When Angels Visit

After almost four hours of waiting in line, my name was called by the cashier.

“Quilloy, Erwin. Andyan ba?”

“Opo.”, I replied.

I sprang to my feet and happily, or should I say, excitingly I quickly went to the cashier’s window. I paid the fee for the renewal of my driver’s license, excluding the application fee, the card case, and the test drive fee which did not have a real car driving test (“pitik” in other word, or let’s just call it a fund raising activity of the office, no receipts, no complaints allowed).

Anyway, I almost forgot about that test drive fee, because I was too happy that I will be having my professional license after a short while. And as I expected, my name was again called from the ID releasing window. I felt blessed, and surely, I was happy. I logged my name and signed the paper for releasing and then left the licensing office.

I then made my way back my town. I rode a jeepney, a quite spacious one; luckily, there were only a few passengers. It was past twelve noon. I estimated the time that I will arrive at Los Baños, and thought of having a quick lunch, then go to my office for work, though half a day work. The jeep was traveling so fast, it was Vin Diesel driving the ten-second jeep. Of course I was exaggerating that one. But it was really traveling fast, taking advantage of the light traffic in that area of Pila to Bay. It took only a couple of minutes before we arrive at the boundary of Los Baños. Some passengers alighted the jeep upon arriving the town. Again, the jeep went on its way.

It was almost 12:30pm, and I was almost reaching my destination when I heard the manong driver saying to his “pahinante” (Filipino term for a driver’s co-pilot), “Pare nawawalan ata ng preno..”

“Bombahin mo nang maigi!”, the manong pahinante shouted.

I was staring at manong driver’s face through the rear view mirror. I saw his thin eyes giving some bizarre expression. Maybe he was panicking too.

Everyone in the jeep panicked upon hearing these very exciting, heart pumping, jaw dropping conversation of the manong driver and manong pahinante, except for me. Alright, alright, I panicked too. Now the jeep was suddenly in autopilot mode, no one knows if it will stop moving forward.

At that moment, I was able to prove (and experience too) Newton's First Law of Motion. It says, "Any object in motion will continue moving in that straight line unless acted upon by some external force." The jeepney was moving in that straight line (I think we have the same velocity too since I was inside it), and it won’t stop if nothing will hinder it from moving forward. Though, i still think it will soon stop as soon as we hit something along the way, or due to the gravitational pull of our dying planet (not an ideal scenario.. hehehe).

Back to the story: I heard the engine chuckling while the jeep was moving. “May engine break effect naman.”, I thought to myself. The engine's actuation will have its effect on the jeepney's speed. And as expected, the jeep slowed down and soon the engine was shut, leading to a full stop after a couple of seconds. I was able to breathe deeply at that instant. “Yehey! Buhay pa me!” (Nope, I did not say this, it was just at the back of my mind). It was really weird that it happened when I was almost about to disembark.

But thank God, nobody got hurt, thank God the traffic was light when it happened, thank God we were traveling slower as compared earlier. I was thankful; I guess it was not yet my time to leave. Maybe an angel of death came there to reap some poor souls, but apparently, God too sent His angels of light to protect us, causing some delays in the plan of sabotage of the evil one. If the malfunction occurred earlier when we were traveling ala “Fast and Furious”, I would not be able to use my newly acquired license. Sad… more than that, maybe this would mean goodbye cruel world, or I-mode forever and beyond.

As I left the jeep, I thought of my family, my loved ones, and those special to me. I realized that God has just given me another chance to see these people, to thank them and to give love to them. It was not my luck that saved me; nor I am one of those “masamang damo na ‘di mamatay-matay…”. I knew that it was God’s grace that extended my lifeline. And He has some reasons why He did that, maybe because, I have not yet fulfilled my mission here, that’s why. This was not the first time though.

So great, it was not yet my time to leave today, maybe tomorrow, perhaps, or some other day. Only God knows. Right now, I do feel blessed and loved by God. AMDG