Over the weekend -- this was last Friday, Thursdays and Fridays being the weekend days over here, at least for now. The UAE and other GCC countries have already chosen Fridays and Saturdays to be their weekend, allowing more days of business and interaction with the rest of the world whose workdays are from Mondays to Fridays. But I digress -- I underwent an oft-postponed cautery of warts and serangoma (sp?) on my face, neck, shoulders and the rest of my torso, front and back. It was painful to say the least. But I needed to have the procedure done lest I end up with skin so full of them. I had at various other times in the past, undergone this dermatological procedure but the warts recurred. I also had light peeling. Now, three days after the procedure, the burns have turned brown and the peeling have began to make my face really look hideous. I am quite embarassed by my appearance. If you're not in the know about these cosmetic or dermatological procedures, you might look at me and conclude I am or maybe sick. And you may want to stay away from me if you won't at least be surprised and recoil on seeing me or coming near me. But somehow, these reactions never materialized. People have so far treated me as if I don't look hideous. In fact, as I went to buy some office supplies at a popular store here, the salesmen, the cashiers and the baggers went on about their business of dealing with me as a customer, in the same way they would other customers. There were no stares, no furrowed brows, nothing. Just the usual customer service with a smile.
So it's nice to realize that there are still many people in this world who can look beyond your appearance and treat anyone else normally.
Monday, August 21, 2006
Monday, August 14, 2006
SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT
Hindi ko pinagarap na isulat ito sa blog ko. Thinking na silence is the better part of prudence. Pero ang dami nang rumors swirling about these issues kaya naisip ko na dapat na siguro talagang ipaalam sa mga interested parties kung ano ang totoo. Not to enter into another argument. Not to rebutt anything out there. Only to set the record straight. And have some sort of a statement coming from our side which would be our official stand on the issues. Whether other interested parties will accept these or refute these, is another issue altogether.
Ganito talaga ang mga pangyayari....
On my Bebe's assumption of the position of Executive Assistant to the Country Leader (and concurrently, Program Management Director for Middle East and Africa). - This position was offered to him by no less than the Country Leader himself. My Bebe accepted on the condition that no one will be displaced.
It was offered based on his track record as executive support ever since he joined the company more than a decade ago, and for various top executives who came and went. It was offered because my Bebe was the best qualified to be in that job, bar none. It was offered because the Country Leader was sure my Bebe was available since my Bebe gave up the position offered to him in Abu Dhabi for another colleague who would have been eased out because there was no budget for this colleague. But this colleague's skills were needed by Abu Dhabi more than my Bebe's skills. Since there was no way that additional headcount may be added, my Bebe was asked to give way and he did.
There was someone who provided support to the Country Leader, but he was actually part of another department. I also provided support to the Country Leader, just as my Bebe did, even though we were all from different departments. It was like we acted as a secretarial pool for the Country Leader in the absence of someone officially attached to his office to do the support job. But for purposes of delineation of duties, this someone was the de facto support. Despite being one though, the Country Leader did not include him in his headcount.
When this someone's department underwent retrenchment, he was one of those separated from service.
On Rene Segovia's deployment at Lucent. - On or about March or April 2006, the Program Management department led by the Country Leader as well, wanted to strengthen the department and, among many requirements, needed dedicated administrative support. This new position however will be filled up a subcontractor. My Bebe, apart from other people, was asked for potential candidates. He offered Rene's name, knowing fully well that Rene was in-between jobs and Rene's previous work experience in the field fitted the bill. Rene was chosen, from a very short list, and has proven to be more than qualified for the requirements of the department.
So there. Pero I suppose, it is also wise to list down the following take-away messages:
1. All decisions regarding my Bebe and Rene were made by management. Inputs from my Bebe may or may not have influenced those decisions. If it is a crime or misdemeanor to provide inputs in these twin situations, specially if they were sought, then by all means file your case in the appropriate courts.
2. More than inputs, I believe my Bebe and Rene are still at Lucent (albeit in Rene's case, as a suncontractor) due to merit. All other factors are merely positively mitigating.
3. The rumors almost always put us (specially my Bebe) in a bad light, and picture us as the bad guys. Have certain interested parties thought for a minute about their own capabilities and if they have been quite qualified (or not) for the jobs at issue? Have they ever thought that despite the presumed/perceived politics in the workplace, talent will out?
For sure, this post will not put the rumors and issues to rest. But for the record, this is our version of the stories.
Ganito talaga ang mga pangyayari....
On my Bebe's assumption of the position of Executive Assistant to the Country Leader (and concurrently, Program Management Director for Middle East and Africa). - This position was offered to him by no less than the Country Leader himself. My Bebe accepted on the condition that no one will be displaced.
It was offered based on his track record as executive support ever since he joined the company more than a decade ago, and for various top executives who came and went. It was offered because my Bebe was the best qualified to be in that job, bar none. It was offered because the Country Leader was sure my Bebe was available since my Bebe gave up the position offered to him in Abu Dhabi for another colleague who would have been eased out because there was no budget for this colleague. But this colleague's skills were needed by Abu Dhabi more than my Bebe's skills. Since there was no way that additional headcount may be added, my Bebe was asked to give way and he did.
There was someone who provided support to the Country Leader, but he was actually part of another department. I also provided support to the Country Leader, just as my Bebe did, even though we were all from different departments. It was like we acted as a secretarial pool for the Country Leader in the absence of someone officially attached to his office to do the support job. But for purposes of delineation of duties, this someone was the de facto support. Despite being one though, the Country Leader did not include him in his headcount.
When this someone's department underwent retrenchment, he was one of those separated from service.
On Rene Segovia's deployment at Lucent. - On or about March or April 2006, the Program Management department led by the Country Leader as well, wanted to strengthen the department and, among many requirements, needed dedicated administrative support. This new position however will be filled up a subcontractor. My Bebe, apart from other people, was asked for potential candidates. He offered Rene's name, knowing fully well that Rene was in-between jobs and Rene's previous work experience in the field fitted the bill. Rene was chosen, from a very short list, and has proven to be more than qualified for the requirements of the department.
So there. Pero I suppose, it is also wise to list down the following take-away messages:
1. All decisions regarding my Bebe and Rene were made by management. Inputs from my Bebe may or may not have influenced those decisions. If it is a crime or misdemeanor to provide inputs in these twin situations, specially if they were sought, then by all means file your case in the appropriate courts.
2. More than inputs, I believe my Bebe and Rene are still at Lucent (albeit in Rene's case, as a suncontractor) due to merit. All other factors are merely positively mitigating.
3. The rumors almost always put us (specially my Bebe) in a bad light, and picture us as the bad guys. Have certain interested parties thought for a minute about their own capabilities and if they have been quite qualified (or not) for the jobs at issue? Have they ever thought that despite the presumed/perceived politics in the workplace, talent will out?
For sure, this post will not put the rumors and issues to rest. But for the record, this is our version of the stories.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
RR [Public School]
RR - Public School
August 8, 2000
I used to tease Ace whenever he commits a faux pas with the phrase, "Kasi naman, taga-public school ka e." But of course, it is all said in jest. For how could I denigrate an institution that I am myself a product of?
I became part of the mammoth public school system in the Philippines in 1969 when I was but six years old. I was enrolled by my mother in the first grade class of Mrs. Matias, along with my older brother Buboy who was the regular student. They called me then a "saling-cat" --- a bastardization of the idiom, saling-pusa. I was to be a pseudo-student since I was not of age. But what did you know? I sprang a surprise and finished the school year as first honor and I even have a sepia photograph to prove it. In that photograph, I was sporting a ribbon marking me a first honor student. I remember the ribbon to be green and the marking gold. It must have been a moment of pride for me since in that photograph I wore a Mona Lisa-esque smile and struck a most demure and formal pose complete with leather shoes shod feet in the customary 45-degree angle. I remember the photographer instructing me to do just that!
Oh, did I mention the garland of everlasting?
School was the Bicol University Pilot Elementary School. If you find the name kilometric, just say BUPES for that was how we referred to it. Just last December 1999 when I traveled back to Bicol for a high school reunion, the school was still there --- sprawling and huge as I still imagined it to be. I've always wondered why it was referred to as a pilot school. I mean, I've always associated the word pilot with something experimental (if not something about flying) and how could you be experimental with at least 10 sections in a grade level?
I also remember the school to be such a classic in terms of buildings and architecture with its requisite columns, high ceilings, capiz windows, mahogany and narra floors and wide corridors. Sure there were the Marcos-type buildings but they were fairly new and built as adjuncts to the main U-shaped edifices that were a throw back to the 50's.
But more than the school's bigness and archaic look, what I believed were more memorable as a public school student were the teachers.
