Woman of substance

Today’s column is dedicated to all mothers who survived the hardships of World War II,  and women who have touched, and continue to touch, others’ lives.

We honor  the late Tomasa Mabilangan Capunpon-Casapao, aka Lelang Tomasa, of Canlubang, Laguna, through the following piece written by her grandson, Perry “Totoy” Casapao.

My  Lelang Tomasa

By Perry Casapao

It was 1945, we were lined up on the street, my Lelong Felipe, me, astride Itay’s shoulder and Lelang Tomasa on a high chair specially made to accommodate her condition. In my young mind, Lelang in her elevated platform did seem unusual. It was only later that I understood the reason: she had to have her left leg amputated above the knee due to gangrene. The barrio folks of Pulo, Cabuyao in Laguna was definitely in a jubilant mood. There was a visible eagerness on their faces, an optimistic air of gladness, something I was not used to see because what I can remember are the long faces, the hushed voices at night, the sobbing of adults and the bawling of hungry babies. The cacophony of voices suddenly erupted in an uproar and rhapsodic jubilation as a sea of Khakis, American GIs, who where just recently inmates of the Japanese concentration camp in the barrio, passed by, marching smartly in their tattered uniforms. This was followed with angry shouting and invectives at the erstwhile enemy, guarded and in chains marching at the rear. Stones started flying toward them but the MPs admonished the crowd that was turning into a mob.

There was a definite bounce in our steps as we walked back home with Lelang Tomasa, her arms around Lelong’s neck, a lovely waif cocooned  in her beloved’s arms. It was a lovely picture, the one I never took with a camera I did not own,  and I was then only a toddler, but indelibly etched in my memory. Darkness overtook us as we entered our yard, the reality of our situation seemed to dampen our celebration a bit.  In spite of the liberators’ arrival, hunger and deprivation still lurked in the shadow of the nascent evening, dawn was still far, away.

Tomasita to her parents, Tomasa Mabilangan Capunpon was all of 16 years old when she first laid eyes on the 20-year-old Felipe in the Casapao  house  in Sto. Tomas, Batangas. She was reed-thin, fair-skinned, with light brown eyes and naturally curly hair. Felipe is Batangueño brown and further darkened by his work as a “palagatos” (tractor) operator in the new development called Canlubang. She did not stand a chance, Felipe, a raconteur if ever there was one, swept her off her feet with his stories.

Like a moth in the  well-known fable, I watched amazed as Lelang lighted up the room by dropping some kernels of carbide and a cup of water in the lamps canister. There were about a dozen of us, an assortment of toddlers, crawlers and bawlers in flour sack diapers being tended to without complaint by this lady who in spite of the wrinkles, still projected her natural beauty. We were awaiting dinner at a papag, a dais less than a foot from the floor, another convenience for Lelang. She ladled out smelly sisid  rice, salvaged from a sunken ship in Manila Bay, moldy but when boiled, still edible; our stomachs had learned not to be choosy. Ulam – oh, yes, we did have one – a bowl of melted pork fat sprinkled with salt. You took a “thumbful” and mixed it with your rice.

 As long as she was supplied with water from the balon (artesian well), she washed clothes, cooked meals, cleaned the house, wiped snotty noses, fed the babies with am, a watery runoff from cooking rice, and sang to ease the hunger of those missing their Mama’s milk. All the able-bodied in the household were out all day scrounging for food and necessities. Itay just recently went back to work again at the sugar mill and was paid a kilo or so of raw brown sugar which he traded for necessities. He even managed to secure a few spoonfuls of coffee made out of roasted corn. There were jobs in and around the now US Army camp. The GI’s would trade their ready- to- eat rations for fresh vegetables, and we would usually have a boxful. There was a menu, a list of what was inside the box, usually Spam, crackers, beans, even a stick or two of cigarettes. The ration was then called “menu” as in “nakadelihensya ka ba ng menu?”

Lelang was that rare woman of her generation who taught herself to read and write. She was the one who told me stories about Jose Rizal and the three priests, and mentioned to me that my ninuno was with Mabini when he was exiled to Guam. She encouraged my father Itay to go and live with relatives in Calamba as some sort of help in order for him to finish at least seventh grade; he did and later on, he would bring home borrowed books, newspaper wrappers, pamphlets and any written material for her to read. When Itay got published in Liwayway, Bulaklak and even the tabloid, Tiktik, she had a regular supply of reading materials. When chores were done in the afternoon, she would put a pillow on the wall, lay her back on it and start to read with a Tabacalera cheroot, yes, the lighted end inside her mouth –  something that never stopped to amaze me.

We all grew up, adults got jobs and went elsewhere, there was food on the larder. Lelang was looking at a life of ease but it was not to be. Lelong Ipe, now a Baptist minister, the only non-Catholic in the household, had a debilitating stroke which left him paralyzed. Lelang was up to the task. A disabled taking care of another and she did a superb job. Cooking for Ipe, washing his clothes, giving him a bath and a shave. This was in the late 1950s, no new fangled drug, no rehab program. There was another stroke and another, a fatal one. 

Lelang tried to be stoic, a habit developed by the harsh nature of the war years but the listlessness, the hesitancy, the faraway look was palpably visible. She participated personally to the preparation of the laglag luksa  (the 40th day after one’s death) for her beloved Ipe. That night having done her last duty to her husband, she laid her head on her pillow and went to claim her just reward.

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