The Long Journey Home

By Tab Murallon Manlegro

The novel is an epic tale of mankind during his long journey from birth, to his sojourn on earth until his final homecoming. Though it has biblical allusions, it is not intended to be a direct interpretation of the Scriptures or any other Holy Book. It is not also intended to challenge any traditional or contemporary teachings and dogmas. The book opens with the author’s self introduction narrating an episode in his childhood, until he reached maturity. He stated the basis of his beliefs, and narrated his own version of Creation and man’s unexpected evacuation from his compassionate Father’s home.

The long saga of man on earth began and continued for many generation. One time, the Creator was compelled to clean the filthy earth with a devastating flood. In the new life, the Abrahamic journey was launched, leading to the birth of the promised Healer, God’s son Jesus. Jesus Christ introduced upgrades to the old traditions and practices. He offered His own flesh and blood to invigorate man’s being. He gave up his life in crucifixion doing the Saving errand. After three days, Jesus came back to life and gave His relieved followers the mission to spread around the world and gather the people around Him so they can go home to Paradise.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Dec 4, 2018
• ISBN: 9781512783070

Tab Murallon Manlegro

Tab Manlegro’s natural flair for creating and telling stories showed early in his teens. His family, siblings, neighbors and friends used to gather around to listen to his tales. Later on, he amused his own children with his stories. His narration were mostly extemporaneous, but he has the knack of tying loose events together making his stories whole and organized in the end. Because he excelled in Math and Sciences, He pursued a degree in Civil Engineering. He joined the work force and took some graduate courses during his spare time. During his long years of good practice, he read, attended various forums, and participated in different social, community and religious activities. He traveled to many foreign lands, met and inter-acted with peoples of various nationalities, cultures and creeds. Now in retirement, he taps his data-full memory bank to pursue his earlier literary interest.

Book preview

Copyright © 2018 Tab Murallon Manlegro.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

1 [phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-5127-8308-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-8309-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-8307-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017905416

WestBow Press rev. date: 11/29/2017

Contents

Dedication

Introduction

I   My Short Walk

II   Point of Beginning

III   The Saga

IV   One Father

V   Chosen Nation

VI   One King

VII   Awaited Birth

VIII   New Teachings

IX   The Edge

X   Redemption

XI   Missions

XII   Communities

XIII   Home

Dedication

To my dear wife Evelyn, my daughter Mary Lotis, my son-in law Greg, my granddaughter Olwyn, my son Joseph, my sister Brenda, my in-laws, my cousins, my dear friends, and all my friends in this life. I also offer this in memory of my departed love ones: my parents, my siblings, my parents-in-law, relatives and friends.

Introduction

The main journey of mankind started from one point, branching out to many different routes along the way. One’s lifetime is a short walk along a journey which was pre-chosen for him by others, or one he chooses for himself. All journeys started long before any one’s birth and ends long after any one’s death. Nonetheless, all journeys end up in the same destination, the same point where the main journey started. Therefore, everyone is on his way back to the same home. The first chapter of the book is a short tale of how I came to join this journey that I am on. The rest is a saga of that journey from beginning to end, which I put together in one series from the many different stories told and retold by others. I do not claim originality of any of the stories. I profess with conviction that all that I have chosen to write in this book are true. I affirm that my personal inputs into some of the events are sensible.

Chapter I

MY SHORT WALK

T o wards the end of the eighteenth century, after a series of debacles in mostly naval warfare against a young, democratic and dynamic nation of the New World, the once proud ancient monarchy of Spain, matriarch of half of the Old World, surrendered most of its established colonies along the Atlantic and Pacific rims, to gain peace and its prestige back home in the European continent. By a Treaty concluded in Paris in 1898, the victorious country of America officially acquired the archipelago of the Philippines, for a modest sum of US$20M. The new Landlord converted the Pacific territory into a quasi-democratic District managed by an appointed Military Governor from Washington DC. Thirty-five years later, the District was upgraded into a Commonwealth, short of becoming a member State of the United States of America.

A new democratic form of government wherein there was freedom of religion was established. While the new local leaders were involved in politics, the populace was wrapped up in pursuing freely their different creeds and traditions. The majority continued to follow Catholicism, the minority followed Islam, and some converted into Protestantism. Pockets of Judaism, Chinese Buddhism, India’s Hinduism and Japanese Shintoism were also practiced. The Aborigines in the hinterlands adhered to their native Pagan rituals. The Philippine Islands became a favored destination by Christian Missionaries of different denominations coming from Europe and the Americas. From Ireland, the Columban Order established centers in the Island of Mindanao. In the town of Misamis, they converted the old Spanish convent beside the church into a school, known as the Immaculate Conception School.

I was born a Filipino-US national, native of Misamis, Province of Misamis Occidental, Commonwealth of the Philippines. I was barely fourteen months old when the Motherland was surprisingly attacked and devastated in Pearl Harbor by Japanese Kamikaze air forces. America was unwillingly drawn into the Second Worldwide conflict. My countrymen fought valiantly alongside their brothers from the mainland against the Japanese Imperial invaders in the Pacific. However, the US Military forces were stretched out thin as the country also got involved in a bigger warfare in the Atlantic and European arena against the havoc of the Nazi Third Reich. After the humiliating fall of Bataan and death March in Luzon Island, Washington DC finally pulled out its remaining military presence in the Philippines and from most of the Pacific.