You've met Mrs. Matias in Grade One. She was everyone in the family's first grade teacher and she was the typical school marm type. Greying hair in a bun and with horn-rimmed glasses. Severe dresses that could have been the precursor of the career woman look. And she was tall and big-boned. She could put precocious you in your place just with her stare. I never remembered much about the lessons she drilled us in but I remember that she made me feel special because she always entrusted me to do things for her. In hindsight, she must have seen I was potentially responsible and tried me out. I was the one she always called to list down on the board those who had been noisy in class while she was out of the classroom. I was the one who would put together three small bear chairs that I would cover with a pranela blanket so a small kid, a boy about two or three years younger than me and a relative of hers, could take an afternoon nap. I was the one she would ask to lead the line as the "Nutri-bun" and powdered milk were distributed. I must have delivered for, I told you, the saling-cat became first, although now that I think about it, weren't I more of an aliping sagui-gilid?.
In Grade Two, I met Mrs. Grageda. Mestiza but plump. She was like Nena Perez-Rubio's sister. Motherly. She was fond of teaching us spelling and I became so adept at it that once when she had to go on leave and we were distributed among the other sections, I topped a spelling contest at a class I found myself in. To this day, I don't know why they thought I was so smart when I spelled the word "sunny" correctly.
Grade Three was a blur but I still remember my cub scouting days when I was a member of the Luntian patrol. Grade Four was clearer for Ms. Cleofas, a short and dusky woman, was so enamored of theme writing. She was the one who would make us write how we spent our summer or Christmas vacations. She was the same one who would painstakingly correct our compositions so that our papers turned red with her ink. And I imbibed from her classes the passion to write correct sentences so her rubrics won't stain my compositions.
The reed-thin Ms. Ravalo was the major character in Grade Five. She was our local Twiggy but boy was she sharp and dedicated. I think I was first exposed to sophistication from her. Because she was slim, she moved like a model and dressed like one even as I would always see her walk to class with her head bowed. The most vivid memories I have of her include one late afternoon when I saw her rushing in the corridor and heard her say that she must be quick in going home lest she meets a rapist along the way. She was in a huff in full make-up! It turned out that the teachers had met after school hours for a make-up demonstration with Avon and Ms. Ravalo was a willing guinea pig.
Grade Six I think was when I truly appreciated my teachers' tutelage. There was of course Mr. Matocinos who was also my class adviser. I thought he was gay (I could sense that at that young age huh) for he was wishy-washy but he was also a married man. He always spoke to us like we were really bright students (I was in the first section; actually all through elementary grades and I mention this not as a bragging right, only with the realization that there might have been a bearing on the kind of teachers we got assigned to --- perhaps only the best ones for the brightest sections?) and he was the one who always urged us to get over there, where we thought we could not be: the Philippine Science High School qualifying tests, the scholarship cum entrance exams at the Aquinas University Science-Oriented High School, the school-wide quiz bee....
There too was Mrs. Alcantara, our Science teacher who would not only regale us with stories of scholastic achievements of her daughter who we never met, if only to inspire us to strive to be excellent ourselves not only in Science but in our personalities more importantly. I distinctly remember her admonishing us one time that the test of a person's discipline is if he can return to its proper place anything he lays his hands on. She would make as an example the way we leave our chairs after class. Up to this time, this is a barometer of sorts for me personally.
Ms. Austria, a diminutive figure so fond of letting us compete with each other through current events quiz shows in class, was another remarkable teacher. She was supposed to teach us Social Studies but we so enjoyed combing the news for the name of the Sri Lankan prime minister or the capital of Mongolia so that we could stump the opposition, that I could not remember any other lesson she taught. She was also one of the first teachers we had who made us do role plays in class.
Role plays on stage, on the other hand was the specialty of Ms. Esguerra, she with the high cheekbones and high heels. She was the first to tap into our hitherto unknown thespic talents when she cast us in a play about books for, what else, Book Week. It was the first time I would wear make up and she was my fairy godmother. We did not become soap opera stars after the stint but it was exhilarating nonetheless to be thrust into a concrete stage that had no backdrops nor curtains nor lighting effects, only microphones and costumes and our raw talents laid bare for the show.
Art was not limited to the stage and acting. We had a class called Industrial Arts taught since time began by a mousy little schoolteacher whose name I could not recall now. He taught us crafts and let us work with bamboo, plywood, coconut shell, rattan both natural and plastic, and metal. From him I learned that you should not refer to the store at the street corner where you buy your pako or alambre as hardware because it was actually the hardware store. From him I found out that there is such a tool as a coping saw; that a vise can grip your plywood still so you can run your coping saw all over it and that you'll never go hungry again if you only put your hands and your creativity to good use. From him we learned that Industrial Arts were actually practical arts and crafts.
Ms. Peralta was never my teacher in any academic class but she has stuck to my memory for she was like an alarm clock for me. On her way to school, she would pass by my house and I would know it was 7 AM for she always passed by at that hour. (We lived just across the street to the school and only had to walk about a hundred meters to reach the gate. I never learned to take the public transport system of buses, jeepneys and tricycles till after I graduated from elementary.) But more than her clockwork punctuality, she was an incredible music teacher who made the graduating class (600+strong) sing "Lupang Hinirang" in four voices over a two-week period. Until now, I hear myself sing in the "voice" we were taught whenever I have the chance to sing the Philippine National Anthem.
If I had teachers for heroes, role models and character shapers, there were also the caricatures and the oddballs. One was Mr. Zamora, he with the flared pants and the Kanebo shirts even before they were in vogue, who as a PE teacher was a self-styled karate kid who would never fail to let us know that he does his exercises at night when the conventional wisdom called for early-morning regimens. It must have worked since he was very stocky. But he soon disappeared from the school scene. There was talk he absconded with school fees. And another was Mr. Daep who was the quintessential closet gay if there ever was one. He was handsome and tall and claimed that one of my brothers was his classmate in high school. He was so fond of another classmate named Miguel and even then I already had an inkling of what pundits now call sexual politics. He even tried to court Ms. Esguerra! And still another one was the well-coiffed librarian who never did seem to know what books there were in her library! Her beehive must have taken so much of her time that was supposed to be spent on the Dewey system.
For sure I did not account for all the teachers who made an impact in my life as a public school student at the elementary grades/levels but the examples I mentioned would suffice I pray, to extol the virtues there were in a public school education then. Modesty aside, I certainly took pride in the fact that of all of us in the family, I was the one who always gave a reason for my mother to come up with me on stage to pin a ribbon on my chest (public schools did not have enough funds then ---maybe as now--- to buy us medals). I graduated second honorable mention (roughly fourth in the whole grade level of 11 sections) and it was enough to make me feel confident that I was ok, that I would be able to thrive where my future will take me. And I vehemently deny I got it because my mother used to let me bring huge five-kilogram melons to Mr. Matocinos.
I still keep a sepia photograph of Class '75: I thought I looked good in it, photogenic as I was in my fully-embroidered lace barong Tagalog and with head slightly tilting to the right and a full wave of hair slightly over my right eye --- young and full of promise that I either broke or fulfilled.
I found myself in a private Catholic school for my so-called secondary education and back to a public school (albeit a state university) in college. Fodder for another installment of Robertisms perhaps?
August 8, 2000
I used to tease Ace whenever he commits a faux pas with the phrase, "Kasi naman, taga-public school ka e." But of course, it is all said in jest. For how could I denigrate an institution that I am myself a product of?
I became part of the mammoth public school system in the Philippines in 1969 when I was but six years old. I was enrolled by my mother in the first grade class of Mrs. Matias, along with my older brother Buboy who was the regular student. They called me then a "saling-cat" --- a bastardization of the idiom, saling-pusa. I was to be a pseudo-student since I was not of age. But what did you know? I sprang a surprise and finished the school year as first honor and I even have a sepia photograph to prove it. In that photograph, I was sporting a ribbon marking me a first honor student. I remember the ribbon to be green and the marking gold. It must have been a moment of pride for me since in that photograph I wore a Mona Lisa-esque smile and struck a most demure and formal pose complete with leather shoes shod feet in the customary 45-degree angle. I remember the photographer instructing me to do just that!
Oh, did I mention the garland of everlasting?
School was the Bicol University Pilot Elementary School. If you find the name kilometric, just say BUPES for that was how we referred to it. Just last December 1999 when I traveled back to Bicol for a high school reunion, the school was still there --- sprawling and huge as I still imagined it to be. I've always wondered why it was referred to as a pilot school. I mean, I've always associated the word pilot with something experimental (if not something about flying) and how could you be experimental with at least 10 sections in a grade level?
I also remember the school to be such a classic in terms of buildings and architecture with its requisite columns, high ceilings, capiz windows, mahogany and narra floors and wide corridors. Sure there were the Marcos-type buildings but they were fairly new and built as adjuncts to the main U-shaped edifices that were a throw back to the 50's.
But more than the school's bigness and archaic look, what I believed were more memorable as a public school student were the teachers.
