where have all the fish(es) gone?

We were eating cassava pudding at Japan’s this afternoon when Duchess popped this question: Where have all the fish(es) gone?

"Huh?" I wanted to say, but then I realized it’s more than two weeks now that I haven’t eaten fish because the ones being peddled in Tago are either tamban or bolinao.

Since Tandag market rose from its ashes, I seldom go there because parking is hard. And somebody who does the marketing for me almost always buys meat because she says the fish is “not your type.”

Duchess says the fish available is always bariles which, they say, comes frozen all the way from Cotabato. If you get lucky, you can buy danggit, but only in rare times.

A mole told us that lapu-lapu, ahaan, liplipan, etc are sorted and reserved for buyers fom Butuan and Davao and hotel and resto owners in Tandag. Unless you have the moolah to outbid these buyers, you have to content yourself with what a favorite author terms as “remnants of remainders.”

For Surigao del Sur that brands itself as Caraga's seafood capital, this is bad.

oracion is back in tago

When Fr. Apolinar L. Orozco was assigned in Tago shortly after the death of Fr. Cesar Reyes, the first thing he did was to bring back the oracion. And this simple act of ringing the church bell at exactly 6 o'çlock in the évening gives Tagon-ons a sense of deja vu.

Suddenly I was a kid back in the 70s.

Be home before the oracion or there will be hell to pay, our father would say. Thus when oracion found us still playing in school or at the plaza, fear gripped us. But oracion means other things to other people: for Catholics, it's a cue to say the Angelus, then the Rosary; for Protestants like us, it's a signal to set the table ready for dinner; for nocturnal creatures, it's a hint to dust and spread their wings and fly.

For the longest time, no Tagon-on had heard the pealing of the church bell at dusk. Not until Fr. Apol became the cura paroko of Tago.

While our oracion signal came from a century-old bell, today's oracion is announced by a recording of bells clanging, followed by another recording of people praying the Angelus.

Bugsy had better be home before the oracion or there would be hell to pay.


(The beautiful photo of the Immaculate Conception Church of Tago is by Ange Bersabal.)

things our parents scared us with when we were kids

It's the 70s and you still don't know that 40 years later you'd be holding a sleek gadget no bigger than a cigarette pack which enables you, among other things, to connect to people all over the world and record a private act that might just turn into a sex scandal, giving you a ticket to fame or infamy.

Yes, I digress.

It’s the 70s and you still don’t know what techno-based fear is and the panic it creates every time you forget to bring your phone or your memory stick, or you realize your laptop is about to run empty in the middle of a presentation, at a place that suffers from a power outage.

Again, I digress.

It’s the 70s and your fears are real. Which is to say, scary.

When you don’t feel like taking dinner because you’re still full or you don’t like the viand, what does your mother tell you?

”Don’t you know that when you go to bed without eating, your soul will leave your body to look for food? Now, imagine what will happen if an envious cat pushes the lid back to its place and traps your soul inside the kettle where it is eating?”

Shivers!

After force-feeding you daily for months with multi-vitamins and still you remain no fatter than a string bean, your mother finally knows why: you’ve been hosting in your scalp and hair wingless insects that feed exclusively on your blood!

When this happens, it’s “goodbye playing with friends; hello nit picking with mother.” There’s no torture more brutal than having your mother make you sit still and hang your head low as she rids your scalp and hair with obligate ectoparasite while your friends play outside, their laughter ringing in your ear.

You complain. You throw a tantrum. You cry. But what does your mother tell you?

“Okay, you can go out and play. Just be ready because the lice in your head might fly and carry you to Mancagangi.”

Shivers!

No matter the repeated reprimands and reminders, there are times that you still go home after the church bell has rung the oracion. This time it’s your father: Pray the m---s won’t catch you because if they do, then may God have mercy on your soul.

Then he launches on to this story: Imelda Marcos needs thousands of kids as peace offering to the sea god because her pet project, the San Juanico Bridge, has caused the fortuitous death of the queen mermaid when a drill hit her in the navel. Imelda is given a deadline to do atonement else she would grow scales and become Dyesebel. It is said that she's so desperate she hires a good number of m---s to go all over the Philippines to kidnap kids.

Shivers!

(More next time.)