Module VI

Contemporary Philippine Novel

Scope of the Module

Module VI of English 5 / Lit 101, Survey of Philippine Literature, takes up the study
of the novel, To Be Free, written by Edilberto K. Tiempo. Since it is a fictional life-story
of one man, Lamberto Alcantara, and his family, covering four periods of Philippine
history, this study is apportioned to five Lessons, the first four Lessons summarizing in
highlights the different incidents and the characters involved in the life of the main
character during the four historical periods, thus:
Lesson 1. The Period of the Spanish Rule as rendered by the Novel mostly in
Flashback Portions
Lesson 2. The Tag-end of the Philippine Revolution, and the Early Period of
the First American Occupation, and Some Years thereafter
Lesson 3. World War II: the Japanese invasion; U. S. Counter-invasion
Lesson 4. End of World War II with U. S. Counter-invasion and Victory; Period
of Rehabilitation
Lesson 5. The fifth Lesson covers the significant pointers regarding the artistic
craftsmanship of this novel: devices and techniques used in the
development of its theme and its structure.
For each of the four historical periods the respective Lessons take up the study of
the significant events and experiences encountered by the main character and his
family.
To make the story-line easier for the student to follow, each Lesson summarizes the
incidents in chronological order, not as flashback.

Objectives of the Module

After completing this module on contemporary Philippine novel, you shall be able to:
1. familiarize yourself with one of the most meaningful fictional works in
contemporary Philippine literature, the novel entitled, To Be Free, by Edilberto
K. Tiempo;
2. know the nature of a "dynasty novel";
3. trace the distinction in the respective mores that prevailed in the various
periods of Philippine history as these mores and traditions are manifested in
the course of the story-line;
4. appreciate the literary devices and techniques (particularly the use of the
flashback) employed in the presentation of the events and characters in this
novel;

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 5. understand and appreciate, through the example of this particular work, the
fact that the events and experiences narrated by novels (and other fictional
works) are meant not just to delight and entertain, but most importantly, to
convey some profound and meaningful perception of life – in this case, the
meaning and the processes of freedom, both in the personal sense and the
political sense: This idea constitutes the theme of this novel, To Be Free.

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English 5 / Lit 101, Module VI
Lesson 1. THE PERIOD OF THE SPANISH RULE AS RENDERED BY THE
NOVEL MOSTLY IN FLASHBACK PORTIONS

Lesson Objectives:
After studying this lesson on the period of the Spanish rule, you shall be able to:
1. discover and appreciate some of the indigenous social practices and
traditions that prevailed in Nueva Vizcaya during the Spanish regime; and
2. learn about the oppresive side of the administration imposed by the Spanish
royal agents during the Spanish rule, and how individual resistance was
performed by the more courageous citizens.

The late Edilberto K. Tiempo established, among other organizations and

institutions, the National Writers Workshop, which is the first and longest-running
writers' workshop in the Philippines and in the rest of Asia. He and his wife Edith are
both teachers and creative writers and have published individually a good number of
creative works; cooperatively, they have also published literature textbooks and
composition textbooks, one literature textbook being in cooperation with Father Dr.
Miguel R. Bernad. Among the contemporary Philippine novelists, Dr. Edilberto K.
Tiempo is best known for his novels on World War II, which are written with penetrating
insight not only into the socio-political aspects of war, but also, and more importantly,
into the individual's personal response to the battering exigencies and crises of war and
its stirring effect on the spiritual, the moral and ethical human fiber.
Important note on the structure of the novel: To Be Free does not follow the
conventional or chronological sequence in narrating the events that take place in the
four historical periods. Rather, the story-telling goes back and forth in historical time to
achieve a better dramatic effect; thus, the narrating makes copious use of flashbacks,
especially in the first portion of the work. However, the lessons have straightened out
the flashback and summarized the incidents in chronological order to make it easier for
the students to deal with the story-line.

TO BE FREE
A NOVEL BY EDILBERTO K. TEMPO

CHAPTER 1
THE FIRST AMERICAN CONTINGENT in Bayombong, numbering less than one company, came
in quietly one hot, humid evening in 1899 by horse and foot. They made the guardians civiles*
imprisoned in the garrison clean up the place thoroughness that bewildered everybody. After a week of
scrubbing and hot water dousing and digging new latrines, the prisoners were released and the Americans

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moved into the garrison. The Spanish governor’s residence was taken over the American military
governor and the house of Don Nicolas Monteverde, the alcalde, was used to billet the officers. Three
weeks before, Governor Hilarion Alcantara, who had liberated Nueva Viscaya from Spanish rule, had
permitted the Spanish officials and their families to go to Manila where they were to best back to Spain.
Then Hilarion left Bayombong to join General Malvar, the guerrilla leader, who refused to obey general
to Aguinaldo’s order for the revolutionary troops to surrender to the Americans.
After the initial suspicion and fear, the townspeople saw that the American soldiers would rather swat
balls in a vacant lot behind the garrison than shoulder guns in the streets. The townspeople settled down
to their routine, but kept their bolos sharpened in case the new conquerors might try to dishonour their
women, as Padre Pascual, the Spanish priest, had predicted of one of his last sermons. Even when Capitan
Samuel Altavas had resumed his position as president of the town, assisted by the same councilmen, even
the farmer plowed his field not sure whether he would ever reap the fruit of his labor. For many, it was
wait and see.
That, too, was the feeling in the house of Capitan Lucas Alcantara. Capitan Lucas was the father of
Hilarion, the governor of Nueva Viscaya. The old man Lucas, who was the wealthiest man in the
province, had once been gobernadorcillo himself.
One afternoon Luisa, wife of Lamberto younger son of ‘Tan Lucas, was in the front yard tending her
assortment of ferns: light-green clumps of lacy filigrees bending over stunted creeper ferns, which in turn
smothered the weeds around three giant tree-size Sierra Madre varieties whose fronds spread out in the
graceful arches. Luisa was an arrestingly beautiful woman of twenty three. Her father was a Basque who
had gone back to his country in the Pyrenees when she was only six. She moved over to the orchid shed
to pick the aphids off the orchids. She glanced at the gate now and then, looking for her husband; she had
something to tell him. She dug into her pocket for the scissors and was snipping off the wilted leaf of a
lavender orchid when she heard steps on the cobbled walk. A tall, uniformed man was looking about him,
admiring the blooming swordblade lilies lining the walk from the gate to the house. It was the American
military governor. She went to meet him.
The man took off his hat. “Buenas tardes, Señora. I am Theodore McIntosh. I’d like to speak to Señor
Lucas Alcantara.”
McIntosh spoke in halting Spanish. He was about forty-five and sparely built for his height. His face
held Luisa momentarily uncertain. The long sharp noise made him look bold and confident but his grey-
blue eyes were mild. His was a face that held back one moment and gave away everything the next.
‘Tan Lucas was smoking on the veranda and had already seen the American as he entered the gate.
Luisa and the American came up the winding stairs and ‘Tan Lucas laid aside his pipe. The two men
exchanged bows stiffly. When he was seated, McIntosh came directly to the point.
”I’ve come for two reasons. I would like you, Señor Alcantara, and your son and his charming wife,”
bowing to Luisa, “to honor me with your company at dinner Thursday evening. I have come myself
because I would like to have your friendship.”
“Señor Gobernador,” said Luisa, “may I ask what you wish to drink-wine, coffee, or chocolate.”
“Coffee, if you please.”
Luisa excused herself but came back shortly after giving instructions to the servant, Rodrigo.
“We have a custom in this country,” ‘Tan Lucas was saying. “We invite strangers first before we
accept their invitation. And so I will be at your service after we have extended to our hospitality.”
Lamberto came in then.

