by Nunilo M. de Leon
The parish priest of Malolos, Fr. Jesus Tison, had been asking the Holy Ghost nuns to admit secondary school boys to their school, the Immaculata Academy of Malolos, where I spent my last two elementary grades. Getting nowhere, he decided to open a separate parochial high school for boys, calling it the Immaculata Boys’ High School. He borrowed the historical Tanchangco ancestral house, one of the large “bahay na bato” which was not being used, made some alterations and opened the parochial high school. The teachers all came from the Bulacan Provincial High School, many of them our relatives from Malolos. Tia Monang, Tia Leonor Reyes and Tia Maria Reyes taught there. The principal and history teacher was Dominador Santiago, from Sta. Maria and the physical education and science teacher was Eduardo Mesina from Bulacan. Fr. Tison taught religion. The enrolment was very small, only little more than a hundred. My schoolmates were all from the neighborhood; friends, playmates or former classmates.
Mr. Santiago and Mr. Medina were both sports-minded. They wanted the school to have a sports program but were handicapped by the lack of space for it. We had to make do with what was accessible and available. Fr. Tison had a crude basketball court carved out of the hard ground of the parish churchyard. It met standards as to court dimensions and goal specifications but little else. The court was unpaved. The surface was hard-packed soil, with sand, pebbles and gravel embedded and generously scattered in the soil. Dribbling was a dicey affair because of the rocks and gravel. It was totally exposed to the elements, very hot and dusty. However, it was all we had and we made the most of it. The school’s basketball intramurals were held there and so were some town tournaments. We organized a school basketball team and I was selected for the junior team. Mr. Mesina was our coach and I was chosen the captain. We played against other teams from Malolos and the neighboring towns. “Home games” were always so-so but I enjoyed the “away games” because of the free food and refreshments and the hostile audiences which made the games more challenging. Mr. Santiago tried to organize a school soccer intramurals, using the football field at the Malolos Central Elementary School. We played some practice games there but the effort eventually petered out. The field was too far away and there were not enough students who had the interest and aptitude for the game. We wound up with basketball only.
During my junior year, Istong and I were in Tampoy. Tancio was in Manila, like Boying, studying at the Ateneo and boarding with a relative. Lunchtime in Tampoy was always a well-attended affair. Three of Tia Epang’s children, Josie, Pio and Rely were in the Immaculata and had their lunch with us.
Right after the close of my junior year we were on our way to Gaboc once more. We did not take a PAL plane this time. Instead, we tried the newly-organized Far Eastern Air Transport, Inc. or FEATI. It was using a new airport in what is now known as Grace Park, Caloocan City. The present A. Bonifacio Ave. in Grace Park was built on what was then the runway of that airport. We rode in a civilian configured Douglas DC-3 (no more airsickness), landed in Bagasbas, Daet and went on to Gaboc. The DC-3 was the civilian version of the military C-47. They were identical in every respect although the DC-3 was pressurized and had twenty eight comfortable seats, all facing forward and not inward.
Tatang had greatly improved the house in Gaboc and it was better equipped and furnished. Our vacation was more enjoyable than the previous one. We went exploring in the surrounding jungles, swam in the creek which bisected the company compound, had picnics in the beaches along San Miguel Bay and played badminton on a court Tatang had built in our front yard. Tatang let us use his new semi-automatic Savage 22-caliber, 15-round rifle but only for shooting practice, which we did on weekends in a thickly wooded part of the forest. He also had a 36-caliber automatic pistol but we never got to use it.
The sawmill itself had increased its production and this caused some safety concerns. Our house was directly across the creek from the sawmill and quite near to the dump where the useless by-products from the sawmill (sawdust, wood shavings, wood bark, unusable slabs) were burned. When operations were still limited, the fire was small and did not pose much of a danger. However, as production increased, the pyre steadily became bigger. Tatang foresaw that this was going to become a real threat to our house. He started to look for a safer site for a new one. With that thought, we went back to school.
