Sentimental Journey 3 VISITING THE RICE FIELDS MY GRANDFATHER TILLED

By Manny Piñol

As young boys growing up in M’lang, North Cotabato where we brothers were born, we were always fascinated by the stories our grandfather, Jose Cordero Piñol, told us about the place he came from, Iloilo.

Lolo Jose regaled us with stories about the rice field which he and his only brother, Silvestre, tilled in Fundacion, Pototan town, about the river called Abangay and the names of places like Bongloy, Iwa, and Liboo in Dingle.

He and his brother later decided to sell the piece of land they were tilling to their relatives, the Ausin family, and sailed off to Mindanao where they spent their remaining years.

Lolo Jose died in a one-hectare land he acquired in Bialong, M’lang while Lolo Bestre passed away in the care of his children and grandchildren in Marbel Koronadal, South Cotabato.

Last weekend, I and my brother, Mayor Lito of M’lang, embarked on a journey to retrace the places where our parents came from.

We went to Tularucan, Janiuay where our mother, Efigenia, was born and then proceeded to Pototan, Iloilo where Lolo Jose came from.

Dropping by the home of the amiable and friendly Mayor of Pototan, Tomas Penaflorida, we felt the warmth of the people of my grandfather’s hometown.

Mayor TomPen brought us to the town’s cockpit to introduce us to the people there most of whom were relatives of my grandfather and later brought us to Barangay Fundacion where our grandfather and his brother were born.

There we were met by a distant uncle, Inos Ausin, whose father bought the small piece of rice field from our grandfathers.

Tatay Inos showed us the rice field and pointed to us the bamboo groves which Lolo Jose often mentioned in his stories to us his grandchildren.

As I stood by the roadside staring at the field of rice with golden grains, I imagined how my grandfather and his brother plowed the fields and worked hard to raise their families and send their children to school.

Somehow, I felt a lump in my throat realizing how painful it might have been to our grandfathers to let go of the piece of land they inherited from their parents to travel south to the Land of Promise.

It was a leap of faith which first brought him to Upi town, now part of Maguindanao Province and later to M’lang.

I know how my grandfather loved the rice field because he kept talking about it even when his memory was already failing.

I could not help but admire him for his boldness to leave behind everything just to search for a better future for his children and us his grandchildren.

That painful decision by my grandfather brought my father, Bernardo Magbanua Piñol, to M’lang where he met and married our mother.

It was a union which produced a police colonel, a Governor, a Congressman, two mayors, a ship captain and professionals who belong to a very huge Piñol clan in North Cotabato.

As I stared at the golden rice field in Fundacion on Saturday, I offered a prayer to my Lolo Jose and thanked him for making me, my brothers and our cousins what we are today.

(Photos: The rice field our grandfathers used to own in Fundacion, Pototan; my brother, Mayor Lito and I with Tatay Inos Ausin, the owner of the rice field now; coffee time in Mayor Penaflorida’s home in Pototan; a quick visit to the town cockpit with Mayor Penaflorida and councilor Palpal Cordero; another cockpit photo this time with another councilor, SB Member Paluay; with the Mayor, the Vice Mayor and Councilor Paluay. Photos by Roselyn Parillo and Romirose Boloron)