In the early 60s, that short-stretch street called Loreto in Sampaloc, where I grew up, was primarily peopled by ordinary people whose daily life was continually struggling to survive. That short street had a small “Talipapa,” a makeshift market, and beside it was a basketball and tennis court, a public toilet along the road, and a handful of sari-sari stores owned mainly by Chinese.
Despite its proletarian environs, that little community of ordinary folks has produced some bright minds and luminaries in the world of law, entertainment, sports, and what-have-you.
Though Loreto is even less than 1,000 –meters long, the houses were mostly made of light materials. Since these houses were almost adjacent, everyone knew or was familiar with one another.
Most of the people living there were office workers, carpenters, plumbers, drivers, gov’t workers, soldiers, security guards, dressmakers, architects, housepainters, waitresses, hostesses, and street vendors.
Waitresses and hostesses? Well, before the Culi Cui in Pasay City became famous for its red-light district, my neighbourhood had it first– and at the corner of Loreto and Legarda Street, a row of nightclubs were very much lively at nighttime in the 60s.
When my Father Ka Tino was still alive, I would talk with him, asking him about Loreto’s
‘little story,” and with my notebook handy, I would jot down those precious memories he had been sharing with me.
My father is what we can call” antigong taga Loreto” he had grown up in that street with our family.
I had experienced some of the memories he was sharing with me because, as a family, we lived in Loreto for a long time. We only left there when I graduated in the 6th grade at Moses Salvador Elementary School.
When I got involved in trouble, I axed a neighbour during a fight, and that guy was much older and bigger than me. When I asked the guy if he would let me arm myself, I’d fight him, telling him,” pag hawakan mo lang ako, lalabanan kita.” And when he agreed to my challenge, I immediately got the axe that we used for cutting wood for cooking, and I hit him straight.
That trouble sent my parents and me to Presinto 6, where the police warned my parents, but I got scot-free because of my young age. I’m mentioning this incident to show our neighbourhood’s environment’s “bad influence” on the youths.
These young ones would grow up there street-wise and tough street guys and fearless because the community was once the place where the Bahala na Gang was founded in the early 40s by Divino Talastas, a long-time Loreto resident. I had seen Mang Biyong, a tough guy in the neighbourhood, roaming around Loreto in all-white attire. He was well-respected by residents.
Loreto was the place where members of the Sigue Sigue Sputnik were numerous. There was one occasion in the 60s when they had to hang a Sputnik Parol in the middle of the street as their way of celebrating Xmas season.
While I’m writing this piece, the people in Loreto are busily preparing for the feast of their patron Saint, Nuestra Senora de Loreto; usually held on the second Sunday of December,
Going back to my story, my Tatay told me that despite Loreto’s proletarian surroundings, it had produced some well-known personalities.
Then, he enumerated some of these people, such as Supreme Court Justice Antonio Barredo, Olympic Basketball players Pedro Robles and Vicente Abena, tennis player champions Felix and Felicisimo Ampon, and former National Treasurer Vicente Gella.
My father also mentioned the names of Movie Actor Boy Alano, Comedian Ritchie D’Horsie, Tawag ng Tanghalan finalist Berlin Meneses who belted out his famous rendition of “Silent Night.” He also made history as the only singer who had gathered the biggest audience in Clover in the 60s.
The rest were musician Clemente Molina of the Loreto’s Ship 21 Bugle and Drum Corps band, Ping Pong Champions Tomas Lectura, Enrique Dimagiba and Felixberto Ubungin.
In the early 60s, only a few households had a septic tank for their sewage, and what we had there was a public toilet managed by the Department of Public Service. One time I talked to a friend, and he told me that that guy was his “classmate,” meaning they both used the public toilet, and he said, once in a while, people could hear shouting while in line to pooh, “don’t read your Komiks there, hurry up.”
While I was still growing up there, I was well aware that the small Gang of teens called “Rumblers,” meaning taken from the root word, rumble. Most of the time, the gang members got involved in some troubles in the neighbourhood.
My recollections on my old Loreto street would not be complete without me saying a word or two about its neighbourhood. Our eskinita was clean and peaceful, the people there would always cooperate to clean up the place; once a week, they would gather at the eskinita with their brooms, walis tinting and garbage containers to tidy up their surroundings.
Every time I visit the Philippines, I make it a point to drop by our little Katigbak eskinita (walkway). I used to fly kites on the roofs of our house; since neighbourhoods’ houses there were almost next to each other, I had an easy way to move from one house’s roof to the other. One time, a neighbour who was an artist, together with the help of other people drew cartoons characters on the vast wall that separates the eskinita from the St. Paul Clinic compound; later on, he also colour-painted these cartoons.
These colourful paintings made that small walkway so beautiful, the whole neighbourhood was the talk of the town because it was the first time that somebody had painted a wall that was so visually attractive; people passing by were all praises, watching with awe at the beauty of these cartoons’ paintings.
Even before the concept of the Neighborhood Watch became popular here in North America, we already had “bantay tanod,” a group of people roaming around the neighbourhood not only to keep up peace and order in the area but also to act as lookouts for house breakers. Most of the people who lived in this eskinita were ordinary workers
.However, later in life, the children of these ordinary workers have become successful in their chosen fields of endeavours—they are now engineers, IT specialists, journalists, teachers, accountants, business people, lawyers and nurses.
Privately-owned houses dot this eskinita; students and other transients who had come from the provinces were occupying these room-for-rent units. These people were either working or studying in Manila.
Our lovable and peaceful eskinita is the place where I met life’s realities and started to dream big-dreaming of escaping abject poverty, working as a young man selling newspapers and washing taxicabs, forging long-lasting friendships with barkadas and experiencing the unforgettable emotions of having puppy love, first love, no other love.