Baguio-Manila fare was Pesos 3.75 during our high school days. The trip was dusty, very hot or very wet, sometimes dangerous, tiring, humid and sweaty, wishing you never ever left Baguio when you got to Misericordia Street Dangwa terminal, seven hours later, or the other liners' terminals. Plus another hassle to get to your dorm or boarding house or to your kind auntie's in Manila, to be close to UP, UE, Mapua or wherever.
And your square bamboo box of choice strawberries for your roommates/ friends/ co-caseras would be turning red from the wilting fruit. The trip would have about two stops (if not more, depending on the bladder capacities of co-passengers) of about 20 minutes each. The prepaid meals for the driver and conductor would normally take place at LIBERATORS RESTAURANT in Carmen, Rosales, Pangasinan, soon after the Carmen Bridge. Sellers would climb on the moving bus and sell you bukayo (try sayingb booookayo 4 times within one second: that was the way they were hawked) or tupig ("Napudot pay! Ay, toooopig! Gumatang kayon, manang!").
At Liberators, after you shake off that vibrating bus ride feeling from your hair roots to your toes, there would be about 10 stainless steel pots with different kinds of accompaniments waiting for your rice, plus ten centavos for a cold Coke or TruOrange. Or Cosmos Sarsaparilla if you wanted to save 5 centavos. Or a free glass of chilled water that tasted slightly of salt (as opposed to the sweetish water of Baguio).
The extra large ceiling fans were guaranteed to blow away the serviettes on the table if not secured by a smooth rock. Then you wash your face and hands at an outhouse, with at least running warmish water, while you smell the gasoline fumes in the pumps close by. And Mrs. Padilla would be greeting her guests, one hand with a colorful handkerchief, and a bamboo pole with shredded newspapers secured with a rubber band at one end to shoo away the flies/ mosquitoes on the other.
Fast-forward to today: you probably would have the longer stop at Tarlac, near the entry to Luisita's where you would find a Jollibee, McDo, Max's, KFC, Starbucks for your break. The CR's would have a working flush, t. paper, soap. Not much different from AnyPlace in KL, Manila, San Francisco. And pasalubongs available in foil wrappers, Manufactured Under Sanitary Conditions and Vacuum Sealed by the Foods and Snacks Division of some MNC. Not with dried coconut leaves or grill-wilted banana leaves, tied up with bamboo strips. Progress? Maybe, depending on how you would define it.
But definitely, the Liberator Restaurant and pit stop is surely an institution that is etched deeply into our memories. Specially with Mrs. Padilla smiling away and shaking her fly whisk of Free Press or Kislap Graphic pages with cut-up strips of a smiling Paraluman or First Lady Inday Garcia face on the cover.
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