The young Commonwealth was left home alone to defend itself against the powerful invader. Its capital and major cities were quickly occupied by the Japanese Imperial Forces. Some Filipinos unwillingly cooperated with the Nippon government, to save their skins, but the more patriotic ones refused to abandon the democratic ideology they learned from America. They left the comfort of their homes in the cities and towns and run to hide into the hinterlands. The debunked US-Philippine Army was in disarray, and its troops fled into the mountains where they secretly regrouped and recruited civilian volunteers and organized underground guerilla units in various parts of the country.

With limited logistics and armaments, the guerrilla forces were no match to the well-armed enemy. Somehow, the evacuees survived in hiding and persevered in the hope in the solemn promise by the US Military Commander in the Pacific, Gen. Douglas McArthur, to return and liberate the Land some day. Meanwhile, joining the exodus, my family run away from the city and evacuated into the remote valley of Salug, in the middle of a newly opened jungle in the hinterlands of the North-Western sector of the wide green island of Mindanao.

Towards my fifth birthday, some good news slowly trickled in the mountains that the flames of that ugly second global conflagration had already started to flicker down. Some brothers from America had clandestinely landed in some strategic points to lay down the campaign of reclaiming back the Lands from the enemy. However, the danger was still looming, so we had to stay put where we were until we would hear some safe signal to start going out. I was counting days and time with my bare fingers and toes because we had no clock or wall calendars.

One afternoon, my elder brother Naps pulled me out of bed to run to the front yard of our nipa home to watch a dogfight. My clan was already all out there gazing up at the blue sky. It confused me because I did not see dogs fighting. Instead, there was what looked like two oversized dragonflies to me, flying high up in the air, chasing each other as they madly roared and grumbled. Then after a rapid exchange of volley fires, one of the giant flies careened down, trailing behind a tail of black smoke, as the other one freely scampered away. It was my first live virtual spectacle in the wide-screen of the skies. There was jubilation on the ground which I did not fully grasp. I remained anxious, eagerly waiting for more surprises to come.

Without warning, an exciting day came. The elders hurriedly dressed me up for a long hike. They put a pair of stiff canvas sneakers on my feet, a straw hat on my head and a small pack on my back. I asked where we were going, and they answered that we were finally going home. What? All of my kid’s life I thought home is nothing elsewhere but that nipa house in the middle of the jungle. That day I learned that home could also move. We started out very early the following morning. Initially, we followed a familiar farm-cart dirt road on the plains. Afterward, the road turned into a barely trodden narrow foot trail uphill, downhill, and then it wound and wound endlessly around the sides of the mountains.

When the scorching sun started to bite, the pack on my back became heavier, the trails became longer and the hills became steeper. Of course, I whined and my Papa would sometimes pick up my pack, only to put it back on me a few moments later as he was fully loaded himself. I wondered why we did not bring along Tommy, our fidgety horse, or one of our sluggish carabaos, which could have easily carried all our heavy burdens, and of course, me. Soon enough, I learned, after we descended a steep hill and boarded a wobbly bamboo raft to cross a wide, roaring and swiftly flowing river. Any four-legged dry land mammal could have perished daring to swim across that wild angry river, on its own bare limbs.

In our packs were few pieces of clothes, bare personal necessities, and of course food provision that we hoped would last us for the whole journey. We had several pieces of "pusó", which was rice compactly cooked inside hand-size heart-shaped baskets made of woven strips of coconut leaves. We had the extra bagful of raw rice grains to cook when the pusó were gone. We brought dried fish, some hard boiled eggs, chicken adobo, and plenty of the smelly but delicious saucy salted fish, sautéed in coconut milk and ginger, tightly packed in small glass jars.

If lucky, we harvested ripe bananas, edible wild fruits, and veggies along the way. Our disposable plates were made of the clean white layer of the banana trunk, cut into foot long pieces. We used our bare hands and five fingers for utensils. We gathered drinking water from natural springs or from clear brooks, or by collecting raindrops from the tips of the wide banana leaves. We washed and bathed in rivers or streams, often with only our birthday clothes on. There was no malice for we were family. We were authentic Survivors of the Jungle in the first reality show of life.

Nature’s restrooms complete with safe soft leaves for sanitation were readily accessible on either side of the trail. If we felt sick, the quack doctors in the caravan knew well what herbal roots, leaves or flowers in the lush surroundings to gather and concoct as remedy. We did not encounter any unpleasant incident with strangers or wild animals, though Papa was prepared for these with his sidearm constantly hanging on his belt. One time, with just one shot, he killed a wild boar, which we merrily slaughtered for meat. We had with us knives and machetes, for preparing food, cutting twigs and firewood, or for harvesting fruits and veggies. We also use them for clearing our pathways and for self-defense.

Each one carried a rolled straw mat and a light blanket for sleeping. We used our own backpack as a pillow. At night, we rested in some abandoned huts we found along the way or share the floor with some hospitable strangers in their humble homes. If they had extra food, they shared us some, if they had none, we shared some of ours. Wherever we spend the night, we had to get up early at dawn, at the first crowing of the roosters, to resume another day of exhausting adventure.

Oftentimes we balanced precariously along very narrow paths roughly chopped off along the rocky sides of the steep, wet and slippery cliffs. We crossed deep ravines, forded streams, rapids, and rivers. We were actually following a trail at