MY PLACE IN PULILAN
By Rocky Cabral Cabanes
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 as
the two del Pilars,
Tecson, Ponce, and 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.
The Cabrals of Pulilan were not at all 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?
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 Bulakeno 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, tinapang
salinas dipped in halubebay or sinigang na baboy
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.
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
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--magnificent
in all its florid and fiery splendor--rests in my
tongue, Pulilan will always have a special place in
me.