No, the closure was not a whimsical decision.

For the past 6 years, what people saw was the progression from nothing to something exceptional. But behind the colorful display was daily tormenting darkness as I constantly fought people of greed, envy, and hypocrisy. I had to remain silent and steadfast for the sake of the promotion and growth of paragliding in the town I was helping.

It was pure agony working with pilots and partners who are too short-sighted to see and understand what it takes to make a great vision into reality. Sadly, most of the local pilots whom we trained and invested in for the past years, do not share nor understand the long-term vision we had for our province.

After having gained free flight trainings, sponsorships, flying equipment privileges, exclusive connections to our networks, and a whole range of benefits from me, they decided to cut ties with us, leaving me with accumulated debts spent on site and community developments, and on their flight trainings, career advancements, and personal progressions.

Apart from that, they have started their own commercial tandem flights branding us as their enemies. They have refused our countless appeals for a united operations. They have allied themselves with schemers and manipulators who had the clearest intentions of causing division among us. There are pilots, instructors and associations from outside our province who are wolves dressed in sheep clothings.

Having local pilots operating without proper licenses, business permits and other legal compliances is a step down from our goals and a setback to the safety record we have preserved through the years. Their end-to-end flight services are not at par with the exceptional safe quality flight operations we have developed and established for almost 6 years.

I received no help from the associations that were supposed to safeguard the integrity of paragliding and set safety standards for the sport, instead, their members empowered the greed of our local pilots and initiated outrageous lies about me.  

I have seen this recipe of disaster in all other fly sites in the Philippines. This is the reason why paragliding and air sports have no progress in our country even after years of existence. I refuse to play their dirty games.

The only reason paragliding in Nueva Vizcaya has achieved this much is because I stood in the front lines of the battlefield and received all the bullets being shot at me while my “baby” pilots and projects were still growing and defenseless. But now that they think they are “full-grown” and have wings of their own, they took arms and started shooting me from behind.

The cultural and political dance was too emotionally and physically draining for me, especially after spending the whole day in high tension, ensuring every take-offs and landings of our tandem passengers was safe.

It was not easy carrying the lives of people on my shoulders and putting my life as a pledge for their safety. But whenever I hit rock bottom, the people I rely on to fight for me are mostly quiet, playing safe, sometimes powerless, or just plain traitors.

I have not gained any financial benefit from all these. The lifestyle I now live up in this mountain is far from the luxury life I used to have overseas. I have sacrificed my personal money, health, and flying career so others could go first.

In the end, suicide did not kill me. Selflessness did.

This is what I learned so far: if you strive to achieve greatness, you can’t linger in neutrality or passivity. There is no middle ground. You have to know right from wrong. You can’t support the abuser and the abused at the same time. You have to pick sides. You have to stand your ground. And if the people you are fighting for can’t stand with you behind the line, then it’s time to pack and leave.

They think they won this round. What they don’t know is that God led me away, because their skies will soon be devoured by vultures hatched from their own nests of greed.

It was not a whimsical decision.