A Childhood in Pila, Laguna
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The author’s family house in Pila (also known as Agra-Relova house). Built around 1920, this house was my Lolo Cinte Agra's wedding gift to his bride, Presen Relova.
Typical of most other Philippine towns, a stone church is located in the middle of the town, the San Antonio de Padua church, built in the architectural style of the Spanish colonial period. Fronting the church is the plaza or town square. Surrounded by green and sometimes dried brown grass, a statue of the Sacred Heart guards the plaza, which is just across from the Municipal Hall, the municipio.
The inhabitants of Pila, Laguna, not surprisingly, called the part of town where the church and the plaza were located the “Gitna” (center). It seems that everyone who lived in the “Gitna” were cousins, having sprung from one ancestor, Don Felizardo Rivera. The Rivera descendants intermarried with families surnamed Relova and Agra, Dimaculangan, and Bartolome (among others), and all of them lived in similar-looking houses around the town plaza. The houses were vintage 1900s, made of wood and stone, in the architectural style of the American colonial period.
It was in the town of Pila where my mother Remy Agra and her siblings were born and raised. It also became the town which we (the Palileo children) visited each summer, and so we thought of it as our hometown as well.
"How lucky you are to have a hometown," my co-teacher from International School who lived in Forbes Park (not really a hometown) said to me. I was lucky not only to have my mother's hometown as a summer home, but I was also blessed to have lived there with my grandparents when I was five years old. Allow me to reminisce about that time.
The author at 5 years-old
It was 1953. I had not yet started school of course. In our house on Arago Street in Makati, I was third in what was then a family of five. My two elder sisters, Cristy and Jojo, were eight and seven years old, then me (five), then my two brothers came, Ken and Oleg. Ken was three and Oleg had just been born. We were a happy and quiet lot, not rambunctious at all. But five kids were a handful for my mom, who must have been 25 when I was born because she was married one day short of 20. She had two maids, but with five kids it seemed "only right and just" that my grandparents Lolo Cinte and his wife Lola Presen Agra would offer to take care of at least one of the kids. And that kid was me. So off I went to Pila in the summer of 1953.
The wedding photo of the autho'r’s grandparents (1922), Paciente and Presen Agra
I remember the summer of 1953 as a very happy time. I was spoiled and loved by my grandfather. I loved their big house in Pila. In my imagination and memory it was huge and white, like a big birthday cake. You went up the stairs to a spacious living room and saw all around the walls tall windows where you could look out at the people passing below. The sala was like three living rooms with many upright Spanish chairs and rocking chairs. Three large doors opened to bedrooms, also with large windows. From one window I could look out to the house on the side of the street, which was where my Lola Presen used to live before she got married. At the time, the people who lived there were Lola Presen's brother and sisters: Lolo Itong, Lola Mary, and Lola Ticang. Two of Lola Ticang's children also lived there: Carling and Myrna. They were my playmates.
My Lola Presen was the Principal of Pila Elementary School. In her youth, she was the Beauty and Brains of Pila. Having graduated valedictorian from Philippine Normal College (formerly Philippine Normal School) in Manila, Lola Presen also had the privilege of being the first Filipina to ride on a plane, her prize upon graduation in 1916 from her Thomasite teachers. She married my grandfather in 1922. The house where they lived in Pila was my grandfather's wedding present to his bride, Presen Relova.
My grandfather Lolo Paciente was a judge. He worked in the Pila municipio. His ancestral home was close to the municipio. In the early evenings after work and before the Angelus, I used to walk with my Lolo Cinte to his brother Lorenzo's house. There they would sit outside in the afternoons and quietly talk and smoke cigars. They were both always dressed in white suits, the most genteel men I knew in my youth.
My favorite place at the Pila House was the backyard. There behind the kitchen was a huge empty lot that had papaya and mango trees. Actually, it wasn't really empty. In the backyard was a family of turkeys who happily gobbled all morning long. "Gobble, gobble, gobble." I loved the sound the turkeys made. There was also a pig sty with one or two big fat hogs, who all day seemed to love eating -- was it "darak" (rice bran)? -- I wasn't sure.
Lolo and Lola had a faithful maid by the name of "Aling Istay." I remember her as being a wizened old woman, very short and dark like a Negrito. She took care of me while Lolo and Lola were at work. In the early mornings when it was still dark outside, she would clean the living room with her "bunot" -- a kind of coconut husk that she would step on and make dance-like moves across the floor. Aling Istay was so tiny she could clean under the beds, her small body moving the bunot on the floor. She cleaned but I don't think she cooked. All my meals were delivered in a fiambrera (tiffin canisters) by someone, and I ate my breakfast and lunch at the dining table alone.
