My mom told me that I was wailing that night after Carnay saw me earlier that day and commented how robust I was as a baby. It became very significant for me because I was pursued by a local “aswang” named Carnay. My earliest recall of Culasi was through my mother’s story when, at eight months old, I was brought there for a vacation with my older siblings for the first time. Culasi was a picture of simple living, laid back, yes, but happy! My summer vacation that year was spent in that quaint little town where everyone seemed to be a relative. My last mental picture of Culasi was still vivid as how I saw it when I was eighteen years old attending school at UP in Iloilo City in 1978. Embarking on a trip with the sole purpose of reestablishing and patching distance-severed ties with relatives because of migration resulted to more realizations than what I had expected.
The journey to my Mom’s birthplace was enriching yet nostalgic.
My belief had proven me wrong when, after thirty years, I had the occasion to visit Culasi in July of this year. She was the historian of the family and from her I was able to trace roots.ĭriven by a long and lingering understanding that Lolo Nesto’s family belonged to the landless, I believed that there was a strong motive for him to seek for fortune in Mindanao and that he had to leave his own family in Culasi, Antique to look for greener pastures. Mostly sacadas (sugarcane farmhands) from Antique and Bacolod, the trekkers walked from Dulawan to Buluan in three days, crossed Buluan Lake by wooden boats to the shores of Lutayan to settle finally in Marbel,” my late Aunt Nora, their eldest daughter, would narrate to us, nieces and nephews. “Hordes of Visayans from Panay and Negros Occidental sailed to Mindanao on board S/S Tablas in the late 1930s, disembarking at Parang, Cotabato, followed by a three-day exodus southward, camping on the sides of the road at night to rest and sleep. Invited to explore the promises of the South were Antiqueño educators, one of whom was Lolo Ernesto Arriola Ledesma or Lolo Nesto, her husband and an Industrial Arts-Carpentry teacher, He would belong to the first wave of educators who were tasked to build and run a school in Marbel, then an established settlement area in Koronadal Valley next to Buayan (now General Santos City) and Tupi. Back in the 1930s, Mindanao was opened for settlement for the landless by the Commonwealth Government under President Manuel Luis Quezon. My grandmother, Fortunata, Lola Forting to us, was a teacher at Culasi Elementary School in Antique when the National Land Settlement Administration under the management of General Paulino Santos opened the gates of Mindanao, then touted as the Land of Promise, to settlers from Luzon and Visayas.
VISAYAN FOLK SONGS SERIES
as a song Dandansoy in 1965, in a book “Philippine Progressive Music Series Book III! This pain had been kept a secret in Fortunata Magsipoc Ledesma’s heart for almost 26 years…until her longing was published nationwide….
More so if the husband would cross the seas to look for greener pasture in a faraway island of Mindanao in 1939. Music: Fortunata (Dioso) Magsipoc – Ledesma of Culasiīidding goodbye to a husband in times when one needed him most is painful. Hope this will add up to all of what you guys remind of… na miss ko na gid magpuli da sa atun sa pinas… ari pa isa ka subo nga kanta…īangud sang kitchen boy matamad mag kuti….Ģ8.
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