By Satur C. Ocampo
At Ground Level | The Philippine Star

The month of May evokes in me memories of joy and sadness.

May is the month of fiestas. Where I was born and grew up, we have been celebrating two: May 4, the feast of Sta. Monica (the barrio of my birth) and May 22, the town fiesta of Sta. Rita, Pampanga.

Forty years ago our May 4 festivity turned into mourning; on that day my father, Macario Alviz Ocampo, passed away at age 67. Last year, two days after our town fiesta my mother, Cecilia Soriano Cunanan, reunited with him. She was 103.

I wasn’t at Tatang’s wake and funeral as I had joined the underground movement against the Marcos dictatorship. Captured in January 1976 and detained for nine years, I regained my freedom by escaping on May 5, 1985, one day after his 10th death anniversary.

I have previously written here of how Tatang and Inang, as tenant farmers, were perfect partners in farming and parenting. They built a cohesive happy family of 12 children that gave primacy to the value of labor and concern for others. And they toiled incessantly to ensure that we all acquired an education.

He had had a modicum of formal schooling, but Tatang could speak, read and write only in Kapampangan. Inang, however, taught herself to also read, write and speak in Tagalog.

It was Tatang who consistently demonstrated deep interest in my education. He took pride in going up the stage at every recognition or graduation day to pin a ribbon or a medal on my chest. He spent all the cash he had on my high school graduation (for my all-white-trousers-and-shirt ensemble and first-ever black leather shoes). When I asked for money to join my friends to celebrate, Tatang tearfully handed me 35 centavos saying, “This is all that’s left, my son.”

Tatang keenly appreciated Kapampangan verse. He taught me to love it since I was a child. Securely perching me on his shoulders as he trod the pilapil, he would recite a verse and prompt me to do the same. Here’s an example:

“Sampaga, sampaga king tangke migyuyu/ bau mu mabanglu, aske mu malagu/ sasabit king batal mamangga king salu/ malagung babai buri nakang tutu.” (Flowers, flowers swaying on their stems/ so fragrant and lovely/pretty girl wants you hanging/ round her neck, resting on her breast.)

On his 40th death anniversary this week, I took out the small bundle of books and booklets of Kapampangan verse – Tatang’s treasured acquisitions that Inang gave me years ago. Poring over them again, I reconfirmed two things about my father: He admired Jose Rizal’s life history, valued his struggles, ideals and ideas. He also upheld the equal status of men and women.

The centerpiece of Tatang’s modest literary collection is a book in newsprint, 157 pages, titled Ing Bie nang Delanan Dr. Rizal (The Life Journey of Dr. Rizal). It’s a translation from an unspecified original work into Kapampangan verse by Mariano Songco, published on July 20, 1934. The book is endorsed, all in verse, by four Pampanga poets: Abdon Ll. Jingco, Rosario Tuazon-Baluyut, Jose C. Navarro, and Lino C. Dizon.

Rizal’s life story is told by stages. Appended to it are a Kapampangan translation of La Ultimo Adios and a collection of Kapampangan patriotic poetry, including Amado M.Yuson’s paean to Rizal, titled Bayung Cristo (New Christ).

A section of the book is devoted to an array of reactions to or comments on Rizal’s death by firing squad from more than two dozen writers and scholars in various European countries. First among them is Rizal’s friend, Ferdinand Blumentritt, who denounced the execution as “madness.” In the month following the execution, Blumentritt said, he was able to gather at least 73 newspapers published in Europe, all eulogizing Rizal, expressing a sense of great loss over his death.

Tatang must have read the book over and over, each time relishing the lyrical flow and inflections of the versified narrative while imbibing the hero’s noble ideals and progressive ideas. You can see how some torn pages were carefully repaired. He probably did the mending himself: sticking strips of medical plaster (no adhesive tape available then yet?) over the torn paper. He then stuck more medical plaster all around the edges of the cover (with Rizal’s faded portrait under the title), front and back, to keep it securely protected and bound.

The other interesting collections of Tatang are two hand-made booklets of verse, with one painstakingly typewritten stanza on every page. Both pertain to women, and were the works of one author, L. C. Cruz. They were written for Pampanga’s version of the Tagalog Balagtasan – a debate in verse called Crisotan, so named after Juan Crisostomo Soto, the celebrated poet, playwright, essayist and revolutionist who joined the Katipunan and fought in the Philippine-American war.

One booklet is titled Sufragio Feminina, which argues that Filipino women have the equal right as men to vote and be voted upon in popular elections. (A national plebiscite, held on April 30, 1937, showed that 90 percent of the 492,032 votes cast favored suffrage for Filipino women.)

The other booklet, titled Ding Babay Napun (The Women of Yesterday), extols the virtues and courage of the Filipino women of yesteryears who joined the national liberation struggle against Spain.

Both works specifically cite Melchora “Tandang Sora” Aquino and Gabriela Silang as women worthy of emulation by the new generations.

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E-mail: satur.ocampo@gmail.com
Published in The Philippine Star
May 9, 2015

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