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 “Gobernador McIntosh, this is my son, Lamberto.”
The American’s handclasp was quick and firm.
“Honored to meet you, Gobernador.”
When Rodrigo came with the tray Luisa felt she had to explain that the slice of cake on the
American’s plate was made from rice flour. “And we use rice wine for yeast,” she added.
“My dear lady,” said McIntosh, “where I come from we get sugar from the maple tree. In Montana,
we make our drink from rye, the Spaniards get theirs from grapes, and I have tasted your rice wine. Each
has its distinct flavour and they’re all good.”
“Señor,” said Luisa, “how did you learn Spanish?”
“Americans are notoriously bad linguists, Señora. I’m amazed you can understand me. I was one of
the few who speak it. That’s probably why I was assigned to my present position.”
He turned to ‘Tan Lucas. I don’t want my administration in your province to be as bad as my Spanish;
so before I get your answer to my first question I’ll go on to my second.”
‘Tan Lucas spoke up. “Señor, the Spaniards have called us lazy because we move rather slowly. It’s
partly our climate. We make our decisions a little less fast than you do. What is your second request
Señor?”
“It has to do with your son. I’d like Señor Hilarion to help me. He is the liberator of the province and
a successful and respected leader here. Speaking for myself, I can see no reason why he shouldn’t
continue to be governor.”
His three listeners were looking at McIntosh with polite speculation.
Lamberto asked carefully, “You don’t mind my brother being up there with General Malvar?”
“My offer to your brother- I mean it. I don’t dislike it here, but the work is not for me. I’d rather be
back on my farm in Montana. Anyway, it’s my understanding that we won’t be here long.”
“Would you please explain that, Señor? I mean about not staying here long.”
“That’s how I understand the plans of my government. Right now we want to give you complete
autonomy, until the time you get your independence.”
“And you want my brother to be governor of Nueva Viscaya?”
“I said I personally have no objections to his continuing to be governor. But, as you see, I can’t make
that kind of offer. I take orders from the central government in Manila. But I should like him to help me,
as a senior provincial board member.”
“I believe,” said Lamberto, my brother would not be available.”
McIntosh looked at Lamberto for sometime before speaking. “I had hoped you, Señores, might be
able to influence him.”
“He is very strong-willed,” said Lamberto.
McIntosh turned to ‘Tan Lucas. “Señor, I know you are the most influential man in the province and
highly respected. You were once gobernadorcillo of this town. Since your older son is not available, I
would be honoured if you yourself would accept the offer I had hoped to make to your son.”
“Well, now,” said ‘Tan Lucas. “I have long been retired from that sort of work. You see, I have my
property to look after.”
“Señor, if I may say so, one does not retire from public service at your age. How old are you if I may

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ask?”
“I am fifty-three.”
“You’re only a few years older than myself and you don’t look it. That’s one of the things that amaze
me about your people. Perhaps it’s the air, and the way you live.”
‘Tan Lucas chuckled. “You mean our slow way of doing things-our indolence, as the Spaniards say.”
“I wouldn’t call it that. In Montana, at this time of the year, you have to move fast or you’d freeze.
Nobody need starve in this country of yours, even without exerting himself. But going back to my
proposition, Señor Alcantara, you will be doing your people a service by helping to run the provincial
government. Your son here can manage your property for you-and who knows, he may one day be
interested in government work, too.”
Lamberto spoke up. “There is one point, Señor McIntosh, that must be cleared first. You spoke of
autonomy. By appointing my father you are disregarding the people who were chosen by the assembly of
municipal presidents and their councils, when my brother was governor.”
“You’re quite right, of course. But my trouble is I can’t get the presidents to assemble without a man
like your father to help me.” McIntosh turned to ‘Tan Lucas. “That’s why I need your held Señor
Alcantara. I want the local government to work the way they did when your son was governor. There will
be an election later for the positions on the provincial board, but I am quite sure you would win.”
“If I accept your offer, Señor McIntosh, it would seem that I am betraying my son who is not here.”
“I wouldn’t think of it in that way, Señor. After all, the war- I don’t like the word-is over. It is
everyone’s duty-well, people like yourself, Señor Alcantara, should help with the repair work.”
‘Tan Lucas was silent for a long time. “Let me consider it.”
“Well, then,” said McIntosh, “very briefly about my first request. I have my own family in Montana–
a wife and three children. I come from a small town, even smaller than Bayombong. It’s a friendly
community, a good deal like Bayombong. You can see how lonesome it is here for me.”
“We accept your invitation Señor,” said Luisa impulsively.
‘Tan Lucas laughed. “Señor McIntosh, you can see what a priceless daughter-in-law I have. But I
have a counter-proposition. We accept your invitation only after you have honoured our humble house
with your company. Is dinner any evening convenient for you? This is the custom here.”
“I accept your invitation. Would Saturday evening be all right?”
“It will be Saturday evening then, at seven. And if you wish, bring some American friends with you.”
“Thank you. Could I bring three people?”
“More if you wish.”
The American stood up, bowed slightly, and left.
Luisa turned to Lamberto. “I’ve been waiting for you all afternoon, Bettu. I’m going to have a baby.”
Lamberto said, “It’s about time.”
“Is that all you can say?” she faced her father-in-law. “Pang, Bettu is going to be a father.”
The old man placed his hands on shoulders. “Well, now, it’s time for Bettu and you to have a child.”
“Is that all the men of this house can say?”
“We are very happy, hija.” Lucas summoned Rodrigo. “Some wine. Too early for it, but this is quite
an occasion.”

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 Rodrigo came with a tray. “Take a small glass, hija. Good for you.”
Rodrigo filled the glass. “You, too, Rodrigo. This is a celebration.”
“Thank you, Señor”. They raised their glasses. “Here’s to the baby. May all go well.”
‘Tan Lucas sat back in his chair. In the warm afternoon light his finely drawn face radiated his deep
satisfaction at Luisa’s news. “This is a blessed day. Bettu, how do you feel?”
“I want a boy.”
“Of that we’re in accord. One has to carry on the name.”
“And after that, another boy. And the third–does not matter.”
“You’re suddenly ambitious,” said Luisa. “It took you almost four years have this one.”
‘Tan Lucas said, “Isang, how far along is it?”
“The second month.”
“You must stop fussing around the house. We can’t be too careful. And whatever you need you’ll tell
us–eh, Bettu?”
There was an impish look on her face. “Right now, Pang, I’m dying for tamarind, the green kind.”
“This isn’t the tamarind season,” Lamberto said.
“You know, Pang, Bettu has changed. Before we were married he’d do anything I asked. Now,
especially now…”
“But this is not the season for tamarind.”
Her smile made the old man roar. “Son, life won’t be dull for you–not with her”
“Don’t joke like that, Isang, “Lamberto said. “When you really want something I may not take you
seriously.”
She turned to ‘Tan Lucas and made wry face. “You know, Pang, it’s funny. I was only joking about
the green tamarind. But I do crave for it now. Really, I do.”
It was Lamberto who laughed.
“This is no laughing matter, son. Perhaps you’d like something else, hija–mango or siniguelas or
something like that.”
“I know, Pang. Bettu was right. I shouldn’t joke.” She looked wistful and suddenly cupping her
mouth with her hand rushed out of the room to the lavatory; Lamberto followed her there but returned
shortly to his father.
“What’s wrong with her, Pang?”
“She’ll be all right. They’re like that, they can be irrational. Your mother was like that. We must be
patient with them.” He added, “Some even claim they’ll lose their babies if their wishes are frustrated.”
Luisa had become sensitive to smells, too, so that she would sit quietly for hours in an old rattan chair
on the veranda where, she claimed. She was free from the odors of the house. She often threw up her
food: her losing weight was of great concern to everyone in the family.
One time in the fourth month she wakened Lamberto long past midnight. “Bettu, I can’t sleep. I want
to eat santol.”
He stirred sleepily. “All right, all right. I’ll ask Rodrigo to look for some tomorrow.”
“I want some now.”

