Too Young To Die

By Shem Herbolingo

It was a typical summer morning in Iligan City, Philippines. The year was 1985. When I arrived in the office, our secretary handed me a telegram. The message was brief but crystal clear: “NOY, COME IMMEDIATELY, LOLOY KILLED.” It was from my younger brother, Joey, who, together with his older brother Chito, was working as a radio broadcaster in Davao City. “Noy” is a contraction of “Manoy”---a title of respect usually accorded to the eldest brother in the family. I am the eldest in the family and all my eight siblings call me Manoy.  “Loloy” was the pet name of our youngest brother, Joseph. It took me some time before the whole message sank in. My brother, gone. He did not die…he was killed.

While on our way to Davao with my wife, I had the luxury of time to reminisce and to reflect on the events in the past that led to the current situation. While I was growing up and started to understand the harsh realities of life in the farm where we were born and raised, I promised to myself to help my parents put my siblings in school once I finished college. After my graduation in 1978, I was hired by the university for a full-time teaching position and soon I was extending financial help to my brothers, Chito and Joey, who were attending high school in Cabadbaran City.

After my first year of teaching, Joseph finished elementary---at the top of their class. I asked my parents to send Joseph to stay with me in the university campus because I wanted him to study at the best high school in the region---the University Science High School--- where the students are selected from among the top and the brightest. Admission was competitive and tough but Joseph passed the admission test quite easily.

Our youngest brother Joseph.

Unfortunately, Joseph was unhappy with his stint in the Science High School. In the middle of that year, he approached me and told me that he wanted to go home. When I asked “why?” He said he could not excel in the science high because all students are smart and he was just an average student. “If I study in our hometown,” he explained, “I will be the smartest guy in our class. I want to graduate as valedictorian just like you.” “It sounds unconvincing to me,” I told him. “You see, I prefer that you’ll be the least among the brightest rather than the smartest among the mediocre and the dull-witted.” But he was so steadfast in his desire to go home so I informed my father about the decision and sent him home to our farm in Bayugan.

That was the last time that I saw Joseph alive. Assured that he was happy and safe in our home, I did not even miss his departure. Life in the university is pretty hectic with so many activities. In a couple of years, the university sent me on a scholarship grant to pursue master’s degree at a university in Manila.

Communication then was not as easy as now. No cellphone, no Internet or Facebook or Viber. Communicating with my parents was through handwritten letters once or twice a year. Telegram is reserved for emergency. I did not even know that Joseph stopped schooling, joined my two brothers in Davao City and worked in a charcoal factory.

While I was studying in Manila, my colleagues in the university formed a computer consulting company in Iligan City and upon my return, they invited me to join them as a consultant, in addition to my teaching responsibilities in the university. It was there in my consultancy office that I received that fateful telegram that shook our family to the very core.

**********

As we entered the city, (this was my first time to come to Davao), what first caught my attention were the wide and spacious avenues and streets. Buildings were sparse and there were so much vacant spaces. Of course, what do you expect on a city that has the biggest land area in the world!

But in the mid 80’s, Davao was a city in turmoil. The entire city became the battleground in a typical urban guerrilla warfare that you see on TV in other parts of the world. There was a semblance of normalcy during the day. By sunset, commercial establishments were already closed. At night, under the cover of darkness, armed communist forces roam the streets ready to eliminate any perceived enemies. The government forces returned in kind. Dozens of killings perpetrated by both sides happened during the night while some occurred even in broad daylight.

When we reached the place where my brother’s wake was held, my parents and all my siblings were already there waiting for us. I have not seen my family for a couple of years since the time I left for Manila and it was a sort of a family reunion for us but what a reunion that was. I went closer to the casket where Joseph was lain and I almost could not recognize him anymore. He was just a scrawny boy when I last saw him. The man in the casket, wearing a polo barong was already a full-grown man. I hastily made some mental calculation, in a few days that month, he would have celebrated his 20^th birthday. I continued observing his physique. His muscles both in the abs and the arms are discernible. His neck was strong but it bore a wound so long it almost encircled the whole neck although it was meticulously and neatly sutured by the funeral staff.

“That bayonet wound,” Chito whispered to me, “almost decapitated him. He has more wounds in his back and on the torso. It must be a long, agonizing death between early Saturday evening up to early dawn of last Sunday.”

I did not learn the whole story until late that evening when Chito had already the time to share it with me. Both Chito and Joey worked as radio broadcasters of Station DXMF otherwise known as Radyo Bombo. Joey was some kind of an anchorman and a news commentator while Chito was in Radyo Patrol, a team of field reporters roving around the city day in and day out reporting news on the spot  as they encounter them.

The entire team was named Apollo Patrol with each radioman given a number. Chito was Apollo Uno (Apollo One), the others followed in increasing order as Apollo Dos, Apollo Tres, and so on. The busiest part of their patrol was on the early morning when the happenings of the previous night got to be reported.

On the early morning of that Sunday, Chito received a tip from a funeral parlor directing him to go to a certain place where they heard something happened the night before. When he reached the place, Chito’s world crushed because he immediately recognized the first victim that he saw laying lifeless on the cornfield. It was Joseph’s buddy---his co-worker. To make the matter worse, Chito identified that the bloody fabric that was used to tie the hands, was Joseph’s shirt.

Then his driver who roamed on the other side of the cornfield, called Chito saying that he saw two more bodies in his location. Chito ran and immediately recognized that one of the dead lying there was Joseph. Trying to maintain his composure, Chito calmly reported over the radio, that they have found three dead bodies and that one of them was his own brother. 