Right after we left, Tatang started to build a new house in the managers’ housing compound, between the offices and the creek. It was to be a two-story house; dining room, kitchen, toilet and separate bath, maid’s room and quarters for Lolo Luis (Inang had asked him to stay with her in Gaboc) on the ground floor and three bedrooms, living room and porch on the second level. The house’s main entrance was to be up the front steps to the second floor porch. A flight of stairs was to connect the second floor sala to the ground floor comedor. A back door was going to be in the kitchen. The toilet was a great improvement. It was a flush toilet with its own septic tank. Running water was available, provided by a small water system which had a deep well, electric water pump and overhead storage pump. A wide yard surrounded it. Tatang was also planning to buy a refrigerator and a cooking range, both kerosene-operated. Everything was to be ready in a few weeks, hopefully by the time Inang returned from Manila.
We again took a FEATI plane for the trip back. Tancio went back to the Ateneo, Istong to the Immaculata Academy and I to the Immaculata Boys’ High School. Inang flew back to Gaboc, with Lolo Luis and the two girls, leaving Istong and me in Tampoy, again with Dada and Tia Monang. I was quite used to and comfortable with that arrangement but Istong was obviously not.
The house which Tio Aurel and Tia Epang had been constructing in Manila, on Escaler St. in Sta. Cruz District, had been completed and their entire family had moved there during the past vacation time. Tancio stayed with them in their new home. Tio Aurel and Tia Epang had jobs in Manila, Boying was in the Ateneo and the other boys were in the nearby Espiritu Santo Parochial School. The exception was Josie who was told to finish her senior year in Malolos so she could be the valedictorian. She commuted weekly between Malolos and Manila and stayed during schooldays in Tampoy, with Tia Monang as roommate. Istong and I had the choice of two sleeping sites. We slept in separate mats, under separate mosquito nets, in the sala or the library when it was rainy, and in the balcon when it was not. I suffered a recurrence of malaria then but was able to fight it off. Atabrine was then already prescribed for the disease, having been brought in by the US liberating forces. I also had attacks of asthma but survived with the use of the old style “pangsuob” or nebulizer which Lolo Ramon used to use.
Living conditions in Tampoy steadily improved. A new Frigidaire electric refrigerator was purchased and installed in the comedor (it has survived and is now in the kitchen house), signaling the restoration of 24/7 electrical supply. A new GE electric pump was also purchased to boost the water pressure, which was too weak to reach the house faucets. The “gaseras”, Colemans and “paminggalans” were mothballed. The weather continued to be pleasant and there still was no need for electric fans, much less air conditioners. To replace the hand-wound phonograph and crystal radio, Tia Monang bought a vacuum tube radio and placed it in the library, fine for following the NCAA games which were being aired, live, by Willie Hernandez.
School was more of the same, the usual school work, basketball and soccer games during the week. However, I found some new things to do on weekends. The previous year, Inang would sometimes take me with her to Manila to fetch Tancio from his boarding house. I learned how to get to Manila and back by bus and how to use the jitney to go around Manila. With Inang far away in Gaboc, I tried asking Dada for permission to go to Manila on some Saturdays. After some hesitation, she agreed
That was the start of my excursions to Manila every time a good musical was on in one of the first or second class movie houses or when there was an interesting game at the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex. I would ask Dada and she would reply with “Magkano ang kailangan mo?” She would then go to her bedroom, unlock her aparador, and get some money. She kept her petty cash and some odds-and-ends in the usual crevices and “secret” drawers found in every aparador used at the time. Larger amounts were kept in bank deposits, with Tia Monang in charge. Tia Monang kept other, more important documents, in similar hideaways in her own aparador. Dada would then end our always brief chats with her usual “Nandito ka na bago dumilim”.
I tried to interest some of my friends to accompany me on those excursions but no one ever could get the needed permission and I would always have to go solo. I would leave Tampoy early in the morning after breakfast, take a Pambusco bus, get off at Doroteo Jose St. in Manila and walk downtown for an early lunch, usually mami and siopao or hotdog and coke. If a movie was in my schedule, I would watch it, but only twice (or once for double features), and then head for home to make sure I would be back by dusk. If a Rizal Memorial game was my target, it would be an afternoon game which should be over by 4:30 PM; basketball and soccer games, track and field meets, tennis matches or baseball games.
