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Seen from
the air, it’s a triangle with points east, south and west;
but seen from the sea, the
island of
Panay
looks like a crown or helmet because its mountain ranges
form a cap akin to the native farmer’s salakot.
Legends
have it that Panay was the first Malay settlement in
what’s now the
Philippines.
Sometime in the 13th century, or so says the myth (and
most myths enclose a kernel of fact), 10 Bornean datus and
their households fled on 10 large barangays from the
tyranny of the Sultan of Brunei. Northward they sailed
across the Sulu Sea until they touched land in what’s now
Negros, but fearing to be still within reach of
Brunei
there, they continued north along the
Tanon Strait and
emerged into the Visayan Sea, headed for Romblon.
But
looking behind them, they saw to the south, adazzle in the
sunlight, what seemed to be a great golden salakot
floating on the blue. Entranced by the vision, they turned
their boats around and sailed back toward that shore they
had almost missed.
Thus did
Malay migrants come to
Panay.
The island
was then peopled by the aboriginal Aetas, small dark
nomadics afoot under the government of King Marikudo and
Queen Maniwangtiwang. It took the Malay newcomers only two
days to persuade the Negritos to evacuate coast and
lowland and to relocate in the boondocks, leaving their
green Eden to the intruders. For agreeing to the exodus,
King Marikudo was paid a salakot, a necklace and a basin,
all of beaten gold, plus bolts of cloth and a quantity of
beads and trinkets. It was the biggest real-estate bargain
until the sale of Manhattan (1626), by the Indians to the
Dutch for 24 dollars’ worth of gewgaws. The
Panay deal has been celebrated for the last seven centuries in the
annual revelry called Ati-Atihan, which has the
descendants of the 10 datus putting on soot and shells in
thanksgiving to the Aetas.
The new
settlers named the island Hamtic, because abounding there
were the large ants called hantic-hantic (wherefore: the
name of Antique province) but in time the island became
known as
Panay as the richness of its plains became famous. However, the
name
Panay
(meaning flat) hardly fits an island remarkable for its
pregnant profile.
One people
of one speech and origin were the pioneer settlers but
within a couple of centuries, they had divided into four
“nations” so distinct and separate from one another they
had even developed different languages. When the Spanish
arrived in the 16th century, they found Panay split into
the language-territories of the Hiligainon, the Harayo,
the Kinaraya, the Aklanon, etc.; and from these terrains
created the provinces of Iloilo, Antique and Capiz. But
they erred in lumping the Aklanons with the Capizeños in
one province, since, as the Aklanons assert, they have a
language, a culture and a local history of their own that
are not the same as those of Capiz. Therefore did
Philippine geography harbor a cry of “Aklan Irredenta!”—a
dream unfulfilled until 1956, when Republic Act 1414
finally separated traditional Aklanon ground from Capiz to
establish the
province of
Aklan,
the 53rd on our map.
But the
province into which the greatest Aklanon of all was born
was not yet Aklan, save in tongue, lore and tradition; and
the town where he was born, likewise, sounds “alienated,”
because of its Gringo name. Among the first
municipalities, if not the first of all, to be created by
the American regime, in 1904, was that of New Washington,
next door to Kalibo. As its name implies, the town of New
Washington augured our love affair with America, since the
Gringo would surely not have imposed so American a name
except where it—and himself —were welcome. (It isn’t
clear, however, if New Washington refers to Washington
State or to the District of Columbia.) At any rate, we
were presently accepting in Manila such Gringo place-names
as Kansas, Pennsylvania, Taft, Dewey, Plaza Lawton and
Harrison Boulevard—but only in those areas reclaimed from
sea or swamp by the Americans, or reformed and modernized
by them. Which suggests that the town of
New Washington
was, in some way, an American beneficiary.
That might
explain why a young Chinese entrepreneur should find his
way there, in the later 1900s, when the belief was already
growing that the sweet smell of success was the Gringo
smell. A young town like New Washington could be expected
to be “progressive,” if only to live up to its name, and
would be aided in its aspirations by the American
presence: a public school, a health and sanitation office,
a Gringo teacher or missionary, perhaps a copra and sugar
estate run by a white planter.
