We got up early that Friday morning, November 5, 2021, as we had to be at Bay 6, our designated area at the Circumferential Road in Silay City (in Negros Occidental).
That morning, VP Leni Robredo and Senator Kiko Pangilinan were arriving at the Bacolod-Silay Airport to attend meetings and inspect some projects in Bacolod City and in Negros Occidental. And since it was IATF Level 3, gathering a lot of people indoors was not yet allowed.
So, we gathered outdoors! 😃
The organizers divided into bays the ten-kilometer stretch of the circumferential road from the airport up to Bacolod City and assigned the Leni-Kiko supporters based on their city and municipality.
We arrived at our designated area before 8AM, just as the mountains of Silay and Mandalagan were waking up. As we were looking for a spot, we saw these colorful motor vehicles along the way, filling the southbound lane that led to Bacolod City.
As we waited for their arrival, I got out of our vehicle, looked east and was mesmerized by the morning apparition of the fog lifting its veil from the faces of the mountains that seemed to portend that, in the coming days, more Filipinos would lift the blinders from their eyes and be awakened to see the corruption, incompetence, and injustice of the sitting government.
As the circumferential road used to be sugarcane fields, all you'd see around that morning was haciendas and all you'd feel was the coolness of the new morning. The clouds, too, gathered at the east as if to shield us from the heat of the rising morning sun.
Being the only highway connecting the airport with Bacolod, the circumferential road would only hear the roars of trucks and other vehicles during an ordinary day. But on this special morning, it was filled with the echoes of the "Kay Leni Tayo" jingle, drums, and the excitement of her supporters.
We didn't really mind waiting for Leni and Kiko that day as the atmosphere was cheerful and fun. It was like a festival right in the middle of the haciendas.
And as we were constantly updated online, we would know the minute they landed and the time when they would leave the airport to start the motorcade.
Word then got around that the motorcade left the airport. We all stood facing the north, craning our necks as we stepped a meter out into the highway to get a better view of any incoming traffic heading our way.
Then someone from a white van, perhaps a part of the advance party, was calling out that Leni was just behind in a black van. In form, his words were like the information relayed over the public address system of an airport when a flight arrives, but to us her supporters, were in essence a harbinger of hope that we had been waiting for all these years.
And from meters away, we could see blinking lights and a parade of black and white vans that was slowly moving towards us.
"She's here! Leni is here!", we cheered!
Meter by meter, the motorcade came closer towards our spot. Although moments like these felt surreal, we realized this was it! Leni and our group were in the same time and space breathing the same fresh Negrense air.
And right at the door of a moving black van, Leni in a pink mask, fuchsia blouse and black pants was half-standing with her left hand on a car handle while her right was stretched out to shake a Negrense hand. As she passed us she said, "Salamat!".
After her motorcade, Kiko's was following close by. He sat by an open door of a white van expressing "Thank you! Thank you!" to everyone standing on the road.
After Leni and Kiko's motorcade passed, we all felt more awake even without coffee, an awakening that not even caffeine could induce. It's the awakening of the spirit that would push us to rise and fight for what we deserved as Filipinos.
Leni's voice saying "Salamat!" still echoes in my ears until now. I heard it not from a video or television; I heard it from her an arm away as that word floated through the fresh morning air, now full of hope.
No, Leni. Kami ang dapat magpasalamat sa 'yo. Sa iyong sakripisyo para sa aming lahat. Sa iyong ginagawa at kaya pang gawin para sa ating bayan. Hayaan mo, kasama mo kaming lahat sa laban na ito, at hindi lang sa sampung kilometro. Kasi kung sama-sama tayo, mas malayo pa ang ating mararating.
Salamat, Leni. 🙏
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