A highlight of the year was the basketball game played during the town fiesta between the Ateneo de Manila Juniors and our Immaculata Boys’ High School Varsity. The visitors won very handily, although it was obvious that they were not accustomed to playing in a court as crude as ours. Tancio and other Ateneans from Malolos accompanied the team, had lunch with them at the parish convent and brought Fr. King, SJ, their athletic moderator, to Tampoy for a visit. Some of the Ateneo players, such as Federico Campos, Oscar Batallones and Antonio Gaston, were to be my classmates the following year.
Soon, high school was over and, to my great relief, was graduated only as salutatorian, which meant not too long a speech. Valedictorian was Rodolfo Baltasar, the son of the provincial fiscal, who lived on Pariancillo St. My cousin Josie was, of course, the valedictorian at the Immaculata Academy. She did not seem to be at all bothered by it.
Inang was in town for my graduation, leaving Tatang working in Gaboc. She was huge with her sixth child and went to Manila for a check up by my cousin Lydia de Leon Crisostomo, already a certified midwife and studying to be a Doctor of Medicine at the University of the Phil. During her visit to Manila, Inang found a house which we could rent for the coming school year. It was on Tayabas St., around the corner from Tia Epang’s new house. Inang wasted no time and bundled the entire family to Manila. There was to be no vacation in Gaboc for us that year; Inang needed some maternity leave. Our house in Gaboc had burned down, as feared, but Tatang had already moved to the new one beforehand.
The house Inang had rented in Manila was large but old and not too well maintained. It had a spacious front yard and a smaller backyard. In front was Tayabas St., a house on the left, another house at the back and an unnamed alley to the right. Behind the house to the left was a house occupied by the Dayrit family, who were to be our neighbors a few years later in Kamuning. Beyond the Dayrit house was Tio Aurel’s home, facing Escaler St. Our rented house was completely furnished but the equipment was also somewhat decrepit. Inang said that our stay in the house would be very temporary, only until after she had given birth and had the time to look for a better place.
It turned out she was in a rush for good reason. A few days after our move to Manila, she went to the Philippine General Hospital where she gave birth to her sixth child and third daughter, Rosario or Sarie. It was Lydia who was in attendance, not Tio Toniong as before. A couple of days later, Inang was back home with her new baby. She then enrolled all three of us boys at the Ateneo on Padre Faura Street in Ermita District.
We did not stay long in that Tayabas St. house. Aside from the poor condition of the house, the area was often ankle-deep in water during the rainy season and was quite distant from school. Before the school year began, Inang had already found a new residence for us, this time another rented house on Vermont St. in Malate District, a five-minute brisk walk from the Ateneo and just around the corner from St. Paul College. The house was a second-floor completely-furnished flat, with three bedrooms, a sala, bathroom-toilet, dining room and kitchen. Somehow, she still managed to enroll Nene and Letty at St. Paul. Turina was also to bring her newly-born “Sonny” to this house, after giving birth, also at the PGH and, likewise, with Lydia presiding. After a few weeks, she brought Sonny home to Tampoy.
Fully recovered from her latest child-bearing, Inang stayed till mid-semester and was soon on her way to Gaboc and the newest house, taking only Sarie with her. The five of us stayed in our Vermont St. house the rest of the school year, with our first cousin, “Florenmak”, Florencio Flores Macapugay, who was studying at the Ateneo High School. We had a Bicolana housekeeper who could be trusted completely with all the housework, provided she got her betel nut to chew and a nightly supply of “Sio-Hok-Tong” to drink. Somebody from the Marsman head office would come twice a month and give us enough money to cover all our expenses. Inang would observe this routine in the next two years: she would come to Manila a few weeks before the school year ended, take us to Gaboc for vacation and bring us back later. After school opened, she would again be on her way back to Gaboc. She would be in Manila for a few weeks during the Christmas season. Tatang was never in either of our two Manila houses.
After the school year, we would close up the house and leave; Florenmak to Cuyapo, our maid to Albay and the rest of us to Gaboc.
