The primary purpose of this blog is to promote, among those people who have confessed with the words of their mouths and believe in their hearts that Jesus is Lord and Savior of their lives, a love and thorough understanding of the Word of God. It is also open to all people who want to gather information, curious and blog avid reader. Even critics are very much welcome. God Bless!
|Copyleft © 2009|
All Rights Reserved ®
The first time I received a marching order to go to Tanauan, Batangas for a travel article, I immediately thought, “BORING!” It could have been an exotic island in the Visayas or Mindanao. “What in the world has Tanauan got to offer?,” I thought.
Travels to Batangas are strongly motivated by the province’s pristine beaches, underwater paradise of diving spots and the world-famous coffee kapeng barako. Other than these, I had no clue what Tanauan could possibly entice me with. Honestly, I was almost an inch away from the black hole zone of non-expectation. I don’t see it featured on TV, nor do I read a lot about it on travel blogs.
Thank God my editors had the gift of discernment on this matter. They got me Kuya Mayong! He’s a JIL member who really knew the way around Tanauan.
Mabini isn’t a nightlife hotspot
Kuya Mayong and I started our journey at 10:00 a.m. Our first destination was neither a Boracayesque beach nor a spa nestled in a relaxing rustic ambience. It was the Mabini Shrine in Brgy. Talaga. Oh how my college History professor would love me for this!
Two pylons guard Mabini’s tomb in the Shrine’s compoundI love History but memorizing details sometimes turn me into its unfaithful lover. I never remembered that great Filipino revolutionary and thinker Apolinario Mabini’s hometown was Tanauan until Kuya Mayong brought me to the hero’s ancestral house. Now maintained by the National Historical Institute, the vast estate features a museum and a library, designed by National Artist for Architecture Juan F. Nakpil.
Our dearly beloved National Artist did a great job there. The shrine personifies the oxymoronic intellectual superiority and physical inferiority of Mabini (the polio Mabini contracted as a child confined him to a wheelchair the rest of his life). It lies humbly a one-story edifice that at the same time exudes dignity and unmistakable importance.
The shrine houses Mabini’s tomb and exhibits some photographs and artifacts intimately relating to the hero. Display cases feature compilations of his writings that were very instrumental in changing the course of Philippine history. The wooden coffin used to transfer Mabini’s remains from the Mausoleo 
Drop by Batangas and dont forget to chat with Lola Pelagia Mabinide los Veteranos de la Revolucion in Manila to Talaga in July 1965 is also there.
But what the shrine could most notably boast of is the possibility of visitors having an encounter and a real face-to-face conversation with a Mabini descendant. There I met Pelagia Mabini who enthusiastically talked with us and showed us around. The “Apolinario Mabini Genealogy” posted on the shrine says that she’s a grand niece of the Brains of the Revolution. It was my first time to actually interact with a person in whose veins run an A-list hero’s blood. Now that’s something you don’t get in a Boracayesque beach!
It’s amusing to realize that in Manila, Mabini is a street that’s been identical to nightlife hotspots that teem with bars and revelries. But down in Batangas, the name remains an enshrined, living proof that physical limitations are nothing but hollow threats to one’s success and significance in life.
Laurel was there, too
The gate welcomes visitors into the residence of Jose P. Laurel–AbogadoAnd because this trip initially catered on my unusual appetite for history, I ended up craving for more! We left Mabini shrine with the intention of binging on yet another piece of Tanauan’s rich history.
The house is typical of Spanish colonial houses–spacious and well-ventilatedThe birthplace of Former Pres. Jose P. Laurel was a fitting next destination. Basked in the calm of wind-caressed greens and the laughter of students hanging around the vicinity, the Laurel Memorial Library welcomes visitors into an architectural time machine. The house, built in 1880 and restored in 1964, displays books, artifacts and furniture used by the late president and his family.
The floral sofa set is outstanding in the living room. Its form and style exhibits the era’s fondness for detail usually neglected in modern furniture designs. Some family photographs are also displayed on the house’s wooden walls. These photos and the articles that decorate the shrine can make any Filipino realize the preciousness of memories the house signifies not only to the Laurels but also to the country.
The tour had been satisfying so far but a physical sense of satisfaction remained unmet deep within my belly. It was lunch time!
My taste buds and their best buds
Parking was full in front of Rose and Grace’s
Twister for meKuya Mayong took me to the famous Rose and Grace Restaurant in Sto. Tomas. It boasts of delicious bulalo and mouth-watering skewered tawilis fish.
Seriously, the grilled tawilis they serve there? GROUND. BREAKING. In fact I was thinking it could pass for movie food—replacing pop corn and chips. I could spend a full two hours seeing a movie while digging in the tawilis. And this isn’t hyperbole!
We also had pork sisig and ginataang tulingan. But my taste buds spent more time joyfully engulfed in the Fruit Twister. It’s one of the best fruit juices I’ve had in this lifetime! It’s an orange juice that has fresh watermelon and orange chunks in it. It’s a simply perfect tropical paradise treat! The sweetness of watermelon bursting in the cool of citrus is a beverage experience one shouldn’t miss on this side of Batangas.
We end with goat meat
After lunch, I was thinking of a pasalubong I could bring back home. I was looking for something unpredictable but pasalubong from Luzon provinces seem too familiar for my mom 
That’s my goatand sisters in Manila already. Kuya Mayong suddenly said he would buy me kalderetang kambing (goat meat in tomato sauce). Praise God.
The cafeteria Boy and Nory’s Carinderia in Brgy. Pagaspas is where Kuya Mayong and his friends buy kalderetang kambing, He got me my kaldereta there where I even saw a goat’s head resting peacefully in one of the cauldrons displayed on the counter for all customers to see. I couldn’t wait to taste the dish but my impatience would ruin the hallowed concept of pasalubong.
So I went home to Manila and, in an instant, had goat for dinner.
Ambrosial.
Tanauan just wouldn’t let me go. It was an epiphany of sorts.
Definitely not boring.
Source: JIL Church Worlwide (www.jilworldwide.org), Mr. Jade Angelo Gascon
