RICE PADDIES, MUD BALLS AND MODEST GOALS

The Levie Calipon-Lisondra story

by: Norberto Betita

Levie Calipon-:Lisondra

She learned to walk on rice paddies performing alternate errands while young, delivering food for her farmer father who worked hard in the farm to provide for eight of them siblings. Her childhood was replete and abounding with wonderful memories of playing and lurching on muddy rice field, throwing mud balls, chasing speed in planting rice and enjoying the heavy rains, especially during planting season. She ate lunches with the rest of the planters while wet and trembling from the cold breeze of the rainy season. She had those memories from age seven to eleven, in the rice field cultivated by her father as a tenant.

The remote Barangay of Awasan, Tago, Surigao del Sur, where LEVIE CALIPON-LISONDRA was born on April 17, 1956, never had the appearance nor did it have any indication of brighter prospects and opportunity for personal growth and development. In her young mind was the thought that if she ever chose to stay, she will be cramped in the borders of muddy fields and her future will be restrained by the inadequacies and scanty potentials which the small farming community offers. Together with her siblings, she dreamed to move away from the muddy boundary towards a better and greener pasture, and wider open playing field of life.

Celebrating her 60th birthday & retirement from PNB

She started to follow her humble childhood vision by walking a few kilometers to Tago Elementary School to be educated. She endured despite limited school provisions and there finished grade five. She then went to stay with her elder sister at San Miguel, Surigao del Sur and worked her way to finally complete her elementary education. At an early age of thirteen, driven by her earnest dream to get away from her dismal situation, she decided to work as house help and at night studied high school at the Tago Municipal Evening High School where she eventually completed her secondary education. With high school diploma on hand she followed her other siblings to find her future in Surigao City.

She found a job at Dexter Construction and was fortunate enough to have been allowed to enroll in college. It was for her a rare and singular opportunity which provided the road on the way to her humble dream of earning a college degree. She wanted not to waste her time; hence she tried to be just as efficient and effective as she could be in doing her assigned tasks while at the same time pursuing her college education. She believed and understood that education is central to all available sources that provide access to the gate of deliverance from the borders of scarcity. She was sure that the time devoted to the pursuit of knowledge will move her away from the isolated and dreary waste of her life to the future light of noonday. With unwavering faith and courage, she finally graduated with a degree in Commerce, major in accounting in October of 1981.

With son  Edgar Vincent

Since then she had been in different jobs; from a contractual position at PACEMCO, to a casual employment at the Provincial Capitol of Surigao del Norte, and on to selling insurance, until she finally landed a job as clerk typist of the National Service Corporation (NASECO), a subsidiary of the Philippine National Bank (PNB). While in such employment she took and passed the PNB qualifying examinations. After one and a half years in NASECO she was finally absorbed as a permanent employee of PNB with initial position as Bank Clerk of Butuan Branch in July of 1987. To have been employed at PNB was to her already a fulfillment of her modest goal. By then PNB employment is one of the sought after opportunity with its salary offer highest than all other banking and government institutions. She was eventually transferred to Surigao Branch in November of 1988.

In 1989, at age 33, she was married to her longtime friend Edgardo L. Lisondra. Their marriage was blessed with three children, all boys. During the next ten years of their marital partnership they were enjoying together a humble but happy life, facing just the typical challenges common in family life. With children still on their earlier childhood their combined family income was just right to support their needs. However, in the year 2000 the tragic loose of her husband as a result of cardiac arrest occurred living her widowed at age 44. Her son Eldon Ted was only ten and on his fourth grade in elementary; Arnel Jun at eight was in grade two; and Vincent Edgar, 5-year old was in kindergarten.

With sons Eldon Ted & Arnel Jun

The sole responsibility to raise and rear her sons is now laid and embedded upon her shoulders. The daily demand of support became a burden for her alone to bear. But there was no space for escape and evasion; she needed to be just as staunch and devoted to her children, notwithstanding her singular and extraordinary familial duty of being both father and mother. She trained her boys to do household chores such as, but not limited to cooking food as to be able to help themselves while she finds enough for their provision. As a devoted Christian, she believes in the proverbs of the wise King Solomon, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). As the boys grow in years and personal needs increased, she found her income insufficient to sustain the ever mounting demands. To supplement her deficient earnings she spent her weekends selling memorial park lots and insurance. 