Our school vacations in Gaboc were repeats of the very enjoyable ones we had in the wilds of Camarines Norte, before and after the Second World War. Lolo Luis was already living there. He was not as spry as before; experiencing bouts of epilepsy which had recently afflicted him. He died in Gaboc, because of serious head injuries suffered in a fall during an epileptic fit. His body was brought to San Nicolas, Pangasinan and interred there.
The final vacation which I was to spend in Gaboc was marred by a forced departure, almost like the one which drove us out of Manguisoc a decade earlier. In Manguisoc, it was the threat of war which compelled us to leave. In Gaboc, it was the risk of violence which caused our leaving.
Towards the last weeks of our vacation, a company security guard fatally shot a labor union leader because of a fierce argument about the enforcement of a company rule. The shooting sparked a near riot, with members of the union threatening to lynch the guard. Management, led by Tatang who was the top Filipino company officer there, refused to hand him over. The company security head went to report the incident to the authorities, the nearest being the municipality of Basud, some distance away. Sensing that more violence was in the offing, Tatang decided to get the family out of harm’s way. He told Inang and all of us six children to pack up. We got on the company weapons carrier which then rushed us to the river landing. There, we boarded a Johnson which was to take us to Mercedes, the seaport. Tatang was to escort us up to Mercedes only and would take the same Johnson back to Gaboc. On the way to Mercedes, we met another Johnson, heading for Gaboc. On board were a couple of policemen and the head of the company’s security guards who had fetched them. Also with them was a person who we had met for the first time more than a decade ago, while we were hiding from the Japanese in the jungles of Mercedes and Basud. He was “Turko”.
(“Turko” or Francisco Boayes was the son of a Jewish Syrian father who immigrated to the Philippines and married a Filipina-Spanish mestiza. He was related to the present-day Bicolano Abrahams and Bicharas, also of Jewish Syrian descent. Because his father died early, Turko had a hard life, working in his youth as an ordinary laborer. He later became the driver and bodyguard of the then Congressman from Camarines Norte, Wenceslao Q. Vinzons. Turko was with Vinzons when the latter organized his guerilla unit in Sitio Tulay na Lupa, at the foot of Mount Labo. He was already with Vinzons’ guerilla command when he visited us in the jungles during the war. He might have been trying to cajole Tatang into joining or cooperating with Vinzons, who was Tatang’s batchmate at the UP.
Early in 1942, the Vinzons Command became strong enough to recapture Daet and Labo from the Japanese, who had admittedly quite a weak force in the province at that time. This show of force prodded the Japanese into bringing in reinforcements and, soon after, they captured and executed Vinzons, together with his wife and two of his children. Turko took over command of the unit. He was later officially recognized as the regimental commander of the Vinzons Command, a certified guerilla leader and hero. He must have gone to Gaboc, where we met him for the second time, because the union leader who had been killed was a member of his guerilla unit and of the labor union which he led.)
Two years later, when the Ateneo moved to Loyola Heights in Quezon City, we moved again, this time to a brand new bungalow which Inang had purchased on South 12th St. in Sacred Heart Parish, Quezon City, two bus rides and a fifteen-minute walk from my college classes at the Bellarmine Hall, overlooking Maryknoll College.
That South 12th St. house was to serve as a residence of quite a few close relatives. Diana, Inday and Tessie lived there during their college studies. Joby was there during the early years of his working career. Tio Carlos stayed with us whenever he had to visit the Department of Public Works head office in Port Area, Manila.
I did not it know it then but that initial move to Manila would be the last time I would see myself as a resident of Tampoy. I would be back later for various reasons; I even stayed in Tampoy for a year when northern Bulacan province and southern Pampanga were my sales territories in one of my first jobs after college. None of these later visits would be quite the same as before. I guess the “Huckleberry Finn perspective” with which I looked at Tampoy in my early years was no longer there. The Tampoy of my childhood was gone and there was no returning. Of the more than a dozen houses I have lived in, it is only Tampoy that appears when I dream of home, probably because my most memorable early experiences happened there.