The
entrepreneur attracted to New Washington bore a quaint
name, Sin Puat-co, and had been born a Fookienese of South
China, in the city of Amoy, his family being of the
merchant class. In keeping with Chinese custom, he was
betrothed in childhood and married off as soon as he
reached puberty. At age 30 he lost his wife and decided to
migrate to
Manila,
for ages a lodestone to the young men of Fookien. Up to
mid-19th century all the Chinese in the Philippines were
of a single stock, Fookienese, and had sailed hither from
Amoy port.
In Manila
Sin Puat-co became a junk dealer and, in three years, had
amassed enough capital to open a store, but,
business-wise, Manila like Amoy was overcrowded, the
competition was formidable, and Sin Puat-Co was presently
hankering again for new horizons. Wanderlust took him to
the languorous isles of the South: did he, too, like the
10 datus, feel magnetized upon beholding the Golden
Salakot afloat on the blue?
Certainly,
he took root at once where he touched land: in the
just-created town of New Washington, which was no dreamy
little village but a busy port (steamers sailed up its
river right into the heart of town) and a hub of commerce,
being the rice granary of southern Panay besides growing
stacks of corn, copra, sugar, poultry and swine. As
brimful was its fishing industry, which flourished such
quality catch as the blue marlin. To buyers crowding from
elsewhere, tops was New Washington as market town because
of those silvery wares brought in at dawn by its fishing
fleets.
Sin Puat-co
would have been no Fookienese had he not smelled aright
the business climate in Aklanon turf, or the fragrance of
opportunity in New Washington, and he lost no time in
getting himself a downtown location there for a general
store: just a step from the plaza, just a stride from the
church, just a stump from wharf and market.
A general
store in the Gringo sense, and no mere trifling sari-sari
in the Pinoy sense, was this original House of Sin, where
the merchandise ranged from one-centavo matchboxes to P5
spades and rakes, and from 10-centavo wooden shoes to P10
textile cuts. In between, storekeeper Sin had lard and
kettles for the cook, needle and thread for the tailor,
canned sardines and pork-and-beans and carne norte for the
family supper, and lots of school supplies for the small
fry. His son from Amoy joined him and together they turned
his general store into the prime emporium of New
Washington in five years flat. By then, Sin Puat-co was in
his later 30s and wanting to establish a Philippine family
tree. He had fallen in love.
The girl
was from the Kalibo neighborhood, of landed-gentry stock,
and therefore very strict about manners and morals, custom
and tradition; and (most of all) piety. Maxima Lachica,
whom kith and kin knew as Mimay, was so devout a
churchgirl, she could not but be horrified to find herself
being wooed by a heathen Chinaman. Sin Puat-co had been
reared as a Buddhist but was really unawakened,
religion-wise. To make himself eligible in the eyes of his
inamorata, he studied the catechism under the parish
priest of New Washington and, in time, was baptized a
Catholic, taking on the name Juan Sin.
Why the
new Christian was allowed so scandalous a surname is easy
to see. In the 1900s English was still not vulgate enough
for local ears to note the monstrosity of a person being
surnamed Sin. The christening priest, better-versed in
Spanish, of course, would have seen nothing wrong in
coupling a good Christian name like Juan with a good
Castilian word like Sin, which in Spanish means “without.”
The name Juan Sin would, therefore, read as: John the
Have-Not—surely as Christian a term as the
Beatitudes, and as impeccable as babehood. Harder to see
is why Juan Sin did not follow the Chinese practice of
fusing the vocables of their original name to form their
Philippine surname, as in Cojuangco, Limjap and Ongpin.
Properly, the family name Juan Sin handed down to his
descendants should have been Sinpuatco or Puatcosin. By
rejecting these compounds Juan Sin saddled his children,
and especially his Melchizedek, with a name that has
increased the merriment of nations but has also occasioned
much hurt. When the said Melchizedek aspired to the altar,
horrified churchmen wondered how a priest could be
referred to as the Reverend Sin, or bishop as Monsignor
Sin, or his diocese as the Seat of Sin!
Already
traditional is how the cardinal-archbishop of Manila
greets visitors at his door. “Welcome to the House of
Sin!”
