THE aging soldier was gung ho. He was ready to fly to Singapore where one of his nieces lives with her expatriate husband.
Alex de la Peña, 88, a retired captain of the Philippine Army, was going abroad for the first time in 45 years. His last trip outside the Philippines was in 1973 for a business trip to Hong Kong. Two years before that, he was in Vietnam as a civilian instructor teaching South Vietnamese soldiers how to repair photographic equipment.
My uncle served in the Armed Forces of the Philippines as a photographer and was a member of the Army’s Signal Corps. He is the only surviving sibling of my late mother. We, his nieces and nephews, have always considered him our second father.
For the past two years, my cousin Chit and her husband Steven have tried their best to convince Uncle Alex to fly out to Singapore for a visit. Uncle Alex has demurred for the past two years, saying he is too old to travel.
I retired last February, not knowing at that time whether I was going to continue working and if I would be retained as a consultant.
Plans were made for me to accompany Uncle Alex to Singapore for what Steven said was a visit “for as long as we wanted.”Visitors from around Southeast Asia can visit Singapore for 30 days and extend for another 30 days without needing a visa.
But first, we had to update uncle’s passport, which he never renewed after that long-ago trip to Hong Kong. From San Mateo, Rizal, where he lived, he went to the satellite office of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) in Cubao, Quezon City, several times, and was very frustrated because, despite all the documentary proof he brought with him, the two male staff there would not renew his passport.
My cousin Chona got wind of the plan and expressed her desire to fly out to Singapore, the first country she would visit abroad. She had a scheduled appointment at the DFA in Antipolo, courtesy of her local politician representative, so having a passport was not going to be a problem.
I volunteered to give Chona my seat to Singapore, since I had been to that country at least four times previously. Steven said he would fly the three of us together.
We scheduled a morning to go to the DFA office in Macapagal Boulevard in Pasay City where passport processing for seniors was available Monday to Wednesday on a walk-in basis. Uncle had with him a certification from the Philippine Statistics Authority of “no record of birth”(any person born in the Philippines before 1952 has no official birth record because records were burned during World War II, and the government only started rebuilding its database in 1952); his old passport; his senior, veteran’s and postal identification cards; and a copy of an affidavit from the midwife who helped deliver him in 1930 and a neighbor who witnessed his birth almost 90 years ago. (Of course, the two witnesses have long passed on.)
Uncle paid LBC P150 to deliver his new passport to his home a week after processing.
Uncle, Chona and I flew to Singapore via Philippine Airlines on July 19. Manang Chit and Steven were at the Changi Airport to meet us. Steven had a wheelchair ready for uncle, renting it from a company called Bion for $3 (Singapore) a day.
During our nine-day visit, the five of us went to places in Singapore, including Sentosa, where Uncle Alex had a close-up encounter with the Merlion, Singapore’s signature icon, half-lion, half-fish; Chinatown; Little India; the Night Safari; Bird Park; River Safari; Singapore Zoo; and the Flower Dome and Cloud Forest in the Gardens by the Bay.
Like most tourists, uncle no longer lugged his bulky cameras, but used his cell phones to take pictures of his visit. He traveled lightly, carrying only basic necessities during our nine-day stay in Singapore.
Both Manang Chit and Steven prepared well for our visit. Manang Chit was careful with what she served uncle and me; we are both diabetics. We ate healthy, eating fresh fruits like raspberries, blueberries, strawberries and cherries plus smoothies for breakfast. Though expensive, these fruits are available in most groceries in Singapore. We had either brown rice or quinoa for lunch and dinner, with plenty of home-cooked vegetables and some chicken or pork. Their Filipina kasambahay Cynthia did most house chores, including feeding the couple’s three cats.
Steven was out early mornings or evenings, buying what we needed, including a querty Nokia cell phone for uncle and sugar-free cookies we have a hard time finding back home.
Manang Chit and Cynthia took turns going to the grocery or the “wet” market whenever some items needed replenishing. Chona often volunteered to go out with them.
We went out daily, riding on trains and buses, but mostly on taxis driven by locals because of the wheelchair uncle used. We took turns pushing his wheelchair.
Uncle could walk—even faster than I—but he tired easily.
The train system remains impressive —modern, on time and guaranteed to take you anywhere in Singapore, within walking distance from each station. Trains run before dawn and end their service by midnight.
Public buses run on time, on similar hours like the train, even if there are no passengers.
Malls have working escalators and elevators, helping even the elderly get to where they want to be, whether they are walking or are navigating their way on wheelchairs.
High-end retail stores, pharmacies, restaurants, medical clinics and all sorts of establishments one finds in developed countries are mostly accessible from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Everywhere, one sees trees, keeping open spaces green and naturally oxygenated—a result of the excellent planning of the city-state’s fathers who planted the whole area with fast-growing trees and flora when the city-state was founded 52 years ago.
Everywhere, too, the melding of cultures is evident—from the architecture of houses, to ethnic restaurants, to the people walking along its most crowded streets. Singapore is mainly populated by Chinese, Malaysians and Indians, with a sprinkling of foreigners, including North Americans, South and Central Americans, Europeans and, of course, Filipinos.
The government provides the basic needs of its citizens, including public housing and transportation. Only citizens can own their own homes. Permanent residents can lease private houses, but cannot own real estate.
Lee Kwan Yew is credited with leading Singapore into becoming the progressive city-state it is today.
The government demands nationalism and discipline among its citizens. It has stringent laws that ensure these, and maintains little reminders of Singapore’s past, lest its citizens forget the hard path the country and its citizens took on their way to progress.
There is a museum in Chinatown featuring a multistory apartment complex reflecting the miserable living conditions of immigrants from China at the turn of the 20th century.
And it maintains a war memorial reminding the locals, as well as visitors of the horrors of World War II perpetrated by an invading Japanese Imperial Army.
People say you can explore Singapore—all 719.9 kilometers of it—in a week. I disagree. In 2008 I spent a whole month in Singapore, visiting places every day, but still missed seeing several spots and doing other exploratory activities.
Filipinos are known to revere their elders, and our visit to Singapore underscored to us this special Filipino trait. When lining up to enter a venue or get a taxi for our ride back home, Uncle, along with three of us (only four passengers are allowed to ride together in a cab), was put ahead in queues not because he is an older person, but because he was in a wheelchair.
Image credits: Chona de Guzman
