It was a weekend of “Happy-birthday-to-you” singing – from the hangar of his private plane in Paranaque before he flew to Vigan; to his house in Narvacan, Ilocos Sur where countless guests came with birthday cakes and gifts; to the streets of Vigan, where he politely accepted greet-ings, posing for photos with people walking by his table along the street; to the huge stage of the 10,000-seat coliseum bearing his name; and at the driveway where townsfolk not dressed for the inaugural ceremonies had waited for hours. Four days later — as he stepped off his plane back at the hangar in Paranaque, airport staff waited with a birthday cake with lighted candles to sing the same happy birthday song.

An old habit turned me into a reporter again — and not a guest — in this trip with former Ilocos Sur Governor Luis “Chavit” Singson and his guests for his birthday weekend. For many years, he would fly out of the country on June 21, to avoid the birthday greetings that poured like a tropical cyclone. In the years he had been home, his birthday was known for cash raffle prizes that could make poor men and women wake up to another lifestyle.

The lovely part of the weekend was the quiet hour we sat with him on the day before his birth-day to talk about what’s on his mind as he turned another year. “I want people to know that I am still 41, because I feel like I’m 41 and I was born in 1941,” he said with a smile that chal-lenged anyone to disagree.

He looks at life in very simple terms — “It pays to be good to everybody; spend money on scholars who can contribute to the country later; money is not yours until you spend it.”

He said he taught his children how to work, giving them the best education and some capital to start a business. “But they have to work. I tell them — take the stairs, not the elevator, to suc-cess.”

To the question — what else do you want to achieve — Chavit did not hesitate to reply: “No more, I am contented.”

Chavit, a politician and billionaire whose businesses are in a long list of industries, among them mining, real estate, construction, public transportation, air, land and sea vehicle manufactur-ing, Information Technology, is known for a colorful past and present. Today, that can be viewed from what you can call “extraordinary” monuments of his legacy.

One of these is the 100-hectare Baluarte Zoo in Vigan with hundreds of animals, some of them roaming freely in wide expanse of space that mimics their original habitats. The zoo, which opened in 2003, only started charging entrance fees this year. Its maintenance and the pur-chase of animals were funded by Singson. It houses various species ranging from tigers, lions, and camels to peacocks and deer.

Inside is a Safari Gallery which displays the taxidermied remains of animals that Singson hunted in various parts of the world — another “monument” to an extraordinary lifestyle.

His quote on “money not being yours until you spend it” fuels his generosity. In December 2021, Manong Chavit, as everyone calls him in that part of the country, used a “money gun” to shoot money in the air to be caught by well-wishers.

The money gun gimmick became viral in social media, attracting a man from Poland to go to the Philippines to meet him. The man ended up staying in the country for more than 100 days, spending many hours of conversation with Chavit. He wrote the book “Chavit: Legend of the Philippines” which was launched during the inauguration of the Chavit Coliseum on June 21.

But the book failed to outshine the birthday cakes of all shapes, sizes and flavors — more than 50 of them — held by well-wishers who lined three rows of the whole length of the coliseum stage. Chavit did not hesitate to show his appreciation, blowing the candles on each cake. Speaking of cakes, at his house in Narvacan, boxes of cakes sat on tables as each group who came to greet him brought a cake to complete the singing ritual.

It was the Chavit Coliseum that impressed all guests — some from Metro Manila and other countries. This now stands as another monument of his legacy in the development of his prov-ince. When he was mayor of Narvacan (2019-2022) he built what is now the most modern pub-lic market in the country. Solar power runs the 8,700-square meter structure which will be ex-panded later this year. Beside the Narvacan Farmers Market is a well-designed public plaza with a dancing fountain. (A larger dancing fountain in Vigan set up years ago is now a tourist attraction.)

The air-conditioned Chavit Coliseum is the most modern in the country, with an LED monitor circling the base of the dome; floors that could be changed for sports or business functions; and seats that could be automatically folded to accommodate space requirements of an event.

After the inaugural ceremonies, when we were all ready to go to bed, we found the birthday boy sitting at his 24-seat dining table, hosting the ₱9.3-million grand raffle, gifts to random in-dividuals unknown to him. This time, he was giving away cash prizes to lucky account holders of V-Bank which he owns. Streaming online on his Facebook account, Chavit set the electronic tambiolo working, to stop at random names evenly distributed among Luzon, Visayas and Min-danao account holders.

“I am happy when someone I help is happy” is Singson’s consistent reply to the question “what makes you happy?”

His birthday raffle was a place with many happy people.