By Mia Rodriguez | Special to the BusinessMirror
THE Filipinos are not known for remembering. Our stories are found less in books and records than in fleeting fiery instances and the crumbling edifices of time long gone. We have little left of what was, and so much of that little we still have is contained in the smile of one wizened old man named Col. Vicente Fabian Alhambra Sr.
Now a bona-fide centenarian, Alhambra is, indeed, a living testimony of our story. Written into his flesh is war, destitution, turmoil, growth, abundance, a culmination and a beginning: The story of the Philippines for the past century, a weight he bears freely and with great humor.
Born on July 19, 1916, Alhambra spent a large part of his life in the military and is now one of the last two graduates of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) Class of 1942.
Sent straight to the battlefield, he was immediately captured during the Fall of Bataan and made to walk from the municipality of Mariveles to San Fernando, Pampanga. Now known as the Bataan Death March, it was an arduous journey of around 100 kilometers travelled entirely on foot.
Rather faded by time, his memories of the five-day march constitute chiefly of vying for water from the rare pump along the road and aiding two of his much older comrades along. In what was almost an afterthought during the interview, he tells me of a PMA classmate who refused to give up their class ring when a Japanese soldier began eyeing it and was eventually stabbed and forcefully relieved of the precious memento. These atrocities he spoke of as if they were mere facts of life, which, with the way his story goes, they were.
Once they arrived in San Fernando, Alhambra and his fellow soldiers were carted off to prisoner-of-war, camps where they spent many grueling months. An older relative managed to get a few gifts into the camp for the colonel, of which he most fondly remembers a prized kulambo, or mosquito net.
“Every day, I would pray from this booklet I had. It was given to me by my parents before the war,” he said. He said those prayers were what gave him strength during his time in the camp.
After the liberation of Manila, Alhambra went on to continue his military education in the United States before seeing more action in the Korean War as an intelligence officer. He retired from the service sometime in the 1960s and became a businessman. He married Amadora Reyes, with whom he had five children: Sylvia, Carmelita, Vicente Jr., Amadora and Marissa.
Alhambra is one of the few people left who not only experienced our story, but shaped and created it. The Philippine Veterans Affairs Office (PVAO) is the agency mandated to honor and compensate those who have affected our story thus, and not just those who fought our wars for us, but all those who served in the military.
These retired soldiers come to the PVAO in Camp Aguinaldo to renew their pension annually. What may be deemed as rather cumbersome by some is actually a great experience for these veterans.
“It is really a community gathering,” retired Brig. Gen. Restituto L. Aguilar, chief of the Veterans Memorial and Historical Division of PVAO, said in an interview.
The veterans get to see their friends and exercise their old legs, Aguilar said. Alhambra was a familiar face at the PVAO compound up until last year, but even this tough soldier is no match for aging, which now prevents him from making long trips far from his home in Cavite.
With exactly 166,611 pensioners accounted for by the PVAO as of June 2016, Aguilar said it is a struggle to provide the veterans with the compensation they rightfully deserve, and not just financially speaking.
Aguilar said, “The PVAO is under the Department of National Defense, which cannot have a total budget exceeding that of the Department of Education.” This presents a problem when paired with the ever-growing number of veterans in the country.
Aguilar, whose project is mainly concerned with the memorialization of these veterans, also talked about another serious problem.
“The Philippines is basically a country that does not remember the deeds of our heroes, except maybe during the Araw ng Kagitingan,” he said.
Despite this, Alhambra is quite happy with his pension, having learned with age to be satisfied with what he has.
“It is all right. I am already old and no longer need much,” he said
There are few who are at par with Alhambra when it comes to tales of life and love, and there are also few who know his story. For Aguilar, it is important that these people are recognized for their great deeds and sacrifices.
When asked why he chose to become a soldier in the first place, Alhambra answered cheekily, “It’s like this, you see. The officers in the military from Cavite all had pretty wives and lots of money,” yet, after a chuckle or two and some coaxing for a real answer on my part, he simply said with a far-off look in clear eyes, “For the country.”
Image credits: Mia Rodriguez