Unscheduled Visit

March 20, 2009

I was late for the meeting. The time was set at 2:00 P.M. The original venue was at the Archbishop’s palace but was changed to Coffee Dream in Gorordo. I arrived at around 2:30 P.M. Sam Costanilla just left the venue for another meeting. It was Naila Ylaya-Beltran and my friend Jude who were still there. I ordered iced coffee and tried to catch up with what they were doing. The place is cozy but somehow lacks space. The meeting was only short, what made it longer were the sidelights and mixed-topic conversation we had. After that we decided to drop by the Archbishop’s palace to see Fr. Ting Anjacas for some matters regarding the production of the song. He arrived shortly after we did and the soft-spoken priest did his best to accommodate us. Fr. Ting had us seated in the reception lobby table and served us refreshments and we went down to the details about the song and its production. I am sure the priest noticed how hungry we were by the way how Jude and I downed our food. As we were talking and laughing, (Jude’s laughter echoing throughout the hall) we heard voices nearing our area. Fr. Ting whispered to us that the Cardinal is coming to our table. When His Emminence, Ricardo Cardinal Vidal appeared across our table, our mode suddenly shifted from impish to saintly. Fr. Ting introduced us to the Cardinal and informed His Emminence that we are the group directly involved in composing the 75th Archdiocese anniversary “Jubilee Song”. The Cardinal smiled and first thing he noticed about me is my size. We kissed his hands to pay our respect. After saying a short message, the Cardinal thanked us and excused himself; he had more appointments. We continued with our meeting for another few minutes then parted ways as well.