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 “In the middle of the night! Besides I don’t know anybody with a santol tree.”
“There is one tree in Bonfal, on the road to Solano.”
“That’s three kilometres away. We’ll send Rodrigo in the morning.”
“I’ll die if I don’t get a taste of it now.”
“Isang, are you mad? Oh, all right. I’ll wake up Rodrigo.”
“I don’t want Rodrigo to go. I want you to get it.”
“What’s the difference?” He was angry now. “It’s the same fruit no matter who gets it.”
“If you go yourself it will be sure to taste right.”
“Of all the nonsense!” He felt trapped. “I don’t even know where the tree–is or who owns it.
“You can ask when you get to Bonfal.”
And so Lamberto got his startled stallion and galloped him, a bareback, to Bonfal at two o’clock in
the morning.

LUISA’S BABY was a girl. The baby, like her mother, had pale olive skin and fine brownish hair,
but her features were those of Luisa’s strong-jawed Gaddang mother, Bacat Sencia, who at forty-two had
the brooding, ageless look of a carved rock.
Two years later, after the surrender of General Malvar and his guerrilla forces, Hilarion came home.
He was thinner and he looked tired. Even after a few days of rest, he still looked haggard as though he
were suffering from inner exhaustion. He did not seem to want to talk to anyone.
“What happened out there–with General Malvar?” Lamberto asked him one evening when they were
alone on the veranda.
Hilarion chewed on his cigar moodily. “We had no chance, naturally. No food, not enough arms”.
And bitterly he added, “Everyone seemed so eager to accept the new conquerors.”
“The Americans don’t behave like conquerors–at least the ones that are here don’t. They’re not bad at
all.”
“That’s even worse. It’s a more subtle form of bondage for us.”
“They’ve started giving us more than what the Spaniards only promised. You should meet Governor
McIntosh. Did you know he’s Teodora’s godfather?”
Hilarion flipped away his cigar. He gave his brother an inscrutable look.
Lamberto said, “Shortly after he arrived in town he came to the house asking for you. He wanted you
to help him run the province.”
“And you really think that was a fine gesture? Suppose you were in my place, Bettu. After being
governor, could you become this man’s underling?”
“Considering it from your position I agree with you, of course. But you don’t hold it against Papang
for accepting his present position, do you?”
“Frankly, Bettu, I don’t know what to say. But we have been cheated of our freedom. I can say that to
anybody.”
“But we are free, Hilarion, as we never were free under Spain.”
“Are we?”

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 “Maybe not in name. But here in Viscaya I feel free. They want us to feel that way.”
“Then why in the name of justice don’t they get out of his country, if they want us to be free?”
Lamberto had no reply. The two men remained silent for a long time, Hilarion puffing at his cigar,
Lamberto sucking his pipe.

THREE YEARS BEFORE, when Hilarion had not yet joined General Malvar’s guerrillas, they had
discussed the matter of Admiral Dewey’s destruction of the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay and the eventual
fall of Manila to American troops. Hilarion had resumed his duties as governor after the surrender of the
Spanish government in Nueva Viscaya, and General Merritt’s proclamation establishing a government of
military occupation for the whole country.
“An interesting situation to say the least,” ‘Tan Lucas said. “There’s still the Spanish government
here, too. There are three authorities to give orders now.”
“According to the American government’s proclamation,” Lamberto told Hilarion, “you’re in office
illegally.”
Hilarion was undisturbed. “I’ll take my orders only from General Aguinaldo.”
Hilarion waited for three weeks, but received no reports from Aguinaldo’s headquarters, except an
announcement about a Revolutionary Congress. He decided to go to Malolos, Bulacan, where the
revolutionary government had its headquarters. Hilarion was still in Malolos when the Congress ratified
the independence of the country. He was asked to represent the Cagayan Valley provinces in the congress
that finally decided to adopt the Philippine Constitution. So it was a great shock, a few weeks later, to
receive the news of the Treaty of Paris: Spain had ceded the Philippines to the United States for twenty
million dollars. The shock of it took Hilarion past indignation. For the moment, with Lamberto and ‘Tan
Lucas with him on the veranda, the invitation seemed entirely meaningless to him.
All three men were quiet as Luisa came in with a tray. She gave them coffee, set the tray on a side
table, and said suddenly, “What is it now, Hilarion?”
He looked up at her but didn’t reply.
“You have a most interesting funeral face and it’s contagious.”
“It’s isn’t talk for women, Luisa. Why don’t you leave us alone?”
“It’s easy for you to say that. Are we evacuating Bayombong again?”
“Maybe. Maybe.”
“In that case,” said Luisa, “I have a right to listen.”
“Well, then, have a chair.” Hilarion turned to his brother. “How can you stand your wife Bettu?”
“The best thing that could happen to you is to get one yourself.”
Hilarion shrugged. “Two women in a house would be impossible. Well, to go on. Spain had no right
to sell the Philippines to America. The Spanish forces here were already crumbling when they made this
abominable deal. In a few months we could have completely defeated them. So, Spain had no right to
make that kind of treaty with America.”
“What about this war between Spain and America?” ‘Tan Lucas asked. “Doesn’t Spain have the right
to end it any way she wants?”
“Not where in the Philippines is concerned. It’s like this, Pang. Let’s take Luisa as the Philippines–the

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land, the country. Bettu is the Filipinos. Now you, Pang, you’re Spain and you got Luisa by right of
conquest.”
Luisa sat up. “This is very exciting!”
“Now there comes a time when Bettu, brutally treated, decides to reclaim what was his and fights
you, pang. Bettu knocks you out cold–”
“Wait a minute, Hilarion,” said Luisa. “That’s not proper. Why don’t you substitute the Spanish
government for Papang?”
“Why not, Captain Mesa?” Mesa, the Spanish commander of the Viscaya garrison, had proposed to
Luisa at the outbreak of the revolution. “Let me go on. As I was saying, Bettu knocks down–Captain
Mesa. In the meantime mesa and I–I’m America–Mesa and I have a fight over Cuba and I come over to
the Philippines from Cuba to finish off Mesa; but Mesa trades Luisa to me for twenty million dollars.”
Hilarion turned to Luisa. “What do you think of it, Isang?”
“If I were Luisa, I’d feel I belonged to Bettu!”
‘Tan Lucas roared. “Good Girl!”
Hilarion went back to his original point. “That’s how it should be, Pang. Besides, it’s a matter of
honor. Dewy promised the independence of the country when the war was over. So you see, this Paris
treaty is the ultimate betrayal.”
“Well, what do you plan to do, Hilarion?”
“I’m taking orders only from Aguinaldo.”
A few days later received the message he had been expecting from Aguinaldo’s headquarters:
“peaceful and friendly relations between the Filipino and American forces of occupation are at the end,
the Americans will be treated as enemies within the limits prescribed by war.”
The next few days saw the arrival of American reinforcement and the relentless advance of American
troops. Aguinaldo and his staff and members of his cabinet had to keep moving as they were chased from
one headquarters to another. From Tarlac to Bayombong to Calasiao, Pangasinan, then to Tubao,
Aaringay, Caba, and Bauang, La Union. From Bauang they moved to Naguillan, to Bangar and to
Concepcion, then to Tirad Pass, where General Gregorio del Pilar and his men died while protecting
Aguinaldo’s retreat. Aguinaldo proceeded to Cervantes and then to Bontoc in the mountain province, then
to the rice terraces of Banawe, where he rested for a time. From there it was a series of fugitive hidings in
the mountains of Isabela, Abra, and Cagayan, until the finally in the last week of March, Aguinaldo was
captured in Palanan, Isabela.
Shortly after his capture Aguinaldo took his oath of allegiance to the government of the United States
and the war was officially over.
A week later Hilarion told his family that he was resigning as governor. “There is still heavy fighting
in many areas. I’m joining General Malvar. He has taken over the command of the revolutionary forces
that will not surrender.”
“What about Aguinaldo’s manifesto?”
“Aguinaldo issued it as a prisoner of war. Besides, I’m tired of this easy allegiance. His manifesto
smells like the pact of Biak-na-Bato and both smack of insincerity. Insincerity I can’t stand.” Hilarion’s
eyes burned in the craggy sockets of his lean face. “Also, there’s more than just that for me. In that Paris
conference the legal status of the Philippines was completely ignored. Spain had absolutely no legal right
to make any agreement with the United States about the Philippines, considering Spain’s military position

