Heavenly Trip To Brunei
By Tony Alabastro

Director Reyster Langit (R) listens to the description of the Billion Barrel Monument in Seria as told by contractor Precious R. Benemerito (C) as Julius Amar shoots with his camera

Low profile businesswoman Pinkee T. Sangalang (L) at the 'Philippine House' shop along Jalan Sungai in Kuala Belait

Dimsum for breakfast at the ageless Lucky Restaurant, which has been at Seri Complex when it was Brunei's number one shopping complex twenty years ago, before the declaration of independence. "It looks like Divisoria, (Manila's number one bargain centre)," said the visitors. Brunei hosts Rene Balunto, driving a 3 Series BMW, Ann of SD Café, teachers Lolita Bolivar and Paula Osorio , and Precious M. Benemerito driving a Japanese car, took the visitors around the sultanate, from Kampong Ayer to Muara to Seria and Kuala Belait, in one day

Reporter Myrna Bautista interviews ice cream man Maurice Milo at Serasa Beach in Muara

Heavenly Trip ( Biyaheng Langit) is the offspring of To Saudi With Love, a Philippine radio programme that has been linking for 14 years Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) in the Middle East with their loved ones in the Philippines. It's hosted by Pareng Rey Langit, a respected radio and television broadcaster, whose name means lord of heaven. Pare means buddy in the Filipino language. Through free telephone calls from a Manila radio station, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters call up their relatives in Saudi Arabia to say hello? When are you coming home? Please send more money for boy, baby and junior.

"Heavenly Trip is the reverse of To Saudi With Love, because this television programme goes out of the country and into the foreign jobsites to see the working conditions of Filipino workers.

"At the same time it tells viewers back home about the host country's history, culture and tourist spots," said Director Reyster Langit, the year-old tele-magazine's co-host, and Rey Langit's son. "It was my wife Kit's idea."

" If Hongkong is identified with Bruce Lee, and the US with Hollywood, I thought Brunei was in the Middle East, from the pictures I saw.

"So it looks like Subic, with its trees, now that I am here," said Reyster. Subic is the former site of the biggest US Naval Base in Luzon island, Philippines.

"Our programme's format is people and places, and how overseas Filipino workers live and work in the host countries.

"How do they call Filipinos in Brunei? In Hongkong, they are called Noy-Pi, in San Francisco, they're the 'Rice Eaters'. In New York, a taxi driver said he "knew Erap (disgraced Philippine President Joseph Estrada) because he's an actor," Reyster said.

Philippine Embassy Cultural and Information Officer Atty. Carmen Sta. Maria-Lirio coordinated the trip to promote Visit Brunei Year 2001 and Attache Virgilio "Ting" Cajaljal was at the airport. The team was brought to the hotel by former Filipino Association President Jesse James Agustin.In Brunei, the ice cream man drove a van to the tune of Jack and Jill, Biyaheng Langit reporter Myrna Bautista, found out at the Muara Beach , the country's farthest end northeast of Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital, on Palm Sunday morning. Maurice Milo drove the van selling Thai-style, soft ice cream . When Myrna said "we are from RPN 9 in Manila" Maurice said, "Ah, Rey Langit!" Maurice had just finished reading the Sunday Borneo Bulletin, which carried the Heavenly Trip team's picture and story.

The team spinned around Kampong Ayer for $20 on a motorised water taxi, passing children waving back from windows as others took a plunge on the dark waters lapping the doorsteps of wooden houses interconnected by wooden, rickety bridges.

"Everything is here in the Water Village," Precy said.

Precious R. Benemerito, manager of Benchong Megaventures, is a self-made contractor, who used to take the public bus to buy cement from the hardware shop which refused to deliver because the orders were for just a few bags. The Muara beach was where she used to scoop bags of sand to build her first 'castle'.

She drove the team to the Billion Barrel Monument, symbolising an oil rig, in Seria, the oil town 100 km. southwest of the capital, at the other end of Brunei.

The monument's six roots represent a decade each, from where sprung a billion barrels of oil in sixty years since oil was produced from S-1 AT Ringers Dyke, Seria's first oil well, on April 5, 1929. The monument was erected in 1991 near the beach.

She pointed at the paved walkways and the guest houses she was contracted to rebuild in Seria on the way to K&H Services, across the Belait river where another self-made, very low profile businesswoman was waiting.

Pinkee Torres - Sangalang held court at the "Philippine House," a shop selling Philippine-made products from food to furniture to building materials. "When you go for an overseas job, you must be emotionally, spiritually, physically, and mentally fit for the job and for whatever awaits you at the jobsite. You must be patient and enduring, resourceful to cope up with the situation, and cooperative.

"As you support your host country, you gain its respect," Pinkee told Reyster Langit.

Having spent years selling vinegar, soy sauce and fish sauce (suka, toyo at patis), remitting dollars into pesos for her countrymen, and building the Beverly Hills of Kuala Belait, all these are "just preparations for going home", to Vancouver, Batangas or Tarlac for the Sangalang family.

"We're halfway there," Pinkee said.

Julius Amar shot Pinkee's silhouette against the setting sun, turning red the horizon, as it slowly sank behind the green fronds lining the island across Sungai Belait, Brunei's widest river, overlooking the K&H Services office she manages.

"The dreams of an overseas Filipino worker are to have a house and a lot, education for the children and business once they go home for good," Reyster said.

"There was this seaman who can only go home for many weeks in a year. In ten years, he had seen his family for only three months. When he was ready to go home for good, his son was the one leaving home to board his ship. 'I want to experience what my father had experienced', the son reasoned out.

"In Korea, we met these Filipino musicians and a circus performer, who may not know their livelihood may not be forever. The circus person has hematoma (bukol) because of his tumbling routines.

"Then there was this good time girl who was making good money, but she stopped and 'changed her life' and turned to waiting on the tables because jealous colleagues squealed to customers she is really a creative he," Reyster said. What makes you stay so long in Brunei? the Biyaheng Langit team asked a worker, who read to them this letter: "Papa, when are you going home? I miss you very much. I love you.

"Will you send me some toys? It's so hot here and it is summer and I have nothing to do during the school holidays. We want to visit you in Brunei.

"I cannot play the PlayStation too long because the electric current is very expensive. Please come home soon. It's my birthday on April 17. You're the best Dad I ever met! Love, E-Et."

Overseas Workers have been called modern heroes for their dollar remittances that keep the Philippine economy afloat. But behind each triumph are disappointments, tears behind the peals of laughter, broken homes and orphaned children for the trappings of a fleeting luxurious life and lovestyle.

For thirty minutes on Saturday afternoons at 3pm, Radio Philippines Network's Channel 9 bridges the time and emotional barriers across the seas in its weekly telecast to bring home a slice of life in the day's trip to heaven, Biyaheng Langit.

Courtesy of Sunday Bulletin