THE SPECTRO SHUTTLE

I HAVE NEVER BEEN TO A BIG family reunion affair. For myself, my family is not big. I got a rare and difficult-sounding last name and a middle name that is equally uncommon. On my father’s side, we can count only of a few households.  On my mother’s side, much less. If I were to gauge on these, I could never be a politician. Not my cup of tea though even if I have the numbers. But my late grandfather was a rare exception.

However, my wife belonged to a big family in Mindanao with ties that originated from Northern Cebu. Her late grandfather was formerly a mayor of two different municipalities there, her uncles and cousins joined local politics because they can rely on their big numbers. The problem with politics is it alienates you from family ties and you see brother running against a sister and a nephew against his uncle. Such is politics and it is ugly.

Big families have reunion affairs and it is common for political rivals who carried the same surnames or from the same parents trying to evade from each other which is quite impossible to do considering the limited space of where the event is held. In other families, family reunions became disruptive affairs and fragment into factions from within but, in my wife’s case, all behaved civilly as if all axes of discord were disposed away.

Rightly so, for they are all Seventh Day Adventists and they lived like one, unlike some who practice hypocrisy in their lives. I am a Roman Catholic, a renewed one, and I do not criticize my own religion but the faults of my fellow believers. Anyway, this is not about religion but how one behaved in such big family affairs and in their everyday lives. Me and my wife co-exist in one roof and we do not talk about our faiths and start a debate but we strengthen each other instead.

Going back to that reunion of my wife’s family, we set sail along with our grandson Gabriel to Ozamis City on the night of May 3, 2017 to attend that. We were met by Ayen Abuton and Michelle Mantos, my wife’s nieces, the following day, May 4, and we went home with them to Mahayag, Zamboanga del Sur. We were there for a week-long vacation last Christmas 2015 and we will stay again here for a day of rest.

On May 5, we set out early from Mahayag to Pagadian City and then to Diplahan, Zamboanga Sibugay, where the two-day Mantos Family Reunion would be held. The hosts would be my wife’s first cousins: Mathusalem and Ludy Mantos and Edward and Feninah Mantos. From the highway, we reach the farming village of Guinoman and there is a festive mood in a big house. The usual greetings and hugs proceed normally.

Although we were assured of sleeping spaces, I opt to bring my own hammock and taffeta sheet and fixed it in a corner so I could give my space to others. Slowly, more of her relatives arrived from Misamis Occidental, Misamis Oriental, Lanao del Norte, Bukidnon, Surigao del Sur, Davao del Norte, Davao del Sur, Davao Oriental and South Cotabato. Those from the Davao provinces arrived on a big dump truck.

 

Meanwhile, Mantos cousins Ike, Dodo and Jay invited me to go along with them to Mathusalem’s farm. We rode on a cart pulled by a Kubota L3608 farm tractor. It was an enjoyable ride, scary at times as it passes by a narrow path where there is a steep slope on one side. It crossed streams and climbed up a steep bank, its big wheels digging in deep, carrying the cart through. A poor man’s version of ATV but much expensive. I laugh at the small description of the tractor under its brand name: Spectro Shuttle.

The farm is beside a stream with fish ponds being dried up. Mathusalem is talking with a soldier. There is a military detachment nearby. I got introduced to his son, a port authority police officer, and we had a lengthy talk. Contents of Fundador Brandy are served in a wide circle through two glasses that ran clockwise and counterclockwise. Beef is being butchered and cooked in a big cauldron over open-pit fire. Along the middle of the stream, I watched three boys on a sled pulled by a carabao where another boy held the bridles.

I love the sight of the simple provincial life, to include the Spectro Shuttle driven back to the village center. After a very generous meal of pochero (beef stew) and rice, I need to stretch out by taking a short walk beside the stream. I stopped to observe a man and a boy casting their lines on the water. The man had with him a small basket which is half-filled with juvenile tilapia and another type of fish. He was good at choosing the best part of the stream which gave him a good catch.

I go back to the farmhouse and the rounds are undulating as ever as I had left them minutes ago. By mid-afternoon, we walk the distance back to the village center and to the reunion. The parking spaces are now filled up and my wife’s kin began to populate the wide lawn. Monobloc chairs kept them in place while some pitched tents and others sat on cheap laminated-nylon sheets on the ground. The program begins to start and my wife led me to the back to take a meal. After that, I proceed to my waiting hammock and slept.

