From A to Z

B

To further the role of the Church in society, the Ecclesiastical Consortium of Jesus, or the Consortium, instituted an incubation program wherein their member-schools were tasked to provide social services and programs to their adopted communities. These communities, spread across the country, were assigned based on, first, their proximity to the member-school and, second, their patron saint. In the case of Adam's school, being a college in South Luzon, their assigned communities were barrios in South Luzon whose patron saint was Saint Joseph.

M. Kiling is one of those communities. From Calamba, this barrio can be reached via the South Luzon Expressway. Exit at the Candelaria Interchange. From there, take the Rosario-San Juan-Candelaria Road until reaching the Quezon Ecotourism Road. One cannot miss this road because of the multiple signages of various resorts at the corner of the road's entrance. Take this road and at the first pedestrian crossing is the entrance to the barrio of M. Kiling.

An alternative to this route, if one opts to avoid the tollway, is via the Asian Highway 26 which cuts through the town propers of Los Baños, Bay, Calauan, and San Pablo in Laguna, and the town propers of Tiaong and Candelaria in Quezon Province. After the poblacion of Candelaria, turn right to Rosario-San Juan-Candelaria Road and follow the same path as in the earlier route.

While the latter route is cheaper, it is longer and would require around three hours — or sometimes six hours during rush hours — of travel. Since Adam's fraternity was catching up with time, they took the fastest route. Besides, money was not a problem for their organization.

Unlike their previous outreach programs, M. Kiling was the most underdeveloped community that Adam has visited, which was abnormal considering the barrio's proximity to a major road. The cemented road of the barangay has long deteriorated; various cracks were here and there. One must drive slowly and swerve from left to right to avoid the patches of holes. It appeared that, when the Ecotourism Road was constructed, the funds of the government did not reach the internal roads of M. Kiling.

Most houses they passed by were constructed with concrete materials but were bare and unfinished. Those which were finished, their paints were already soiled by age and the changing weather. Because of this, the beauty of the covered court, which their school built around ten years ago and continue to maintain up to present, stood out amongst the other structures in the sentro of the barrio.

To Adam's dismay, their invited medical teams have already arrived and were beginning to unload their equipment from their vehicles. Some have even started setting up the booths. It was their members who should be doing that, but unfortunately, they arrived later than their invitees. He thought of punching the steering wheel but decided not to when he remembered that Zach was just beside him. He took a deep, long breathe. He would deal with Mateo later.

Instead of meeting the heads of the medical teams and the barangay captain together, Adam divided the task between Mateo and him. Mateo handled talking and apologizing to the medical teams since it was his fault that they were late. He also handled instructing and rallying the boys to assist in and expedite the set-up. Meanwhile, Adam took care of conversing with the barangay captain.

There were already residents in line at the far side of the court, beside the barrio's chapel, where two tanods were keeping them in order. In front of this line was the barangay captain. Adam would not have known that he was the man that he was looking for if not for the word "kapitan" written in black capital letters at the back of his lime green polo shirt. He was chatting with a tanod who was wearing a vest of the same shade of green like the captain's and was playing with a wooden baton with his hands. The tanod stopped talking when he noticed Adam approaching and tapped the barangay captain on the shoulders and pointed towards his direction. The barangay captain turned around and flashed a cordial smile of a politician.