The Place Where Everything Began

Some places shape you before you know they are doing it. Marinduque was that kind of place — a heart-shaped island at the center of an archipelago, where the sound of the ocean and the rhythm of the harvest were the earliest things a child could remember. This is where the story begins.

The Philippines is an archipelago in Southeast Asia, just to the south of Japan, the Land of the Rising Sun. It was named after King Philip II, the ruler of Spain when Magellan discovered the archipelago. It is composed of 7,107 islands, one of which is called Marinduque, a province. A 1911 American marker located in one of its towns, Mogpog, attests to the fact that it is the exact center of the country. Some observers say the group of islands looks like a sitting old man holding a cigarette, symbolized by the long island of Palawan. I personally see it as a turtle with its back toward the Pacific Ocean. Even without the marker, people could say Marinduque is the heart of the Philippines because of its location and shape — which, incidentally, looks like a heart.

I was born in the town of Boac in Marinduque to a very young couple in 1966. My mother's name is Consuelo, but everyone calls her Silo. Though public records have the date her birth was registered as her birthdate, she was told that she was actually born on February 27, 1948. Interestingly, my father, Cesar, was born just a day before — on February 26, 1948. Being born on two consecutive days, their birthday celebrations were either combined or separate. They had a civil wedding in November 1965, when they eloped, and held a church wedding in January the following year. They had just turned eighteen when they had me as their first child.

A significant part of the memory of my childhood is still painted in my mind.

It was a quiet place right below the mountains, surrounded by coconut and fruit trees. The surroundings were all green, and there were animals everywhere — horses, pigs, dogs, cats, chickens, ducks, and doves. The house faced the ocean, which was about two hundred meters away. To its far left was a river, a good source of food and water for people and animals alike. There were spots where children could jump and swim while their mothers washed the family's clothes. The slopes of the mountain on the way to the river were perfect for sliding, and the flat area below it served as a baseball field during summer vacation.

The main road, along which most of our neighbors lived, was closer to the sea than our house. Ours was a bungalow made partly of concrete and partly of native materials. The concrete part had a balcony where visitors were received. It was connected to the kitchen, and from there were two more rooms. The room next to the kitchen was for storage, and the one beside it was my grandparents' bedroom.

Just like the concrete part, the native section of the house had a balcony and two rooms, but the floor was elevated, so there was a staircase leading to a separate entrance. The bedrooms were for my parents and us children. The one nearest the balcony was where we all slept together on the floor. Because it was made from bamboo, it was comparatively cool during the peak of the hot season — and colder when the season changed. The next room was for our belongings. There was a closet for clothes we wore on special occasions, but most of them belonged to my mother. On the right side was a bamboo stand for the pillows and blankets. On the left was a space for dirty clothes. Across from them were two wooden boxes where our everyday clothes were kept. My father's clothes had their own place — a thin wire tied between two perpendicular walls above, where he would hang his underwear and work clothes.

From the elevated balcony was another door and staircase leading down to the kitchen of the concrete part. That kitchen was where everybody would have meals together. My grandfather always came home with something to eat for us, and meat was a regular part of the weekend meal.

My grandmother, Lola Adang — Leonarda — was a beautiful woman, very gentle and devoted to my grandfather, Lolo Imo — Maximo. They looked lovely as a couple, as their big portraits hanging on the wall of the house showed. My grandfather was a retired soldier, but as far as I can remember, he was still very energetic and active in business. He used to brag about how he survived the bullets that hit him on several occasions during the war.

But he was not so lucky to have perfect health as a survivor. His cough was his constant companion, and we had gotten used to hearing it as though it were just a part of everyday life.

If there was one thing he gained from military service, it was his sense of responsibility and diligence. He was a comparatively successful businessman. He would buy pigs in Marinduque and sell them in the neighboring province outside the island. He earned well enough to afford even a radio phono — an old version of a CD player — when most households did not even have a radio. We also had our own water pump right in front of the house, which he had built more than once as the water dried out or became undrinkable. In those days, you needed to hire people to dig a deep hole in the ground where you wanted your pump built. There were only a few households with water pumps in the village, and they were too far from us for fetching water. Like others, our pump was open for our neighbors to use. We even had some horses and a kalesa — which was, next to jeepneys, a common means of transportation at the time.💡Why is the kalesa important?This humble horse-drawn carriage will reappear in a pivotal moment soon — and its loss will mark a turning point for the family.

There was a lot of food every Christmas and New Year's Eve. On special occasions, people would come the day before to slaughter animals and prepare the meals so that everything would be ready by morning. There was drinking and dancing, and some guests could take food home. There was always plenty — and the same was true of the fruit trees around the house. Depending on the season, there were avocados, papayas, guavas, star apples, mangoes, jackfruits, bananas, and of course coconuts, among others. Mushrooms would grow nearby, and you would enjoy finding one cluster after another during rainy days. There was also an abundance of a kind of sweet potato that grew naturally in the mountains.

