My Place in Pulilan
For each of us, there is a place which has the power to evoke memories from a special time in our lives. A place whose images bring us back to a time of wonderment and innocence, images that have lasted the onslaught of years, impervious to milestones and subsequent experiences which, though they may be more glorious and bold, have not drowned the mainspring of who we are, what we are, and how we came to be.
I had been to many places in my lifetime. My journey has taken me to five of the seven continents covering, as of last count, half a hundred cities in over two dozen countries, clocking no less than a million miles in Northwest/KLM alone. Yet none of these places could take my breath away, make time stand still, and cause my mind to wander off to another time by the mere mention of its name in the way that one small town, not too far from where I am today, can do.
Let me take you on a journey to my special place.
As an introduction, allow me to state that I am a Tagalog. I’ve got Bicolano, Spanish, Portuguese, Malay and (for good measure) maybe even some Chinese in me but for most parts, I am a Tagalog.
Though my province has produced illustrious names including the two del Pilars, Marcelo and Gregorio, Trinidad Tecson, Mariano Ponce, and Pio Valenzuela, among others, it is quite surprising that it has not produced a single Philippine president. But while only few of its sons and daughters were able to ascend to national stature in the realm of politics, it has more than its fair share of artists, writers and poets including national artists Virgilio Almario, Nicanor Abelardo, Amado V. Hernandez, and Jose Corazon de Jesus. Bulacan, after all, is the birthplace of Francisco Balagtas and of the balagtasan!
Let me be candid and say that none of these distinguished gentlemen whose names I just mentioned come from my beloved town, Pulilan. And while some historians place one of the ancient lords of Pulilan as a witness to the inscription of the country’s oldest surviving written record, my town’s hold on the national consciousness is most likely limited to its celebrated fiesta.
As a young boy, I remember peeking through the barandillas below the windows in our ancestral house to watch the old ladies dressed in baro’t saya while they danced the pandanggo and the marching band played folk songs even older than the ladies. In the afternoon during the fiesta, we would all watch the carabaos on parade, with their horns and hooves oiled for extra sheen, their hair shaved in a pattern. Most are adorned with flowers and ribbons and a few would be pulling carts just as fancily embellished. They are on their way to church in the kabayanan where the carabaos would kneel obediently as the farmers and their beasts pay homage to San Isidro Labrador, the town’s patron.
My maternal grandparent’s house, so I was told, is the oldest bahay na bato in our barrio of Balatong, named after soy beans which I never saw ever being planted there. That is the house where my mother’s family grew up in and so whenever we were in Bulacan, that’s where we stayed. Sometimes, four families --including ours and those of my other Manila-based cousins --would sleep there. We would lay down the woven mats and hang the mosquito nets and --presto!--we would all fit in. Either the living room, with its wide apitong floor planks were that spacious, or because we were simply small.
Only its ground floor was made of stone from thick and wide adobe laid down alternately and without steel reinforcements. It was originally used as a garage for the calesa although at the time of my youth, it merely served as a warehouse of sorts for sacks of palay and darak. The rest of the house was made almost entirely of wood from its trusses to its posts, sidings and walls. It was cozy and a gentle breeze would constantly pass through it owing to its large ventanas and ventanillas. Except for the old ivory statue which rested prominently atop the altar, the furnishings were modest and few and so we were free to run and play to our hearts desire without fear of bumping into or breaking anything.
The Cabrals of Pulilan were not at all as prominent as those from neighboring Hagonoy. But in the barrios of Balatong and Inaon where they resided, they were distinct because of their hispanic features. I took after my Lolo Temyong. Maybe not anywhere as handsome but enough to make me my Lola Kulasa’s favorite apo. Especially after Lolo died, whenever school was off, I would be my Lola’s frequent companion. In the summer, I would spend more time in Pulilan than any of my siblings and more than any of my other Manila cousins, in fact.
And so, I would know secrets about that house that none of them ever knew about. For example, on the floor in the bedroom underneath the almario, there used to be a secret door leading to a compartment where two, maybe three adults could squeeze. During the Japanese occupation, it was used for hiding purposes whenever sakang soldiers would inspect houses for guerillas. Lola Kulasa told me stories about the war and how at that time, the ceilings were used for storing rice which was in short supply because nobody farmed the fields. How, quite fortunately, they never ran out of rice until the American liberation.
