Reliving Childhood Memories SCALING THE MOUNT OF THE CROSS FIFTY YEARS AFTER MY FIRST CLIMB

By Manny Pinol

On Good Friday, memories of my youth came rushing back to my mind as I stood atop the Mount of the Cross almost 50 years after I first climbed it as a 10 year-old grade school student.

I and my younger brother, former Magpet Mayor and now Vice Mayor Efren, scaled the mount again, he for the third time and I for the only the second time.

I was also with Efren when I first climbed the mount which in our youth looked like a very tall mountain.

We were with a few other grade schoolers and our teachers, among them the late Bonifacio Melchor.

Unlike last Friday, when we rode in our vehicles up to at least half the height of the mountain and only walked about a 300 meters to the peak, our first climb 50 years ago started at the very foot of the mount and we had to find our way through tall grasses.

The Liguasan Marsh, reputedly the widest marshland in the Philippines, looked wider on our first climb. Last Friday, I saw only what appeared to be a small speck of crystal looking at Liguasan Marsh from the peak of the mountain.

From the top of the mountain, we went down through the other side and ended up in Barangay New Esperanza, a neighbor barangay of our village, Nueva Vida.

It was just a quiet promontory in the town of M’lang until some religious leaders decided to erect a huge wooden cross atop the mount and through the years, the place has been a favorite place for Holy Week trekkers.

A lightning reportedly struck the cross and broke it in half. What the religious leaders did was to salvage the other half and made a small cross which now stands beside the bigger cross.

Last week, about 10,000 people were estimated to have climbed the Mount of the Cross, that in spite of the fact that except for a bare roofed structure, there is nothing much to see at the top except the exhilarating view of the wide valley below.

On Friday, I brought my young child, Imman, along with me for the climb and had a wonderful time with him and his cousins EJ, Chubby, Janjan and Jepoy.

For me and vice mayor Efren, it was a time to reminisce the days of our youth, the years of want, the dark nights, the dreams and the people who helped us walk through the difficult years in our lives and brought us where we are now.

I am sure I will scale the Mount of the Cross again, if only to relive the memories of my youth.