O, Clement, O, Loving, O

Remembering Clemente T Manaog [1910-1986]

Today I remember--some twenty years ago--my father's father who succumbed to a lingering illness he had had for a long time.

Some two decades ago today, our eldest brother Manoy Awel, along with Uncle Berto's eldest daughter Manay Gina, stood long hours for him in his deathbed.

Then, our entire family went to Iriga to pay our respects and last homage to the dead. Despite the warm company of our cousins and relatives, which must have overwhelmed the souls of our dear departed, I recall the sad mood--being left with no grandfather or father all together.

In more ways than one, Lolo Ente was our refuge. Mama frequently sought help from him especially in the most challenging days of solely bringing up her six children. Quite a feat for our mother, really. Clemente's son Manuel died in 1978, some eight or nine years before he himself left this world.

Clemente Taduran Manaog--born in 1910--said to belong to a lineage who pioneered clearing the land and "started civilization" in barangay Banao in Iriga City most probably even before it became a city--was a farmer whose simple and humble life lived with his equally magnanimous wife Rosario Monge Cepe, had not failed to inspire their seven children to strive hard and succeed in their chosen fields.

Clemente's two sons became members of the police and the military--Uncle Idong and Uncle Edmundo; four became public school teachers and servants--Auntie Cita and Adang Ninang, my Uncle Berto and my father Manuel; while his second eldest son Uncle Milo followed his own footsteps as a farmer.

I remember my grandfather's simple, dark but cozy room where he stayed in 128 Banao, Del Rosario, Iriga City. It was part of the ancestral house where the clan would gather and feast on exotic food prepared by the "iron chefs" of Banao. Such priceless moment is always something to go back to. Someday. Someday.

During vacation days, Lolo Ente would visit Bagacay from Iriga and bring us to the sea after visiting the tomb of my father. After prayers and rituals in my father's tomb, he would take us to swim in the beach near the cemetery, a familiar place I would later call The Sea House.

I remember how I was once thrown to the water along with my cousins, but I managed to swim up to where Lolo Ente was. The water looked dark and abysmal--it was blurred but warm. Young as I was, I was too afraid to swim that the experience had not been enough to make me learn to swim sensibly at all.

During his visits to Bagacay, Mentz, Nene and I would show Lolo Ente our good papers in grade school--from grade one until 1985 or at that time. He'd be so happy to look at them. In fact, he would really get our class papers graded "100%" or "Very Good" in exchange for a particular sum of money.

Although this would be enough to send us to Lola Mimay's store where we would buy balikutsa and Burly, it is interesting to know what he would do to these purchased products. Lolo Ente would use our papers, these precious proofs of our outstanding performance in school as his toilet paper.

Most of my Writing papers under Mrs. Cornelio must have ended up with Lolo Ente's moments catering to his call of nature. Very well earned, indeed. Interesting that our lives as "businessmen" already started when we were young.

I just want to stop writing here or else I would really want to cry. So long for a grandpa's life well lived with his orphaned grandchildren.

I can just wish I could retrieve Lolo Ente's last letter to mother written in two or three pages of tablet paper which he sent through Manoy Awel some twenty years ago.

If I can just recall it right, Lolo was very much saddened by our poor situation back in the Bagacay house--where his son's widow, our mother, the sole parent of six growing children, scrimped and scrammed just to make ends meet. Just to make ends meet.

But I suppose the same letter also came with a half sack of rice or so and other fruits or crops which were harvested from the old man's farm where he toiled with his own blood, sweat and tears for his grandchildren who were far away from him.

The old man must have missed them dearly as much as he must have badly missed his son Manuel, their father who was gone too soon, too early.

Clemente's son Manuel's college graduation picture, Mabini Colleges, Iriga City, 1965

But as they say, God's time is never our time. So I just repose and say--all things must have happened for sensible purposes--and everything happens right in God's own time. In his time.

May God bless your kind, loving and warmhearted soul, Lolo Ente.

Eternally.

Amen.