You've met Mrs. Matias in Grade One. She was everyone in the family's first grade teacher and she was the typical school marm type. Greying hair in a bun and with horn-rimmed glasses. Severe dresses that could have been the precursor of the career woman look. And she was tall and big-boned. She could put precocious you in your place just with her stare. I never remembered much about the lessons she drilled us in but I remember that she made me feel special because she always entrusted me to do things for her. In hindsight, she must have seen I was potentially responsible and tried me out. I was the one she always called to list down on the board those who had been noisy in class while she was out of the classroom. I was the one who would put together three small bear chairs that I would cover with a pranela blanket so a small kid, a boy about two or three years younger than me and a relative of hers, could take an afternoon nap. I was the one she would ask to lead the line as the "Nutri-bun" and powdered milk were distributed. I must have delivered for, I told you, the saling-cat became first, although now that I think about it, weren't I more of an aliping sagui-gilid?.
In Grade Two, I met Mrs. Grageda. Mestiza but plump. She was like Nena Perez-Rubio's sister. Motherly. She was fond of teaching us spelling and I became so adept at it that once when she had to go on leave and we were distributed among the other sections, I topped a spelling contest at a class I found myself in. To this day, I don't know why they thought I was so smart when I spelled the word "sunny" correctly.
Grade Three was a blur but I still remember my cub scouting days when I was a member of the Luntian patrol. Grade Four was clearer for Ms. Cleofas, a short and dusky woman, was so enamored of theme writing. She was the one who would make us write how we spent our summer or Christmas vacations. She was the same one who would painstakingly correct our compositions so that our papers turned red with her ink. And I imbibed from her classes the passion to write correct sentences so her rubrics won't stain my compositions.
The reed-thin Ms. Ravalo was the major character in Grade Five. She was our local Twiggy but boy was she sharp and dedicated. I think I was first exposed to sophistication from her. Because she was slim, she moved like a model and dressed like one even as I would always see her walk to class with her head bowed. The most vivid memories I have of her include one late afternoon when I saw her rushing in the corridor and heard her say that she must be quick in going home lest she meets a rapist along the way. She was in a huff in full make-up! It turned out that the teachers had met after school hours for a make-up demonstration with Avon and Ms. Ravalo was a willing guinea pig.
Grade Six I think was when I truly appreciated my teachers' tutelage. There was of course Mr. Matocinos who was also my class adviser. I thought he was gay (I could sense that at that young age huh) for he was wishy-washy but he was also a married man. He always spoke to us like we were really bright students (I was in the first section; actually all through elementary grades and I mention this not as a bragging right, only with the realization that there might have been a bearing on the kind of teachers we got assigned to --- perhaps only the best ones for the brightest sections?) and he was the one who always urged us to get over there, where we thought we could not be: the Philippine Science High School qualifying tests, the scholarship cum entrance exams at the Aquinas University Science-Oriented High School, the school-wide quiz bee....
There too was Mrs. Alcantara, our Science teacher who would not only regale us with stories of scholastic achievements of her daughter who we never met, if only to inspire us to strive to be excellent ourselves not only in Science but in our personalities more importantly. I distinctly remember her admonishing us one time that the test of a person's discipline is if he can return to its proper place anything he lays his hands on. She would make as an example the way we leave our chairs after class. Up to this time, this is a barometer of sorts for me personally.
Ms. Austria, a diminutive figure so fond of letting us compete with each other through current events quiz shows in class, was another remarkable teacher. She was supposed to teach us Social Studies but we so enjoyed combing the news for the name of the Sri Lankan prime minister or the capital of Mongolia so that we could stump the opposition, that I could not remember any other lesson she taught. She was also one of the first teachers we had who made us do role plays in class.
Role plays on stage, on the other hand was the specialty of Ms. Esguerra, she with the high cheekbones and high heels. She was the first to tap into our hitherto unknown thespic talents when she cast us in a play about books for, what else, Book Week. It was the first time I would wear make up and she was my fairy godmother. We did not become soap opera stars after the stint but it was exhilarating nonetheless to be thrust into a concrete stage that had no backdrops nor curtains nor lighting effects, only microphones and costumes and our raw talents laid bare for the show.
Art was not limited to the stage and acting. We had a class called Industrial Arts taught since time began by a mousy little schoolteacher whose name I could not recall now. He taught us crafts and let us work with bamboo, plywood, coconut shell, rattan both natural and plastic, and metal. From him I learned that you should not refer to the store at the street corner where you buy your pako or alambre as hardware because it was actually the hardware store. From him I found out that there is such a tool as a coping saw; that a vise can grip your plywood still so you can run your coping saw all over it and that you'll never go hungry again if you only put your hands and your creativity to good use. From him we learned that Industrial Arts were actually practical arts and crafts.
Ms. Peralta was never my teacher in any academic class but she has stuck to my memory for she was like an alarm clock for me. On her way to school, she would pass by my house and I would know it was 7 AM for she always passed by at that hour. (We lived just across the street to the school and only had to walk about a hundred meters to reach the gate. I never learned to take the public transport system of buses, jeepneys and tricycles till after I graduated from elementary.) But more than her clockwork punctuality, she was an incredible music teacher who made the graduating class (600+strong) sing "Lupang Hinirang" in four voices over a two-week period. Until now, I hear myself sing in the "voice" we were taught whenever I have the chance to sing the Philippine National Anthem.
If I had teachers for heroes, role models and character shapers, there were also the caricatures and the oddballs. One was Mr. Zamora, he with the flared pants and the Kanebo shirts even before they were in vogue, who as a PE teacher was a self-styled karate kid who would never fail to let us know that he does his exercises at night when the conventional wisdom called for early-morning regimens. It must have worked since he was very stocky. But he soon disappeared from the school scene. There was talk he absconded with school fees. And another was Mr. Daep who was the quintessential closet gay if there ever was one. He was handsome and tall and claimed that one of my brothers was his classmate in high school. He was so fond of another classmate named Miguel and even then I already had an inkling of what pundits now call sexual politics. He even tried to court Ms. Esguerra! And still another one was the well-coiffed librarian who never did seem to know what books there were in her library! Her beehive must have taken so much of her time that was supposed to be spent on the Dewey system.
For sure I did not account for all the teachers who made an impact in my life as a public school student at the elementary grades/levels but the examples I mentioned would suffice I pray, to extol the virtues there were in a public school education then. Modesty aside, I certainly took pride in the fact that of all of us in the family, I was the one who always gave a reason for my mother to come up with me on stage to pin a ribbon on my chest (public schools did not have enough funds then ---maybe as now--- to buy us medals). I graduated second honorable mention (roughly fourth in the whole grade level of 11 sections) and it was enough to make me feel confident that I was ok, that I would be able to thrive where my future will take me. And I vehemently deny I got it because my mother used to let me bring huge five-kilogram melons to Mr. Matocinos.
I still keep a sepia photograph of Class '75: I thought I looked good in it, photogenic as I was in my fully-embroidered lace barong Tagalog and with head slightly tilting to the right and a full wave of hair slightly over my right eye --- young and full of promise that I either broke or fulfilled.
I found myself in a private Catholic school for my so-called secondary education and back to a public school (albeit a state university) in college. Fodder for another installment of Robertisms perhaps?
RR [An Unfinished House in Nueva Ecija]
RR - An unfinished house in Nueva Ecija
September 3, 2002
It stands along the national highway that leads to Arayat, Pampanga if you're coming from Gapan, Nueva Ecija. In a corner of a quarter of a hectare of land with a perimeter fence but no gates. That also has the old rice mill in the middle and a long L-shaped row of now-empty pigstyes. Made of concrete with precast outside the bedroom, living room and kitchen windows. It has two floors. Two peculiar spiralling columns stand as posts at the upstairs foyer overlooking the road. A wide uncovered patio fenced in by metal grills occupies almost a fourth of the second floor as it faces the highway.
The ground floor has a garage that became a storage room for cavans of palay. The garage is next to the main door that leads to a wood and metal grill staircase to the next floor. The main door also opens to the wood-paneled and marble-floored living room and the kitchen/dining area. The toilet-and-bath cubicles and a bedroom are adjuncts to the kitchen. The kitchen's door in turn leads to an open cemented yard and the path to the old rice mill. A cluster of bamboos with shoots hanging over the roof of the rice mill's warehouse grows at the back of the warehouse. These bamboos would make langitngit that could be heard from the house every time the wind blows hard enough. At night, kapre stories become more believable with the sound of the bamboos swaying heard in the background.
A mini-mountain of palay chaff would build behind the rice mill every harvest season. As kids we usually played and tumbled in this mountain and would get skin rashes in the process. A three-storey high water tank of cement and concrete was built behind the rice mill and near the mountain of palay chaff to store water when the new house was erected.
The upper floor was laid out to have three bedrooms and a toilet/bath. Only one bedroom materialized; the one on top of the kitchen/dining area. The supposed master bedroom (on top of the garage) and another planned bedroom are wide open since the partitions never went up. Even the toilet/bath is incomplete and therefore unusable.
The ceilings on the upper floor have long since vanished while the alulod in both ground and upper floors should have been repaired a long time ago.
Viewed from the road, it looks like a grand house since it is shaped like a welcoming V.
This is the house that my mother and my father started to build. And never finished.
