tagabungtod

After the war, as young pioneers from different parts of the country settled in Nabunturan to seek their fortune, mainly in logging and agriculture--- particularly abaca--- another group of money-smelling entrepreneurs would follow them in this settlement: the chinese.

When I was visiting with my insikon friend Caesar Echavez last year, we would spend many late nights in his home talking about these chinese pioneers. We had fun recalling how their establishments were positioned from the crossing down to the palengke as there were not so many of them. Our family was once a neighbor to some of these families. The little knowledge I have about them helped me a bit in those nocturnal name-that-chink game that we played.

Ping Atilano was the only insik who was on the western side of the highway or "Crossing" (as we erroneously called it because the roads did not actually intersect). He had a restaurant which, if I recall right, was named Ping's Restaurant. It stood right beside Victoria's Theatre. Ping and his family would later leave town after he was involved in a scandal inside the theater (that's another story which, unfortunately, I could not share in this blog). Another one who was isolated from the rest was Inting Insik, owner of the short-lived Star Theatre, then operating at the corner across Bagaipo's Inn, tagabungtod's only version of a 5-star hotel at the time. Inting was the only chinese I remember who was a heavy drinker. (Another moviehouse was right across our first house near the sapa. It stood between the Aranetas and the Espinosas. It was called the Celis Theater.)

In front of Victorias was Lee Hang's Canton Bakery and right beside him in the corner was the beanpole Insoy (Lu Ng Tian/Rufano Store) together with his business partner, the double-visioned Okling. Our botica, which we acquired in 1961 from the Vegafrias who moved to Trento, was sandwiched between Insoy and Alex Ling (Superior Trading). Alex, an excellent cook, was one very good-natured and amiable chinese. My parents admired him so much. After Alex were the Resmas and after them was Pabling Lim who specialized in repairing petromax and shoes.

After a long stretch of pinoy establishments along our side of the street, the next insik would be Mrs. Pahate, who was married to a retired pinoy merchant marine. She rarely ventured out because she was a pakha. I learned later that she was once a teacher in Shanghai. The Pahates lived above the Relos Store. Cho's Sanitary Restaurant was beside Relos in the mid-'60s. Tabok sa karsada sa simbahan was Sta. Teresita Drugstore of the Lacsamana sisters followed again by chinese Tan Sing, Yu Diet, and Shanghai Bakery (whose owner's name I never knew.)


Pua's (Yee) Restaurant was right before Mayfair Tailoring & Memang's Beauty Parlor owned by the Yees and New Look, which was also a tailoring owned by another Chan. Excellency Tailoring was somewhere here but the exact place and the name of the owner escapes me now. The Arabejos resided upstairs in one of these establishments. You pass by the Floreses and across the street was Botica Herrera, followed by Peace Trading owned by Ngo Peng which was beside another hardware owned by Hong. Then Day Kim Kiat Store and the last was another store owned by another Te.

There was only one barrio resident chinese family I know: the Labradors who ran a cornmill in Cabidianan.

I do not know where Amad Insik's original pwesto was but I remember him as one of the only two Chinese who was selling tuba in the street corner where Narciso Nalangan, the painter, used to stay. The other was Inting Insik after nahapay ang iyang sinehan ug tindahan sa sobrang inom ug sugal.

Did I miss anybody?

By the way, Ping, Lee Hang, Cho, Pua, Te Pek, and the owner of Shanghai who all focused on the food business, were insik-makaw. They hardly mingled with the other chinese because the macao dialect was quite different from fookien or mandarin. (Guess what: the most prominent makaw in our town right now is Mayor Humol. His first name is Macario. You guessed it right, his friends call him Makaw!)

Most of the second generation chinese would become our classmates, playmates, neighbors and friends. Some left but most would stay for good and become tagabungtod, too.

My recollection of the actual facts, like names and places, may not be accurate. Any omission is a product of uncertain, aging and/or faulty memory.

/tgt

Kasagarang pangutana sa mga tagabungtod nga dugay na'ng nawala ug "blind" na sa mga panghitabo sa Nab: "Asa na man si__________?" Duha ra ang tubag: either buhi pa o patay na. Hisgutan ug hinumdumon nato ang duha kay kung puro patay lang ang atong isulat diri, magmura na'g sementeryo ning website. Pero from time to time ato gihapon hisgutan 'tong hingpanaw na. Kay daghan pa man ang buhi sa ato ug mas daghan pud ang gusto masayod kung asa na naglaroy-laroy sa kalibutan ning mga buhi pa nga kalag-Nabunturan, sugdan nato sila ug hisgot.

Plese help tagabungtod keep track of whereabouts of our townmates. This website would appreciate it if you could help supply some data and pictures. Others could update us with names of their relatives and friends. Kindly correct, too, if there are inaccuracies.