I woke up in the morning of May 6. I missed the rest of the program yesterday. My wife is overlooking the food preparations so I passed to her my Victorinox Trailmaster. I left her when Dr. Tuesday and husband Jun Canugao wanted to take a bath on a local resort nearby. I accompanied them with Gabriel in tow. Their pick up truck could not go further and we have to walk the 150 meters distance. There is a warm pool and there is another warmer pool. Steams rose from the pool surface on this cold morning.

We immersed in the warmest pool and I could feel my balls boiling. I looked around how such things appeared? I could see the flat rice fields ringed by mountains. The wide Guinoman valley is a crater of an ancient volcano. It is a very remote village rich in natural resources like sand and gravel, silver and gold. Bandits used to harass small miners and farmers here with revolutionary tax and food and that is why there are military detachments.    

We left the warm pools, going back to Mathusalem’s house on foot. The morning program is about to start and I changed into a new set of clothes. I reeked of sulfur! A church service began and I, a Catholic, joined the SDA worshippers. After the service, lunch was served. At the back of the house, I assist my wife with her chores. My Victorinox remained sharp as ever. Then two farm workers arrived bringing with them a big bucket full of tilapia. Along that is a foot-long mudfish (haluan) and a fresh-water eel (bais).

I watched a boy deftly slicing the belly of each tilapia with a bolo like a professional. With a small knife, it took me a long time to slice into bite cuts on the single mudfish. With the slippery eel I gave up the Trailmaster for a bigger blade. Chopping is much better. Jay cooked both in brine and I waited. I would not trade these two for red meat at the moment. I missed these two and it soon would be a delightful meal.

Reclining on a chair, Jay gave me a cold bottle of beer. I watched Dodo supervise the roasting of two pigs (inasal) on an adjoining lot far from the rest of their kin. My wife grabbed my hand and asked me to accompany her to a waterfall located in Mathusalem’s property. Gabriel came along and Ayen too with little Kelly. We all settled in the cart of the Spectro Shuttle as it lurched forward on the road, crossing a long bridge and stopped at the trailhead.

From there we walked over the mud dikes between ricefields and around teethered carabaos with their young. It is a difficult walk with all the ladies and little ones, balancing along the very narrow path, sometimes with gaps of a meter in between. The ground shifted where it is soft and you have to move fast else you slide downward to the softer mud on rice paddy. A nasty thought.

When we reached firmer ground, it was easy navigating along the contour of the terrain. It was not difficult terrain but you cross streams and walk among marang, durian and rubber trees that were harvested. I saw something that aroused my interest: hieroglyphics on rocks. It could not be! It was an engraving done between 50 to 100 years ago. A gold trail, perhaps!

People made their fortunes from this place for so many years digging for gold and silver. The mines are now abandoned after the mother lode had been found and there is nothing left. What is left are legends and it can still be sold to the gullible and to the greedy ones who wanted to make it rich quick. I loved legends but I just deposit it in tales. Mere conjectures.

The waterfall is about twenty feet high and the water cascade to a deep pool. Beside the chasm is an old wooden structure where someone attempted to harness the power of water with a treadmill. Textbook design except that the penstock is missing. Maybe it was abandoned when electricity eventually reached Guinoman. What if it had indeed been operating successfully? With uninterrupted power it could power a small mine day and night.

After an hour of overwatch, the bathers were done. We made our way back to the rice paddies. Gabriel fell from the already weakened path and mud are all over him. Poor Gabriel. We reach an open well and Gabe took a second bath. From the trail we walk back to the big house passing by an abandoned house that used to belong to Ludy’s family. It has an empty swimming pool. It may have been a small resort in the past.

We reach the house at an hour before dusk. The walking have made me see and appreciate the beautiful parts of Mindanao where few outsiders considered visiting. I have long heard the tales of Guinoman since the ‘90s when I ventured to do a little farm business in Mahayag. It would have been different then. Much wild and much dangerous. How could people survive there is testament to their resoluteness to carve a livelihood as farmer, miner, hunter, fisherman, trader or even as a preacher. 

We prepared ourselves for a long night ride to Mahayag. My wife had a grand time meeting again and reconnecting with her relatives. She is now a bit sophisticated and has now an Android phone. She accepts friend requests on her Facebook account and there are eighteen pending ones. I got my pictures and I got my good memories of the Spectro Shuttle.

Document done in LibreOffice 5.3 Writer