by Nunilo M. de Leon
Tampoy was almost deserted.  Lolo Ramon and Tia Monang were there, together with Abong, Eya and Nina.  The other Tampoy residents, including Dada Ninay and Turina were in the rice farm in Sukol, Hagunoy.  Many residents of Malolos had fled to the surrounding farms even before the Japanese reached Malolos.  Lolo Ramon was already very ill and did not evacuate.  He had been confined at the Doctors’ Clinic in Manila and was brought home to Tampoy only because of the war.  Tia Monang and a few others stayed in Tampoy to take care of him.
 
The Japanese soldiers were well-disciplined when they first entered the town which was almost empty. They met no resistance and behaved quite well.  Eya told us that the first Japanese soldiers who entered the Tampoy house had tried to make advances on Tia Monang, a pretty young lady, but an officer appeared and ordered the soldiers to leave.  The officer then bowed to Tia Monang, in apology, and also left.  No mention of this was ever made by Tia Monang.  Like most others of her generation, she kept things to herself.
 
The Japanese set up a garrison at the provincial capitol, two kilometers from the middle of town, and appeared very rarely in the town proper.  In fact, the only Japanese soldiers we saw in our long trip from Manguisok to Malolos were the four who guarded the “batel” in Pasacao and one sentry standing in front of their garrison at the Far Eastern University along Quezon Blvd. in Manila.  They must have been very busy with Bataan and were stretched out very thinly.    

There were other members of the clan in Sukol, aside from Dada Ninay and Turina.  Tio Aurel, Aurelio Lularga Peña, and Tia Epang, Josefa Pantangco de Leon y Peña, were there with their four children; Josefina “Josie”, Rogelio “Boying”, Fiorello “Pio” and the baby, Aurelio, Jr. “Rely”.  The family of Tio Aurel’s younger brother, Rafael, had also evacuated there.  “Tia Pacita”, Paz Pantangco de Leon y Crisostomo, the eldest of the siblings, was with “Tio Amado”, Armando Crisostomo in their family home in Barihan, a barrio of Malolos.  With them were their three living children; Lydia, Jesus “Bebot” and Mercia “Meya”.  No word had as yet been received on the whereabouts of two other De Leon siblings.  Tio Carlos was caught by the war with his family in Lingayen.  Tio Toniong was in Iloilo when war broke out.  He was with Tia Lily and Lourdes, their recently born baby daughter.  Four of the De Leon – Pantangco siblings had been accounted for.  Two were still missing.
 
“Tio Pepe”, Jose Isidoro, and “Tia Lioning”, Leonila de Leon Robles y Isidoro were also in Sukol.  The other members of the De Leon – Robles family stayed in Malolos.  Lolo Celino, Dada Merced and Tio Ading were deemed not fit to travel.

One afternoon, about two weeks after we arrived in Tampoy, there was a sudden stir in the house.  We rushed to the porch outside Lolo Ramon’s sick room, the corner room where we stayed the first time we stayed in Tampoy, and saw two strangers there, in old and dirty clothes, looking unkempt, sun-darkened and very thin.  One of them was my “Tio Pepito”, Jose Seoane de Leon, who I met for the first time.  The other, a mestizo-looking young man like Tio Pepito, was introduced as Tio Pepito’s “kaibigan.”  The haggard-looking duo was rushed inside Lolo’s room, where they stayed a while.  They were then hustled to the kitchen for food and then to the “silong” of the “azotea”, which had been converted into an air raid shelter a few months before Pearl Harbor.  They were gone the following morning.  Inang, who had talked for some time with the two, told us that they had gone on to Manila.  It seems Tio Pepito’s friend was from Manila.  That was all Inang said then, aside from the admonition, “Sikreto iyan.”  She knew we had learned the importance of secrecy during our stay in the jungles of Manguisok.

Much later, I learned the rest of the story.

Tio Pepito was the eldest son of Lolo Ramon by his second wife, Lolita Seoane, who had a Spanish father and a Filipina mother.  They had three other children, all girls, Araceli, Carmen, and Dolores.  Lolo Ramon and Lola Lolita had been estranged for some time and had been living separately.  Lolo Ramon was in various places of assignment as justice of the peace and later provincial fiscal.  Lola Lolita and her children resided with her parents in a house in Barrio Sabitan, outside the Kamistisuhan area of Malolos.  I remember seeing Lola Lolita’s parents when I accompanied Turina on her visits to Tia Dolores, also nicknamed Lolita, who was her classmate.  The father was a forbidding-looking Spaniard while the mother was a quiet and meek Filipina.    
 