Photo shows Chito and our mother during the wake. Chito blamed himself of what happened to Joseph. It was our father who consoled him that it was not his fault. The circumstances were beyond our control.

That Saturday, I attended church in Adams Center. After the religious service, a friend of mine introduced me to a certain Atty. Zerna who was regularly attending church there. Atty. Zerna was the chief of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) office in Davao. Upon knowing that I am a brother of Chito and Joey, he shook  my hand and he started briefing me on the status of their investigation. The main suspect was a Barangay Captain (Village chief) with some of his henchmen who also worked as paramilitary. It was a case of mistaken identity that our brother was a communist. It was a clear case of extra-judicial killing--- a summary execution. We, Filipinos, have a term for that---“liquidation.” My brother was liquidated on a mere suspicion of being a communist.

During our family’s days of mourning in Davao, we were not left alone. My brothers and sisters in faith, members of Adams Center Seventh Day Adventist Church were very supportive visiting us every night holding a religious service there. On the day of the burial,  a live chick was  placed inside the coffin and buried together with our brother. It was their belief, that the chick would exact vengeance to whoever perpetrated that heinous crime. A few months later, I heard that the village chief and his cohorts,  one by one, suffered the same fate as our brother. 

Bidding farewell. Our family gathered around Joseph’s casket before it was to be interred into the crypt. From left: Chito (in dark shirt), our father, this writer, our mother and Joey.

Looking back, I will never forget that bleak chapter of our family’s existence. Nineteen eighty-five was the darkest year in the annals of Davao City’s history. April 14, 1985 was our family’s darkest day.    

 Epilogue

The following year, Lt. Col. Franco Calida, the feisty head of the military’s Metropolitan District Command (Metrodiscom), with the political backing of the newly designated Vice Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, organized the Alsa Masa (literally, “People’s Uprising” against the communists”). My brothers Chito and Joey, together with Radiomen Jun Pala of DXOW and Leo Palo of DXRA were very much involved in this undertaking from the time of its inception.

While Calida was directing the military operations, the four radiomen were the mouthpiece of incessant psychological propaganda on the airwaves exposing the communists’ atrocities. Their involvement was not without peril.

On 17 January 1987, a 4-man team Sparrow Unit, the notorious hit squad of the communist New People’s Army barged into the announcer’s booth of Radyo Bombo looking for Chito. But Chito was having a break and it was Joey who was in there. They strafed the announcer’s booth with bullets and lobbed a fragmentation grenade before leaving the place. The grenade explosion was heard on the airwaves before the broadcast stopped. Joey was badly wounded but survived the attack. That incident will be a subject of another write-up.

Seven months later on August 27, the Sparrow Unit struck again, this time simultaneously on both DXRA and DXRD stations which led to the demise of Leo Palo and another radioman Al Hinoguin.  

It was a time of living dangerously. But their sacrifices bore fruit. Eventually, many people joined the Alsa Masa working  as eyes and ears of the military. It was Mao Zedong’s dictum that “The guerrilla must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea.” But in Davao’s case, the sea dried up and the communist “sardines” had to retreat to some hospitable places outside of Davao.

My brother's killing was included in a news report by William Branigin to the Washington Post dated August 8, 1985 titled "Davao known as Philippines' Murder Capital.'" 

Panta And Bondoy

    They were an odd trio. The husband’s name was Bondoy and the wife’s was Panta. Their daughter, who, I estimated to be my age (although she was taller than me), was named Perpetua. They arrived in our village in Calamba one day and became regular visitors since then---usually on weekends.  When I first saw them, their clothes were worn-out and they wore no shoes. Their skin were darker and coarse.

    Bondoy was reserved and would only say a word or two when talked to while Panta was gregarious and talked a lot. It did not take long for them to befriend most of the villagers including my parents who were very accommodating with strangers. Perpetua, on the other hand, was very shy and would not talk at all. When we invited her to play with us, she would run back to her parents and would not wander away again.

    One time, I overheard my father telling a neighbor that Panta and Bondoy were living in the hinterlands about half day’s walking distance from our village. They had no neighbors. Our village was the nearest community that could be reached from their home. I surmised that since our village was the nearest that they could go to, Perpetua would have attended the same village school that we children were attending. And since we were of the same age, we would have been classmates in the third-grade class under Mrs. Ala-an. But I had not seen her in our school and that was how I realized that she was not attending school. My young mind was wondering whether she ever had been to school at all.

    Their weekly visits were both time for socialization and for buying their household necessities for the week like kerosene, salt and sugar. Our village had three stores where we could buy our immediate house needs. Just like in  many rural areas in the Philippines, these stores contain a little of almost anything, that’s why we call them “sari-sari store.” The three sari-sari stores in our village had no signboards and no names so we simply referred to them after their owners’ name. One was Panyang’s store, the second was Femia’s store and the third one was owned by an elderly lady named Colet.

    We, villagers, do not really buy our groceries from the village stores. On Saturdays and Sundays we usually go to the town proper of Cabadbaran to get our needs in bulk from larger stores at lower prices. And if you patronize a single store, its chinese owner would even give you more discounts. We only buy from the village store anything that we run out during the week. Many a time while preparing our meals,  my mother would request me to run to Panyang’s store to buy, say, a packet of edible oil or a bottle of soy sauce. That Panta and Bondoy would buy their groceries in the village stores and not in the town added one more oddity of their existence.     

