MOST of my childhood was spent in Mindanao. My family first lived in a timber concession in Davao. When the Japanese invaded the Philippines, we joined my father’s eldest sister and her family in Cotabato. As a bride, my aunt had settled with her husband in a little town quaintly named Pigcawayan.
Toward the end of the war, my father decided to bring his family back to Manila in answer to his father’s summons. However, we got stranded in Zamboanga as the battle for the liberation of Manila reached fever pitch.
Not too long after our return to Manila, my father shipped his family back to Cotabato as he could not afford to support us on his small salary.
We lived in a rather remarkable farm developed by my aunt’s husband. An agriculturist, he had the farm planted to seedless mandarin oranges that were unbelievably sweet, seedless “mabolo” fruits, and avocados that had thick, golden flesh that was smooth and creamy. Rice and corn were the main crops of the farm, but the orchard provided us kids our major source of delights — climbing trees, picking fruits, idling on tree branches, or playing numerous children’s games under the trees. Bananas of several varieties proliferated on the farm. What we could not consume or give away, we fed to the pigs. That was why, some time later, back in Manila, I was shocked when I paid 10 centavos for a small bowl of shaved ice, milk, syrup and a single banana.
Viewed from Manila standards even then, conditions were primitive not only at the farm but in most of Mindanao. No electricity, no running water. We dug a well in the yard and depended on it for washing clothes, bathing, drinking and watering the plants. Our drinking water was religiously boiled by my mother. We depended on kerosene lamps for light and firewood for cooking. My mother had commissioned a tenant to build her a roasting spit over which we happily broiled chicken, fish and other meat. To roast corn, we would build a bonfire and toss the corn, husk and all, into the fire. We did the same with “camote” [sweet potato] and bananas.
We retired early. On stormy nights, my mother would gather us kids around her and tell us horror stories that sent us screaming and diving under the blankets.
During harvest time for rice or corn, the children were allowed to participate. What we harvested we were allowed to keep and sell for pocket money. Buying goodies with our own money was a heady experience. And speaking of harvest, one of our tenants regularly harvested tuba in the afternoons. Do you know how sweet freshly harvested tuba is? My mother would usually beat an egg yolk in a glassful of tuba to produce a healthy tonic (or so she said).
The highlight of our bucolic existence was the weekly arrival of the Hiligaynon, the Ilonggo edition of the Liwayway magazine (usually a month late, coming all the way from Manila). We would troop to the only “sari-sari store” [variety store] in our community. I had been commissioned to do the weekly readings. Surrounded by the neighborhood elders and children of various ages, I would read the serialized novels in the magazine, complete with histrionic effects — anger, sadness, humor. My audience lapped it up.
Life was basic, life was simple, but life in Cotabato provided me a fantastic childhood. I have never again known such a stress-free existence. We found joy and pleasure in the simplest of things. Walking was the primary “means of transportation,” and the walks gave us the opportunity to communicate with Mother Nature and to enjoy the blessings she scattered along the way — wild berries, dragonflies that we chased among wild blooms, the chirping birds, young rice from which we sucked the milky, unformed grain. Modern life as we know it now was eons away.
A way of life so dependent on technology and gadgetry has terrible drawbacks when faced with nature’s fury. Recent calamities have amply demonstrated this. Life just stops when power fails. No light, no water, no TV, no air conditioners, no computers, no telephones, not even the minimal comfort provided by an electric fan. The wailings from the old and the young alike could make up the chorus in one of the great Greek tragedies.
At times like these, I look back to my childhood in Cotabato. Wistfully, I yearn for the simplicity of it all, when life was uncomplicated and sheer pleasure could be found in just being alive and being content with what Mother Nature bestowed on us.
Cecilia Tobias Lopez, 69, is a retired government employee. She worked part-time as a speechwriter at the Philippine National Police, and as an editor of the newsletter of the Armed Forces of the Philippines Officers Village Association Inc.
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