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THE
recently completed Toyota Road Trek 4 was an event for
motoring journalists-dominated media persons that will
remain indescribable days—even weeks, I guess—after it
ended.
To say
it was merely another routine, run-of-the-mill
ego-massage for the war-scarred, brain-battered members
of the Fourth Estate would be an insult of gigantic
proportions to both organizer and organized.
While
it’s true that it brought the pen-and-ink ilk to a
rarely unchartered route fraught with thrills and
excitement, the event was a little more of everything
than meets the eye.
If you
think it was designed purely to satiate one’s longing
for a quick-fix escape from the rat race, think again,
fellas.
The
fourth edition of the famed Toyota Road Trek will go
down in history as the hardest to surpass, if only
because of its originality and innovativeness.
It will
be fondly talked about years after its conclusion for
its sheer uniqueness.
Danny
“Sir John” Isla quoted his friend as saying the
beautiful sights in El Nido, Palawan—the centerpiece of
the Toyota Road Trek 4—“prove that there, indeed, is a
God.”
I have
heard of the same line being spoken by a friend of mine
after he had seen the Grand Canyon in Arizona.
And
while I can agree to both my friend and Sir John
wholeheartedly, maybe it wouldn’t be blasphemous if I
say the Toyota Road Trek 4 was, likewise, made by God.
It was
so marvelously hatched, magnificently executed and
majestically concluded that I honestly and seriously
doubt if there’d be another one as superbly brilliant as
this in the years to come.
So, if
you are still wondering why Danny “Sir John” Isla keeps
mouthing the famous Beatles line, “It’s getting better
all the time,” during Toyota occasions, both momentous
and not, will you cut the crap, please?
There’s
no end to it, I tell you, no end to making one Toyota
event after another better and better all the time.
From Toyota Road Trek 1 to Toyota Road Trek 4, the word
aptly describing each edition is not best but
better…getting better, of course.
One is
not even allowed to ask the question: When will it ever
end? The politically correct question is: What to
expect next?
In the
recent Road Trek, it was, to begin with, a guessing
game. You don’t know what’s in store for you until the
day the Toyota Road Trek 4 began.
I have
always believed that life is better spent chasing
rainbows than treading the beaten path. Exciting and
never dull, I tell you.
Why
drink wine and not gin when there’s leg of lamb on the
table?
Why bet
your Visa card and not “all of it” when you have a pair
of 2s?
Why buy
Vios and not Altis when you have a million bucks to
spare?
You are
what you decide, do.
When I
decided to join the Toyota Road Trek 4, I did so without
knowing what lay ahead.
“Basta,
it’s a mystery, sir,” said Ana Agregado,
Toyota’s Mighty Mite.
I never
really seriously asked what’s in store for everybody.
“Secret
talaga, sir,” said Elijah(won) Sue Marcial, the
Big E of Toyota Motor Philippines Inc.
I never
dared ask Dax Avenido, nor Mike Rosario (thanks for
being my “bottle boy” in the flight back to Manila,
Mike), neither their pals Camille Juan, Michelle de
Guzman, Jad de Leon, Paulyn Dalisay, Ralph Garcia, Dave
Asuncion, Sherwin Mangaccat and Michelle Bayani. I might
yet be “happily disappointed” again.
Not Jing
Atienza, too. I could read his mind: “Are you
referring to The Mysterious Magic of Tour de France, Sir
Al?”
By its
very moniker—The Magical Mystery Tour—it won’t be a
mystery that not one soul would rat on its essence. The
Code of Omerta does exist in this part of the globe.
Not even
Sir John, the other half of the Sir John-Sir Paul Duo.
“No deal
this time, Sir Paul,” said Sir John. “Everybody must
play by the rules. My lips are sealed.”
Four
days and three nights it was.
From
Commonwealth Avenue, Quezon City, to Rizal, Laguna and
Sofitel by the bay—all done in a day’s work onboard a
Vios and an Altis; from Naia to El Nido, Palawan, the
following day to trigger a three-day, two-night
communing with Mother Nature’s Son, why, it doesn’t get
any better than this. Every single day, single hour,
single minute—the mystery was worth all the waiting.
In this
magical mystery tour, I want to tell you all you need is
love the night before she’s leaving home.
Sir
John, think for yourself: If I needed someone, I don’t
want to spoil the party, so tell me what you see if I
fell for honey pie, oh, darling! Within you, without
the ticket to ride, don’t’ bother me.
Am just
a working-class hero, so tomorrow never knows. |