Breakfasts in the old house are a treat. I can’t remember any place else in the world where champorado could taste so divine. Or carabao’s milk poured onto a bowl of fried rice with daing on the side. The bibingka? Or pandesal na putok generously smothered with butter from that shining red can? Or fried duck eggs? Or ensaymada straight from Malolos?
Although at that time in the 70s, the old house was already equipped with a refrigerator, the old paminggalan was still there and it never ran out of anything that can be pinched and eaten between meals. From the banggeras in the dining room and kitchen, one could see the pens where the chickens were kept and beyond the yard were rice fields as far as the eyes could see.
Kuya Enteng, the youngest of my Pulilan cousins although still a few years older than I, was always assigned to take care of me. (Years later, when he started going to college in Manila, he would shed the “Enteng” in favor of the more cosmopolitan “Vic”.) Together, we would take long walks. Sometimes even all the way to bayan which was at least five kilometers away. Along the road, we would take detours picking caimito or chico where we can. When in season, balimbing and macopa would fall and lay scattered on the ground. Even camachile which I never liked but would pick anyway because Nana Minang, my aunt, likes them.
In May, we would pick common flowers. Anything from kalasusi, santan, gumamela, even kampupot and take it to the visita, the small barrio chapel. Kuya Enteng told me that flowers are to be offered to the Virgen Milagrosa and that in lieu of flowers, one has to pray the rosary where each Hail Mary represents the equivalent of one rose. Picking flowers is a lot easier so that’s what we did.
At night, we would go downstairs to the bodega with flashlights in tow. The best and biggest spiders can only be caught in the late evenings. We were always on the look out for the gagambang kuryente, the fiercest of the various species of fighting spiders, but would take gagambang bahay just the same. We would place the poor creatures in matchboxes specially fitted with compartments separating one from the other. Once, I chanced on a gagambang salapitik which, when I took it back with me to Manila, won quite a number of bouts with rival spiders over a stick of walis tingting.
Among my constant playmates in Pulilan was a neighbor named Ramon who was also a Bedan but one grade younger than me. Theirs was the house in front of the basketball court and since the bigger folks usually played in the afternoon, we’d have the courts all to ourselves in the mornings! Together we would play ball for endless hours chanting Bedan cheers and singing the "Indian Yell". Each time we missed or fumbled, we’d blame it all or make fun of Ateneo, La Salle, Letran or Baste.
When we had enough money in our pockets, we’d drag our sweaty bodies and stop by Nana Celing’s store for “de bote” as we used to call softdrinks back then. My elders would frown on this. They’d rather we drink juice of some kind and they’d make juice from everything. Kalamansi, dayap, guyabano, sampaloc, kamias or santol. Forbidden to eat junk food, our merienda would almost always involve rice or its by-products. Sweet jam or ripe mangoes with rice, condensed milk poured on rice, minatamis na saging or langka with rice, ube halaya or leche flan with rice. Everything was fair game with rice. Alternately, we would eat suman, biko, espasol, puto or leftover bibingka from the night before.
Tata Eseng, being my mom’s oldest brother and patriarch of the clan, would always exhort the bachelors in the family: “Marami tayong bigas kaya’t kung kayo’y mag-aasawa, humanap kayo ng mula sa angkan na maraming ulam.” (Roughly, this translates as: “We come from a clan that has lots of rice so, if you’re going to get married, look for a spouse from a clan which has lots of viands.”)
Each time I had to come back to Manila, it was almost always with mixed emotions. Happy that I would be back with my family and siblings again. Sad because I would be leaving behind all the fun and the freedom of movement which I never get in the city. As kids, we were not allowed to play in the streets or outside the house and we know very few of our neighbors in Sampaloc.
In my early grade school years, I would begin the first few weeks of each school year shedding off the accent that I acquired in the summer. My burgis classmates, most of whom are exposed only to Manila-style Tagalog, found it odd to listen to me speak obscure words they have not heard of. I once recited “Invictus” in front of the class with my impeccable Bulakeño accent and my seatmate thought I was hilarious! Imitation, so they say, is the highest form of flattery. I didn’t think so. How many fights did I get myself into defending the honor of my heritage as other boys get overboard in imitating the way I spoke?
