Things I Remember About Jolo

These are just random thoughts of things I remember at the time that I was writing it. I really don’t have any idea on how to start it or end it. It might be a sort of living document where I may add more anecdotes or edit some that may be proven incorrect. My fellow Tausugs, please forgive me for the incompleteness of this entry. Please add yours at the comments section below. Thank you so much.
School in Jolo meant Notre Dame all the way from Kindergarten to high school with the nuns and the brothers. They were all strict disciplinarians. We went to school in the morning, went home at noon for lunch and siesta, then went back to school in the afternoon. The mode of transportation was mainly jeepneys or human powered tricycles.
At kindergarten, my parents and the parents of someone named Carol were trying to match us up. Sister Ursula was our teacher at that time. I had an unfortunate and embarrassing accident in kindergarten which I hope nobody noticed or have already forgotten after all these years (well now you know about it).
During fourth grade, our classmate Thomas died due to a motorcycle accident. His Uncle who was our homeroom teacher was driving the motorcycle. I think it was also about this time that I joined the boy scouts and a nun whose name I don’t recall recruited our class for choir and glee club (this lasted through high school). We sang in church and school shows. At this time I liked a girl whose initials were D.A. and she was a majorette for the drum and bugle corps and boy scouts. Nothing ever came of it, just an admiration from afar.
Elementary school was a time that when conflicts between the boys arose, an arrangement would be made to meet after school at “lubbak” to fight. Again, nothing ever came of it other than some pushing and shoving, then everyone went home.
When we were in fifth grade, classes had to be moved to Notre Dame Annex in Asturias due to renovations at the downtown building. It was in Asturias where after school activities involved cultivating a garden plot. I don’t remember ever harvesting anything from there to take home and eat. It was also at this school where we explored the woods behind the school and searched for a World War II plane that was supposed to have crashed there. There were also some wild coffee plants which fruit we ate because it was sweet. Tigbao pool was down the hill from the school and me and some classmates swam there once. I remember the cool mud you stepped on when you went in the water. It was in this pool that a Tausug whose name I don’t remember trained and qualified for the Olympics a long time ago. The Sulu Provincial Hospital was next door to Notre Dame Annex and next to that was the Philippine Constabulary Headquarters, and way beyond that was a place called Nangka-nangka which we never ventured to. It was a place where you can supposedly find prostitutes for hire.
We returned to the downtown elementary school during sixth grade. By this time, the girl’s high school moved to the college building and the college students moved to Gandasuli. During the weekends and summer vacation, I would sneak into our school to read books from the unlocked classrooms. One I remember were the Rin Tin Tin stories. How the nuns and Poldo were not able to detect me remains a mystery. It was also during this grade when I had a crush on two cute sisters who went everywhere in the school inseparably. This soon faded as soon as we left for high school. Out of sight, out of mind, but never forgotten all these years.
High school was at Notre Dame of Jolo Boys Department in Gandasuli. Part of Gandasuli is reclaimed land where the town’s trash dump site is located. After the morning flag ceremony, prayers were said by the Catholics, then the Muslims afterwards. I can still remember parts of the Muslim prayer up to now. It was during freshman high when I broke my clavicle when I got run over by adults playing basketball at the Department of Public Highways’ basketball court. It was also the time when I experienced my first detention. When we misbehaved in class, we were sent to after-school detention where we had to stand for an hour studying. I was sent there a few times in my freshman year, maybe once as a sophomore, then none thereafter. Physical education in high school consisted mostly of intramural competition between classes and the teams were named after American Indian and Canadian Indian tribes. Sports consisted of basketball and “jungle” volleyball. The students discovered a spring behind the school where the water was so fresh and clean and cool like ice water. Someone also showed us a hiking trail that led from our school, though the woods, towards Maubu beach. I started playing tennis while in high school after meeting the kids of the provincial engineer who was our neighbor. I was getting very good at it until I broke my leg during a motorcycle accident with my cousin. We were seeing our grandma off at the airport as she left for the U.S. and on the way back home, we got hit head on by a jeep. I was in a cast for about 8 months with a broken ankle. I even won the town spelling bee contest with that cast on in my senior year (I finished second the previous year). At the time that I was playing tennis, I also sold home-made ice candy, which my mother made, to the players and guests of the tennis club. One of the pastimes around town in those days was a game called Wahuy. It consisted of a riddle being given by the organizers and the players would guess the answer based on the riddle and some characters. The players would place their bets with bookies around town. It was supposed to be partly a game of chance but we had suspicions that it was fixed sometimes.
