The War Years in Donsol

THE WAR YEARS IN DONSOL
(The Japanese Occupation)

The Malapoc Experience

As the soft light of dawn enveloped our new found unfamiliar environ, the household was already stirring and welcoming the peculiar sight and sounds and smell of Malapoc.
Curios, I limped and hobbled to join the family in savoring the promise of a beautiful sunny day- the first full day in our evacuation site.
My father decided to choose Malapoc as a safe enough place to evacuate the family for two good reasons: it was remote and far and distantly impossible for the Japanese to look for scared people like us; the second one was, papa owned 24 hectares of the barrio and a foothold from the dangers of war. On hindsight I understood why lolo Julian put a stake in such a remote and barely populated land almost at the edge of the world compounded by an unglamorous name- Malapoc! The name means muddy. But by the grace of God, the piece of land titled under the name of papa by lolo was vast and huge, called homestead.

The Homestead

The homestead was planted to coconut trees bordered by a rich virgin forest inhabited by wild animals – monkey, snakes, wild boars, deer, and wild birds- together with wild plants, wild flowers, giant ferns, etcetera’s. David Attenborough of Discovery Channel would have loved to poke and tinker and discover the different species of flora and fauna there in their untouched state, then. Malapoc was endowed with a flowing clear river coming from the upper waterways with the forest a source of hard wood like narra and molave and a r ice field which supports the entire Malapoc population made itself sufficient in rice supply. From the evacuation house in Dancalan, the first barrio from the poblacion across the Donsol River, our family moved up to Sibago on our way to the target location – Malapoc. This house of lolo Julian called kamalig can accommodate a whole barangay by today’s standards, but was already bursting at that time with evacuees from Manila and other provinces at risk of Japanese atrocities. They were relatives bringing along with them their friends including their families. So the refugees kept on ballooning. It was really a squeezing-in situation there in Dancalan that our family had to move on to Malapoc, pronto.

The Caravan to Safety

The route from Sibago, the jumping point to the interior sitios and barrios like Malapoc was the river passing by San Rafael and a carabao trail. Sibago is the sixth coastal barrio from the poblacion reached only by boat or by foot through the coastal shores.
In Sibago, five carabaos were already saddled to transport the dried goods and part of our belongings including us kids eager to experience a carabao back ride. A big casco was all ready to launch loaded with the rest of our household needs convoyed by the fleeing passengers – my parents and crew on this historic moment - the escape !
The caravan and our boatload counterpart left early from Sibago headed to our destination. The first kilometer or so was a fun ride with the carabaos swaying gently on a seemingly paved trail. Suddenly as if hit by a thunder bolt, the carabao where Coro and I were aboard, lurched and plunge into a deep swirling sea of muddy trail almost throwing us off the saddle. And the torturous journey did never left us till our bones crackled and muscles stiffened. I wondered if this muddy place is attributed to Malapoc’s name.
I suffered for three days a discomforting fever due to muscle pain. A temporary shelter was already waiting for us made in anticipation for our arrival by the barrio folks. In a weeks time we moved to our lovely new bamboo and nipa and anahaw house- thanks to the Bayanihan spirit at work in Malapoc. Our new home was airy and sunny with wide windows all around and purposely built along a sparkling, clear creek teeming with shrimps and other protein source.

'The Red River'

Settled and snugly feeling at home in our new evacuation nook, our next move was to “attack” the mountains of dirty clothes. As usual I made ‘buntot” to Manay Ligaya and Coro and another helper for this fateful morning to wash the clothes in the river, a kilometer away. Always wanting to be bida, I raced with Coro to the river bank.
As if hit by a lightning Coro and I stopped short
in our tracks, confronted by a surreal vision of a river flowing in scarlet blood! I likened this ghastly scene to Moses transforming the Egyptian river into blood to spite the Pharoah. At that time at barely seven years of age, I was unaware that I was already face to face with the realities of war in our midst. The “bloody occurrence” was repeated many times over during the dark days when the so- called guerilla movement was in hot pursuit for Kapilis the Japanese informers and collaborators. The notoriety of this band of murderers
and assassins struck fear and caused instability in the lives of simple folks around. It was known that this socalled-guerilla chopped off heads like chickens by the dozens along the upper river banks only a distance away from us causing the river to turn into a crimson red.
However, the folks around the vicinity swore that most of the victims were innocent farmers who did not show support to their perverse ideology. Their modus operandi was to ransack and terrorize and rob the farmers of their produce. From the other side of Donsol we also learned from evacuees coming from the cities the carnage and the sordid chaos and crimes of the Japanese invaders parallel to what the bandits in our midst were atrociously doing to our people. For sometime Malapoc was spared from the raids conducted by the bandits in our neighboring barrios.