She found it awfully tough to be a single parent, especially with the fact that her employment in the bank required of her to stay beyond working hours. Training her three boys of proper discipline and character building needs more time with them, yet she tried to utilize her remaining time with her children’s waking hours as effectively and efficiently as possible. She felt she could not just shift the burdens and responsibility of molding her sons to the teachers in school rooms or even in the church. As the vulnerability of teenage started to influence her boys, she realized that her second son is giving in to peer pressures. She became conscious of the fact that no matter how hard her effort to train her children some will nevertheless be tempted to walk the ways of the prodigal. Yet she never gave up. She extended the same unwavering love to her prodigal; she prayed in earnest for God to light his ways; she gave him the freedom to do what pleases him, while making sure that he will not be totally lost in the dark; and she waited for the time when he will finally recognize his missteps and failures as in the parable of the prodigal son. In times of tears, stresses and traumas, she found relief and liberation in the inspirational words of Sharon Jaynes: “Successful mothers are not the ones who have never struggled. They are the ones who never give up, despite the struggles.” During periods of intensifying burdens she gathered and received strength from the Lord’s invitation, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).

On vacation in Bangkok, Thailand

Together with her humble career growth her sons had also grown enough to winning their early battles in life. She considered herself providentially blessed for having her eldest and youngest sons qualified for admission to study in a government university---Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology (MSU-IIT), where the costs of tuition and fees and board and lodging are considerably affordable. Her eldest son, Eldon Ted graduated with a degree in Education major in English. He took and successfully passed the Licensure Examinations for Teachers. He is now employed as English Teacher in Bangkok, Thailand. In deepest expression of gratitude for her mother’s great sacrifices, he afforded for her a funded vacation to Bangkok, Thailand---a short respite from her weary labors. From the same university, her youngest son also graduated with a degree in Business Administration, major in Entrepreneurial Marketing. He is now awaiting a call for employment with the Philippine National Bank after passing the qualifying examinations.

In my interview with Levie at PNB, she felt very excited telling me that “Indeed God has His own timing. After much prayer, continued expressions of love and concern, and extended time of waiting and patient yearning, Arnel Jan my second son already ‘came to himself’ as in the Lord’s Parable of the Prodigal Son (see Luke 15:11-32). He is at present back to his academic journey pursuing a college degree of Bachelor of Arts in English, and is now in his second year.”

Memories with fellow Philnabankers

Reminiscing her unforgettable years of childhood, she recalls those muddy experiences---rice paddies, mud balls and her modest goals. The rice field which her father tilled as a tenant and where she enjoyed the youthful vigor of chasing speed in planting rice and eating out of flavor meals while trembling wet in the cold of rain, provided her youthful years the opportunity to see in the open horizon of her life the silver lining which motivated her to move forward and away from such a disdained and disadvantaged beginning. She slowly trailed a step at a time the route to her modest goals. Although the path she trudged was mobbed and pestered by vexing adversities, she never chilled nor constrained. She looked far into the trailing clouds where the silver lining points the way and guided her finally into reaching the heights of her humble dreams.

As she prepares for her age of seniority while still sitting in her present position as Sales and Service Officer-Assistant Manager I of PNB Gaisano Capital Branch in Surigao City, she looks forward to her compulsory retirement at age 60 comes April 2016. She will always be deeply grateful to PNB for unlocking the gate away from the frontiers of destitution and opening the door that leads to the attainment of her worthy goals. She reverenced the memory of her parents with heart overflowing with gratitude for their love and treasured encouragement and motivation for her and the rest of her siblings to leave the confines of muddy fields and find joy into the future. She expresses her love and gratitude to her sons for joining with her in battle with the challenges of life. Her heart is filled with thankfulness to God’s providential hand which in mercy and love was extended during her most trying moments.In flashes of deepest reflections, she remembers the Christian heritage which her parents bequeathed, and hears in echoes David’s Psalm of gratitude often quoted in church discourses:

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

“He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

“Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever” (Psalms 23).

A typical rice field in Tago, Surigao del Sur

For once she thought, “What if I had decided to be stuck on the rice paddies and muddy fields? Perhaps my children should have been exposed to the same childhood snags and strains I run through.” At retirement she wishes to visit the place of her birth and childhood and again walk on rice paddies, try once more to mold and throw mud balls and look far into the horizon beyond the open field where the trailing clouds of yesteryears provided for her the panorama of a silver lining which since then and now has conceptually bridged her way to the realization of her modest goals and her rise to the unadorned expectations and glory she once envisioned.

This is a story of no ostentations; neither does it portray the glory of superiority and sophistication. This is one kind of a humble, clear and truthful account of a Surigawnon which exemplifies that no matter the dearth of our beginnings, we can each rise above the threshold of our poverty and deprivation and on to a provident and meaningful life.