We never ran out of things to play with either. Toys were plentiful. I had my own big doll with eyes that would close and open. A cameraman used to come occasionally to the house to take our pictures. Two enlarged photos of me and my younger brother, with familiar backgrounds, were hung separately on the wall alongside other picture frames. One could tell from our faces that they were taken when we had just started to walk.

As the head of the family, my grandfather was also the disciplinarian. He would hit me and my younger brother with a whip when we refused to do what he asked or when we fought over something. The whip was the one he used on his horses when driving the kalesa. He would not stop until we promised not to do it again. Lola Adang would then quickly rush over to rub coconut oil on the welts and say something to comfort us. Although the pain from the whip was terrible, I never learned to disrespect or resent Lolo Imo. He was still the kind and loving grandfather that I had — for a very short time. I would gladly do things for him, like pulling out his white hairs one by one until he fell asleep.

My grandparents had three children, all married: my uncle, the eldest, who lived a few-minute walk from us; my aunt, who lived near the town proper; and my mother, the youngest. Though Lolo and Lola had grandchildren born before me, I was the first grandchild to live with them — and therefore the closest to them. My grandfather would sometimes let me ride at the back of his horse as he walked it, or take me to and from school with his kalesa. He and my grandmother loved going to the movies, and they would bring me along even when the movie house was so crowded he had to carry me on his shoulders. They would sometimes make me sleep between them at night. When my grandfather was away on business, my grandmother and I would enjoy each other's company, looking forward to seeing what he would bring home.

But the joy of those days was cut short.

Like any other day, Lolo Imo set out on business. Only this time, he was taking my younger brother Ramir, who had a cold, to see a doctor in the morning — and then bringing him and another young cousin along to work afterward. The place they went to that day could be reached from town either by going around through the main road or by crossing the river. Because there was no bridge, drivers had to pass through the rushing water itself. I myself had experienced crossing a river on both a jeepney and a kalesa. Being on a kalesa felt safer because its wheels were much larger in diameter; the chance of getting wet was smaller.

That fateful afternoon, Lolo Imo tried to take the shortcut on his kalesa, with his two young grandchildren and the piglets he had bought that day on board. The piglets were in sacks with their feet tied so they could not move and cause trouble.

Unaware of the danger, he tried to cross the river — but somewhere in the water, the whole kalesa, the horse, and the people on board suddenly dropped into a deep hole and were swept downstream. He managed to save the children and the kalesa with the help of some bystanders, but the horse and the piglets were not as fortunate. He later learned that quarrying had been done on the riverbed. In hindsight, there were precautions that should have been taken, and people who should have been held responsible. But what seemed to matter most then was that they came home safe.

It was a relief to see them alive, but we could not help feeling sorry for the loss. We had taken care of our horses like pets — they had their own shelter where food and water were served. We would brush their bodies and trim their manes from time to time. My father was the one who cleaned their hooves and replaced the horseshoes. We also knew how vital they were to my grandfather's livelihood, so losing one in an instant was devastating — especially for him.

Although he had coconut farms as another source of income, that was not enough to stop him from trying again with his remaining horse. But the accident had taken its toll on his health. His cough worsened. He began visiting doctors, but nothing improved. I was in second grade when he was admitted to the provincial hospital. There were six beds in his room, and the other patients looked no better than he did. He stayed there for a long time, and I would spend the night with my grandmother sometimes.

Lolo's regular companion day and night was my father. Lola Adang would bring him his meals. I saw patients come and go — some alive, some dead — and the sight of grieving families became less unfamiliar. I never imagined we would be in the same situation. My grandfather was a tough man who had survived bullets during the war. His coughing had to be nothing compared to that — or so everyone probably thought.

But suddenly, my grandfather had an attack. The hospital staff tried to save him, but it was too late.

He died. The wake was held at the house my grandparents used to live in but had given to their eldest son, who had a large family of his own. It was spacious and along the main road — more convenient in many ways. A lot of people came to pay their respects. I met relatives I had never known before.

We all grieved as if nobody had seen it coming. I had my own reasons to cry. There was so much pain in my chest, and the thought that he would be gone forever was suffocating. I did not want him to go. I wanted him to stay. Other grieving relatives would cry out over his coffin, asking why he had left them, wondering how their lives would be without him.

The wake lasted for a week. But the most painful part was the moment his coffin was lowered into a narrow hole in the ground.

Lola Adang remained with us instead of moving in with her other daughter, who had asked her to. There were times she would suddenly cry, and I would not know what to do but cry with her. We shared the bed she used to share with Lolo Imo. Early in the mornings, we would go to the beach together to catch crabs. She was very good at finding them in their holes. My job was to catch them before they reached the water whenever one slipped from her grip. With the crabs and the shells we collected during low tide, we would often get enough for one meal. Listening to radio dramas and playing bingo with the neighbors was her favorite pastime.

