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My grandmother, Lola Genia, ran a school of hard knocks with one student, me. I lived with her for a year in her farmhouse at the foot of Mt. Banahaw in Majayjay, Laguna. I was 11 years old.
I was once a political animal. In the 1950s, my uncle, Tio Felix Gozo, was recruited to run for mayor by the Liberal Party leaders in Majayjay, Laguna. I became Tio Felix’s instant and rabid supporter. As a young man, Tio Felix displayed excellent leadership qualities. He headed many youth and civic activities. I idolized him.
“In Quezon, you’ll go nuts with coconuts,” says our tour guide, Tina Diasanta-Decal, who operates Kulinarya Tagala, a food and culture tour of southern Tagalog (Laguna, Quezon and Batangas).
As a form of protest against low-cost carriers and perennially congested runways, I decided I would not click on Piso Fare links this month. Instead, all travels would be done on nothing more than a gas tank, a tent and a general idea of where I’m headed.
There is definitely more to Santa Rosa, Laguna than just being the much touted gateway to Calabarzon, that burgeoning industrial zone and magnet for investors that straddles the provinces of Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon. Younger folk too can find much more to this town than just the giant ferris wheel of the Enchanted Kingdom.
Towns in the 1930s up to the 1950s were walking towns, with clean and peaceful streets lined with wooden houses where neighborly folk lived. There were no jeeps, tricycles and motorcycles that clogged the thoroughfares—only buses that departed every hour for the 25-km trip to the provincial capital.
The thing is an ancient ruin of a weird, huge arch. It stands forlorn at the base of a steep ravine walled in by a thick jungle and the Olya River in Majayjay. It’s a tall arch, moss-covered, with wild ferns and creeping vines growing in its cracks and crevices. Below is a dark green lagoon where we swam and frolicked naked when we were young boys many moons ago.
The ’50S were mnemonic radio days. I was growing up and we had no phone, no TV, no movies and no PCs. Radio emphasized the sounds of our times. We created our images in the theater of our minds.
A Filipiniana fashion show and a concert of classical Filipino music will be held on Dec. 16 in the Rizal Ballroom of Makati Shangri-La.
The heritage town of Pila, Laguna, is rich in history, having survived wars, revolutions and catastrophic floods which forced the residents to transfer to its present location near the capital town of Santa Cruz.
