By the Jal-o River

B ishop Romualdo Jimeno , the Bishop of Cebu (1846-1872) was known in the Province of Capiz (of which Balete was then a part of) as the first Diocesan Bishop (he was actually a Dominican) to have made pastoral visit in this part of the ecclesiastical province of Cebu. He was further known as the bishop who was ambushed and killed on 17 March 1872 his way from Batang (Batan) to Dumalag. To commemorate his death the place where he fatally fell was named Jimeno (now known as Altavas). To Balete-on, Bishop Jimeno may not ring a bell. But sometime in July 29, 1856 or exactly 154 years ago, the good Bishop wrote something to the advantage of the Baleten-on people. He was just informed of the death of Padre Don Jose Matias Piansay, the interino then of the Balete Parish. Worried that the faithful in the enchanting town of Balete were shepherdless, he immediately directed his chancellor to write a dispatch to Presbitero Don Diego Albao who was at that time in a mission work in the North to r

Aiming for the sunbirds one noonday in my orchard I found myself framing stilled guavas.

I was privileged to do research at the National Archives of the Philippines for a couple of times. The first was in the year 1998 when Balete was considering to celebrate the "centennial" of the so-called " El Teroteo de Agtawagon ", erroneously translated as "The Battle of Agtawagon Hill". That visit proved to be a wind of change that set the direction of the festivity away from that mythic scene. The outcome of that visit showed otherwise. Balete was a Hispanic Philippine pueblo which initially dates back to 1826. It was one of the 33 pueblos in the province of Capiz. It had a total land area of 15,525 hectares. A report recorded in a manuscript Memorias showed that the Baleten-ons' total cultivated areas yielded to about 200 cavans of palay per season or cropping. An epidemic caused by cholera was recorded to have caused the lives of a total number of 144 people in the year 1882. Those were th

I just announced on my FB window that I'm back in Makati and got lost. Makati had been my home for seven years way back in 1986, just a few months after the EDSA revolution. I left in 1993 after getting fed up dealing with some forex trading "busyness" along Paseo de Roxas. I went home in Balete assuring my lady friend that I would be back soon. It is sad to note though that up to this time, I've not fulfilled that promise uttered to her on that one restless evening. It is sad that I've not tried keeping in touch with her after my failure to make that promise come true. It is sadder that I've not asked her to forgive me for my failings. It is the saddest that I've not prayed for her after all these years and that I even managed to list her name in the water or perhaps locked it up in some closed doors in the mansion of my mind. Even then, the conscious self still wishes to make amend. In due time, I shall recall her name and by then, I can pray for her an

A local bird called Bakwa was busy feeding on some bananas. I was lucky to have harvested an unsullied one, not to mention that it weighed more than 50 kgs. The rodents usually feasted on pineapples but this time, I beat them on a dozen of spanish red variety.

What will you do when you got the urge to frame something and found out that your camera is not functioning? The weekend witnessed me as I found a way to take that by its horn. My cellphone was fully charge and I carried it as I rounded up my orchard. I enjoyed the day taking pictures at anything that interested my eyes. Think of doing it again next time.

W hen I'm attuned to my heart's longings, I either grabbed my old Chinese brush or went out for a walk into some lonely place. And I sigh at the sunsets and hum songs of long ago when I was young and carefree.

The other alternative to Bag-ot Landing is Sitio Agpalay located downstream of the Jal-o, 7 kms southeast of the poblacion of Balete. From there one could get fresh shell foods such as oyster ( taeaba ), clams ( tuway ), mussel ( tahong ) and some other varieties. As the scanned document above shows, Sitio Agpalay in the 1950s has already have a public market. By all means, it is the better alternative to Bag-ot as it rests beside the National Road. Its only minus factor is that when the Jal-o swells most of the area is flooded and motorists got stranded while the water is rising up. Even then, that one is blessings in disguise, both for the vendors and the stranded seafood lovers. These days, people in Balete are oblivious of Sitio Agpalay . It is not because it ceased to cater Jal-o's and the Tinagong Dagat's bounty but due the fact that the local officials of 1957 set the day of Sitio Agpalay's market day every Wednesday. Slowly as the years went by, Agpalay gave way to

Balete has no fishing port. That's a fact. In the olden days, the fisherfolks made use of the landing behind the public market abutting the bank of the Jal-o. As silts accumulated due to erosion boat operators find it practical to disembark their haul at Bag-ot in Sitio Suruagan, Barangay Calizo. When it bacame popular as the Calizo Road was opened up and cemented, local government officials deemed it necessary to intervene. The landing at Bag-ot was constructed to accommodate both the fisherfolks, the nipa shingle makers and the fish and nipa traders and middlemen. Nipa shingles from this part of Balete are hauled to as far as Mambusao, Capiz and Boracay Is. Fish dealers and middlemen for Kalibo market came around for spotted scats, red crabs, snappers, shrimps and prawns( both brackish and freshwater) and shells. When the Jal-o swells, they came down here for ghost shrimps ( kamantaha ), "Filipino" crab( kalampai ), finger eel ( poyoy ) and squillid mantis shrimps( pit

     I'm sulking and still, after all those meditatio and c ontemplatio --my tête-à-tête with Sophia, I still find myself in a quandary whenever I met impatient people. I'm reminded of Thomas Merton's remark on the illustrious Karl Barth whom he considered failing to grasp the meaning of that theological truth: Agnus Die, qui tollis peccata mundi . Perhaps the Rev. Barth missed Jesus' reply to Peter's incredulous remark of the impossibility for one man to win salvation. Or perhaps, he just can't trust Divine Providence to run its course. Or perhaps, just like me, he was still in pursuit for Sophia all along. Fides quaerens intellectum.