Marawi City, 2200 feet above sea level, was dubbed as the summer capital of the south. The Mindanao State University, organized through an Act of Congress “to help accelerate the economic progress of the Minsupala region,” was about four kilometers from the downtown of Marawi City. The 1000-hectare campus, a track of rolling land overlooking Lake Lanao, was formerly a military reservation. The Aggie Village was located at the western part of the school campus. The university constructed the cottages in the Aggie Village to accommodate the partial scholars and paying students of the College of Agriculture.
I came to like staying in the cottage and opted to stay there even after I qualified as a full scholar. I preferred the quiet life in the Aggie Village. The men’s dorm for full scholars was raucous and congested. Cool and quiet, the Aggie Village was an ideal place for studying. However, in the early days, the students in the cottages had to cope with the rampant theft. The thieves stole kitchen utensils, clothes, and anything they can put their hands on. Clothes disappeared as we hanged them to dry inside the cottage. The ingenious thieves used the long woody stems of our cassava to pluck the clothes through the windows and louvers. In one of the cottages, the lodgers were shocked as a thief, who entered through the window, collected the blankets they were wrapped on. It was chilling cool in the village at night.
To protect my belongings from being stolen, I nailed the bottom of my chest to the floor and saw to it that the lock was secured.
In our second cottage, Max Gonzaga lost his alarm clock in a rather ludicrous manner. At 4:00 a.m., the clock rang as set but to his surprise the clock was ringing outside the cottage. The ringing diminished as the thief ran away and slipped through the barbed wire fence of the campus.
To make the cottages less vulnerable to trespassers, the university overlaid the lawanit fiberboard walls with galvanized iron sheets. Later, some desperate cottage tenants electrified the metal walls at night. The unauthorized practice was discontinued when a student died of electrocution as he hanged washed clothes on a live tie wire clothesline. I was already out of the university when this freak accident happened.
In the Aggie Village, I had forged genuine friendship with my cottage mates. Our common social and economic background cemented our brotherhood. The hard life of poor students further strengthened our brotherhood. There were times when we ran out of money and had to make do with the leftovers at the university cafeteria. The re-cooked rice and meat became a satisfying meal in our first cottage. We also helped ourselves when we were hired to clean the bodega of the university where foodstuff donated by the UNWFP were stored. We gathered the spoiled flour, desiccated egg sand bulgur and cleaned the floor. The spoiled foodstuff and litter were taken out in jute sacks. Before disposing the waste, we would recover the cans of meatloaf we managed to sneak out of the storage building. Much of the meatloaf would go to the sandwiches we served to the female students, including two identical twins, who regularly came to our cottage. Fred had a crush on one of the lanky twins.
Our first cottage was demolished to give way to the college piggery. Brothers Fred and Johnson Fajardo and Dan Gurea (all from Basilan) had left MSU when we transferred to Cottage No. 3. Danilo Lobitaña became our new cottage mate.
I have made many friends in my later years but my co-tenants in Cottage No. 3 were the closest friends I ever had. Ours was an interesting mix of personalities. Mario Rodriquez, who grew up in a rubber plantation in Basilan owned by Menzi Agricultural Corporation, was serious and patient. When offended, he directed his anger to the floor of the cottage, armed with a broom and a coconut husk. By the time his anger had waned, the floor would be impeccably clean and shiny. Mar was the acknowledged poet of the group.
Danilo Lobitaña, also from Basilan, was a rubber plantation worker’s son. He was a ladies’ man and adventurous.
Policarpio Dingal, who was raised in a farm village in Zamboanga del Norte, was carefree and daring. He crashed the College’s tractor against the barbed wire fence while test-driving the brand new farm equipment. He claimed to possess the cat’s nine lives when he was run over by the same tractor and came out unharmed. I could not figure out the tall tale until Orlando Torres, the tractor driver, explained that the centrifugal force and Pol’s massive leather boots could have protected his foot from being crushed by the tractor’s front tire. Before joining us in the cottage, Pol stayed in a staff house for male U.S. Peace Corps volunteers. One of his American hosts had given him the shoes. He also got several used clothing which he distributed to his cottage mates; one was a checkered long-sleeve shirt which was not too loose for me.
Maximino Gonzaga, the third of the seventeen siblings of a pioneering family in Salvador, Lanao del Norte, was secretive and self-reliant. He had his own small room in the cottage that he locked all the time. Always preoccupied with something, Max would not join us when we go out for fun downtown.
Later, Crispiniano Ruega, who came from a farming village in Agusan, became part of our group. Nanoy was cool-tempered, mature and decisive. He gained the full trust of Dr. Antonio Isidro who entrusted to him the upkeep of the white house. He stayed with the university president at his official residence, which for a time became our favorite hangout when Dr. Isidro was out of town.
My cottage mates thought that I was impulsive, frank and detested mediocrity and easily got annoyed with phony and shallow people. Amen to that.
(Excerpt from the book LOOKING BACK, MEMOIR
