There are places I remember…
The most vivid memories of my childhood spring from Iloilo City, where my father Frank was assigned as a sales executive of Elizalde International. And though we had no roots in Iloilo, my family bloomed in the five years we lived there. We arrived in Iloilo as a family of four, and left it as a family of six — Dad, mom Sonia and me and my sisters Mae, Geraldine and Valerie.
One summer, Mom said I had to learn how to read storybooks because I was going to school. Then one day, she brought me to a place by a river that had lots of trees and buildings that looked like the abbey in The Sound of Music. Then she introduced me to nuns in purple habits named Mother Julia, Mother Elizabeth and Mother Maria Paz. “Welcome to the Assumption Convent,” they smiled.
Thus, it was in Assumption Iloilo’s Art Deco and colonial buildings that I learned my ABCs — and pretty good Hiligaynon (the native dialect of Ilonggos), too, as I can still understand it almost perfectly. It was where I learned how to write in the distinct Assumption style with its pointed letters. It was where I spent the longest period in any campus, as I was to transfer to Assumption Herran, Antipolo, San Lorenzo and eventually, the University of the Philippines in the course of my dad’s nomadic work assignments.
I would dream of Iloilo once in a while, vivid, clear dreams.
Thus, when Iloilo’s favorite son Sen. Franklin Drilon invited me to Iloilo to watch and listen to the Manila Symphony Orchestra perform in the recently air-conditioned 200-year-old Molo Church (or Parish of St. Anne), I was filled with excitement.
I wanted to see which episodes in my dreams were real or make believe. Was Assumption Iloilo really near a river? Was the grotto in our old house at Maria Clara Subdivision still there beside the aratiles (cereza) tree? Was Dad’s office still there on JM Basa Street? Does the Nelly Garden mansion really look like a princess lived there?
Interestingly, among the pieces played by the MSO in their concert Bach vs. The Beatles at the Molo Church was The Beatles hit, In My Life. There are places I remember. All my life, though some have changed...
*** I knew the minute the plane touched down at the Iloilo International Airport near Sta. Barbara that the Iloilo of my youth had changed.
The airport is a newer mini-me of the Centennial Airport in Manila. The highway to the city proper is paved, and a good portion of it is lined by bicycle lanes.
The old airport in Mandurriao is now a business park developed mostly by taipan Andrew Tan of Megaworld, who also donated the land on which the handsome Iloilo Convention Center now stands.
The mayas in Iloilo City could soon be outnumbered by the cranes — construction cranes, that is. Construction is in full swing all over the city, Ilonggos say their skyline changes every two weeks.
And yet what is admirable is that the old houses we used to pass by whenever Dad would pack us all in his Beetle to go to Port San Pedro, Jaro, Molo and Villa Beach are still there — and are still old. All these places have their moments…
“Iloilo is one of the few cities and provinces where you can find many heritage buildings,” says Drilon proudly. It is not an empty boast, for I had to rubber neck while passing through Jaro’s main square and so called “millionaires’ row” where old buildings are mute witnesses to Iloilo’s glory days.
Interestingly, the tagline of Iloilo is “Iloilo: Where the Past is Always Present.”
The old Iloilo Customs House called “Aduana” and the former provincial prison are now being restored. In fact, the 106-year-old main building of the provincial prison (the inmates have been transferred to the suburbs, don’t worry), whose main building is perhaps as old as the one in the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa, is being restored to become the Iloilo City Museum. Why do I remember this place? Because the Assumption nuns once took us to an outreach activity there and I was part of a troupe that danced the Itik-itik in front of the inmates! The Department of Tourism-Iloilo’s efficient Pamela Denise Cababasay and civic leader Joy de Leon took me to Jaro Cathedral, where I was confirmed by Jaro Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin; to the 89-year-old Nelly Garden, whose French bayeux art mansion still looks fit for royalty; to JM Basa Street where the restored Elizalde Building stands proudly on one corner. I was told that a prominent banker once remarked that the buildings on JM Basa reminded him of Paris! (They remind me of Saigon.)
I was so happy to see Dad’s old office, which has been restored to look like a bahay na bato. It is now owned by the Commission on Audit. The personal highlight of my trip was my sentimental journey to Assumption Iloilo, which I have not seen in over 40 years. Former Tourism Secretary Narz Lim, an Ilongga and a former AC professor, accompanied me as I virtually travelled through time.
Like the convents of Europe, Assumption Iloilo has remained as stately as I remember it. Thanks to the Assumption nuns led by Mother Superior Sister Mary Joseph, the 107-year-old convent still looks like the abbey in The Sound of Music. The chapel where I had my first Holy Communion looks like it has aged gracefully, and faithfully.
Sister Marge Amistoso toured me around, and I shrieked like a five-year-old when I saw my former classroom and the playground where I spent many happy, carefree recess periods.
And just beyond the playground was the river I remembered — clean as ever, thanks to the efforts of the public and private sector.
“So the river wasn’t just a dream,” I told Sister Jo, Sister Marge, and the visiting Mother Provincial Sister Sheryl, when they took me to a balcony in the convent overlooking the river.
I revisited Iloilo to reconnect with a past that was almost perfect. Dad has gone to heaven and will never visit Iloilo again, and see like I did that though the aratiles tree is gone, the grotto in the garden of our old house is still there. I was happy to relive my childhood in Iloilo. Yes, there are still many places I remember.