Bring Back the Melody of Pasig River

"Where are you now? I'm already here at Ospital ng Maynila. Our group will start from here. You should be here by 5AM!" It was 3:30AM and the voice reverberated in my room in the quiet of the early dawn. The call came from Ms. Bebian Lo, our company's Senior Vice President for Sales and Marketing.

Two days earlier, Ms. Bebian made a last ditch effort to have our group join the Run for Pasig River 2011 organized by the Gina Lopez-led ABS-CBN Foundation, Inc. (AFI). She gave us eleven registration forms complete with race shirts and race numbers, free of charge. I think each set should have cost the participant at least P450.00. Thanks to Boardwalk, her younger sister's fashion and apparel company which co-sponsored this major environmental concern activity alongside Air 21, Midas Hotel, DOTC, Lopez Group of Companies, Metro Rail Transit Corporation, Prudential Guarantee, ExTribe and other cause oriented groups, we will be saving our weekend allowances.

Online registration was already closed but Ms. Bebian has managed to ask Boardwalk to include our group in the last batch of participants which will be encoded manually by the monitoring group.

The event was listed on a global scale, having broken the Guinness World Record in the most number of participants in a marathon registering a total of 116,086 runners last October 10, 2010 or intentionally 10.10.10. This year's run hopes to break last year's record breaker. But the greater task is to generate funds to help sustain the rehabilitation of Pasig River. This is what AFI has set out to do and arduously strives to achieve since 2009 when the campaign started to gain momentum after the establishment of the Kapit Bisig Para sa Ilog Pasig (KBPIP).

Our group, composed of last minute recruits from Mt. Zion Memorial, Inc. (Rod, Jocelyn, Abel, Mon and myself), Fil-Estate Manangement, Inc. (Jackie), Global Estate Resorts, Inc. (Tet), Malay Resort Holdings, Inc. (my wife Hapi) and Universal Robina Corporation (Ina) all agreed to convene first at the Renaissance Tower at 4:00AM, Sunday on 11.20.11. Rod's group decided to go ahead via EDSA going straight to Roxas Boulevard as Hapi and I almost missed our cellphones alarm rings. The call from Ms. Bebian made it all the more urgent and exciting. As expected, traffic was incredibly heavy starting from the approach to EDSA MRT Station. I followed Mon's advice to go left immediately upon reaching Roxas Blvd. and make a right going to the DFA and breeze through the SMX parking area. We almost did it but not quite, as we got caught up in the middle when all vehicles grinded to a halt. The race has begun! And we're going to miss the big event.

A call from Rod, Abel and Mon added to our frustration hearing that they were already on the race and have already joined the group category of 10K run while we were stuck in the middle of the road. They were at the opposite direction coming from the Uniwide Coastal Road area. We were nearer going towards Petron Gas Station along Macapagal Avenue where the 3K and the 5K race categories were happening. Assessing the situation, we left the car in the middle of the traffic jam, suited up for the race and joined the fray halfway along the race - a classic shortcut to the finish line. There were very many runners, and walkers with different groups coming in throngs of varied colors - a festive atmosphere, indeed.

I've heard that the biggest contingent came from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines with at least 15,000 entries. ABS-CBN posted a remarkable 5,000 plus runners. It is quite notable to see happy faces doing the marathon or should I say, walkathon. The volume of participants occupying the road made it impossible for the runners to run as there is no more space ahead to cover for more energetic stride. All one needs to do was to keep up with the pace of the race and that was to walk . . . albeit leisurely. In my poor estimation, the participants that came that day far exceeded what was needed to break the previous year's record breaker. I think around 150,000 runners attended.

Reaching the finish line was our greatest achievement that day. And our prize was nothing less than exhilirating - a bottle of Smart C and a pack of Champion Powder soap. I would say that the real winners of this Run for Pasig River 2011 were those who came to shed a few extra pounds and sweat; those who came for bonding with family members and friends and those who came to give an insignificant portion of their fortune to bring back to life the once majestic and poetic Ilog Pasig.

Our hand salute to AFI and the organizers.