by Nunilo M. de Leon
July 1945 found me, and most of my boy grade school classmates, enrolled in first year at the Bulacan Provincial High School located at the provincial capitol grounds. Two of them, Fernando Lim and Narciso Crisostomo were with me in section A. The others were in section B. Not one of my girl classmates was in the provincial high school. Most of them, including Josie, my first cousin, preferred to continue their studies at the Immaculata Academy of Malolos. The student body at the BHS was at first very small, only two 40-student sections for each of the four year levels. Three of my aunts, Tia Epang de Leon y Peña, Tia Monang de Leon and Tia Pining de Leon Robles were there, teaching mathematics, English and retail merchandising respectively. Not one of them became my teacher, for delicadeza, I guess. However, another aunt, Tia Rosing Macapugay was my science teacher for two years. They were short of teachers. Even then, English, mathematics and science teachers were already hard to come by. There was a general shortage of textbooks and in some subjects there were no books at all. We had to pay attention very closely to the teachers.
Some US Army service units were still encamped in the provincial capitol and had a latrine beside the road between the capitolyo and the high school building. The sight of the latrine was a nuisance but the GIs made sure the latrine did not stink much, regularly pouring gasoline into the latrine pit and setting it ablaze.
The Germans had already surrendered in Europe and the Japanese were rapidly being driven back to their home islands. There was still Japanese resistance in Luzon, mainly in the mountain ranges to the north, around Baguio. The war in the Pacific was about to end, although the Americans were still to deliver their atomic killer blows on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the midst of these historical events, Inang gave birth to Leticia or “Lety”, her fifth child and second daughter, again on Dada’s bed, in her bedroom. Tio Toniong was again the attending physician.
Soon, most of the American armed forces in the Philippines, including those in Malolos, departed. They left behind much of their equipment, including the jeep. These were soon put to good use by the usual Filipino ingenuity. Modified for public transportation, the renamed jitney, later jeepney, became the main means of national transportation. The original jeeps have now long been consigned to the junkyards but their descendants still remain on Philippine roads, in the same basic form, although much larger, noisier and smokier.
Early every morning, we would pay the five centavo fare for a ride on one of the handful of jitneys, already operating in Malolos, or on a carretela. (We were already using newly minted coins and postwar “Victory” peso paper bills, produced in the US and delivered posthaste to the Philippines.) Only seven passengers could ride in these newly-converted jeeps, ACs or auto-calesas, as they were then called: three in front, including the driver, and four in the back, if the passengers were all adults. Two more could squeeze in at the back if the riders were all children. However, the carretela, carromata and calesa were still very much in use. Their demise was still a decade or so away. The jitney or carretela could take us from the town municipio to the railroad crossing. We walked the rest of the way to the school, an additional kilometer or so. To go home, we preferred to scrimp on fare and walked all the way home. We usually hiked home in groups, taking the backstreet which paralleled the Paseo de Congreso, which is the main road to town. This back route took us through the Barasoain church patio and to another back street which ended at the plaza in front of the casa real. During these late afternoon hikes, we would often see Alejo Santos, the governor, lifting weights in his makeshift gym, at the ground floor of his casa real annex residence.
During my first year, I had my banana-leaf-wrapped baon for lunch, which we ate in one of the still unused buildings of the Bulacan Trade School. This vocational school had lost all its tools and equipment and could not reopen till after some years later. However, we had vocational classes; horticulture, agronomy, woodworking, and metal sheet craft for the boys and retail merchandising and home economics for the girls. For physical education, we had scouting. I rejoined the Boy Scouts and wound up in the drum and bugle band, as a drummer. With me in the band were my classmates, Luis Baltazar and Jose B. Cruz, sophomore Severino Tayao and his older brother, Manuel, who was to marry my cousin Josie. My closest barkadas in high school were Macario Pangilinan from Calumpit, Jose B. Cruz, Jr. from Barasoain, Jose Chichioco from Paniqui, BenitoVillacorta from San Ildefonso, Armando Mojica from Plaridel and Alejandro Bulaong from Matimbo. We spent the hour after lunch lolling under a small flame tree in front of the capitol. At times, I would join up with another classmate and neighbor, Antonio Tiongson, and have pack lunch in one of the sheds at the school truck garden where we had our horticulture and agronomy vocational classes.