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at that time. When the Americans came, the Spanish government no longer had any authority over the
Philippines. At first, Dewey had purported to represent America and had offered to recognize our
sovereignty while soliciting our alliance. How could the Americans, therefore, In the Paris conference set
themselves up as arbiters about the control of the Philippines? The only sovereignty that existed then was
that constituted by the Filipinos.”
“Now that Aguinaldo has given his oath of allegiance,” said Lamberto, “what chance is there for the
scattered guerrilla activities?”
“Maybe there’s no chance. But to me it’s still a matter of principle.” He paused and in a kindly voice
he said, “You have a family to look after, Bettu. Do as you want–about the American occupation in
Vizcaya, when it comes. Whatever you decide won’t matter to me personally. I want you to know that.”

A FEW DAYS after his return from General Malvar’s surrendered command, Hilarion started
packing. He told ‘Tan Lucas and Lamberto of his decision to leave.
‘Tan Lucas was concerned. “But why, Hilarion? I thought you had come back to stay.”
“I can’t practice law here, Pang.” He tried to laugh. “Bayombong–Viscaya as a whole–is no place for
a lawyer. The people here don’t make trouble. Where there’s no trouble there’s no work for lawyer.”
“But do you have to worry about it, Hilarion? There’s our property to look after.”
“Bettu takes care of it perfectly well.”
“Where do you plan to go?”
“Manila–where else?”
Luisa had been looking at him in silence. She said sadly, “What you need, Hilarion, is a wife. Then
you wouldn’t have anytime to chase after your restless dreams.”
Hilarion shook his head at her. “You don’t put it very well Luisa. You make it sound like an opiate.
But you’ll never make a tame bull out of my brother either.”
“What’s wrong with tame bulls?” she demanded vehemently. “At least they stay home and make their
cows feel safe.”

CHAPTER 2
WHEN THE FIRST CLASSES IN ENGLISH opened in Bayombong, McIntosh himself urged
Lamberto, already twenty-eight, to study English. “I think English will become wide-spread in this
country. While we are here, Lamberto, we plan to establish the American system of education. That
means opening the public schools to everyone. And of course English will be used as the medium of
instruction.”
“What about Spanish?”
“I’ll be the last person to depreciate it. But let’s consider the facts. There are only a few Gaddangs
here in Viscaya who speak Spanish the way your family does. Here in Bayombong probably not more
than fifty or sixty speak it. Oh, yes, there are others who speak it like me, but they can’t use it in formal. I
think the Spanish administration deliberately discouraged education.”
“I know what you mean.’ There are no tyrants where there are no slaves.’ That’s from a book we have
here at home. And the author–Rizal–was sent to a firing squad for saying things like that.”
“Well, as you know, this is not only place to martyr a Rizal. In my country we once burned witches.

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Anyway I meant it about English as a language of the future. Around Manila I notice that people speak
differently from you here in Vizcaya. I understand there are over seventy different languages in the
country. And so Spanish has been the official language. The adoption of the American system of
education would mean that English will be more widely used than Spanish.”
“Don’t let people like my brother hear that, Señor McIntosh.”
“What do you mean?”
“What you have just said means that America is staying in this country for a long time.”
“I hope just long enough to stabilize your government. But when we do leave–and I hope it won’t be
long–I have a feeling your people would prefer our system of education because it is meant to be open to
all.”

ONE OF THE FIRST AMERICAN TEACHERS in Bayombong was Mrs. McIntosh herself. She was
a small woman with abundant energy, a mop of dark brown hair, and friendly warm brown eyes. She had
joined her husband ten months after the American governor had come to Vizcaya.
By the time Teodora was a grave, dark-eyed girl of eight and enrolled in the second grade, some of
Lamberto’s classmates who had gone through seven years of elementary school were employed to teach
the primary grades. That year ‘Tan Lucas was elected governor of Vizcaya in the first popular election for
provincial officials. The week after ‘Tan Lucas’ inauguration, the McIntosh’s returned to the United
States.
After a vigorous three-year term ‘Tan Lucas was re-elected governor. A year before his second term
expired the old man died. Teodora was thirteen and in high. She took her grandfather’s death with a
composure that caused her relatives to regard her as unfeeling in contrast to her mother’s profound grief.
“He was the best friend I had, Bettu,” Luisa said.
Lamberto was in the armchair on the veranda. The distant ranges of the Sierra Madre were a hazy
blue against the darkening sky.
She went on. “I really never knew my own father. I was only six when he returned to Spain. When
Mamang married again years later, my stepfather was good to me, but he was a quiet man. Perhaps he
was even cold. Papang was different. He was warm and generous and kind. He was truly the only father I
knew.”
Long after Luisa had gone back inside, Lamberto remained alone on the veranda. His father had built
the house to face the Sierra Madre. He had donated to the town the two hectare lot in front of the house
with the condition that it would be made into public plaza. No one had known that his father wanted to be
sure he would have an unobstructed view of the mountains. To the right, at the base of a vat-shaped
promontory, the Villaverde trail was quite remote.

YEARS BEFORE Lamberto had been on his horse looking down the valley from an opening over a
clearing of second-growth trees. He had come on the train from Manila for the long vacation, and he had
thought that Bayombong was not so far away, just three more hours by easy trot. He had thought so,
especially after two days in the saddle from Dagupan where the railroad ended. He remembered the trips
that had been much worse that that. For four years he and his brother Hilarion had to ride on horseback all
the way to and Manila-Dagupan railroad, Lamberto had only to wire to his father to post teams of horses
in three places.

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 On his last trip from Manila, after his junior year at San Juan de Letran, his father thought he had very
good reason to celebrate his return. Lamberto had turned eighteen only three days before-he was on
Dagupan-bound train at the time-and this to the old man was enough reason for a feast. Moreover,
Lamberto had been away two years; near the end of his sophomore term at Letran he had become ill and
was a d confined in a clinic for a month. His doctor had firmly- advised foregoing the strenuous trip home
to Vizcaya. But the real reason for celebrating, ‘Tan Lucas had proudly told friends and relatives, was the
scholastic honors Bettu had won in his third term. He finished third in his class, and that was high enough
for any father. Also, this was the moment to announce his plan to send Lamberto to Spain when he
finished the bachelor’s degree. He would be the first man in Nueva Vizcaya to study in Europe. Hilarion,
who could not come home with him that time, was soon to graduate I law, which meant he would be the
first lawyer of the province.
It was at this dinner–attended by the Spanish governor, the alcalde, the captain of the guardias civiles
and other Spanish officials, as well as Padre Pascual, the Spanish priest–where he met Luisa. Her
Gaddang mother, Bacat Sencia, had brought her along. Bacat Sencia was now married to Wayi Floro,
whose whisker hung heavily on his mouse-like face. Bacat Sencia was tall, large-hipped woman;
impassively calm, like a hawk, she seemed to warn the young men that she was ready to claw anyone who
harmed her Luisa.
Only two or three years before, Luisa had been a gawky, loose-jointed girl, slovenly in her dress and
manner with suspicious of dirt in her neck and behind her ears. Bettu recalled that she seemed to be
always damp above her upper lip and around the shoulders even when she was not running some errand
for her mother or playing maraya on moonlight nights. There were about a dozen other mestizas in
Bayombong, and they varied in shade from olive to white; Lamberto could easily name five or six who
had been prettier and neater as children than Luisa. Now she had changed into something cool and
composed, miraculously a woman in the loose silk camisa, that defined her round rich bosom. Her skin
was the color of carabao milk, the cheeks were smooth as mangoes. Her dark eyes glowed and her nose
was not too sharp–not like a wide, shallow dimple. Lamberto wasn’t sure be liked her mouth; it had a
tendency to pout in scorn or arrogance.
A few weeks after that evening Lamberto told his father he planned to propose to Luisa.
“Do you know what that means, Bettu?”
“Of course, I do, father; I have thought a great deal about it. The decision has not been easy.”
“You’re giving up your studies–including our plan for you to go to Europe.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“You have only one year left to your bachelor’s degree. Couldn’t you wait a year then, if you still feel
the same way, we will bring proposal to her family?”
“I’ve considered that. But, you see, there are others who also want to propose to Luisa.”
‘Tan Lucas was quiet. To impress his father with the seriousness of that matter, Lamberto went on,
“Right now I know at least four others–a nephew of Don Eusebio, the son of a land owner in Solano, the
bastard son of the former captain of the guardia civil. And then there is my godfather’s son, Braulio.”
“Have you spoken to her?”
“No. But she knows.”
“But Luisa is still young. I doubt her family would consider any proposal now.”
“She’s already fifteen. That’s about the age of my mother when you proposed to her, wasn’t it,

