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Changing Times
by Alfonso Bermejo Villamora
(oragonako@hotmail.com),
Kaiba News and
Features--Bicol
“It’s hard for me to get used to
these changing times. I can remember when the air was clean
and sex was dirty.” George Burns
Life used to be slower in
Tinambac, Camarines Sur. I remember how this slow pace would
come to a virtual stop just after sunset, when the altar boys
tugged at the ropes of the aged bells: Angelus in the
Poblacion.
The centuries-old church sits atop
a small hill, across from the old municipio. When the
bells are rung, the echoes reverberate all the way to the
westernmost and farthest parts of the town from the church. On
a slightly breezy afternoon when the amihan (northeast
wind) comes to gently cool an overheated town, the sonorous
sounds can be heard as far as the nine fathom mark on San
Miguel Bay where the night fishers await for darkness to fall.
When I left in 1975, the main
streets in the Poblacion (forming a rectangular
perimeter) were the only ones built with concrete. Today, the
whole town is paved in concrete, including the road to Naga
City. But it took two decades to get this job done!
Back then, the town folks looked
forward to the weekly movies at the old sinehan on San
Pascual Street. The late Choring Santamaria of Goa, Camarines
Sur, owned the wooden structure that passed for a movie
theater. This I know because I vividly remember the tall
mestizo – the late Pay Choring who strictly manned the
entrance. Dolphy's antics tickled, Tony Ferrer's and Bernand
Bonin’s exploits amazed, and Fernando Poe and Ronald Remy’s
adventures were larger than life. “Aninong Bakal”,
“Agent X-44” and “Sierra Madre” were just a few of the
movies I remember. People enjoyed everything else this one
local entertainment venue offered.
The old movie house is nothing but
a distant memory now, thanks to the proliferation of VHS and
DVD players and cable TV. Even the Bicharas’ venture in
Tinambac did not flourish either, as their old movie house
next to the Platon’s “Whitehouse” on La Purisima Street is now
an eyesore. The Bicharas own the monopoly of movie houses in
the Bicol Region.
On fiesta days, the town’s saod
(market) would host the travelling perya and other
itinerant business. As a kid, I eagerly looked forward to
those days so I could have an old fav - a clay toy gun! The
wares of the visiting merchants from Tiwi, Albay lined the old
seawall – all sizes of korons (clay pots), clay
planters, clay dolls gaily painted in bright red, green and
yellow. I remember pestering Mama for a few pesos to buy
cotton candies and colorful ice drops while standing in the
queue for the kino-kino (a carnival game in which a
mouse or guinea pig is let loose near a ring of rotating,
numbered houses. The entered house is the winning number)
roadshow. Ah, those were the days!
In recent years, entrepreneurs
started renting spaces for their Tiangge set-ups along
the commercial section of La Purisima Street. Cheap plastic
wares are everywhere; bundles of slippers are on sale as if
they are going out of style. The streets become impassable to
vehicular traffic. As a matter of fact, the traditional
bisperas procession for San Pascual Baylon had to be
rerouted because of the bizarre, I mean bazaar-like set-up
that has encroached into the main thoroughfares. What a pity!
The town officials must be really hurting for cash that they
have succumbed to commercial demands passing over tradition.
Definitely, life in Tinambac has
picked up its pace now but not yet to the extent of finding a
Mang Donald or a Chow King outlet. The old municipio
now houses a college. The new and bigger municipio is
located in Binalay, away from the “happenings” in the town
plaza and away from the common tao. If you need to
visit the post office, one must hire the services of a
padyak (foot-pedaled tricycle) operator. For two pesos, he
will take you anywhere in the Poblacion. But Binalay
will cost you two pesos more. Of course trykes and jeepneys
will get you there faster. Personally, I like the padyak
ride. It is slow but void of the 90-decibel noise they
call music that blare in more modern conveyances.
Excursionists and curiosity-seekers
from the big city are more frequent now, eager to visit the
invigorating waters of the Lupi and Himoragat Rivers. Two
years ago, I invited some of my balikbayan friends from
Nabua, Camarines Sur for a dip in Iraya (upstream). I
had a hut built on a rocky area in the middle of the
pleasantly fresh Himoragat. The water under the hut was deep
enough for swimming in and out of it and into the even deeper
parts of the river. With a case of cold San Miguel and lots of
seafood and summer fruits, the outing was complete. Truly, it
was a memorable experience.
One of the things I miss
particularly in Baybay (coast) was my old tambayan
– Tiang Talin’s sari-sari store along San Vicente
Street. Come to think of it, sari-sari stores look so
different now in that part of the town- though bigger they
seem inhospitable to loafers. Stores used to be smaller and
had two rough wooden benches in front of them. You'd find
people perched on the benches talking and catching up with the
day’s bareta (news) and the latest tsismis in
the afternoon. They wouldn’t be drinking; they’d just be
talking. The drinking session happens at night. Then, armed
with a bilog or a kuatro kantos, they would turn
the night into hell, comic relief, or heaven for the
neighbors, depending on their musical abilities and the extent
of their inebriation. With no police to contend with, just
some stray animals and an occasional angry wife, they men folk
would while the night away. Scorecards are compared in the
morning when the wives gather and talk about the previous
night’s unscheduled performances.
Indeed my hometown has changed both physically and
demographically with time and progress. I miss the old
Tinambac and the clanging of the old church bells from atop
the gently rolling hill just after sunset. The bells still
toll the Angelus but now it is sadly drowned by the
neighbors’ boom boxes – the new sign of the times in this
sleepy, old town (Kaiba News and Features, email:
pcalara@edsamail.com.ph URL: http://www.kaiba.cjb.net/).