Tuesday, 7th September …..

One of the big events in any Rotary Club’s calendar is their Changeover from one president to another. In the Philippines, they call this their Induction. In recent years, many clubs have played this down and had a less formal ceremony but clubs like Calamba still make a big night of it.

But, before we get to the Changeover dinner, we were invited to have lunch with members of the club and the District Governor. They had spent the morning going through the club’s plans for 2010-2011 and we came in on the end of that process. There were smiles all round as Calamba is an active club and very well-regarded in the district.

All the members wore the barong tagalog, and the women had the female version, so it was a pretty good-looking turnout. I don’t think the DG had expected this as he was informally dressed and one of his aides was in jeans. So, Calamba won the points for appearance.

While we were there, Alida turned up from Lumban with my new barong, very flash with a matching undershirt. One of the problems with the barong is that it is almost transparent so men wear undershirts to protect their modesty. The undershirts are usually white, with short sleeves, while the barong has long sleeves. The effect is not particularly attractive, especially in photographs where the flash highlights the opaque undershirt.

Alida had made me a long-sleeved undershirt in the same colour as the barong material and that is a much better pairing.

Here are Marilyn and me with our good friend, Kit Reventar.
The night’s festivities were called for 6 o’clock and were held at a resort in the hot springs district of Pansol. Normally, people book these resorts for swimming but we had reserved one of their conference rooms. At 6.30, most of the people had arrived but by no means all. Punctuality is not a recognized virtue in the Philippines. All of the Calamba men were wearing black suits and the women had long ball gowns. Other guests wore the barong so I was certainly not out of place. One of the other guests was Tom King, the Mayor of Walnut City, California which is the sister-city of Calamba. He had been brought along by the Mayor of Calamba who is a Rotarian. Tom was pretty bemused by the whole thing and couldn’t wait to go home for a sleep. He was astounded that the Mayor of Calamba traveled with a police escort; in Walnut City, I gather he had to use his own vehicle with no ceremony.

We sat at large round tables which made it easy to talk, and talk they did. Even during the formal speeches, the conversation did not diminish. Unbelievably rude but apparently accepted by the Filipinos. The PA system was turned up to its maximum in an attempt to be heard but that only made the guests talk louder. In between speeches, they had a singing trio, again with maximum volume so it was a pretty noisy night.

This photo is with the new President, Maddy, and his family.
It was good to see Geoff McLennan from Deloraine who is now living in the Philippines. He has just returned from a Rotary get-together in Darwin and was starting a round of visits to club inductions. We hope to make plans to spend a few days with him and Chit in Manila.

Over previous visits, we’ve come to know the spouses of the members of RC Calamba and this was a chance to see them all again. An old friend, Val Herce, rarely attends the club meetings now but made a special trip to this induction, and it was great to see him again.

It was a long night, punctuated by many speeches and presentations. We don’t make a fuss about presentations in Tasmania but in the Philippines, Rotary clubs and individuals are very motivated by the chance of an award and they are proudly displayed. The Governor talked about an award that his club had given to a street sweeper at one time and this man was so proud of it that it was displayed at his funeral. Many of the awards at club level are paid for by the president so it can be quite expensive to be a Rotarian.