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Pang?”
‘Tan Lucas nodded slowly. “But this is a different situation you’re not through school, and that is
important.”
“Isn’t in possible, Pang, to forego the years of servitude in her house so I can finish school–and
perhaps even go to Spain? Or you might assign one tenants to my place while I’m gone.”
‘Tan Lucas looked at him for a long time before speaking. “That’s never been done.”
“At least we can ask Luisa’s family and find out what they think.”
‘Tan Lucas stood up and walked over to the veranda railing. He looked out across the street at the
Sierra Madre. “You know, Bettu, I am disappointed. I’ve wanted many things for you and for your
brother. After Letran, Spain, or any country in Europe you want. And then you could return and be an
important person–and not only because you have property.”
“My brother can do it, Pang. There’s no reason why Hilarion couldn’t go to Europe.”
‘Tan Lucas turned around. “I have spoken to him about it many times. As you know, we can afford to
send both of you to abroad. Hilarion was interested, but early this year he changed his mind.” He paused
and looked at his son. “Tell me Bettu, just how deeply involved is tour brother in this new movement, this
Katipunan? I want to know.”
“I don’t know how much about it, Pang. A few times in Manila some friends of him came to our
boarding house and they talked about this revolutionary society until late at night. That is all I know,
Pang.”
“I don’t think I like it, this involvement of Hilarion’s. That is another reason I want him to get out of
the country for a time. You know we have a lot to lose becoming involved in any kind of resistance
against the government.”
Lamberto thought he saw an advantage. Perhaps that’s a reason for me to stay. I can help take care of
the land.
“I can still do that myself. Let’s talk of that other matter later, shall we?”
Four days later, with only two weeks before the opening of school, Lamberto spoke to his father
again. “I wish to have your word, Pang, about the proposal.
“I sent him a telegram to Hilarion. We wait for him.”
Hilarion come home through alternate sun and fine sheet-like rain. The wind and sun had burned his
thin cheeks to a dark uneven brown, making him look slightly sinister, until one saw the subtle vitality in
his eyes.
‘Tan Lucas lost no time in getting to the point with him. “Your brother wants to propose marriage to
Luisa Aldeguer.”
Hilarion’s cool attention revealed no trace of surprise. He turned to Lamberto. “You have only a year
to go to your degree. Why don’t you wait, Bettu?”
Lamberto gave him the same restrained explanation he had given his father.
“What does it matter if there are other fellows? There are plenty of fine, pretty girls in Manila.
Another thing, Bettu and this is important. If you propose to Luisa, you know what will happen. You’ll be
tied to her family like a common servant for five, six even seven years. Now tell me, would Luisa’s
family agree to waive the years of servitude so you can finish school in Letran–and maybe go to Europe?”
Neither Lamberto nor ‘Tan Lucas answered him.

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 “I don’t think they will. And you, Bettu, you must sacrifice your future unnecessarily.” Hilarion
stirred impatiently in his chair. “It’s most unfair. This senseless tradition of servitude goes in, and we rot–
“
“Now, Hilarion,” interrupted the father. “That is not for you to say.”
“Why not Father? I’m not being disrespectful to you. I’m speaking of a practice–there are other
practices, too,–you know as well as anyone, they are impractical, wasteful. Absolutely senseless.” He
turned to Lamberto. “If you married a girl from Manila, there’d be no need for all this foolish servitude
and you could finish your studies and even go to Europe.”
“Now that you mention it,” ‘Tan Lucas said, “I’m asking you again, Hilarion, to go yourself to
Europe. You have two more years for your law degree, but I’d rather have you finish it in Spain, or in any
European university you choose.”
Hilarion looked at his father, then back to Lamberto. He turned to his father again, wondering at the
urgency in his father’s voice. His brother had known about his activities in Manila, the secret meetings he
had attended. Had Lamberto told is father about his Katipunan connections?
“I’m happy with Santo Tomas–at least before the present, Pang. No reason why I shouldn’t finish my
work there. Besides my record isn’t as good as Bettu’s. My grades might not be good enough to get me
into a school in abroad. Another thing, and it’s important, too–it’s best to study law in the country where
you plan to practice it.” He waved a deprecating hand. “Anyway, let’s go back to Bettu’s problem.”
‘Tan Lucas was still considering Hilarion. “Everything’s all right with you, my son?”
“Everything is fine, Pang. Why did you ask?”
“Frankly, right now I’m more worried about you than about Bettu.”
“Did you tell him, Bettu?”
“I asked him,” said ‘Tan Lucas. “And I have heard other rumors. What is this secret organization,
Hilarion–it is a seditious organization, isn’t it?”
“It depends on how you look at it. To the Spaniards and those who want to enslave and exploit us, it
is seditious. But to the Filipino who wants self-respect and freedom, it is something else.”
“You are not involved in it, are you?”
“Every self-respecting Filipino should be involved in it, Pang.”
“Are you, Hilarion?”
“I’ve always been honest with you, Pang. I am a member of the Katipunan, and I’m proud of it.”
“But why, Hilarion? If you were one of the exploited–to use your own word–then you would have a
reason. But we–our family–have had the respect of the Spaniards. We have never been molested. You
know that.”
“I know. But for every one who isn’t molested, there are hundreds who are. You know that yourself,
Pang.”
“Why don’t you leave this revolutionary work to those who have reason to resent the Spanish
administration?”
Hilarion looked at his father. “You don’t mean that, Pang.”
“I do. We have much to lose in any kind of open rebellion.”
“Maybe so. But many members of the Katipunan have much to lose, too–some of them might lose a

