Baras, Rizal, Philippine Islands
I would like to start by thanking Don and Angie Hordes for
caring and thinking enough about me to ask me if I wanted to go to the
Philippines with them. I would also like to thank their two children Bryan and
Kristen Hordes and the Carpio Family, Tommy, his wife Zenaida, and two of their
children Allison and Laurie for making me feel welcome on our trip to the
Philippines. While in the Philippines Tommy’s sister Baby and her husband Rick
made me feel like part of the family and finally I would like to thank Angie’s
father for letting me stay at his house. Last but not least I want to thank
Bert and Danny Golla for telling my cousins in Philippines that I was coming to
visit them and a special thanks to Danny for taking the time to show me around
Baras, Rizal once I got to the Philippines.
The trip to the Philippines was scary for me, I was
seriously thinking about canceling the trip many times before I left and just
lose out my plane ticket money. It would have been the biggest mistake of my
life!
The house on the right belongs to Angie’s father, the whole gang
stayed there for the 2 weeks that we were in the Philippines. Most days we
would try to get up early to visit the area outside of Manila and come back
late at night after alot of fun and driving.
My first adventure was a trip to my fathers village in Baras,
Rizal. I was told that it took about 3 hours to drive there so we needed to
leave early in the morning, about 5:00 am. I was very luck about alot of
different things while in the Philippines, one great stroke of luck was that
our main driver while in the Philippines, who was called Rudy, had visited
Baras many times and had friends living there.
I was the first one up that morning and my stomach was
already starting to bother me. I didn’t get much sleep the night before because
of the excitement of meeting my cousins, I had no idea what to expect. Angie
Hordes, her sister Zenaida Carpio and Tommy’s sister Baby Santos all volunteered
to come with me to Baras to translate the language of Baras (Tagalog) if needed
and they probability didn’t know how much I needed their support. The drive to
Baras was great, as we pasted Antipolo and then 
Teresa we were going higher and higher in attitude until we
could see the City of Manila behind us in what appeared to be a valley. It
ended up taking us only 2 hours to get to Baras because of the time of day so
Danny Golla was not at the Municipal building as planned. We called Danny Golla
at home and he said he would meet us at Meding Ramirez Llagas house, Meding in
my cousin and daughter of uncle Felix. As we looked around figuring out our
next move, the policeman started asking us questions about what we were doing
in Baras. As Angie was talking to him in Tagalog about me finding my Ramirez
family, the policeman started smiling and pointed to his chest and said “I am a
Ramirez”. As I was to find out later, the city of Baras and Morong have about
3000 Ramirez’s that are related to me. The policeman’s name is Nanding Ramirez
Llagas and we have the same great grandfather (Florentino Ramirez). The picture
to the right shows Nanding Ramirez Llagas, me and Pedro de Ocampo. Pedro is related
to me also, he is Nanding’s uncle. As we drove around the city of Baras towards
my cousin Meding Ramirez Llagas house, Nanding and Pedro were pointing out
houses that relatives lived in, I lost count.
When we got to Meding’s house, I didn’t know how to act and
I didn’t know how much English that my cousin might speak. As it turned out,
everybody spoke enough English and with Angie translating the Tagalog I was
able to relax alittle. The cousin Meding was speechless for the first 20 minute
that I was there, 
Meding could only giggle as she put her hands over her
mouth. As we started talking about my father and how he and his brother Felix
went to the US in 1928. I came to find out that after Felix got deported back
to the Philippines in 1929, my father had written only 3 letters to his brother
and his last letter in 1943 only talked about his marriage but he never wrote
again to tell his brother that he had children. As we talked about different things
with my cousins more relatives would hear about me being at Meding’s and would
stop by to meet me. The picture on the left in front of the Baras River is my niece
Lorna Ramirez, cousin Letty Ramirez Cruz, my niece Nenet Ramirez, cousin Meding
Ramirez Llagas and my niece Vivian Ramirez. Vivian use to write the letters for
uncle Felix to my father during the years before uncle Felix died, but never
got a answer.
MORE TO COME