Location check update: At 7 p.m. Aug 15, we arrived at San Ricardo Port in Southern Leyte, exactly 25 hours after leaving Manila.
It’s going to be a one-hour cruise by a Fast Ctaft to Lipata, Surigao del Norte and I will be back in Mindanao.
We are quite fast. Before dawn tomorrow, Aug. 16, we will be in Davao City.
Along the way, I met people who immediately recognized me and who expressed surprise that a ranking national government official would be travelling with them in the same ferry boat.
Surprisingly, those who recognized me knew that I was moving to Mindanao to assume a new task from President Rody Duterte.
They said they saw the news on TV and heard it on radio.
That shows the power of television and radio in spreading information to the countryside.
A mother of two kids who had a hard time coming down the steel stairs of the ferry boat profusely thanked me when I carried down his son who was just as old as my grandson, Duane.
I don’t believe she knew who it was who carried her young son. To her, I was just another helpful stranger.
In a gasoline station in Northern Samar, the gasoline attendant had the surprise of his life when I got off from the driver’s seat and asked him to fill up the SUV I was driving.
In Catbalogan City, a brother of a friend, Raul Reyes, met up with us to deliver a gift – two bags of dried fish.
This is the beauty of taking this long trip. You feel the pulse of the common people and hear their voices.
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