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lot more than we. There are wealthy men, influential men in it. And there are many more sympathizers
who don’t belong but are ready to support it.”
“But what can this Katipunan possibly accomplish? The members are all from Manila, or around
there. Is this not so?”
“For the moment, yes. But it’s fast spreading in the towns and provinces. It will go on spreading in
wider areas.”
“Armed rebellion, I suppose, is the logical end?”
Hilarion nodded.
“Without arms, how can the Katipunan succeed? What can bolos do against guns–against the
organized army of the government? It would be suicidal.”
“There are risks, of course. If we don’t pay the price, we will stay enslaved.”
The old man still looked calm, but a threatening note crept into his tone. “Hilarion, you must realize
that if you were known in this town as a member of this Katipunan, that’s the end of all we have–
property, social position, esteem, everything!”
“Perhaps.”
“You are cold-blooded about it. Aren’t you forgetting that what we have is the honest accumulation
of several generations? Your Katipunan involvement could mean the loss of everything we have.” His
hand cut the air like a blade. “As fast as that.”
“I promise you, Pang, I won’t get you involved in anything I do. I was assigned to organize a
Katipunan unit here in Vizcaya. It was an opportunity and a challenge; I refused because I knew the
consequences. But this does not mean one will organize a unit here. There’s no stopping the movement
now. It’s been like that in the other countries. It’s a tiny ripple at first, until it gathers strength and
becomes a tidal wave.”
“You’re not telling me anything new,” said ‘Tan Lucas. “I can recall several uprisings here and there.
Each one of them was smothered at its inception.”
“This time, Pang, it will be different. In the past there were only scattered squalls. This time it will be
a raging typhoon that will smash Spanish power here.”
They were all quiet. Finally ‘Tan Lucas spoke. “When will this happen?”
“Nobody knows. One thing is sure, of course. The more oppressive the Spaniards become, the sooner
it will come.
The matter of Lamberto’s proposal was brought out again after supper.
“There’s only one thing you can do, Pang. You can ask Luisa’s family if Bettu can be allowed to use
a substitute while he finishes his studies in Manila–if possible during all the years of servitude so that
Bettu won’t have to give up his other plans.” Hilarion added carefully, “Better yet, do away with this
cruel, wasteful servitude.”
“As a prospective lawyer, my son, you should know that we have to live by laws and codes. You
cannot simply dismiss all the old customs. There are unwritten laws we must respect.”
“I know, Pang. But you must admit we have some practices, like this particular marriage custom, that
are degrading, barbaric–”
“Hilarion.” ‘Tan Lucas said sternly. “I was married under that custom. Your mother and I respected
it. It may have objectionable features. Yes. What comes out of it more than compensates for the

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inconvenience and what you regard degradation. We must pay a price for everything we get. You said the
same thing in connection with this subversive movement.”
“Not subversive, Pang. It is subversive only for those who want to go on being enslaved.”
“Enough of that.” ‘Tan Lucas was brusque. “I have no intention of asking any special concessions
from Luisa’s family–if Lamberto is bent on this business. Any concession you want, Hilarion, you may
ask for yourself, because I won’t.”
“With your permission then, Pang, I will.” He turned to Lamberto. “Suppose Luisa’s family won’t
agree, what then?”
“There’s nothing else I can do. I must comply.”
Capitan Lucas himself wrote the letter of proposal, as was the custom, and later the traditional years
of servitude were agreed upon by both families. Lamberto was to work five years as a common servant in
the house of Luisa before he could marry her.

NOW HIS FATHER was dead. Lamberto felt he had failed him. The old man’s dream for him to go
to Europe, and the fact that he had not even finished school at Letran–for all this he had not been
reproached in the slightest.
Hilarion came home from Manila for the funeral. He was leaner and his mouth showed a pronounced
droop when his face was relaxed. But the intense black eyes were still alert and the ten years he had spent
in Manila had not cured his restlessness.
The funeral procession was the longest in the memory of Bayombong. Relatives on both sides of the
family, the tenants and their families, friends and many from the town itself formed a line extending over
half the distance from the house to the cemetery.
Even before the end of the nine-day wake there was serious talk that Hilarion should take over the
governorship, at least for the one remaining year of the term. Lamberto himself was hoping that Hilarion
would stay. He knew that his brother’s law practice in Manila was prospering, but he had never stopped
regarding it as a temporary arrangement. “It would be good,” he said, “to see you home and settled now
that Papang is gone.”
“No, Bettu.” It’s not right. That would be like creating a dynasty in this province. That’s the very
form of the government that smothered this country for almost four hundred years. After all there are
others qualified men in Vizcaya.”
“There has no been no thought of a dynasty or anything of the sort. The people just want you.”
“That does not mean you shouldn't aspire to become a governor yourself, Bettu if you are interested.
But there should be a break.”
“I’m not interested.”
“Right now your not and that’s as it should be. But you may change your mind. Vizcaya will need
you.”
“Well, then, after some respectable break, what about declaring yourself available?”
“No, Bettu, it’s just not for me.”
Because Lamberto looked puzzled, Hilarion went on to explain. “In years since I left Vizcaya I’ve
built up a good practice in Manila. I’m fairly well known there. One of these days I may be elected to the
senate to represent the district around Manila.

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 “You could go to the Senate even sooner by staying here.”
“I’ve thought of that, too. But I’ll go along with my law practice for a while.”

CHAPTER 3
FOUR YEARS LATER, in 1917, Hilarion was in Bayombong on one of his rare visits. He was even
more lean than he had been, but his hair was the same unrelieved black. Lamberto himself had grown
heavier and his temples had grey streaks.
“You look well, Hilarion. Quite well, I should say, for your age.”
“No family to worry about, for one thing.”
“How can you stand being alone?”
Hilarion laughed. “The girls are there whenever I want them–and there’s variety. Oh, don’t look so
shocked. I’m not living with anyone of them.”
“Are you happy that way?”
“I have no complaints. My practice is good. I have four junior partners now and they do all the spade
work. And there’s money in the bank.”
“What can your money do when your time is up?”
“That’s a long time away, Brother. And why should I worry about the money? I’m willing it all to
Teodora. How is she?”
“Very fine. She tops her class, as always. She’s staying with Luisa’s mother tonight.”
“She was thirteen last time I saw her–at Papang’s funeral. In many ways she’s the opposite of her
mother, isn’t she? Quiet and steady and thoroughly sensible. Has she changed much?”
“She hasn’t and it worries me a bit. She is seventeen but behaves like seventy. Teodora would be
better off with some of her mother’s sparkle. Her resemblance to the grandmother doesn’t help. She’s in
her last year in high school and as solemn as a magistrate’s wife.”
“You shouldn’t mind that. Trouble with you, Bettu, you think all girls should be like Luisa.”
Lamberto left Hilarion on the veranda and went into the house. Luisa was calling to him.

HILARION THOUGHT OF THE TIME, long ago at the proposal party for Lamberto when Wayi
Floro, Luisa’s stepfather, had stood up with irritating pomposity to speak for Luisa’s family. The rice
wine had flushed away his habitual reticence and he now appeared as though he had suddenly learned the
secret of transforming a dragon into a pinworm.
“In my time,” the Wayi has said, “I served five years of servitude–in spite of the fact that, as everyone
knows, Sencia was already a mother with a child.”
The titter that grew around the room pleased Wayi Floro.
“You, Capitan Lucas, my esteemed friend–you were luckier. Some people are born lucky. You had
only six years of servitude, if I recall, Ukat.”
“What about Lamberto now, Wayi–”
“I’m coming to that. On that matter my family has decided to be generous.” Wayi Floro paused
briefly. “We ask only five years from Lamberto.”

