December 15, 2007. After visiting Bacolor Church, we proceeded to Guagua, Pampanga to visit Betis Church. It’s apparently one of the oldest churches in Pampanga, and it’s also certainly one of the most ornate. The church’s ceiling is painted with tableauxs of biblical scenes. Fortunately for everyone on the tour, we also witnessed the processional of some couple’s wedding. It must’ve been amusing for the foreigners with us.

On the way to our next destination, we were treated to one of Pampanga’s best-kept secrets–buko sherbet from San Jose in San Fernando City. The stuff is only sold in gallons, so we had an entire barrel of shaved ice and salt, buried in which is a tin can with five gallons of cold buko sherbet. I must have had five servings of the stuff the entire day.

Our next destination was an ancestral house in San Fernando City’s ‘heritage district‘ owned by the heirs of one of Pampanga’s old-rich families. It was a very pleasant visit. The Hizon family gladly welcomed us inside and toured us around their well-preserved and fully-functional home. I wish more heritage structures, particularly centuries-old houses, were like theirs–fully functional homes and not some museum filled with displays of antique items. I don’t think one could normally go inside the ancestral houses in the heritage district for visits. We were gladly welcomed in the Hizon home because one of our tour masters, Spanky, was a Hizon. Hehe.

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Last December 15, Saturday, I joined the Ultimate Kapampangan Show-off tour of Anton Diaz, Ivan Henares, Ivan Mandy, and Spanky Enriquez.

I only got home earlier (or morning) at almost three in the morning from another all-nighter frat party and my brod Ivan H., asked me to be at 6750 in Makati by seven in the morning a few hours after to meet with everyone else with the tour. With an hour of sleep, I was able to make it on time from QC. Anyway, we left Makati shortly after half past seven and arrived in Pampanga just before nine in the morning.

Our first stop was the town of Bacolor, Pampanga. The town, over much of the 90’s, was almost completely buried under more than a dozen meters of lahar from the Mount Pinatubo eruption of 1991. After having deserted the town for years, people have been coming back to rebuild their communities. The town church, or the upper half of what’s left, is now being restored and renovated. Inside the church, there is a small section that serves as a museum, with photographs of the parish and the town during its better days. In fact, things were so much better before, Bacolor served as the temporary capital of the Spanish colonial government during the short British occupation of the archipelago.