Mamay and Papay borrowed money from DBP in the early 70's. With the meager land they owned as collateral for the 10-year loan. For a piggery ostensibly. But after building the L-shaped row of pigpens, up came next the house. I remember Mamay as she discussed the building of the house with Papay through letters, since Mamay was based in Daraga, Albay and Papay was handling the vegetable trading business from his base in Tondo, Manila. It was clear that my parents really wanted to build that house.
And I discovered why.
One time, when Mamay was mad at us (that would be me, my brother Buboy and sister Tess) and after spanking us for a certain misdemeanor, she went into a ranting monologue sometimes accentuated with her banging her head against the wall or pulling her hair in acts of desperation and frustration. She ranted that we were so disrespectful and good for nothing. That we have done nothing but give her sama ng loob, despite everything she had gone through and has been doing to make life easier for us. That we're such ingrates. It was just as well she and Papay have started to build a house for themselves. They would not depend on us in their old age. She and Papay would live by themselves and fend for themselves in their own house when we have all left the coop so to speak. She and Papay would have no need for us, their thoughtless and thankless children.
It was histrionics pure and simple. It was theatrical emotional tirade at its best. I could laugh at it with fondness now. But for kids barely at the threshold of elementary school, it was a scary and dreadful display of a mother's angst. Which made us guilty and remorseful in equal measure. How we all wished we would vanish into thin air than watch and listen to our mother rip herself to pieces.
Mamay's and Papay's dream house was finally blessed one summer fiesta. We all trooped to Sto. Cristo, San Isidro, Nueva Ecija as was our wont during summers. My parents were beside themselves in leading us and all our relatives and guests with lighted candles as we went room by room behind the priest who sprinkled holy water on the floors and walls of the whole house. Later, coins were thrown from the staircase to the throng at the living room for good luck. A photo still exists of us kids standing beside Mamay and Papay as they beamed to the photographer. They had every reason to be happy. In the eyes of the Magnos and the Balajadias, this formerly poor couple had finally "arrived" and now could be considered "can affords". They may not had become rich; they had obviously become progressive. They had the house to attest to their rise in the economic ladder.
Ironically, Mamay never really lorded it over her manor. She continued to stay in Daraga, Albay till she died in the late 70's. A succession of my married brothers (from Nonot to Frisco and Lito) occupied the house. We also increasingly stayed at this house everytime we would be on a break from school. I was already in college by this time. Home was Sto. Cristo and no longer Daraga.
My married brothers, while staying at the house, looked after the rice mill and the piggery. But try as they might to let the endeavors flourish, the rice mill had to be shut off since new and portable mills started to separate palay grains from the chaff right on the rice fields, making it less and less profitable to operate the huge but old and rickety milling machine that broke down every so often. The piggery also went up against many similar backyard investments while the diminishing profits or minimal earnings were eaten up by day-to-day household expenses. It was also getting to be more expensive to raise hogs on feeds priced more and more exorbitantly every week.
The pigstyes were home to chicken coops at another time but when the flock was na-peste, no new chicks were raised again. There was also a time when my sister Doris brought home from UP at Los Banos, Laguna, kabute spores that we let grow on moist piles of hay. We were so happy when everything sprouted after a few weeks. The venture was so experimental that we never did pursue it.
In the meantime, as DBP exhorted small business enterpreneurs in radio ads that "Ang utang dapat bayaran, nang tayo'y mapagkatiwalaan....," Mamay and Papay defaulted on their loan. Without a steady source of income (mainly from the piggery business for which the loan was made in the first place, and a failing vegetable trading business that eventually went kaput after Mamay's death) that could cover monthly amortizations, the loan ballooned to twice the principal amount. The interest payments alone bloated the original figure. There were attempts to re-schedule payments on the loan. I think it was successful for a time. But the pattern of defaults soon came back. Then the bank prepared to foreclose.
It was a very difficult and seemingly hopeless time for us.
We faced ending the 80's without the house we have come to call our own ancestral home. Until Kuya, my eldest brother, came to the rescue. He paid off the loan. But it was as if Kuya was saying, "Ok, here, let me pay it all off but that's it. There's not going to be any help from me anymore from hereon." I still hope I am wrong in thinking about Kuya and the repayment of the loan this way but I could not help thinking this way. After all, he has virtually vanished from our lives since then, choosing to live his life in the US --- away from us all. He did not even come home to bury Papay when Papay died in the late 90's.
Papay retired into this house after Mamay died and when the vegetable trading business he put up with her never picked up again. On his retirement, Tess and for a time, Buboy, managed the house for Papay and for themselves. Papay had sold the milling machines as scrap metal. There only remains the mill warehouse and the pockmarks on the cement floor where the old bolts used to be. The pigpens still stand but the roofs had long been blown away by typhoons.
After Papay died, Tess has now been the only one left as she keeps house for herself and her daughter Tricia and sometimes for her partner Raul.
But even with Tess' full devotion to keeping up the house, it never really regained the once-attractive pull of going home and staying there. Maybe because we each have our own lives to lead and we've been led to many varied directions, literally and figuratively. Maybe because we were not really meant to live in this house for it was for Mamay and Papay only. Maybe because we're just biding our time; that we will eventually find ourselves filling up the empty nest in our own old age.
Whatever our reasons are for the time being, we all had agreed after Papay died, that no matter what, the house that Mamay and Papay started to build, will never be sold. And no one among us offsprings will claim it for his or her own. It will never be ours; it will forever be Mamay's and Papay's, unfinished though it may be.
September 3, 2002
It stands along the national highway that leads to Arayat, Pampanga if you're coming from Gapan, Nueva Ecija. In a corner of a quarter of a hectare of land with a perimeter fence but no gates. That also has the old rice mill in the middle and a long L-shaped row of now-empty pigstyes. Made of concrete with precast outside the bedroom, living room and kitchen windows. It has two floors. Two peculiar spiralling columns stand as posts at the upstairs foyer overlooking the road. A wide uncovered patio fenced in by metal grills occupies almost a fourth of the second floor as it faces the highway.
The ground floor has a garage that became a storage room for cavans of palay. The garage is next to the main door that leads to a wood and metal grill staircase to the next floor. The main door also opens to the wood-paneled and marble-floored living room and the kitchen/dining area. The toilet-and-bath cubicles and a bedroom are adjuncts to the kitchen. The kitchen's door in turn leads to an open cemented yard and the path to the old rice mill. A cluster of bamboos with shoots hanging over the roof of the rice mill's warehouse grows at the back of the warehouse. These bamboos would make langitngit that could be heard from the house every time the wind blows hard enough. At night, kapre stories become more believable with the sound of the bamboos swaying heard in the background.
A mini-mountain of palay chaff would build behind the rice mill every harvest season. As kids we usually played and tumbled in this mountain and would get skin rashes in the process. A three-storey high water tank of cement and concrete was built behind the rice mill and near the mountain of palay chaff to store water when the new house was erected.
The upper floor was laid out to have three bedrooms and a toilet/bath. Only one bedroom materialized; the one on top of the kitchen/dining area. The supposed master bedroom (on top of the garage) and another planned bedroom are wide open since the partitions never went up. Even the toilet/bath is incomplete and therefore unusable.
The ceilings on the upper floor have long since vanished while the alulod in both ground and upper floors should have been repaired a long time ago.
Viewed from the road, it looks like a grand house since it is shaped like a welcoming V.
This is the house that my mother and my father started to build. And never finished.
Mamay and Papay borrowed money from DBP in the early 70's. With the meager land they owned as collateral for the 10-year loan. For a piggery ostensibly. But after building the L-shaped row of pigpens, up came next the house. I remember Mamay as she discussed the building of the house with Papay through letters, since Mamay was based in Daraga, Albay and Papay was handling the vegetable trading business from his base in Tondo, Manila. It was clear that my parents really wanted to build that house.
And I discovered why.
One time, when Mamay was mad at us (that would be me, my brother Buboy and sister Tess) and after spanking us for a certain misdemeanor, she went into a ranting monologue sometimes accentuated with her banging her head against the wall or pulling her hair in acts of desperation and frustration. She ranted that we were so disrespectful and good for nothing. That we have done nothing but give her sama ng loob, despite everything she had gone through and has been doing to make life easier for us. That we're such ingrates. It was just as well she and Papay have started to build a house for themselves. They would not depend on us in their old age. She and Papay would live by themselves and fend for themselves in their own house when we have all left the coop so to speak. She and Papay would have no need for us, their thoughtless and thankless children.
It was histrionics pure and simple. It was theatrical emotional tirade at its best. I could laugh at it with fondness now. But for kids barely at the threshold of elementary school, it was a scary and dreadful display of a mother's angst. Which made us guilty and remorseful in equal measure. How we all wished we would vanish into thin air than watch and listen to our mother rip herself to pieces.