However
unwise the nomenclature, Mimay Lachica would have seen
nothing funny about that new handle Juan Sin but rather
would have gloried in how it transformed a swain taboo to
her heart into a most suitable suitor. So what if he was
pushing 40, and herself not yet 20? He had shown the right
spirit in reforming himself to fit into her world; and no
longer did she rebuff love’s commuter as he flew back and
forth between his New Washington and her old barrio. In
the busy port town was a house that had been heathen
waiting for her to transform it into a Christian hub, even
as the heathen womb of Ruth had been transformed into the
font of a princely line anointed by God.
Mimay
Lachica was wedded to Juan Sin at the parish church of the
Holy Rosary in New Washington in February of 1912, and at
once started tackling what, as merchant’s wife was to be
her chief job: minding the store—while her husband scoured
the fields of the provinces and the bodegas of Manila for
buyable items to enhance the stocks of his superstore.
Mimay Sin proved to be a businesswoman to the counter
born; and the store would deepen into a mine under her
untutored expertise. She was the typical Maria Clara that
astonished Gringos were calling the better manager, or
magnate, or man, of the Pinoy establishment. She was no
one’s doll.
As a
mother, she was physiologically not quite as successful,
though she had a total of 16 children. The first seven
died in babyhood, which seemed to confirm the folk belief
that certain mothers “kill” their infants with their milk.
It’s possible that Mimay’s babies were allergic to
mother’s milk. So, the physicians she consulted advised
her to bottle-feed her children. Her next nine—five boys
and four girls—not only survived infancy but grew up
vigorous enough to march triumphant through college and
the challenges of their respective professions, which
ranged from commerce and business administration to
pharmacy and teaching. The youngest boy, Ramon, became a
physician; and the boy before him, Jaime, entered the
priesthood, became a bishop, and is now a cardinal.
Such
crownings and ascensions bespeak luck in the soil of the
fat island as magnetic to the 10 datus of legend as to the
modern adventurer Juan Sin. He and they alike felt they
had chanced on
Treasure Island. To the House of Sin the mythic images of
Panay have
proved pertinent—in business and industry, a Realm of Ants
indeed; and in creativity, a Golden Salakot hinting at
glory and honors.
To the
folk of the north, Panay might be the bogeyland of witch
and warlock, of kafre and asuwang, but to Juan Sin it was
a field of fortune. And especially was the town of
New Washington,
a land flowing with milk and honey. Maybe it had also
looked that way to the early Gringos who gave it its
hopeful name. To Juan Sin at any rate, it was the
opportunity place where the streets were paved with gold.
Second
girl of the nine Sins who survived the cradle is Rosario,
who earned a commerce degree and became Mrs. Enriquez.
Charing, as the family calls her, recalls that her
maternal grandmother was already blind with old age when
they were growing up.
“My
mother’s mother had Spanish blood. My grandfather was from
Kalibo, but they moved to New Washington, where my mother
grew up. When she married my father, she came back to live
in New Washington and we were all born and reared in the
big house on the town plaza. It was a very big house,
with eight bedrooms, I think, and a yard with two deep
wells and lots of trees and medicinal plants. We had a
spacious sala, a piano, a phonograph and a guitar, because
my mother was fond of music. In our very large kitchen we
used firewood and an oven with a chimney. Of the eight
bedrooms, one was occupied by our parents, two by the
housemaids [we had six] and five by the nine of us
children, who had to share quarters. Downstairs was the
store, a big general store manned by 12 salesmen, all
Chinese. They had a separate dorm in our compound. The
store had an income of between eight and ten thousand
pesos a day.”
The Sin
siblings might have to double up in bed, but not Jaime,
the future cardinal, who, says Charing, had the privilege
of sleeping in the master bedroom.
“He was
asthmatic: almost every month he had an attack. So he
slept with our parents, between them in bed, because he
was so sickly. Jaime was the pet of our mother not only
because of that but because he was really a good boy; very
obedient. As a child, he was very thin. My mother gave him
a small table at home that he used when he played at
saying Mass, with younger brother Ramon acting as altar
boy. They did that almost every day: Jaime pretending to
be a priest and Ramon pretending to be his sacristan.
When the family prayed the Angelus together in the
evening, mother made Jaime lead in the prayers. Jaime and
Ramon were very close to each other: they were playmates.
But they were also always quarreling. I’d hear them
squabbling and I’d go to them. And the moment they heard
me coming they would stop fighting.”
