First person account: How the town's first-ever coffee-table book came to be

How the town's first-ever coffee-table book came to be

by Resty S. Odon

Sometime in 2019, when I was in the thick of other things, Dr. Clarita DG. Jimenez, former College Dean of Pangasinan State University-Bayambang Campus, approached me in my office requesting help with the book she had been writing. It was about the history of the local parish church in Bayambang, the St. Vincent Ferrer Parish Church.

This is the kind of project I am very willing to give pro bono service to, except that I was too occupied with local government work, on top of which is the intense coverage of the upcoming 2019 fiesta celebrations and the fast approaching State of the Municipality Address. I am not sure what oracion Ma'am Clarita recited, but I just found myself saying a series of yes to what would turn out to be a series of visits that extended to more back-and-forths through calls and private messages and even a spur-of-the-moment house visit when she realized the mental health issue I was going through.

No matter how difficult the work was, I kept at it, encouraged by the knowledge that we were working on the town's first-ever coffee-table book, not stopping one bit until the book was finished because we were rushing it in time for the church's (not the town's) quadricentennial celebration.

I know Ma'am Clarita had been writing this book in bits and pieces through the years, because I had read a part of it in some old fiesta souvenir publication. There were some parts, however, that she could not write herself, for which she asked other writers to fill in the gaps. From her own recollections and from the draft itself, the contributors included Dr. Annie Manalang, Ofelia Villodres, her granddaughter Marie Francine Jimenez, an equally busy Rafael Saygo, for whom our young colleague, Patricia Espino, had to fill in, and the rest of the missing bits were left to me. 

I also helped with the editing of the draft, but out of deference to her rank and ability, I hardly touched the copy and always left the final decision to her with whatever little changes I made. In the final analysis, she had the last say on everything. It was definitely her book, and yet I found my name sharing the same authorship position -- such is her generosity of heart as an author.

At the time, I was not fully aware that the funding for the publication was a major issue until publication time, although I understand that there were some donors prior to it.

Now when we approached  Mayor Cezar T. Quiambao at his office for assistance, the first thing he asked was for us to canvass for at least three publishers, and so we did, with the help of Jojo Malicdem. When a publisher was finally chosen, we again made a personal visit to the Mayor's Office carrying the winning quotation, fervently praying that he would approve the project and give his signature as go signal.

What he wrote on the paper that served as purchase order -- for P1-million -- in his private capacity was, "Reimburse," meaning we had to sell the book at P2,000 per copy to break even and be able to return the fund. And this is how the book came to be published. No prior board or committee meetings, no long-term planning, nothing.

And as it was essentially a rush job, we were regretful that we couldn't get our hands on the best possible photos there were, so we had to make do with what was available from various local sources.

All along, Ma'am Clarita had been nursing a knee issue and had to use a cane to walk, while I was my usual miserable self suffering now and then from anxiety and panic attacks. One time, I was supposed to attend a seminar-training on Incident Command System in faraway Baguio City, but I had to change plans and vacate the bus, totally embarrassed, after going through a bad case of panic attack inside, with my blood pressure shooting up to an alarming level, judging from the face of the MDRRMO staff called "Bongga" (Jun Castañeda).

The book came into being at a high price and yet at no cost to us at the same time, financially speaking. Thus I just have to agree that, like Ma'am Clarita's own estimation, this book is a miracle, yet another unbelievable trick up St. Vincent Ferrer's sleeve or is that angel wings.