The parish priest of Malolos, Fr. Jesus Tison, had been asking the Holy Ghost nuns to admit secondary school boys to their school, the Immaculata Academy of Malolos, where I spent my last two elementary grades. Getting nowhere, he decided to open a separate parochial high school for boys, calling it the Immaculata Boys’ High School. He borrowed the historical Tanchangco ancestral house, one of the large “bahay na bato” which was not being used, made some alterations and opened the parochial high school. The teachers all came from the Bulacan Provincial High School, many of them our relatives from Malolos. Tia Monang, Tia Leonor Reyes and Tia Maria Reyes taught there. The principal and history teacher was Dominador Santiago, from Sta. Maria and the physical education and science teacher was Eduardo Mesina from Bulacan. Fr. Tison taught religion. The enrolment was very small, only little more than a hundred. My schoolmates were all from the neighborhood; friends, playmates or former classmates.
Mr. Santiago and Mr. Medina were both sports-minded. They wanted the school to have a sports program but were handicapped by the lack of space for it. We had to make do with what was accessible and available. Fr. Tison had a crude basketball court carved out of the hard ground of the parish churchyard. It met standards as to court dimensions and goal specifications but little else. The court was unpaved. The surface was hard-packed soil, with sand, pebbles and gravel embedded and generously scattered in the soil. Dribbling was a dicey affair because of the rocks and gravel. It was totally exposed to the elements, very hot and dusty. However, it was all we had and we made the most of it. The school’s basketball intramurals were held there and so were some town tournaments. We organized a school basketball team and I was selected for the junior team. Mr. Mesina was our coach and I was chosen the captain. We played against other teams from Malolos and the neighboring towns. “Home games” were always so-so but I enjoyed the “away games” because of the free food and refreshments and the hostile audiences which made the games more challenging. Mr. Santiago tried to organize a school soccer intramurals, using the football field at the Malolos Central Elementary School. We played some practice games there but the effort eventually petered out. The field was too far away and there were not enough students who had the interest and aptitude for the game. We wound up with basketball only.
During my junior year, Istong and I were in Tampoy. Tancio was in Manila, like Boying, studying at the Ateneo and boarding with a relative. Lunchtime in Tampoy was always a well-attended affair. Three of Tia Epang’s children, Josie, Pio and Rely were in the Immaculata and had their lunch with us.
Right after the close of my junior year we were on our way to Gaboc once more. We did not take a PAL plane this time. Instead, we tried the newly-organized Far Eastern Air Transport, Inc. or FEATI. It was using a new airport in what is now known as Grace Park, Caloocan City. The present A. Bonifacio Ave. in Grace Park was built on what was then the runway of that airport. We rode in a civilian configured Douglas DC-3 (no more airsickness), landed in Bagasbas, Daet and went on to Gaboc. The DC-3 was the civilian version of the military C-47. They were identical in every respect although the DC-3 was pressurized and had twenty eight comfortable seats, all facing forward and not inward.
Tatang had greatly improved the house in Gaboc and it was better equipped and furnished. Our vacation was more enjoyable than the previous one. We went exploring in the surrounding jungles, swam in the creek which bisected the company compound, had picnics in the beaches along San Miguel Bay and played badminton on a court Tatang had built in our front yard. Tatang let us use his new semi-automatic Savage 22-caliber, 15-round rifle but only for shooting practice, which we did on weekends in a thickly wooded part of the forest. He also had a 36-caliber automatic pistol but we never got to use it.
The sawmill itself had increased its production and this caused some safety concerns. Our house was directly across the creek from the sawmill and quite near to the dump where the useless by-products from the sawmill (sawdust, wood shavings, wood bark, unusable slabs) were burned. When operations were still limited, the fire was small and did not pose much of a danger. However, as production increased, the pyre steadily became bigger. Tatang foresaw that this was going to become a real threat to our house. He started to look for a safer site for a new one. With that thought, we went back to school.
