Bangon Bayan Ko

There was an article from (a leading national newspaper) Inquirer that was posted in our wall a few weeks back.  Unfortunately, due to some unavoidable circumstances, your blogger wasn't able to at least introduce it to all of you.  With that much said, here it is:

"THERE IS no doubt that Camarines Norte province is poor. Why this is so is a sore point to local officials who lament that the province—the other half of the affluent Camarines Sur—has been cut off from its wealthy neighbors, literally placing it so near yet so far to progress. "

To read the rest of the article, please click here.

How many of us remember that once, Bagong Silang was a haven for travelers and business people alike?  It's where after a three hour bumpy ride from Capalonga we could finally stretch our cramped legs (given none of the bridges were broken or our ride didn't get stuck in a sticky mud, that way we would have had a minute to a few hours of stretch) and prepare for more hours to continue our journey to our final destination.  I do.  I will never forget that while I have thrown most of the contents of my stomach (my apologies to those having their meal right this moment) and was already hallucinating from carsick, an old lady or a really persistent kid will shout and bang my window just to say, "Ale...maruya...ilan?"

Back then, I was just a child, I have never thought that my paradise--your paradise, our Capalonga was even affected by poverty, I mean, who cares about poverty when all that you think was playing games with your friends?  But now, not only did I grew up and became old (and older and older), I see things I weren't able to notice before...and that includes the almost isolation of our town to the rest of Camarines Norte...to the rest of the world.

We're lucky that we have technology now.  We have cellphones and internet, well in most areas of Capalonga at least; and if one of us will just step back to our town, we can notice that a lot of things have changed...houses, schools, roads most especially...almost like the whole facade had changed from under-developed-always-brown-out and pain-in-the-butt-road (pun intended) town to a fresh, thriving and promising town.

So what if the flow of business were cut short because Bagong Silang--which incidentally stretches to Capalonga, was bypassed by the development of a new road, it doesn't mean and it shouldn't mean that our lives, our hopes and dreams should just sit stale and wait for opportunities to come. 

The article above describes how our town was one of the struggling parts of Camarines Norte province and the fact that we have a lot of resources in our hands, we just have to have a good government and cooperative townspeople. 

I agree.  What about you?

Gusto mo bang manatili sa dilim o sumama sa pagsulong tungo sa kaunlaran?

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Our very own Mr. Richard Talento had some contributions to this article.