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Remembering Peacetime

by Teodoro C. Benigno

Among the few Filipino oldtimers still alive, there was a rush of memory in the wake of my Remembering Peacetime column just over two weeks ago. Such a one is the letter of Francisco R. Lopez of 74 Boston. Cubao, Quezon City, to be treasured by this writer because in five years or a decade from now, hardly anybody will be alive to remember.

We are super-senior citizens all, holding on to those silver threads of nostalgia about a pre-World War II period where life in the Philippines was our own version of Shangri-La. To be young then was wonderful. The future sprawled before you like a beckoning jewel. To be young today is to be a captive of garbage strewn everywhere, pollution at the highest levels, a nation seemingly beaten by a mad dog. 

Our Peacetime was the Commonwealth Period (1935-1941) and the decade or two immediately before. This was when the Philippines gradually slipped from the cultural hold of Mother Spain to embrace America, earlier an enemy that killed tens of thousands of Filipinos in a raging war of colonization replacing Spain as conquistador. Now America was becoming a friend. Soon the bells of Balangiga that summoned Filipino guerilleros to massacre the Yankee in his biggest colonial setback were swallowed by the mists of time. What is it about the Filipino who rages in battle then succumbs to the colonial caress is something that has always mystified me. 

Now it was Mother America. 

Mr. Lopez narrates that in reading my Peacetime column, he relieved his past as a youth, not very far from your place (Pasay) as my parents were residents of Paco, not far from the actual compound of the philantrophist Don Teodoro Yangco. Remember him (he owned the Yangco Market in Divisoria and adopted the first two Siamese Twins for their proper education. Don Teodoro was not the only Filipino philantrophist then. There were others who gathered the poor and the wretched under their roof and educated the best of them. Alas, we do not have such Filipinos anymore. And if there are, I do not know of them. The rich today are uncaring. At best they engage in charity to salve their consciences, and even these are few and far between. 

"The growing youth of today," Mr. Lopez continues", will never be able to taste (nor can they ever imagine) the glorious beauty of Manila: fresh air, simple living, a family could eat well on a budget of P40 to P50 per month, honor and integrity were at their peak," Honor, integrity Yes, Virginia they did exist before and in abundance. Some top and certainly medium-level government officials lived in humble residences, ride the tramvia and other public means of transportation to their offices. Such political magnificoes as Claro Recto, Jose Laurel, Manuel Quezon and Sergio Osmena traveled officially abroad. They took care to list every expense. And what they did not spend, they returned punctually to the treasury. I remember my father, a top bureaucrat in the government’s accounting bureau. He was somewhat fastidious in dress., if we can call it that. Always be suited up in alpaca or de hilo (he shunned sharkskin) with necktie to match and his baston Mama took care to press his suits to immaculate perfection. Papa always took the tranvia, handsomely dressed. He was certainly imposing in his trim Panama hat, walking the distance to F.B. Harrison St. as though he was traversing Champs Elysée. 

There were few private cars or automobiles then. I remember intruding into a number of private garages as a schoolkid. And lo and behold, they were there gleaming before me, bit metal bats or birds come to roost. I ran my fingers over their sleek hoods and shoulders, enchanted that such things existed. They were cars some of whose models today’s citizenry never heard of – Nash, Plymout, Oldsmobile, a rare Cadillac here and there, vintage Fords of course, the first Chevrolet and Studebaker. We Benignos had a rich relative, Manong Pepe, who drove a berlina whenever his family came to visit. It was only then that I experienced riding a car which often took us to Luneta. It was great, feeling the wind on your face inside a car as it roared forward. There was no air-conditioning then. 

"Haro-Haro" and "Mongo con hielo cost only 10 centavos in a tall glass in Japanese refreshment parlors… Mr. Lopez recalls that the "ultra-elite lunch" cost only 50 centavos at the famous Tom’s Dixie Kitchen at Plaza Santa Cruz where anybody of prominence scrambled for a seat. Pesos? Almost everything was in centavos, Carretela and caromata rides cost only one centavo. And often on the way to Malate Catholic School in Malate I would take the reins from a generous cochero and shout "Hi-yah! Hiyah", reveling as kids revel when the horse broke into a faster trot that almost galloped as you administered the whip. Those days are gone forever and I miss them oh so terribly. 

The sunsets then were more clear and radiant, a gorgeous splash of rainbow shards across Manila Bay, the twilight tucking day into its skirt with a beauty that took your breath away… And soon the night took over. South Harbor was forthwith awash in lights, its many piers particularly Pier 13 (then the longest in the world) straightening out like a lighted python in the gloaming. Rememer that Pasay Beach then was the Riviera of the Philippines and sweethearts walked the sands, hand in hand. No they never kissed in public. That was verboten. Morals then were tight, and if a boy stole a kiss, the girl would scream to high heaven even if she liked it.. 

The best shopping and the best moviehouses were at the Escolta. It was a ribbon of the most costly real estate in Manila. Who can forget Cine Ideal? Along the Escolta were such stunning shopping centers as Heacocks, Walkover, Berg’s, the Crystal Arcade, Oceanic Commercial, Assandra’s Idelino, the Burke Building of old, the Manila Stock Exchange Building of old Escolta was our Fifth Avenue of Manhattan, where often you wore your Sunday best for it was the place "to see and be seen/" After Escolta, you had Avenida Rizal, second best. And then if you had little money, you were drawn into the whirlpool bazaar of Quiapo, where you melted with the hoi-polloi. It didn’t really matter. Rich and poor mixed freely and cordially in Quiapo. 

Back to moviehouses. The moviehouses we kids frequented were right in our neighborhood. Cine Pasay I remember best. Always it was "double feature". So in the first movie, I would see Tom Mix and Wild Bill Hickok roam the Wild West in their six-shooters, spitting lead at Indians Cherokees or Mohawks always screeching in war whoops.. In the second, I sat enraptured in my seat watching the mature beauty of such as Norma Shearer, Janet Gaynor, Greta Garbo, Loreta Young wallop my young heart sometimes stir my groins. Then there was Cine Gaiete, favored by the mestizo families of Malate and Ermita. In Paco, Mr. Lopez remembers Cine Paco, Sine Dart and Cine Belle Vue along Calle Herran. 

I can go on and on, romancing this past, digging into it as you would a precious lodestone of diamonds. We, who are still around,feel very lucky to have experienced that enchanted moment in our history when we were young, when our nation was young and everything, it seemed, was up for grabs. It will never come back again, as a first kiss cannot be experienced anew, a tug of the heart when that heart was ready to embrace everything. Fool’s gold, you say? It certainly was not. It was gold dust that fell on us, that we alone experienced, a split-second in time, but what a split second! You can live a lifetime in a split-second. Rapture comes only in split seconds. As do escaping moonbeams. 

And I was there when it happened.

Source: Philippine Star, May 6, 2002 

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