Palo Municipal Hall (Before and After)

An After look at the newly restored Palo munisipyo. As opposed to the photo below the day Yolanda (Haiyan) hit the Visayas. The photo below was right after the winds calmed down a bit and people started moving around with dazed looks.

Bridge under construction

The bridge connecting Guindapunan and Palo town proper is under construction. Once it is finished sometime in a very vague future, it will have four lanes. Big improvement from its humble beginnings as a bamboo bridge. Maybe even a rope bridge?

Meantime motorists and commuters take the diversion road at Salvacion leading to McArthur Park and the government center. Longer trip along with the big 10-wheeler trucks. Today I decided to take a look at the speed of the construction. I have to report that after almost 2 months they have finally been able to demolish the railing on one side.

The Cathedral's history on stone

I got this picture from the book Palo: Twice Capital of Leyte edited by Vicente I. de Veyra in 1971. The marker tells the historical restorations that the Cathedral underwent through the years. I'm not sure where this marker is now. I only have a vague memory of its location. I'll check when I can. (Obviously I am not a Sunday church person!)

Palo Cathedral (after Haiyan)

This is the new Palo Cathedral rebuilt after supertyphoon Yolanda (Haiyan). I've not been inside since but I've gone around the park where the mass grave for some of the Palo Yolanda victims are buried. Photo of that in future posts.

I was about to archive this blog but saw visitors still stumbling here probably through searches. I stopped posting here officially when Tacloban became a charter city.  But I still posted from time to time. So that's what I'm going to do now. Post a photo when I get one, but not anymore daily and as usual, not necessarily of Tacloban. Im keeping the name though even if a lot has changed since then. Including the ability to post directly from my phone!

Grilled bangus (milkfish)

65th Leyte Landing Anniversary

65 years ago, Gen. MacArthur landed in Leyte as he promised and drove away the Japanese troops. A battle ensued until the official surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945. Every year the Leyte Landing is commemmorated by officials with many Filipino, Japanese, American and Australian war veterans attending. It's one of the big events in Leyte's cultural activities. It always make me wonder why we love to celebrate wars. We have war festivals and war museums. The peace treaty signed between the US and the Japanese aboard the USS Missouri that ended World War II is not even remembered.

But anyway, this year, the Leyte Landing will be celebrated again at the scorchingly hot McArthur Park in Palo, with the President of the Philippines attending. But it will also be celebrated at the new a/c Robinson's Mall, so I wasn't surprised to see a replica of the McArthur monument at their entrance. It was nicely made too, better sculpture even than the original bronze at the park. When I touched it, I was surprised that it was sculpted from styrofoam. It is amazing, don't you think? I didn't get the name of the artist who did this tho.

Champorado and dried fish for snacks

We eat this for breakfast or snacks. Some people prefer to combine the champorado (chocolate porridge) with some other salty accompaniment.

I showed this photo to a French Canadian friend, and for all their exotic and yucky Frenchy delicacies (frogs' legs, snails, etc), she went yech!! with this one. She said, she can eat the chocolate porridge but with more cream and butter, and she can probably eat the dried fish, but the combination of the sweet porridge and the salty dried fish was totally alien and disgusting to her. Hahaha, ok. What do you think?

Small pineapple: anti-theme day

Expensive homes

On this site will rise..

Just a 5 minute drive to the beach and to the mall, away from busy downtown, a neighbor of the police camp, and behind that mountain is an endless virgin mountain range. (I'm not a real estate agent so don't ask me anything about the prices.)

Manananggot

This guy climbs all the coconut trees (no harness) to collect the juice from the premature fruit stalk which he then makes into a tuba (local coconut wine).

(Word mananaggot comes from the rootword 'sanggot', a curved knife used to etch a young fruit stalk. Manananggot is the tuba gatherer and maker and sanggot is the tool of the trade.)

Manong Sorbetero

Sorbetes of course, is 'ice cream'. Kids love this. I had 3 scoops of peanut flavor.

Pabitin

It's a children's game at parties where the kids grab the toys they like. The frame (usually made of bamboo) is lowered up and down with a rope and the kids try to jump to grab the toys they want. A kid usually cries afterwards. Must be fun for the adults.

Fan lady

At a tabo (marketday)

Buying dried, salted fish and squids (pusit). Good for the heart ;D

Easter bunny

I knew easter eggs hatch into easter bunnies! Happy Easter everyone!

(This funny rabbit is named Fluffy, owned by my 8-yr old niece. Photo taken by my sister.)

This Jesus revealed

I was following these men (penitents, notice their blue costume slung around their shoulders) unceremoniously carrying the Jesus (Santo Intierro) that devotees reverently kissed and prayed to at the Cathedral during the vigil. They were returning the borrowed statue to the family that owned it. Performance over.

Lent moments

Penitents (tais-dupol).

The penitents' costumes were fashioned after the ones in Seville, Spain. Which incidentally, the KKK also fashioned their costume from. The penitents and the KKK both hide their faces from the public: the penitents so they can pray and sacrifice in anonymity (they walk around barefooted on the hot concrete collecting money for the Church), and the KKKs for their own obvious reasons.

Penitents guarding the 'Calvary Hill'.

Shepherd boys

Fall of Jesus.

The crucifixion

Btw, the 'Jesus' nailed on the cross is not a real person. We don't do that here in the Visayas. A Jesus statue is switched at the last minute under the structure.

Sweets vendor

Dried fish vendor/s

Millennium Tower

The 3-story Millennium Tower at Palo. Could never figure this one out.. from the name (tower) to its function (too low to be a tower). This was built with people's donations to the Catholic Church.