Someone from the Notre Dame Girl’s Department developed a crush on me during junior high. Her initials were F.A. She nicknamed me “Renault”. Groups of her classmates and mine often hanged out after school. I don’t know where she is now and internet searches have proven fruitless.
The Writ of Habeas Corpus was suspended by President Marcos and that started the rebellion by the MNLF in our province. They were considered “Maoist” rebels after the teachings of Mao Tse Tung. At the time, if you had long hair, you might be suspected as Maoist because while the rebels where in hiding at the outskirts of town, they couldn’t get haircuts.
Senior high was slightly tumultuous. There was always talk that the rebels will invade town so there was uncertainty on what was going to happen next. Protests and riots in Manila trickled down to our school and one day the seniors walked out of class for reasons I can no longer remember. Because of the threats of an imminent attack, we never had a graduation ceremony which was sad because it was supposed to be one of the highlights of growing up. Part of the requirement to finish high school was YCAP (Youth Civic Action Program). For our part, we gave the town’s trash collectors a day off and picked up the trash all over town in a dump truck. We shoveled the garbage from the ground and tossed it on the dump truck, then climbed on the back of the truck where we had just tossed the garbage in and moved to the next pickup location. Since the cast on my broken leg was just taken off I had to chase the dump truck with a limp.
I was a member of the Notre Dame Band where I pounded on the bass drum. We were in every parade and procession and would give concerts. Occasionally we would be hired to play in Muslim weddings where we piled on the back of a big truck and played music while the wedding party paraded all over town in a convoy of vehicles. We were given 5 pesos each for the service.
As seniors, a handful of students went to Zamboanga to take the University of the Philippines – College Admission Test. We were hoping that we could hitch a ride on an army plane. When that didn’t pan out, we headed to the wharf to take the trip on a kumpit. When my father learned about that, he picked me up and got me a ride on a private plane of one of his customers. I don’t know how I passed the UP-CAT but I did out of pure luck. Only the honor students from my class passed it and I wasn’t one of them.
There was a week-long event called the “Boys and Girls Week” where high schools from all over town competed in academic decathlon type contests and also the spelling bee I mentioned earlier. I don’t remember if it also involved sports. Anyway, one of the questions asked was “Where are the Islets of Langerhans located?” Another school buzzed first and answered “South China Sea” which elicited some laughs and snickers from the crowd who where in the know. My classmate – Francis, who is a doctor’s son correctly answered “the human body” which was accepted by the judges (more specifically, the pancreas produces them).
Lawa’s Café is often mentioned by friends because of the addictive coffee that they served. Plain coffee was 10 centavos, with milk it was 15 centavos. Mr. Lawa was a relative by marriage and every Christmas we would always get a whole leg of ham from him. When we went to Zamboanga every October to celebrate Fiesta Pilar, he would often pay for the hotel and the meals. He was a very generous man. After the fire in Jolo, he opened a café in Zamboanga named A-One.
My family ran a lodging house in town named, what else: Delaspenas Lodge. During weekends I remember applying floor wax on the floor and scrubbing the floor with coconut husk afterwards. To borrow a phrase from a song in the musical “Annie” – It’s a hard knock life for us, it’s a hard knock life for us.
I left Jolo to study in Manila in 1973 and only returned once during semester break when I met up with Brother Ted and played bowling with him. After that, the rebels invaded the town, burned a lot of homes , and my family evacuated to Zamboanga City and lived there since. In my humble opinion, Jolo was never the same again.