By the way this website does not intend to give out details like phone numbers, email and home addresses kay ang uban sa mga tagabungtod would want to keep their privacy to a certain extent. Let us respect that. But if they signify or allow that these may be given away we will give it if it is available in our database or it is supplied by the hintungdan.

Let us start with kadtong layo:

These tagabungtod are now New Yorkers: Caesar Echavez and wife Fe Rosario "Totot" Doctolero, Gemma Sotto, Jun Montenegro, Tommy Cualing and wife Tita Mesiona, Fely Mesiona, Alma Rufano, Clarita Mojica, Dodong Cualing, Rey Madrid, Jumilo Sotto and family, Marilyn Magallanes-Olofernes, Agnes and Cecilia Yandug, Aida Flores-Cualing, Wenifredo "Ikoy" Maglana and many more;

Demetria Tagud-Campau is in California and so are Annie Flores, Rafael and Francis Fuentes, their mother, Irene, Mr. Zabala and wife, the former Luz Llaguno and her two daughters, Adelina "Baby" Vargas, Manuel Vargas, and Aireen, Sonia and Vanessa Edillon, Corazon Ebalo-Yap, Ricky Layug, Boyet and Jojit Clarin, Xavier "Boy" Nava, Divina Burlas-Dionela;

Emma Arabejo-Real is in Baltimore, Maryland; Florentino "Dodo" Cuñado and Marife Sotto are in New Jersey; Joel Edillon is in Washington DC, brother Guido is in Virginia and another brother Nunelo is in New Mexico; Joel Bugas is in Connecticut; Evelyn Licayan-Barza, Jovy Layug and Romeo and Luz Chavez, Fred Birondo and sister Emma are in Chicago; Leah Jontilano is in Indiana; Terry Layug, Badette Secuya and husband Rogelio "Boy" Te are in Texas; Bernadette Villanueva is in Florida;

Lamberto Renegado and wife Estefania Calotes, Corazon Bugas, and Lydia Arabejo are based in Canada.

To those who know where the other tagabungtod are let us add more to this list please. Thank you.

/tgt


P.S. For those who might not have heard, Max Roxas, immediate past Principal of the Nabunturan National Comprehensive High School, who, after his retirement, was elected barangay Poblacion councilor in last year's election, known to many as a very good parent, teacher, school administrator, classmate, and friend, died in a motorcycle accident last March 2008.

I've beent trying to give the blog a new look (murag pangalan niadtong tailoring nga gipanag-iyahan sa mga Chan sa una tapad sa Mayfair nga ila pud ni Nang Memang, remember?). So I installed a website counter and a clock.

The counter is designed to register the number of visits that the website has received starting tonight. The clock is for your convenience para mahibaw-an kung pila na ka oras imong gi-usik ug inatubang sa computer para aron ingnon busy ka o naa kay ginabuhat. Maybe some of you are using company or government time... hahahaha. Basi'g masakpan biya mo. And also for my convenience kay talagsa malimtan nako ang oras. Notice that the background color is now changed to off white. Mas gaan sa mata. And it gives a better contrast to the brown text.

You might be wondering about the picture below the header--kung kinsa nang mga murag bitokon naglinya diha. This can be best explained by an excerpt from an email I got from my daughter in Indonesia: "...Tay, bat putol yung picture?! Can’t see the heads! Is that your class picture?! I remember that picture, I think. I remember asking you bakit walang tsinelas ang mga classmate mo and ikaw meron (hand-me-down 'tawon nga boots na 'nak, dili tsinelas--tgt) and you said that you also didn’t wear slippers back then but then you remembered na may picture taking that day! And you added na bihira ma picturan noong araw kaya porma dayon!! Hahahahahahaha!!!!!...."

Ang last line of that quote is tagalog sa Mati or Davao tagalog "...bihira ma picturan kaya porma dayon!!". Mga bata sa kasalukuyan, ibang-iba na ang pagsasalita at pagamit ng pambansang wika. Saksak-sinagol.

Nuon, pinaghirapan natin ang pagsasanay sa wikang Tagalog sa tulong ng Pilipino, Hiwaga, Tagalog Klasiks, at Espesyal Komiks na nabibili sa tindahan ni Relos. At saka sa tulong din ng Victorias Theatre na nagpapalabas ng mga tagalog na pelikula. At ng malambing na ilongga na si Binibining Aurora Maravillosa na naging Ginang Suazo at naging guro ng nakakarami sa atin sa Balarila at Panitikan (galing sa Assumption lumipat siya sa Compre). Kaya lang kung minsan masyado syang matapang kung hindi tayo nakikinig. Kung siya ay napupuot sa galit nakakalimutan nya ang pambansang wika. "Linte!" at "Yawa" na lamang ang lumalabas sa bibig nya. Datapuwat kung minsan ganun sya, napamahal din sya sa atin dahil sa kahusayan nya at sa matagal na panahon na ginugol nya sa pagtuturo sa atin.