Tio Pepito was drafted in July 1941 into the Philippine Army, as a private.  The Philippines, then a Commonwealth and still very much under the USA’s control, had been preparing for war since 1936, when the Japanese invaded China.  Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who had served in the Philippines and had recently retired from the US Army, was asked by the Philippine government to help in preparing the country for war.  A defense plan was drawn up by a staff headed by Gen. MacArthur, and with then Major Dwight D. Eisenhower as one of its members.  The defense plan’s short-range portion was to organize a regular Philippine Army with a 10,000-men infantry division; composed mainly of the Philippine Constabulary, which was to be absorbed into the military.  The Philippine Constabulary’s original role was to keep the peace inside the country, quelling large-scale organized crimes and nipping would-be revolts and insurrections in the bud.  In addition to the small army, a smaller air force and coast patrol was to be organized.  It was assumed that the US Navy and US Army Air Corp would always be present.  These would be more than enough for the air and sea defense that would be needed. 

The US Army would also be represented in the form of a regular US Infantry division, the US Philippine Division, to be composed of three regiments.  One US regiment had long been in the Philippines, the 26th US Cavalry (Phil. Scouts) Regiment, composed of a mix of US regular cavalry officers and Filipino noncoms and enlisted men.  The other was the all-American 31st US Infantry Regiment, a regular army unit, originally based in China but transferred to the Philippines, because of the Sino-Japanese war.  The third infantry regiment, the US 34th, another all-American regular unit, was slated to be transferred from the US but the war preempted the plan.  This regiment was still sailing on the high seas when the Japanese shocked Pearl Harbor.  It was diverted to defend Honolulu instead. 

There were three other Phil. Scout regiments in the country; the 43rd, 45th and 57th.  The all-volunteer Scouts were elite soldiers, carefully selected, well-trained, sufficiently equipped and competently led, who proved themselves more than the equal of the experienced Japanese troops.  Being part of the US Army, their remuneration package was much better than what was received by their counterparts in the Philippine Army.  There was always a long line of Filipino volunteers eager to join the Scouts.  A few days before the outset of the war, a Marine regiment, the 4th US Marines was hurriedly transported to Olongapo from China and was assigned to defend Corregidor.

Aside from these units were artillery and other combat support, supply and service units.  There were also two recently-arrived tank battalions with over a hundred M-3 light tanks.  These proved to be very useful in the Luzon battles.  

Under the defense plan’s long-range program, a reserve Philippine Army composed of citizen-soldiers was to be trained and organized.  This reserve force was to be mobilized in case of war.  There was to be one reserve infantry division in each of the ten geographical regions of the country, with about 7,500 men in each division; five in Luzon, four in the Visayas and one in Mindanao.  To provide the enlisted men for these divisions, batches of 20,000 young men, twenty years old and over, would undergo a 24-week basic military training program.  The colleges and universities would provide the noncoms and officers through the Reserve Officers Training Corp (ROTC).  This training program should produce 40,000 trained soldiers every year.  It was envisioned that after three years, or by 1941, there would be 120,000 trained soldiers, more than enough for the planned ten regional divisions.  After the first three years, batches of 20,000 young men would be trained every year.  This should provide for a constant pool of 400,000 trained reservists ready to be mobilized as needed. 

That was the plan but was not the reality.  The training took longer than usual.  Training cadres, or training instructors, were sorely lacking.  There was no shortage of volunteers to undergo the training but many of the volunteers could barely read or write and had to be given basic education first.  Then, there was the absence of a common dialect.  Many of the recruits spoke only their own dialect while most of the trainers spoke only English and/or Tagalog.  The training budget was insufficient to build the training camps and training facilities, which had to be built all over the Philippines.  It was true that when the War broke out, the Philippine Army was able to muster all ten regional divisions, but they were under-strength, poorly-trained, and ill-equipped. 

The Philippine Army recruit soldier could be easily identified.  His uniform was blue “maong” Bermuda shorts, “maong” short-sleeved blouse, high-cut canvas shoes with rubber soles, and overseas cap (replaced in the nick to time, weeks before the war, with GI-issued steel helmets and ill-fitting khaki uniforms).  In contrast, US soldiers (including the Scouts) were neatly uniformed in khaki and wore leather boots with canvas leggings. 
  