Mamay's and Papay's dream house was finally blessed one summer fiesta. We all trooped to Sto. Cristo, San Isidro, Nueva Ecija as was our wont during summers. My parents were beside themselves in leading us and all our relatives and guests with lighted candles as we went room by room behind the priest who sprinkled holy water on the floors and walls of the whole house. Later, coins were thrown from the staircase to the throng at the living room for good luck. A photo still exists of us kids standing beside Mamay and Papay as they beamed to the photographer. They had every reason to be happy. In the eyes of the Magnos and the Balajadias, this formerly poor couple had finally "arrived" and now could be considered "can affords". They may not had become rich; they had obviously become progressive. They had the house to attest to their rise in the economic ladder.
Ironically, Mamay never really lorded it over her manor. She continued to stay in Daraga, Albay till she died in the late 70's. A succession of my married brothers (from Nonot to Frisco and Lito) occupied the house. We also increasingly stayed at this house everytime we would be on a break from school. I was already in college by this time. Home was Sto. Cristo and no longer Daraga.
My married brothers, while staying at the house, looked after the rice mill and the piggery. But try as they might to let the endeavors flourish, the rice mill had to be shut off since new and portable mills started to separate palay grains from the chaff right on the rice fields, making it less and less profitable to operate the huge but old and rickety milling machine that broke down every so often. The piggery also went up against many similar backyard investments while the diminishing profits or minimal earnings were eaten up by day-to-day household expenses. It was also getting to be more expensive to raise hogs on feeds priced more and more exorbitantly every week.
The pigstyes were home to chicken coops at another time but when the flock was na-peste, no new chicks were raised again. There was also a time when my sister Doris brought home from UP at Los Banos, Laguna, kabute spores that we let grow on moist piles of hay. We were so happy when everything sprouted after a few weeks. The venture was so experimental that we never did pursue it.
In the meantime, as DBP exhorted small business enterpreneurs in radio ads that "Ang utang dapat bayaran, nang tayo'y mapagkatiwalaan....," Mamay and Papay defaulted on their loan. Without a steady source of income (mainly from the piggery business for which the loan was made in the first place, and a failing vegetable trading business that eventually went kaput after Mamay's death) that could cover monthly amortizations, the loan ballooned to twice the principal amount. The interest payments alone bloated the original figure. There were attempts to re-schedule payments on the loan. I think it was successful for a time. But the pattern of defaults soon came back. Then the bank prepared to foreclose.
It was a very difficult and seemingly hopeless time for us.
We faced ending the 80's without the house we have come to call our own ancestral home. Until Kuya, my eldest brother, came to the rescue. He paid off the loan. But it was as if Kuya was saying, "Ok, here, let me pay it all off but that's it. There's not going to be any help from me anymore from hereon." I still hope I am wrong in thinking about Kuya and the repayment of the loan this way but I could not help thinking this way. After all, he has virtually vanished from our lives since then, choosing to live his life in the US --- away from us all. He did not even come home to bury Papay when Papay died in the late 90's.
Papay retired into this house after Mamay died and when the vegetable trading business he put up with her never picked up again. On his retirement, Tess and for a time, Buboy, managed the house for Papay and for themselves. Papay had sold the milling machines as scrap metal. There only remains the mill warehouse and the pockmarks on the cement floor where the old bolts used to be. The pigpens still stand but the roofs had long been blown away by typhoons.
After Papay died, Tess has now been the only one left as she keeps house for herself and her daughter Tricia and sometimes for her partner Raul.
But even with Tess' full devotion to keeping up the house, it never really regained the once-attractive pull of going home and staying there. Maybe because we each have our own lives to lead and we've been led to many varied directions, literally and figuratively. Maybe because we were not really meant to live in this house for it was for Mamay and Papay only. Maybe because we're just biding our time; that we will eventually find ourselves filling up the empty nest in our own old age.
Whatever our reasons are for the time being, we all had agreed after Papay died, that no matter what, the house that Mamay and Papay started to build, will never be sold. And no one among us offsprings will claim it for his or her own. It will never be ours; it will forever be Mamay's and Papay's, unfinished though it may be.
RR [Memories of Nueva Ecija]
RR* - Memories of Nueva Ecija
September 2, 2002
*Recalling Robertisms
We've been calling Daraga, Albay home but we are not from there. The Magnos and the Balajadias actually come from Nueva Ecija (although there are also the Magnos of Pangasinan), one of the provinces of Luzon and part of the so-called rice granary of the Philippines. From Manila, you can travel to the clan's hometown via Bulacan or via Pampanga.
In the summers of my youth, we usually boarded the PNR trains either in Daraga or in Legazpi and sometimes in Camalig, to reach PNR's Tutuban station in Divisoria. The train station was not the mall it has become today. It was like the Grand Central station in New York, albeit with less grandeur. But it had the same Gothic look. And certainly, the same busy-ness and hectic pace. Papay would pick us up from the station in his jeep. Before finally getting on our way to Nueva Ecija, to Sto. Cristo, San Isidro, however, Papay sometimes would treat us to a hot bowl of hototay soup at Panciteria Moderna near Sta. Cruz church. Or else, we would all make a side trip to Gagalangin, Tondo to pay a courtesy call on Mamang Poroso (full name: Sinforoso), one of Papay's elder brothers. Mamang Poroso and his family lived by the railroad tracks. The house was like any other along the riles, but what was remarkable about the house was that it was almost always spic and span. Gleaming sahig, both in the ground floor and upstairs. Nary a cobweb at corners. Virtually no used or clean clothes hanging out of place. Walang mga nakasampay.
Mamang Poroso's tall and big-boned wife tended a small sari-sari store at the house's ground floor. This was where I first tasted santan, a bread spread made from coconut milk that has turned golden brown on a slow fire. Santan went best with hot pandesal which the store had an abundant supply of. This was where I also saw, for the first time, thin slices of cheddar cheese and narrow bars of Dari Creme, were sold tingi, the better to go with the hot pandesal that were also being sold retail. These certainly weren't breakfast fare in Daraga.
Mamang Poroso's family was what I would describe as solicitous. At lunch, his wife would cajole all of us into taking our seats at the dining table. Then she would serve us her handa herself, urging us to partake of what she would invariably describe as delicious food. "Masarap 'yan," she would say, and proceed to heap a portion on your plate. Shy kids that we were and quite intimidated by our giant-like hostess, we would simply smile and then devour the food.
Mamang Poroso and his wife died many years ago. The house along the riles, which had been a refuge or shelter of some sort for us at one time or another when we were in Manila, have been taken over by our cousins and their own children. Sadly, we've never set foot in the area again since the couple died and now never know the state it is in.
The trip to Sto. Cristo would usually start at the North Luzon Expressway, from its tollgates in Balintawak. There were also years however when we would take the national road, which meant we had to take the McArthur highway. But the expressway route was what I remembered more. In those years, everything we passed by seemed to be fields of palay. Since those were the summer months, the fields were still being readied for planting. The only remnants of a successful harvest were the mounds of hay piled around a tall bamboo pole. The breeze would also be filled with scents of freshly cut grass or with burnt stalks or chaffs of palay. Just add a young maiden in a baro't saya surrounded by equally young swains strumming a guitar and it would be as if one of Amorsolo's pastoral paintings had come to life.
It was but a two-hour drive by jeep to Sto. Cristo and there won't be stops along the way for us, except maybe to take a leak by the roadside for the boys. Buses and some private cars however would take stops at stores selling pasalubong of pastillas, fresh boiled ears of corn, boiled itlog pugo or balut and samalamig. Sitsarong baboy was also popular. The cheap ones were pure hot air while the more expensive variety had meat. Bulacan also had its version of the pandesal they were proud of. In later years, pasalubong fare included butong pakwan and fruit juice in tetrapak. Watermelon and mangoes would also be sold by the roadside.
When we still did not have our own house in Sto. Cristo, the brood would almost always be housed at Kakang Abe's (full name: Isabel). She was one of Papay's elder sisters. Kakang Abe was married to Kakang Luis, a local hilot who was reportedly friendly with dwende from whom he got his healing powers. It was said then that Kakang Luis could become rich overnight if only he would scratch the ground three times. Doing so would unearth a golden statue of a bull. Kakang Luis would never do it however for he feared he may have to exchange his life for the wealth.
Kakang Abe's and Mamang Luis' house was along the national highway. It was the traditional/typical sort, made of bamboo and sawali. The silong that did not have walls was a place to dry tobacco leaves, which Mamang Luis processed himself when he was in need of a smoke or a cigarette. The windows were made of pawid that you simply push with a tukod to let the air in. I once absent-mindedly leaned against such a window while it was closed and while seated at the window's pasamano. I promptly fell to about two meters to the ground and broke a part of my scalp. Kakang Luis chewed on a leaf and stuffed it over my head wound. I still have the scar to remind me about it.
It was a refreshing house. The floor of bamboo slats shone from years of being waxed and scrubbed and was so cool to lie down on, even with a banig on top of it. The batalan was the best part of the house because it was made of huge whole bamboo poles. This was where we would take a bath with water pumped from a bomba (also called pozo elsewhere). Imagine taking a bath on top of bamboos! The toilet was a scary structure though. It was an outhouse on top of a deep pit. You needed to bring your water in a tabo if you wanted to wash yourself after using it.
