MALACAÑAN PALACE
Manila
10:00 PM
December 13, 1970
Sunday
Bongbong has just arrived. His plane a KLM-PAL DC-8 on direct flight from Amsterdam touched down at about 3:00 PM. A sizeable crowd with the usual palace friends and their children were there to greet him. The people up in the visitors terrace shouted “Bongbong” and waved to him happily. You could see they were as glad as we were to see him home for the holidays.
And we have been excitedly preparing for his arrival. His room has been refurnished and redone by Pandot Ocampo. We have put in our share.
The girls fixed up his and their rooms to look lived in and cozy. I put in there the stamps we struck for the Pope on his visit and the knives given me by Mayor Hernando of San Nicolas.
And we had the horses waiting for him at the aviary. His horse Argentina was there and at first he shied away from him. Button and Kitten were also there. The dogs were inside because it was showering as it has been the whole day. His favorite, Sandy, of course was there. And so was Achilles the Dalmatian and the two chows, Butterball and Alaska.
After the hurry and scurry to look into his room and the peremptory demands for kuwento, we heard mass then merienda when he told us a lot of stories.
He had come to the landing ramp when we were out of the VIP reception room and he apparently had cut his hair short but it still looked long and was way down to his collar.
But the first impact was a pleasant shock. He had lost his darkness and he looked unbelievably handsome. I could see and hear that this was also the effect on his mother and the Ilocano mayors who were there.
He had acquired some kind of an English accent and the peculiary English terms like “frightful,” “dreadful,” “chap.”
But he was changed much deeper than mere accent or adeptness in the English language.
He now placed greater importance on his academics than on sports. He casually announced that he would have to give up his judo as it cuts into his study and work on physics. And he bragged of his being told by his master that they would recommend his elevation or acceleration in physics. He also bragged that he was third in mathematics in a class of 120. Although we did hear of rugby or “rugger.”
Imelda and I are agreed that we made the right decision in sending him to England. And we remembered our fears of friends as well as enemies spoiling him, of drug-addiction, of leftists, threats of kidnapping and the fate of Presidents’ sons in the Philippine society that gave them no incentive for excellence.
Imelda and I were both in tears (of happiness of course) when we met him and talked to him. I noticed that Imelda hugged him longer than usual as I did. And she whispered to me, “You were right, we have lost a child. He is now turning into a man. We can no longer baby him.” I answered. “We will just have to have another child to baby!”
This has been a happy day!