Bayambang: A Town of Miracles
A new page on FB asks, "Bakit ka proud maging Bayambangueño?" (Why are you proud to be Bayambangueño?)
The innocuous-sounding question made me stop for a moment. "Will I approach the query historically, anthropologically/culturally, sociologically, politically, or generally, as in in terms of current events?"
I've been volunteering nonstop for the town's continuous culture mapping project ever since when, and this means I have handled the first three aspects ad nauseam.
Part of my creative process is praying to the Holy Spirit for knowledge, wisdom, and understanding because I know I am not as smart and quick-witted as I would like to be. Ang next is sleeping, so I prayerfully slept over the question, so my brain could sort things out while on detox mode. "Maybe I should answer the question differently this time?"
Again, why should I be proud? Should I be, in the first place?
I didn't even have to go on a silent retreat to search my heart for the answer. Before, the answer would have been a steely and resounding no, for so many reasons. But today, it would be a big fat yes!
I am proud because, if only people had seen what came before, they could easily tell the difference. The word 'leapfrog' comes to mind, when you consider how this town has changed at an unbelievable pace in an unprecedented way. But the word 'miracle,' often associated with religious apparitions and stuff, is even better.
I am not kidding. I only use hyperbole for comic purposes, not when I am serious.
I can never forget when I came back here from Manila in August of 2016. I was hired by renowed businessman and anthropologist Cezar T. Quiambao as his PIO. I didn't know him from Adam, but I had heard only good words about him.
The first things I noticed is this: When Mayor Quiambao discovered the amount of the 20% Development Fund earmarked for barangay infrastructure projects, he was so surprised there was even such amount of financial resource. The first thing he did was to order the construction and renovation of core local access roads, farm-to-market roads, covered courts, barangay halls, police precincts, talipapas, stages, and even waiting sheds. A 911-like emergency respose system. A fleet of never-before-seen responder vehicles including aluminum boats. ...Not to mention, on the side, the construction and renovation of chapels and private homes using his personal funds. No one can contest these claims--I was his reporter, and every single one of them was documented and reported on social media and other platforms.
For the first time, residents saw and felt their local government en masse instead of in bits and pieces and here and there--an in an apolitical way too. I have no idea how the municipal engineer at the time managed to survive everything.
Why would a successful Bayambangueño businessman from Indonesia responsible for BOT projects as the Skyway do this? He's not even a politician. What's in it for him? Detractors insist it's all about business, a predatory desire to turn the town into his own business hub for personal gain. This claim has struck me as odd from the get-go. He was already rich long before that, he doesn't need the additional wealth. As far as Maslow (1934) is concerned, he was already on payback mode of self-actualization. Much later, this would be confirmed when I heard him say during a forum, "Hindi naman lahat nabibili ng pera."
But wait, wait, wait. What's wrong with business? With being entrepreneurial? Is it innately evil? Ah could it be that what they were saying is that it is wrong to be a politician and a businessman at the same time. But then there are rules and requirements to abide by when it comes to that.
The perfervid infrastructure development in what was once dirt road country was just the start. Up next were other big projects that would be of great benefit to the pullulating hoi polloi: an air-conditioned events center that doubled as basketball court with tarraflex rubber flooring, a tricycle terminal cum bagaskan, a proper bus terminal, a major renovation of the public market. To tag him as elitist at this point is most puzzling. Quiambao may be rich, but he wasn't born with a silver spoon. He started out small as office runner and even worked on the side as a jeepney driver, for Pete's sake, and his parents were of equally humble station all along: they were public market proprietors.
Not content with infra and with his wife Niña Jose's (yes, the artista) full support, Quimbao sought to change the LGU from within by making institutional adjustments and changes.
Focusing especially on education, he surprised everyone by donating his annual salary to the Special Education Fund, the fund used for all sorts of educational need and services.
He reconstituted the BAC and set business-level standards and transparency and self-auditing mechanisms using the full benefits of ICT. He created new necessary departments and units, and reconvened and reconstituted dozens of special bodies for participatory governance. He updated the CLUP with the help of world-renowed urban planner Palafox Associates--who would have thought?
