Delayed Flights

(Mr. Eli Cinco wrote about Calbayog in his column for yesterday's edition of the Manila Bulletin. Please Chech this link. I have also featured the whole article in today's blog update)

CALBAYOG CITY – This metropolis of almost 200,000 inhabitants is sort of a blessed place. It faces the calm Samar Sea to the west which is abundant in marine life, and to the east are low-lying hills and fruitful fields fertile to every variety of rice, coconut, and vegetables.

(I’m here on my semi-annual visit to the place of my birth.)

"Who cares about shortage of NFA rice, we don’t eat it anyway," says Ricardo Sagrado, gentle and healthy-looking peddler of variety of plastic toys, hawking his wares round the periphery of tree-adorned Nijaga Park. Popular Manila fast-food chain outlets are just across the park.

Calbayog is the birth place of many exceptionally talented people who have achieved national prominence in virtually all fields of professions and vocations, earning it a catchphrase, the Talent Bank City. I will mention some of them in subsequent columns. The late playwright Wilfredo Ma. Guerrero who taught English and drama during summer classes at the revered Colegio de San Vicente de Paul in the mid-1950s, complimented: "Calbayognons are such gifted people. They are so talented."

Back to present-day realities: The most persistent complaints are those coming from traders, employees, and visitors who take round-trip flights on board the recently opened PAL Express and the mainstay Asian Spirit. Passengers are aghast over the airlines’ abrupt cancellation of flights, as well as delayed flights.

"We’ve lost business opportunities, mainly because of those irritants which the airline companies seem to take lightly," says Gertie Capistrano who owns a manning firm in Manila.

I sympathize with those businessmen. I myself was a victim of those erratic scheduling of PAL Express. My flight coming here last September 4 was supposed to take off from the new NAIA Terminal-3 at 5:50 a.m.

Following their expressed instructions where domestic passengers are to check-in 2 ½ hours before scheduled departure, I did so even earlier – at 3:15 a.m. But the problem was there was nobody from PAL Express to appreciate my punctuality. All counters were devoid of personnel, compared to those of Cebu Pacific across which were a beehive of activities.

Then at exctly 4:15 a.m., three still-sleepy check-in counter clerks, one was a cashier, took their places. They were 55 minutes late.

My boarding pass said my departure gate was No. 131, another foul-up. Calbayog- bound passengers, said a voice from the PA system, were to wait at Gate No. 132. Okay at this point. Then a girl at a movable counter who also came in late said our plane would be delayed for 30 minutes because "they are still servicing the plane." Servicing? Not a few yawning passengers asked.

Finally, we were bussed to a nearby apron where other PAL Express planes were parked awaiting irrate passengers. Our flight No. PR 91 took off at 7:08 a.m., a delay of one hour and 18 minutes.

Arriving in Calbayog Sabang Airport at 8:20 a.m., I missed a jeepney to the town of Gandara which I would have taken, but it left earlier, to visit an aging maternal uncle.

The irony of it all was, that delayed flight on September 4 to Calbayog had PAL VIPs on board.
Plane Always Late? Back to the old sarcastic derision of the PAL acronym? There’s a newer interpretation – "Pirme Atrasado an Lupad." One does not have to be a Waray to understand what this means.