apropos to aning p’s sagay urban legend

aning p’s urban legend is that house on corner maranon and cueva streets in sagay, where the marble dining table bore witness to innumerable stories and plots of movie and soap-teleserye material.  the house that lolo pidong and lola vacing built…

… where nanay felicing first stayed and was warmly welcomed by her cousin lolo pidong, who invited her to relocate from  iloilo after the war (WWII), while nanay was still struggling to make a new life in negros…

…that with its huge fiesta spread nanay didnt think it necessary that we do our own (because that would mean closing down the store for the day… yawat pa/sayang ang kita), so she’d send us off across the street to bring our contribution of grocery and stuff.  sometimes i’d grumble because i so wanted to invite friends and classmates from out of town to our house …

… with the tambis (macopa) tree that perhaps heard and attested as much as the dining table … the bountiful harvest of tambis fruits sold by tita bebing in what was among her  first commercial forays as a girl, foretelling the business acumen that she’d exercise to the max as an adult …

…. where the san jose ritual is observed every 19th of march,  a quaint practice, a peaen to sagay’s patron saint…

... where i cooked my first lasagna with thirdy, using fresh basil leaves grown in a pot by tita lyn. its actually thirdy’s lasagna and i just sort of kibitzed and pretended as if i’ve been cooking lasagna since forever (hehehe).  the dish turned out to be runny but yummy all the same … 

… home to tito freddie’s and tita lyn’s brood of seven, with beds lined up in two rooms like those of the seven dwarves …  

… and where the cuzins would have wondrous memories of their own.

 d maranon-cueva-sarrosa cuzins with lola vacing

siopao?

when one of my luggage didnt make it to UB when i came in june, so didnt my stock of undies.  i managed with three sets for some weeks.

a friend in manila kindly sent several pairs through a male friend who’s working in mongolia but went home briefly for an emergency leave.  the courier packed the lingerie in his hand-carried luggage.

at the airport, my friend the courier had this dialogue with the guard, who was inspecting the hand-carried bags of passengers as they were entering the waiting lounge prior to departure.

guard  [nakapa ang padded bra ] :     sir, ano po ito, siopao?  [”sir, is this siopao?” the guard asked as he     felt the bra inside the bag]                                                                                   

rc-u (my courier friend)    :    hindi, bra yan [”no, that’s a bra”]  

guard    :    sir, ano po ang trabaho nyo?  [sir, whats your job?]

rc-u       :    nagtuturo pag araw, ago-go dancer sa gabi [teaching during the day, ago-go dancing at night]

bwahahaha!!

rc-u is actually a consultant for a mongolian government project funded by a multi-lateral organization.  he has a doctorate in construction engineering.  he’s mean with the magic mic but absolutely no ago-go dancing for him on the side

for my non-filipino friends -  ” siopao”  is chinese steamed bun. 

bad hair day/s

been feeling off  these past couple of days.  slight  temperature,  muscle pains and a bit of gum swelling.  

one of those times when the longing  for some “lambing”  heightens the wanting to be in phnom penh, to be fussed about by the HOJ angels and to be fed with sophal’s trey sngao (lemon and mint fish soup).  or in bacolod, for manang bebe’s laswa (mixed local veggie soup) and to share felice’s grilled fish with a “toyo-calamansi”  dip. interesting how food has become a quintessential  mark of the “haplos ng pagmamahal.”  

no such luxury in UB thus one learns to cope.

and what does one do when none of your friends have callled nor sent text messages to ask how you are?  nothing. much too occupied with their own business, which you happen to be not part of.  so you stare at the ceiling and wish it’s morning when you can be again up, peppy and smiling.  

apathy, ignorance and incompetence

driving home one night in UB, a friend witnessed an abduction and most likely a prelude to rape.  two men grabbed a woman walking by the street.  my friend and a colleague were in a car.   there were several other cars in front and behind them.  as the woman struggled, my friend furiously honked his horn to catch the men’s attention.  the men then punched the woman on the stomach and carried her cave man-like, hieing off into the darkness. 

my first thoughts  were -  shouldnt have my friend done something other than honk his horn? would getting out of the car to help the woman wise?  or not?  then call the police? but will the police be able to come fast enough and respond well enough?  most likely not.   what should have others who may have witnessed the incident done?

ideally, i think:  

a]  those who saw what was happening could have taken action collectively, eg. not just one person honking but the entire fleet of cars perhaps, or several people could have gotten out of their cars and helped the woman.  [the smart aleck would ask, ” why should i, its the police’s business none of mine”  and ” what if the molesters were armed?”  well then, what if they weren’t?  the next course of action depends] .  this is called citizens’ action. 

b]   the woman could have been armed with some self protective skills, eg. martial arts. or simply knowing what to do when assaulted and how to avoid being in a risky situation. 

c]   a better legal and justice system would have made those men think twice or thrice or prevent them from commiting such  an act.  laws could be more strict and law enforcement measures could be stronger.  these include putting up improved law enforcement systems and procedures, sensitization and competence development among law enforcers. 

we are unfortunately in a far less ideal world.   

sagay memory balls

two earlier posts “things familiar and not anymore” and “sagay urban legends”  snowballed into lively  memory exchanges by sagaynons, posted either as comments on this blog page or on the sagay city web’s guestbook.  

here i copied some of the memory balls of sagaynons from different parts of the world.  most of these were in ilonggo, which i tried to “englicise ” but could not fully do justice to  the “kasadya” or the fun  of reminiscing  in the native tongue . thus at some point in this entry i abandoned the attempts at translation.

a note on “memory balls”  — in the movie, the never ending story II, the sorceress sought to complete the destruction of fantasia and bring “nothingness”  by eliminating the memories and imagination of the boy bastian.  bastian’s memories were contained in memory balls. in his quest to save fantasia, he was tricked by the sorceress to give up his memory balls.  

let not the sagay that we knew be obliterated and reduced to “nothingness.”

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sagay urban legends

every place has them.   interesting characters, scenes or settings  that give a place its distinctive feel. sagay, where there’s a most fabulous sandbar in pinas, does have its share of  such “urban legends.”  

the fashionistas :  tita day and her beaded slip-ons or step-ins, well-coiffed tita neneng amy and her umbrella, tita marne in full tennis gear and glittering diamonds.  linda ni otay  is a breed of her own with her colorful skirts, peasant blouses, pedal pushers and hats.   definitely not to miss the rodriguez matriarch, tia suloy, in perennial red nail polish and red lipstick combo.  tia suloy stands out even in death.  her tomb, visible from the road to old sagay, is raised from the ground on four legs, reportedly to ward off ants and other creepy crawly creatures. 

three elderly gentlemen :  mr. parcon, tio iking lopez and lolo totong tupaz  who took early morning walks together. no fail at all, every morning they’d do the rounds from the market to the plaza and back… berets bobbing, canes a-tap-tapping.  (more…)