When the British Forces bombarded the WaIls of Old Manila from Luneta in 1762, preparatory to an attack, the Spanish authorities authorized Simon Anda Salazar to carry with him part of the Royal treasure to enable him to raise an Army for resistance. Anda escaped through River Gate of Fort Santiago and traveled  by banca (local boat) to Binondo Estero and Vitas to Pampanga where he established a government in exile in Bacolor. From that vantage point, Anda established an effective blockade of the  British Forces in 1764. (Fort Santiago marker)

 

When Arturo Salvador returned back home, he got the biggest shock in his life. Okay, he was expecting a change in Pampanga (his province) geography due to Pinatubo but not this!

While living in America, he would close his eyes and dream of going home. He would take a Victory Liner ride from Manila to Balintawak/Caloocan then pass through Malolos/Bulacan; then through the towns San Simon, San Matias, Santo Tomas, San Fernando, Bacolor, Guagua, and finally reach Lubao. Roughly two hours. He knew it would be hot and dry in the Philippines in March and he was ready for that.

After eight years, he left America and flew home via Northwest.

"This weather must be extremely hot for you," his sister commented when they met at Ninoy Aquino International Airport. He smiled, "It is no different from Florida." He was lying. Nothing can beat the heat of Manila under the El Nino phenomenon. "The traffic must be horrible, don't you think?" his sister added. "I'm used to this," Arturo lied again. The traffic was too much to bear. He kept lying to avoid getting the snide remarks about balikbayans who "think they were big shots because they just ate a few hamburgers in America."

this may be the house of a friend or a classmate

Overall, he was happy. Anybody who's about to see his family that he hasn't seen for eight years must be happy. The chance to embrace the old Philippine smell and sound and meet with his folk again gave him an immeasurable comfort. He was back to the security of home again. 

They took the car and drove back to Pampanga taking the route he dreamt of taking. So far so good until the road took a sharp diversion in San Fernando, by-passing Bacolor.

two-thirds buried

"What happened?" he asked.

"Just wait and see," his sister calmly assured him.

 

She drove the car through an empty grassy land, wide for the eyes to behold. He suddenly felt frightened. "Don't tell me ...this is ...this is..."

"Yes. This is Bacolor."

He felt being stabbed. The buzzing town of Bacolor was now desolate and empty except for the dotted houses raised on stilts.

He felt like crying. "Stop the car please."

He stepped out to orient himself. As he recovered from his shock, his memory kept rushing in.

second floor

"This is the spot where I used to hang out with my highschool friends. Over there used to be the Bacolor Market where I regularly ate lunch." He kept on walking like a lost man, "This is my highschool," he muttered as tears rolled down his face upon seeing Don Honorio Ventura College of Arts and Trades, the former Pampanga Trade School, the oldest trade school in the Far East, the place where Anda Salazar hid after escaping the British, the place that became a temporary capital of the Philippines during British invasion, there it was, like a man buried up to his neck, staring into vast emptiness, as if too tired even for mercy. "And ...and...there used to be a street here..." He tried recalling the houses that lined the vanished street, the Bacolor families he knew the Jovens, the Serranos, the Pabalans, the Matics, the Gozuns, Corteses, Hensons, Chus, the Olalias, the Bustoses, the Pangilinans. "And here once stood a majestic Spanish house," the house was lifted on stilts as if trying to save its face and history. Beside the market, the statue of Crisostomo Sotto which served as a landmark of what was once the town's Rotonda stood all alone, about to be claimed by dust. The famous Pampango writer now stood without a name, his face discolored, without history amidst abandoned and buried edifices.

Arturo gazed at the flat terrain as if surveying the spots where he and his highschool friends biked around: the municipal hall, Glorietta, the Bacolor church and St. Mary's Academy.

 

Bacolor was a very quiet and peaceful town. Doors were closed, streets were spartan, everyone seemed to talk in Whispers. This was a town of a trade school that churned out people of artistic skills. It produced the best curved woods and decorative furniture in Betis, Pampanga. It produced some of the finest engineers and architects in the Philippines. The Bacolor folks were always doing something, their skills did not allow them idleness. They taught Arturo skills in Electronics, Wood Patternmaking Drafting, even Ceramics and Cooking. They taught Arturo the virtue of patience in creating art.

Mr Laxa was Arturo's mentor. Arturo would sit at Mr. Laxa's shop every time he had free school time and watch the old man meticulously convert a piece of dried acacia trunk into a lion wrapped by a snake both beasts about to devour each other. Sometimes the  man would come up with a saint or an angel or a crucified Christ all life size in dimensions. Arturo would later apply the solitude of the old man to his writing. He recalled the old man's philosophy : "You create art to your heart's content."
While in America, Arturo would always dream of visiting the old man, Look, he wanted to say, I am turning into a writer!

second floor

His sister butted into his reminiscence, "When the lahar deluge came, it came like a thief in the night, it quietly claimed sleeping lives and houses. The people of Bacolor woke up startled and then started running frantically, carrying what they could carry. Some of the men saw their children snatched away by the lahar from their arms, the mothers watched their houses bow and kneel to the weight of ash and rocks. And then ...in famine, some lost their minds, some killed themselves. Some refused to leave - they could not accept the fact that they'd end up in tents and evacuation centers as refugees. How could they leave a town that was theirs for centuries? Their forefathers grew up on this soil. They built their homes here. They were born and expected to die here. Look at the cemetery, it's all roofs and arches. In refusing to leave, many of them died. Underneath this soil, and entire town is buried. People are buried.. This whole place is like a big cemetery."