Then he launched an ambitious (because multi-dimensional) anti-poverty plan of action and actually acted on it, unprecedented not just in the annals of the town but also in the country. And yet, what would some say about all this? Among other things, that he was a landgrabber! By this time, the accusation was head-shakingly laughable even though it sure hurt, both personally and politically.
Imagine aspiring great, because real, change for your town, and be cut down to being an opportunist pest out to grab other people's real property. How inspiring, right? And yet, even though much aggravated, even perturbed, he bore the cross and thorn of Christ (the original innocent one accused) and trudged on in his fight against poverty even with a heavy heart.
Soon, Quiambao found that local government resources are much limited. He had to resort to personal resources to make things happen beyond humble LGU means. In terms of tourism, Bayambang had almost nothing. He had to contrive or devise something together with wife Niña and tourism officer, Rafael Saygo. It is to Niña's credit that the tallest supported bamboo sculpture in the world was built at record speed in honor of St. Vincnt Ferrer, the patron saint of builders and himself a renowned miracle worker. The area is now a pilgrim magnet and to quote Saygo, "breakfast capital" for vacationers traveling this side of Luzon. At the time, I was, in fact, incredulous, laughing, shaking my head.
Soon, he would have other previously unthinkable big-ticket projects rising before our eyes. An additional events place (Pavilions I & II at St. Vincent Ferrer Prayer Park), post-harvest complex by AILC. A tertiary hospital named in honor of a beloved departed son, the Julius K. Quiambao Medical and Wellness Center. A proper theme park, the Blue Sky. A new business hub and town center, BYB Metro. And because education is key to stamping out poverty, a new college for underprivileged students, Bayambang Polytechnic College (BPC). I couldn't believe what was happening in my little town. For instance, where would you be able to find anyone willing to shell out P18,000,000 annually to cover the tuition fees of around 1,000 students of BPC?
Dr. Quiambao was noticeably into so many other 'firsts' big and small. He had this habit of pioneering a lot of things just to test new ideas, and he did it: traffic lights, Broadway-level theater production, official anthem, tourism jingle, official social dance, a farmers' app called E-Agro that helps deliver an assortment of farming assistance at one's fingertips...
Still, he was not yet happy with all of these. His dream is to see the town, even the country, reach the level of Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan... To realize a full-blown business zone employing thousands. ...Full-on industrialization that is mindful of the environment. I wonder whether this desire strikes other people negatively as well. Because there are those who claim that his desire for socioeconomic progress is displacing the poor from their own land. Where is the evidence to this claim, which strikes me as odd because CTQ is foremost a philathropist long before he was a politician. He is known to secretly extend an assortment of help to his friends and the needy, including hospitalization, including non-constituents and most especially to kabaleyans who might not even have voted for him (oh, the irony).
In 2020, he decided not to finish his term, but instead fielded his wife, another non-politician, into the messy world of politics and public service. Of course, tongues kept on wagging, this time about his wife, the unlikely town chief.
Perhaps people were expecting something like those they have grown to love before. This one proved shockingly unorthodox to their taste. They were too unprepared for a stunningly beautiful, statuesque, and glamorous mestiza with her own ways. Kind but not naive; in fact-straight-talking if needed. They often judge her as bratty and fussy--they expected someone matronly and perhaps peasant-like. I mean, what are the odds of her being mayor? Ha-ha! It's already a miracle that someone like Dr. Quiambao would rise as a politician when it didn't even cross his mind. How much more someone like Niña Jose from the showbiz world, who of course would go on to make history as the first female local chief executive? What a ridiculous turn of events in Bayambang's history. But yes, it actually happened. We all saw it with our own eyes.
And these two miracle workers have just begun.
And yet others have the gall to think they are power-hungry. Frankly, I don't understand a lot of my own people anymore.
I don't understand all that creatively varied accusations and non-stop animosity being thrown at the town's first couple. I am proud of many other things about my town, but in my book, what I am proud the most today as a Bayambangueño is this: the continuous work output of these two instruments of God's love and mercy for His people, everything they have been doing for the sometimes undeserving and ungrateful people of Bayambang.