After basic training, Tio Pepito was assigned to a unit of the 31st Philippine Army “Central Luzon” Division, most of whose members were from Bulacan and Manila.  At the outbreak of the war, together with the nine other newly-organized regional infantry divisions, the 31st PA was incorporated into the USAFFE or United States Armed Forces in the Far East, under American command, authority and responsibility.  At the outbreak of the war, the 31st PA was assigned to defend the coastlines of Zambales and saw very little action until after the 31st was withdrawn to Bataan. 

[Boying remembers attending a “despedida” in Tampoy for Tio Pepito just before he left for Zambales.  He also recalls standing all day by the highway in front of the capitolyo with many other Maloleños, waving at the vehicles loaded with soldiers, on their way to defend the beaches of La Union and Pangasinan against the Japanese forces, who had just landed there.  More soldiers were to pass by the capitolyo a month or so later, on the retreat from the beaches to the jungles of Bataan.] 

The still un-bloodied divisions, the 31st PA and the US Philippine Division, together with the rear elements from Manila and Fort Stotsemberg, were the first into Bataan. 
They were followed by the bulk of the Southern Luzon Force.  First came the 41st PA “Southern Luzon” Division, which had been defending the beaches of Cavite and Batangas and had also seen very little action.  Then came the main body of the decimated 51st PA “Bicolano” Division.  The division had been protecting the long Tayabas coastline from Infanta to Lopez.  One of their regiments had moved south to intercept the Japanese regiment which had made an unopposed landing in Albay.  They met the Japanese spearhead in the vicinity of Sipocot, Camarines Sur, tried to stop their advance but failed.  The other regiments of the 51st, reinforced by a regiment of the newly-activated 2nd PA Division (composed of Phil. Constabulary units and retired Philippine Scouts) opposed the Japanese landings in Mauban and Atimonan. The 51st fought a successful delaying action all the way to Manila, where the Japanese finally stopped their pursuit.  Most of those in the Southern Luzon Force made it to Bataan.

Then came the units of the Northern Luzon Force.  The 26th US Cavalry PS, which had been in battle since the first Japanese landing in La Union, came in first, to give them time to re-organize and re-equip.  Then, a little later, came elements of the also badly-mauled 71st PA “Ilonggo” Division from Negros and the 91st PA “Waray” Division from Leyte and Samar, which had been brought in by sea to reinforce the Luzon forces and which had been fighting a retrograde battle all the way from Pangasinan.  The 11th PA “Ilocano” Division and 21st PA “Kapampangan” Division, backboned by the tanks of the two US Tank Battalions, were the last to arrive, fighting the Japanese all the way, from the beaches in the north to Bataan.   Many of those in the units of the Northern Luzon Force failed to make it to Bataan, not only because of the battles but probably because the fighting happened at literally “their own backyards” and it was probably very difficult to resist the temptation to drop out and just defend their own hometowns.

In all, the bulk of seven PA regional divisions in Luzon were able to make it to Bataan.  Left to defend the Visayas and Mindanao were the three remaining regional divisions, the 61st PA from Panay, the 81st PA from Cebu and Bohol and the 101st PA “Moro” from Mindanao.  They were reinforced by a regiment from the 1st Regular PA division, the 43rd PS regiment and other ad hoc units composed of Philippine Constabulary troops, ROTC cadets and former members of the military.
    
Ka Tenteng and Ba Gorio’s son, Julian came from Sukol in their small canoe-like bancas to fetch us.  We got in the bancas and were paddled the ten kilometers to Sukol.  Tatang shared the paddling work with the two “kasamas”.  The bancas were fully loaded and we were careful not to move too much, lest we capsize.  We did not have much with us, only a few pieces of clothing and some beddings, including the indispensible “kulambo” or mosquito nets.  After about four hours, the bancas reached Sukol and moored at the small bamboo platforms which served as landings for the bancas.

During the trip, Ka Tenteng related that his brother, Ka Doming, a kasama from Sapang Munti, Hagunoy, was still missing.  Ka Doming had volunteered and joined the army some months before the outbreak of the war and was part of the forces which retreated into Bataan.
There is much more I learned during our stay in Sukol.     

