The Patriarch’s House
August 22, 2009 at 3:24 pm (1900s Philippines, 2000s Philippines, Architecture, Design and Decoration, Domestic Travels, Gonzalez de Sulipan, Manila Houses, Pampanga Art, Pampanga Cuisine, Pampanga Traditions, Personal, Random memories, Religious Traditions, Rodriguez de Bacolor, The Global Crowd, The Manilenos, The Pampanguenos, The Past)
Connections of Old
May 25, 2009 at 10:20 am (1800s Filipinas, Arnedo de Sulipan, Design and Decoration, Family Traditions, Gonzalez de Sulipan, Manila Houses, Pampanga Traditions, Personal, Random memories, Religious Traditions, The Global Crowd, The Manilenos, The Pampanguenos, The Past)
For those of you with no interest in history, specifically late 1800s Filipinas, then I suggest that you do not proceed because you will be bored to death with this blog post…
I was just happy that I was able to connect two articles that describe the same grand Tondo residence of Don Flaviano Abreu and his wife Dona Saturnina Salazar from 1880 – 1900. One was written in 1908 [ although she did not mention them directly ] by the visiting Edith Moses, the wife of an American commissioner, and the other was written by the owners’ grandson Victor Abreu Buencamino in the mid-1970s.
Edith Moses first wrote about her visit to Apalit, Pampanga and two dinners at the Arnedo-Sioco residence [ although she did not mention directly ] which took place on August 9-10, 1900. By that time in 1900, the famous Capitan Joaquin and Capitana Maria Arnedo had already passed away [ + 1897 ]. Mrs. Moses was hosted by the four daughters of Felipe Buencamino Sr. and his deceased first wife, Juana Arnedo: Maria, Soledad, Victoria, and Asuncion. The dinner was attended by Eugenio Arnedo, a much younger half-brother of Juana Arnedo de Buencamino. The whole entertainment was expertly supervised behind closed doors by Crispina Sioco Tanjutco, the spinster stepsister of Juana Arnedo de Buencamino. As expected, the Arnedo dinners impressed Mrs. Moses & Company. The descriptions are fascinating because they show us 21st century Filipinos truthfully how life was lived in those grand houses of the 19th century like the “Casa Manila” and the “Museo De La Salle” house museums…
Edith Moses wrote later that when they had returned to Manila, they encountered their Apalit hosts [ the Buencamino-Arnedo Sisters ] in a carriage along the Luneta because they had accompanied their stepbrothers [ the Buencamino-Abreu brothers, Philip and Victor ] to the seaport where they had just boarded a ship to study in the United States of America. The Sisters requested Mrs. Moses to call on them at their Tondo residence, which was really not theirs but actually the paternal home of their stepmother, Guadalupe “Neneng” Abreu de Buencamino, who had married their father Felipe Buencamino Sr. a year after their mother Juana Arnedo de Buencamino passed away on 25 July 1883. Guadalupe Abreu de Buencamino passed away one month after giving birth to her son Victor [ born February 1888 ] in March 1888.
Out of politeness but rather involuntarily, Edith Moses & Co. went to call on the Buencamino-Arnedo Sisters at the by-all-descriptions grand residence of Don Flaviano Abreu and Dona Saturnina Salazar along Calle Sagunto [ later called Calle Santo Cristo ] in Tondo, Manila…
“Manila, August 18, 1900.”
“The day before yesterday our Apalit friends called on us, but I was out. Elena acted as hostess and with a mixture of Spanish and Italian she managed to amuse and entertain them. In Manila if one wishes to be very polite he returns a first call the day it is made, but on no account must he defer his visit later than the following day. Therefore, although the weather was stormy, we started yesterday for Tondo, where in true patriarchal fashion live the root and branches of this family. Tondo is a quarter as near like Chinatown as you can picture it. It is the dirtiest and most crowded part of Manila, but in spite of that fact some of the richest Filipino families reside there. By the time we reached our destination our horses and carriage were covered with mud, as we had driven through water up to the hubs part of the time.”
…………
“ … We had stopped before a huge building like a warehouse. At the entrance was an immense door with a smaller one inclosed in one of its panels. The correct number above it was the only thing that suggested that it was the right place. After knocking several times three half-clad men appeared and answered “yes” to our question if Senor Carmona [ sic ] resided there.”
“The lower floor which we entered was an immense court paved with square stones, where there were at least ten carriages of different styles and sizes. How many horses were in the stalls I could not tell, but I heard their stamping and snorting. In the center was a fountain, but wet clothes pasted on boards suggested that it was used as a washtub. Ten or twelve servants were engaged in various occupations, working over the horses, cleaning carriages, washing dishes, and all peering at us with interest. Presently a small girl rang a great bell, pointed up the stairway, and we ascended the wide marble steps unattended, in true Manila style. On reaching the top of the stairs we came to a large square hall where vistas of apartments opened on all sides. The proportions of the room were fine and the beautiful rosewood floors shone like mirrors. Servants were sauntering about but no one came forward. We waited until our charming little hostess came running in to greet us and she led us to the drawing-room. Filipino homes are furnished more simply than our own. There are no carpets or rugs, and who would wish them in exchange for a highly polished rosewood or mahogany floor? Even in the houses of the wealthy the furniture is principally of the Vienna bent-wood variety. Chairs almost fill the rooms. There is usually a hollow square in the center formed by a table at one side, with sofa opposite connected by rows of chairs. Pictures are infrequent, but magnificent mirrors in elaborate gilt frames abound. A piano of excruciating tone is never absent. Cuspidors of pink, white, blue or green glass are symmetrically placed at the four corners of the hollow square. Usually two or more natives in very dirty short bathing trunks are on hands and feet with rolls of burlap polishing the floors. They rush from one end of the room to the other with astonishing rapidity. The Filipinos call it “skating the floor.”
“All of these conditions were present in the drawing-room of the house we entered. Instead of the usual bent-wood furniture, however, there were beautifully carved sofas and chairs, covered with ugly but heavy and costly velvet brocade. The table was inlaid tortoise shell and brass of exquisite workmanship. The piano was a grand Erard imported from Paris, but a total wreck musically. There were several glass and gilt cabinets filled with bric-a-brac of the most varying kinds from beautiful and really artistic and valuable specimens of Sevres, porcelain, and bronze to miserable blue, white, and pink glass toys and china dogs of the cheapest and most vulgar sort. The walls were hung with a heavy, dark paper detached in many places by reason of the dampness. Two royal mirrors adorned the walls. On the beautiful table was a cheap china bowl and two china vases filled with soiled artificial flowers. But what most attracted my astonished gaze were four painted tin cats standing around the table.”