These after-lunch school “barkada” sessions ended in my sophomore year. The provincial staff housing had been repaired and the occupants, including the Peñas, had moved back. I was told to have lunch with Tia Epang every day in her house behind the school. She and I were usually the only ones home for lunch. My other teacher-aunts preferred to have their lunch in the faculty room. Three of Tia Epang’s kids were in school and were experiencing lunch with Dada in Tampoy, while Tio Aurel was commuting to work in Manila. The fifth and youngest, Ver, was still a baby. He was born during their family’s brief stay in Manila, before the dogfights. Sometimes, Tio Aurel’s maiden cousin Tia Marina, who was staying with them and who was acting as their mayordoma, would join us for lunch. These lunches were very similar to those Josie and I had with Dada during our elementary days, silent, formal and longish. After lunch I would usually go to the kitchen and watch Mayang, the cook, and Upeng, the utility maid, at their chores before returning to my classes. I missed my old lunchtime “barkada”.
A highlight of my two years at the Bulacan High School was when another aunt, Tia Leonor Reyes, my English literature teacher told me to join a school writing contest. The subject was, “Life under the Japanese”. I submitted an entry and won first prize. This story, I was to find out years later, made it to the US Library of Congress. My prize was a hardbound book, which I have lost and whose title I do not recall.
The 1945 harvest again brought relative prosperity. A 72-square-meter bodega was built at the site of the poultry pen so that the library could be returned to its normal function. The new bodega was built on thick hardwood stilt posts and had concrete stairs, just like the main house. It had corrugated metal roof and sidings. Its meter-high silong was enclosed in chicken wire and became the poultry. The bodega was divided into three parts. The two bigger back rooms were used as rice bins. The smaller front room was to be some sort of office and miscellaneous storage room. It soon became my private library and den. The bins would be emptied one after the other. Once one of them became empty enough, I would put up a basketball goal inside and use it as a rainy season gym. Dada also had a goal put up outside for our dry season use. For my daily exercise, I would run several laps every afternoon, round the house and into the silong, about a hundred meters per lap. One or two of the dogs would make the run with me.
Some time during that period, we received word that Impong Puling, Inkong Tasio’s second wife had passed away. Inang took all of her kids to Hagunoy to pay respects. We rode a Pambusco to the Hagunoy town center and then a carretela to Barrio San Sebastian, where the family resided. We stayed overnight for Impong Puling’s burial, sleeping at Ba Gorio’s “townhouse” kubo in the same barrio. The house was the one which Tio Aurel had built in Sukol, the one where we stayed for almost a year. It was moved to town, the “balikatan” way, on the shoulders of Ba Gorio’s good friends and relatives. Ba Gorio had saved enough money to buy the lot. Da Henia and only daughter Lina were also there. The children stayed there during school days. They were studying in the Hagunoy public schools and their house in Sukol was too far away.
At the end of my first high school year we again went to visit Yeye and Lolo Luis in Cuyapo. Tatang had written that there was still very little housing in the new work site of the Marsman Development Co. in Camarines Norte. The old plant in Manguisok had been destroyed during the war and they had decided to move inland, closer to the jungle although farther from the river. The new plant facilities had been built in sitio Gaboc, Mercedes, Camarines Norte but it would take another year before they could erect enough residential housing in the new site. We took the train from Malolos to Nampicuan and then took a jitney for the short hop to Cuyapo.