Have a nice Sunday.

Til next post.

tgt

Try your best not to be distracted by this guy in the foreground. Don't pay attention to him yet. He is not our main point of interest. The background is. (To appreciate, click on the picture to enlarge it.)

Kung talagsa gilaay ka na ug wala ka na ganahi sa Nabunturan tungod kay daghan na'g tawo, unya wala ka na kaayo'y kaila, busa mingaw na para sa imoha, unya daghan na kaayong pedicab ug motorcycle nga pwerteng banhaa, naa pa gyu'y daghang videokehan nga gayagaw lang, try looking for something else to do. Go to the barangays.

Have you tried taking that new feeder road which starts from the Cuñado farm kanto Alvania subdivision (across the Iglesia ni Kristo church) and goes all the way to Libasan? You should try that. It is a well-maintained, more or less, 3-kilometer stretch and traverses the adjoining wide ricefields of Nabunturan and Libasan. Right in the middle of the basakan! Drive slowly and leisurely. Try stopping in the middle of the road and enjoy the scenery.

Your view of the hills, mountains and plains of that part of town is unobstructed. And it is captivating. It speaks of the beauty and allure that our parents must have witnessed and experienced when they first came: the once verdant hills, forested mountains and wide plains to which they could stake the future of their children.

These hills are still there but not as green anymore; the mountains are still there but, sadly, with very, very sparse forests. Only the plains, which have for decades provided rice staple for us and our neighboring towns, remain. But to us tagabungtod, its beauty still beholdens although degradation and destruction of the environment are quite perceptible. (Notice the kaingin smoke in the mountainside?)

Without "life" in the hils and mountains, I do not know whether "life" in the plains is sustainable in the long run. That's another long discussion. I hope I can invite Dr. Wenifredo "Ikoy" Maglana and his Kinaiyahan Foundation to contribute some environmental eye-openers in this blog.

For the curious: in the picture is Saturnino "Turni" Tayabas-Lupiba, anak ni anhing Tasoy ug ni Noning, panaptonero sa unang panahon, town councilor for 12 years, past director of cooperatives, farmer par excellence, quintessential friend, atbp. He is one of the founders and former chair of DAMSEPCO, a coop which is based in Tagum City, and one of the major providers of rice seeds in the country. In the background is his rice farm in Libasan (dili tanan, ha).

/tgt

With the hope of finding a better future for their young family, the late Narciso "Tisoy" Palay and wife Carmen "Mameng" Matarlo left their home in Argao, Cebu and braved the strange Land of Promise which is Mindanao . Like the other pioneers, each family had their reasons for coming and settling themselves down in a place which was referred to in the early 50's as Nobenta, aptly called, because the town was 90 kilometers away from Davao City. What I know of the Palays is that they were able to establish a farm in Mainit but rather chose to reside in the poblacion. This was probably for the expedient concern for the education of the children. Everybody would most likely remember that their house was on the second floor of Shanghai Bakery right across the public market.

Nestor was the eldest of Nong Tisoy and Nang Mameng's brood of nine. He finished his elementary grades at the central. In high school, he earned the distinction as being one of the first batch of graduates of then Assumption Academy of Nabunturan. He went to Cebu for his pre-med course but chose to come home after that. Since that time he never left Nabunturan again. He worked with Alson's for a few years. After leaving the company he became a municipal councilor at one time, a businessman, a farmer, and a government employee.

Meanwhile, he married my pretty high school and college classmate, Lourdes Sacay, who was by then a teacher in her barangay in Mainit. Their wedding and their tunay-na-pinoy family name generated quite an amusement in the community at the time: Sacay sa Palay (gets?). A beautiful ride, indeed, it was, and a productive one too for the couple. Their union produced four children: Dennis, Darius, Darwin and Darlene. Nestor and Lourdes now have three grandchildren.

(Another amusing episode in Nestor's life---one for the books: Once upon a time in their married life, they rented the duplex ground floor apartment of the Mencidors along that street back of Shanghai. On the other door lived the late former mayor Zimo Bugas and family. Palay and Bugas, probably without any rice shortage like we are experiencing now, lived harmoniously side by side for quite a number of years.)

His brothers and sisters are: Ismael, Clarita P. Galagala, Maynita P. Jao, Teresita P. Daculos, Romeo, Ma. Merlyn P. Agustin and Rene Galo.

They are relatives of the Birondos, Demols, Gismas, et al.