“Our hostess sat beside me in a white dressing sack, at the other end sat Senor Garcia [ sic ], and beyond and opposite was a row of persons of all hues from almost black to very light brown; from the old man who I said wore his shirt outside his trousers, to Senor Lamberto [ sic ], one of the handsomest men I have met in Manila. He was in Aguinaldo’s cabinet and very prominent politically. He is pale and looks like a Spaniard, but is a mestizo. We talked a few moments and then Elena was invited to play, which she did to the great delight of the company and to our agony. I afterwards spoke of the difficulty in this climate of keeping a piano in tune on account of the rusting of the strings, but this did not appeal to them. One of the ladies expressed surprise and said: ”Do you think so? Why, our piano belonged to my grandmother and it is still very good.” I had never heard a worse one. But it is thought that as long as the instrument holds together it is good. Afterwards one of the girls played and then Elena was urged to play again. It was evidently the desire of our hosts to entertain us. I was curious about the four painted tin cats. The mystery was soon solved and I learned that they were not merely ornamental, for Dona Lucia [ sic ] was seized with a fit of coughing and to my astonishment she grasped one of the animals by the head and turning it around expectorated with great vigor into a cuspidor which was mysteriously constructed in or about its back.”
…………
Victor Abreu Buencamino wrote of his grandparents’ palatial Tondo residence: “I would say I was not a typical Manila boy in my time. Most boys were allowed to play on sidewalks or in vacant lots in the neighborhood, but I wasn’t. Instead, a few boys in the neighborhood, mostly from well-to-do families, came over in the afternoon after school and played with us around the fountain in the patio of our compound.”
“But the games we played were the same as those played by boys of my generation: ‘viola corcho’ or ‘luksong tinik’ [ jumping ], ‘tangga,’ ’siklot’ [ pebble game ] and ’sungka’ [ played with 'sigay' or seashells ], yoyo, ‘escondite’ [ hide-and-seek ], and ‘patintero’ [ structured tag ].”
“We played until the bells of Tondo church rang the vespers when we ran to the chapel upstairs where my Lola Ninay led the prayers before the images of Santo Nino de Tondo and many other saints. In those days, the more images you had in your altar, the higher you rated in the congregation.”
“We prayed in Spanish, all of us in the household, including the servants. Apparently, the friars did not encourage the propagation of the prayers in the Pilipino translation. We children said our prayers aloud. We thought the louder we said our prayers, the more God and Lola Ninay liked it. I never really understood what the prayers meant, but I had all four main prayers so memorized I could rattle them all off in a flash. I still do so to this day, only I now understand what the words mean.”
“Lola Ninay was the grande dame of the clan, but she was too preoccupied with her businesses and her community and social activities to manage her household. So it was my auntie Adelaida who mothered me, for my mother, Guadalupe, had died while I was a month-old infant.”
“Our house on Sagunto Stree [ later named Sto. Cristo ] where I was born on 15 February 1888 was one of the biggest in that rather ritzy section of Tondo. It was a rectangular affair about 20 to 25 meters, with an ‘entresuelo’ [ mezzanine ], a second floor and an ‘azotea’ or roof garden. I remember that roof garden well because one early morning we climbed the narrow ladder to the top to watch what I thought then were exciting fireworks out in the bay. Our house was so tall we had a good view of the bay and of the Cavite landfall beyond.”
“I was told later that the fireworks were the real thing. Admiral George Dewey lobbed a few shells as his fleet breezed into the bay and the Spanish squadron soon disappeared in flames.”
“There were a good number of parlors and bedrooms in the mezzanine and the second floor and I recall that friends of Lola Ninay would park in these apartments for weeks on end as her house guests. It was not the custom of people then to stay in hotels. Hotels were only for foreigners. Good families felt slighted if their friends from the provinces did not honor them by staying in their homes.”
“There was a time some families evacuated to Sagunto from Baliwag and other Bulacan towns and from Pampanga and Bataan to avoid getting caught in the crossfire between Filipinos and Spaniards and later between Filipinos and Americans. It was a lot of fun for me because I had more evacuee children to play with.”
“In the back portion of the ground floor beyond the patio was the stable. There were about ten horses in all. I particularly liked the one that pulled our Rockaway which took us to the Ateneo in the morning and picked us up after calisthenics in the afternoon. In those days, going to school in a private four-wheeled rig was a status symbol.”
“Lola had a rig for all occasions. In addition to the service ‘carromata’ [ two-wheeled vehicle for two to three passengers ], she had an ‘aquiles’ [ vehicle for four passengers on two rows of seats facing each other with door at the back ], a ‘caruaje’ [ milord ], and a ‘vis-a-vis,’ a four-wheeled affair pulled by two horses with two rows of seats facing one another in the cab. Then there was the ‘Victoria,’ the deluxe version of the two-horse carriage with two drivers, usually in uniform, lashing their whips from atop. We rode in the ‘Victoria’ only on gala occasions.”
“We were happy with these carriages and the great big horses, until, one day, I sensed something was wrong. One by one, the horses were being slaughtered for food. There was no food in the Divisoria nearby because the Americans had blockaded the city and no food could come in, not even the rice which they grew in Lola Ninay’s own farm in Calumpit.”
“Up to that time, we had plenty to eat. There were full meals, even for breakfast: ‘kare-kare’ [ oxtail stew in peanut sauce ], ‘puchero’ [ beef stewed with vegetables ], chicken and eggs and all the ‘ensaymadas’ [ sweet breads ] you could eat, washed down with thick chocolate.”
“We were not allowed to eat fruits in the morning. Our elders said it was a sure way to get a tummy ache for fruits were heavy in the stomach.”
“They also told us to close our windows when we slept at night. There were lethal kinds of ill wind that blew when people sinned and didn’t pray hard enough.”
“I remember that people prayed hard and often. During fiestas in Tondo, there were processions where people carrying lighted candles prayed aloud or sang hymns as they marched past our house. During those fiestas, the whole front side of our house was lighted with giant lanterns. We kids watched the procession from our windows. We were too small to march with the ‘colegialas,’ who wore smart uniforms and sang aloud as they marched in single file on both sides of the brightly lit image of the Sto. Nino.”
…………
“I quite agree with some observations that the reason the women’s lib movement never quite became a fad in this country is because the Filipina does not need to be liberated. She’s in fact the ruler. And that’s not a new phenomenon, either.”
“Take my grandmother, Dona Saturnina Salazar, for instance. She was the dominant character in our young lives and in the lives of many other people in her day. She was popularly known as ‘Dona Ninay Supot.’ It was the fashion then to label a clan, often derisively, with some distinguishing peculiarities.”
“Grandmother really inherited the ’supot’ nomenclature from her father, Don Silvestre Salazar. It seems that my great-grandfather, better known as ‘Nor Beteng,’ was almost always carrying a ’supot’ — a money bag, actually.”
“For his main stock in trade was money lending, and he had to lug his ’supot’ along to carry those heavy Mexican silver coins which he lent to market vendors in the morning and collected the following day. He went home with ten additional silver pesos safely tucked in his ’supot’ for every hundred he lent the previous dawn. And that was how Dona Ninay carried the brand, ’supot,’ too.”
“Her father went to Divisoria before the break of dawn to provide capital for stall lessees who bought their vegetables or fish or meat from wholesale suppliers in time to spread their wares for the early morning shoppers. As a rule, these vendors would make enough profits during the day to feed their families and pay my great-grandfather his Shylock surcharge. But it was also a rule that what was left of the vendor’s earnings would be wiped out during the night in either ‘monte’ or ‘jueteng’ [ number game of chance ] or an endless round of ‘tuba’ [ fermented coconut sap drink ] so the vendor had to approach my great-grandfather the following morning and borrow all over again at 10 per centum — per day!”