The farm in Sukol was right on the riverbank, on one of the tributaries of the Angat River which emptied into Manila Bay, some ten kilometers away.  The farm was on the delta of the Angat River and very fertile, as all delta lands are.  In its original form, the delta must have been under water much of the time and unsuitable for agriculture.  We do not know who and when the area was developed but much work and time was required to transform this flooded land into productive farms.  This was done by raising and widening the banks on either side of the river, an undertaking which must have taken several generations, maybe centuries, to complete.  This confined the water to the river channel and made possible the draining of the land enclosed by the river banks.  An irrigation system of gates and canals was then built.  This system allowed entry of fresh river water into the fields when it was needed and kept it out when it was salty and not wanted.     
 
During the rainy season the river would flow continuously to the sea and the water would be fresh.  However, during the dry season, the sea water would flow upstream at high-tide and the river water would then be brackish and unusable for irrigation.  During much of the rainy season, the farm would be flooded and agriculturally unproductive.  However, the flooded fields became home to mudfish, catfish, snails, frogs and small crabs or “talangkas”.  These formed a large part of the farm menu at those times.  Migratory wild ducks and other birds would also land on the water to rest and feed.  They were chased down and caught with nets (very difficult) and added to the farm menu. 

Towards the end of the rainy season, when the flood waters had become low enough, the farms would be drained until the water was only ankle deep.  The farmers would then prepare the farms for planting, using their carabaos, by plowing (to break the hard soil into large chunks with “araros”) and harrowing (to remove decaying rice roots and weeds and to break up the large chunks of soil into smaller pieces with “suyods”and “paragos”).  Then, the sowing would begin, a simple strewing of the palay seeds all over the fields.  Once the seedlings had grown to about eight inches high, they would be manually thinned down by pulling up the excess seedlings, replanting them and throwing away the excess.  By opening and closing the irrigation gates, the field’s water level would be maintained at about ankle-deep until the rice plants were almost ready for harvest.  The irrigation gates would then be closed and the fields completely drained for the harvest, which was in April or May.  During the dry season, the high tide level of Manila Bay was higher than the river’s water level. The water flow would be upstream and the river would be brackish.   This salty water must not be allowed into the fields and so the irrigation gates had to remain shut until the next rainy season.  
     
The rice fields did not demand too much time from the farmers.  Much work went into the plowing, harrowing and sowing during the planting season, and into the reaping, winnowing and bringing in the grains and hay at harvest time.  Between the planting and harvesting, there was not much for the farmers to do in the fields, except for daily inspections and adjustments of the irrigation gates, occasional weeding work.  After the harvest, there was very little farm work to do.  This was the time when many of the men would look for work elsewhere, usually as laborers in rice mills, road-repairing, etc. 

To add to their food supply and income, the menfolk would paddle on moonless nights to the nearby bay to fish, using a “sakag” (a small triangular net tied to two bamboo poles on two sides and weighed down on the third side with small lead slugs).  The fishermen, wading chest-deep in the sea, would then push the “sakag” across the sea bed, the weighted side of the net would scrape the sea bottom, gathering all loose objects into the net; fish, shells, shrimps, pebbles, rubbish, driftwood, etc.  The catch was composed mostly of small fish, shrimps and shellfish.  They spent all night fishing and would be home before daybreak.  They would keep some of their catch for food.  The bulk of the catch would be brought to the town’s public market, on foot, by the womenfolk and sold.  When the moon was full and fishing in the bay would be unproductive, the men would take their “dala” (circular nets with lead weights around the circumference and a light rope tied to the middle) and use them to catch a few fish in the river.  They would banca to certain good fishing spots on the river and cast their nets using a roundhouse arm motion.  The net would spread out before it hits the water and settle to the bottom while spread out.  The net would then be pulled up and the net would close up while rising to the surface, with the fish entangled inside the net.  Not many fish were caught this way, just enough for daily food needs.

    The farm was divided into two main parts.  There was an elevated area along the river bank where the farmers had built their homes and raised their livestock (carabaos, hogs, ducks and chicken).  The rice fields, which were below water level, surrounded the residential area.  The farm had an area of about 20 hectares and was jointly owned by the three Gonzales-De Leon siblings; Lolo Ramon, Dada Merced and Dada Ninay. It was being farmed by four tenant families; Ba Gorio, Ba Dama, Ka Ambo and Ka Tenteng.  There were five “bahay kubos” or nipa huts there, one for each of the tenant families, and one used as a community granary.   Tio Aurel, Tia Epang and their family were still there, in a sixth “kubo” which they had built at the outset of the war to serve as their evacuation home. 