Soon enough, I would get rid of the accent. But the depth of my Tagalog vocabulary and my talent in verbal fencing never went away. Having been exposed to such colorful and poetic language, I can conjure at least fifty ways to say that a classmate is stupid. And while the average San Beda boy could only muster four or five synonyms for the word “ugly”, I could whip up a whole litany of how ugly I think he is and how he got to be so. Haha! Among my pals, I usually came up with the best explanation of why a teacher’s hair was combed a certain way, or why a passerby walks with a limp. I put this talent into good use writing poems in Tagalog for “Ani”, our annual literary magazine.
During schooldays, I would miss the afternoon siestas and the evening stories of kapres, tiyanaks, dwendes and aswangs which the womenfolk never seem to run out of. I would miss lying down on my Lola’s lap while I watch her and Nana Minang prepare nganga. How they would spread the apog and mascada on the ikmo leaf. Cut a piece of hitso using a strangely shaped scissor called kalukate and grind it in an adobe mortar using an oversized bolt as pestle. The rationale they often gave for chewing nganga was to make their teeth strong and this would elicit laughter because my Lola was bungal.
The food too, I would miss. Simple as they may be, such viands as pinangat na sapsap, pritong kanduli, tapang usa, hinalabos na hipon, adobong pinatuyo, even the more humdrum paksiw na bangus, sinigang na baboy or tinapang salinas dipped in halubebay never tasted quite the same back in Manila. Perhaps it’s the breeze. The lawiswis ng kawayan that accompanies every Pulilan mealtime. Or could it be that the mundane practice of putting a leg up on the bangko truly works wonders on the appetite?
And the champorado, I would crave for it over and over again.
It has been months since I was there. Nowadays, my family, my sisters and I would only go to Pulilan occasionally, each year less frequently than the year before. Only during birthdates and anniversaries celebrated at the pantyon where, after clearing vines away from the grilles and cleaning the chamber of dust and cobwebs, we would light candles, lay flowers and say our short prayers. My parents are both gone and at their request, they were buried there at the family mausoleum in the town cemetery beside the church of San Isidro.
We seldom go to bukid, if at all. As my grandparents and my mother’s generation, aunts and uncles, have all passed away and a good number of our cousins have relocated elsewhere, there is very little reason to go back to Balatong. There are fewer and fewer people still left there for us to visit, and we have no more place in which to stay. Though the barrio has not really changed that much (only apparently smaller) and a lot of the houses are as they were some decades back, we no longer recognize as many faces as we used to.
Last time I was there on an errand, I noticed that even the caimito tree where we used to pick fruit is still there. Leaves still dancing to the gentle sway of the wind, branches heavy with ripe fruit, sturdily standing tall inside what used to be Ka Orang’s yard. Should I stop by? But then, it dawned on me that she is no longer there.
Minutes later, with my son seated beside me, we drove pass our old house. I felt a bit of unease as I gazed at that sanctuary which was, once upon a time, so personal and familiar but which today has become so seemingly distant and reticent. There is a longing, an urge to show my son the secret doors, the places where the spiders hide, the rooms and the games we played in each, the stories told, the laughter shared. But that would be next to impossible. Strangers live there now.
And Ramon. My childhood friend and playmate no longer lives in the house across the basketball court. Two decades have already passed since he was shot in the middle of a demonstration at Mendiola a few weeks after former senator Benigno Aquino was himself murdered. Coming from two separate generations, these two Bedans shared the same fate and were both fallen by a bullet. One on the footsteps of a plane that brought him home, the other near the doorstep of his beloved alma mater. Ramon’s tomb lies along the path that leads to our pantyon.
Sad it is to realize that the only place in Pulilan I can still call my own is a tiny plot of land where loved ones I once saw in the flesh, very much alive, and who were all important parts of my life, have chosen to take their final stay. And they who were witnesses to my experience, whose testimonials could substantiate my claim to having once walked the streets and played the fields of this rustic town, they are now silent. Their lips could no longer affirm that I still belong to this place.
But for as long as I keep its endearing memories in my heart and its language rests in my tongue--- replete with its florid and fiery splendor---Pulilan will always have a special place in me.