The Flores family had left their old home near the railroad station in Cuyapo. The entire site of their old home-and-business was being redeveloped and they had moved a short distance away to a new house which had their large bakery in the ground floor and their residence in the second floor. We no longer had the huge Flores garage to explore and to use as a boxing gym. However, the new house was right in the middle of town and had a basketball court. We had more than enough playmates for daily basketball and softball games, and for “patintero” and “moro-moro”. We also spent some weekends in going to nearby swimming spots, copiously-flowing springs at the foot of the nearby hills. After a two-week vacation, we rode the train back to Malolos. That was the last time I would see Yeye.
The schools began to revive their athletic programs and the provincial athletic meet was held in Malolos. The infrastructure for the event were hurriedly put up in the rice fields beyond the capitol and adjacent to the national road. It was called the Bulacan Provincial Athletic Field and had a grandstand, a soccer field with a track oval, a baseball field, a tennis court and a basketball/volleyball court. The athletes were also hurriedly trained and I remember watching the practice sessions of the basketball team, whose members were mostly from the “batang palengke” teams in the courts of the public market and Tampoy. Also members of that team were Alex Trajano and the two Ochoa brothers (Francisco and Jose) from Pulilan, who were more than equal to the skills of the “batang palengke”. The provincial athletic meet was held there and I watched some of the games. Bulacan High School won the championship only in one of the many events, in basketball.
Tatang wrote Inang that we could spend the next school vacation with him in Gaboc. A new house would be ready for us by then. We spent the last few months of school waiting for what promised to be an exciting mountain vacation in a strange new place. When the school year was about to end, Tatang wrote that it might be better to postpone our trip. The new house would not yet be ready although a smaller and cruder one might be available soon. Inang decided to go on with the trip and take whatever would be available.
The railroad was not yet operating but a much faster way was available. We (Inang, her five children and a maid) took a Pambusco (Pampanga Bus Co.) bus early in the morning to Doroteo Jose St. in Manila, then a taxi to Nielsen Field in Makati. There, we boarded a Philippine Air Lines Douglas C-47 or DC-3 for Bagasbas Airfield in Daet. The plane had only recently shed its military olive drab paint in favor of the red, blue and white PAL colors. It was in military airborne troops configuration, not pressurized, with 14 inward-facing buckets seats on each side of the plane, for a 28 passenger load. The guide steel cable running along the top of the cabin, on which the paratroopers hooked their parachutes before jumping out of the plane, had not yet even been removed. The captain was an American and was probably flying the same plane or an identical one for the US Air Transport Command, a few months before. The co-pilot and lone stewardess were Filipinos.
The plane idled on the apron for an interminable time, waiting for who knows what. It was like an oven inside and everyone began to sweat. When the plane finally took off and gained some altitude, the atmosphere rapidly became cooler, then colder. The stewardess began to distribute thick woolen brown army blankets. I was beginning to enjoy myself until the plane started to cross the Sierra Madre mountain range in Tayabas and met air turbulence. I was airsick the rest of the, thankfully brief, 45-minute flight. So was Istong but not Tancio. Tatang met us with a hired Alatco car in Bagasbas, which took us to Mercedes. From there, we took a Johnson boat ride up the Basud River, this time not across the river to Manguisok, but further upstream, to a deserted riverbank landing. There, we transferred to a converted-to-civilian-use weapons carrier which took us inland, over a rough logging dirt road, to Gaboc, the new site.