She
remembers the little Jaime as wearing an “Aguinaldo
haircut” and a home uniform of white shirt and khaki short
pants.
“For
breakfast he loved rice porridge with salty things like
tahure and tausi [salted beans], cucumber in vinegar, and
abalone [jellyfish]. He’d ask for fried rice with plenty
of lard and then add the vinegary cucumber. For lunch he
loved shrimp and fish and bamboo shoots [labong]. And for
merienda he just loved maruya [fried mashed bananas], biko
[boiled gelatinous rice with sugared shredded coconut],
and guinatan [camote, gabi, saba bananas, ube, lanka, rice
dumplings, etc., boiled in coconut milk]. When they grew
bigger, he and Ramon began serving at Mass in our town
church. Sometimes the rest of us children would feel too
sleepy or lazy to go to Mass on weekdays, unless Mother
woke us up and made us go, but Jaime and Ramon never
missed daily Mass because they were altar boys. During
Christmastime they’d join the pastores in going around
singing carols and asking for presents. Jaime was a good
singer even as a child; he knew a lot of religious songs,
of course, but he also sang American folksongs like
‘Beautiful Dreamer’ and pop hits like ‘Somewhere Over the
Rainbow.’”
Ramon, the
doctor in the family, remembers that Jaime learned to play
the harmonica very young and was always playing it.
“He was
the seventh in the family and I was the eighth: younger
than him by five years; between us there were twins who
died in infancy. We don’t know much about our father’s
family because they stayed in China, but at home we have
my mother’s family tree, in Spanish. Her father was Sotero
Lachica of Kalibo; my mother was born there but they came
to live in New Washington, which is nine kilometers from
Kalibo. Her mother was Sotera Reyes, a close relative of
Eulogio Reyes, who was the father of Archbishop Gabriel
Reyes. My mother was also related to Sofia Reyes de Veyra.
By the time I was born my grandparents were both dead: I
heard that my grandfather was very sickly and that my
grandmother became blind.”
Dr. Ramon
Sin also recalls that the House of Sin in New Washington
was actually two establishments. The one off the plaza was
probably Juan Sin’s original store and residence; later,
it was used as a bodega and part of it was rented out. The
bigger building right on the plaza, a block away from the
church, was where the Sin children were born and grew up.
“It was a
huge Spanish-style house of two stories, with capiz-shell
windows and a roof of GI sheets. The Japanese commandeered
it during the war and turned it into their headquarters;
and when they left they burned it. Nothing remained except
the big concrete kitchen, over which, after the war, we
built a new roof. Before the war, when we were kids in
that old house, our parents maintained a crowded
establishment. They employed so many people: salesmen,
housemaids, sewing women and so forth. Our parents were
strict: both were disciplinarians. My father did business
in copra and abaca, besides running his big store where
you could buy everything from rice and rattan to hardware
and ready-made clothes. My mother had her own businesses:
chiefly sinamay and tobacco. She had a dozen embroiderers
in the house making kimonos. That was her main enterprise.
We had a Chinese cook and every day he served us a lauriat.
But Mother trained the maids to cook Filipino food, and so
we also grew up on adobo, tinola, kare-kare and inihaw. We
spoke Aklanon at home but we understood Ilonggo, too.”
The doctor
says that his mother had asthma and that she may have
passed it on to Jaime.
“My mother
was very religious—the Oracion at twilight, rosary at
bedtime—and she made Jaime and me serve as altar boys.
During the Holy Week processions we were among the 25 boys
in cassocks carrying the implements of the Passion, like
the hammer and nails. And on Christmas we were with the
boys dressed as pastores and the girls dressed as angels
carrying an image of the Christ-Child from house to house.
Jaime would be holding the bell that he would ring at
every door and I’d be holding the box for alms. We were
given refreshments at every stop. The fiesta of New
Washington is La Naval, on the second Sunday of October,
in honor of Our Lady of The Rosary, but the church there
is not the same one where Jaime and I served as altar
boys. In 1981 the Cardinal had an operation and he pledged
to give his hometown the new church it badly needed. So,
in 1982, the old mouldering structure was demolished and
replaced with a new shrine, very beautiful. And the
Cardinal ordered from Spain a new life-size image of the
Santo Rosario. He’s a great devotee of the Blessed Mother.
