Memento - A Picture Tells A Thousand Words

Where is the Love...It's Here

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May and Rommel's Wedding
San Agustin, Intramuros, Manila, Philippines, May 29, 2004

It was the same date for Black Eyed Peas' concert a few hundred meters from the hotel. Soon the same hotel will be the lovenest for my sister May and hubby Rommel, who were preparing for that night's appointment with destiny. If not for that event, my wife and I would have been in the concert ourselves. Besides, it's their company sponsoring the event and just recently we got smitten by the song "Shut Up, Shut Up" thanks to the overzealous congressman from Maguindanao, whose name rhymes with dapat tanggalen.

The wedding was fast and furious. The ring and coin bearers marched while the coins and the rings were still with another person - outside the church. The secondary sponsors were nowhere in sight and I had to stand in as candle sponsor sans a lighter (I've stopped smoking since eons of years ago). But all these were not visible nor apparent to any of the guests. The family knows how to conceal a lot of things. Everyone was focused on the radiant bride and the future both of them hold in their hands.

We got back to the hotel by midnight while I, big brother was left in the hotel parking lot unpacking some things from the car. The speakers were blaring the intro of "Where Is the Love", and the thousands of funk, reggae, r&b, partyphiles hooted as the refrain replayed the same lines as the title.

I walked back to the hotel lobby humming the same, "where is the love? where is the love?" The whole family was there to support my lil sister in her most memorable day. "Love is in Room 450 right now. Full of it.", I answered the song, to myself.