The farm houses were built on stilts, on 6-inch thick bamboo posts elevated a meter or so from the ground, keeping them clear of high floods which would come every three years or so.  Of course, floods were a yearly occurrence but these were usually only a few inches high and lasted only a short time.  “Nipa” palm leaves, reinforced with bamboo sticks tied together with rattan cords, were used as roofing material.  Sidings and partitions were of “nipa” thatch and “sawali” (woven thin strips of bamboo).  The floor was made from thin bamboo slats, which allowed liquid and any object smaller than one centimeter to drop to the ground below.  The structure was held together with rattan cords and thick bolts fashioned from bamboo.  To serve as protection from typhoon-strength winds, bamboo sticks, tied together crisscross, were spread over the nipa roof and exterior sidings.  Stout bamboo poles or “suhays” leaned against the house posts to keep them from toppling outwards while metal wires, called “bagtings”, pulled at the house posts, preventing them from toppling inwards.  The houses could be quite easily built and rebuilt by the farmers themselves, a necessity in this land where typhoons are yearly occurrences.  

Inang and the three of us kids moved in with Ka Tenteng and Ka Marta in their “kubo”.  It was a small house, with a 20 square meter main room, which served as the living room, dining room and bedroom.  There was a 5 sq. m. storeroom/cabinet which could also be used as a spare bedroom.  Another 5 sq. m. room served as the kitchen and another was used as the “batalan” or washroom/bathroom.  The toilet was a small shed built at the riverbank and protruding over the river, where one could squat and “feed the fish”.  The river was, of course, the preferred bathroom, complete with running water.  Inang and the three of us children shared the common bedroom with Ka Marta and her three kids, Roming and two others whose names I do not remember.  Ka Tenteng slept with the other men folk who had been displaced by us evacuees, in the communal granary, a larger “kubo” some 50 sq. m. in area.

Tatang preferred to move in with Ba Gorio and Da Heniang in their much bigger house.  It had roughly the same configuration as the house we stayed in but Ba Gorio’s had a five square meter “banguera”, which Tatang used as his quarters.

There was no running water but there was the river and the rain, no electricity but there was coconut oil for the wick lamps and plenty of firewood for cooking.  If one wanted to travel, there were the bancas and the river which could be used to go almost anywhere.  There were also the lanes on the riverbanks which were wide enough for carabao-pulled carts.  And there were the raised footpaths or “pilapil“, which divided the rice fields or “pinitak” into more manageable sizes and made them more accessible.  These pilapil were used for hiking to the nearest neighbor, roads, barrios or towns.  However, hikers should be wary of the snakes which have their dens at the sides of the pilapil.  The snakes are generally harmless but were very useful for keeping the rat population under control.

For food, there was plenty of palay, which still had to be pounded into rice on pestles, made out of tree trunks, to separate the husk from the grain, and then winnowed, to discard the husk.  There was fish and shellfish from the river and the nearby bay, plus vegetables grown on small garden plots.  Nothing could be grown in the fields during the rainy season, when they were flooded.  After the harvest, during the dry season, expensive and unaffordable farm implements and too much labor would be needed to grow other crops in the dry but compacted hard ground.  They had eggs and chickens to eat, but rarely.  It was better to hatch the eggs into chickens and bring the chickens to town to be sold or bartered for other goods.  
      
Tio Aurel and his family did not stay long in Sukol after we arrived.  After a few weeks, they went back to Malolos and then on to Manila.  Tio Aurel and Tia Epang were in government and had been called back to work, not in Malolos but in Manila, where they decided to set up temporary residence.  All I remember about them in Sukol was Boying’s singing, which would wake me up every morning.  Boying would sit on their front stairs and sing, full voice and very seriously, “May isang tsuper ng taksi, sa aswang pinaglihi, kung kaya naging salbahi, burot mapagmalaki . . . “, a ditty from a movie comedy starring Leopoldo Salcedo as the “tsuper”.
 