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 The relief on the faces of Lamberto and his father was plain for all to see. But Hilarion, who had said
nothing, had openly displayed his impatience and disgust at Wayi Floro’s wiliness. He spoke up for the
first time. ”Wayi Floro–” and he turned to his father. “Pang, may I say something?”
“Go ahead, son.”
“Wayi Floro, you have spoken of your generosity. We appreciate that. We beg you to extend that
generosity a little more.”
Wayi Floro turned to ‘Tan Lucas. “Does your son have your sanction to speak?”
‘Tan Lucas was curious, but noncommittal. “I give him permission to speak.”
“Speak then, Hilarion.”
“I claim the privilege of an older brother of Bettu. What I ask is for the good of both Lamberto and
Luisa and for the good and honor of everyone. Bettu has a good head, he is a bright student, a better one
than I. As you know, Bettu needs only one more year to finish the bachelor’s degree at San Juan de
Letran. My father has dreamed of sending him to Europe to get another degree there, not only for the
honor of the family and of Bettu himself, but for the entire province. This is my petition. The number of
years of servitude is not unusual according to the tradition in Nueva Vizcaya. My father and my brother
and I cannot ask you to reduce the number of years. My petition is that Bettu be allowed to have a
substitute to work in his place, while he goes on with his studies. There is nothing selfish about this
petition because the honor that Bettu may receive is not only for himself, but also for Luisa and all of us.
Who in Nueva Vizcaya–”
“A moment, Hilarion,” said Wayi Floro, turning to ‘Tan Lucas. “Does Hilarion speak for your
family?”
“He speaks for himself.”
“Does this mean you do not approve of what he says?”
“Pang, please,” said Hilarion, “let me go on.” His father nodded and Hilarion turned again to Wayi
Floro. “I speak as Lamberto’s elder brother. Although my petition may be unusual, something that may
not have been done before, it is not unreasonable nor selfish. It is for the good of us all.”
At this point Luisa came out of her room to the surprise of everybody.
“Woman,” Wayi Floro said sharply, “what are you doing here? Go back to your room!”
“No, not yet, Ama. I want to hear what Hilarion has to say.”
“Go to your room, I tell you!”
“Yes, Ama, in a moment. After all, I am the one who is the object of all this–haggling.” She was
smiling at Hilarion.
Hilarion himself was dumbstruck at the sight of Luisa whom he had not seen in years. The last time
he has seen her she was a dirty looking girl playing maraya in the streets. Seeing her now he knew why
his brother would sacrifice college and Europe for her.
“I have my own opinion of Hilarion’s petitions,” said Wayi Floro, “but it is my whole family who
must decide on it. You must excuse us, Luisa, come away.”
Bacat Sencia almost dragged the girl out of the room.
“You’ve got a wife there, Bettu,” said the thin-jawed Agaton, a first cousin of ‘Tan Lucas.
“Not yet,” said Hilarion.

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 “She’s older than her years,” Agaton pursued. ”With plenty of spirit. What are you going to do with a
wife like that, Bettu?”
“Tame her.”
“Do you think you can?”
He flexed the muscles of his large arms. “I’ll swing her by her tail until she begs for mercy.”
“Don’t be too sure, son.”
“Wait then and see–in our own house.”
Wayi Floro returned to the sala with his wife and his wife’s two brothers. Luisa was not with them.
“We have discussed your petition, Hilarion,” said Wayi Floro. “Our answer is no.”
“Even for only a year so Lamberto can finish his course at Letran?”
“The answer is the same.”
“Suppose,” Hilarion went on, desperately, “suppose we put two men–or three–instead of one to take
my brother’s place for a year–?”
“I ask you to stop this, Hilarion. It is an insult to my house. The question here is not the amount of
work, or the number of men to do it during the years of servitude. Poor as we are, we will not starve
without that kind of help.”
Everyone felt the tension in the crowded room.
Wayi Floro was more hurt than angry. “The time-honored period of servitude is only a test and a
demonstration of sincerity.”
“Wayi Floro, please,” pleaded Hilarion. “I didn’t intend any insult. If I sounded presumptuous I want
to apologize.”
“The apology is accepted. Now,” Wayi Floro turned to Lucas, “are the terms acceptable to you,
Ukat?”
“They are acceptable to me.”
“What about you, Bettu?”
“I accept them, Wayi.”
“Then,” said Wayi Floro, “let’s drink to it.” He asked his wife to bring Luisa into the living room.
A changed Luisa emerged from her room and stood between Wayi Floro and her mother. She was
demure, almost subdued. She did not look at anybody, not even at Lamberto.
The glasses were filled.
“Let’s drink,” said Wayi Floro, raising his glass, “to the union of our two families.”
Later at the door, out of earshot of Luisa and his wife, Wayi Floro spoke lightly to the departing
guests. “Compadre Ukat, we couldn’t accept Hilarion’s petition, you knew that. How do we know,” and
he winked at Lamberto slyly, “how do we know that in Manila, or in Spain, our young man wouldn’t fall
into some other woman’s trap? After all, I hear there are pretty girls there, also. If that happened, then my
poor daughter would be a dishonored woman.”
“Compadre,” said ‘Tan Lucas as they shook hands, “you are a cunning crocodile.”
Hilarion recalled with amusement that his brother’s servitude had been continually threatened by
disruption. Near the fourth year of his servitude, Lamberto had been sentenced to prison for six months at

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hard labor. He had disarmed and knocked down a guardia civil who had tried to strike his for refusing to
leave the Spanish garrison. When he and their father visited Bettu in prison, he told them his tortured
thoughts.
“It’s about Luisa and her family, Pang. Do you think they count this against me?”
“What do you mean, Bettu?”
“Will they think this is a reason to break the agreement?”
“I shouldn’t think so.”
“Well, can’t you see how people will talk? I’ve disgraced Luisa, no doubt about it.”
“No, Bettu, no. I don’t see how a thing like this could be a disgrace. Some people will even think of
you as a hero.”
“Pang, will you please try to find out how her family feels about this?”
“Do you want me to ask Luisa?”
Lamberto was quiet. Finally he said, “Maybe not. Ask Wayi Floro.”
Hilarion had been quietly listening. “Why don’t you want him to ask Luisa herself?”
“Oh, ask her later, if Wayi Floro says it’s still all right.”
‘Tan Lucas agreed with Bettu. “After all, they are bound to respect the agreement.”
Hilarion asked, “Don’t you want her to visit you here?”
“No, Hilarion. I don’t want Luisa to see me in this tiger suit.”
“Suppose she wants to see you.”
“I don’t think she’d like to see me in this situation.”
Later Hilarion learned that Lamberto’s imprisonment wouldn’t affect the marriage contract, though
neither Wayi Floro nor Bacat Sencia knew what Luisa thought about it.
“Don’t you think, Pang, it’s good for Bettu to know exactly how Luisa feels about it?”
“Yes son, I thought of that, of course. But maybe Bettu is right. Right now Luisa has a moral
obligation to stick the agreement, and so why stir up trouble? After all there’s nothing dishonourable
about Bettu’s imprisonment. As a matter of fact, she should be proud of him.”
“Love should be the basis of marriage, shouldn’t it, pang?”
‘Tan Lucas nodded at his older son in an absent-minded manner.
“Then shouldn’t Bettu be certain that Luisa loves him? He seems to avoid a yes or no answer from
her.”
“Love–it can grow, even from nothing. I don’t think your mother felt one way or the other for me
when I proposed. By the end of six years of servitude, no man could have asked for more love than your
mother gave me. Luisa, I think, will be like that. It may take a little longer for her. A girl with her looks
can be very vain.”
“Still this kind of arrangement is too risky. For me, Pang, it should be a mutual feeling from the star.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that. Now that we are at it, its time you looked around for yourself.”
“I’m in no hurry.”
Secret plans for the revolution were Hilarion great concern at that time. He hadn’t planned to stay

