My Unforgettable Teen Years in the 60s in Pasong Tamo, QC

 
By Willie Jose
Toronto-Canada
July 25, 2020
 


This ongoing lockdown because of the Covid 19 pandemic has given me time to recollect my life as a teenager in Pasong Tamo, Quezon City in the late 60s.

How I wished this place could have remained as it was before: idyllic, pastoral with full of greens. All these descriptions define what my favorite hometown is.

The whole barrio was an open field-paddies of rice fields, plants, a variety of trees, with some carabaos, cows chickens, stray dogs and even snakes were roaming around it.

In short, it had a simple provincial-like and countryside atmosphere.

All these surnames— Cleofas, Apo, Agbada, Fabre, Panlaque, Eugenio, Pangilinan-- are commonplace in the area; although they lived far from one another, they knew who was related to whom, it was a place of different clans whose families were known to everyone’s else.

The first real estate subdivisions in the Metro Manila were set up there; although it was just a few kilometers away from Manila, it was a part of Quezon City, and most of the housing areas were former rice fields that had been converted into private home subdivisions.

I remember I used a lampara, gasera to lit up our house because there was no electricity yet there, no electric posts and not even a supply of water from the Nawasa.

The only way was to get water from an artesian well, and my friend, Kiko had taught me to use pinga to balance a bucket of water on my shoulder.

He even trained me on how to ride in a carabao, and being a PLDT lineman, their house had the first telephone in the area and we had to walk to their place just to make a call.

Even the neighboring subdivisions had no water pipes, and these water lines had yet to be put up by National Water Works Authority, so most of the houses in the subdivisions were using water pumps.

To make do with the lack of water supply, sometimes, we had to go to the river for bathing, swimming, and washing clothes.

 With so many people doing their chores in the river, it was really fun doing these kinds of stuff. The river was one of the tributaries of the San Juan River and the water came downstream.

We had to walk long distances, passing thru lot of pilapils, and these carabao’s wastes were ordinary features in these rice paddies.

I could remember the green lush surrounding the vicinity of Pasong Tamo, all kinds of trees, a variety of plants and herbs, some of them have medicinal value and I knew that because one of our neighbors would collect these plants in the morning and take them to vendors selling medicinal plants in Quiapo Church.

Since our house’s surroundings had so much free space, we had planted it with talbos ng kamote, sili, guava and papaya trees (ready for tinola), we had these chickens roaming around home. The early morning chickens’ crowing served as our alarm clock, signaling the morning dawn.

Walking through this pollution- free dirt road and rice paddies was both an exercise and an adventure in the sense that we didn’t have any fear that somewhere, along the way, someone would mug us; the peace and order were very much obvious in our community.

There was a big house in the middle of that big landscape in our place, that house was said to be owned by former Sen. Roseller Lim, its roof was made of red tiles and even from a distance, it was so visible. And some instances in the past, people told me that they had experienced the kindness of Sen. Lim, when he would offer them a ride on seeing them walking the dirt road, while they were on their way to Project 6.

Mang Andoy, Kiko’s father would drive his AC (auto Calesa) jeep, and as his part-time job, he would take passengers to and fro Highway 54, now EDSA and Project 6.

Every morning, we would wait for Mang Andoy’s jeep, so we could take a free ride. And his jeep would traverse rice paddies, navigating the ups and downs of the dirt roads.

Just like in the provinces, the people in Pasong Tamo had ways of spending their summer such as holding small-time cockfighting, called tupada right in the open field. Though it was illegal, it was not easy for cops to catch these people because in a distance on seeing these cops coming, they could easily disperse, in a few minutes, they were all gone.

On weekends, the favorite drinks of the old people there were the Ginebra San Miguel, locally called Markang Demonyo” with only the tap water as their chaser--and after taking the shot, one could hear, someone taking a deep breath.

On most occasions, when a party was held, almost everyone in the community put their share in helping the host in preparing the affair—butchering pigs, chickens and roasting “baka”, cleaning, cooking, and setting up the party’s long table.

And no need for the host to invite people in the neighborhood because the whole people in the community could attend the party and in partaking food set up in the long table; people would take turns, giving the others the chance to eat too.

These are the memories that have been retained in my mind, something that’s hard to erase since they've become part of my life.

Pasong Tamo is a special place for me because of some other reasons close to my heart; well, it’s a teen’s secret.