We, children of the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s

In this season of Lent, we are called to practice fasting, repentance, moderation, self-denial and spiritual discipline. It is a time to focus on the Christian virtues of holiness and righteousness as we reflect on the life, suffering, death and resurrection of our Lord. It is a period of austerity where we momentarily set aside the things we usually indulge ourselves in – the excesses of our lifestyle.

At present, my thoughts turn to my childhood during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, which interrupted the American Commonwealth period from 1941 when Pearl Harbor was bombed, up to the surrender of Japan in February 1945.

These years taught me an invaluable lesson – the lesson of being in want. Our children today are soft because they have never known what it is to have so little. They never experienced the war, and so it is hard to teach them austerity. All these experiences helped shape my character, for the ages of three to six is the most sensitive period of developing independence.

Filipino children during Japanese time

During the Japanese occupation, our cities and towns had Japanese stores. My husband Max, then 11 years old, recalls that the apa (wafer cookies) vendor in their hometown of Sto. Domingo in Ilocos Sur wore a captain’s uniform. In Manila, his parents bought his toys at the popular Nippon Bazaar in Escolta, downtown Manila. All the Japanese storekeepers and employees who sold food, garments and toys were actually part of the Japanese military organization that occupied all the countries of Asia.

For many adults, Japanese time was filled with military restrictions, hunger, deprivation, massacre and rape. My gentle mother Meding quietly cried when my father, Atty. Calixto Silverio, and a 17-year-old cousin were bayoneted to death. Our neighbors, four families who evacuated with us to the large house of my Lolo Manuel Quiogue in Singalong, saw their bodies tied together along the San Marcelino tranvia (tram railway); papa’s calling cards strewn all over the place. We never saw him again because we never recovered his body.

Somehow, God tempers the horror of pain and death in the eyes of innocent children.

The massacre and burning of Manila

The Japanese soldiers burned all the houses in Manila. Were it not for the many evacuees in Lolo’s house who formed a fire brigade from Mang Aragon’s well to Lolo’s Spanish sawali house, even my aunts’ houses and Mang Kiko’s store at the corner would have been burned.

Uncle Salo said that all men were being taken by the soldiers to be beheaded. I got so scared and wondered how they would hide. Then, I saw an elderly woman whom I did not recognize. She turned out to be Francis Ablan’s father dressed in a woman’s clothes with a bandana revealing curls on both sides of his face. Mama said his disguise allowed him to walk around while his younger sons hid in our hot attic.

Uncle Fred was one of the victims but luckily escaped death. I recall vividly the fresh and bloody one-and-a-half inch cut at the back of his neck. He managed to painfully trudge back to the house from Ermita. He pretended to be dead while heads spilled around him in a pit dug around the isolated Japanese military quarters. But, Uncle Manoling unfortunately did not escape. His pregnant wife died when she was hit by shrapnel.

I still recall the stench when two dead Japanese soldiers lay along the sidewalk fronting the house in Singalong. Shrapnel hit them after a dozen aimed their machine guns at us. My mother, sister, brother, cousins and myself formed a human chain to cross the street to St. Anthony’s Church, en route to Sta. Ana. Somehow we jumped over the tall spiked fence of the church. The burning grey debris of the city flew around us like feathers. Manila was literally disintegrating. Soon after, sanitation became a problem. Polio spread and hit my eight-month-old cousin Lito, the orphan boy of Uncle Manoling.

Before the Americans returned, Japanese currency had undergone inflation. In the past, I would buy a small bag of peanuts for P10 from Mang Kiko. Within a few days, he charged P100 for the same bag. At the end of the week, Mama would not give me any more money because the peanuts cost P1,000. Everyone hoarded food stuff. People carried bayongs (long woven bags) filled with Japanese notes to buy goods.

The joy of summer holidays in the countryside

Since we were orphaned of father, Auntie Plicia always brought us for our summer holidays to Bintog throughout our grade school years. Visiting Lola Juana in Bintog, Bulacan was special. Our bus ride from Manila ended at the Plaridel junction – our bayan. Going by calesa or horse drawn carriage was exciting as we pass by the tumana, the rice fields of Lolo Bue, which marked the beginning of Bintog. We would call out “Lola Milya, Lola Milya” before descending to our vacation house. This grandaunt lived across the lime green wooden frame house of our grandparents.

The relatives of the Silverios: de Castro, Llamas, Lopez, Gatdula, Sto. Tomas, Musayac and Pascual lived along the two-kilometer road leading to the bisita, the barrio chapel. Nearby was the barrio schoolhouse with the charming Gabaldon architecture distinguished by its capiz shell window shutters. (My brother thoroughly enjoyed attending primary school here.) Only low hibiscus plant hedges, not tall cement walls, separated one house from the other.

Lola Juana fed us fresh puto and cuchinta (white and orange rice cakes) that she and her cousins Lola Ana and Lola Milya (Emilia) prepared. With the galapong (rice flour) stone grinder, she would pour wet glutinous rice into the hole. Two circular stone slabs ground it slowly into liquid rice. No one was in hurry then. They allowed me to roll suman, glutinous rice boiled with gata (coconut milk), in young yellow-green banana leaves softened over the wood fire. Afterwards, they would enjoy their nga nga (betel nut chew) which colored their lips like red lipstick.

Lolo Polonio, my handsome brown-skinned grandpa, amused us with his handcrafted horses – bamboo poles with nodes that stimulated eyes. Then we would walk to the riverside or rampa (irrigation dike) to hunt for birds’ nests. We always looked forward to bathing in the shallow Angat River. Clams were easy to pick in the clear water, which today has been ruined by the gravel trucks. I recall village women laundering clothes on the shore, while a carabao sat by quietly from a little distance away.

I endured the electric wired metal rollers

At the beginning of the Japanese occupation, the DAITOA, Japanese Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, programmed everyone to plant his or her gardens with kamote (sweet potato) or cassava. I enjoyed helping Mama plant and sweep the yard. Chocolates were unknown to us, but we enjoyed raw sugar molasses like tira-tira (taffy candy), caramel (sugar cubes) and panotsa (brown molasses). Butterballs were a rare treat.

Once a year, I looked forward to the Flores de Mayo. Mama would let my sister and I have hair perms. I endured the electric-wired metal rollers like heated charcoal over my head, since I always looked good with Shirley Temple curls. The grown-up ladies had heavier spiral rollers to curl their long hair, which fell down to their waists. Mama had her coiffure ala Rita Hayworth sustained with daga (rat-like hair stuffing) all around.

In the city, people rode bicycles or walked from home to market and back. Since there were very few vehicles, we walked to school, to church, to market, etc. Travel to the provinces was difficult since one had to wait to get a lift from truck drivers. Well-off families kept horse-drawn carriages, the dokars or the simple calesas. Whenever we were in the province, I felt proud that Papa could drive Lolo’s calesa faster than the other carriage drivers.

I recall Mama’s sukang Iloko (red vinegar from Ilocos) head plaster on my forehead whenever I had fever. I would watch our neighbors, the Ablans and Gonzaleses, from my window. I dreaded the labatiba (enema) or purga (antihelmentic). Today, children are given laxatives for constipation.

Calling all children of the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s

Tales from those simpler and interesting times should be collected from grandparents and parents, and published before they are lost. For Truth is more fascinating than fiction. You will see that children prefer these stories to fairy tales because these are facts of life during different times in our country’s history. They are the stuff from which true Filipino children’s literature should be made of. They will learn that a little austerity will not kill us. It will instead help build our character as a people and as a nation.

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