PEDRO of BAU

 

 

A REAL-LIFE FILIPINO DRAMA

 

 

By Sharon Agavi of Post-Courier

The dogs were waiting when I walked up the path to the ramshackle old government house.

Their choir was beginning as I approached. They were loud and unrelenting. Making their presence felt with a woof here and woof woof there.

I have a healthy fear of dogs but fortunately they were locked in. The choirmaster was nowhere to be seen.

I knocked on the door, once, twice, then heard some rustling. Hoped it wasn’t a bare fanged animal ready to spring.

Instead, an old Filipino bloke with graying locks and a big smile pushed the door slightly ajar and welcomed me in.

This is the story of uncle Pedro, a lonely and slightly homesick old man who has made the best of life in the bushes of the Transgogol outside Madang in Papua New Guinea.

There is a big Filipino community in Papua New Guinea, over a few thousand people, maybe more. 

They call themselves the Proud Pinoys of Papua New Guinea 🇵🇬. 

Most of these Pinoys work in government, mainly as teachers in universities, colleges, secondary and high schools and vocational centres.

Some work in the private sector, in supermarkets, hotels, fishing industry, logging and construction. 

Maybe, as a result of this large community and market, the local TV station has a Filipino Drama series which has become something of a love hit among Papua New Guineans.

But this is the epic story of a Pinoy that time forgot, whose life merged into the local community he now calls home in the Transgogol forests, where once in a while you can hear the national bird of PNG, the Raggiana Bird of Paradise singing and dancing.

Here in the bushes of Madang, there are no fellow Filipinos among the trees, just Pedro, his six dogs and his local ‘wantoks’.

The story of 68-year-old Pedro Tagare begins in 1991 when he arrived in PNG to work for logging company RH as a sawmill installation technician.

Things were good till 2002 when he signed on with South Coast Investment Company. After 10 years, the company shut down and Pedro was on the move again. As a technician and mechanic, he was an expert at building machines and knew how to operate anything to do with sawmilling.

So it was no surprise when Jant Timbers in Madang picked him up.

Pedro says he is from Laguilayan in Philippines, and now calls Bau TVET in the Transgogol area of Madang Province as home. TVET stands for Technical & Vocational Education Training.

Pedro is not very fluent in English nor his Tok Pisin so I wrote questions on a piece of paper and handed it to him. As I sat on the chair, he glanced through the questions while holding the verandah door closed to keep his companions in. 

After a few minutes he told me he would answer the questions on a paper and get back to me.

He was a young energetic man of 38 when he left Philippines for Port Moresby in 1991.

The patient man, Pedro loves working, travelling and making new friends and was open to everyone, until one day in 2017, there was a sad and traumatizing incident that he never forgets.

He was once travelling back from Madang town on a PMV to his place of work after doing his shopping and other work-related stuff when some local men held up the PMV.

The men robbed everybody including Pedro on the PMV. Those robbers took his personal and valuables including mobile phone which contained all his contacts and addresses of his families, friends and workmates, his passport and visa, his BSP Save Card, and a cheque book for an account with the Madang Indigenous Savings.

“Ol kisim everything from mi and mi stap nating (They took everything from me and I was stranded),” Pedro lamented.

The news of the hold-up broke out in Madang town and the current TVET provincial inspector John Kim heard of Pedro and invited him to join the TVET workforce.

“He is skilled, trained and a very experienced man who can teach motor mechanic trade so I took him to volunteer in the TVET teaching service,” John Kim said.

 

He is an honest, hardworking and a very religious person who wants to see progress and development take place in his working environment.

Despite the challenges faced and struggles of getting in touch with his loved ones, he made new friends from Madang who were kind enough to help Pedro live his life.

“We are trying to help him fix his travelling documents and also help him sort out his claims from the previous two companies he had worked with,” said a Bau TVET officer.

He spent 30 years in PNG away from his wife and five children - two sons and three daughters - who were too young when he left.

He really needs the company of his family and his grandchildren who do not know if their grandpa is still alive.

But hope and faith still has a long consistency of finding a lost soul.

His sacrifices, challenges and struggles has finally come to the end as he found out that one of his granddaughters who is working in Hong Kong contacted the Philippines’ Embassy and the embassy contacted some Philippines residents in Madang who are working with the RD Tuna Cannery and Able Computing to check for one Pedro Tagare in the province.

On a school run to collect some of the materials from Able Computing, Pedro ran into a Danny Santiago who immediately caught sight of the identification card that hung on his neck and recognized him.

“It was not a coincidence that I ran into Pedro Tagare,” Danny said.

He describes the environment that he is living currently as a peaceful place with respectful people who co-operates with the TVET school.

He loves living in the country free as Papua New Guinea and he thank God that he is still alive and well.

He is appealing for the Immigration office in Port Moresby and the Government to help him secure all of his outstanding claims from his employers facilitate his reunion with his family and grandchildren.