Editor?s Note: When the eruptions of Mount Pinatubo wrought destruction in wide swaths of Luzon in 1991, the author wrote a letter to the Inquirer saying he was prepared to host one homeless family in his small farm in Davao City. The responses were immediate but eventually no family actually came because they required funds for transport and other needs that the author?s financial donations could not cover. Now he pleads his own case.

PRESIDENT Benigno Aquino III?s State of the Nation Address (Sona) has moved me to rethink my despairing attitude toward every presidential promise and rosy forecast that usually end up as bubbles in the air.

When P-Noy spoke, I deeply felt his seriousness and sincerity. And when I connected his image with those of his parents who were genuine heroes and patriots, I knew that this nation under his leadership can not only dream again but also, with every Filipino lending support, march on to greatness.

But the test of the pudding is in the eating. Allow me then to use my case to see if my 15 years of applying for a government lot?years of following up, pleading, praying and palm-greasing?will now see the end of the tunnel before 2011. In his Sona, after all, the President promised that such a simple thing as this could be solved, not in decades, but in a matter of days, if not hours.

Where it began

Here?s my story. In 1995 I applied for a lot in Mintal, Davao City, with the Board of Liquidators in Daliao, also in the city.

My humble ambition, being then a 76-year-old war veteran and a survivor of Bataan and the Death March, was to leave something to my children.

The board passed my papers to its Manila office, where, for an interminable period, they seemed lost in limbo. At much expense and inconvenience, I made three follow-up trips to Manila, locating the board?s offices, first in Quezon City, and later near Malacañang.

Sometimes I was heartened by seemingly sympathetic sub-executives with whom I had coffee out of their office. But my case did not move just the same.

Then occurred a protracted ping-pong game between the Board of Liquidators and the Davao office of the Bureau of Plant Industry, with each claiming jurisdiction over the piece of property.

At every move at this time, I needed the services of lawyers. And naturally, unless they are your blood relatives, these professionals will readily show you their ?tariff? when the bills are due.

Then I received notice that my papers had been forwarded to the Office of the Executive Secretary. So I wrote then Executive Secretary Alberto Romulo. No answer, no action. Much later I wrote to Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita. His silence was louder than Romulo?s.

91 in September

That?s why I was ecstatic when I saw and heard P-Noy on TV, with all confidence and sincerity blowing the gloom out of a sky too long darkened by corruption and government inefficiency.

My papers are still languishing, if not with the Board of Liquidators, then with the Office of the Executive Secretary.

I will be 91 in September, one-and-a-half decades after I applied for the lot in May 1995.

I will not be around after another decade, but if I get my land title and make my children happy before Christmas, I can meet the sunset with heartfelt gratitude for the sweet blessings of this administration.