The dirt road went past the company store, owned by the ubiquitous “Wong” just outside the gate of the company compound, through the gate and into the compound, with the company offices and managers’ residences to the left and the motor pool, electric plant and sawmill to the right. It crossed a wooden bridge spanning a creek, turned left before reaching the company clinic which was on top of a low knoll, and ended up in the company employee housing compound. The weapons carrier took us to the third row of houses, next to the forest which surrounded the compound, and stopped before an almost-completed, rough-lumber floored and sided and nipa-thatch roofed single room cottage. It was a basic house, some 30 sq. m. in area, provided for the rank-and-file and was meant to be completed by the employee himself. It was habitable but barely. Its layout was like a bahay kubo’s, a front porch, a single multi-purpose room, a small storage room, and a batalan for cooking, bathing and washing. It had no toilet, although there were common facilities a short distance away. There was electricity for only two electric bulbs but only during the early evening. There was no running water. There were kerosene lamps, wood-burning stoves and plenty of kerosene and firewood. Water had to be brought to the house from a water pump some distance away. We had to hire “aguadors” to fetch the water for us. Tatang, as the office manager, was entitled to better housing but we would have to make do until the house which was meant for us was finished, in about two weeks. It was situated at the other side of the compound, across the creek from the sawmill.
We had to learn how to walk very carefully in our temporary habitat and not to toss about too much while asleep or else suffer scratches and bruises on the very rough wooden planks on which we walked and slept. A plus factor was a dirt basketball court where Tatang, Tancio and I would practice in the early mornings while Inang was preparing breakfast. Tatang’s pet dogs, all “aspin” as in “asong pinoy”, accompanied him in those practices and most everywhere he went.
July 1945 found me, and most of my boy grade school classmates, enrolled in first year at the Bulacan Provincial High School located at the provincial capitol grounds. Two of them, Fernando Lim and Narciso Crisostomo were with me in section A. The others were in section B. Not one of my girl classmates was in the provincial high school. Most of them, including Josie, my first cousin, preferred to continue their studies at the Immaculata Academy of Malolos. The student body at the BHS was at first very small, only two 40-student sections for each of the four year levels. Three of my aunts, Tia Epang de Leon y Peña, Tia Monang de Leon and Tia Pining de Leon Robles were there, teaching mathematics, English and retail merchandising respectively. Not one of them became my teacher, for delicadeza, I guess. However, another aunt, Tia Rosing Macapugay was my science teacher for two years. They were short of teachers. Even then, English, mathematics and science teachers were already hard to come by. There was a general shortage of textbooks and in some subjects there were no books at all. We had to pay attention very closely to the teachers.
Some US Army service units were still encamped in the provincial capitol and had a latrine beside the road between the capitolyo and the high school building. The sight of the latrine was a nuisance but the GIs made sure the latrine did not stink much, regularly pouring gasoline into the latrine pit and setting it ablaze.
The Germans had already surrendered in Europe and the Japanese were rapidly being driven back to their home islands. There was still Japanese resistance in Luzon, mainly in the mountain ranges to the north, around Baguio. The war in the Pacific was about to end, although the Americans were still to deliver their atomic killer blows on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the midst of these historical events, Inang gave birth to Leticia or “Lety”, her fifth child and second daughter, again on Dada’s bed, in her bedroom. Tio Toniong was again the attending physician.
Soon, most of the American armed forces in the Philippines, including those in Malolos, departed. They left behind much of their equipment, including the jeep. These were soon put to good use by the usual Filipino ingenuity. Modified for public transportation, the renamed jitney, later jeepney, became the main means of national transportation. The original jeeps have now long been consigned to the junkyards but their descendants still remain on Philippine roads, in the same basic form, although much larger, noisier and smokier.
Early every morning, we would pay the five centavo fare for a ride on one of the handful of jitneys, already operating in Malolos, or on a carretela. (We were already using newly minted coins and postwar “Victory” peso paper bills, produced in the US and delivered posthaste to the Philippines.) Only seven passengers could ride in these newly-converted jeeps, ACs or auto-calesas, as they were then called: three in front, including the driver, and four in the back, if the passengers were all adults. Two more could squeeze in at the back if the riders were all children. However, the carretela, carromata and calesa were still very much in use. Their demise was still a decade or so away. The jitney or carretela could take us from the town municipio to the railroad crossing. We walked the rest of the way to the school, an additional kilometer or so. To go home, we preferred to scrimp on fare and walked all the way home. We usually hiked home in groups, taking the backstreet which paralleled the Paseo de Congreso, which is the main road to town. This back route took us through the Barasoain church patio and to another back street which ended at the plaza in front of the casa real. During these late afternoon hikes, we would often see Alejo Santos, the governor, lifting weights in his makeshift gym, at the ground floor of his casa real annex residence.
