Shooting Churches, Eating Noodles (Year XIX)

56 is a plea heard and a covenant with the Great Architect of the Universe.

56 is the angel who encouraged adaption to changes, staying positive, and heeding spiritual signs and guidance.

56 is a Korean-inspired sinadag in Angeles City, a breakfast of kiniing done 2-ways (dinakdakan and pinikpikan) along the dacquel nga carayan in Almaguer, and a watwat lunch of boiled and grilled pork in the mountains of Itogon.

56 is the number of pinuneg slices served with both birthday meals.  

56 is when sleep descends before 9 PM in Bakal 2 and leaves between 1-2 AM long after the din of a garage modification has faded, and escapes early still despite trapping it with beer-infused litson manok and fried luncheon meat.  

56 is a chimaek combo for starters, a full gogigui for the entree, and a dessert of Aling Lucing's sisig and buro just after the gateposts of Fort Stotsenburg.

56 is passing through Balete Pass to pay homage to Almaguer where it all began, to curtsy at the church in Bambang where maidens danced with the Sto. Nino to summon the memories of old Hogwarts --- the gateway to Barat and Salinas that was breached for the first time.  

56 is an abrupt trip to Kayapa to partially scratch an itch, a pit stop in Ambuklao Dam in remembrance of a social studies teacher who a long time ago spoke about a traditional watwat in Itogon, and passing through Baguio where the Phantom Biker who is sleepless in Bakal 2 was conceived in 1969.

On the day before the Baptism of the Lord, an all-Bakal 2 squad of the MFAA Section was inserted where the Balaong River broke through a boulder.    

They are not soldiers but neigbors, curious why a bolo got stuck in a Tagalog historical marker instead of the nearby Spanish stone anvil where Carlos "Botong" Francisco probably forged a mural depicting the establishment of the Republic of Bak-na-Bato in 1897.  

Aguinaldo had Bonifacio killed and would lose the 1935 presidential election to Quezon who declared Biak-na-Bato as a national park in 1937.

Quezon City and Bonifacio Global City are hosts to St. Luke's, no relation to Aguinaldo but the nodes that delivered a monumental relief so welcome it made impact story gathering, branding, and a policy toolkit handover look, smell, and taste like crunchy boneless chicken feet.

The Phantom Biker crashed while submitting the first claim for 2026 but his happiness is such that he qualified for a picnic of broiled pork ribs and steamed tilapia in Maligaya.

Humanity is the Middle Kingdom, a thin place caught between the collision of the Divine (heaven) and the Material (earth).

Such is Binuangan where at 850 meters above sea level, the celestial waters break through the firmanent, copulate with the terrastrial ecosystem, and ejaculate an overcast layer of stratocumulus clouds over the Caraballo Mountains. 

There was Muta (774 above sea level) and Antutot (706 above sea level) in Kasibu, erstwhile lair of communist insurgents, a pensieve that kept the memory of a young boy crossing a stream with his father to a sawmill, to a carinderia that is also a pondahan, once upon a time in Bambang before the emergence of the Edralin Falls. 

SNR-Cabanatuan is the Mother House, the crowd that squeezed out a merlot and a camembert from Mariwasa ceramic tiles to incubate prosperity with 12 round fruits, 100 pieces of newly minted 20-peso coins, a red salted egg, and two versions of patatim.  

No, the baked pork ribs and chicken for 2026 were not reheated like the lumpiang shanghai and crispy pata of 2025: it represented the Phantom Biker riding away from the old year to greet the new one but without the usual fireworks.  

After the clouds have cleared, blood was drawn to rinse the inbox of a nuclear imaging test that revealed the severed heads of soured mahi-mahi and red snapper from Goshen, a place where the Israelites lived in Bamban that is indeed "little" but does not resemble Rome at all.

This was the keynote address delivered at the 19th installation rites of the Craft where beer and wine tasted like the delayed serving of lechon baka.