Copyright ©2006 Ronnie C. Cabañes
Pindutin ITO upang mabasa ang salin sa Tagalog.
I had been to many places in my lifetime. My journey has taken me to five of the seven continents covering, as of last count, half a hundred cities in over two dozen countries, clocking no less than a million miles in Northwest/KLM alone. Yet none of these places could take my breath away, make time stand still, and cause my mind to wander off to another time by the mere mention of its name in the way that one small town, not too far from where I am today, can do.
Let me take you on a journey to my special place.
As an introduction, allow me to state that I am a Tagalog. I’ve got Bicolano, Spanish, Portuguese, Malay and (for good measure) maybe even some Chinese in me but for most parts, I am a Tagalog.
Though my province has produced illustrious names including the two del Pilars, Marcelo and Gregorio, Trinidad Tecson, Mariano Ponce, and Pio Valenzuela, among others, it is quite surprising that it has not produced a single Philippine president. But while only few of its sons and daughters were able to ascend to national stature in the realm of politics, it has more than its fair share of artists, writers and poets including national artists Virgilio Almario, Nicanor Abelardo, Amado V. Hernandez, and Jose Corazon de Jesus. Bulacan, after all, is the birthplace of Francisco Balagtas and of the balagtasan!
Let me be candid and say that none of these distinguished gentlemen whose names I just mentioned come from my beloved town, Pulilan. And while some historians place one of the ancient lords of Pulilan as a witness to the inscription of the country’s oldest surviving written record, my town’s hold on the national consciousness is most likely limited to its celebrated fiesta.
As a young boy, I remember peeking through the barandillas below the windows in our ancestral house to watch the old ladies dressed in baro’t saya while they danced the pandanggo and the marching band played folk songs even older than the ladies. In the afternoon during the fiesta, we would all watch the carabaos on parade, with their horns and hooves oiled for extra sheen, their hair shaved in a pattern. Most are adorned with flowers and ribbons and a few would be pulling carts just as fancily embellished. They are on their way to church in the kabayanan where the carabaos would kneel obediently as the farmers and their beasts pay homage to San Isidro Labrador, the town’s patron.My maternal grandparent’s house, so I was told, is the oldest bahay na bato in our barrio of Balatong, named after soy beans which I never saw ever being planted there. That is the house where my mother’s family grew up in and so whenever we were in Bulacan, that’s where we stayed. Sometimes, four families --including ours and those of my other Manila-based cousins --would sleep there. We would lay down the woven mats and hang the mosquito nets and --presto!--we would all fit in. Either the living room, with its wide apitong floor planks were that spacious, or because we were simply small.
Only its ground floor was made of stone from thick and wide adobe laid down alternately and without steel reinforcements. It was originally used as a garage for the calesa although at the time of my youth, it merely served as a warehouse of sorts for sacks of palay and darak. The rest of the house was made almost entirely of wood from its trusses to its posts, sidings and walls. It was cozy and a gentle breeze would constantly pass through it owing to its large ventanas and ventanillas. Except for the old ivory statue which rested prominently atop the altar, the furnishings were modest and few and so we were free to run and play to our hearts desire without fear of bumping into or breaking anything.
The Cabrals of Pulilan were not at all as prominent as those from neighboring Hagonoy. But in the barrios of Balatong and Inaon where they resided, they were distinct because of their hispanic features. I took after my Lolo Temyong. Maybe not anywhere as handsome but enough to make me my Lola Kulasa’s favorite apo. Especially after Lolo died, whenever school was off, I would be my Lola’s frequent companion. In the summer, I would spend more time in Pulilan than any of my siblings and more than any of my other Manila cousins, in fact.
And so, I would know secrets about that house that none of them ever knew about. For example, on the floor in the bedroom underneath the almario, there used to be a secret door leading to a compartment where two, maybe three adults could squeeze. During the Japanese occupation, it was used for hiding purposes whenever sakang soldiers would inspect houses for guerillas. Lola Kulasa told me stories about the war and how at that time, the ceilings were used for storing rice which was in short supply because nobody farmed the fields. How, quite fortunately, they never ran out of rice until the American liberation.