During my first year, I had my banana-leaf-wrapped baon for lunch, which we ate in one of the still unused buildings of the Bulacan Trade School. This vocational school had lost all its tools and equipment and could not reopen till after some years later. However, we had vocational classes; horticulture, agronomy, woodworking, and metal sheet craft for the boys and retail merchandising and home economics for the girls. For physical education, we had scouting. I rejoined the Boy Scouts and wound up in the drum and bugle band, as a drummer. With me in the band were my classmates, Luis Baltazar and Jose B. Cruz, sophomore Severino Tayao and his older brother, Manuel, who was to marry my cousin Josie. My closest barkadas in high school were Macario Pangilinan from Calumpit, Jose B. Cruz, Jr. from Barasoain, Jose Chichioco from Paniqui, BenitoVillacorta from San Ildefonso, Armando Mojica from Plaridel and Alejandro Bulaong from Matimbo. We spent the hour after lunch lolling under a small flame tree in front of the capitol. At times, I would join up with another classmate and neighbor, Antonio Tiongson, and have pack lunch in one of the sheds at the school truck garden where we had our horticulture and agronomy vocational classes.
These after-lunch school “barkada” sessions ended in my sophomore year. The provincial staff housing had been repaired and the occupants, including the Peñas, had moved back. I was told to have lunch with Tia Epang every day in her house behind the school. She and I were usually the only ones home for lunch. My other teacher-aunts preferred to have their lunch in the faculty room. Three of Tia Epang’s kids were in school and were experiencing lunch with Dada in Tampoy, while Tio Aurel was commuting to work in Manila. The fifth and youngest, Ver, was still a baby. He was born during their family’s brief stay in Manila, before the dogfights. Sometimes, Tio Aurel’s maiden cousin Tia Marina, who was staying with them and who was acting as their mayordoma, would join us for lunch. These lunches were very similar to those Josie and I had with Dada during our elementary days, silent, formal and longish. After lunch I would usually go to the kitchen and watch Mayang, the cook, and Upeng, the utility maid, at their chores before returning to my classes. I missed my old lunchtime “barkada”.
A highlight of my two years at the Bulacan High School was when another aunt, Tia Leonor Reyes, my English literature teacher told me to join a school writing contest. The subject was, “Life under the Japanese”. I submitted an entry and won first prize. This story, I was to find out years later, made it to the US Library of Congress. My prize was a hardbound book, which I have lost and whose title I do not recall.
The 1945 harvest again brought relative prosperity. A 72-square-meter bodega was built at the site of the poultry pen so that the library could be returned to its normal function. The new bodega was built on thick hardwood stilt posts and had concrete stairs, just like the main house. It had corrugated metal roof and sidings. Its meter-high silong was enclosed in chicken wire and became the poultry. The bodega was divided into three parts. The two bigger back rooms were used as rice bins. The smaller front room was to be some sort of office and miscellaneous storage room. It soon became my private library and den. The bins would be emptied one after the other. Once one of them became empty enough, I would put up a basketball goal inside and use it as a rainy season gym. Dada also had a goal put up outside for our dry season use. For my daily exercise, I would run several laps every afternoon, round the house and into the silong, about a hundred meters per lap. One or two of the dogs would make the run with me.
