Dr Abe V Rotor
It is not really difficult to know your neighbors – and
get well together - how far apart they are, when a disaster strikes. It was a
typhoon - a howler, Typhoon Yoling - which started it all forty years
ago.
Rampage in acrylic by the author
Jorge de Jesus who owned the first grocery on the
main road was the first to gather his immediate neighbors - Fred Daco and Boy
Causon. In my area, Leo Tanquintic, Colonel Sergio Jamila and I joined
later. As we looked around, the houses
of Mr. Vicente Roque, Mr. Gregorio Manlaguit and Colonel Jamila were the worst
hit. It was as if a tornado struck.
Then we remembered the old man, Tata Juan Aquino,
who was living the farthest. The whole roof of his house was blown off. We found the old couple in disbelief of what
happened. Whole roofs and walls were strewn over a wide area. Trees are either decapitated or uprooted.
There was no time to waste. Luckily no one was hurt
and apparently panic was out of the picture. Rehabilitation was the order of
the days that followed. Consultations and visitations were part of boosting
morale. There was little consolation heard.
The six of us sat down and for the first time thought of an association
small as it was then. There was no plan
to form an association as what DAHHA is today.
Ours was a unique kind of organization. It was informal, in fact highly personal,
short of a fraternity. The ambiance of neighborhood is very important.
Immediately we worked on collective security considering the remoteness of the
place and the frequent incidence of crime around the subdivision which was then
hedged by squatter communities living on scavenging. At that time outside of DA was a little “Payatas.”
I remember when we were constructing our house in
1967 we lost the electric motor of our water pump to burglars. At another an impostor who appeared badly
hurt begged to be let in for help.
Caution stopped us. That same
night we discovered that the “victim” was a
part of a modus operandi.
In the weeks that followed the group of six thought
of projects that would make life in this
remote subdivision brighter, specially for the children. Basketball court - and that was how the open
space began as a playground.
Colonel Jamila who owned the Veteran Scouts Security
Agency arranged the security of the subdivision on an easy contribution
scheme. Eng. Daco planned and
coordinated the construction of the waiting shed. He was later helped by Dr.
Mel Ordillas, a new member then. The
waiting shed stood along Commonwealth for some time until it was demolished to
give way to road expansion.
The first guard house (not the present guardhouse)
was later erected at the very entrance of the subdivision with the help of
subsequent homeowners. I handled the tree planting project. Many of the trees
in the subdivision which are around forty years old were planted at this
time. Jorge took care of the ways and
means and was treasurer at the same time, while Boy who is a cousin of Tony Zuzuaregui,
the owner of the subdivision, did the liaisoning and coordination, as well as
public relations. The other members took charged of the construction of the
basketball court.
We realized that the association was born out of
felt needs exacerbated by force majeure. No one can truly live alone
when disaster strikes. It brings in awakening, a kind of Robinson Crusoe or
Castaway in the life of a survivor. Even Henry David Thoreau who tried to live
alone at Walden Pond had to finally rejoin society later. Indeed he emerged a
wiser man.
It is some kind of evolutionary and primitive desire to be
closer with others when we find them in need of help. It could be the other way around – if we find
ourselves at the receiving end. High
walls fall apart not by the disaster, but by its consequence later.
Organizational structures emerge from the nature of
need. Formality gives way to
functionality; interim grows with immediacy rather than transience. Leadership
style develops from the way problems are solved and how the desired result is
attained. Books simply provide models
for us to follow or choose. Such was the
way the six pioneers worked in the two years or so that followed the Yoling
disaster.
A year passed and a formal organization took over. New officers
joined in. Meetings were held to discuss
not only present needs but plans. Future
was more in the agenda. Projects like a chapel and park began to take shape as
these are typical in an affluent community. Residents of Don Antonio belong to
the middle and upper middle class.
In a decade, Ever Gotesco rose from a former dumpsite, the
narrow Commonwealth Avenue has expanded into eight lanes, Don Antonio Avenue
became a main thoroughfare and now boosts of fine commercial
establishments. Subdivisions sprouted in
the vicinity. Schools, banks, churches, automobile centers, service
stations, have truly given an urban touch to the once remote village.
The “mission” of the six pioneers was long considered
finished. Is it not that sometimes there
is assignment given us that is co-terminus, although we do not call it that
way? Why there are times we feel we are
no longer relevant, however efficient we may have been before. But that is the
very essence of leadership – it opens new doors. This is rule of
succession. It is part of change. And change itself.
I got a permanent field assignment and I left the
subdivision in 1975. Jorge left the subdivision soon after. I do not remember
where he took his family. Col. Jamila spent his last years in the subdivision.
So with Leo Tanquintic. I learned of
their demise when I was in the province. Boy Causon and Fred Daco, I heard,
have been living abroad.
One time when I was sorting out my things a piece of paper
browned by time fell. I picked it up and
to my surprise it is a poem I wrote about
Yoling – the typhoon and the
sentinel of man’s yearning for oneness. It reads.
Born
in Tempest
Ask not, ask not if I’m friend
or neighbor or passerby,
When the North wind’s fury
breaks the ceiling of the sky;
Yet one sees Heaven in prayers
he did never bother,
To kneel, to cry, to call the
first man he sees his brother.
When the tempest’s finally
gone, and Thor is heard no more,
And whispers come from the lips
of the bold, within in store;
Heralds the calm, a throbbing
of hearts not in ire or fear,
Hands clasping a fraternity’s
born, save a drop of tear.
Now and then I take my family to Don Antonio to our family
house at Don Gregorio. “Look at those trees,” I would tell my wife, Cecille and
children – Marlo, Chris Ann and Leo -
pointing at the rows of spreading narra trees. “Forty years ago and there was
a very strong typhoon … and there were six pioneers… …”
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