BENILDA DOMINGO: Bus Ride to
Romance
Benilda Domingo was heading home to Laoag City in the
Philippines from Manila after two years of menial work in
Singapore. Relatives introduced her to the bus driver,
Cefar Gabriel. While she had been working abroad, one of
her brothers had married one of Mr. Gabriel's sisters. By
the end of the nine-hour bus trip, they were in love.
The couple had three children &emdash; Daryl, 11,
Yvonne, 5, and Lucki Angel, 2. But for 14 years they kept
postponing their wedding, said Dorothy Gabriel, Ms.
Domingo's sister- in-law, because Ms. Domingo's parents,
living in Hawaii with their eldest son, were petitioning
United States authorities to allow Ms. Domingo to
immigrate, and a spouse would have slowed the
process.
Last year Ms. Domingo's visa finally came through, and
she brought the three children to America. She planned to
return to Laoag City to marry Mr. Gabriel and to bring
him over, too.
She left the two younger children with her parents in
Hawaii, and took the oldest with her to New York.
Ms. Domingo, 37, found work with an office-cleaning
company. "She was so proud that she was hired at the
W.T.C.," her sister- in-law recalled by telephone from
Canada.
Now Mr. Gabriel, still a bus driver in the
Philippines, is even more desperate to come to New York.
"He was so devastated," Ms. Gabriel said. "He wants to
come to see the place where it happened, and just to be
with his kids."
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