Some time during that period, we received word that Impong Puling, Inkong Tasio’s second wife had passed away. Inang took all of her kids to Hagunoy to pay respects. We rode a Pambusco to the Hagunoy town center and then a carretela to Barrio San Sebastian, where the family resided. We stayed overnight for Impong Puling’s burial, sleeping at Ba Gorio’s “townhouse” kubo in the same barrio. The house was the one which Tio Aurel had built in Sukol, the one where we stayed for almost a year. It was moved to town, the “balikatan” way, on the shoulders of Ba Gorio’s good friends and relatives. Ba Gorio had saved enough money to buy the lot. Da Henia and only daughter Lina were also there. The children stayed there during school days. They were studying in the Hagunoy public schools and their house in Sukol was too far away.
At the end of my first high school year we again went to visit Yeye and Lolo Luis in Cuyapo. Tatang had written that there was still very little housing in the new work site of the Marsman Development Co. in Camarines Norte. The old plant in Manguisok had been destroyed during the war and they had decided to move inland, closer to the jungle although farther from the river. The new plant facilities had been built in sitio Gaboc, Mercedes, Camarines Norte but it would take another year before they could erect enough residential housing in the new site. We took the train from Malolos to Nampicuan and then took a jitney for the short hop to Cuyapo.
The Flores family had left their old home near the railroad station in Cuyapo. The entire site of their old home-and-business was being redeveloped and they had moved a short distance away to a new house which had their large bakery in the ground floor and their residence in the second floor. We no longer had the huge Flores garage to explore and to use as a boxing gym. However, the new house was right in the middle of town and had a basketball court. We had more than enough playmates for daily basketball and softball games, and for “patintero” and “moro-moro”. We also spent some weekends in going to nearby swimming spots, copiously-flowing springs at the foot of the nearby hills. After a two-week vacation, we rode the train back to Malolos. That was the last time I would see Yeye.
The schools began to revive their athletic programs and the provincial athletic meet was held in Malolos. The infrastructure for the event were hurriedly put up in the rice fields beyond the capitol and adjacent to the national road. It was called the Bulacan Provincial Athletic Field and had a grandstand, a soccer field with a track oval, a baseball field, a tennis court and a basketball/volleyball court. The athletes were also hurriedly trained and I remember watching the practice sessions of the basketball team, whose members were mostly from the “batang palengke” teams in the courts of the public market and Tampoy. Also members of that team were Alex Trajano and the two Ochoa brothers (Francisco and Jose) from Pulilan, who were more than equal to the skills of the “batang palengke”. The provincial athletic meet was held there and I watched some of the games. Bulacan High School won the championship only in one of the many events, in basketball.
Tatang wrote Inang that we could spend the next school vacation with him in Gaboc. A new house would be ready for us by then. We spent the last few months of school waiting for what promised to be an exciting mountain vacation in a strange new place. When the school year was about to end, Tatang wrote that it might be better to postpone our trip. The new house would not yet be ready although a smaller and cruder one might be available soon. Inang decided to go on with the trip and take whatever would be available.
The railroad was not yet operating but a much faster way was available. We (Inang, her five children and a maid) took a Pambusco (Pampanga Bus Co.) bus early in the morning to Doroteo Jose St. in Manila, then a taxi to Nielsen Field in Makati. There, we boarded a Philippine Air Lines Douglas C-47 or DC-3 for Bagasbas Airfield in Daet. The plane had only recently shed its military olive drab paint in favor of the red, blue and white PAL colors. It was in military airborne troops configuration, not pressurized, with 14 inward-facing buckets seats on each side of the plane, for a 28 passenger load. The guide steel cable running along the top of the cabin, on which the paratroopers hooked their parachutes before jumping out of the plane, had not yet even been removed. The captain was an American and was probably flying the same plane or an identical one for the US Air Transport Command, a few months before. The co-pilot and lone stewardess were Filipinos.
