Eureka!

Cagayan de Oro City has pastel what is to Iligan City’s Cheding peanuts, Cebu City’sotap, Iloilo City’s pinasugbo, Negros Occidental’s piyaya, and Baguio City’s strawberry jam.

Pastel has become one favorite pasalubong delicacy the city offers.  It is now a by-word among visitors in Cagayan de Oro City.  In the city’s airport departure area, one could see leaving passengers lugging boxes of pastel for families and friends.  The same sight is true in ports and in bus terminals.

“Do what you love… the money will follow.”  This is the title of the book I recently bought.  The title reminds me of one lady, who, because of her hobby is now into a successful handmade papermaking business.

Lolita Cabanlet or “Luchi” to her friends epitomizes that book title.  She pursues what she loves and enjoys doing.  The passion unfolded into the Cagayan de OroHandmade Paper Crafts in 1993.

More than 10 years ago, Luchi and her husband-lawyer Virgilio went on a pleasure trip around Southeast Asia.  During those visits, she found herself to have keen interest on handmade paper products from Japan , Thailand , and India .  She noted thatJapan uses a shrub’s barks, Thailand uses mulberry wastes, while India uses cotton to create handmade paper.   Luchi noted that the   handmade papers from these countries are soft compared to the Philippines ’, which is stiff due to its strength drawn from the abaca fibers and cogon grass. Most of her foreign buyers prefer such qualities.  

“And now for the weather report:  Metro Manila will have heavy rains, Metro Cebu will have scattered rainshowers, while Cagayan de Oro City will have scattered rainshowers and thunderstorms due to inter-tropical convergence zone…”

Inter-tropical convergence zone…we often hear of this term in weather reports.  What is inter-tropical convergence zone?  What is the layman’s language for it?  People from PAGASA-DOST, for sure, very well know what the term means, but we, the ordinary people and the primary target of the weather report or information, should also know.

The past three years saw the overwhelming natural calamities that we never imagined would happen.   The wild fires that   swept California, USA some part of Australia caused lives and destroyed properties.  The flooding in China claimed many lives and properties. 

If we saw that in other countries, we also have our own share of those calamities.  Who would ever forget the damages caused by typhoon Ondoy that left many Filipino families in Metro Manila homeless?   

At the local level, Cagayan de Oro City and Misamis Oriental and the neighboring cities and provinces were not spared.  The heavy flooding in the first quarter of 2009 was something Cagayanons  and Misamisnons never expected.  It was the first time that the city experienced a heavy flooding like that.