From Paang Bundok to Tundo

Amirasolo and other Essays

By Arnaldo Bernabe Mirasol

Part 1. Tondo on my Mind                         

Essay 2. FROM PAANG BUNDOK TO TUNDO

Paang Bundok is not some remote barrio nestled at the foot of some remote mountain. It is a barangay in La Loma, Quezon City bounded on the North and South by Gen.Tinio and Blumentritt Streets respectively, and on the East and West by Amoranto Street and Bonifacio Avenue. My father and mother met there.

Paang Bundok was where my mother Mama Ninay grew up, in a house at Isarog Street. Although the house no longer looked good in the 1950s, it must have been a nice house before the war, maybe the only big and sturdily  built house in the area. The other houses there may have been just nipa huts. That's perhaps the reason their house was used as garrison by the Japanese soldiers during World War 2. 

The house had a small door near the side of the stairs which I learned later led to a bomb-shelter dug by the Japanese. I never saw that shelter because its door was always locked, and we kids were never invited to see it. We never wanted to see it anyway because we were told that there might be snakes lurking down there. 

According to my mother, my Lola Berta and Lolo Nano bought their land from the Araneta family for only 1000 pesos. That land was part of the vast Araneta estate that extended then from Malabon to Cubao.

My father Papa Nene was born in Iloilo City. But my Lolo Elpidio and Lola Angela were truly from Oslob, Cebu. They only happened to be in Iloilo in the late 1920s because Lolo Elpid worked there for a time as telegraph cable installer. 

My father was twelve years old when the war broke out in 1941. He took refuge on a mountain barrio of Oslob with his Tia Pacia who looked after him for the duration of the war. Tia Pacia was the younger sister of my Lola Angela who stayed with the USAFFE unit Lolo Elpidio was attached to. Lolo Elpidio was the radioman of that unit, which operated on the same mountain where my father and her Tia Pacia and other relatives were hiding. Lola Angela and Lolo Elpidio therefore had the chance to check on my father frequently.

After the war, seeing that the opportunities for a better life were concentrated in Manila, Lolo Elpidio and Lola Angela decided to migrate here. They rented a room at Isarog, just a few houses away from where my mother lived. My grandparents and my father later on moved to Tondo because a relative's company that was located there needed a bookkeeper. My father applied for and was hired for the job. My mother left Isarog when she married my father and lived with him in Tondo, where I and all of my siblings grew up.

I was given the name Arnaldo. They considered naming me Arnold at first, but my father said the name didn't suit me, because I don't looked like a fair-skinned mestizo. "Hindi raw bagay." 

But why Arnaldo? My mother explained that they planned to have five children, the initials of whose names will spell EARTH. The oldest among us is Esterlina. The second was Augusto, because he was born in August. But he died. It's not clear to me if my mother had a miscarriage, or if Augusto died right after birth. Anyway, since I followed Augusto and thus became the second child, the letter A initial was assigned to me and I was named Arnaldo. Rodolfo followed, and then Teresa. 

But my mother stopped giving birth after Teresa, so the EARTH acronym for their children wasn't completed. The fifth child who would have been named Helen failed to be born. My sons joked once that had not their Uncle Augusto died, I their father would have taken on the name Rodolfo, and their Uncle Rudy will therefore not be Rodolfo anymore but Tereso.

I have no quarrel with my name. I like it. My affection for my name became especially strong when I learned what it meant. The dictionary says Arnaldo means power of the eagle, an attribute that is, though imaginary, truly likeable. But my family tried during my toddler years to call me, in jest perhaps, by a nickname I didn't like---Anot. That is a despicable name. I expressed my displeasure of that name very early on. Everytime they call me Anot I showed my irritation at once by emitting snarl-like sounds. So, they just called me Arnel for short, a name I also like.

Growing up, we weren`t exactly destitute like many of our neighbors, because my father was already working overseas as a marine mechanic. That is why my siblings and I were all able to go to college. I and my two sisters studied at the University of Santo Tomas, while our brother went to the University of Manila. Our eldest, Esterlina, finished Commerce, my younger brother Rodolfo, Industrial  Engineering, and our youngest, Teresa, Nursing. I took up Fine Arts. We kids were lucky, because unlike our father, we don`t have to struggle hard for our education. 

My father came here to Manila with his parents to study. Being poor, he had to work as janitor and later on as clerk at Feati University, where he finished high school and took up mechanical engineering. Although he reached only third year in engineering, my father managed, seven years after he got married, to get hired by an international shipping company as engine crew. Those were lax times, and crewing agencies then didn't require college diplomas from seamen applicants. That shipping company was Eastern Shipping Lines and the first ocean-going ship he rode was Eastern Planet. That was in 1960. Papa Nene rose to the rank of chief engineer.

(Photo collage above shows myself and the members of my family: Lolo Elpidio, Lola Angela, Chief Engineer Edmundo Mirasol or Papa Nene, Mama Regina or Mama Ninay, Ate Esterlina, Rodolfo, and Teresa.)