Our Mabuhay Independence TSD Rally revisited
Credit to Author: MIKE POTENCIANO| Date: Sat, 08 Jun 2019 16:19:07 +0000
With our new title sponsor South Asialink Finance Corp. (SAFC) supporting our Third Mabuhay Independence TSD Rally today (Sunday), we are happy to repost how the Reyes family was able to win the event last year. TSD stands for time speed distance.
It was also our longest and best event ever as happily proclaimed by our long-time participants. This would be the pattern for our future TSD or on-time, all-the-time rallies, and we would start with this Sunday’s Cavite Rally, again supported by outgoing governor and new congressman of the seventh district of Cavite, Boying Remulla. Here’s the shortened version of that very memorable event.
2018 repost
Our very memorable Petron Mabuhay Independence Rally, with the support of the Cavite provincial government headed by then Gov. Remulla was a big success! The participating teams got to see a lot of Cavite’s historic sites for the first time in their lives.
We have listed the winners in another article published in the past in this motor sports section, and we congratulate again the Reyes family for taking the Overall win and the Family division win, plus the Team Award for the Mini Team, too! The new Bayud Resort Siargao team of Remi Barbers, Carlos and Igo Loinaz took the Novice class honors.
Cavite support
Taking a cue from our successful Rizal Day rally in January, we wanted to show how we won our independence from our foreign conquerors. After a short review of our history, we found that the first battle for independence happened in Cavite and a lot of our heroes came from that province. Therefore, it was a hands down choice to have Cavite as our place for the Mabuhay Independence Rally.
We were fortunate to get in touch with my college friend Remulla, and he loved the idea of our amazing race/auto fun run rally, especially since it was geared for the family and has historical significance. We initially set the date on June 12, and the governor told us where the best historical spots of the province where.
History lesson
The Aguinaldo Shrine in Kawit would be one of the main stops, as it was the place where our independence from the Spaniards was declared. The monuments of the Battle of Binakayan, Battle of Imus 13 Martyrs in Trece Martirez City, and the various monuments in the towns were included. These monuments showed the first battles of our early Filipino heroes, and demonstrated how strong and courageous they were to fight against the well-equipped oppressors.
The Tejeros Convention in Rosario, the Museo ng Paglilitis ni Bonifacio and the Bonifacio Shrine in Maragondon showed the dark side of politics and the early revolution.
The father and acknowledged leader, Andres Bonifacio, was supposed to be our first president but was voted out by Aguinaldo’s group, then tried for treason, was imprisoned and killed by Filipinos themselves. The Bonifacio shrine, erected in 2010, was where he was shot in the hinterlands of Maragondon, also in Cavite. This would be a fitting tribute to our hero as we wanted to bring this event out in the open and learn from our past.
One of the late additions to the route was the privately owned GBR Museum in General Trias. This fantastic museum has one of the best collections of our revolutionary and historical pictures on display. Created by philanthropist and founder Geronimo Berenguer de los Reyes Jr., his grandfather was silently involved in funding the Filipino revolution and had the Three Masons monument in the museum to commemorate the silent heroes. This is definitely a place worth visiting, and we made it our rally finish.
Mother nature’s fury
It isn’t easy to organize TSD rallies, and this Mabuhay Rally was no exception! With the event originally scheduled to be ran during our Independence Day holiday, we had to postpone it due to the monsoon rains that came down hard and kept going for almost two weeks.
The night before the rally it poured again, and we thought that we might have to postpone the rally again. Luckily, the morning of the rally was cloudy but dry. It remained that way until we finished at the GBR Museum in the afternoon.
Good timing
The postponement of the event, though, had a good effect on the rally, as the venues were not busy and the governor was now free from his official independence duties. That allowed the governor to join us before he left for a trip abroad.
However, we had to undertake a major rerouting of the event and that gave us two sleepless nights. And we had to start the rally start at the new Petron Manila Bay station and meet the governor in the Aguinaldo Shrine in the morning. It was really worth the effort as everything gelled, especially the sites were passed this time according to their geographical locations. Also, we had a good trivia contest in Kawit’s Aguinaldo Shrine.
What we could not anticipate was the impassable dirt road leading to the Bonifacio Shrine in Maragondon. After incessant rains the night before, we had to cancel the stage leading there and that started a series of problems.
So stay tuned next week for the exciting conclusion to this memorable event!
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