“Thus did the Buencamino forebears thrive. In those days, usury was as dignified an industry as today’s big-time financing by reputable investment houses, today’s rates being no less usurious.”
“AND SO, DONA NINAY fell heir to a fortune that the ’supot’ business built. But compared with her old man, Dona Ninay was big league. In time, she was ruling a conglomerate all her own: tobacco, rice, real estate — and Las Vegas-style gambling.”
“Befitting one so high in society, Lola Ninay circulated in the flashiest of circles. In those days, those in the money had one favorite pastime: gambling. And being smarter than the rest, Lola Ninay encouraged her wealthy friends to indulge in gambling while she provided the facilities. It’s debatable to this day which gave her more returns, her trading business or her ‘monte’ and ‘jueteng’ operations, but whichever did so, the fact was that she was recognized as one of the better-heeled matrons in all Tondo.”
“I’ll never forget one time she paid off a ‘jueteng’ winner all of 75 thousand ‘pesillos,’ Mex. Imagine that. At the present inflated and still inflating value of the peso, that take could qualify her to open a bank with today’s required one-hundred-million-peso minimum capital. And she did open a bank — as I’ll tell you later.”
“MY VIVID RECOLLECTION of Lola Ninay was her excursions to Barrio Sulipan in Apalit town, Pampanga. She took me along on a number of her forays. Lola Ninay’s household where we lived was not below what you might call now the Forbes Park variety. But the nipa-thatched chateau of Capitan Joaquin Arnedo at Barrio Sulipan looked like something simply out of this world even to one used to staying in a huge town house.”
“You just didn’t walk in at the Arnedo villa and place your feet at his rows of ‘monte’ tables. No sir. You came strictly by invitation and one such invite from Capitan Joaquin was a sure mark that you had made the top rung of the day’s aristocracy. Guests often included the ’segundo cabo’ [ military representative ], the vice-governor general, and the archbishop of Manila. Foreign dignitaries were often entertained there.”
“And of course, grandma Dona Ninay stood out among the scintillating guests.”
“Quite apart from being a social giant in her own right, Dona Ninay had another entree into the Monte Carlo of the Arnedos in Sulipan: she and the Arnedos had a common son-in-law.”
“My father’s first wife, Juanita, was a daughter of the Arnedos, and after her death, Father wooed and married Dona Ninay’s daughter Guadalupe [ Neneng ], who was to become my mother. Father seemed to have maintained a close relationship with the Arnedos even after the death of his Arnedo wife for whenever he had a very special visitor, he almost always entertained this guest at Sulipan.”
*unfinished*
“Mata Pobre”
May 10, 2009 at 4:27 pm (1800s Filipinas, 1900s Philippines, Angst, Arnedo de Sulipan, Escaler de Sulipan, Family Traditions, Gonzalez de Sulipan, Pampanga Traditions, Personal, Quiason de San Fernando, Random memories, Rodriguez de Bacolor, The Cebuanos, The Davaoenos, The Global Crowd, The Ilocanos, The Ilonggos, The Laguna Tagalogs, The Manilenos, The Negrenses, The Pampanguenos, The Past, The Tarlaquenos, The Tayabenses / Quezonians, Tristesse)
Rather than moralize on these oh-so-common occurrences in our daily lives, let me ramble on with my memories and observations and see where it takes us…
“Mata Pobre,” The Filipino Art of Discrimination, is as Old as Time itself…
When my paternal great great grandmother Senorita Matea Rodriguez y Tuason [ o 1834 - + 1918 ] of Bacolor accepted the marriage proposal of the 73 year old Don Josef Sioco of Sulipan, Apalit, Pampanga in the 1850s, eyebrows rose in Bacolor and Apalit because it was evident that the old, practically blind husband held no attraction for his young and alluring wife except for his great wealth. Despite the fact that She was from rich, landed families on both sides, They thought that She was just after his properties and money, for it was known that he had a lot of gold. After Don Josef’s death a few years later in 1864, she became a rich young widow and raised even more eyebrows when she married the wealthy bachelor Don Juan Arnedo Cruz of the same place. They did not have children. He conveniently died a few years later leaving her with a second large estate. The Arnedos of Sulipan as a clan were then at the peak of their collective wealth in the late 1800s. His Arnedo siblings wanted some of the ancestral family properties returned to them, but Dona Matea refused, and rightly so. The Arnedos never forgave her and thereafter referred to her in terms of non-endearment: “Lavandera!” [ laundrywoman ], “Cocinera!” [ cook ], “Muchacha!” [ maid ], “Criada!” [ maid ], and all sorts of derogatory descriptions. In current parlance She would be referred to, pardon the terms, as ”A Scheming, Cunning, Gold-digging Bitch”!
In a similar vein, Dona Matea Rodriguez viuda de Sioco, viuda de Arnedo-Cruz did not want her daughter Florencia Sioco y Rodriguez [ o 1860 - + 1925 ] to marry the Europe-educated Spanish mestizo Don Dr. Joaquin Gonzalez [ o 1856 - + 1900 ] in 1883. True, his Gonzalez family in Baliuag, Bulacan was rich… BUT not as rich as the Siocos of Sulipan, Apalit, Pampanga were [ at the time of the patriarch Don Josef Sioco's death on 26 December 1864, he was the richest man in All of Pampanga, according to the memoirs of his grandson, Dr. Bienvenido Ma. Gonzalez, 6th President of the University of the Philippines ]. Why… his inheritance amounted to only a few hundred hectares!!! And that was before She even found out that he was actually the son of an Augustinian priest, Fray Fausto Lopez O.S.A. of Valladolid, Spain. “Que horror!!!” Furthermore, Dr. Joaquin’s Spanish mestizo and “ilustrado” penchant for The Good Life — good food and wines, European clothes, foreign books, fine furniture, horses, an elegant lifestyle — irritated the frugal and businesslike Dona Matea to no end. She absolutely preferred her other son-in-law and nephew [ the son of her eldest sister Prisca Ines Rodriguez de Escaler ], Manuel Escaler, who had married her eldest daughter Sabina. He was a simple man who worked hard and saved every peso he had earned to be able to buy more agricultural property. He ate simple food, dressed in simple clothes, and lived in a simple house. That was the kind of man Dona Matea liked, NOT the handsome, sophisticated intellectual Spanish mestizo doctor her second daughter Florencia had married.