Breakfasts in the old house are a treat. I can’t remember any place else in the world where champorado could taste so divine. Or carabao’s milk poured onto a bowl of fried rice with daing on the side. The bibingka? Or pandesal na putok generously smothered with butter from that shining red can? Or fried duck eggs? Or ensaymada straight from Malolos?
Although at that time in the 70s, the old house was already equipped with a refrigerator, the old paminggalan was still there and it never ran out of anything that can be pinched and eaten between meals. From the banggeras in the dining room and kitchen, one could see the pens where the chickens were kept and beyond the yard were rice fields as far as the eyes could see.
Kuya Enteng, the youngest of my Pulilan cousins although still a few years older than I, was always assigned to take care of me. (Years later, when he started going to college in Manila, he would shed the “Enteng” in favor of the more cosmopolitan “Vic”.) Together, we would take long walks. Sometimes even all the way to bayan which was at least five kilometers away. Along the road, we would take detours picking caimito or chico where we can. When in season, balimbing and macopa would fall and lay scattered on the ground. Even camachile which I never liked but would pick anyway because Nana Minang, my aunt, likes them.In May, we would pick common flowers. Anything from kalasusi, santan, gumamela, even kampupot and take it to the visita, the small barrio chapel. Kuya Enteng told me that flowers are to be offered to the Virgen Milagrosa and that in lieu of flowers, one has to pray the rosary where each Hail Mary represents the equivalent of one rose. Picking flowers is a lot easier so that’s what we did.
At night, we would go downstairs to the bodega with flashlights in tow. The best and biggest spiders can only be caught in the late evenings. We were always on the look out for the gagambang kuryente, the fiercest of the various species of fighting spiders, but would take gagambang bahay just the same. We would place the poor creatures in matchboxes specially fitted with compartments separating one from the other. Once, I chanced on a gagambang salapitik which, when I took it back with me to Manila, won quite a number of bouts with rival spiders over a stick of walis tingting.
Among my constant playmates in Pulilan was a neighbor named Ramon who was also a Bedan but one grade younger than me. Theirs was the house in front of the basketball court and since the bigger folks usually played in the afternoon, we’d have the courts all to ourselves in the mornings! Together we would play ball for endless hours chanting Bedan cheers and singing the "Indian Yell". Each time we missed or fumbled, we’d blame it all or make fun of Ateneo, La Salle, Letran or Baste.
When we had enough money in our pockets, we’d drag our sweaty bodies and stop by Nana Celing’s store for “de bote” as we used to call softdrinks back then. My elders would frown on this. They’d rather we drink juice of some kind and they’d make juice from everything. Kalamansi, dayap, guyabano, sampaloc, kamias or santol. Forbidden to eat junk food, our merienda would almost always involve rice or its by-products. Sweet jam or ripe mangoes with rice, condensed milk poured on rice, minatamis na saging or langka with rice, ube halaya or leche flan with rice. Everything was fair game with rice. Alternately, we would eat suman, biko, espasol, puto or leftover bibingka from the night before.
Tata Eseng, being my mom’s oldest brother and patriarch of the clan, would always exhort the bachelors in the family: “Marami tayong bigas kaya’t kung kayo’y mag-aasawa, humanap kayo ng mula sa angkan na maraming ulam.” (Roughly, this translates as: “We come from a clan that has lots of rice so, if you’re going to get married, look for a spouse from a clan which has lots of viands.”)
Each time I had to come back to Manila, it was almost always with mixed emotions. Happy that I would be back with my family and siblings again. Sad because I would be leaving behind all the fun and the freedom of movement which I never get in the city. As kids, we were not allowed to play in the streets or outside the house and we know very few of our neighbors in Sampaloc.
In my early grade school years, I would begin the first few weeks of each school year shedding off the accent that I acquired in the summer. My burgis classmates, most of whom are exposed only to Manila-style Tagalog, found it odd to listen to me speak obscure words they have not heard of. I once recited “Invictus” in front of the class with my impeccable Bulakeño accent and my seatmate thought I was hilarious! Imitation, so they say, is the highest form of flattery. I didn’t think so. How many fights did I get myself into defending the honor of my heritage as other boys get overboard in imitating the way I spoke?