    One day, while Panta was walking alone along a foot path, she encountered a stray, mad dog. Its eyes were fierce, its tail was between its hind legs, it’s tongue was sticking out, dripping with rabid saliva. Of course, this description is just my imagination because that is how a mad dog looks like. Any ordinary person would have fled for one’s life, but Panta was a brave woman who would not back out from a fight. She picked up a big enough stone and held her ground.

    The crazed animal lunged at her and they struggled for a while. Eventually, she was able to strike the dog by the forehead with the stone she was holding.  The dog fell to the ground, its body shuddering and blood was gushing out of its mouth. In a matter of minutes, the dog was dead. But Panta did not come out of that battle unscathed. Her forehead had sustained a bleeding wound left open by the sharp canine incisors.

    That Sunday, when they arrived in our village, Panta’s wound on her forehead was still raw. The villagers were curious to know what happened and she told us the whole story. The villagers, especially the women,  were worried. They advised Panta to go to the town to see a doctor. But we, rural folks,  seldom go to the doctor for we have an assemblage of herbal medications for every kind of illness. Panta dismissed their suggestions and assured everyone that she was fine.

    By mid-afternoon, Panta became ill. She was so feverish that her closest friend in the village invited the trio to stay in her house for Panta to rest for a few hours until the fever subsided before they would start their trek toward their home in the mountains. But Panta’s fever never subsided and her condition only grew worse and worse. The next day, Panta was delirious. Her mouth was dry and she kept asking for water, but every time she was given a cup of water, she was frightened to look at it and pushed the cup away. Her behavior was akin to a wild, wounded beast, She became so strong that it required three or four muscled men to subdue her.

    Panta expired on the morning of the third day. Like a wedding, death in our village was a community affair. Everyone was involved. The men started fashioning a wooden coffin. The women congregated in the kitchen to cook and prepared meals. The young girls gathered flowers and arranged them. Embalming was not practiced so the dead had to be brought to the cemetery to be buried within 24 hours.

    The cemetery was situated at the outskirts of the town of Cabadbaran some 8 kilometers away. Every burial was a long procession of villagers walking by foot toward the cemetery. The wooden coffin had to be borne  on the shoulders of six to eight men which were rotated and replaced regularly by other waiting men all the way to the burial place.

    The following Sunday, Bondoy and Perpetua returned to the village and went to see Colet. Later on we learned that Bondoy offered to sell Perpetua to Colet for 80 pesos but Colet turned him down. That was the last time, the villagers saw Bondoy and Perpetua. Wherever they went, nobody knew.

    A few years later, after I completed my elementary education, our family moved to Bayugan a town some 50 kilometers away down south where my father bought a small farm. But I remained in Cabadbaran to pursue my secondary education in a school of my choice. I lived with my aunt and when out of school, I helped tend her store in the market.

    Today, the Panta and Bondoy episode must just be a blip in the collective memory of our village. They are just one of the countless faces of people who existed in this world, crossed our paths at some points in time and vanished  without really leaving significant imprints in our lives.  And if I write about them today, it is because I would like to preserve bits and pieces of my childhood before age and forgetfulness will overtake me.

My First Winter In New Mexico

Portales, NM, January 22, 2015, 7:28 AM.--- As I write, powdery snow continue to shower outside my house slowly covering my car, and the driveway. The forecast is that it will be snowing the whole day so I imagine that by noon my car will be melded with the driveway into one continuous form of white landscape.

This is my neighborhood as viewed from my yard. 3 January 2015.

I did not expect Portales to have this much snow considering that it is situated at a lower latitude compared to say, New York or Chicago. At 34o N, it has the same latitude as Los Angeles in California and for the past 15 years that I have been in the US, I have not heard that Angelenos have seen any snow in their city. But there is one big difference: LA is a seaside city so it is constantly fanned by a warm current of ocean winds. Portales, on the other hand, is situated on the central highlands near the Texas panhandle with an elevation of 4,000 feet.

My first winter in New Jersey, January 2004.

This is not my first snowy winter in America. A major portion of my first 4 years in the US was spent in New York – New Jersey area. I can still remember the excitement and the exhilarating experience when I first saw and touched a snowfall. They were fluffy like feathers in my hands. But when my car started skidding and sliding and became less manageable as I drove, I realized that winter is not my favorite season after all. It was there in New Jersey  where I learned the rules of driving on a snowy road: No sudden braking or turning, slower speed, keep a fair amount of distance from the car ahead of you, et cetera, et cetera.

 Twelve years later, just a day after we welcomed the new year, I had to retrieve those rules from my mental hard drive. I was driving my way back from  from Loma Linda, California where I spent the Christmas break with my wife. By late afternoon as I was approaching Albuquerque along I-40, white powdery mists started hitting my windshield. By sunset, snow shower started to intensify reducing road visibility that I decided to exit as I saw a sign of a gas station. There was only one vacant space in the station’s parking area and all the cars parked there were already covered with snow. As I parked, I searched my GPS for a hotel where I can spend the night and learned that the nearest hotel is 9 miles away. I cannot risk going back to the highway and drive 9 more miles so I decided to just spend the night in my car. The snowfall abated by midnight.

Early in the morning I resumed driving. Traffic was slow as cars formed a single line on the outer lane of the interstate where the pavement was still visible. As I took the exit in Santa Rosa for the last leg of my journey,  I did not expect to meet my hardest challenge as a driver so far. Portales was still 100 miles away. Coming from a busy highway like the I-40, I had some eerie feelings when I realized that I was driving alone on that barren piece of snow-covered highway. No tire tracks were visible. If there were some vehicles who passed there before me, the evidence  of passing wheels were easily covered with continuous snow shower. In fact you cannot see the outlines of the road. Your only guide were the few road signs sticking out on the sides like emaciated snowmen. 