Around 1915, Pampanga’s richest woman, a hacendera who owned thousands of hectares of rice and sugar lands in Central Luzon, eagerly awaited the marriage of her academically accomplished only son to his affluent and exceedingly intelligent ”novia” girlfriend, a lady of a prominent Binan, Laguna family who resided in an elegant house along Taft Avenue. But she didn’t know that her son was simultaneously seeing another lady, this time from an old family of San Fernando, Pampanga. Somehow, the second lady became pregnant [ "pikot" she supposedly seduced him by all accounts, but "it takes two to tango" ] and he had to marry her hastily to “preserve her honor” and avoid a social scandal; Meanwhile, he had to break up with his real “novia” girlfriend [ After their breakup, The Real Girlfriend proceeded to finish her studies at the UP University of the Philippines and graduated with a degree in History in 1917 and a master's degree in 1918; She pursued further studies in the United States and obtained a master's degree in History from Radcliffe College in 1920 and a Ph.D. doctoral degree from Columbia University in 1923; She was the first Filipina to have obtained a Ph.D.; She never married. ]. Richest Hacendera was frankly horrified, not because her son had impregnated a woman other than his “novia,” but that he would have to marry a woman whom She considered penurious, descended from several Old and Venerable Pampanga Families alright, but already impoverished, lacking the Immense Wealth to be considered their Social Equals. “Que horror!” She disapproved of the match and refused the forthcoming marriage. The Only Son defied his mother’s wishes and married his pregnant lady immediately. It was a happy and fruitful but short marriage as he died young twelve years later. Relations between Richest Hacendera and her widowed daughter-in-law were never warm, but Richest Hacendera greatly favored her eldest grandson by her, so that widowed daughter-in-law never wanted for anything the rest of her long life.
In the late 1920s, a scion of a prominent Spanish [ and Chinese ] mestizo family of aristocratic Calle R. Hidalgo in Quiapo fell in love with a young Visayan lady of an established and increasingly influential sugar fortune. By all appearances, it was a match of financial and social equals. But that was not the opinion of the young man’s family. To them, She was an Outsider: Yes, an Heiress, but of a distant provincial fortune; worse, while She herself became a practicing Catholic because of her Assumption Convent education, her hacendero Clan had notoriously deserted the Catholic Church during the 1896 Revolution and had not returned to its fold. She simply would not do for them; her considerable wealth was not a factor because they were also very rich . His father declared: “Better he lose a million pesos than to marry that woman.” But for Her, The Family was full of misplaced Spanish mestizo airs and pretenses which their considerable wealth didn’t necessarily justify [ the percentage of actual Spanish blood in their "aristocratic" veins was less than 25 % ]; She was very confident of herself and her Iloilo family: They came from Money, knew how to make Big Money, and constantly knew how to make Bigger Money from their Big Money. Hence, She also “looked down” on The Family. The maverick Son defied his parents and social conventions and married his lady in a hastily arranged ceremony in a side chapel of the Manila Cathedral. Months later, when they first visited the R. Hidalgo paternal home as a couple, She knew she would face a hostile reception from his family and hesitated to proceed upstairs; she clung stubbornly to the newel post and the banister of the “escalera principal” grand staircase. Only her husband’s gentle entreaties convinced her to let go. Once upstairs, She was met with the condescending looks of his “aristocratic” family. In an act of Ultimate Rudeness, one of the Husband’s adolescent sisters came forward, licked her finger and rubbed it on the Bride’s arm “to see if She is really that dark as they say She is…” That was the Height. But to show how much of a financial equal The Bride was, She had carried Php 20,000.00/xx cash to her Baguio honeymoon while The Bridegroom had less than Php 100.00/xx [ in 1927 Php pesos ]; in fact, He had to call his eldest brother in Manila to send him additional funds. Nowadays, it really is telling that the branch descended from The Couple is the Richest of the several branches of that R. Hidalgo Clan today.
“Debt Payment” / “Bride For Sale” was how my grandmother Rosario Espiritu Arnedo was derisively described by my grandfather Augusto Sioco Gonzalez’s richer Escaler and rich Gonzalez relations upon their marriage on 22 February 1930. It referred to the fact that she was forced to marry him because her father, former Pampanga Governor Don Macario Arnedo y Sioco, owed his industrialist half first cousin Augusto Sioco Gonzalez a big amount of money Php 50,000.00/xx, indeed already a fortune in those days. My grandfather had been married to his maternal first cousin, Marina Sioco Escaler, whom he lost to severe asthma and diabetes in 1928. The negative impression never left Dona Sabina Sioco de Escaler, Augusto’s aunt [ also Rosario's, in a more distant way ], who always thought that her nephew had left his second wife too many properties and too much money; the impression also never left Augusto’s children with his first cousin Marina.
A pretty and intelligent Gonzalez first cousin of my father married into Pampanga’s Richest Family in 1947. She and her husband had been very much in love for many years. But his infinitely rich and aristocratic parents tried to prevent the marriage in every way. It did not help that her rich paternal uncle Don Augusto Gonzalez y Sioco and immensely rich grandaunt Dona Sabina Sioco de Escaler had been key factors in the accumulation of their immense sugar milling fortune: She was not a direct descendant of either one. Because her maternal Liongson side was possessed of considerable eccentricity, her fiance’s parents used it as a convenient, polite excuse to block the marriage, when in fact the real reason was that she was not propertied and not moneyed, and frankly, Poor as far as they were concerned [ they were the richest in the province, after all ]. It was hypocritical of them to think that way, when in fact their son was an epileptic. When the excuse of eccentricity failed, the fiance’s parents claimed that weddings in their family were done “American Style”: The Bride’s Family pays for Everything, knowing full well that the fiancee’s widowed mother, despite the ownership of a few properties, simply did not have the money to spend for such an occasion. The widowed mother turned to her sister-in-law [ who happened to be her namesake ] who was the widow of her richest, industrialist brother-in-law. The charitable sister-in-law paid for Everything, The Bride came down from her Quezon City house [ not from her own ], sister-in-law’s bratty youngest son became the ring bearer, and sister-in-law became a “madrina” of the couple, something which pleased the Rich Parents. In fact, they said that they would have been very pleased to have one of Rosario Arnedo de Gonzalez’s children [ second set of Don Augusto Gonzalez ], or one of the richer Gonzalez-Escaler children [ first set of Don Augusto ] , as their in-law, instead of the one their son had picked.
My mother, Pilar Quiason Reyes, penurious but of Old Capampangan bloodlines [ Dizon, Pangan, Dayrit, Paras, Quiason, Henson, Aguilar, Valdes; actually of better Capampangan lineage than my father, whose ancestors were mostly from Bulacan: the Spaniard "cura parroco" of Baliuag Fray Fausto Lopez O.S.A. of Valladolid, Spain, Gonzalez, de los Angeles, Sioco, Arnedo, Tanjutco, Carlos ], was derided by my father’s rich Gonzalez and richer Escaler relations upon her engagement in 1956. “What is he doing? He is marrying the electrician’s niece…” they snickered among themselves [ in reference to her paternal Reyes uncle, who did dabble in the trade ]. The snide smiles continued as they watched her awkwardly adapt to a life of affluence under their Tia Charing Arnedo de Gonzalez. But gradually through the decades, disregard turned to respect as they witnessed her singlehandedly build several substantial businesses that became the new income sources of the family Post 1972 Agrarian Reform.