In Sukol, we learned that the family of Tio Amado and Tia Pacita had returned to their home on Oroquieta Ext., between Pampanga and Bulacan Sts., in Manila.  Tio Amado had heard that some Manila theaters were planning to reopen, not to do movies but stage shows.  Tio Amado was a movie actor, usually appearing as the “contra vida” of Fernando Poe, Sr., and could easily find stage roles.  Tio Carlos was still in Tampoy.  The Department of Public Works and Highways, where he worked as Assistant District Engineer, was not yet fully operational.  Tia Monang preferred not to go back as yet to her teaching job at the Bulacan High School because of Lolo Ramon’s illness.  Tio Toniong and his family were still unheard from.  They were presumably still in Iloilo, where the war caught them.

Tatang had no job to go back to so he decided to stay put in Sukol.  We subsisted on what the farm could provide.  We were the only clan members left in Sukol.  We moved into Tio Aurel’s vacated house.  Tio Aurel’s house had the same basic floor plan as the usual “kubo” although it was much bigger, probably some 60 sq. m. total.  It was also fully furnished, with bamboo slat beds or “papags”, bamboo benches or “bankos”, moveable sawali screens and two big “bangueras”, one for two clay firewood stoves and another for a large drinking water clay pot or “tapayan” complete with faucet, and for drying the lacquer-covered metal dining plates, clay drinking utensils or “saros” and simple silverware.  There was a wire mesh “paminggalan” for storing perishables, and, instead of the usual foot-high farm table or “dulang” where you sat on the floor for meals, there was a full-sized wooden dining table, complete with rattan chairs.  
        
A month after we arrived in Sukol, we heard that things in Malolos had become normalized to such a degree that schools were soon to be reopened.  Tatang and Inang decided that we should stay in Sukol and forego school that year.  Imagine how welcome this was to us kids; a year-long vacation in a farm!  Tio Carlos’ kids could also not go back to school.  They had last studied in Lingayen, which was the scene of fierce battles at the beginning of the war.  Their schools had been destroyed, together with their school records, which were required if they were to enroll in Malolos. 

Of course, most of my cousins in Malolos and Manila were not as fortunate.  They had to go back to school.  Those who had the required documents resumed their studies at the same grade or year level where the war caught them.  They were given an accelerated course and finished the rest of the school year in three months or by October 1942, six months later than they would have if not for the war.  They then had a very brief vacation and were soon in school at the next higher level. They completed this also accelerated course in June 1943.  They were soon again back in school for the next level, completed in April 1944.  In effect, their schooling was not at all interrupted by the outbreak of the war.
      
Alone once again with the “kasamas”, I asked about Inkong Tasio and learned that he had died while we were in Daet, a year or so before the beginning of the war.  It was Lolo Ramon who had handled all the funeral arrangements.  Inkong was buried in the Hagunoy municipal cemetery.  He was said to be almost a hundred years old.  He left behind his widow, Paulina de la Cruz y de Leon and six grown up children; Tata Temiong or Artemio, Tata Monching or Ramon, Nana Sencia or Paciencia, Tata Gorio or Gregorio, Nana Uping or Guadalupe, and Nana Insiang or Esperanza.  These “tatas” and ”nanas” would come and visit us, one or two at a time, in Sukol and in Tampoy.  They all seemed quite close to Dada Ninay and to Inang.  From them I found out that when Inkong was freed by the Americans from his exile in Mindanao, he resided in Hagunoy with Impong Biyang.  It was then that, with the business acumen of Impong Biyang, they were able to acquire the farm in Sukol, the farm in Caingin, and the Tampoy property.  After Impong Biyang died, Inkong stayed in Hagunoy and remarried soon after. 

We also learned that the Japanese had begun to release the Filipino prisoners of war who were incarcerated in Camp O’Donnell in Capas, Tarlac.  Sometime later, the kasamas, particularly Ka Tenteng and his family, were overjoyed at receiving the news that his brother, Ka Doming, had come home.  He was back in Sapang Munti, safe but not completely sound.  He was still emaciated and exhausted after three months in the battlefields of Bataan, a week in the Death March and another six months in the POW camp in Camp O’Donnell, Capas, Tarlac.  He eventually regained his health but only after some time.
        
Not long afterwards, Salome, our “katulong” or helper went home to Apalit and we had to make do without her.  We started a small poultry, with twenty pullets and two cockerels, and a piggery of two female piglets.  Tancio and I were tasked to take care of the family’s farm animals.  We fed and watered them, gathered the chicken eggs, and gave the pigs’ daily baths.  The chickens were free to roam and feed wherever they could but the pigs had to be tethered.  There were no fences to separate the farm houses from one another.
 