Nestor, a loving and caring husband, father and grandfather, a good son and brother, a friend to everybody, my kumpare, died in an accident last June 27, 2008.

tgt

Information technology fascinates me no end. This fascination started 22 years ago when I was asked to prepare a report about the gold rush in Diwalwal, Monkayo. The report was to be prepared and submitted to the Office of the President. That was my first assignment after I was detailed as one of the special assistants to then presidential adviser for Mindanao, JVAyala. After coming back from a trip to Diwalwal aboard a rickety Air Force helicopter, I briefed him about what the content of the report would be. He told me to go ahead and draft it.

In his sleek office, I was looking everywhere for a typewriter with which to draft the report. I couldn't find any. It was then that I noticed there was no typewriter at all anywhere in the room. He asked me what I was looking for and I told him I needed a typewriter. He laughed and told me that at this age and time (that was 1986!!!) they don't use them anymore. More so, he emphasized, if it is a report that's going to be read by the president of the republic (then President Cory Aquino.)

He pointed to a brand new Apple Macintosh Classic sitting in one corner and told me to use it. I was confounded because, being tagabungtod, my closest encounter with a computer was to play a game of Tic Tac Toe on a green-monitored PC XT pa gyud.

I was asking myself: how do I get this thing working?! Of course, I have seen white-gowned guys and gals looking like laboratory technicians work on computers and I was always impressed and green with envy watching them banging away on its keyboards like they were geniuses (geek was a non-existent word then) out to save the world from obsolescene and deterioration.

For the first time in my life I had to sit face to face with one, use it, operate it, tinker with it, and prepare a report on it.... good heavens! Only my pride and my freshly hard earned master's degree prevented me from owning up to the humiliating fact that I was ignorant about computers!

My boss must have seen the blood beginning to drain in my incredulous face. He approached me and with an encouraging, "Dont' be afraid, that computer is very user-friendly!" he tossed the instruction manual on my table. I meekly stammered, "Ok sir. Thank you, sir." Deep inside me I became more terrified because, first, the report has to be readied, finalized, and handcarried by him to Manila the following day and, second, the term "user-friendly" was Greek to me. Sus Ginoong maloloy-on!

An angel of an officemate must have noticed the 911-look on my face. With apparent amusement over my innocence (euphemism for ignorance), she began to teach me the rudiments on how to use a computer. To cut the story short, after a sleepless night cramming on the report, I discovered that the Mac was indeed user-friendly (that's when I knew what that meant), much, much, much better than a typewriter! The report was submitted just in the nick of time. Since then my fear with the computer has turned into a fascination. It continues to this day.

Infotech (use this kung gusto ka nga mura ka'g korik paminawon) has changed, evolved and developed so fast it is so difficult to keep up with it. Me, I have evolved from desktop publishing to using it to pester my friends with junk e-mails, to chat with my children and my soon-to-be tech-savvy grandchildren, to download songs and pictures, to read all daily newspapers both local and national, to read books, view videos and dvds, to play songs, burn cds, etc. ---almost anything. Anything that will make it appear that I am always busy.

And now, the blog.

One aspect about the internet I've been trying to understand is the blog. After visiting so many blogspots in the net --political commentaries and gossips mostly-- this idea of establishing a blogspot, where friends and townmates from Nabunturan could communicate, came about.

The technology has made the world so small. A great means for many of us to get in touch with each other. No matter where we are now. To find out about relatives, classmates and friends. Even know fellow tagabungtods we have not known before--the younger generation, the newcomers, the forgotten. Know what is happening in our town--the hills, the mountains, Mainit springs, the gold rush, the forests (or whatever is left of it), who stayed, who left, who left and came back, who has gone to the great beyond. Everyone, whose heart and soul have been touched by this small town called Nabunturan, I'm sure, would care to know.

I hope you will support this blog and contribute to it. Make it a reality. This blog will be open to all tagabungtod who want to post something or anything (basta dili lang about relihiyon, politika, eskandalo ug libelous). Commentaries, news, experiences, memories, issues, gossips, questions, anecdotes, ideas, suggestions, events, advocacies, tagalog, bisaya, minansaka, pictures, videos, etc. Whether you are taga-crossing or taga-palengke, bol-anong dako, mandaya, mansaka, ilocano, sugbuanon, ilonggo, asumsyonista or taga-probinsyal (compre na karon!), taga-gobyerno or pribado, karaan or bag-ohan, basta kay taga Nabunturan, write and we will post. Send whatever you want posted to danimyt@ymail.com or tiroltrino@yahoo.com. Or, better still, give your comments for everyone to read in any of the posts that will be published.

Welcome to our blogspot.

TRINO G. TIROL
blog administrator