My father’s younger brother married a pretty and stylish lady. It did not help that she came from one of Tayabas’ / Quezon province’s richest, most prominent families. Her widowed mother was roundly criticized by hypocritical Old Manila Society for the audacity to build a French Mediterranean palace in the Dewey Boulevard area and for having the corresponding lavish social life [ a vicious circle: the mother, although descended from the oldest Laguna and Tayabas families, was derided as socially inferior by her rich mother-in-law and other relations { actually, the wealth of the husband's family was of recent vintage compared to the wife's venerable lineage }; she was snubbed by her husband's relatives in her adoptive Tayabas town; she made the Ultimate Snub when she built the biggest mansion in the family, actually a palace, in the place that mattered most, by the sea in Manila. ]. The 1958 Wedding and its preparations provoked a chorus of criticisms from the conservative Gonzalez family members for its enormous costs. Disagreements and resentments occurred between the groom’s and the bride’s siblings. My frugal father, tasked to settle the wedding bills by my grandmother [ who was on a European tour with my mother ], was stunned when he paid the bill of Php 10,000.00/xx cash for the wedding dress, three bridesmaids’ dresses, and the flower girl’s, all in a native “bayong” [ bag of woven grass ], at the atelier of the top couturier Ramon Valera; that, when a standard Valera wedding gown in 1958 only cost Php 1,500.00/xx. According to Betty Favis-Gonzalez [ in 1988 ], “Ramoning” had shown the wedding gown to his closest lady friends Chito Madrigal, Meldy Ongsiako, Luz Puyat, Elvira Ledesma, including Betty herself and blithely described it as “estilo mariposa,” and he jokingly wondered how the bride would be able to walk down the long aisle of Malate Church. The entire “Wedding of the Year” cost Php 130,000.00/xx in 1958 pesos, which was a very big amount in those days. Quite a contrast to my father’s and mother’s 23 June 1956 wedding which cost all of Php 5,000.00/xx. *LOLSZ!!!*
So funny: The Ones Discriminating sooner or later become the Ones Discriminated Upon. And the Ones Discriminated Upon sooner or later become the Ones Discriminating as well.
Moral of the Story: No matter how Rich and Powerful You are… There will always be Someone Richer and More Powerful than You. 
“Maleldo 2009″
April 13, 2009 at 10:11 am (19th century Filipino Art, Family Traditions, Gonzalez de Sulipan, Pampanga Art, Pampanga Cuisine, Pampanga Traditions, Personal, Random memories, Religious Traditions, Rodriguez de Bacolor, The Manilenos, The Pampanguenos)
Reunion Runs
January 20, 2009 at 3:43 pm (Angst, Arnedo de Sulipan, Brother Andrew F.S.C. of De La Salle, Escaler de Sulipan, Family Traditions, Gonzalez de Sulipan, Humor, Pampanga Cuisine, Pampanga Traditions, Personal, Quiason de San Fernando, Random memories, Reyes de Arayat, Rodriguez de Bacolor, The Cebuanos, The Davaoenos, The Global Crowd, The Ilocanos, The Ilonggos, The Laguna Tagalogs, The Manilenos, The Negrenses, The Pampanguenos, The Tarlaquenos, The Tayabenses / Quezonians, Tristesse)
We are having clan reunions left and right and it is becoming quite maddening… specially if one [ like I ] belongs to several!!!
According to the Western astrologers, in recent years there has been a “planetary alignment” of some sort in the universe which is causing people to gather in family / clan reunions. I don’t take planetary alignments seriously but it must serve as an explanation to all these ever-increasing family and clan reunions… !!!
Last November 2008, the Hizon-Singian Clan of San Fernando, Pampanga had its once every two years Reunion at the residence of Pilar “Piluchi” Luciano Ocampo-Fernandez at the old Fernandez [ Fernandez de "Compania Maritima" ] Compound in San Juan.
Last 13 December 2008, a Saturday, the Cacnio Family of Apalit, Pampanga celebrated the 80th birthday of their doyenne, Esther Mercado Cacnio-Atienza, with a joyous Clan Reunion. They were so generous to invite their Gonzalez, Arnedo, Espiritu, and Mercado relations as well. It was amazing to see a senior relative, former Quezon City Mayor Adelina Santos-Rodriguez “Imang Daling” still so attractive and fit even in her 80s!!!
On 14 December 2008, a Sunday, the descendants of Augusto Diosdado Sioco Gonzalez [ 1887 - 1939 ] of Sulipan, Apalit, Pampanga gathered to celebrate the 90th birthday of his only surviving daughter, Natividad “Naty” Gonzalez-Palanca [ born 14 December 1918 ]. The Holy Mass was celebrated by [ Cubao ] Bishop Honesto Ongtioco, D.D. and her second cousin, Bishop Federico “Freddie” Escaler. Tita Naty was a senior Gonzalez family member beloved for her kindness, uprightness, and generosity and was revered, but most importantly loved, by the whole family. It was a wonderful occasion with an almost complete attendance by that particular branch of the “Gonzalez de Sulipan” Clan.
The Ongsiako and the de Santos Clans had a Reunion in Makati.
On 11 January 2009, the Coronel Clan of Santa Rita, Pampanga [ cousins of the Valdes de Pampanga Clan; the clan owns the classic PreWar house where the tearjerker classic "Tanging Yaman" was filmed ] had their Reunion 2009.
Last Sunday, 18 January 2009, we had the annual “Valdes de Pampanga” Clan Reunion [ as differentiated from the ValdeS [ with an "s" ] de Manila of the Tuason- Legarda-Prieto-Valdes Clan and the ValdeZ with a “z” Clan from Ilocos Norte ]. We did have some pretty Spanish mestiza members of the Valdes de Manila Clan because it’s slowly turning out that there are actually blood relations between the two Valdes with an “s” Clans. The Valdes de Pampanga Clan has _____ branches: the Ignacio Valdes [ Yellow group ] — the Camilo Quiasons, the Edgardo Yaps, and the Sergio Naguiats; [ Blue group ] the Armand Fabellas, the Bates, the Africa Reynosos, and the Ely Narcisos; [ Red group ] the Guanzons, the Florencia Coronels, and the Lita Lilleses; and the Roman Valdes [ Green group; Valdes de Bacolor, Pampanga ] the Carlos J. Valdeses, the Erlinda Gonzalez-Rodriguezes, and the Raquel Gonzalez-de Leons. It was held at the new gym of the Fabellas’ Jose Rizal University “JRU” along Shaw Boulevard. We honored our Valdes relatives who had passed away in the past year 2008: Remedios “Remy” Valdes-Panlilio, Carlos “Charlie” J. Valdes, Armand V. Fabella, Milagros ___, and Mandy ____. There was a nice lunch followed by a great set of games conducted by Justa Yap Bautista and Martin Reynoso which got Everybody going!!! It was completely easygoing and needless to say was a lot of fun!!!
On Sunday, 25 January 2009, there will be the annual “Rodriguez de Bacolor” Reunion. It will be held in a Sibal Building in Quezon City. I received the Reunion Menu of homestyle Kapampangan dishes by text from Cousins Evelyn Dayrit Rodriguez and Vita Rodriguez-Laki and it sounds really good!!!
