BALON, WRESTLING AND THE COGON GRASS
English was the medium of instruction in the primary and elementary schools and pupils had to study the lessons by rote. I memorized the text of our reading books line by line and after several decades, I can still recite many of the reading lessons to include Pepe and Pilar, Jack and Jill and the one about a dog and its little master. I read my lessons illuminated by oil lamp and would continue reading in the dark when the lamp ran out of gas or was extinguished by a sudden gust of wind.
Corporal punishment was then a common practice and Mr. Tranquilino Amodia, our venerable Grade I teacher, was an earnest believer and practitioner of the art. But he delegated to me the job of whipping pupils who came late in class. I guessed he was too old to do it himself but why me I cannot surmise. With his ikog sa pagi (rayfish tail), I would wait at the entrance of the classroom and carry on my unusual duty. I was the smallest kid in the class but nobody dared to evade my whipping or attempted to fight back, not in the classroom or outside the classroom. Mine was a classic example of transference of power, the proverbial ant on top of a carabao.
The favorite object of the whip was a pupil we derisively called by his surname, Ogis. In the local dialect, Ogis meant albino and was commonly associated with white chicken. Filomeno Ogis, who was neither an albino nor chickenhearted, was my wrestling sparring partner. We did it after classes in the afternoon at a Bermuda grass-covered school ground. We boxed, grappled and tussled in the deserted campus until we felt we had had enough and called it quit. After each fight, we parted with the tacit understanding that we would do it again. Our unarmed combat continued for several days until our enmity against each other was spent out. Henceforth, we became the best of friends. I was duty bound to punish him when he came late in class but this time my lashes with the ray fish tail were milder.
Pupils were graded four times during the school year. The eyes of my parents sparkled and then scowled every time I showed them my Report Card for their perusal and signature. The standard Elementary Report Card was prescribed by the then Bureau of Public Schools. I consistently got good grades in all my subjects. However, the word “talkative” also consistently appeared in the teacher’s comments in the card. While I performed very satisfactorily in my academic subjects, I was not keen on sports, cultural and extracurricular activities. I was never a member of a choral group or a dance group. (The one time I was picked for a folk dance of an out-of-school event, our dance trainer eventually junked me since I could not master the dance steps. The female trainer, Lily Redoble, must have gotten tired of beating my feet).
I remembered joining a contest only once. It was a declamation contest for Grade I pupils. I represented our class. The theme of the contest was health and nutrition and the title of my short piece was “Ang Gatas at Ang Itlog” (Milk and Egg). I ranked second place in that contest and had my picture taken in my short pants proudly holding my wrapped prize, a can of condensed milk.
I hiked barefoot on the sand-and-gravel road in going to the Maigo Central Elementary School, more than a kilometer away. I brought to school my balon of corn grits, stewed fish or fermented anchovies that my mother would wrap in banana leaves. The rich aroma of the banana leaves would add flavor to my take out lunch. I preferred to have my lunch high up in the trees inside the school premises. Some pupils did the same. One of the favorites was a mango tree by the roadside. This mango tree tilted over a muddy creek. I would eat astride the fruit tree’s leaning trunk or perched on its primary branches. Many kids, myself included, enjoyed climbing this tree, jumping from one branch to another. Over the years, the mud below served as cushion to fallen school children.
In my second grade, I engaged in another game exclusively with Napoleon Baligasa, a school buddy from the upriver. We made tunnels through the dense cogon grass in the idle school ground at the other side of the national highway. Thickset and stronger, Napoleon would crawl ahead with his sturdy hands parting the cogon grass. We skipped classes and did not mind the light bruises and scratches we got from this childish adventure. One day our tunnel ended on the snout of a native pig nursing her litter. The agitated sow drove us from her marked territory and if not for the extra adrenalin that fueled our flight, we could have suffered more than scratches that afternoon. We decided to stop playing with the cogon grass after that incident.
I was an honor pupil from Grade I to Grade V and graduated salutatorian in 1958 – the year Hula Hoop was introduced, Nikita Khrushchev became Premier of the Soviet Union and the start of the Great Chinese Famine that lasted for three years.
(Excerpt from the book LOOKING BACK, MEMOIR)