Without Lolo Imo, she had to depend on the coconut farms for her personal expenses while waiting for the pension she was supposed to receive as a veteran's widow. Someone had been entrusted with the documents needed for submission in Manila right after Lolo Imo's death. But perhaps confident that the money would come, she agreed to divide the land she had inherited among their three children. Before I knew it, the kalesa and the remaining horse were gone too — along with the other animals.💡Did the veteran's pension ever arrive?The fate of those documents — and the money — will surface in later chapters.

In the same year that Lolo Imo died, my mother gave birth to her fourth child — a baby girl. There was a nurse named Venus in the hospital who had regularly attended to my grandfather's needs. She was very pretty and kind, and everyone was fond of her, including my mother, who named her newborn daughter after her. Before Venus was another sister, Vilma, who was born on a 28th of October. Between Vilma and me was a boy, Ramir. And so, there I was — nine years old, with three younger siblings.

With my father as the new breadwinner and me as his eldest child, mountains of challenges lay ahead of us. When my grandfather was still well, my father had been the one in charge of coconut farming. But he was not the kind of man who would ask someone else to do things for him. He would rather do the work himself and only seek help when truly needed.

One of the reasons must have been his personality — he was not accustomed to expressing how he felt. He had no choice when it came to farming my grandfather's land, because my mother's elder brother also needed to support his large family. My uncle would bring as many of his own family members as possible to the harvest because the more hands they had, the higher their share would be.

Copra-making is exhausting work. Every step of the process requires more than ordinary strength. My father would do the most difficult part at every stage. First came picking the coconuts, using lengths of bamboo connected together with a sharp blade on the tip. After that, it was still a long process before the coconut became cash — and he would do most of it, because he moved fast and was stronger than the rest of them, perhaps even combined.

To balance the unequal distribution of labor, his only option was to add a member of his own family to the group to earn a larger share. And who else could he recruit but his eldest child?

It was not something I had to do every day, and it was not difficult at first. Nobody pressured me beyond what I could manage. But as I grew bigger, my father saw my potential. He began making me carry the bamboo poles and follow him wherever he went. The job was easier when the coconut trees were tall, because there were fewer poles to carry around. But those same tall trees made the work harder for my father, who had to maneuver the long poles from tree to tree by himself.

What I was doing was tough — especially when the trees were in the mountains or deep in the bush. Our feet, mine and my father's, told the whole story. They were wide, and the soles were hardened. It was actually easier to climb the mountains barefoot, because the toes could serve as brakes on the way down. One could also avoid stopping to fix slippers when the straps came loose. Slippers were useful when the trees were in the bush, though — a person never knew when they were in for an unwelcome surprise. The bush was where residents who had no toilets relieved themselves. Some would leave the waste in the open; others would cover it with leaves or soil. Either way, there was no telling where it was.

Emotionally, because when I was around, there was someone my father could release his frustrations to. He would scold me for my own mistakes and for what he did not like about how others worked. And I had gotten used to it. I became the shock absorber of his disappointments — the one always near him, by choice and by necessity.

I was always the one at home when he came back from work, if I could not join him in the field. When I could, I made sure the water containers in the kitchen and the bathroom were full, the house was clean, the pigs were fed, and — if time allowed — all the dirty clothes were washed by hand in the river. If I did not, he would do them himself after a full day's work. It would break your heart to watch him. I would hear passersby comment, "Why do you have to do that?" or "Have some rest! Even animals do."

Our water pump had dried out along with my grandfather's money, so fetching water had become a real burden. It took several trips, carrying pails or gallons, to and from a distant neighbor's pump to fill our big jars in the kitchen. The toilet was an additional chore. Unlike most houses with simple pit latrines, ours required water to flush. My mother mainly used it, and my father was in charge of maintaining it.

We also kept some pigs for extra income. I had no idea if it was worth the effort, because taking care of them was tough and time-consuming. They were fed at least twice a day with ground coconut and rice bran bought from the market or rice growers. The work was manageable when coconuts were readily available and already husked. Otherwise, I had to go searching for any that had fallen nearby.

My father would not trust me with washing his work clothes — he would rather do those himself, because they were extremely soiled from days of use. He would take all the family's dirty laundry with him to the river, but he would choose a spot away from the housewives who usually did their washing together.

My grandmother was a wonderful cook and the undisputed master of the kitchen. She could make something delicious out of whatever ingredients were available. I would bring my father his lunch in the field when possible. But some farms were too far to reach on foot, because he had begun to take on coconut land beyond my grandfather's property. Landowners would ask him to care for their trees and harvest whenever he saw fit. They would just collect their share when the work was done. There were also requests from other villages and towns, because he had earned a reputation for being quick, skilled, and efficient.