 

I kept my speed at around 35-40 mph when I realized that there were two vehicles behind me. They must be driving faster because they got closer and closer. I expected them to pass me by my left but that did not happen. Instead they got closer---too close to me for comfort. Automatically, I increased my speed to 45 and that’s when I started skidding. I never expected that on the third day of a new year,  I would experience the greatest scare of my life for the entire year! First my car veered 90 degrees to the right then veered 180 degrees to the left before correcting itself back to its original position. All these while, my car was still moving on the forward direction of the road before it exhausted its linear momentum and stopped.

The two cars that were tailgating me must have slammed on their brakes for they parted to opposite directions. The one closest to me---an Acura SUV---fell, buried on the right side of the road and stuck. The other has turned left onto the middle of the road. I felt guilty that I caused the accident. So I got out of the car and started walking towards them to see if I could be of any help.  The two cars must be traveling together because the drivers seemed to know each other and had conversations. That’s when I heard the first driver telling the other that he had a shovel in his cargo bay. Then three passengers---all men--- stepped out and started pushing the vehicle. I wanted to come near to apologize but then I realized that it was their tailgating that caused  me to skid in the first place. And considering that they have more than enough helping hands and that I could not be of much help to them, anyway,  I went back to my car and continued driving.

 

When I told my wife later over the phone about my near-mishap, my mother-in-law butted in telling me that God must have protected me because she prayed for my safety. I believed her. I mean, I prayed, too, but I always consider my mother-in-law closer to God than I am so that it must be through her prayers that God spared me.

 

Approaching Portales, I could see that the snow cover was thicker here than the areas I passed by.  As I turned right from the road onto the alley that connects to my driveway, I got stuck. Fortunately, or because of my mother-in-law’s prayers again, an angel with a midsize snow plow was standing by. No, he was not really standing by---he was busy clearing the parking lot of a furniture company next to my yard.

The angel with a snow plow who helped extricate my car from a mound of snow.

He came to me and with the help of two other men passing by, they helped me extract my car from that mound of snow. Then with his snow plow he cleared the alley including the entrance to my driveway. My driveway, which had not been used for two weeks, was covered with about a foot of snow and my car could not move any closer to the house than at the entrance that was cleared by the angel with a snow plow. But that was good enough.

My car parked at the entrance of the driveway because it could not get any closer to the house.

 

Our Trip To Canada

     Last week, we embarked on a 4,260-mile round trip that would bring us to Edmonton and Lac La Biche in Alberta, Canada to visit Teng's relatives. It took us more than 3 days and two nights to drive one way, starting from Loma Linda on Monday, July 8 and arriving Edmonton at 2:00 am of Thursday, July 11. We were cruising Interstate 15 all the way except for a brief detour to Yellowstone National Park on the boundary of Montana and Wyoming.

    A month earlier, while considering the trip, I did some research on whether I have some friends residing in those places. True enough, I found a family who used to be my neighbors in Hinaplanon who are now residing in Edmonton. The Quilacios are very close to me because we belong to the same church which only consists of half a dozen families.

    Then I remember that Wengweng Candelasa is also residing somewhere in Canada but I'm not sure which part of the country. Wengweng arrived in MSU when I was the one directing the choir and when I learned that she plays the piano well, she became the pianist right away uncontested. When I went to Manila for a study leave in 1983, she was still there assisting Remrem Ortega who took over the choir leadership.

    When I checked her Facebook page, I found out that she lived in Grand Praire, some 5-hour drive northwest of Edmonton. So I informed her of our planned trip and that I wished to meet her but considering the distance, I would understand if it would not materialize. But she responded that she was willing to drive that far in order to meet me. She also informed me that Evilla "Bebing" Aguilo is in Calgary, which is a 3-hour drive south of Edmonton. When she told Bebing that I'm coming, Bebing also decided to drive that 3-hour distance to meet us.

    

    Those were the highlights on my part of the trip, the rest of our itinerary was meeting and bonding with Teng's uncle, a number of first cousins and lots of nephews and nieces.

On Thursday, Teng's cousin, Alex drove us to Jasper National Park reaching up to the foot of Edith Cavell Glacier which was in time for snow drizzling. It was the first time for Teng's mother to touch snow. We spent the night at a hotel in Jasper City and the following morning we rode the tramway up to the park's Alpine Tundra at an elevation of 1300 meters above sea level overlooking six mountain ranges.

    On the Sabbath, we attended the Edmonton Filipino SDA Church which, as expected, I met Wengweng, the Quilacio family and Bebing. What I did not expect was that Wengweng would drive 5 hours on a huge 4x4 pickup truck with big wheels and elevated chasis. She arrived Edmonton the night before with 3 non-SDA friends who attended church with us. Bebing also drove a SUV from Calgary.

There was one unexpected friend who greeted me in church. It's Julius Betoya who I only knew in MSU as Dodoy, Alandrex's younger brother. Dodoy did not finish in MSU. He transferred to AUP where he would meet his wife. Since Teng worked at AUP during their time, they also recognized Teng and she remembered them.

    After lunch in church, Dodoy invited us to come to his luxurious townhouse at the outskirts of Edmonton. There they offered us cold juice drinks while he was showing to us a video of their exploits in Mindoro as missionaries among the Mangyans for 5 years.

Too bad, time was so short for bonding. After the video, Bebing was already in a hurry to go because she is meeting her son also in Edmonton. We gathered around, sang one familiar song and I offered a short prayer thanking God for the opportunity of meeting old friends who have gone to different directions in life and then meet again at an instant in the same space and time after thirty years.