The couple had a sweet old maid of a daughter we fondly called Ate Lita. She was kind and ever so feminine. Most importantly, she seemed to like us tremendously. She found us eternally cute. "Naku, ito na ba si Obet? Ang laki-laki mo na! E nung umalis kayo dito nung isang taon e hanggang bewang lang kita a." Then she would pinch my cheeks.
It was actually a tired ritual for all of us whenever we would come visit our relatives. Everywhere we would go, our relatives would gush about how tall we have become since the last time they saw us. It was irritating then but it is so nostalgic to reminisce now.
Ate Lita died young. She succumbed to cancer. No medication then would make her well. She cut her hair short and wove the cut hair into a hairpiece as an offering to the image of the Virgin Mary at the Sto. Cristo chapel. I'm sure the image of the Virgin Mary liked it; it's still wearing Ate Lita's hair till now. But the cancer could not care less. Mamang Luis died soon after leaving Kakang Abe to her own old age.
Kakang Abe was a remarkable woman in that she survived many years even after being left alone. In her old age and with dimming eyesight, she would walk the few kilometers between her house and Papay's if only to pay Papay a visit. She died just a few years back as if to finally rest her tired soul.
Ate Lita was also fond of a pamangkin we called Adio. We thought he was Japanese because he had chinky eyes. He became our playmate since he was our age. He was our leader as we would go to neighbors' backyards and pick sinigwelas, mabolo and young unripe mangoes from the trees. Mabolo was a peculiar fruit. It was red like an apple, shaped like a pear and quite hairy. The hair was almost invisible but would nonetheless be prickly and itchy. Before we could eat it, we had to scrub the hair out of the fruit and peel the mabolo. Breaking the fruit apart would reveal big dark seeds and whitish flesh so like the durian's. It was an exotic fruit and remarkable only for its prickly and itchy peeling. I won't be surprised if it has gone the way of the dodo and the T-rex.
Adio also introduced us to balubad (also known as kasuy) freshly picked and broiled on a hastily formed fire in the ground. Cashews always reminded me of the native riddle: Prinsesa, prinsesa, prinsesang nakaupo sa tasa ng kape. He also showed us duhat trees and threw the first stone at the fruits so these would fall to the ground. Duhat is sweet when it's sweet and mapakla when it's unripe. It also turns your teeth to violet. Duhat always reminded me of baligang, a fruit that appears to be native to Albay and that looks like dark cherry. We would shake the sour fruits between two plates after mixing in salt and sugar.
Adio later moved to Manila to work at various restaurants. Last we heard, he has gotten married and now raising a family of his own.
The family of Ate Nicia (full name: Anicia) was also close to us. Her family lived at Hulo, a few kilometers away from the rest of the clan who were settled near or around the kapilya including in a street named Looban. Ate Nicia is Papay's niece; her mother was one of Papay's sisters. We have long been suspecting that she was a tomboy, most specially when she became so close and identified with a relative we know as Marilyn. But we never dared ask her to her face; we simply talked about it among ourselves. She wasn't as demure as Ate Lita for sure. But she sure was dependable and very hardy. She also what I would describe as a maverick. I think she was the one who took over their family's tumana (farm) by the river when her father became sickly and ulyanin.
It was Ate Nicia's family who introduced us to tahada, a unique version of Laguna's espasol. Where espasol was soft, tahada was quite firm. The freshly grated coconut pounded with galapong or with pinipig must be the secret to the tahada. I am being subjective here but once you've tasted tahada, you'll never crave for espasol again.
I think I imbibed my fondness for guache (butong pakwan or watermelon seeds for you), from Ate Nicia. I remember her serving us bagfuls of the seeds everytime we would visit her at Hulo. This was the time when these seeds were still made locally in the Philippines by soaking the seeds in lime and boiling and drying them later; before watermelon seeds from Taiwan took over the market. Ate Nicia would bring along quite a big plastic bag whenever she would join us for a trip to Manila and we would all feast on the seeds along the way to while away the travel time. There is nothing as indelibly marked in my tastebuds as chipping away at the butong pakwan to get to the small sweet flesh inside with the breeze from the fields caressing your cheeks.
In November, Sto. Cristo celebrates a fiesta ng mga puto. It may have been that there were processions, parades or celebrations before but in the summers of my youth, all I remember being done by the townspeople was cook tahada and kalamay and let neighbors partake of each other's kitchen masterpieces.
My memories of Nueva Ecija were more than these experiences combined and more than the relatives and neighbors I could remember to describe. Suffice it to say that life in Sto. Cristo then was a far cry from life in Daraga although there seems to be no major and discernable differences nowadays. But for a young one, it felt like it was the best of both worlds and my siblings and I are all the richer, at least in terms of experiences, for it.
September 2, 2002
*Recalling Robertisms
We've been calling Daraga, Albay home but we are not from there. The Magnos and the Balajadias actually come from Nueva Ecija (although there are also the Magnos of Pangasinan), one of the provinces of Luzon and part of the so-called rice granary of the Philippines. From Manila, you can travel to the clan's hometown via Bulacan or via Pampanga.
In the summers of my youth, we usually boarded the PNR trains either in Daraga or in Legazpi and sometimes in Camalig, to reach PNR's Tutuban station in Divisoria. The train station was not the mall it has become today. It was like the Grand Central station in New York, albeit with less grandeur. But it had the same Gothic look. And certainly, the same busy-ness and hectic pace. Papay would pick us up from the station in his jeep. Before finally getting on our way to Nueva Ecija, to Sto. Cristo, San Isidro, however, Papay sometimes would treat us to a hot bowl of hototay soup at Panciteria Moderna near Sta. Cruz church. Or else, we would all make a side trip to Gagalangin, Tondo to pay a courtesy call on Mamang Poroso (full name: Sinforoso), one of Papay's elder brothers. Mamang Poroso and his family lived by the railroad tracks. The house was like any other along the riles, but what was remarkable about the house was that it was almost always spic and span. Gleaming sahig, both in the ground floor and upstairs. Nary a cobweb at corners. Virtually no used or clean clothes hanging out of place. Walang mga nakasampay.
Mamang Poroso's tall and big-boned wife tended a small sari-sari store at the house's ground floor. This was where I first tasted santan, a bread spread made from coconut milk that has turned golden brown on a slow fire. Santan went best with hot pandesal which the store had an abundant supply of. This was where I also saw, for the first time, thin slices of cheddar cheese and narrow bars of Dari Creme, were sold tingi, the better to go with the hot pandesal that were also being sold retail. These certainly weren't breakfast fare in Daraga.
Mamang Poroso's family was what I would describe as solicitous. At lunch, his wife would cajole all of us into taking our seats at the dining table. Then she would serve us her handa herself, urging us to partake of what she would invariably describe as delicious food. "Masarap 'yan," she would say, and proceed to heap a portion on your plate. Shy kids that we were and quite intimidated by our giant-like hostess, we would simply smile and then devour the food.
Mamang Poroso and his wife died many years ago. The house along the riles, which had been a refuge or shelter of some sort for us at one time or another when we were in Manila, have been taken over by our cousins and their own children. Sadly, we've never set foot in the area again since the couple died and now never know the state it is in.
The trip to Sto. Cristo would usually start at the North Luzon Expressway, from its tollgates in Balintawak. There were also years however when we would take the national road, which meant we had to take the McArthur highway. But the expressway route was what I remembered more. In those years, everything we passed by seemed to be fields of palay. Since those were the summer months, the fields were still being readied for planting. The only remnants of a successful harvest were the mounds of hay piled around a tall bamboo pole. The breeze would also be filled with scents of freshly cut grass or with burnt stalks or chaffs of palay. Just add a young maiden in a baro't saya surrounded by equally young swains strumming a guitar and it would be as if one of Amorsolo's pastoral paintings had come to life.
It was but a two-hour drive by jeep to Sto. Cristo and there won't be stops along the way for us, except maybe to take a leak by the roadside for the boys. Buses and some private cars however would take stops at stores selling pasalubong of pastillas, fresh boiled ears of corn, boiled itlog pugo or balut and samalamig. Sitsarong baboy was also popular. The cheap ones were pure hot air while the more expensive variety had meat. Bulacan also had its version of the pandesal they were proud of. In later years, pasalubong fare included butong pakwan and fruit juice in tetrapak. Watermelon and mangoes would also be sold by the roadside.
When we still did not have our own house in Sto. Cristo, the brood would almost always be housed at Kakang Abe's (full name: Isabel). She was one of Papay's elder sisters. Kakang Abe was married to Kakang Luis, a local hilot who was reportedly friendly with dwende from whom he got his healing powers. It was said then that Kakang Luis could become rich overnight if only he would scratch the ground three times. Doing so would unearth a golden statue of a bull. Kakang Luis would never do it however for he feared he may have to exchange his life for the wealth.