Inang did all the housework and the older kids helped her.  That way, we learned a little cooking (over a wood-fired open stove), washing dishes, pots and pans, some laundry work, and cleaning the house.  The “kasama” womenfolk, busy as they were with their own work, were not asked to do any of our housekeeping, although we would hear one or two of them sweeping the yard which surrounded our “kubo” early every morning, not because it was their duty but because of “pakikisama”.  A “kubo” is not difficult to maintain.  Dust did not collect on the bamboo floor and nipa sidings.  Wooden “bakya” flip-flops, which were the usual footwear, were always left at the foot of the stairs to keep mud and dirt from messing up the floor.  The only cleaning that was required was wiping the floor with a damp rag followed by polishing, using dried banana leaves, tied together at the spine.  The kubo is well-ventilated, with its wide windows, bamboo slat floor and nipa thatch sides, which do not absorb heat.  The kubo remains comfortable in the hot season but makes for rather chilly nights when the cold December “amihan” northereasterly winds begin to blow in through the slatted bamboo floor.  One always has to sleep under a mosquito net or “kulambo”, not only because of mosquitoes, but also to avoid having “ahas bahay”, or non-poisonous field snakes, and lizards (“butiki” and bigger “timbubuli”) as bedmates.  These often drop from the un-ceilinged roof during the night.
          
The harvest was over and the rainy season was about to begin when we arrived in Sukol.  Soon the fields were flooded knee-deep.  We learned how to use bamboo hand traps “salakab” and bamboo spears “salapang” to catch mudfish (bulig or dalag) and mud-dwelling catfish (hito) and how to lay down traps to catch “talangkas” or small crabs.  A crab trap was a coconut shell (bao), baited with some rice bran (darak) and partly submerged in the water.  These traps would be placed early in the evening and retrieved early the following morning.  The trick was to gather the traps while the “talangkas” were still inside the “bao”, feeding on the bait.  During the dry season, we fished in the river, using a bamboo pole, a length of string and a worm-baited hook.  I soon found out that the easiest way to fish is to drop a baited hook and line into the river from the outhouse, which was used as a latrine.  There, I could catch river catfish (kanduli) quite easily, and very fat and tasty ones too.  Just be sure to clean and cook the fish very thoroughly. 

When the fields were dry and the farm folks had time on their hands, we would play games in the dried-up rice fields.  The favorite game was “indoor” baseball, a make-do adaptation of softball.  We used bamboo-pole bats, balls made from a piece of wood wrapped with twine and rugs and tightly wound together with some string, pieces of banana trunks as bases and no mitts or gloves.  There were “indoor” baseball games for the adults and another for the kids.  There would also be “patintero” (easier to play than to describe), “taguan” or hide-and-seek and “moro-moro”, (a rather complicated game with one team as the “kostable” or soldiers and the other as the “moros”).  These were played during the early evenings, when there was enough moonlight.  After the games, and every time one gets hot and sweaty, a dive into the river and a brief swim would be the refreshing thing to do.
 
A problem was drinking water, as the only water source was the river, which though still relatively clean and unpolluted, was not nearly good enough to drink.  Drinking water was brought in by banca daily from the rice mill in Halang, where there was an artesian well.  Water for washing and bathing was taken from the middle of the river, where it was clearest and presumably cleanest, but how could one really be sure about the water quality.  Tatang could not talk the farmers into digging a well, so he started to dig one by himself.  After a few days of digging, some of the farmers started to help him.  However, even after the hole was already three meters deep, it was still dry.  It dawned on Tatang that the farm soil was dense and clayish and was not very permeable.  The ground water table was probably too deep for a dug well.  There was no equipment for drilling a proper artesian well.  The “kasamas” probably already knew all of these from the beginning but probably thought better than to teach hard-headed town folks.  Tatang gave up and the deep hole became part of our playground.
    
During most of the rainy season only the fields were flooded, with the water seldom higher than waist-deep.  The residential area of the farm remained well above the flood level.  However, it was another story when that year’s typhoon hit.  A day or so before the typhoon came, the farmers told Tatang to expect a strong one soon.  They could sense its coming from the appearance of the sky and the feel and smell of the wind: no need for a weather bureau.  We did not feel too disturbed by the news.  We had lived in Camarines Norte, which protruded into the Pacific Ocean and was where Pacific typhoons usually made their first landfall.  We had experienced typhoons before; in Paracale, in Manguisok and in Daet.
 