Since Bebing left her car at the church's parking lot and Wengweng left hers at the hotel they were staying nearby, we drove them back to be reunited with their wheels. I wish such meetings of old friends in unexpected places will become more frequent in the near future.

    Then it was our time to bond with my Hinaplanon neighbors. They were very excited to see me and Teng. I am their first neighbor from the Philippines that they meet here in Canada. They brought us to the Alberta Legislative Park then treated us to a sumptuous dinner at a Royal Buffet. You can see our pictures in my FB pages. The rest of our visit was meeting and bonding with Teng's relatives. Her 97 year old uncle is still strong and active. I could not memorize all the name of her cousins and nephews and nieces and even grandchildren but I enjoyed every moment of it.

    

    On Monday, we drove northeast for almost three hours to visit another cousin who lives in Lac La Biche. At 54.9 degrees north of the equator, this is the place with the highest latitude that I have been to. "Lac La Biche" is a French word which literally means "Lake of the Deer." It's the name given by a French explorer who discovered the place. It was in Lac La Biche where I found total serenity and for a time forgot all the cares of the world. Our most enjoyable experience was  boating on the serene lake on Tuesday.

    On our way home, we had another sleepover in Edmonton and then retraced our route starting Thursday morning. When we reached Utah, our wanderlust was again excited at the prospect of visiting Arches National Park and on the Sabbath, we find ourselves amidst God's creative wonders, awed and mesmerized at those gigantic natural monuments and unusual rock formations sculpted by time. 

How My Uncle Leon Brought Home A Wife

(With apologies to Manuel E. Arguilla)

The farming village of Masondong is situated on the lower midwestern slope of Mount Hilong-hilong in the island of Mindanao. Almost all of the people living here are my mother’s relatives in varying degrees of affinity and consanguinity. As a kid, I have visited this place countless times together with my parents and every visit was always looked forward to with anticipation, eager to meet and play with my cousins.

 Masondong is a geopolitical sub-unit of barrio Calamba, which, in turn is a political sub-unit of the municipality of Cabadbaran. The village has no decent road for motorized vehicles to reach it. The road network of Mindanao ends at the barrio proper of Calamba and the village is connected to the barrio through a circuitous 7-kilometer footpath which is also used by the farmers’ carabaos pulling the sledge.

I say “circuitous” because although both the village and the barrio proper lie on the same side of the Calibunan River, a direct route is not possible because of a steep, forested mountain that separates them up to the river’s waterline. The end of the mountain facing the river is a vertical wall of barren rock and some loose topsoil constantly eroded by the water current beneath it. The other side of the river is a wide plain having been leveled through years or centuries of seasonal flooding.

This geographical barrier dictates that the route to Masondong crosses the river at a point nearest to the barrio, then follow the river upstream on the other side, then crosses the river again once they pass by the rock wall. I have to emphasize here that there is no bridge. So to cross the river is to literally wade in the water which is knee-deep on some predetermined locations.

Life in Masondong is relatively comfortable except during rainy season when the river swells up to 3 or 4 times its usual size, making it doubly unpassable, isolating the village from the rest of the world. But as long as every family has enough supply of salt and kerosene, these temporary isolations are livable since they are self-sufficient in food that they themselves produced.

But remote as it is, the village has a rich cultural life. It was the home of a well-known musical group called the Dagohoy String Band. All the musicians handling the different instruments are my uncles and cousins. Tatay Lucing, my mother’s eldest brother seemed to be the leader of the group being the oldest. His favorite instrument was the tenor banjo. There was also the banjo, guitar, bass guitar, violin and cello. (They even had a makeshift bass instrument consisting of a metal container as a base with a long wooden arm protruding upward. A small rope made of abaca is fixed at the base and wound at the top of the wooden arm that when strummed produces a soothing sound with a very low frequency akin to that of a bass drum.) Neighboring barrios invite them to play especially during fiesta celebrations.

Then came Uncle Leon. I don’t know where he came from, probably from some Cebuano-speaking islands in the Visayas like Leyte. Actually, he is not related to us and I only started calling him Uncle Leon after he married Yaya Barsing, my mother’s first cousin. But that’s going ahead of the story.

Their romance was a typical story of a stranger who falls in love with a local lass. The courtship and the rituals which, usually involve the whole clan are quite elaborate but I will not dwell on those. I would rather fast forward to the time when their wedding was scheduled to be held in our small chapel in Calamba.

Just like any other barrio, we do not have a resident priest. A priest from Cabadbaran only comes one Sunday in a month to say mass. At other Sundays, we only hold a novena led by the chapel patriarch named Esteban. He was a nice, likeable fellow but as kids, we were afraid to come near him. He even looked like a priest. We heard that Esteban was a pensionado of the American government. We were told that during the war he enlisted in the US Navy and was assigned as a cook in one of the American warships. After his retirement, he bought a big piece of land in our barrio, settled down comfortably and serving religiously in our chapel in the absence of a priest.

Their wedding was a grand event in our barrio. Our small chapel was jampacked with worshippers. Even the courtyard was filled with friends and relatives eager to witness the ceremony.  The priest from the town was there in his immaculately white priestly robe. And of course, the Dagohoy String Band was there accompanying the congregation in the singing.

