Some places shape you before you understand what they are doing. The island of Marinduque was that kind of place—a heart-shaped province at the center of an archipelago, where the sound of the sea and the rhythm of the harvest were the earliest memories of childhood. This is where my story began.
The Philippines is an archipelago in Southeast Asia, located south of Japan, the Land of the Rising Sun. The country was named after King Philip II, the ruler of Spain when Spanish explorers first arrived. The nation is composed of 7,641 islands, one of which is the province of Marinduque. A geodetic marker placed by American surveyors in 1911 in the town of Mogpog defines the Luzon Datum, marking the exact center of the country. This datum is the traditional reference point used for mapping and surveying in the Philippines. Some observers say the group of islands looks like a sitting old man holding a cigarette, represented by the long island of Palawan. I personally see the archipelago as a turtle with its back toward the Pacific Ocean. Even without the survey marker, people describe Marinduque as the heart of the Philippines because of its location and its shape, which looks like a heart.
I was born in the town of Boac in Marinduque during the summer of 1966. My parents were very young when I was born. My mother, Consuelo, whom everyone called Siloh, was told by her family that she was born on February 27, 1948, although her birth certificate registered a later date. Since my mother had celebrated her birthday yearly on the twenty-seventh of February, it was a great surprise when the discrepancy was discovered only much later, when she was already a grandmother. My father, Cesar, was born one day earlier, on February 26, 1948. Both parents were born in the same leap year, when February had twenty-nine days. These birthdates carry a numerical alignment: my father's birthday is exactly seventy-seven days before May 14, 1948, the day the State of Israel was proclaimed. My mother's birthday is exactly seventy-seven days before May 15, 1948, the day Israel was officially established. These two periods of seventy-seven days align with the biblical prophecy of seventy sevens in the Book of Daniel. My parents eloped and had a civil wedding on November 2, 1965, which was the forty-eighth anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, before holding a church ceremony in January of the following year. They had just turned eighteen when I, their first child, was born on June 12, 1966—the sixty-eighth anniversary of Philippine Independence.
Much of my childhood homestead remains vivid in my mind. It was a quiet place located below the mountains, surrounded by coconut palms and fruit trees. Animals were everywhere: horses, pigs, dogs, cats, chickens, ducks, and doves. The front of the house faced the ocean, which lay about two hundred meters away. To the far left, a river flowed toward the sea. The river provided food and clean water for the families and animals in our village. There were deep spots where children could jump and swim while mothers washed the family laundry. The grassy mountain slopes near the river were perfect for sliding, and the flat ground below served as our baseball field during summer vacations.
The main road, where most of our neighbors lived, was closer to the beach than our house. Our home was a bungalow built partly of concrete and partly of native materials. The concrete section featured a balcony for receiving visitors, which connected to the kitchen and two adjacent rooms. One room was used for storage, and the other was the bedroom of my grandparents.
The native section of the house was elevated on wooden posts, with bamboo stairs leading to a separate balcony entrance. This section contained two rooms for my parents and the children. The room nearest the balcony was where we all slept together on the bamboo floor. The bamboo slats kept the room cool during the hot season and cold when the weather turned. The second room held our belongings. My mother kept her clothes in a wooden closet, while my father hung his work clothes and underwear on a wire tied between the walls. Two wooden chests held our everyday clothing, and a bamboo stand in the corner held our pillows and blankets.
A staircase from the elevated balcony led down to the concrete kitchen, where the entire family gathered for meals. My grandfather always returned from his business trips with food, and meat was a regular part of our weekend meals.
My grandmother, Lola Adang, whose name was Leonarda, was a beautiful, gentle woman who was devoted to my grandfather, Lolo Imo, whose name was Maximo. The large portraits on our wall showed how lovely they looked as a young couple. Lolo Imo was a retired soldier. He was active and energetic in his business, and he often spoke with pride about surviving bullet wounds during the Second World War. Despite surviving the war, my grandfather suffered from a persistent cough that became a normal sound in our daily lives.
Lolo Imo was a disciplined and responsible businessman. He purchased pigs in Marinduque and shipped them to neighboring provinces. He earned enough to buy a radio-phonograph when most families in our village did not even own a simple radio. Lolo Imo also dug a water pump in front of our house, which he rebuilt several times when the well ran dry. Our water pump was open to the neighbors, as few households in the area had their own source of water. We also kept horses and a kalesa—a horse-drawn carriage that was a common form of public transportation alongside jeepneys.Why is the kalesa important?This horse-drawn carriage represents Lolo Imo's livelihood, and its tragic loss will mark a turning point for our family.