Kakang Abe's and Mamang Luis' house was along the national highway. It was the traditional/typical sort, made of bamboo and sawali. The silong that did not have walls was a place to dry tobacco leaves, which Mamang Luis processed himself when he was in need of a smoke or a cigarette. The windows were made of pawid that you simply push with a tukod to let the air in. I once absent-mindedly leaned against such a window while it was closed and while seated at the window's pasamano. I promptly fell to about two meters to the ground and broke a part of my scalp. Kakang Luis chewed on a leaf and stuffed it over my head wound. I still have the scar to remind me about it.
It was a refreshing house. The floor of bamboo slats shone from years of being waxed and scrubbed and was so cool to lie down on, even with a banig on top of it. The batalan was the best part of the house because it was made of huge whole bamboo poles. This was where we would take a bath with water pumped from a bomba (also called pozo elsewhere). Imagine taking a bath on top of bamboos! The toilet was a scary structure though. It was an outhouse on top of a deep pit. You needed to bring your water in a tabo if you wanted to wash yourself after using it.
The couple had a sweet old maid of a daughter we fondly called Ate Lita. She was kind and ever so feminine. Most importantly, she seemed to like us tremendously. She found us eternally cute. "Naku, ito na ba si Obet? Ang laki-laki mo na! E nung umalis kayo dito nung isang taon e hanggang bewang lang kita a." Then she would pinch my cheeks.
It was actually a tired ritual for all of us whenever we would come visit our relatives. Everywhere we would go, our relatives would gush about how tall we have become since the last time they saw us. It was irritating then but it is so nostalgic to reminisce now.
Ate Lita died young. She succumbed to cancer. No medication then would make her well. She cut her hair short and wove the cut hair into a hairpiece as an offering to the image of the Virgin Mary at the Sto. Cristo chapel. I'm sure the image of the Virgin Mary liked it; it's still wearing Ate Lita's hair till now. But the cancer could not care less. Mamang Luis died soon after leaving Kakang Abe to her own old age.
Kakang Abe was a remarkable woman in that she survived many years even after being left alone. In her old age and with dimming eyesight, she would walk the few kilometers between her house and Papay's if only to pay Papay a visit. She died just a few years back as if to finally rest her tired soul.
Ate Lita was also fond of a pamangkin we called Adio. We thought he was Japanese because he had chinky eyes. He became our playmate since he was our age. He was our leader as we would go to neighbors' backyards and pick sinigwelas, mabolo and young unripe mangoes from the trees. Mabolo was a peculiar fruit. It was red like an apple, shaped like a pear and quite hairy. The hair was almost invisible but would nonetheless be prickly and itchy. Before we could eat it, we had to scrub the hair out of the fruit and peel the mabolo. Breaking the fruit apart would reveal big dark seeds and whitish flesh so like the durian's. It was an exotic fruit and remarkable only for its prickly and itchy peeling. I won't be surprised if it has gone the way of the dodo and the T-rex.
Adio also introduced us to balubad (also known as kasuy) freshly picked and broiled on a hastily formed fire in the ground. Cashews always reminded me of the native riddle: Prinsesa, prinsesa, prinsesang nakaupo sa tasa ng kape. He also showed us duhat trees and threw the first stone at the fruits so these would fall to the ground. Duhat is sweet when it's sweet and mapakla when it's unripe. It also turns your teeth to violet. Duhat always reminded me of baligang, a fruit that appears to be native to Albay and that looks like dark cherry. We would shake the sour fruits between two plates after mixing in salt and sugar.
Adio later moved to Manila to work at various restaurants. Last we heard, he has gotten married and now raising a family of his own.
The family of Ate Nicia (full name: Anicia) was also close to us. Her family lived at Hulo, a few kilometers away from the rest of the clan who were settled near or around the kapilya including in a street named Looban. Ate Nicia is Papay's niece; her mother was one of Papay's sisters. We have long been suspecting that she was a tomboy, most specially when she became so close and identified with a relative we know as Marilyn. But we never dared ask her to her face; we simply talked about it among ourselves. She wasn't as demure as Ate Lita for sure. But she sure was dependable and very hardy. She also what I would describe as a maverick. I think she was the one who took over their family's tumana (farm) by the river when her father became sickly and ulyanin.
It was Ate Nicia's family who introduced us to tahada, a unique version of Laguna's espasol. Where espasol was soft, tahada was quite firm. The freshly grated coconut pounded with galapong or with pinipig must be the secret to the tahada. I am being subjective here but once you've tasted tahada, you'll never crave for espasol again.
I think I imbibed my fondness for guache (butong pakwan or watermelon seeds for you), from Ate Nicia. I remember her serving us bagfuls of the seeds everytime we would visit her at Hulo. This was the time when these seeds were still made locally in the Philippines by soaking the seeds in lime and boiling and drying them later; before watermelon seeds from Taiwan took over the market. Ate Nicia would bring along quite a big plastic bag whenever she would join us for a trip to Manila and we would all feast on the seeds along the way to while away the travel time. There is nothing as indelibly marked in my tastebuds as chipping away at the butong pakwan to get to the small sweet flesh inside with the breeze from the fields caressing your cheeks.
In November, Sto. Cristo celebrates a fiesta ng mga puto. It may have been that there were processions, parades or celebrations before but in the summers of my youth, all I remember being done by the townspeople was cook tahada and kalamay and let neighbors partake of each other's kitchen masterpieces.
My memories of Nueva Ecija were more than these experiences combined and more than the relatives and neighbors I could remember to describe. Suffice it to say that life in Sto. Cristo then was a far cry from life in Daraga although there seems to be no major and discernable differences nowadays. But for a young one, it felt like it was the best of both worlds and my siblings and I are all the richer, at least in terms of experiences, for it.
LIVING WILL
Living wills became a familiar topic during the Teri Schiavo case a few months (or years?) back. Without going into Teri's history, that case brought out the significance of drawing up a living will (as against a last will). I thought about this a lot on an on-and-off basis and I arrived at the conclusion that I quite agree with the rationale behind living wills. I agreed so much I wrote one myself. But of course, no one else has seen/read it yet, not even my Bebe who, if he's reading my blog, will know about it from this blog for the first time. I must have told a few souls about it but I'm quite sure it did not register with them that much. So that the net effect is that it looks like this is the first official announcement that I have a living will written and stored somewhere in cyberspace. The living will is quite long I think. I used titles and subtitles for each of the things I wish will be done/accomplished for me by way of categorizing them or arranging them in a semblance of order. I did not follow any template nor did I surf the net for any samples to copy. All I did was write freely of the things I wish will be done/accomplished for me.
I am aware that talking/writing about death and the preparations one undertakes before it happens is taboo. Some will say pa nga it might invite Death pa daw earlier than fated. Of course there is this school of thought that one is just being practical and pragmatic. We all will die anyway, so it's better to be prepared. Not only to go to the great beyond in the grandeur you dream of. But more importantly, for the family or loved ones to be spared the innumerable details of a member dying while at the same time coping with the expected grief.
So apart from a living will yet to be seen/read, I have also paid for a memorial plan, the details of which I still have not really read. I know though that it will only be applicable to circumstances in the Philippines and (God forbid!) precludes anything untoward that may happen to me here in the desert kingdom. I don't have a lot yet but I paid for two cemetery lots in the province (as a matter of investment) and Mamay's and Papay's lots are also a viable option.
I know these are but the physical logistics of dying. The more important spiritual aspects I have yet to deal with. But it's nice to have already started on something. Like blogging, preparing for death is a work in progress.
I am aware that talking/writing about death and the preparations one undertakes before it happens is taboo. Some will say pa nga it might invite Death pa daw earlier than fated. Of course there is this school of thought that one is just being practical and pragmatic. We all will die anyway, so it's better to be prepared. Not only to go to the great beyond in the grandeur you dream of. But more importantly, for the family or loved ones to be spared the innumerable details of a member dying while at the same time coping with the expected grief.
So apart from a living will yet to be seen/read, I have also paid for a memorial plan, the details of which I still have not really read. I know though that it will only be applicable to circumstances in the Philippines and (God forbid!) precludes anything untoward that may happen to me here in the desert kingdom. I don't have a lot yet but I paid for two cemetery lots in the province (as a matter of investment) and Mamay's and Papay's lots are also a viable option.
I know these are but the physical logistics of dying. The more important spiritual aspects I have yet to deal with. But it's nice to have already started on something. Like blogging, preparing for death is a work in progress.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
BYE TO THE GOOD LIFE
I had my blood tested a few days back. The results came in yesterday. They're not-so-good. Even if my glucose, cholesterol, HDL, uric acid and LDL levels are within the normal range, the glucose and LDL counts are borderline. And my triglycerides are more than double the high end of the nomal range! This means I am at risk for heart disease -- atherosclerosis, high blood pressure and stroke. If pancreatitis won't do me in.
A prompt surf of the net and discussion with the clinic doctor and nurse tell me the best thing to do at this time is to change my diet to a low-fat/low-cholesterol one. Or I could start being on medication. Lipitor comes to mind. As for the new diet, it's going to take getting used to differentiating which food is a rich source of fat and cholesterol or not. It's going to take a more disciplined approach to minding how much food I eat. In addition, I must couple these efforts with exercise.