On 28 February 2009, Saturday, there will be a “Gonzalez de Sulipan” / “Gonzalez de Baliuag” [ Descendants of Fray Fausto Lopez, O.S.A. and Maria Amparo "Mariquita" Gonzalez y de los Angeles ] Reunion on the occasion of the 69th birth anniversary of Brother Andrew Gonzalez, F.S.C. at Gene Gonzalez’s “Cafe Ysabel,” # 455 P. Guevarra Street, San Juan. It is being organized by the Dr. Virgilio Sioco Gonzalez branch of the clan [ the Cebu branch ], and that means Arch. Jackie Gonzalez Cancio – Vega, Charo Gonzalez Cancio – Yujuico, Dr. Vicki Gonzalez Belo, David Gonzalez de Padua, Dr. Donna Gonzalez de Padua, et. al.. Entrance fee is Php 1,500.00/xx per person so that the food will be “suitably Gonzalez” and also to raise some funds for the “Gonzalez Doble Zeta” organization. Gene Gonzalez will recreate “Cocina Sulipena” [ Old Sulipan Cooking ] for his Gonzalez Cousins. Since “Cafe Ysabel” only has a seating capacity of 120 persons, attendance will be limited to 20 persons for the “Gonzalez de Baliuag” [ the Soledad Gonzalez -Mariano Gonzales, Jose Gonzalez - Francisca Carrillo, and Francisco Gonzalez - Maria Lloret branches of the Clan ], and 90 persons for the “Gonzalez de Sulipan” [ the Joaquin Gonzalez - Florencia Sioco branch ], only ten descendants each for the ten Gonzalez – Sioco brothers Dr. Fernando, Dr. Jesus, Dr. Emilio, Atty. Augusto, Octavio [ died young; no issue ], Dr. Virgilio, Atty. Francisco Javier, Dr. Bienvenido, Dr. Joaquin, and Congressman Fausto. So let this be an announcement to our cousins!!!
This is the Philippines after all, where Everyone is related!!! 
“Noche Buena” 2008
December 25, 2008 at 1:00 pm (Angst, Brother Andrew F.S.C. of De La Salle, Family Traditions, Gonzalez de Sulipan, Humor, Pampanga Cuisine, Pampanga Traditions, Personal, Random memories, The Manilenos, The Pampanguenos, Tristesse)
UNHAPPY CHRISTMAS PAST
Up until Christmas 2002, before my “brilliant” uncle Brother Andrew [ Brother Andrew Benjamin Gonzalez, F.S.C. of De La Salle University / Macario Diosdado Arnedo Gonzalez, 29 February 1940 - 29 January 2006, youngest brother of my father Augusto Beda Arnedo Gonzalez ] sold off Lola Charing’s elegant old house and donated the entire proceeds to Charity, we gathered there for the family’s main Christmas dinner on the evening of the 25th. Since Brother Andrew had to be with the Christian Brothers’ Community at the De La Salle College along Taft Avenue during Christmas Eve, Lola Charing moved the family gathering from the evening of the 24th to the 25th. And it became a family tradition after he was finally assigned back to the De La Salle College Manila in 1969 after years teaching in De La Salle-run universities and colleges in the USA and then De La Salle Bacolod, Negros Occidental. Thus, we grandchildren grew up observing the family’s main Christmas dinner on 25 December instead of the 24 December “Noche Buena” observed by everybody else. Until now in 2008, we are still disoriented when we celebrate our main Christmas dinner on the evening of 24 December like all normal Christians and Catholics.
Fearful of his [ imagined ] impending demise after my mother’s unexpected passing from cerebral aneurysm on 05 September 2002, Brother Andrew’s impulsive decision to sell off Lola Charing’s house was the worst thing that happened to the family, probably as tragic as when Lolo Augusto [ his father ] was assassinated at the Pampanga Sugar Development Company PASUDECO offices on 12 July 1939 [ along with Don Jose Leoncio de Leon, the richest man in Pampanga at that time, and Captain Julian Olivas ]. It was exactly like the Nuclear Bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki: like Nuclear Fission, it just led from bad to worse to worst to nil. Cataclysmic. It was like an Egyptian Curse: Everything Bad just engulfed every facet of our family life. There were emotional, physical, financial disasters all over the place. The wide swathe of destruction it caused in our family relations was akin to a world war and nothing was ever the same again. And it was never about the money, it was all about principle and sentiment. In the first place, Lola Charing’s house was not supposed to be sold; she had wanted it to go down the generations as the family’s gathering place; she had left it to Brother Andrew for his stewardship to eventually pass on to the grandchildren. So let it be a cautionary tale…
Expectedly, all the anger, resentment, angst, and divisiveness in the family took its toll on Brother Andrew, the “genius” perpetrator of it all. Several members of the family — some of his favorites in fact — refused to see him permanently. De facto, He became “persona non grata” and nonexistent and it depressed him to no end. Very few members of the family came to his Sunday lunches at his new townhouse, if at all. He belatedly realized that he would not be forgiven in any way. In the form of severe diabetic complications, it all finally killed him on 29 January 2006. Not one member of the family was by his side at the ICU as he breathed his last that 5:00 p.m.. To the Filipino academe and to Manila Society, his passing was a great loss. But to his immediate family, he was a failure, the “weakest link” who, with his impulsive and misinformed, badly-advised decisions concerning Gonzalez matters, caused the losses of so much of the family’s ancestral legacies.
The Christmases of 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006 passed and the divided family members spent the holidays in their own quiet ways. Lola Charing’s house was gone, the Christmas Dinner of 25 December was gone, even the family was gone. Everything happy, joyous, and wonderful in the family became a distant, irrelevant, and useless memory.
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HAPPY CHRISTMAS REPAST
The Gonzalez-Arnedo Christmas Table was a collection of family favorites from the Spanish Era, American Period, Commonwealth, PostWar, and even modern times:
According to my brother Adolfo, the Egg Nog was from the Gonzalez table of the American Period: my father Augusto Beda had recalled that my Lolo Bosto was the one who used to make it in his lifetime [ 1887 - 1939 ]. I mistakenly thought that the Egg Nog was only brought in by Brother Andrew after his studies at UC Berkeley in the early 1960s.
Brother Andrew introduced the big Broiled Lobsters with lemon butter sauce in 1970. There would also be broiled king prawns to supplement the big lobsters.
The classical “Pastel de Pichon” was from the Arnedo and the Gonzalez tables of the Spanish Era. The Baked Turkey with traditional stuffing and giblet gravy was from the Gonzalez table of the American Period; the Arnedo and the Gonzalez of the Spanish Era instead had “capon” — big chickens of an imported variety — fried in large cauldrons “cauas.” There was also the “Pato al Caparas” from the Arnedo and the Gonzalez tables of the Spanish Era. Sometimes, there was panfried French “foie gras,” courtesy of my eldest brother. The “Galantina de Pollo” was a feature of many Pampanga and Manila families’ Christmas tables but it was deemed everyday by the Arnedo and the Gonzalez; their versions were distinguished by blood cubes, lots of olives, and Spanish “chorizo.”
Sometimes, Tita Raquel Valdes Gonzalez-de Leon, one of Brother Andrew’s favorite first cousins, sent her fastidiously prepared “Caldereta de Cabrito” from the Gonzalez-Valdes table of the Spanish Era.