The farmers began to check their houses to make sure the “suhays” and “bagtings” were firmly attached to their moorings, that the nipa roof and sidings were firmly tied down, that the doors and windows could be sealed shut, that their bancas, farm implements, tools and equipment, and everything that could be blown or floated away, were brought inside the houses or securely tied to posts in the “silong”.  They made sure that they had enough food stocks, firewood, matches and coconut oil.  They inspected the granary and used fresh banana leaves to cover the huge sawali baskets, where the palay was stored, and protect them from the rain.  They assigned some of the men to stay in the granary during the typhoon, with a banca and enough supplies.  The chickens were put in cages high up in the silong.  The carabaos and pigs were brought to the most elevated part of the farm, where the hay stacks for the carabaos were located, and where the pigs could feed on the edible plants.  The “itiks” or ducks were brought to a sheltered part of the “pinitak” where they were protected from strong water currents.  They could survive on what they could scrounge there.  When the wind and rain began to approach typhoon strength everyone was ready.

The typhoon was at its strongest during the night.  We found out that our experience of typhoons in Camarines Norte was very different from what we were to experience in Sukol.  In Camarines Norte we felt secure from the typhoons, in our sturdy wooden frame house with iron roofings, in the midst of a sizable community, far from any possibility of flooding.  In Sukol the wind’s howled and shrieked louder.  Rain water poured through the eaves of our kubo, which shook, rustled and rattled with every gale.  We could hear the water rising under the house but could not see anything.  It was total darkness.  The coconut oil lamps were repeatedly extinguished by the wind which blew in through the bamboo floor.  We did not know how our neighbors were faring.  We did not even know if their houses were still there.  We felt far from safe.

The winds began to weaken as morning approached.  At first light, the farmers were up and about.  The flood water under the house was still thigh-deep when they came to see how we were and reported that everyone in the farm was safe.  Later in the morning, they walked around the farm and reported that there was no major damage to the farm or serious injury to any of the livestock.  The palay stores were high and dry.  The bamboo trees, fruit trees and other farm trees had lost some twigs and a lot of leaves but were still standing, although the banana trees had all toppled.  These could easily recover and grow by themselves.  The farm vegetables had all been destroyed but replanting was easy.  The boat landings, outhouses-toilets, duck pens, and carabao wallows at the river bank had all been washed away but these could be rebuilt after the flood had receded.  Some of the kubos had been damaged but these were easy to fix.  Some of the irrigation gates and dikes had been destroyed but could be repaired before the planting season.  The rice fields were completely submerged but that meant nothing as the crop was already in the granary.
 
The flooding brought in a harvest of a different kind.  There were “bangus” and other fresh water fish brought in by the flood from overflowing fishponds elsewhere.  There would be plenty of fish for the rest of the season although no one could go out to sea to fish for the rest of the rainy season.  Plenty of cleaning up had to be done but, on the whole, everything turned out well.  I learned then that typhoons were not so disastrous for farmers, provided they were prepared for it.  The farmers said that a typhoon like that came every three years or so.  The usual yearly typhoon brought floods which seldom overflowed the river bank.

Christmas 1942 was approaching.  We heard from Tampoy that Lolo Ramon’s illness had taken a turn for the worse.  He could not breathe and had to be taken to Manila for treatment at the Doctors’ Clinic.  Tia Epang was already in Manila and arranged for everything.  Tio Carlos had been told to report to his head office in Manila early in 1943.  Tio Toniong was still missing.  Only Dada and Tia Monang would be left in Tampoy.  The farm folks were busy at work repairing the typhoon damage and preparing for the planting season.  Besides, Inang was in her last months of pregnancy with her fourth child.  Tatang decided to bring us back to Tampoy. 

We went to Halang on two of the “kasamas’” bancas and rode a carretela to Tampoy.  A “carretela” is a 6-passenger horse-drawn high-wheeled cart while a “calesa” is a smaller 4-passenger vehicle.  The use of fossil oil for civilian purposes had been prohibited by the Japanese and the only transportation available was animal-drawn.  Later, engines were modified so that they could run on charcoal but not much reliance could be placed on this mode of locomotion.