History of My Life - Part G: 6 - Across the Mountains & 7. Caddy & Bike

6. As a child I was full of imagination and ambitions or "dreams."  For lack of anything to do or play with because then we had no TV or radio set or even papers to read, I used to lie down under a tree, our Asimas tree, and watch the clouds.  I imagined a lot of things formed by the clouds above.  I used to see now and then a pair of KALI, or native hawks, gliding up and down or sometimes having a "dog-fight."  As they floated in the air across the mountains, I followed them, wondering what could be beyond those tall mountains.  And so my wish was to go beyond those physical barriers and see other places.

These dreams were later on realized when my uncle, Lt. Antonio Bravo, was stationed in Laoag, Ilocos Norte.  My mother visited him with us during our Christmas vacation.  There, for the first time in my life, did I have the best Christmas experience.  Before we went to sleep we were given big new stockings and hung them on nails on the wall.  We were told that Santa Claus will give us gifts as we sleep.

My younger brother and our young cousins about our age were excited to find out the following morning our socks full of apples, oranges, raisins, cookies and candies!  I also got an airplane that flies round and round as it hangs with a long string to the ceiling.  My joy was beyond measure!  Across those high forbidding mountains west of Bangued was a "pot of gold."

It was also there in Laoag, Ilocos Norte that my brother and I learned how to use spoons and forks.  I was around seven and my brother five years old.  I can still remember our well-to-do cousins laughing at us awkwardly handling those glistening silvers, even quite scared to soil them.

From then on we always urged our mother to visit her rich brother in other provinces as Ilocos Sur and La Union.  We always experienced new things like eating in a LURIAT party of a rich Chinese merchant where around ten different courses were served in Vigan, Ilocos Sur; going swimming in the beach of San Fernando, La Union and riding a Constabulary Jeepney.  And we always got gifts like roller skates, wooden wagon and alphabet blocks too.  Mother brought home lots of old newspapers which were very useful in wrapping new slippers for customers.  I didn't know how to read the La Vanguardia Spanish newspaper, but I liked looking at the pictures printed in them.

7. In Vigan I learned how to hit the ball with golf clubs as I served as Caddy for my uncle.  My auntie won a bike in a raffle, but nobody used it, as my girl cousins about my age are not supposed to ride a bicycle, only boys do!  How I wished I had a bike of my own.  I learned how to bike in Vigan.

History of My Life - Part G: 1 - Pensionados

Before I totally leave Bangued from the Story of My Life, I would like to share some personal experiences that I can't forget.

1. One of them is my conversation with my brother, Elix, while walking to buy "lomo-lomo" in Pagpartian. I was about seven and he was about five years of age more or less. I asked him what he wanted to be when he grows up. He also asked me what I wanted to be. We mentioned various professions as: teacher, doctor, priest, lawyer, engineer or officer. We didn't mention our father's profession.

Finally we decided that we will become PENSIONADOS! I guess we were impressed by our neighbor, Mr Gerson, a pensionado. Whenever he passed by our house to get his pension we heard our father saying, "NAIMBAGKA PAY GIEM TA AGAOAWATCA TI PENSIONADO BINOLAN." When we were eating, our father explained that a PENSIONADO gets money without working.

Elix became a "pensionado" but his pension was given to our stepmother as his survivor following his death as a Prisoner of War during World War II. I became a "pensionado" in 1965 after my 30 years of service in the Army. Then I also became a "pensionado" in 1981 when I retired at age 63 from the Social Security System of the U.S.A. I was then a Senior Paralegal of the Bay Area Legal Services. Now I am getting two pensions! Praise the Lord!

Memorial Day - May 29, 1995 - Felix Sibayan

Let me digress from my topic and write something about Memorial Day.  I am thinking about my not half-, but full-brother, Felix, who died in the Capas Concentration Camp in May 1942.  He was born May 18, 1920.  He was single.

When I went to Manila in 1993 to attend my son Tony's promotion to Commodore, I visited Elix's grave in Ft. Bonifacio.  On the cross marking his grave was a name Benigno Aquino.

I guess I am the only one thinking of him today, although our step-mother, Anicia Sibayan, second wife of father, is receiving a pension as Elix's beneficiary since 1946 because we were both minors when father married her in 1933, one year after mother's death.

If Elix were alive, he would be 75 years old now.  W would not know what career he could have taken, but like me, I know he would now be a PENSIONADO.  That was our ambition when we were small kids.  We were going together to the slaughterhouse to buy "lomolomo" for breakfast and I asked him what he would like to be.  I gave examples as: lawyer, doctor, engineer, teacher, etc.  We both agreed to become PENSIONADO.  Why?

Because at the end of the month our neighbor Mr. Guesson would pass by and father would tell him: "Naimbag kapay giem ta agawawatika ti cuarta nga saan nga ag tartarbayo." (You are very fortunate my friend because you are receiving money without working.)  I asked father why, and he said because he is a "pensionado."

We thought that "pensionado" was a profession!  Hence we decided to become a PENSIONADO!

I helped him enter the service as a private before the war in the Ordnance Service.  He died as a Corporal, a survivor of the Bataan Death March, as a POW.

We saw each other in Bataan twice, first when he came to my office in the G-2 Section Hq 29 Regular Division (PC) USAFFE near Bauto Pt., across Corregidor.  There I gave him food to eat because he was very tired and hungry coming from the front lines.

He promised to come back with a springfield rifle to be our souvenier when we go back to Manila.  When he came back with the rifle and it's bayonet, he was quite thin, buty with his spirits because of the news about a "one-mile convoy" headed for the Philippines from America to liberate us.

I fed him again with crackers and condensed milk, which he liked very much.  I even gave him some dried carabao's meat and sugar to take back to the front lines.  That was our last meeting.

After our surrender in April 9 1942, I met his boss, Col. Hugo Cunanan, near Corregidor Island and I asked for my brother.  He said, "They are behind, following us."  I delayed my trip to Monvieles trying to look for Elix.  Col. Cunanan was with several officers then.  He left his men behind.  (I found out after the war that they boarded a boat to cross Manila Bay, but they were straffed by Japanese planes.)

I failed to see Elix in the Death March or when we were going down Little Baguio.  I could have escaped by riding a banca on Hagonoy River to Bulacan if not for Elix's sake.