A national tribute to the late National Artist for Literature, held recently at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, bumps up my best memory of Manong Frankie
Anyway, they found me happy to have witnessed the street wake up to the fresh, new day in a frenzy of commercial activities. I was in the fringes of the market side of Roosevelt after all. By 6:15 we were entering NLEX from Balintawak. Our destination: Rosales, Pangasinan, less than two hours away, thanks to the relatively new Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway or TPLEX that took us to Pozzorubio in no time.
Manong Frankie also pointed out the creek in which he and his friends swam, where he would leave watermelons submerged for hours to cool them. Rosales is also home to the Agno River, one of the largest river systems in the Philippines, as it runs through the provinces of Benguet and Pangasinan, and I imagine Manong Frankie strolling along its banks, riding along on the current, ideas flowing deep and wild and mighty like the river in his head.
His works ignited a fire in many of us to seek and espouse a sense of social justice for our less fortunate brethren and fellow Filipinos. —President Rodrigo Roa Duterte