I HAVE to give it to sisters Bien and Bambi Zoleta.

The siblings, both of them gold medal winners in soft tennis in the last SEA Games in Cambodia, Bien a double winner at that, drove all the way to Barangay Sta. Lucia in Dolores,Quezon early morning last Saturday December 16 to join me in my annual Christmas gift giving in Mt. Banahaw.

And Bien even thought of canceling it or at the most just drop off the big box of slippers for kids she was donating because she was nursing a slight fever and colds. She ended up staying the whole day but then that is going ahead of the story.

Just as a backgrounder, I met Bien when she attended the Media Relations Training I conducted with Pat Hizon for female national athletes earlier this year,it was an initiative by PSC Commissioner Bong Coo under her Wonen in Sports program.

She was also one of the two national athletes invited to a subsequent training seminar for aspiring student journalists in Tagaytay together with netball’s Thea Cenarosa and the three of us hit it off well .

I met Bien’s younger sister Bambi when I interviewed both of them in Makati abd even asked them to bring the medals they won so I could put all 4 medals on my neck just to see how it feels.

Both of them started on regular tennis but Bien shifted to soft tennis after feeling she was not getting a fair deal in the selection of players for the national team, a decision she never regretted as she became a mainstay on the soft tennis team.

Bambi followed suit and also made it to the national squad.

I mentioned to them about the Christmas gift giving I do every year for street kids in Manila and for indigent children in Mt. Banahaw and Bien said she would join and bring slippers for the kids in Sta. Lucia as her way of giving back and sharing her blessings as she would be receiving cash incentives from her SEA Games performance.

So it came to pass that she and Bambi, who was the designated driver by her “older ate” for the trip made it to the venue after more than 3 hours because of the traffic.

As a reward, I brought them down the 272 step man-made stairway to the twin falls of Sta. Lucia where Bambi dipped into the cold waters of the “batis” and stayed under the mini waterfalls while Bien could only dip her feet and be the photographer.

When we got back to the venue, over a hundred kids were already there for the Part 2 of the gift giving as earlier, students from the San Antonio de Padua in Pila,Laguna also brought gifts and bread while after lunch student scholars from the Cebuana Lhuillier Foundation distributed toys, shirts, tote bags and cash gift to go with the gifts and other items I brought from Manila the day before.

Passing up lunch, Bien and Bambi personally gave out the slippers they brought, so what if they found out that most of them were too big for the kids who still welcomed the gifts.

We finished mid afternoon ,tired but happy that we were able to bring smiles to the faces of those kids and parents and finally had our lunch at past three.

The sisters left around 4 p.m. and found out they still had another sacrifice to complete, it took them 6 hours to get back to Bien’s place in Taft near La Salle,this I learned after Bien messaged me that they finally made it.

But Bambi texted me too that it was worth everything and promised that they would be back, maybe overnight already to avoid the same experience and making sure they get the right sized slippers next year.

And enjoy more of Mt. Banahaw the next time.

Me with my high school buddy Bong Nocon from Paco Catholic School, a former JRU Light Bomber in his junior and senior high years after transferring school and a regular supporter of my gift giving, together with Kim Lanto from my YJAM group, the only one who made it, we left Sunday morning after a hearty breakfast and made it back in less than two hours.

Before leaving though we met the barangay captain for a medical mission we are planning for 2024 in Sta. Lucia, a long time item in my bucket list, and Bong, now based in Nova Scotia in Canada promised to be back for that too.

And maybe Bien and Bambi too.

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Lito Cinco