Broiled tenderloin medallions with a demiglace sauce traced themselves to the “Solomillo” of the Gonzalez table of the American Period. Sometimes, there was the melt-in-the-mouth “Lengua en salsa blanca” from the Arnedo and the Gonzalez tables of the Spanish Era but Brother Andrew considered it ordinary for Christmas and only added it on demand of the raving guests.
While Brother Andrew deemed it hopelessly pedestrian, young ”Lechon” with grilled liver sauce and a “milagrosa” rice and pandan stuffing was always a feature of the Arnedo and the Gonzalez holiday tables in Old Sulipan. Brother Andrew brought in the legs of Spanish “Jamon Jabugo” and American Virginia “Smithfield” ham in the 1970s. The legs of Chinese “Hoc Shiu” ham and the “jamon de funda” slathered, indeed swimming, in distinctly spiced syrups were from the Arnedo and the Gonzalez tables of the Spanish Era.
Occasionally, Tita Erlinda “Erly” Valdes Gonzalez-Rodriguez [ elder sister of Tita Raquel ], also one of Brother Andrew’s favorite first cousins, sent her exquisite ”Canelones” [ "Cannelloni" ] from the Gonzalez-Valdes table of the American Period.
For the granddaughters, there was no Christmas without the traditional Fruit Salad from the Arnedo and the Gonzalez tables of the American Period. It was never sweet. For the last 30 years, the homemade mayonnaise that served as its base was made with slowly-beaten egg yolks and Greek virgin olive oil, but a recent look at the old recipe of Lola Charing from the 1920s revealed that it was actually made with American “Wesson” oil.
For the grandsons, there could be no Christmas without the cloyingly rich “Tocino del Cielo,” a traditional egg yolk and sugar only custard [ no milk! ] peculiar to the Arnedo family of Old Sulipan, the original recipe of which came from the Spanish Era [ 1870s ]. As they were not yet aware of the dangers of cholesterol, the boys consumed 6, 8, 10, even 12 of the confections at a time!
After 1989, my mother brought in several traditional Spanish desserts: “Tarta Madrid,” “Milhojas,” “Crocombuche [ French "Croquembouche" / Cream Puff Tree ],” ”Yemas,” “Naranjas,” etc..
The dessert table also featured many confections from Spain and France, most notably from “Fauchon.”
Unlike many Filipino families, there were no “ensaimadas,” however expensive the interpretation, on the Gonzalez-Arnedo “Noche Buena” table even if the fastidiously made Gonzalez and Arnedo versions of the traditional bread were among the best in the country. It was so everyday for Brother Andrew, regarded as breakfast and “merienda” fare, and consequently unsuitable for the Christmas Dinner.
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CHRISTMAS 2008
During the last Christmas of 2007, I decided that I had had enough of sad Christmases… I informed the family — those who were still talking — that there would be a Christmas gathering at my parents’ house on Christmas Eve and that they were invited but I made it clear that I didn’t give a f*cking damn if they would attend or not. I reconstructed the family’s Christmas menu from memory, had the place cleaned up and down and left and right, the silver polished, the china and crystal washed, the linens pressed, blooming orchid plants, cut flowers, and fresh fruits purchased, and did everything else that I used to do at Lola Charing’s house back in those happy days. Surprisingly, all of the family — those who were still talking — did come eagerly, enjoyed themselves immensely, and it was all a great success. Of course, the unwanted members who had caused the terrible divisions could not come out of stubborn pride and it was just as well, for it was fully-deserved. We had all finally moved on…
This Christmas Season of 2008, it would have been easy enough to have called any of the top caterers or to have reserved tables for Christmas Eve dinner at the Manila Peninsula or at the Makati Shangri-La hotels, but it wouldn’t have meant anything at all to us siblings. So we decided [ we siblings who are still talking ], putting all inconveniences aside [ and there were many! ],that we would still gather in our parents’ house, serve the Christmas food we always knew, serve it on the same silver, china, crystal, and linens, and invite our closest surviving aunts and uncles, and cousins to our little gathering.
My younger lawyer brother, a connoisseur with the most discriminating palate, took charge of the Egg Nog because he was the one who often saw its preparation by the majordomo Benito as he grew up in Lola Charing’s house under Brother Andrew’s watchful eyes. My brother never liked the taste of rhum, finding it “rough,” and instead poured bottles of Remy Martin cognac into the milk and egg mixture. The resulting exquisite Egg Nog was the best we ever had.
Expertise, fastidiousness, and a penchant for the freshest seafood, meats, vegetables, fruits, and other ingredients was brought by my lawyer brother’s Korean wife to the family table. It was from her that I learned that freshness and superior varieties were paramount concerns in food purchases and preparation. She was a stickler for High Quality with a capital HQ.
My eldest brother, a famous authority on cuisine, presided over the preparation of every dish: tasting, adjusting, and correcting at every turn. It was because of his direction that the food took on the traditional, exquisite flavors of family memory.
Despite all the inconveniences, as well as the Global Financial Crisis which was gradually affecting Everything in our lives, it was nonetheless a wonderful “Noche Buena” Christmas celebration this 2008. Our family was TOGETHER AND HAPPY, and that was what mattered the most!!!
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I WISH YOU ALL A MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
Finally Understanding…
November 2, 2008 at 10:00 pm (Angst, Arnedo de Sulipan, Brother Andrew F.S.C. of De La Salle, Family Traditions, Gonzalez de Sulipan, Pampanga Traditions, Personal, Quiason de San Fernando, Random memories, Religious Traditions, Reyes de Arayat, The Manilenos, The Pampanguenos, Tristesse, Uncategorized)
It’s “All Souls’ Day”…
The Lion at Sunset
October 24, 2008 at 4:32 pm (Angst, Family Traditions, Manila Houses, Pampanga Traditions, Random memories, The Global Crowd, The Manilenos, The Pampanguenos, Tristesse)
He lies in his bed at the Intensive Care Unit of the top hospital in the city. His final hours approach with mathematical precision, in much the same exact and ordered way he had lived all his life. He was a strong warrior who had fought all the odds and invariably emerged the victor all throughout his long life. Always the winner, he now faced the ultimate, unconquerable end…
The Lion at Sunset.
Thank you Tito *******, for the inspiration.
Note: The Lion finally passed away 09 November 2008, Sunday, and was laid to rest 13 November 2008, Thursday.
Old names, new fortunes
September 23, 2008 at 11:52 am (Pampanga Cuisine, Pampanga Traditions, Personal, Random memories, The Manilenos, The Pampanguenos)
I recently attended the birthday luncheon of a dear friend, a gentleman of Old Pampanga, held at a top hotel. The guest list of 50 was entirely Old Pampanga and surprisingly enough, entirely affluent. There were none of the newly-prominent arriviste families who currently had the run of the province. Although it was all casual and convivial — it was a luncheon after all — there was that undercurrent of sheer affluence and steely elegance always palpable when a certain class of Old Pampanga get together.