You know, even as a child, I already knew Jaime was going
to be a priest. His favorite game was saying Mass, with a
biscuit for host, myself as his server, and real wine we
had asked from Father. Jaime was mabait, not really quiet
but not talkative either. I think he was the only one of
us whom Mother never spanked.”
Of the
nine “venial Sins,” the girls were sent to Manila for
their schooling, at a “colegio,” as “internas,” but the
boys studied the grades and secondary in New Washington,
according to Ramon, at the public schools.
“My eldest
sister Salvacion was a boarding student at Holy Ghost
College. She was the señorita in the house, our first
colegiala, and the first to pursue a career, in
education. She taught in Holy Ghost and after the war in
a school in Iloilo.
“Next in
line is Rosario, who also boarded in Holy Ghost and there
finished a course in commerce.
“Third in
line is Jose, my father’s favorite, being the eldest son,
who studied the grades in New Washington, high school in
Hong Kong and college in Shanghai, at St. John’s
University.
“Number
four is Francisco, now a businessman in the States. He
also did the grades in New Washington and then was sent to
a Chinese school in Manila. My father wanted him and Jose
to become fluent in Chinese so they could take over the
family businesses.
“Number
five is Mary, also now in the United States. She studied
pharmacy, took a master’s course at the UST.
“After
Mary comes Manuel, who’s now a math prof at San Sebastian
College. He’s an FEU education graduate, major in
mathematics.
“Then come
Jaime and myself. We both schooled at New Washington
Elementary. Then he went to Jaro in
Iloilo for his priesthood and I went to the UST for my medicine.
“Youngest
of all is Ceferina, also now an expatriate in America.
She, too, studied at Holy Ghost and chose a pharmaceutical
career.”
First of
the siblings to die, eldest brother Jose, was also the
first expatriate.
“Jose was
sent to
China
to study because my father had enterprises and a house in
Amoy, and he wanted Jose to take them over, but the war caught my
brother in
China
and then the Communists came. So, Jose had no chance to
take over. He married a Chinese professor in the
university where he was teaching, in Shanghai, and they
had a son, Donald. My brother was the tallest in the
family, very athletic, a basketball player. He was able to
visit the Philippines once when my father was still alive,
but Jose had forgotten his Aklanon and could speak only
English and Chinese. He was very good at English, he loved
American books and culture. After his death, the Cardinal
was twice in
Shanghai
and he visited Jose’s widow and son; and he made it
possible for them to visit the Philippines so they could
see the town where Jose was born. They’re Catholics, but
since the Church in China today is not in communion with
Rome, the Cardinal baptized them again, just to make
sure.”
As a
child, Jaime was called Ame by his siblings; as he grew
bigger his nickname became James or Jim. Dr. Sin says
that, at New Washington Elementary, which was near the
house, he and Jaime were well-liked by their teachers but
for different reasons—Jaime, because he was so
well-behaved; and Ramon, because he was so galante.
“We
weren’t classmates: Jaime was much ahead of me. He was
just an ordinary student. I shone in school because I was
the top contributor to the Red Cross—with coins filched
from Mother’s bag. Jaime’s chief hobbies were swimming at
the beach and biking. He was the only one in the family
who could bike. He had a gang of his own with whom he went
serenading, himself playing his harmonica while his
friends strummed their guitars. Among his pals were
Joseph Bohler, an American mestizo who was very
mischievous; Felipe Delfin, who became a journalist; and
Manuel Venus, who was a very good pianist and would become
a Sweeptakes director. Manuel’s father was a mayor of our
town and they owned the local electric plant. Manuel’s
younger brother, Eriberto, the present mayor of New
Washington, was my contemporary in school.”
A favorite
pastime of the young Jaime was going to the riverside
wharves to watch the ships coming into port. (When New
Washington was still a barrio of Altabas town, it was
called Lagatik, which means a river with shipping.) The
little boy so fascinated with ships and pier activity,
having inherited his father’s wanderlust, must have
dreamed of one day going out to sea and reaching faraway
shores. After all, in his veins also ran the blood of the
Borneans who had come sailing from over the sea to strike
new roots in this island of the Golden Salakot.
Reprinted
with permission from the book Cardinal Virtues: Collection
of Stories on Jaime L. Cardinal Sin written by Quijano de
Manila. |