Soon enough, I would get rid of the accent. But the depth of my Tagalog vocabulary and my talent in verbal fencing never went away. Having been exposed to such colorful and poetic language, I can conjure at least fifty ways to say that a classmate is stupid. And while the average San Beda boy could only muster four or five synonyms for the word “ugly”, I could whip up a whole litany of how ugly I think he is and how he got to be so. Haha! Among my pals, I usually came up with the best explanation of why a teacher’s hair was combed a certain way, or why a passerby walks with a limp. I put this talent into good use writing poems in Tagalog for “Ani”, our annual literary magazine.
During schooldays, I would miss the afternoon siestas and the evening stories of kapres, tiyanaks, dwendes and aswangs which the womenfolk never seem to run out of. I would miss lying down on my Lola’s lap while I watch her and Nana Minang prepare nganga. How they would spread the apog and mascada on the ikmo leaf. Cut a piece of hitso using a strangely shaped scissor called kalukate and grind it in an adobe mortar using an oversized bolt as pestle. The rationale they often gave for chewing nganga was to make their teeth strong and this would elicit laughter because my Lola was bungal.
The food too, I would miss. Simple as they may be, such viands as pinangat na sapsap, pritong kanduli, tapang usa, hinalabos na hipon, adobong pinatuyo, even the more humdrum paksiw na bangus, sinigang na baboy or tinapang salinas dipped in halubebay never tasted quite the same back in Manila. Perhaps it’s the breeze. The lawiswis ng kawayan that accompanies every Pulilan mealtime. Or could it be that the mundane practice of putting a leg up on the bangko truly works wonders on the appetite?
And the champorado, I would crave for it over and over again.
It has been months since I was there. Nowadays, my family, my sisters and I would only go to Pulilan occasionally, each year less frequently than the year before. Only during birthdates and anniversaries celebrated at the pantyon where, after clearing vines away from the grilles and cleaning the chamber of dust and cobwebs, we would light candles, lay flowers and say our short prayers. My parents are both gone and at their request, they were buried there at the family mausoleum in the town cemetery beside the church of San Isidro.
We seldom go to bukid, if at all. As my grandparents and my mother’s generation, aunts and uncles, have all passed away and a good number of our cousins have relocated elsewhere, there is very little reason to go back to Balatong. There are fewer and fewer people still left there for us to visit, and we have no more place in which to stay. Though the barrio has not really changed that much (only apparently smaller) and a lot of the houses are as they were some decades back, we no longer recognize as many faces as we used to.Last time I was there on an errand, I noticed that even the caimito tree where we used to pick fruit is still there. Leaves still dancing to the gentle sway of the wind, branches heavy with ripe fruit, sturdily standing tall inside what used to be Ka Orang’s yard. Should I stop by? But then, it dawned on me that she is no longer there.
Minutes later, with my son seated beside me, we drove pass our old house. I felt a bit of unease as I gazed at that sanctuary which was, once upon a time, so personal and familiar but which today has become so seemingly distant and reticent. There is a longing, an urge to show my son the secret doors, the places where the spiders hide, the rooms and the games we played in each, the stories told, the laughter shared. But that would be next to impossible. Strangers live there now.
And Ramon. My childhood friend and playmate no longer lives in the house across the basketball court. Two decades have already passed since he was shot in the middle of a demonstration at Mendiola a few weeks after former senator Benigno Aquino was himself murdered. Coming from two separate generations, these two Bedans shared the same fate and were both fallen by a bullet. One on the footsteps of a plane that brought him home, the other near the doorstep of his beloved alma mater. Ramon’s tomb lies along the path that leads to our pantyon.
Sad it is to realize that the only place in Pulilan I can still call my own is a tiny plot of land where loved ones I once saw in the flesh, very much alive, and who were all important parts of my life, have chosen to take their final stay. And they who were witnesses to my experience, whose testimonials could substantiate my claim to having once walked the streets and played the fields of this rustic town, they are now silent. Their lips could no longer affirm that I still belong to this place.
But for as long as I keep its endearing memories in my heart and its language rests in my tongue--- replete with its florid and fiery splendor---Pulilan will always have a special place in me.
Copyright ©2006 Ronnie C. Cabañes
Pindutin ITO upang mabasa ang salin sa Tagalog.
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