Lest you think I was lonely in my Lolo and Lola's house, you would be mistaken. I enjoyed playing there in my Lola's bedroom. As soon as she left for church, I called across the window to my cousins Carling and Myrna to come over, and when they came, we would jump up and down on Lola's bed. I put blankets on my head and pretended I was a nun. We threw pillows at each other and played hide and seek behind the cabinets. When we were tired, they would go home and I would go down and sit on a bench in Mareng's store and eat halo-halo. I never had to pay. Mareng took down how much I ate and at the end of the summer, gave the list to my mother to pay.
I also remember that flowers bloomed from the shrubs and trees behind each house in the center of town. I remember the flowers because it seemed then that the main event in Pila during the summer was the “Flores de Mayo.” Each day in May, we young girls gathered flowers to offer to the statue of the Blessed Virgin. I would spend entire mornings by myself, climbing what seemed like tall trees to get at the yellow and pink kalachuchis (frangipani). If the branches were too high for me, I would use a “sungkit,” a long twig forked at the end to twist or snap flowers from the branches. Every flower went into a small native basket. Then at four or five in the afternoon, along with the other young girls in town, I went to the church, where by twos and threes we walked to the altar to offer the flowers to Mary.
The author’s parents (1953), Remy and Gening Palileo
At the end of the summer, my mother and father (Gening and Remy Palileo) and all my siblings came to Pila to celebrate Flores de Mayo (around May 28) and the fiesta of San Antonio de Padua (June 13). Their coming was cause for a grand celebration. Lola would have people prepare fiesta fare in many bilaos (woven bamboo slatted trays) spread out on the dining table. I was very fond of maja blanca and sinukmane (rice cakes), which I learned later in life were Pila specialties. I loved espasol and suman (sweet rice-based finger snacks), which we ate for merienda. My father always came to Pila with his medicines for our "galis" (skin sores) that I caught from playing with the neighbor's dogs. Oh, how he rubbed my galis with merthiolate and a white powder that stung so much! He was always upset that I got galis. But later when we all went to Pagsanjan, my father's hometown, Pa would be so happy again. He would take us swimming at Pagsanjan Lodge. He carried me on his back and swam freestyle back and forth in the swimming pool. I was so proud of him because he was the champion swimmer of U.P. in 1938.
Remembering Pa makes me think of the bahay kubo (hut) that he had built after Ma died in 2009, eleven years ago. Pa had the kubo built behind the Pila house (where Lolo's turkeys roamed) after Ma died, because he could no longer climb the flight of stairs to go up the big house. Once his workmen started delivering the materials for his bahay kubo, Pa got all revved up. We had never seen him as happy as when he was supervising the building of his bahay kubo. He went to Pila once a week, sometimes with his alalay (sidekick) and all-around building super, Reggie. The flooring of the kubo was made of sawali (bamboo slats), the roofing of pawid (grass thatch), the walls of plywood and coconut leaves. When the house was done, he brought over a refrigerator, an air conditioner, a bed, electric fans, kitchen appliances. He bought a painting for the living room. He got bathroom rugs and shower curtains for the modern bathroom. He bought a crucifix. Finally, my eldest sister, Cristy, gifted him with a living room set and a kitchen set, and my second eldest sister, Jojo, provided a Christmas tree. We had a grand housewarming one day with a guest priest and then a nice fiesta-like lunch with a real lechon in the big house. Everyone came.
Gening Palileo's bahay kubo, located behind the big house.
My father loved his bahay kubo, and when my mother was alive, she loved her ancestral house, and so did I. How happy I am to have these memories of Lolo and Lola, my mother and father, and their ancestral home. I am reminded of Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges who wrote, "If you don't have ancestors, invent them." I am lucky I don't have to invent mine. I am happy to have ancestors and ancestral houses, the memories of which ground me and keep me steady and safe in these perilous times.
Maria Clarissa Palileo
Maria Clarissa Palileo (also known by her nickname "Mike") earned her PhD in English Literature from Boston University in 1986. She is proudest of her doctoral dissertation ("Native Voices, Foreign Tongues") detailing the effects of colonization on the imagination of the Filipino writer.