The plane idled on the apron for an interminable time, waiting for who knows what. It was like an oven inside and everyone began to sweat. When the plane finally took off and gained some altitude, the atmosphere rapidly became cooler, then colder. The stewardess began to distribute thick woolen brown army blankets. I was beginning to enjoy myself until the plane started to cross the Sierra Madre mountain range in Tayabas and met air turbulence. I was airsick the rest of the, thankfully brief, 45-minute flight. So was Istong but not Tancio. Tatang met us with a hired Alatco car in Bagasbas, which took us to Mercedes. From there, we took a Johnson boat ride up the Basud River, this time not across the river to Manguisok, but further upstream, to a deserted riverbank landing. There, we transferred to a converted-to-civilian-use weapons carrier which took us inland, over a rough logging dirt road, to Gaboc, the new site.
The dirt road went past the company store, owned by the ubiquitous “Wong” just outside the gate of the company compound, through the gate and into the compound, with the company offices and managers’ residences to the left and the motor pool, electric plant and sawmill to the right. It crossed a wooden bridge spanning a creek, turned left before reaching the company clinic which was on top of a low knoll, and ended up in the company employee housing compound. The weapons carrier took us to the third row of houses, next to the forest which surrounded the compound, and stopped before an almost-completed, rough-lumber floored and sided and nipa-thatch roofed single room cottage. It was a basic house, some 30 sq. m. in area, provided for the rank-and-file and was meant to be completed by the employee himself. It was habitable but barely. Its layout was like a bahay kubo’s, a front porch, a single multi-purpose room, a small storage room, and a batalan for cooking, bathing and washing. It had no toilet, although there were common facilities a short distance away. There was electricity for only two electric bulbs but only during the early evening. There was no running water. There were kerosene lamps, wood-burning stoves and plenty of kerosene and firewood. Water had to be brought to the house from a water pump some distance away. We had to hire “aguadors” to fetch the water for us. Tatang, as the office manager, was entitled to better housing but we would have to make do until the house which was meant for us was finished, in about two weeks. It was situated at the other side of the compound, across the creek from the sawmill.
We had to learn how to walk very carefully in our temporary habitat and not to toss about too much while asleep or else suffer scratches and bruises on the very rough wooden planks on which we walked and slept. A plus factor was a dirt basketball court where Tatang, Tancio and I would practice in the early mornings while Inang was preparing breakfast. Tatang’s pet dogs, all “aspin” as in “asong pinoy”, accompanied him in those practices and most everywhere he went.
Many of the staff who were with the company in Manguisok were not in Gaboc but there were a few whose faces were familiar. Inang knew many of them and made her rounds of their houses to renew acquaintances. Alexander Morris, the general manager, and Georgi Skribikin, the lumber mill manager, were there, residing in detached houses near the company office. Morris’ family was there with him but Georgi was alone although it was believed that he was maintaining a family in Manila. Sharing a house with Georgi was a third manager, Manuel “Boling” Garrido, a Spanish mestizo, in charge of the motor pool and maintenance of all mechanical equipment. His family lived in Manila but his two young daughters, like us, would spend their school vacation in Gaboc. The families of the Filipino supervisors, the foresters and logging supervisors, lived in larger detached houses in the housing compound while the rank-and-file stayed in houses identical to the one in which we were staying.
The company compound was not as developed as the one in Manguisok. There was no primary school, no chapel, and the site was less accessible. The sawmill itself was smaller and the equipment fewer and older. However, the company clinic was bigger and better equipped. Located in a separate chalet on top of a knoll between the company operating compound and the employee housing area, the clinic had an eight-bed ward, an examination/treatment room and living quarters for the staff. A physician came from Daet once a week and stayed overnight while the male nurse stayed fulltime in the clinic.
Probably feeling great pressure, the carpenters who were building the new house for us had it done in less than two weeks. The company weapons carrier loaded our few household implements and moved us to the new house. We drove back past the basketball court and out of the company housing compound, past the company clinic and along the creek to the other edge of the company compound. About fifty meters from the road was our new house, the forest on one side and at the back and the creek on the other side. The saw mill was across the creek. Our closest neighbor was the clinic.