Right after we left, Tatang started to build a new house in the managers’ housing compound, between the offices and the creek. It was to be a two-story house; dining room, kitchen, toilet and separate bath, maid’s room and quarters for Lolo Luis (Inang had asked him to stay with her in Gaboc) on the ground floor and three bedrooms, living room and porch on the second level. The house’s main entrance was to be up the front steps to the second floor porch. A flight of stairs was to connect the second floor sala to the ground floor comedor. A back door was going to be in the kitchen. The toilet was a great improvement. It was a flush toilet with its own septic tank. Running water was available, provided by a small water system which had a deep well, electric water pump and overhead storage pump. A wide yard surrounded it. Tatang was also planning to buy a refrigerator and a cooking range, both kerosene-operated. Everything was to be ready in a few weeks, hopefully by the time Inang returned from Manila.
We again took a FEATI plane for the trip back. Tancio went back to the Ateneo, Istong to the Immaculata Academy and I to the Immaculata Boys’ High School. Inang flew back to Gaboc, with Lolo Luis and the two girls, leaving Istong and me in Tampoy, again with Dada and Tia Monang. I was quite used to and comfortable with that arrangement but Istong was obviously not.
The house which Tio Aurel and Tia Epang had been constructing in Manila, on Escaler St. in Sta. Cruz District, had been completed and their entire family had moved there during the past vacation time. Tancio stayed with them in their new home. Tio Aurel and Tia Epang had jobs in Manila, Boying was in the Ateneo and the other boys were in the nearby Espiritu Santo Parochial School. The exception was Josie who was told to finish her senior year in Malolos so she could be the valedictorian. She commuted weekly between Malolos and Manila and stayed during schooldays in Tampoy, with Tia Monang as roommate. Istong and I had the choice of two sleeping sites. We slept in separate mats, under separate mosquito nets, in the sala or the library when it was rainy, and in the balcon when it was not. I suffered a recurrence of malaria then but was able to fight it off. Atabrine was then already prescribed for the disease, having been brought in by the US liberating forces. I also had attacks of asthma but survived with the use of the old style “pangsuob” or nebulizer which Lolo Ramon used to use.
Living conditions in Tampoy steadily improved. A new Frigidaire electric refrigerator was purchased and installed in the comedor (it has survived and is now in the kitchen house), signaling the restoration of 24/7 electrical supply. A new GE electric pump was also purchased to boost the water pressure, which was too weak to reach the house faucets. The “gaseras”, Colemans and “paminggalans” were mothballed. The weather continued to be pleasant and there still was no need for electric fans, much less air conditioners. To replace the hand-wound phonograph and crystal radio, Tia Monang bought a vacuum tube radio and placed it in the library, fine for following the NCAA games which were being aired, live, by Willie Hernandez.
School was more of the same, the usual school work, basketball and soccer games during the week. However, I found some new things to do on weekends. The previous year, Inang would sometimes take me with her to Manila to fetch Tancio from his boarding house. I learned how to get to Manila and back by bus and how to use the jitney to go around Manila. With Inang far away in Gaboc, I tried asking Dada for permission to go to Manila on some Saturdays. After some hesitation, she agreed
That was the start of my excursions to Manila every time a good musical was on in one of the first or second class movie houses or when there was an interesting game at the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex. I would ask Dada and she would reply with “Magkano ang kailangan mo?” She would then go to her bedroom, unlock her aparador, and get some money. She kept her petty cash and some odds-and-ends in the usual crevices and “secret” drawers found in every aparador used at the time. Larger amounts were kept in bank deposits, with Tia Monang in charge. Tia Monang kept other, more important documents, in similar hideaways in her own aparador. Dada would then end our always brief chats with her usual “Nandito ka na bago dumilim”.
I tried to interest some of my friends to accompany me on those excursions but no one ever could get the needed permission and I would always have to go solo. I would leave Tampoy early in the morning after breakfast, take a Pambusco bus, get off at Doroteo Jose St. in Manila and walk downtown for an early lunch, usually mami and siopao or hotdog and coke. If a movie was in my schedule, I would watch it, but only twice (or once for double features), and then head for home to make sure I would be back by dusk. If a Rizal Memorial game was my target, it would be an afternoon game which should be over by 4:30 PM; basketball and soccer games, track and field meets, tennis matches or baseball games.
