Growing Up in Sangitan




1927 – I don’t know the significance of the year except that I was born in it, on February 15, to be exact. The barrio (called barangay now) was named Samon, just along the road to Aliaga from Cabanatuan. Ateng Nene (Natalia) used to tell us that our house was just a nipa hut surrounded by some camachile trees. As I used to pass that place when I was a small boy, I could recall that most of the nipa huts in Samon had the same appearance.

Houses were in groups of two or three and were distantly apart, separated by long stretches of uninhabited farms grown to tomatoes, corn, eggplants, peanuts, sincamas, upo, and patola.

Ateng said that she and her young friends used to roam around and gather pasinoria, a vine whose fruit is red when ripe but rarely sweet, often very sour.

I don’t recall when we left Samon. According to Ateng, our nipa hut was swept away by a flood, as Samon is transversed by the great Pampanga River. We were rescued on the bank by our father who came from Bongabon on a big raft. (He was, until his death in 1940, a foreman with the Bureau of Public Highways.)

We, accordingly, moved to Bantug, a barrio west of Sangitan, Cabanatuan.

I know Sangitan as the place where I grew up. We lived there until about 18 December 1941.

I was too young to remember the day Fabian was born on 20 January 1929. But I remember Inang giving birth to Concha, Adela, and Manuel. I remember what our house in Sangitan looked like.

There were flower pots attached to the window sills in front of our house. All of them were planted to begonias and yerba buena.

The land on which our house stood was then owned by Doña Ipang de Guzman who lived in the very big house.

What were our possessions? There was a narra aparador, an estante, a round table with four chairs, 2 rocking chairs, and an escaparate. We didn’t have any bed and we all slept on the floor. We also had some picture frames and a wall mirror. We also had a hanging retractable kerosene lamp. For a time, we had a manual phonograph.

My father had a bicycle which was government property marked: “For Official Use Only” Bureau of Public Highways, Province of Nueva Ecija.

We didn’t have water in our house for many years and my father had to fetch water from a nearby artesian well with flowing water. We were taken for a bath to the artesian well whose cement floor was slippery. We cried each time we were taken there for usually the soap used hurt our eyes—hilam as we call it. Also we didn’t have electricity for a long time and we used the kerosene lamp.

We didn’t have shorts when we were small and we were clothed in a long kamiseta. It was the same for my young sisters. Very seldom did we have shoes to wear.

I remember as a very young boy that I loved to go to market with my mother and each time that she would not like me to go with her, I would cry loudly and bang my feet and head on the floor. And each time she really didn’t want me to go with her, I got a real spanking. It was not so with Fabian, Concha, or Adela.

I also remember getting lost in town and trying to go home by myself and being taken home by someone strange to me but known to Tatang.

Whenever I fell asleep, I remember being carried in the arms of Tatang and Inang to be taken to the banig.

I remember we slept together in one big sinamay kulambo. I remember our flannel blanket printed with large orange flowers.

I remember playing with the kids around like Jaime Mendez, Dencio, Folding Bulaclac, Doming, and the others.

I remember playing with a chicken which was intended for dinner. I tied it and placed it in a bilao and went around like a vendor. A neighbor bought the chicken for 10 centavos and I went home happy only to be scolded and being sent back to return the money and get back the chicken.

We had a neighbor close to our house. Every morning, they baked bibingka.

Once in a while, I would approach Aling Mering and I would ask her for a piece of bibingka. After that, I would go up our house and eat the bibingka under our dining table. After sometime, Aling Mering would tell Inang how many bibingka cakes I had already “owed.” Inang would pay and then later scold me.

During rainy season, Fabian, Concha, Adela, and I would enter the drum and take a bath in it. We loved to run around in the rain. However, during a thunderstorm, Inang would smear vinegar on our noses so we would not catch cold.

There were many games we played like patintero, harangang taga, cricket (kicking the can and hiding), riding a bamboo stickhorse, making mud pies, and tatching (hitting coins).

I remember our neighbors. Living in the first house in front of us were the Mendezes who had a caretelia. In the second house lived the Velasquezes – Consorcia, Oscar, and Gliceria. There were also Mr. and Mrs. Velasquez, Romeo and Raymunda.

To the left were two houses. In the first were Mr. and Mrs. Padolina with Ruben, Manuel, Aurora, and Ine. In the other house lived Mr. and Mrs. dela Cruz and Romeo, Filipino, and Ruth.