I first saw my stepfather-to-be in 1942, when I was eight, during the Japanese time. He was attending the town fiesta of Majayjay. I saw him approaching on our pathway, dressed in clothes I’d never seen.

 

He wore a uniquely shaped cap, a crème woolen suit over a satin vest, and balloon pants tapering down tight and gartered around his knees. Long woolen white socks hugged and outlined his thin legs from the knees all the way to his shoes. What a strange getup! What a strange creature!

 

It was only when I was older that I saw the same strange getup on the sports page of the old Manila Times. A photograph showed Bobby Jones, a world champion golfer in the ’20s, wearing the same getup my stepfather wore on that spell-binding day.

 

Inay Aurea, my late mother, had been a widow for nine years. My father, Godong, died of tuberculosis when I was a newborn in 1936. Inay told me that my father wept on his deathbed because I’d be an orphan growing up.

 

After my father’s death, Inay stayed in my Lola Genia’s farmhouse in Majayjay. Inay Aurea, a pharmacy graduate of the University of Santo Tomas, promptly found a job in a drugstore in Los Baños, Laguna, 60 km away from Majayjay. She came home on weekends to be with me.

 

As a widow, Inay Aurea struck some men as attractive. She had pretty legs that were emphasized when she wore high-heeled shoes in her Sunday best. I remember her suitors: a doctor from Nagcarlan; a lawyer from Paete; and an LTB bus inspector from nowhere.

 

Quezon’s ‘masahista’

 

My stepfather-to-be came from Liliw and became known in Majayjay as Mistica. Mistica! Even his name conjured mystery. His full name was Sergio Mistica. He was one of the first male nurses in the ’20s and was famous all over town as President Quezon’s masahista and a resident of Malacañang Palace.

 

He also studied the science of naturopathy. Naturopathy is an alternative method of treating disease using fasting, special diets and massage to assist the natural healing process. He was part of the President’s entourage on his trips to America, Europe and Asia—which explained his swagger.

 

Mistica’s visits to Majayjay became frequent and he befriended the two town doctors, Pio and Cilyo Villaraza, who were Inay Aurea’s close friends.

 

One Sunday, everybody went agog. Mistica performed hypnotism in the house of my grandmother’s brother. He hypnotized Temyong, the houseboy, in front of the whole household. All Mistica did was to ask the man to look into his piercing eyes. Then he touched the man’s forehead, and instantly the man went into a trance.

 

The incredible moment came when Mistica placed the sleeping man between two chairs, his head and feet resting on the edges of the chairs. The man’s body stayed hardened like a log. Then Mistica sat on the body and jumped on top of it several times. The body didn’t bend a bit.

 

Agog

 

He talked to the sleeping man, who answered “yes” to a series of questions. After about 15 minutes, he awakened the man by snapping his fingers. Everyone was agog! “May sa demonio!” said some osyoso.

 

Mistica was a widower. What followed were frequent visits to my mother.

 

I’d see the two of them sitting in our sala by the window, talking in soft voices, my mother looking solemn most of the time.

 

My mother and Mistica were married in 1943. Mistica was 51, my mother was 34. Mistica told me to call him Papa. He took Inay Aurea and me to Liliw. We lived in a tall house with walls made of woven coconut leaves. I had a new family and a set of four stepbrothers and three stepsisters. The youngest boy, Cesar, was playful and street-smart. He became my buddy till we grew up. Inay treated Papa’s children like her own, teaching them household chores, prayers and table manners.

 

Life was hard during the Japanese occupation. Many economic activities came to a halt, such as manufacturing, public transport, food distribution; there was a lack of supply for medicines and clothing.

 

The Japanese government confiscated most public transport for use as their military vehicles. Most career men and white- and blue-collar workers lost their jobs. They all evacuated their families to their home provinces to plant crops for food.

 

In Liliw, Inay taught us how to survive those times of scarcity, and how to instill order and discipline in her big brood.

 

Food was scarce, especially rice and sugar, which were luxuries. We cooked our rice often as lugaw to be taken with binilad na sapsap and dried dilis, dipped in coconut vinegar with garlic. Inay Aurea instituted the concept of rationing during our meals so that everyone would have an equal share. No second helpings and no leftovers were the rules.

 

During those times, I learned the meaning of selflessness and sacrifice for the good of the whole family.

 

Daily tasks

 

Inay Aurea gave each of us our daily home tasks and responsibilities. She and Ate Baby would cook meals, Nonong set the table and washed the dishes, Cesar would sweep the floor while I took care of the sala upstairs. Julio did the marketing in Nagcarlan, 30 minutes away from Liliw by foot. Transportation was non-existent.

 

Another stepbrother, Toti, a teenager, contracted leprosy and was sent to an asylum in Tala and later, Culion. I pitied him and wrote him letters often. He was very appreciative of my thoughtfulness.

 

Liliw people had a clear class distinction. The well-to-do were called tagagitna, and their beautiful houses were situated near the church and the municipio. The poor lived on the edge of town, near the forest borders. We lived somewhere in between. The boy in Arjona house ridiculed me whenever I passed their big house. He shouted at me, “Tanga-Majayjay! Tanga-Majayjay!”—a naughty corruption of taga-Majayjay, where I come from.

 

After a year, Inay decided to move to Majayjay to be near my lola’s farm, where ample supplies of rice from her rice fields were available. In Majayjay, Inay Aurea gave birth to Nuncia, my one and only half-sister. Meantime, Papa Sergio practiced naturopathy for a living.

 

One time, I got sick with malaria and was burning with high fever and chilling to death. Papa Sergio quickly brought me to the bathroom and doused me with pails of icy cold water which made me shiver to death. Then he quickly wrapped me up in thick blankets and a few minutes later, I sweated profusely, expelling the virus, and the malaria was cured instantly.

 

When World War II ended in 1945, we moved to Manila so my stepbrothers could find jobs.

 

For joining the guerillas, Papa Sergio received handsome back pay from the US government. With the windfall, he decided to retire from government service and embark on small entrepreneurial businesses. His first venture was to ship live chicken from Mindanao, which became sick during the boat ride to Manila. He also lost money in his strawberry farming venture in Baguio.

 

As he grew older, he easily got victimized by small-time racketeers, which left me  frustrated. I was already working at that time, and because he was so bull-headed, I gave him the cold treatment and, worse, I stopped making mano. My mother begged me to resume showing my respect for Papa Sergio, but I was also bull-headed.

 

I got married in 1967 and during my wedding reception, Papa Sergio didn’t want to join Inay Aurea at the wedding table. He relented after he was convinced by my relatives.

 

Papa Sergio maintained a small clinic in Baguio, where he suffered a heart attack that left him disabled. He was under the care of his eldest daughter, Ate Auring, in Anao, Tarlac.

 

When he was bedridden, I visited Papa Sergio, with my wife and when I saw him, I immediately made mano. The old man was reduced to tears when I showed my respect for him. I was happy that I was able to perform a humble act.

 

Inay Aurea brought the parish priest to his deathbed to hear Papa Sergio’s confession and give him the Sacrament of the Last Rites.

 

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