A LIFE WELL-LIVED...

WHERE I GREW UP The Neighborhood

Looking at the map of The Philippines, the province of Misamis Occidental, in northern Mindanao, roughly halfway from its northern-most tip to its southern-most, is a place twentysix thousand, give or take, inhabitants call home. Aloran was founded in 1917 and has been our ancestral home, since. The first Municipal President, (the term Mayor was first used only in 1940), was Don Benito Tare Apepe, my maternal great grandfather. This fact adds to my undying love of my hometown. The Family has, since the end of WWII, been living in the western section of the Poblacion, Ibabao-Uptown fondly, the other two being Ospital-Downtown and Da-o, now Dalisay-Riverside. A typical small town, everybody knows everybody. As a young boy, I have already learned that the original inhabitants of this town were the Subanen people who were called Subanos those days, but after them, most inhabitants trace their family tree to Bohol, Cebu, Negros and several others. During the 1950s and 1960s, public school teachers, mainly from the Ilocos region, under government programs, migrated to Mindanao to hold teaching positions. I grew up with the Fabias, the Divinas, heard of the Romeros, the Mallaris... Aloran was the Promised Land. Next door to us was my paternal grandfather's sister and family and two houses across the street was my maternal grandmother's, uncles, aunties, cousins and relatives were literally a stone-throw away from us. A block behind us, were and still are the Roman Catholic Church and St Matthew's High School (SMHS). Next block is the Aloran Central Elementary School (ACES) or to us children then, just Central. Two blocks down the road, to the northeast, are the IFI Church (Iglesia Filipina Independiente), or simply Aglipay. A few meters away is the UCCP (United Church of Christ in the Philippines), a protestant denomination that children those days call "Portes". Across the street from IFI, is the town plaza and the Municipal Hall and right next to it is another church, Kristohanon (now Chuch in Aloran). Mercado, the public market is four blocks from me, down the road to the east. Some notable places, like the Spanish Building, ABC Hall, the Stage and that circular platform, some two meters in diameter, five feet high and made wholly of rocks (pagang) coral stone, that to this day remains a mystery to the town folks, are all gone.