Dutch Pinoys pay tribute to 'Kumpare ng Bayan'
By LOUI GALICIA
By LOUI GALICIA
ABS-CBN Europe News Bureau
Tayo’y magshalala lala kahit na all the evening
Oohhh shalala para sa ating magiting...
UFDA, March 2008
For his 50th birthday, Pinoys in Europe gave Boy Balmaceda a surprise gift he will never forget, - a grand and extravagant birthday celebration to mark his entry to a new phase in his life.
Balmaceda was shocked when he entered the Fokker Dance & Party Centrum in Hoofdorp, the town where he has been residing since the 1980s.
He was surprised to see a lot of friends, mostly from Holland and others from Belgium and Germany where he maintains a very big circle of acquaintances.
Balmaceda dropped by the party place to meet his colleagues from KLM Airways where he is a staff member, not knowing that he will be the star of a bigger event.
"I was surprised so I could not know what to feel. I was stunned when I got here," Balmaceda said in Pilipino.
Good, kind and friendly
Balmaceda is considered a "kumpare" of a lot of Pinoys in The Netherlands, Belgium and Germany because of his stark camaraderie and wit as a leader.
"Boy really knows how to get along with people, he’s good, kind and knows how to make friends. This is supposed to be a secret birthday party. Imagine if this is an open birthday party, we’d have thousands of people," an impressed Ambassador Romeo Arguelles told the crowd during a tribute to Balmaceda.
In his more than two decades in Holland, starting as a seaman who fell in love and married a Pinay nurse in Hoofdorp, Balmaceda has since helped a lot of Filipinos in distress.
"Pareng Boy is really very valuable to the community because he has helped so many people. We have known him since the early 1980s and have never known him to do harm to his fellowman. If you need him for community efforts, he is there. If you need him for sports related activities, he is there. Even for cooking related events he is there. Name the event, he is there," long-time friend Jun Ortega said.
Measure of love and importance
As sports chairman of the United Filipino-Dutch Association, he has helped bolster the group’s cooperation and friendship with the Philippine Embassy in the Netherlands and Filipino community groups in Europe over the years.
"I cam here to show him that we are all one united in pushing for his happiness," Jimmy Conde, chairman of Isang Lahi Antwerp Antwerp, Belgium said.
"That is one measure of the value of Boy and Elma and their family. Even if this is just a surprise party, it’s surprising that they were able to attract this many people. That is also a measure of how much they are loved by the Filipino community here," Philippine Embassy Minister Counsellor Eduardo Aro said.
Countless Pinoys volunteered to help in a bayanihan that put together a deluge of food, drinks and fun in honor of a great man who is close to their hearts.
Indeed, the measure of the importance of what one gives is what one gets.
SOURCE: http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/
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