A New Lifestyle of Survival

And so our life in Malapoc was near idyllic while the bandits were biding their time not to disturb our peace. Thus, a new lifestyle emerged. My father started to raise a poultry of healthy robust chicken bred on natural feeds, leafy vegetables, insects, earth worms, corn , palay- all chemical free. Papa used a whistle to the chicken during feeding. An abundance of eggs lying around our yard every morning were shared with the neighbors in exchange for newly harvested vegetables, camotes or other fresh fruits.
Mama became an instant chemist by inventing a lotion from coconut water for curling hair. She curled hair by means of winding the hair by section on industrial nails inserted in papaya stem pressed by a hot iron- and presto, a Shirley temple look- alike curly bouncing hairdo come into place- I modeled for the fashion. Mama was our informal teacher learning the wonders of the alphabets and written words and became a hands- on science tutor giving us the time to know the cycle of insect life in our backyard like the butterfly and other living things. As a story teller she would gather us kids around her almost every night and told us straight from the novels she read from hardbound books. Unknowingly decades ago she was already practicing the now renowned “Read Along Program” sponsored by the Phil. Daily Inquirer.
She was a passionate educator. Influenced by her love for books, I was already reading a heavy weight book titled “How Green Was My Valley” when I was in grade four. It was about the industrialization (in steel) that turned that beautiful green valley State into a grimy one.
During lull hours mama would sketch portraits and sceneries adding richness to her pieces of birds in flight.Not even the famed Krispy Kreme can beat mom’sdoughnu ts. Perhaps you will wonder where in Malapoc’s name do we shop for bakery supplies! Well, the Chinese compadre of papa who taught him to play majong and who owns the biggest bodega of food supplies in Donsol donated sacks and sacks of flour,sugar and giant cans of lard and oil in anticipation of the lootings that really happened during the skirmish when it was reported that the Chinese were also the target of the Japanese.In times of war lawlessness surely prevails.
As our house was purposely built beside a rippling clean stream it became a source of our protein intake – shrimps, hito ,etc. So we really didn’t need and had no desire for a lot of money then. Trading was done by bartering a can of camote for a live chicken, for example.
We subsisted on dinorado, a sweet smelling rice produced in our own ricefield,camote, camoteng kahoy,fresh vegetables, fresh fruits, fresh everything that a fridge is an unknown commodity.Why, we really lived in simplicity! What a beautiful life – no credit cards, no cellphones, no smoke belchers, no noise pollutions, no outrageous Meralco bills, no rush hours, no office bundy clocks, no deadlines, no schools, wow, what a carefree life! Nevertheless, we kids in the neighborhood had to be inventive in how we spend our sort of a heavenly free life. The river is our source of joy when not covered in red. We swam to our hearts desire, together with the carabaos smelling mud and polluting our space in the water but enjoying anyway the dives we made from their slippery backs. Then we spooked ourselves of the imaginary “Capri”that reigned over the super huge balete tree that positioned itself strategically in the river bank. This river of my youth was a source of life support to the river people around. It was used as channel to transport raw products like copra, lumber, firewood, etceteras down to Sibago in exchange for such basic commodities as sugar, soap, coffee, cigarettes, and others. We used the river to launder clothes; we used it for fishing; we used it for bathing bringing along coconut milk for the hair and gugo as our super shampoo said to ward off dandruffs , retard baldness and falling hair.

The Raid

But this good life ceased in a blink of an eye when the bandits remembered to attack and raid Malapoc and arrested all the male population. Our ‘mamo’ an uncle priest who came to say mass that morning in his priestly garb was kicked and slapped and pulled by a rope on his stomach. I witnessed this horrible scene at such a tender age. Providentially papa and mama left for Sibago at the crack of dawn to barter some foodstuff on that fateful morning.
Suddenly, two bad looking men barged in our house brandishing their guns on us small kids trembling with fear. They ransacked our house looking for our father or any male in the house. They left when no male was found in the place. We were crying in fright when Manay Ligaya appeared back fishing from the stream unaware of what was happening to us. The men didn’t notice her down stream. Without any second thought she left in a huff instructing us to hide under the house and wait for the “pick-up”.She took off to warn papa and mama of the raid.Manay Ligaya crouched and crawled to the other side of the stream and trail blazed the deep forest of cogon unmindful of the danger of being bitten by the snakes , and the thorns and sharp objects ripping her clothes and flesh. Use of the boat and carabao will alert the raiders. By foot Sibago is three hours away in normal times. By nightfall Manay Ligaya came for us kids already hungry and suffering from the traumatic experience,So we crouched our way to the trail that manay Ligaya made without the benefit of any light from even the heavens above. We did our blind walk through mental calculation. That was the great escape ever- not from the Japanese aggressors but from our own band of perverse mad people who should have been our protectors. That melodramatic episode was the tipping point of our sojourn in Malapoc. And, that was the last glimpse I saw Malapoc bringing with me memories of the scars of war and the taste of a beautiful life in its simple state.


This Malapoc story is a tribute to Manay Ligaya who saved the family from the claws of danger.She was only in her early teens (around 13 or so I reckon) but blessed with an adult-like wisdom and wise decisions wizened by the cruelty of circumstances. She was my first cousin(from papa Ido the eldest son of lolo Julian ) who stood by my family through the tough times in the early years of the war..
There was Socorro of course, the younger sister of manay Ligaya who was my age and acted like a sister to me and who stayed with us faithfully during the war years.

Thy both passed away in their appointed time


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Epilogue: Deep in my heart I can discern now why papa completely left the 24-hectare property in Malapoc for a song. Just like me he never set foot again in our “paradise lost” bringing with it happy and sad memories. In my mind Malapoc was no longer the place with an unglamorous name but redeemed itself as a shining haven for a “running family.” I promise to visit you sometime. After a lapse of 68 years- memories of you are as fresh .