Meanwhile, back at the bride’s parents’ house in Masondong, the bride’s family and her immediate relatives were busy preparing the food for the wedding banquet. The bride’s family had already anticipated that the whole village and the many friends and relatives in the barrio proper were coming to share a meal with the newly wed. No invitation was necessary. Since I was just a kid at the time, I was not privy to the food preparation but in retrospect, I could estimate that at least one carabao, and a couple of pigs and goats were butchered to feed the community of well-wishers

After the ceremony, everyone, young and old were getting ready to invade the bride’s house for the wedding feast. The seven-kilometer procession started at the chapel’s courtyard led by the bride and groom followed by the string band followed by the crowd. Uncle Leon was holding his bride while the bride was partially lifting her long white skirt to prevent it from touching the ground. That was the scene that left a lasting imprint in my memory. I was part of the crowd and I was very near the string band. As we continued walking the band continued playing familiar songs which synched with our every footstep so that we did not feel tired.

 

 

Mothers' Day Musings: My Mother's Ordeal

The year was nineteen eighty-four. It was a typical day in our farming village in Calaitan. The sun was just peeping over the eastern horizon and the sky was crystal blue interspersed with wisplike strands of cirrus clouds. My mother and our youngest sister, Lilet, who was then 12 years old, rose up early to make the necessary preparations in going to the market to sell their vegetables.

 Our village is situated along the route of a timber company that cut forest trees into logs and haul them to the lowlands for processing and export. In those days, no public transport reached our place for the road was owned by the timber company and only company vehicles were allowed to use it. But the mobility problem of the farmer residents was somehow eased by the generosity of the company drivers who gave rides to people they pass by hiking on the side of the road or waiting at some designated areas. On many instances you can see a comical but scary sight of dozens of people sitting on top of logs or on top of mounds of gravel of trucks racing at breakneck speed along the unpaved winding road risking lives and limbs. Seat belts were unheard of in our village.

 By this time, planting season of major crops was over and while waiting for harvest, my father worked in the city some 50 kilometers away as a security guard to augment the family income. My mother was also tending a vegetable plot which she harvested regularly to be sold in town some 10 kilometers away. I was in Manila by this time striving to gain mastery of the professional field I was in. My two brothers were away in college. And with my father going home only on weekends, the only man in the house giving company to my mother and our three younger sisters was our youngest brother, Joseph who was just nineteen.

 On this day, my mother had a different plan. Instead of going to town, she and Lilet would go up some 20 kilometers away to the village where the families of the timber company workers were residing. My mother found them a much better buyer of her vegetables than the middlemen in town who would haggle to buy her products to the lowest ---almost giveaway prices.

 They did not wait for long at a designated place. An empty company dump truck was passing by on its way to the cutting area. Everyone who waited there was able to get a ride---around thirty of them, from the youngest child to the oldest man. There were also some six army soldiers who rode with them.

 To anyone experiencing this kind of travel, comfort is farthest from your mind. With the vehicle not designed for people transport, you just have to stand, holding on to anything that you can hold on. Some sit when there is something to sit on. My mother found herself in the middle of the cargo bay. Lilet was standing a few feet away from her on the forward direction. The soldiers were also standing around Lilet.

 Then suddenly, as the truck was negotiating an uphill climb, the constant hum of the engine was disrupted by bursts of gunfire. Ambush. From among the cogon grasses and the trees on both sides of the road were around a hundred communist rebels aiming their guns at them. The first ones to get hit were the soldiers. Riders on the periphery of the vehicle fell down on the roadside while those on the middle slumped on the floor. There was blood everywhere. The driver got hit, too, but managed to continue driving to escape from the scene of the ambush. My mother saw Lilet covered with blood but still moving and she thought her daughter was dying. She felt a dull pain in her hip and she came to the realization that she was wounded, too.

 After running for some few kilometers, the truck came to a stop and the driver collapsed. Everybody who was left on the truck was either wounded or dead. There were a few houses by the roadside and around the vicinity, and these local residents came to help them in whatever capacity. One soldier was barely alive and when they came to assist him, he pointed his gun at them. In his feverish state he was thinking that these were the people who ambushed him and he said to them, “Don’t come near, or I’ll shoot. “ Then he got down from the truck, wobbling, and crawled under a small house whose elevated floor was just around one foot above the dirt ground. In a matter of minutes, he was dead.

 Although bleeding herself, my mother’s first concern was Lilet. But when she checked on her, her only wound was on her leg just below the knee. Lilet was lucky because it was just a flesh wound. And she was luckier that the bullet did not shatter her kneecap or she would be crippled for the rest of her life. So the blood that was all over her body was not her own. They were the soldiers’.

 It was my mother who was in a more precarious situation. The nearest medical facility was in our town which was 25 kilometers away. A considerable distance when there is no available transport. The local residents were not much of help. Some gathered herbal leaves and barks of trees. My mother was offered a filthy rug to be used as a tourniquet.

 Although there were no communication facilities, news about the ambush spread within an hour. When my brother learned of the ambush, he left our farm immediately and rushed to the place to look for our mother and sister and was relieved to see them still alive. By some ingenious luck, he was able to get a vehicle that would bring my mother and sister to town. He brought them to the clinic of the only surgeon in town who happened to be our relative. Dr. Lorna Peteros-Amora is my father’s first cousin. She performed a surgical operation on my mother and sister right away. My mother stayed in her clinic for a couple of weeks.

 Today, Lilet is married with three kids. The scar below her knee is still visible. During the last local election, being the number one councilor in our place, she ran for barangay captain but lost to the incumbent. My mother, now 75, is still active and healthy. My father passed away three years ago and she is now the one managing our farm while tending half a dozen grandchildren who are staying in her house.