A highlight of the year was the basketball game played during the town fiesta between the Ateneo de Manila Juniors and our Immaculata Boys’ High School Varsity. The visitors won very handily, although it was obvious that they were not accustomed to playing in a court as crude as ours. Tancio and other Ateneans from Malolos accompanied the team, had lunch with them at the parish convent and brought Fr. King, SJ, their athletic moderator, to Tampoy for a visit. Some of the Ateneo players, such as Federico Campos, Oscar Batallones and Antonio Gaston, were to be my classmates the following year.
Soon, high school was over and, to my great relief, was graduated only as salutatorian, which meant not too long a speech. Valedictorian was Rodolfo Baltasar, the son of the provincial fiscal, who lived on Pariancillo St. My cousin Josie was, of course, the valedictorian at the Immaculata Academy. She did not seem to be at all bothered by it.
Inang was in town for my graduation, leaving Tatang working in Gaboc. She was huge with her sixth child and went to Manila for a check up by my cousin Lydia de Leon Crisostomo, already a certified midwife and studying to be a Doctor of Medicine at the University of the Phil. During her visit to Manila, Inang found a house which we could rent for the coming school year. It was on Tayabas St., around the corner from Tia Epang’s new house. Inang wasted no time and bundled the entire family to Manila. There was to be no vacation in Gaboc for us that year; Inang needed some maternity leave. Our house in Gaboc had burned down, as feared, but Tatang had already moved to the new one beforehand.
The house Inang had rented in Manila was large but old and not too well maintained. It had a spacious front yard and a smaller backyard. In front was Tayabas St., a house on the left, another house at the back and an unnamed alley to the right. Behind the house to the left was a house occupied by the Dayrit family, who were to be our neighbors a few years later in Kamuning. Beyond the Dayrit house was Tio Aurel’s home, facing Escaler St. Our rented house was completely furnished but the equipment was also somewhat decrepit. Inang said that our stay in the house would be very temporary, only until after she had given birth and had the time to look for a better place.
It turned out she was in a rush for good reason. A few days after our move to Manila, she went to the Philippine General Hospital where she gave birth to her sixth child and third daughter, Rosario or Sarie. It was Lydia who was in attendance, not Tio Toniong as before. A couple of days later, Inang was back home with her new baby. She then enrolled all three of us boys at the Ateneo on Padre Faura Street in Ermita District.
We did not stay long in that Tayabas St. house. Aside from the poor condition of the house, the area was often ankle-deep in water during the rainy season and was quite distant from school. Before the school year began, Inang had already found a new residence for us, this time another rented house on Vermont St. in Malate District, a five-minute brisk walk from the Ateneo and just around the corner from St. Paul College. The house was a second-floor completely-furnished flat, with three bedrooms, a sala, bathroom-toilet, dining room and kitchen. Somehow, she still managed to enroll Nene and Letty at St. Paul. Turina was also to bring her newly-born “Sonny” to this house, after giving birth, also at the PGH and, likewise, with Lydia presiding. After a few weeks, she brought Sonny home to Tampoy.
Fully recovered from her latest child-bearing, Inang stayed till mid-semester and was soon on her way to Gaboc and the newest house, taking only Sarie with her. The five of us stayed in our Vermont St. house the rest of the school year, with our first cousin, “Florenmak”, Florencio Flores Macapugay, who was studying at the Ateneo High School. We had a Bicolana housekeeper who could be trusted completely with all the housework, provided she got her betel nut to chew and a nightly supply of “Sio-Hok-Tong” to drink. Somebody from the Marsman head office would come twice a month and give us enough money to cover all our expenses. Inang would observe this routine in the next two years: she would come to Manila a few weeks before the school year ended, take us to Gaboc for vacation and bring us back later. After school opened, she would again be on her way back to Gaboc. She would be in Manila for a few weeks during the Christmas season. Tatang was never in either of our two Manila houses.
After the school year, we would close up the house and leave; Florenmak to Cuyapo, our maid to Albay and the rest of us to Gaboc.
