Bacolod, my home

Published on: 19th December, 2009

by  Pinky Concha Colmenares

Going home still means going to Bacolod, the city of my birth and the home of my youth. Despite having a fully functional home in Metro Manila for decades, where memories of my three adult children have been cultured, “home” to me is 50 minutes away by plane.  Recently, as my long drives delightfully discovered, it is 22 hours by the Strong Republic Nautical Highway connected by “moving bridges” which to the cargo handlers simply means, the RORO or roll-on-roll-off ferry.

San Sebastian Cathedral

I left Bacolod in 1981, when my second child, Jaclyn Anne, was barely a year.  I still remember that Ninfa Leonardia, who was already then The Columnist, sent us off with a toy for Jac.  I also left the beginnings of my own journalism career where I had edited two community papers  Iwag, the development communications weekly newspaper of the martial law government, and Visayan Times, the first daily where Ninfa had a very popular column and where the Old Guards of opinion had regular columns (among them Rolly Espina and Primo Esleyer).  It was also in the Visayan Times where the publisher and editor of this magazine  Eli Francis Tajanlangit  took a first look at newspaper production as a student on OJT (on-the-job-training).  At a very young age, with inexperience as his muse, Eli’s writing started what would be his place in local journalism.  Acerbic wit was then extraordinary.

A trip to Bacolod is not anything new in my schedule.  Even before the promo fares of Cebu Pacific, I scrimped just to afford regular trips home.  There were countless reasons to come home.  Most of them were to close doors to the past and to walk the last steps leading to a full circle in my life.

Many of those trips were to be with my Nanay and Tatay as each struggled with destiny.  “I want to die with you beside me,” each one had told me.  I was not there when Nanay — and then Tatay nine months after — breathed their last.  But I was there so many times, often riding on wings of faith  at the height of typhoons, at the lowest of financial health, in the middle of career whirlwinds. It became as ordinary as taking a bus to anywhere, stepping into the airport and purchasing a ticket for the soonest flight to Bacolod.

But I ramble on how trips home have been.  Now, let me tell you how being home always feels like.

Perhaps because I am a reporter by training, I smell Bacolod from the check-in queue in Manila.  There is always a whiff of an imported scent around, Spanish baby cologne from the children, or the sting of French perfume from the matrons, or a hint of shaving cologne from the men.

I also hear the city from the sing-song Ilonggo dialect, blended with English idioms and Spanish petty curses. I even hear it in someone’s Tagalog delivered in sing-song cadence which reminds me of how Kris Aquino has placed Taglish as chic colegiala lingo.  Naturally, there is always a spurt of temper, the one which flaunts the air of a class not accustomed to wait  or to be cut in line by someone who looks like a tourist!  “Excuse me! There is a line!”  said in extreme politeness that only the foreign-looking, or those who do not speak the native tongue of English, cannot understand as pure, pure sarcasm.

My hometown always welcomes me with a balmy air, even when it’s raining.  That hangs around me throughout my visit, making me perspire a lot that I always bring more than the usual number of shirts when I come come.  Is it the warm hospitality of the people or is Bacolod really much warmer than Manila?

Family, friends and food are the three factors that occupy each homecoming. There is always not enough time for all of those combined in one visit.  I come from a clan, so my visits are usually kept secret to avoid hurting the sensitive feelings of  aunts and uncles who expect a visiting niece to pay respects to the elders.  When my parents were alive, I stayed in their house and went out only to hear mass.  Being sighted by a dear relative in a public place would expose me to some kind of family misunderstanding which can last from a day to a decade  no kidding!  But after they died, there is no reason to keep me indoors, away from the crowd.  So I have explored Bacolod’s restaurants, antique shops and coffee shops and found that my city has a hidden charm that is much like those I found in the small towns in Europe and in the boutique alleys of the big cities.

Against the raised eyebrows of my siblings who assigned themselves the task to drive me around, I would take the jeepney through Lacson Street, alighting at the cathedral to hear mass in my native Ilonggo. Standing in a crowded church to worship gave me a sense of being home. (Masses at the San Sebastian Cathedral had always been SRO (standing room only) when I was a child.) After mass, I walked through the public plaza to Central Market where I always enjoyed looking through the native products.  Believe it or not, I now have a  collection of patajongs purchased from there.  I use most of them, like one uses pajamas to sleep, or shorts to lounge around the house.  There was a Christmas when I gave patajong to every female friend I truly liked, attaching instructions on how to use it.

I have walked around Bacolod many times during those visits and delighted in each tour of the downtown district of my youth.  The ritual gave me back some of my past and I feel Nanay’s and Tatay’s presence somewhere around me. I had walked those streets with them when I was a child.  My parents, both good cooks, were always going to market in search for some ingredient.

When there is time, I venture to the nearby “mall” — an old, old shopping center where BSE (Bacolod Shoe Emporium) and China Rose Department Store and Lopue’s used to reign as anchor stores in each side.  I can’t stop myself from buying pairs of Le Chic slippers which I can only find in BSE.  My children can’t understand my affection for those leather slippers!  I also wander into the department stores where I find cheap stuff I don’t need, but I buy them anyway, just to feel that I had shopped in the old places.  I walk farther down, entering Plaza Mart where the tela shops still awe me.  I have no imagination for what those rolls of textile can be when they’re cut and sewed, so I am amazed at how cloth can attract a crowd of shoppers.  At last, I sit and eat my favorite merienda food somewhere.  There’s a store that sells piaya the way it should be — crispy, thin, delicate to the touch, and very sweet!  They also have batchoy and puto and sometimes bibingka.  Even after the long walk, I can’t take in all of that, so I take the delicacies home, hoping it could last till I went back to Manila.

I have combed the streets around central market, exiting to Rizal or to Lacson, even to Luzuriaga.  I keep what I see as pictures in my mind  Bacolodnon vendors in a variety of moods, usually smiling.  I like the way they invite you to make a purchase  always addressing the woman as “Inday”, the same title attached to my name when I was living there.

I do not allow a chance to go to Bacold to pass, especially if it’s free.  That means it’s related to work, which will give me less time for family, friends and food. But I take the risk of hurting relatives and friends who I don’t even call, or of missing the traditional feast they lay out for me.  As I grow older, I find that it is the air around the city which I now long for.  The leisurely pace, the singsong dialect, the crowded markets and churches, and the balmy air.  When I’m there, I feel truly at home.**

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