During Christmas and New Year, the homestead was filled with food and celebration. Neighbors would arrive the day before to help slaughter animals and prepare dishes. Guests danced, drank, and took packages of food home. The fruit trees around the house—avocados, papayas, guavas, star apples, mangoes, jackfruits, and bananas—always yielded abundant fruit. During the rainy season, wild mushrooms grew in clusters nearby, and sweet potatoes grew naturally on the mountain slopes. We had many toys, including a large doll of mine with eyes that opened and closed. A photographer would occasionally visit the house, and my parents hung two large framed portraits of my younger brother and me on the wall.
As the head of the family, Lolo Imo was also the disciplinarian. He would strike my younger brother and me with the leather whip he used for his horses when we refused to obey or when we argued. My grandfather would not stop the discipline until we promised to behave. Lola Adang would then quickly rub coconut oil on our welts and comfort us. Although the physical pain from the whip was severe, I never resented Lolo Imo. He remained a loving grandfather for the short time we had him. I gladly performed small tasks for my grandfather, such as pulling out his white hairs until he fell asleep.
My grandparents had three children, who were all married: my uncle, the eldest, who lived a short walk away; my aunt, who lived near the town center; and my mother, the youngest. Although Lolo Imo and Lola Adang had older grandchildren, I was the first grandchild to live in their house, which made me the closest to them. My grandfather would let me ride on the back of his horse as he walked it, or drive me to school in his kalesa. My grandparents loved going to the cinema, and they would bring me along. When the movie house was crowded, Lolo Imo would carry me on his shoulders. At night, they made me sleep between them. When my grandfather traveled for business, Lola Adang and I kept each other company, waiting to see what gifts my grandfather would bring home.
The peace of those early years did not last. One morning, Lolo Imo prepared to travel for business. He decided to take my younger brother, Ramir, who had a cold, to see a doctor in the town center. My grandfather also took another young cousin with him to help with the work afterward. The destination could be reached by driving around the main road or by crossing the river. Since there was no bridge, carriages and jeepneys had to drive through the flowing water. I had crossed the river on both jeepneys and the kalesa, and the kalesa always felt safer because its large wooden wheels kept the passenger cabin high above the water.
That afternoon, my grandfather took the shorter route across the river on his kalesa, carrying the two children and several piglets he had purchased. The piglets were tied inside sacks to prevent them from moving. Unaware of the danger, Lolo Imo drove into the water. The carriage suddenly dropped into a deep hole in the riverbed, created by illegal sand and gravel quarrying. The kalesa, the horse, and the passengers were swept downstream by the rushing current. With the help of bystanders, my grandfather saved the children and recovered the carriage, but the horse and the piglets drowned. Although the family was relieved that the children returned home safely, the loss of the horse was devastating to Lolo Imo's livelihood.
We cared for our horses like family pets, brushing their coats and cleaning their hooves. Losing the horse in the river was a severe blow to Lolo Imo. He tried to continue his business with his remaining horse, but the accident caused his health to decline rapidly. His persistent cough grew worse. I was in the second grade when my grandfather was admitted to the provincial hospital. The hospital room had six beds, filled with weak and coughing patients. Lolo Imo stayed in the hospital for a long time. My father remained by my grandfather's bedside day and night, while Lola Adang prepared and brought the meals. I often spent the night in the room with my grandmother. Watching patients pass away in the neighboring beds made the concept of death familiar to me, but I never imagined my grandfather would suffer the same fate. Lolo Imo was a strong man who had survived bullets in the war. We believed he would recover from a cough. But one afternoon, my grandfather suffered a sudden attack, and the medical staff could not save him. Lolo Imo died in the hospital.
The funeral wake was held at the spacious house of my uncle, Lolo Imo's eldest son, which was located along the main road. Many relatives and neighbors came to offer their condolences. I met many relatives for the first time during that week of mourning. We grieved deeply. The pain in my chest felt suffocating, and I could not accept that my grandfather was gone forever. Other relatives wept over the coffin, wondering how the family would survive without the head of the household. No one was prepared for the loss, and I was not prepared for the difficult years that awaited us.
The wake lasted for seven days, ending with the painful moment when the coffin was lowered into a narrow grave in the earth.
In the same year that Lolo Imo died, my mother gave birth to her fourth child, a baby girl. A kind and beautiful nurse named Venus had attended to my grandfather in the provincial hospital. Everyone in the family who knew Nurse Venus was fond of her. In fact, my newborn sister was named after her. Before Venus, my sister Vilma was born on October 28, 1971. She was named after my mother's favorite movie star. Between Vilma and me was our brother, Ramir, who was born in 1969. By the age of nine, I had three younger siblings, and our family had to face a completely different life without the strength of Lolo Imo.
Everything that came afterward — the choices, the endurance, the desire to build something better — was planted here, in the soil of Marinduque. The grandfather who disciplined and loved her, the grandmother who caught crabs at dawn, the father who carried more than his body should bear — they were her first teachers. She did not know yet that life would take her far from this island, but the values forged here would be the only things she could never lose.