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Submitted_by: Don Morales
email: BrodD@Reborn.com
Barangay_Fiesta_Date: May
Barangay_Captain: Roseller Natividad
Distance_from_Cityhall: 5
I was 11 years old when we moved to our new house in Tugbungan in a place called the Plainview Subdivision. My dad had just passed away and whatever money we received from hi employers then was put into this house. Our hearts were full of hope then, Tugbungan was a very quiet place with lots of bermuda grass-covered plains where we played as children, a river where we occasionally swam, and the fishponds right behind our subdivision. There were only 8 houses in the subdivision, our neighbors where the Chongs, the Atilanos, the Tality's (who were our cousins), the Mabasas, the Dagaleas and the Mendozas (who are distant relatives). Of course there were also other houses around the subdivision and one other name I remember are the Arquizas. Our playmates were children from these families including other neighbors from the main road. There were the Falcasantoses who had a banana shop where we bought our saging prito every afternoon, there was Nyor Chimo whose property we used to avoid the muddy pathway to the mainroad, there was Nyor Boy who was a butcher, Nyor Abdul who sold smuggled cigarettes, and the judge whose son Bobby was my best friend then. (Alas I can't remember their surname!)
Me and my brother, together with our playmates used to climb the sampaloc trees which where everywhere. We also spent a lot of time at the fishponds, fishing, swimming and riding the barroto (canoes). Sometimes we would catch some bangi-bangi (type of small crabs which were very colorful), or just watch them come out of their holes. They were such a beautiful sight! Different bright colors on their sipits (claws?).
Once or twice every year the fishponds overflow (usually during the typhoons) and the entire subdivision would be flooded. During the first few years, it was fun. When the water receded, there'd be fish in our backyard! During the flood, we could go swimming right outside our doors.
A few years later the basnig (fishing boat) operators moved in and built their fish drying contraptions (or whatever you may call them). The eternal stench of the dried fish, together with the floods, made some of us dream of moving. Most of us eventually did. But the fun memories remain in my heart to cherish forever.
As a child, I wasn't too eager to openly tell people that I was staying in Tugbungan (the name wasn't very "social"). But this was the place where I learned most of my lessons in life, where I grew up and spent a happy childhood.