The house was a thatch-roofed, all-lumber chalet, similar to but smaller than the one we had in Manguisok a few years earlier. It had a wide and deep front porch, which served as the front door, foyer and sala. Inside were a large dining room and two bedrooms. At the back were the kitchen, the obligatory batalan/bathroom with manually-operated water pump, and a raised walkway leading to the detached antipolo-style toilet with two unpartitioned holes, something like a “double toilet”, as in double bed. I still have not been able to figure out the reason for this “sit-side-by-side” toilet design, first and only time I have seen one. For furniture, we had beds for everyone, built-in cabinets, tables, chairs, all made of wood, of course. Although the house and furniture were all bare, unpainted and unvarnished, they had been planed smooth and were more than enough for our needs. Tatang was obviously proud of the efficiency and skill shown by the company carpenters who had built and fabricated everything. Best of all, the house had electricity although only from dusk to dawn and good only for lighting.
Only a few weeks remained of our vacation and we made the most of it. Manguisok seemed to have been recreated in Gaboc. There was plenty of fresh food; seafood from the fishermen-vendors, vegetables, chicken, eggs and occasionally pork from the nearby kaingin-farms. For rice, canned goods and other supplies, there was Wong’s “cantina” outside the gates.
However, there were no reading materials readily available, and neither were other means of entertainment. Gaboc was some distance from the sea and Tatang could only use one of the company vehicles on Sundays, when he would take us for a picnic to one of the beaches on San Miguel Bay, either Mambongalon or Cayucyucan, a half-hour drive away. Those were very enjoyable picnics. Both places were very sparsely populated with just a few fishing families living there. The beaches were cleaner and even more extensive than those at Bagasbas and Mercedes and the surf gentler. We would spend the rest of the week exploring the nearby forest, which began only a few meters behind the house. A narrow foot path led from our house to the jungle, which was a second-growth forest. It had been previously logged and had trees and undergrowth which were not as tall or as thick as a virgin forest. We always made sure we had one of Tatang’s pet dogs with us on those trips. The dogs were jungle-wise and would bark a warning about snakes and other such perils in our path. Our biggest scare was when a “dahong palay”, a venomous green snake, dropped from the trees in front of us. The dog evaded its strike and chased it away. We speedily recalled all the jungle lore we had learned during our stay in Manguisok a few years before.
Our vacation had to be cut short. Tancio was to take the entrance exam to the Ateneo de Manila high school. We rushed back to Malolos, taking another PAL C-47 from Bagasbas to Nielsen Field. The trip back was identical to the first one, including the airsickness. Soon after arriving in Malolos, Inang took Tancio to Manila for the exam. Tia Epang, who was to go with her, told Inang to take me along. She felt they could get me into Ateneo’s third year class. Our cousin Boying had already been studying there for one year although his siblings continued to attend classes at the Immaculata Academy of Malolos. Tio Aurel was still working in Manila while Tia Epang continued to teach in Malolos. Tio Aurel made the daily commute between Malolos and Manila while Boying stayed with one of his relatives in Sta. Cruz district in Manila from Monday to Friday, going home with Tio Aurel to Malolos on weekends.
While waiting for Tancio to complete the exams, Tia Epang took Inang and me to the Ateneo high school principal’s office, in the almost-completely ruined school auditorium. This was said to have been the most fully-equipped auditorium in the country, with the best acoustics. It was then no longer functional. Its roof had fallen to the ground and only the front ticket booths were usable, as cramped offices for the school rector, dean and principal. Fr. John P. Delaney, SJ., the high school principal, told us that only applicants for freshman year were accepted and no exception was to be made, despite all the efforts of Tia Epang and Inang to change his mind. He said that it would be impossible for anybody to catch up with Latin which they began teaching in first year. Secretly, I agreed with him.
A few weeks later, Inang, Nene and Lety were on the plane back to Gaboc; leaving Tancio in Manila, Nestor and me in Tampoy.