Our school vacations in Gaboc were repeats of the very enjoyable ones we had in the wilds of Camarines Norte, before and after the Second World War. Lolo Luis was already living there. He was not as spry as before; experiencing bouts of epilepsy which had recently afflicted him. He died in Gaboc, because of serious head injuries suffered in a fall during an epileptic fit. His body was brought to San Nicolas, Pangasinan and interred there.
The final vacation which I was to spend in Gaboc was marred by a forced departure, almost like the one which drove us out of Manguisoc a decade earlier. In Manguisoc, it was the threat of war which compelled us to leave. In Gaboc, it was the risk of violence which caused our leaving.
Towards the last weeks of our vacation, a company security guard fatally shot a labor union leader because of a fierce argument about the enforcement of a company rule. The shooting sparked a near riot, with members of the union threatening to lynch the guard. Management, led by Tatang who was the top Filipino company officer there, refused to hand him over. The company security head went to report the incident to the authorities, the nearest being the municipality of Basud, some distance away. Sensing that more violence was in the offing, Tatang decided to get the family out of harm’s way. He told Inang and all of us six children to pack up. We got on the company weapons carrier which then rushed us to the river landing. There, we boarded a Johnson which was to take us to Mercedes, the seaport. Tatang was to escort us up to Mercedes only and would take the same Johnson back to Gaboc. On the way to Mercedes, we met another Johnson, heading for Gaboc. On board were a couple of policemen and the head of the company’s security guards who had fetched them. Also with them was a person who we had met for the first time more than a decade ago, while we were hiding from the Japanese in the jungles of Mercedes and Basud. He was “Turko”.
(“Turko” or Francisco Boayes was the son of a Jewish Syrian father who immigrated to the Philippines and married a Filipina-Spanish mestiza. He was related to the present-day Bicolano Abrahams and Bicharas, also of Jewish Syrian descent. Because his father died early, Turko had a hard life, working in his youth as an ordinary laborer. He later became the driver and bodyguard of the then Congressman from Camarines Norte, Wenceslao Q. Vinzons. Turko was with Vinzons when the latter organized his guerilla unit in Sitio Tulay na Lupa, at the foot of Mount Labo. He was already with Vinzons’ guerilla command when he visited us in the jungles during the war. He might have been trying to cajole Tatang into joining or cooperating with Vinzons, who was Tatang’s batchmate at the UP.
Early in 1942, the Vinzons Command became strong enough to recapture Daet and Labo from the Japanese, who had admittedly quite a weak force in the province at that time. This show of force prodded the Japanese into bringing in reinforcements and, soon after, they captured and executed Vinzons, together with his wife and two of his children. Turko took over command of the unit. He was later officially recognized as the regimental commander of the Vinzons Command, a certified guerilla leader and hero. He must have gone to Gaboc, where we met him for the second time, because the union leader who had been killed was a member of his guerilla unit and of the labor union which he led.)
Two years later, when the Ateneo moved to Loyola Heights in Quezon City, we moved again, this time to a brand new bungalow which Inang had purchased on South 12th St. in Sacred Heart Parish, Quezon City, two bus rides and a fifteen-minute walk from my college classes at the Bellarmine Hall, overlooking Maryknoll College.
That South 12th St. house was to serve as a residence of quite a few close relatives. Diana, Inday and Tessie lived there during their college studies. Joby was there during the early years of his working career. Tio Carlos stayed with us whenever he had to visit the Department of Public Works head office in Port Area, Manila.
I did not it know it then but that initial move to Manila would be the last time I would see myself as a resident of Tampoy. I would be back later for various reasons; I even stayed in Tampoy for a year when northern Bulacan province and southern Pampanga were my sales territories in one of my first jobs after college. None of these later visits would be quite the same as before. I guess the “Huckleberry Finn perspective” with which I looked at Tampoy in my early years was no longer there. The Tampoy of my childhood was gone and there was no returning. Of the more than a dozen houses I have lived in, it is only Tampoy that appears when I dream of home, probably because my most memorable early experiences happened there.
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