It means saying goodbye to the good life - a life I associate with being able to eat to your heart's content, the desires of your tummy and your taste buds.
Of course it was depressing to hear the not-so-good news! But I had to console myself with the fact that thank goodness, I at least somehow already enjoyed many years of indulging myself in the sinful and calorific goodies my budget has allowed me. I would thank God everytime I say grace that I at least am able to savor and afford such gastronomic delights.
But with my current glucose, cholesterol and triglyceride levels, it's time for change.
It's time to go on that oft-postponed trek to the gym. After all, I had been longing for a fit and toned anatomy since a looooong time ago. Maybe, the health scare may not be so bad after all. I could take this as an opportunity to begin to make myself over.
Goodbye to the good life? You betcha. It's hello to a better, healthier one.
A prompt surf of the net and discussion with the clinic doctor and nurse tell me the best thing to do at this time is to change my diet to a low-fat/low-cholesterol one. Or I could start being on medication. Lipitor comes to mind. As for the new diet, it's going to take getting used to differentiating which food is a rich source of fat and cholesterol or not. It's going to take a more disciplined approach to minding how much food I eat. In addition, I must couple these efforts with exercise.
It means saying goodbye to the good life - a life I associate with being able to eat to your heart's content, the desires of your tummy and your taste buds.
Of course it was depressing to hear the not-so-good news! But I had to console myself with the fact that thank goodness, I at least somehow already enjoyed many years of indulging myself in the sinful and calorific goodies my budget has allowed me. I would thank God everytime I say grace that I at least am able to savor and afford such gastronomic delights.
But with my current glucose, cholesterol and triglyceride levels, it's time for change.
It's time to go on that oft-postponed trek to the gym. After all, I had been longing for a fit and toned anatomy since a looooong time ago. Maybe, the health scare may not be so bad after all. I could take this as an opportunity to begin to make myself over.
Goodbye to the good life? You betcha. It's hello to a better, healthier one.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
LIFE LESSONS 3
Even as a small kid, I was already gala. Peripatetic. Lakwatsero. And this public school I went to in grade school was infront of a private college. I walk to school lang kaya sometimes I would enter the private college compound and wander around. One day, it happened that a Foundation Day of some sort seemed to be going on. There were a lot of tao at the school's quadrangle. Banderitas too. Very festive. Mini me got very curious. So strolled inside I did and ogled at so many goings on. One of them was happening inside a classroom. Looked like a science exhibit. I tried looking into the classroom from outside, through the glass jalousy of the windows. Somehow, I tripped over the low flower box under the window and smashed my hand on one of the glass jalousy slots. It made a crashing sound as it broke. It was the sound heard around the room, followed by the inevitable questions of "Who did that?", "What was that?", etc.
Little me was kind of scared but I think now, also kinda brave as well for I recall marching into the room to say "I did it!" I also heard someone say, "Ay how honest."
At this juncture, I am no longer sure of what happened next, except that I seemed to have gotten away with it. No scratch, no detention, no ponying up for the broken glass.
But there was a huge life lesson for me. It looks like my honesty paid off. Here I was, a cute little kid and honest to boot. Whose adult heart would not melt?
The life lesson stayed with me big time. It pays to be honest even if sometimes, your honesty, and indeed, your desire to tell the truth, to be on the side of what is right, may only bring you trouble. It always remains an admirable trait or virtue to be able to stand by, own up and live up to what you have done or you have said. Specially if you knowingly did or said it.
That is why, I don't believe even myself when I say by way of a caveat, not to tell anyone I told you this or that. Because I know that at one time or another, and sooner or later, whatever it was that I might have said that was supposed to have been said in strict confidentiality, will come out. When it does, I will stand by, own up and live up to it if I have to. Specially if it means taking back the hurt or alleviating the pain caused by what I may have said or done. And most specially, if it means showing someone some support.
Little me was kind of scared but I think now, also kinda brave as well for I recall marching into the room to say "I did it!" I also heard someone say, "Ay how honest."
At this juncture, I am no longer sure of what happened next, except that I seemed to have gotten away with it. No scratch, no detention, no ponying up for the broken glass.
But there was a huge life lesson for me. It looks like my honesty paid off. Here I was, a cute little kid and honest to boot. Whose adult heart would not melt?
The life lesson stayed with me big time. It pays to be honest even if sometimes, your honesty, and indeed, your desire to tell the truth, to be on the side of what is right, may only bring you trouble. It always remains an admirable trait or virtue to be able to stand by, own up and live up to what you have done or you have said. Specially if you knowingly did or said it.
That is why, I don't believe even myself when I say by way of a caveat, not to tell anyone I told you this or that. Because I know that at one time or another, and sooner or later, whatever it was that I might have said that was supposed to have been said in strict confidentiality, will come out. When it does, I will stand by, own up and live up to it if I have to. Specially if it means taking back the hurt or alleviating the pain caused by what I may have said or done. And most specially, if it means showing someone some support.
WHEN MAMAY LEFT US
This was almost 30 years ago yesterday. When I was but a tween at 13 and she was not even 50 yet. But my recollection and remembrance of what happened are still so etched in my mind. Like it happened only a week or a year ago. It's not because of any photographic memory. It's more of the fact that when she died, it had a tremendous impact on my life. On our family. When Mamay left us, things were never the same again.
Mamay was who kept us together.
Though the family had to be scattered into different places (my sisters in college in Manila and in Los Banos, my father in Nueva Ecija, my brothers in the US or with their own families in Albay), Mamay was like the safety pin that held us together. To keep us connected despite the distances. With her letters specially. I've seen her write Papay and Kuya and my two sisters in college. They were longish letters written in her longhand. So full of anxiety over their well-being while they were away from home. Full of vignettes of life in Daraga together with the rest of the family. Of how the business fared or failed....
With Papay, she started the family on many business ventures that took us from Nueva Ecija to Albay. She was the viajera who did not have second thoughts about uprooting her family from familiar albeit uncertain territory to new and unchartered terrain but which promised a better future. It was her way of sustaining and nurturing us.
When she left, we hit bottom. I never felt so deprived. With her around, we felt abundant even if we weren't wealthy. Home-cooked meals. New clothes on our birthdays and for Christmas. Weekly movies. She loved watching movies with us. She loved going to Sunday Mass and having our photographs taken at a studio later. She loved asking us to take huge watermelons to our teachers.
She was a very motherful mother, if there ever was one.
This is why I could never leave her out of my memory. There is not a night that goes that I don't think of her. Of praying for her soul. She had a difficult life on earth, I only wish heaven for her up there. Because you see, it's the only thing I could now do for her.
She left when I was so young. When all I could think of was myself. When my world revolved around me. Now that I am older, now that I'm in a position to buy her things and spend for her, she's no longer around. This always brings a lump in my throat. Thinking of the ways I could have made life a bit easier for her and I now couldn't. Not then. Not now. Not ever.
Mamay was who kept us together.
Though the family had to be scattered into different places (my sisters in college in Manila and in Los Banos, my father in Nueva Ecija, my brothers in the US or with their own families in Albay), Mamay was like the safety pin that held us together. To keep us connected despite the distances. With her letters specially. I've seen her write Papay and Kuya and my two sisters in college. They were longish letters written in her longhand. So full of anxiety over their well-being while they were away from home. Full of vignettes of life in Daraga together with the rest of the family. Of how the business fared or failed....
With Papay, she started the family on many business ventures that took us from Nueva Ecija to Albay. She was the viajera who did not have second thoughts about uprooting her family from familiar albeit uncertain territory to new and unchartered terrain but which promised a better future. It was her way of sustaining and nurturing us.
When she left, we hit bottom. I never felt so deprived. With her around, we felt abundant even if we weren't wealthy. Home-cooked meals. New clothes on our birthdays and for Christmas. Weekly movies. She loved watching movies with us. She loved going to Sunday Mass and having our photographs taken at a studio later. She loved asking us to take huge watermelons to our teachers.
She was a very motherful mother, if there ever was one.
This is why I could never leave her out of my memory. There is not a night that goes that I don't think of her. Of praying for her soul. She had a difficult life on earth, I only wish heaven for her up there. Because you see, it's the only thing I could now do for her.
She left when I was so young. When all I could think of was myself. When my world revolved around me. Now that I am older, now that I'm in a position to buy her things and spend for her, she's no longer around. This always brings a lump in my throat. Thinking of the ways I could have made life a bit easier for her and I now couldn't. Not then. Not now. Not ever.
I always make it a point to find an opportunity for my family to come together. When I'm in town, we should have dinner together. When it's my birthday, I ask them to celebrate with me though I am here (in Riyadh) and they are there (in Manila). This is my own way of connecting us to each other, the way Mamay tried to do when she was still physically with us.
As I think about these things now, I realize that Mamay has been the most influential person to me. She continues to be my inspiration. And someone I will long for, for the rest of my life. I love my Mamay. I just never told her so.
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