Seven months after that incident, Joseph met his tragic end in Davao City. But that will be a subject of another story yet to be written. At our brother’s funeral, our mother, who could not forget that that she owed him her life, cried the loudest.

EPILOGUE

It was my brother Chito who pointed out to me that I was a year off in my recollection of that event. It happened in 1984 not 1983 as I originally wrote. So I went back to edit my post but Facebook classified it already as “classic” (my euphemism for “old”) and it cannot be edited anymore. I don’t want to do a rewrite just to correct a temporal inaccuracy because I will lost all those comments and moving testimonies from friends and relatives and specially from those intimately involved that give credence  to my story. But today, ten years after I wrote this piece, I finally decided to make a rewrite to correct those inaccuracies. But the comments and testimonies are also transported with it for they become part of my story. As an update, my mother is now 85 years old, frail but still lucid. Lilet who was just a 12  years old at the time, is now 48 with 6 children and one healthy but playful grandchild named Uno. Our youngest brother's tragic story is already written. It's titled "Too Young To Die." Happy Mother's Day to all.

 

Comments and Testimonies

 §   This is a great tribute to a mother who had suffered so much but continued to live on. While going through the story, I know the setting is our province. And this is confirmed at the end when you mentioned Dr. Lorna P. Amora, our very good friend in Bayugan who is now based in Canada with husband Ely. Eden D. Paredes, wife of Atty Jun Paredes, former Governor of Agusan del Sur, 2010.

§   That's mother's love in action ! I love reading this. Kuya, your writing style thrills me. I always look forward to what will be the next . Gelia Fusingan Pueblo, Science Supervisor, DepEd Panabo, 2010.

 §   Academically written! Sounds fiction but very true! Corazon Deita Barsana, Director of Instructional Services, Ruidoso Public Schools, New Mexico, 2010.

 §   Thank you, Cora, Giddel, Res and Jo. Favorable comments always inspire a writer to write some more. To my brother Chito, thank you for placing the story in the right time frame. To my provincemate, Maam Eden: Yes, it happened in our province. Thank you for taking the time to read this story in spite of your busyness. Shem, 2010.

With Tiya Lorna Peteros-Amora (in pink dress) when we invaded their home 

in Ontario for lunch in 2016

§   Yes, Hermes, it happened years ago but it's, still fresh in my mind…the horrors of seeing my relatives  wounded due to senseless fighting. It was hard for me to do a balancing act, treating both AFPs and NPAs for my profession was for serving all patients without distinction as to ideologies and politics. Lorna Peteros-Amora, Aunt, Surgeon, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, 2011.

 §   Hi Tiya Lorna, long time no see. Being one of the protagonists in this story, your comments lend credence to its veracity---that it is not a mere figment of imagination. It happened to real people who happened to be my family. Let's keep in touch. Give my regards to Tiyo Ely. Shem, 2011. 

§   Kuya Shem, you couldn't have broken my heart any more if you tried (no parent should ever have to bury their child). As I read this, flashes of similar stories I've heard over the years, some of which that of our own relatives/kins, flooded my mind. May God rests the souls of the innocent victims of wrong beliefs and stupid crimes. Thank you for sharing this story with us, 'ya. Don't let us wait long for the next one please, okay? Joselyn Sharp, Friend, Businesswoman, Birmingham, Alabama, 2011

§   Peace is very elusive in this planet. On January 17, 1987 another tragic event happened. NPA urban assassination squad lobbed a fragmentation grenade at the Bombo Radyo announcer's booth in Davao where me and my brother Joey were working. Divine intervention saved us from possible death. Chito D. Herbolingo, Brother, Head Consultant, PEON Management Consultancy Service, 2010

§   My salute to your mother! Two thumbs up for your prowess with the pen!  Judith Moran-Duerme, Friend,  Retired Teacher, Cabadbaran City, 2010.

§   Write-ups that nourish the mind and spirit and awaken the senses are truly what makes us readers yearn for more ... your writings really do inspire, aside from giving us a very clear picture of what has happened or was happening in that particular time and place. Thanks for sharing with us your gift, 'mes. Fabian Curato Rafosala, Friend and Townmate, Cabadbaran City, 2011.

 §   Kabalo ka Shem karon lang ko nakabasa ani na story and yes our ride way back then were soooo cooool. It was so difficult before but at that time we had no choice. I thank God today for giving us the prize of our sacrifices, I still love Calaitan and I used to bring my children there for swimming in that chilly crystal clear water of Calaitan River once we were having vacation in Bayugan. Joel Jardeloza, Cousin, Professor, Lyceum of the Philippines University, Davao City, 2014.

 §   Congratulations, Kuya Shem! you write so well! Keep going. . . we love to read your work.  Edsel Enriquez, Friend, Schoolmate, Dipolog City, 2014.

 §   Sounds fiction gyud, yet it’s so true. Brings back memories. Kada school holidays kaniadto imbitahon ni Mama sa Calaitan. I miss Mama Turs very much. She is like our second mother because we shared breastfeeding with her own children. Kaya tayo ang pinaka close nga cousins kay nakatotoy mi ni Mama. Lourdes Dagohoy Villamor, Cousin, HongKong, 2016.

Remembering My Grandfather

    My grandfather never celebrated a birthday, for nobody knew the exact date of his birth---not even himself. All of those who had knowledge about his birth have already died long ago and did not pass on that valuable piece of information to the living. His baptismal name was Hilario and we called him Lolo Ayong. But neither did anybody know the date of his baptism. As far as I know, there were only three people in the world who had no birth records and one of them was my grandfather. The other was a character in the Bible named Melchizedek and the third was a certain monarch in Central Africa during the last century---sorry, I forgot his name.

