Last week, this writer and three close friends traveled to the Central Luzon provinces of Nueva Ecija and Nueva Vizcaya.
The trip was originally planned to procure fruit tree seedlings at MHS Farm at San Antonio, Cabanatuan City in Nueva Ecija but, on my suggestion, extended to Solano, Nueva Vizacaya to finally visit an illustrious product of Catanduanes Colleges’ Class ’55.
We left Manila on board a rented commuter van at about 1 PM Tuesday and, except for coffee at a McDonald’s branch along the highway and dinner at Mang Inasal near our destination, the entire trip took about six-and-a-half hours.
By the time we arrived at Solano, Nueva Vizcaya’s financial and commercial center, at 8:30 PM, my father’s best friend and high school classmate, Hermil Olfindo of Consumers Appliance Traders, was already waiting at the old family compound along with his son John.
They brought us to a subdivision where we were allowed to stay at a two-storey, modern residential building split in the middle for two of Olfindo’s sons, with another smaller house at the back of the more or less 1,000 square meter lot with a wide expanse of grassy lawn.
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The following day, during breakfast at the compound where their original family residence is located, we were warmly received by Tia Elenita “Baby” Olfindo, who did not mince words in describing the policy of the national government towards local rice production.
Local rice in Nueva Vizcaya is sold at P40 per kilo and that is already good stuff, she said.
So she wonders why, for the past decades, the government continues to import rice but fails to support local rice farmers.
She said that providing free fertilizer and seedlings to Filipino farmers is not enough. What it should do, she insists, is to pay local farmers for their palay at a level that would encourage them to plant more.
What is happening now, said the disheartened matriarch, is that the buying price of palay is so low that farmers as well as their children are not encouraged to continue planting rice.
This is a cycle that would only end in the national rice production plunging to levels that are not sustainable in the long run.
If the local farmers are allowed to recover the cost of planting rice plus a reasonable profit, it is not only their families that benefit but also the local economy as the revenue circulates within the community and the country, not to other foreign countries, Olfindo stressed.
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John Olfindo, who manages the 15 Yokohama automotive supply branches from the province up to Aparri, Cagayan, accompanied us to the DPWH 2nd District Engineering Office where the lady boss is a native of Camarines Sur.
DE Florida Nuñez has been at the post at Dupax del Sur for the past six months after she was plucked from the Maintenance Division of the DPWH’s Negros Island Region office by Sec. Vince Dizon.
For snacks, we were served “otap” that she brought from Cebu as “pasalubong” and generous servings of “pancit cabagan,” enough that we no longer had to eat lunch.
Just a short drive from the DEO is the St. Vincent Ferrer church built in 1787 as well as a bridge that dates to the Spanish times.
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Unlike Catanduanes which has been in drought condition for the past four months, the two Nueva provinces do not lack for rain, such that there are areas where residents enjoy free clear, potable water through pipes connected to free-flowing springs up in the nearby mountains.
One guy, a friend of John, built an infinity pool with a view deck below in a small lot up in a mountain overlooking the province’s capital, Bayombong, Bambang and Solano. And the pool was overflowing with water.
Along the highway in one part of Nueva Ecija are carenderias where truck drivers stop not only for the food but to wash their vehicles using water pouring into plastic drums from hoses presumably connected to springs in the mountain above.
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Although he is a native of Viga, Tio Hermil spent 12 years of his youth in Virac, becoming valedictorian of his elementary and high school class at CC.
After resigning as salesman of a company, he parlayed an investment of P700 into what is now the Consumers Appliance Traders chain of stores in Virac, Legazpi City, Manila and the eastern side of Northern Luzon from Nueva Vizcaya to Cagayan.
The appliance retail and automotive supply operations now employ a total of 150 or so workers.
Now 90 years old, the still active founder of two big business concerns is not planning of retiring for now.
A good part of the day-to-day decisions are now being made by John and other children now involved in running the business.
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WHAT THE DOCTOR NEEDS. An old man goes to the doctor for his yearly physical examination, his wife tagging along.
When the doctor enters the examination room, he tells the old man, “I need a urine sample, a stool sample and a sperm sample.”
The old man, being hard of hearing, looks at his wife and yells, “What did he say? What’s he want?”
His wife yells back, “He needs your underwear.”