Grandfather Balbino, Grandma Carlota, Tio Koko Hernando
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BALBINO KABIGTING Y YUSON
Balbino had a brother Salvador who were both adopted by a family
from Nueva Ecija named Yuson for the boys were complete orphans. Balbino studied accounting while Salvador
banking and finance. Balbino worked as accounting clerk for a government firm
and this is where he got to know the government service and people who helped
him rise in his chosen career. Although
he admits to being a Catholic, Balbino does not believe in going to Mass but is
one of the most honest persons I have ever met. I say this as a young observer
of 8 years old when Balbino whom I called Lolo Binong was already in his senior
years working as provincial treasurer assigned to Batangas, province where I
was spending my vacation, being the oldest grandson at the time.
One evening he
was taken to the hospital when he collapsed while supervising his staff to
double check errors in their accounting reports. It turned out that he was just looking for
centavos that were missing (probably miscounted) in the report and because of
this he had to stay after hours working until his blood pressure shot up and
had to be hospitalized. Perhaps, I said to myself, that was also how he was
able to go up the ranks of the Masonic club he joined.
I was often with Lolo Binong as a young boy
studying at the Catholic school in San Juan, so much so that he wanted me to
almost behave the way he did. One day he brought me to a hat maker in San Juan
where he was still the Provincial Treasurer of Rizal and San Juan was the
official place he held office. At the hat
maker he ordered them to make a Panama hat that resembled exactly the one he
was wearing. They did and I went around
with Lolo wearing this hat wherever he went. I felt like a midget walking
beside Lolo both of us wearing the hat. When Lolo decided to let Mama use the
main residenial building in San Juan he had another annex built at the back of the
property which was a 1000 sq meter lot for him and Lola Carlot. This was connected with a footbridge
made of wood from their veranda to our kitchen.
This made coming and going for him and Lola much easier for Lola was
already having problems with her asthma which he relieved by having a morning
inhaler. I would always get up early to join Lola early in the morning when I
would cross the footbridge to try her coffee with milk which she herself made.
We would then chat a while until Lolo Binong wakes up and begin his
calisthenics using his golf club. for he
was an avid golfer and was good one at that.
I am not sure how Lolo Binong and Lola Carlota met but when
they were married he was still a lowly accounting clerk while Lola was a
housewife but with lots of skills. Over
the years with Lolo Binong being assigned in various provinces at a time to be
their provincial treasurer, Lolo was able to do some gardening growing all
sorts of vegetables. With the humble
salary of Lolo Binong however Lola was able to save enough to purchase a one
hectare plot of land which she planted with fruit trees including mangoes lanzones,
and all the Filipino fruits available.
When the trees were ready for plucking she would dispatch through her
hired tenant farmer managing the land to ship by train basketfuls of all the
fruits in season. My family would drive over to the Santa Mesa train station
each time a train comes with these produce and we had to hire a truck in order
to fit the baskets of fruits which we would consume ourselves and sell the rest
to neighbors and friends wanting to buy them.
When my father and mother separated in 1946, I felt that
this led to the great disappointment of Lola Carlota which caused her sudden
death for Lola loved Papa Ping and beside Lola was a very healthy woman (in
fact her teeth were so healthy she had no need for dentures until her death). Before
Lola died they had a maid who helped her with many things and upon her death
Lolo developed an affair with this maid which produced one child who carried
Lolo Binong’s family name and who lived with him and the maid until Lolo’s
death.
During town fiestas Lolo Binong, the provincial treasurer, was among the joyful
officials who would lead the dancing and singing. He also enjoyed drinking
alcoholic beverage but never misbehaved for he knew how to hold his liquor.
LOLA CARLOTA CARLOS KABIGTING
As a young wife, she managed to live on the small salary of
her husband just learning the ropes of being an accounting in a government
setting. Because her husband Balbino Kabigting was later groomed for higher
position in the Philippine government service she had to adjust to living in
different provinces in the Philippines especially when Balbino was already one
of the bright provincial treasurer and with ample salary and perks which
allowed her to live in houses that had big yards where she could indulge in her
hobby of planting vegetable trellises and flowers like champaca jazmin and the
like. In the early nineties they had
their first child Balthasar (shortened to Sarah by the daughter herself).
However, when other pregnancy followed it was discovered that Lola Carlota was
suffering from the sourge at the time known as Rhesus factor – which produced
fetuses that never matured and died before it came to term. So, after Sarah it
took six dead fetuses before Manuela came around. Manuela was the eight pregnancy and she was a
lovely and fair complexioned child.
Sarah was of the Filipino complexion known as Kayumanggi.
Sarah completed her finishing school course
at an exclusive Manila school known as Centro Escolar de Senoritas and after
that she went to pursue her college degree at the University of the Philippines
with a major in Psychology. However,
right after graduation she opted to teach college at a school called Jose Rizal
College. It was while she was teaching in this school that she met her husband
to be Porfirio Marquez Joaquin who was a professional piano player in the Jazz
idiom. He was playing piano and even band leading in several cities abroad like
Hongkong, Shanghai or Java, Indonesia. Ping as everyone close to him called him
was a likable personable guy with a charming mien. So attractive was he that
even his mother in law loved him and often asked him to accompany her when she
visited their farm in Laguna.
FRANCISCO KOKO HERNANDO, MD.
During those moments in my boyhood life I was discovered to
have a talent which cost nothing – to walk as ring bearer at a wedding. When I did this and succeeded Mama was
deluged with lots of request to allow me to walk in their weddings and I
counted a total of eleven before I outgrew that role. One of the weddings was
that of Francisco Hernando and Manuela Kabigting. Manuela completed her college also at Centro
Escolar de Senoritas with a Pharmacy degree.
She did not get to practice it despite the fact that she wanted to but
Koko had other plans. As a doctor,
Francisco Hernando worked with the government for a while with the
military. Later he was appointed to
several different clinics in Great Manila districts. In the meantime, Manuela
who answered to the name of Nene enjoyed playing mahjongg very much that she
did it almost everyday, even after the couple had produced several children
namely Eugenio, Marita, Benny, and much later Aurea who was almost a menopause
baby. When the war broke out the Hernando
family and ours were together in the evacuation exodus to a neighboring
province thinking that the place we were in would not be bombed by the Japanese
bomber planes. Koko was very nervous whenever
there was an air raid while we huddled in the first glory of our San Juan
residence. I remember
Papa Ping liked to smoke and Tito Koko would admonish him to
douse the cigarette lest it can be seen by the Japanese pilots flying thousands
of feet above. Another uncle we had at
the time was one who always brandished a Kris (a double bladed sword made by Muslims
that had a wavy pattern) at the time as if he could use it to fight the enemy.
But during the war years when almost everyone had to switch to horse drawn
vehicles I discovered the real love of Tito Koko which were horses. He had two at home and the way he took care
of them brushing washing and feeding them was something to
behold. Aunt Nene remarked that he
should not have taken medicine but animal husbandry which fitted his desire.
But as it was in the past when one’s father strongly suggests that his son will
be a doctor, the son has no choice left but to be one even if he did not want
to be one. But Tito Koko also likes gadgets and cars. Once he fitted his car
with a loud muffler that he would turn on when we were taking long trips. Of
course, we kids enjoyed that loud roaring noise and so did Tito Koko.