    When Lolo Ayong died in 1986, my father and I who were overseeing the burial preparation had a problem. We did not know what to put in the gravestone as his birth year. But my father came up with a very ingenious solution. My father recalled Lolo’s story that during the super typhoon of 1912, he almost died because the typhoon caught him alone in his fishing boat in the middle of the sea. My father reasoned that my lolo must be, at least, a teenager at the time of the typhoon, otherwise he would not be allowed to go fishing alone. Then my father picked the magic number 16 as Lolo’s age in 1912. Retracing back brought us to the year 1896. Thus we were able to write the following in his tombstone: Hilario Hagnaya Herbolingo, 1896-1986. Only at that time did we know that Lolo Ayong died at the ripe old age of 90.

    But we are going ahead of the story for my purpose of this writing is to tell you about his life. My lolo was born to Benito Gelbolingo and Francisca Hagnaya of Argao, Cebu. How the name ‘Gelbolingo’ evolved into ‘Herbolingo’ is a story in its own right worthy of a forensic investigation. His love of adventure as a young man, brought him to the island of Mindanao riding on a sailboat. How big was that sailboat---I have no idea. But, anyway, Lolo told me that it took them one week to sail from Cebu to Mindanao. (These days, it only takes 4 hours to travel that same route by fast ferry boats.) My lolo settled in Northern Mindanao particularly in the town of Cabadbaran.

    There were only very few people in Cabadbaran at the time and most of the lands were owned by the natives of the place called “Manobos.” The manobos were selling their lands to the new settlers right and left at a barter price of a few canned sardines.  Lolo Ayong suddenly became the owner of a 4-hectare flatland (approximately, 10 acres) in the vicinity of barrio Calamba. The manobos still had lots of lands to sell and Lolo could have produced more canned sardines to barter with them but lolo reasoned out:  why should he buy more lands when he could only cultivate 4 hectares? And so, Lolo Ayong stopped buying. Today, my lolo’s contemporaries in Cabadbaran are big landholders and more prosperous.

    My lolo’s love life is very nebulous to me but it is safe to assume that it was in Cabadbaran where he met his future wife, the former Feliciana Bolotaulo Rollorata of Dawis, Bohol. They were blessed with 14 children but only ten survived to adulthood. One of Lolo’s pastime was gambling and his favorite was cockfighting. During his time he maintained a cockhouse full of fighting cocks. As a consequence, all of Lolo’s sons, except my father, became gamblers themselves. Today, if you see a picture of a Herbolingo in Facebook, whether old or young, holding a rooster, most likely he is a descendant of Lolo Ayong.

    But Lolo’s passion for gambling was equaled, if not exceeded, with his love for work and labor. He developed his 4-hectare land and planted all of them with coconuts. He cleared about half-acre in the middle of his land and there he built his two-storey house made of hardwood (yakal, narra and kamagong) which was relatively abundant at that time. His daughters planted Bermuda grass around the house and populated his spacious veranda on the second floor with potted flowering plants: bougainvillea, santan, different varieties of cactus and others.  When we were kids, visiting our lolo’s home after school and during weekends was exciting and always looked forward to.

    My lolo could not read and write for he had never been to school. Probably, life was so hard in Argao that he had to work early to help the family thus he had no time for school. As a consequence, education was given very little importance among his own children so that only one of them finished college. Another is college level. My father was only up to second year high school when he got married. The rest just finished elementary, some barely. But if Lolo did not learn his letters, he mastered his numbers. We do not know how he did it but he has his own way of doing arithmetic. He could identify the values of different monetary denominations, he knew how to count his money, and he knew how much change to expect when making a purchase. He must have learned it by necessity, otherwise, how could he place his bet in the gambling den?

    This brought to my remembrance one funny incident. Anyway, it was funny to me but for Lolo, it was a matter of getting most out of his money’s worth. After watching a cockfight in the cockpit arena, he hailed a tricycle to go to my aunt’s store in the market. To the uninitiated, a tricycle is a bicycle with a makeshift side car supported by a third wheel, powered by the driver’s strong legs. It is a common mode of transport in Cabadbaran. When he arrived at the store, he gave the skinny, perspiring driver his fare of 10 centavos. The driver politely told Lolo that the fare for that distance was 15 centavos. “Fifteen centavos!” my lolo blurted out. “Ayaw ko'g ilara, Dong, dugay na kong sakay-sakay dinhi. Nakahibalo ko nga diyes ray pamilite.” (Don’t rob me, boy, I’m an old-timer here. I know that the fare is only 10 centavos.) Well, at least, Lolo deserved a senior’s discount.

    In his simple uneducated ways, Lolo’s legacy was his fulfilled vision. When he was cultivating his land, that was before the Second World War, his land was in the middle of nowhere and the surrounding areas were still forested. There were so few motorized vehicles and they could be found only in big towns and cities. He told my father, “Someday, trucks will come here to haul our coconuts. True enough, when his coconuts started bearing fruits, hauling trucks of the Chinese merchants in Cabadbaran would make their way, traversing a footpath that was only wide enough for a carabao-sledge, up to my Lolo’s front yard to haul the harvested coconuts.

Lolo Ayong in dark shirt posed with a friend. 

He always looked confident, his body never bent. 

He was ramrod straight until the end.

    Lolo Ayong lived and died a contented man. His 4-hectare coconut plantation enabled him to support his big family not lavishly but moderately comfortable until his children were able to stand and have families of their own.