Los Tondeños

Amirasolo and other Essays                          

Part 1. Tondo on my Mind  

Essay 3. LOS TONDEÑOS

The Tondo of my childhood was well-known all right, but not for things law-abiding Tondeños can be proud of. Many people from other places in Manila and elsewhere would think twice first before going to Tondo because of the perceived peace and order problem here. Taxi drivers especially, who often hesitate to take on passengers whose destination was Tondo. What the taxi drivers feared then were the holduppers, which they assumed Tondo had plenty of.

Their attitude haven't changed. Today, what prevents taxi drivers from taking on Tondo-bound passengers cheerfully, aside from their fear of holduppers, is their perception of the roads here as chaotic and congested. That is true, but only of streets in the Divisoria and North Harbor area, where tricycles, pedicabs, cars, and humans jostle for what space remains on the crowded streets.

I supposed no other place in the Philippines, with approximately the same land area as Tondo could 'boast' of a bigger population. Tondo is so densely packed with people, that it needs two congressmen to represent its residents in Congress---the same number as the whole of Makati City.

On that rumor about Tondo being a haven of holduppers, there is some truth to it. Most Tondeños are decent and law-abiding.  It's just that the notorious elements were the ones who were high-profile and got to land in the news and in the movies.

Law-breakers can thrive anywhere. If Tondo had its Asiong Salonga, Cavite had its Nardong Putik, and Malabon its Ben Tumbling. The formula is simple. All the law-breaker has to do, if he is a big-time thief, is just spread the loot around, to the poor mainly, and voila!---the dreaded character who was formerly tagged as notorious is no longer notorious. He is now famous. A folk hero, even. A modern-day Robinhood!

But those were the big-timers. There were petty ones too, like those bad boys of long ago of Isla Puting Bato. My group of friends, my barkada, once went swimming at that breakwater fronting the North Harbor. That was in the late 1970s I think, when I was in my early twenties. I was not with them for some reason. When they came back, all of them looked amused.

They narrated what happened in between laughter. They said that when they were through swimming and were about to dress up to go home, they discovered some of their clothing missing, including the short pants of Freddie Adina who was my age. Also missing was the wallet of Rodie Hamor, another friend my age, who was into rock music, yoga, and the martial arts. The thieves showed themselves up, with one of them holding the wallet.

"Kanino, to? (Who owns this?)" The one holding the wallet asked.

"Akin yan. (That's mine.)" Rodie answered.

The thief opened the wallet and inside it was a picture of Rodie in karate pose and attire. "Ikaw ba 'to? Karatista ka ba? (Is this you? Are you a karate expert?)"

"Hindi ah. Hindi ako yan. (Ah, no. That's not me.)" Rodie again answered, while rapidly and vigorously shaking his head.

Ramir Dela Cruz, who was with them, told me that they wanted to laugh at Rodie's reaction and blanched face, but could not, because those thieves, aside from outnumbering them, were also holding mean-looking knives. And they were in their territory.

Ramir added that the thieves were also teen-agers like him, aged from around 13 to 18 years old---a commonplace thing in that neighborhood, where boys are taught to be tough and bad, and started young on a life of crime.

Here"s more. Since Freddie was only wearing his briefs, he forced Bobot Altar, who was just a boy, to take off his short pants so Freddie can use them. And the pants of course was ill-fitting, very tight. But no matter. Freddie was a thin guy anyway, and was able after much effort to get into the pants. And poor Bobot, blushing red with embarrassment, had to walk all the way home without briefs, and without pants. Hahaha....

Besides Rodie, Freddie, Bobot, and Ramir, also with them on that hilarious misadventure were my brother Rudy,  Bobot's brothers Tony and Fede Altar, Rody Ollegue, Erning Lobaton, Ariel Doguiles, and Tandy Jimenez. I don't know if my retelling is accurate, but that's how I remember their story

Tondo wasn't crowded during my growing-up years. Vehicles, including wide garbage trucks can pass with ease even through the narrower streets then. There was a lesser number of people that's why there were fewer "istambays" or out-of-work men huddled on the streets. There were also fewer vehicles moving on the road and parked along the gutters.

Our place during the 1950s, looked rather rustic, with people from the provinces bringing their rural ways to the city. We have neighbors who raised not only the usual pets like dogs and cats, but also chickens, geese, pigs, and goats. I even remember seeing a turkey once.

Plenty of edible plants can also be seen around. The third house we lived in was almost like a farmhouse. It's caretaker, who was from Palawan, turned the front yard into a vegetable garden, with rows of plots planted to pechay, lettuce, cabbage, eggplants, and tomatos. The backyard in turn had trelisses from which hanged upos, patolas, and ampalayas. The yard adjacent to ours was a kankungan. There was also a vacant lot covered entirely with grass, which the "zacateros" or grass-cutters gathered as feed for the horses pulling the calesas and caretelas.

I was born at the Mary Johnston Hospital, and raised on that bit of land that was originally sea called the Tondo Foreshore. An old-timer to our place said that the original Manila Bay shoreline was at Asuncion Street, which is three streets away from the Sto. Niño de Tondo Church, and just behind the Mary Johnston Hospital. The land from Asuncion up to the piers was land reclaimed from the sea. Its proximity to the original shore was the reason, some say, why the church is elevated---to keep out the seawater during high tides and the floods during typhoons. You need to climb up more than ten steps, I think,  before you can enter the church.

We were truly squatters then because our properties don't have any titles. The land where our houses stood was all government property. But those old-timers who have the foresight to settle on that reclaimed land were lucky. Because, although they can't claim the  property as truly their own, they were awarded the right to live on it, and decades later, to formally buy it from the government at a very low price. That's why our place today is no longer squatters area, and properties here can now sell for millions of pesos.

It was said that at that time, the migrants from the provinces only need to fence the vacant land they want for themselves, and that would be theirs. No one else could claim it, and they even have the option to sell even if it had no title yet. Many did sell the land. And that's how my grandparents Lolo Elpidio and Lola Angela got to buy our first property.

(Photo collage above shows old and recent photos of myself and my friends from the 1970s.)