 

Arturo began sweating profusely. He wondered how his friends survived. How they perished. He wondered how they felt when they saw the waves of lahar coming. He wondered how much screaming and crying was heard. Lahar hardened so quickly anyone caught in it had no chance of getting out. It was like a quicksand.

Don Bosco of Bacolor, the boys exclusive Don Bosco , used to be lined with trees, tall and old, the seminary was inhabited by priests in bicycles, and kids of the wealthy Pampangos played soccer on its well trimmed lawn. In Don Bosco, even the parting of a school boy's hair was monitored by priests.

There lived an old homeless man in front of Don Bosco. It was said that this man's fiancé was killed by hit and run in front of Don Bosco the night before her wedding. She would later turn into a lady ghost in white wedding gown. Her betrothed, out of despair, had since stayed on the road where she got killed. Closing his eyes, Arturo visualized the man in tattered rags the color of the earth, pacing the same road in front of Don Bosco over and over again, twenty four hours a day, everyday, every week, every month, every year. As students, Arturo and friends threw sandwiches to the man. He'd stare at the food and would smile. Arturo would never forget that smile, that moment when the man would temporarily abandon his insanity and wave at them.

Now, look, Don Bosco is reduced into broken walls and bricks, metal rods sticking out like lonely posts, serving as stands for creeping weeds. Is the homeless man dead?

North of Don Bosco was the Bacolor church. Arturo recollected the smell, the trees, the solemnity of its choir voices and churchgoers kneeling, praying with their hands resting on pews. And the girls the girls of St. Mary's Academy ...it schooled the only girl he got a crush on all his life. After her, it's ...aaaah. Life is so confusing.
Arturo by now was overwhelmed with grief and painful nostalgia, in the realization that whatever he left behind was lost forever. He could not bring back what Nature had claimed. There was nothing familiar anymore.

He tried to make a sense of it, what was God's reason to bury a bustling town of parents, children, schoolteachers , employees, schoolchildren, jeepneys, tricycles, the grocery store, the drug store, the market? He could not come up with an answer. He heard his sister again, "Unless the lahar of Porac is leveled, it will keep on coming, and it doesn't spare any town ...even Guagua and ours, Lubao."

He did not care about that. All he wanted was to hear the sound of his classmates laughing, welcoming him home, planning a grand reunion...

Arturo continued walking until he reached the Bacolor church. He received more bad news, "In Cabalantian, at least a hundred people were buried alive under lahar," the caretaker of the Bacolor church informed him, "One Saulog bus succumbed to it with all the driver and passengers inside."

"Where are the survivors now? Maybe you'd know where my friends live now."

"Who are your friends?"

Arturo tried desperately to recall their names but his memory faltered, twenty years had already passed... "There was Elvira and Jessica, Ludette and Oliver and..." he could not continue.

His memory drifted to their days under the blue skies as he tried to remember some more...his teachers,"Miss Chu... Miss Sampang... Miss Ola..." Damn why can't he remember?

All he saw in his mind were faces and clothes and mannerisms and voices, but not names. The high-school bully, for example, who upon graduation told him, "Arturo Salvador, mark my words. You will succeed. The woman you will marry will be a very happy woman,"  was very clear in his memory.

"Where are you now?" Arturo thought. "I am probably successful but I never had a wife... I wish I could tell you now that I am a happy gay person... I wish you'd know me as gay ...it will give me peace of mind. I don't want you to remember me as the other boy you used to know. That boy was a fake."

The church caretaker: "They're scattered, Sir. There is a Housing in Sandalan and Bulaon, some went to Tarlac, some to Cavite, some to other cities, some went abroad."

So before proceeding home, Arturo passed by Bulaon in San Fernando. He was expecting new houses and meet his equally happy and successful highschool friends. There'd be an impromptu celebration... Instead, he saw makeshift sawali huts next to each other, naked children prattling about. Walking men weren't smiling at all. It seemed they were in a daze. They did not know him and they were tired of balikbayan tourists who just keep on taking photos of them as a souvenir of someone else's misfortunes. They didn't recall anything but a raging mountain that wiped away everything they had . ..

... Sometimes, it's better to live in your beautiful memory while fixing your reality. Arturo did not bother to re-introduce himself anymore, instead he recalled their glorious youth together ...Nearly twenty years ago he topped his senior class of 280. He was the Junior Senior prom president, the Student Council president. He bagged home writing awards for their school paper, of which he was the editor in chief. He stood valedictorian on their graduation day. He was the first valedictorian from Lubao, probably the first gay valedictorian of future wood sculptors, of tradesmen and architects, of engineers... He was hearing their applause and whistling...they applauded him 11 times for the 11 medals accorded him, the highest number ever given to a single student in the nearly 300 years of their school history .....

town bacolor

 

Alex Maskara is Pinoy