To an outsider, the reason he took on all those jobs was obvious. To a young eyewitness like me, it was something beyond comprehension.

My father was the eldest child of a very religious Catholic couple, Solomon and Maxima — nicknamed Omon and Sima. They lived in a village in Boac, Marinduque, about ten kilometers from where my maternal grandparents lived. Their house stood right at the foot of a mountain. There was a rough, unpaved road from town leading to the place, but it ended a few hundred meters past their house. No public transportation ran in the area except vehicles personally hired or owned by the residents. The place was ideal for farming, which was the common livelihood in the community.

Reading the Bible was a regular part of their routine, and saying the Rosary in the evening was a must — just as making the sign of the cross before every meal was. The prayer was always led by my grandmother, Lola Sima. She was deeply devout as a Catholic, but at least equally devoted as a housewife and mother. She would be the first to rise at dawn, while it was still dark, to prepare the family's breakfast — and the last to go to bed at night after everyone was settled, with mosquito nets in place. She would say her prayers again quietly; you would know she was finished when the room went dark. There was no electricity in the area, so gas lamps were used after sundown, and food was cooked over firewood. There was no running water either. It had to be fetched from wells and stored in big jars. Clothes were typically washed in the river, and that was where most people bathed too. Farmers took their animals there to drink and rest.

My grandmother, however, washed their family's clothes at home. She would even soak them in starch water, dry them, and then iron them with a triangular metal iron heated by the coals inside it. None of these hardships seemed to be a problem when you saw how clean and orderly every part of the house was — even the outhouse. The floors and kitchen utensils always gleamed. Clean curtains hung neatly on the doors and windows. The ironed clothes and bedding were folded precisely in their places. The furniture was never dusty. The same could nearly be said of the surroundings. Though the ground was not paved, the hardened earth was swept so thoroughly that even the dust seemed removed. The house was surrounded by fruit trees and plants, but you could scarcely find a fallen leaf — thanks to the absence of an autumn season, the couple's habits, and the help of their children. They had five sons, with my father as the eldest, and a daughter — the youngest — who was like an elder sister to me. We would walk to and from high school together whenever I spent the weekend with them.

Lolo Omon was the village's elected leader, and as such, a well-respected man. He always wore a smile, though he was quiet most of the time. You could hardly find him sitting or lying down doing nothing. He was always moving — picking up anything along his path that belonged in the trash. He was like a walking broom.

The chance of finding a job with a regular monthly salary was very slim in those days, but Lolo Omon was one of the fortunate few. He worked for the provincial government as a street sweeper in the Boac town proper, about four kilometers from home. He walked to and from the job every working day. The distance would normally take more than an hour for most people, but not for him — because along the way, he would stop to remove garbage, fallen coconut leaves, and branches from the road. It was a good thing he moved fast for his age. With that kind of example, it should come as no surprise that one of his children developed the same habit. And that child happened to be my father.

But it was not from Lolo Omon alone that my father learned the importance of cleanliness. Lolo Omon had a younger brother, Lolo Facio, who had a business in Manila before he and his family migrated to Canada. My father used to live with him when he was still single, and that experience clearly made an impact on his character. Whenever my father was unsatisfied with how something was cleaned, he would say, "That kind of work would not pass with Uncle Facio!" Then he would show the proper way to do it. He was very particular about cleaning the hidden parts. He would always say it was more important to clean what could not be seen than what was visible — because that was where the real dirt gathered. While he inherited his habit of picking up stray garbage from Lolo Omon, it was Lolo Facio who refined him. He said Lolo Facio was very strict, but they had a good relationship.

Because my father preferred to work rather than continue his studies in high school, he learned to make copra at an early age. He claimed he was already skilled at climbing coconut trees when he first met his future wife outside the movie house. He was with the cousin who had taken him to Lolo Facio's place in Manila. That cousin was courting my mother's companion — who happened to be her cousin too. The two young men would visit together at first. Later, my father found his way to my mother's place on his own, and bravely introduced himself to her parents, making his intentions clear. Their cousins' relationships, if any ever formed, did not last — but a couple was made from it.

The saying that "opposites attract" was certainly true in my parents' case.

While my father, being the eldest child, had grown into a responsible man with a strong sense of order and discipline, my mother — the youngest in a comfortable family — was used to having her needs attended to by others. She would hardly cook. She would not help set or clear the table, nor wash the dishes. Putting away the bedding was not part of her routine either. The blankets were often left from morning until nighttime, when we would simply slip back in.💡How did this difference affect the family?The contrast between the author's parents — and especially her mother's habits — becomes a defining thread throughout the story. Chapter 2 explores this further.

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.