told him one day, her face flooded with joy, that she was pregnant with his works. Jean, bachelor of 45, did not share her elation; however, against making bad fortune, good heart, he took his girlfriend to a hospital in Cebu for her first prenatal visit. Here what was his surprise, his disappointment and also his relief to learn that the sinner had begun her pregnancy while he was in France. Pressed to admit, the unfaithful lady confessed that it was a priest of Leyte who had put her in this condition but she hastened to add, "I didn’t know he was a clergyman." It is true that naked the priesthood can’t be noticed and not even the priest’s little purple hat as in the song’s lyrics of Pierre Perret, the peter, could have given a clue as in fact all the males here are tuli (circumcised) at the age of 12. Since this practice has no religious significance, it is probably a reminiscence of the time when the tribal chief Lapu-Lapu  ran a spear through the body of the hapless explorer Magellan.
In the same issue as my wife was in a beauty parlor, she asked the young hairdresser already a mother of two children what she thought of free contraception she replied "Madam I am for the pill because I am kapoy (tired) and it is natural that the priests are against it since they make a lot of money with baptisms. Just simple reasoning but how true don’t you think?
Time flies when you're on holiday and the month ended on September 30 by a new invitation by Fabrice to the occasion of the Samboan fiesta in the south of Cebu. I went with my wife and Leng and it was again a very pleasant time spent with friends.

(From top to bottom, the buffet, the set tables and the traditional lechon aboy)

(A little attraction. Fabrices's wife is on the right)

(The food is good)

(He took twice already but anyway he doesn't put on weight)

Dhana now is already back to work in France in a detestable social and political climate that every foreigners living in the Philippines fail to understand.
Finally, as said Roland then hospitalized for bronchitis at a hospital for 'rich'. "You know, we made the revolution of 1789, not them." QED.