Tracing my roots SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY TODAY TO MY MOTHER’S HOMETOWN

By Manny Piñol

Today, I will make a sentimental journey to the quaint town of Janiuay, Iloilo where my mother, Efigenia, was born over 80 years ago.

This visit would have been more meaningful for me if only my mother were around to introduce me to relatives I have never met and perhaps bring me to the places where she used to play as a child.

Nanay could no longer make the trip. Since she was afflicted with the debilitating and mysterious disease called “Dementia,” she has virtually been bed-ridden, occasionally seeing the sunlight only when she is brought out of her room in a wheelchair.

Our oldest brother, retired police colonel and original Special Action Force (SAF) officer Patricio, perhaps the closest to our Nanay, takes care of her in his farm in San Vicente, Makilala, North Cotabato.

Sadder than the fact that she is too emaciated to even stand up, this evil disease called “Dementia” has erased Nanay’s memory thus depriving us her children the joy of listening to the stories of her youth and the tales of her birthplace called Janiuay.

Nanay was born to a poor family and when she became a teacher, she travelled to the “Land of Promise.” She ended up in the town of M’lang where she met another teacher, Bernardo Magbanua PInol, who married her.

The marriage brought forth 11 boys. Patricio, our eldest, retired as a police colonel. I became Mayor of M’lang and later Governor of North Cotabato.

Brother No. 3, Efren, now vice mayor of Magpet town, was mayor; No. 4, Bernardo Jr. became Congressman; No. 5 Celso is a ship captain; No. 6 Joselito is now Mayor of M’lang; No. 7 Noli owns a security agency; No. 8 Gerardo is now municipal councilor; No. 9 Ferdinand is municipal administrator of Mlang; No. 10 Nilo works in London with his wife and children and is now a British citizen; while No. 11 Socrates is a former board member.

Nanay was very proud of what we her children had become because she saw how we survived poverty to rise in our chosen profession.

When she retired from teaching, she visited her birthplace several times. I now regret that I did not join her in one of those trips.

When Tatay died in 1995 from brain cancer, Nanay’s joy was in visiting us in our work places. She brought relatives from Iloilo to my office when I was Governor and proudly introduced her son, the Governor.

Today, I will set foot on her birth place for the first time to accompany and introduce to the townmates of my Nanay the Mayor of Davao City, Rody Duterte, a personal friend who I am convincing to become President of the Philippines.

Rody will be welcomed by Janiuay Mayor Frankie Locsin, his wife and my mother’s relatives and townmates.

I know my mother would have been beaning with pride to hear me introduce to her townmates and relatives the man who could be the next President of the Philippines.

As for me, this trip would have been complete if only my mother were around to bring me to the exact place where she was born, the grounds where she played, the school where she studied and the stage where she danced.

Without her around me, maybe I will just touch the ground and breath the air which gave life to the woman who brought me to this world.

Perhaps the wind would blow in Janiuay today and perhaps, just perhaps, I could still hear the echo of the laughter of that young girl who became my mother.

That would be an ultimate joy.

(Photos with Iloilo Governor Arthur Defensor, a relative of my mother, and Provincial Administrator Raul Banas, himself a former mayor and my classmate in a short course at the Asian Institute of Management; standing by the railings of a hotel in Iloilo City with the historic river behind me. Photos by Roselyn Parillo)