Balikbayans Galore!

The first of our balikbayan friends to arrive were Dr. Jonathan Reboton with wife Beth and children Erika and Jon. With them were Beth’s sister Bing Malazarte and son Gian, and Erika’s fiancé Atillo. They were then treated to a hearty lunch by Carlos and Kit Yeung at their home in Nivel. The Rebotons have since left for their home in Las Vegas.

Then, there were friends from Lake Forest, California, Elisa and Totti Montecillo whose main purpose in coming was to build a vacation house in Toledo City. Totti is a cousin of Judge Vic Montecillo and is a retired architect, while Elisa is a dentist. When we are there in LA, they always invite us to dinner and we always end our gatherings with mahjong games.

Ramy Sanson Barnes, a dear friend (very close friend indeed of Joe Recio) breezed into town to visit kith and kin, most especially Drs. Monching and Gening Solano. Before she migrated to the US, Remy used to teach Customs and Brokerage at the University of the Visayas. Now, she is based in San Francisco, California.

Two weeks ago, our hijada Dennis and husband Joop Teernstra from New Zealand were in Cebu and the first thing she did upon arrival was to visit The FREEMAN office before proceeding to Malabuyoc. As I mentioned before, Dennis used to work at The FREEMAN office before she married Joop, a lawyer from Holland. They have two beautiful children, Oliver and Liefje.

Philip Ong from Boston was also here for two weeks to visit relatives. While in our fair city, his good friend Dr. Rey Dira was his host, not to mention his relatives, the Ting family of Parklane, who treated him always to lunch and dinner. Philip left last week for Boston, Massachusetts.

And just this week, Toronto-based couple Chito and Maritess Mendoza came home after eight years of absence from their native land. They brought their two children, Marvin Louis and Mary Louise. Like the others, we treated them to lunch at Pino’s and they love the food at the resto especially the seafood salad and the truly Pinoy cuisine. Now that they saw the magnificent changes of Cebu, they promised to come back next year. By the way, the Mendozas are good neighbors of my daughter Fides Senining in Toronto, Canada. The Mendozas are going back to Toronto on the 28th after visiting Boracay, Bohol and Senining’s beautiful resort in San Remigio. The kids enjoyed horse-riding while in SanRem.