It was interesting to note that while all the surnames were old and of exalted ancestry, some lineages stretching back to the 1700s — Hizon, Henson, Lazatin, Singian, Panlilio, de Leon, Escaler, Gonzalez, Ocampo, Paras, Salgado, Miranda, Dizon, Sandico, et. al. — their current fortunes were all relatively recently accumulated through new businesses, professions, and transactions: banking, mining, manufacturing, shipping, logistics, exports, information technology, real estate, jewelry, etc.. None of the Pampangos present possessed the traditional agricultural fortunes of their “hacendero” forebears. Those were definitely things of the past: Mount Pinatubo, CARP, NPA / Communism, the 1972 Agrarian Reform, the Hukbalahap, and the PreWar Social Reforms had rendered irrelevant and collectively eradicated the agricultural, feudal way of life. Several of them of course, still possessed mostly unproductive tracts of land, controlled by expertly convoluted and intractable corporate structures. But they were nothing more than sentimental relics of a forgotten age. To all of those present, the past with all its glories and failures was the past, and the present was “healthier” and much more interesting with fast-paced profits and endless travels worldwide. The descendants of Old Pampanga already had new lifestyles: while not exactly “out with the old,” the key words were “new, newer, and newest”!!!
There was a pattern to the maintenance and expansion of all that affluence, and it wasn’t exclusively Pampango. Education was a priority, not only to further the advancement of the young, but also to maintain, expand, and upgrade their social connections. The children were sent to the schools where the children of the other ”good families” were sent. Class lists were requested and perused by eagle-eyed parents and grandparents who identified the ”suitable” friends for their children among their classmates. That meant that they would study, play, and be foolish together as well, thus cementing upcoming business and social relationships. At home, the boys were taught by their fathers the “masculine” chores from basic electricals to vehicle maintenance; the girls were taught by their mothers all the home arts from cooking to cleaning to entertaining in style; Laziness was not tolerated under any circumstances. The famed, pristine cleanliness of a Pampango home [ to the point of being a lifeless showcase ] was a point of pride for many good Pampango families. Undergraduate studies were at the Ateneo de Manila, De La Salle, and for the open-minded and adventurous, the University of the Philippines. Also for college and the now-required postgraduate studies, only the top, “Ivy League” universities in the USA would do — Harvard, Yale, Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell, Columbia, Princeton, University of Pennsylvania, also Stanford, UC Berkeley, Duke, NYU, Fordham, Georgetown, unless the children wanted to go to Europe and attend Oxford or Cambridge, the Sorbonne, or the Universidad Complutense. Back home, Marriage with another Pampango of “good family” was preferred, if only for the obvious reason that the couple’s traditionally discriminating palates would be compatible. The business connections were appreciated but properly reserved for the future. If they decided to marry “outside the race” to a Manileno or even an Ilonggo or a Negrense, then it was understood that the fiance / fiancee was also of “good family.” Marriage to an “unknown” / “desconocido” was unimaginable in the light of one’s “proper” family [ read: rich and conservative ]. Entrepreneurial business activities, even for those employed by multinational corporations, were encouraged for both the husband and the wife. The Young were always encouraged to go into business for themselves. Children were well-fed with expensive comestibles to the point of obesity not only for health, but also to show one’s wherewithal to afford the best for their offspring. Perhaps owing to their distant Chinese ancestry, the Pampangos were all too conscious of business and money matters. Despite all the acknowledgments of blood relations, of affectionate regards, of graciousness, it mattered extremely what one’s businesses / corporations [ note the plural! ] and current financial standing were, because as Everyone else was of the expected patrician lineage, Money — preferably Big, Bigger, Biggest Money — was the only basis for one’s social standing in the community, and with it, the respect accorded by one’s business and social peers.
And those are the values of a discreet Pampango aristocracy which has inexplicably survived to this cyber day and age… outlasting every attempt of rebellion and revolution.
Apalit Fiesta 2008 Advisory
May 28, 2008 at 8:00 am (Arnedo de Sulipan, Domestic Travels, Escaler de Sulipan, Family Traditions, Gonzalez de Sulipan, Pampanga Art, Pampanga Cuisine, Pampanga Traditions, Random memories, Religious Traditions, The Manilenos, The Pampanguenos)
“FIESTA” ADVISORY: ON 28 JUNE 2008, SATURDAY, AT EXACTLY 11:00 A.M., “APUNG IRO” WILL LEAVE HIS SHRINE IN BARANGAY CAPALANGAN IN A JOYOUS PROCESSION TO THE PAMPANGA RIVER — THE “RIO GRANDE DE PAMPANGA” —FOR THE ANNUAL “LIBAD” FLUVIAL FESTIVAL IN HIS HONOR. AT 4:00 P.M., THERE WILL BE A PROCESSION THROUGH THE APALIT TOWN PROPER IN HIS HONOR.
ON 29 JUNE 2008, SUNDAY, THERE WILL BE DAY-LONG CEREMONIES AT THE APALIT CHURCH WHICH WILL CULMINATE IN A LATE AFTERNOON PROCESSION IN HONOR OF “APUNG IRO.”
FIESTAGOERS CAN ALSO GO SHOPPING FOR EVERYTHING AS THE APALIT TOWN PROPER BECOMES ONE BIG “TIANGGE” SELLING EVERYTHING IMAGINABLE — “DIVISORIA SA PAMPANGA”!!!
ON 30 JUNE 2008, MONDAY, “APUNG IRO” WILL RETURN TO HIS SHRINE IN BARANGAY CAPALANGAN. THE JOYOUS AND RAUCOUS PROCESSION — ACCOMPANIED BY WATER DRENCHING — ARRIVES AT THE SHRINE BETWEEN 3:00 TO 5:00 P.M..
BE ADVISED THAT SAINT PETER’S SHRINE IN BARANGAY CAPALANGAN, APALIT, PAMPANGA WILL BE THE CENTER OF ACTIVITIES SPECIFICALLY ON THE MORNING OF 28 JUNE 2008, SATURDAY, AND THE AFTERNOON OF 30 JUNE 2008, MONDAY.
COME AND EXPERIENCE THE BIGGEST “FIESTA” IN ALL OF PAMPANGA!!!
[ TIP: MAKE A GENEROUS TIME ALLOWANCE FOR YOUR ARRIVAL IN APALIT. TRAFFIC WILL BE VERY HEAVY ALONG MACARTHUR HIGHWAY IN APALIT TOWN AND ENVIRONS { OUTSKIRTS OF CALUMPIT, BULACAN, AND MACABEBE & SAN SIMON, PAMPANGA }. PARKING WILL BE VERY DIFFICULT ANYWHERE IN THE TOWN. DO NOT BRING EXPENSIVE AND NEW VEHICLES SO AS NOT TO ATTRACT BAD ELEMENTS. HAVE YOUR DRIVERS GUARD YOUR VEHICLES. WASHROOMS CAN BE VERY CHALLENGING; RUNNING WATER IS IN DEMAND AND WATER SYSTEMS INEVITABLY BREAK DOWN. EVERYONE IS WELCOME: YOU CAN WALK INTO ANY GOOD HOUSE AND YOU WILL BE FED A NICE MEAL IN HONOR OF "APUNG IRO." ]