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long in Bayombong. But now three weeks had gone. In that time he had met the people on the outskirts of
town and neighbouring towns. These visits were his one unfailing activity when he came home to
Vizcaya. His friends and relatives vaguely believed that these leisurely visits had something to do with
building up a lawyer’s clientele. Actually, he was recruiting members for the Katipunan; the Manila
headquarters would not listen to his argument about not involving his family. After three weeks he felt it
was time to go back to his work in Manila, back to the legal firm where he was getting much practical
experience. But he found himself without enough will to leave Bayombong. He stopped one afternoon at
Wayi Floro’s. Luisa was on the porch snipping withering stems and leaves from the potted begonias. She
did not see him as he went up the walk and paused at the threshold. As when he had seen her at the
proposal party, he felt bewildered. Just now he felt a dim ache, which he indulged without his usual
instinctive caution, since she was betrothed to his brother.
“Buenas Tardes”, he said.
Luisa whirled around, startled, the scissors poised as if protection. “Oh it’s you. Come up, Hilarion.”
She pointed to a low rattan chair on the porch. She placed the scissors on the sill and went to another
chair.
“No,” he said. “Go on with your work. I’ll watch.”
“It can wait. Besides,” and she was looking at him in her frank eyes, “you’d make me self-conscious.”
“I didn’t think you’d be the self-conscious kind.”
She was still standing there regarding him with curiosity. “That’s not exactly meant to be nice, is it?”
“I leave it to your good judgement.” She sat down. “That kind of talk,” she said laughing, “doesn’t
surprise me. I mean after what you did a moment ago. It really wasn’t fair, why, I felt–ambushed. Is that
how all the men in Manila behave?”
He was laughing now. “No, not at all of them.”
She stood up. “Coffee, chocolate, or tea?”
“No, Isang, don’t bother. Sit down, I’d rather talk.”
“You can talk while having coffee or chocolate or tea,” she said reasonably.
“Coffee, then, please.”
“Mamang isn’t home and Papang has gone to see a tenant. So while I’m in the kitchen–there are
albums and books in the sala.”
“If you don’t mind, Isang, I’d rather watch you make the coffee.”
Her warm laughter rang out. “You like to watch, don’t you?”
“Well, I do like to watch a cooking fire. In fact, I even like building a fire.”
She pointed to the stove. “Then prove it.”
He rolled up his sleeves. In one clay stove he began to make an airy nest of used firewood piled
neatly on one side; he placed the end of one stick on the end of another, in step-like formation, allowing
for air all around the ends.
“Now all I need,” said Hilarion, “is some kerosene and a match.”
Luisa shook her head. “That’s not the way to build a fire, Hilarion. We don’t waste kerosene in this
house. Watch.”
She drew a pad of moss-like coconut fiber from a small box and placed it in the middle of the second

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stove. With pliant steel tongs, she dug from the center of the middle stove an ember, which was still alive
under the ashes. She blew the ashes off the ember and placed it in the moss. Around the padded ember she
built a small trellis-like bed of the wood from the pile Hilarion had made, and then using a narrow
bamboo pipe she bent down to blow gently until a little flame flickered into life. Her soft camisa hung
carelessly under her throat and the loose, wide neckline exposed to Hilarion the trembling rich milk-
golden contour of her breast. He was dismayed by a sudden disloyal thought, and he turned away as she
piled on more firewood. Presently there was a blazing fire.
“That was slower, Isang. I could have built it much faster with kerosene and a match.”
“Yes, of course, but that’s wasteful.”
She prepared the coffee pot and the ground coffee and then the saucers and cups. She was now almost
nineteen, ripened into a provocative and confident beauty. He couldn’t help remembering the sweet-
soaked gamin she had been, and the brash, impudent, impulsive girl who broke Gaddang custom to listen
to him at the proposal party.
They were drinking coffee in the kitchen when Bacat Sencia came in; Wayi Floro came soon after.
The two old people talked to Hilarion while Luisa returned to her plants; they kept Hilarion until twilight,
holding him in eager talk that touched him.
It occurred to Hilarion as he went outside later and saw Luisa on the porch that he had not yet asked
her about Lamberto. And yet, he told himself, he was only following her cue, for she had not mentioned
Lamberto either.
They lingered on the porch, Luisa’s scissors quiet on the sill beside her. They watched the lantern
man in the street climb up his portable ladder propped against the wooden post. The man pulled out a rag
from his hip pocket and wiped the soot from the trapezoidal sides of the lantern. Pinching off the burnt
edges of the wick, he lighted it with a match. In the sudden orange glow, his wizened face looked sober
and distrustful. He wiped the outer sides slowly, eyes fixed on the lighted wick which turned up and
down; finally he climbed down the ladder and went on to the next lantern post.
Hilarion roused himself. “I have to go, Isang.”
As he picked up his hat to leave she said, “You are different from him.”
“You mean Bettu? Why do you say that?”
“He scares me sometimes.”
Hilarion laughed. “And I don’t, in spite of my method of ambush?”
“No, you don’t scare me.” She waved the scissors at him, laughing. Then seriously, “Thank you for
coming, Hilarion. I wasn’t really worried about Bettu. But it was good of you to come.”
Instead of going down the stairs, he moved closer to her. “Now that you have mentioned Bettu–what
do you really feel about my brother?”
She was caught by surprise; he could see that.
“I didn’t want to ask you,” said Hilarion. “In fact, Bettu wanted my father to ask your parents what
you felt about his being in jail. I suggested that Papang ask you directly, because after all you are the
person to decide. And marriage has to have a reciprocal basis. I suspect that Bettu feels it has been one-
sided all the way. The pathetic thing about it is he does not want hear what might be the painful truth from
you. He just wants to hang on to an imaginary moral obligation on your part because of the marriage
agreement.”
She turned away from Hilarion and started snipping viciously at the young stems of the begonia.

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 “I see you don’t want to discuss it. I’ll put it this way, Isang. A while ago you said you’re scared of
Bettu, but you’re not scared of me. Why did you say that?”
“Because,” and she snapped the scissors violently in the air. “It’s because–if you must know–I’m not
sold to you,”
Hilarion thought he understood; he was silent as he thought about her words. He asked, “What do you
mean, really, Isang?”
“Just what I said. Because I’m not sold to you I’m free to say what I want. I can be myself with you.”
“I’m not sure I understand it right.”
“More than three years ago, when I was fifteen, I was promised to Bettu. It was a kind of sale–like
cow or sheep.”
“But you were given a choice, Isang. You didn’t have to consent to the marriage proposal, if you
didn’t want it. But obviously you raised no barrier.”
“That’s the whole trouble.”
Hilarion looked at her, waiting.
“The trouble was I didn’t realize what I was doing. I was only fifteen. Should a fifteen-year-old be
allowed to decide on a thing like a marriage proposal that was arranged for her?”
Hilarion’s nod was ambiguous and she went on recklessly. “Maybe it was just the tide of our
marriage custom, sweeping over us all. Bettu was the first to propose to me. Oh, there were a few others,
but Betty was the first.”
“Are you saying, Isang that you regret your decision?”
“No, Hilarion, no. I don’t know why you can’t understand. Take the matter of the fire building. You
have to have kerosene and matches. My family must have the embers. Your family is the wealthiest in the
province. You and Bettu have gone to college. Bettu even wanted to go to Spain. And when you yourself
asked that somebody be allowed to take Bettu’s place in the servitude–that made me mad. That was real
haggling for a bargain, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t know, Isang–but it’s all a part of the Gaddang marriage custom. At any rate, you have not
answered the big question: do you love my brother?”
“I don’t know if it is love. I’ve never had any chance to know what love is. But I do feel deeply for
Bettu.”
“Then why in God’s name don’t you want him to know it?”
“You still can’t understand?”
“Because you still feel you’re sold to him?”
“Yes, yes. You can’t escape the fact, can you?”
Hilarion nodded silently, but after a while he said, “You must have been wondering why I’ve put you
through this inquisition.”
“You’re doing it for Bettu, of course.”
“Hasn’t it occurred to you I might have done this on my behalf?”
She was speechless. His tone was light and ironical, but in the gathering dusk she could not be sure.
“I’m going now, Isang.”

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 In bed that night Hilarion couldn’t sleep. He decided to leave for Manila in the morning.

LUISA CAME ONTO THE VERANDA, breaking into Hilarion’s reminiscing. She scolded him
gently about staying out in the damp night air.
Dutifully he rose and went into the house with her.
“Thinking about it, Isang,” he told the forty-two-year-old Luisa, “I’ve never learned how to build a
decent fire.”
She gave him a strange look. You’re daydreaming, Hilarion.”
“As a matter of fact, I was,” he said contentedly.
After supper the next day he finally told them the reason for his visit. “I’m going to France.” He
looked around at their faces. The same silent question was repeated on each face.
Teodora spoke up.” This is not the time for a pleasure trip, Tio. There’s a big war going on there.”
Hilarion studied his niece. She had a strong clean-cut face although her features were too heavy to be
beautiful.
“It’s not a pleasure trip, hija. There’s a better reason.”
Lamberto was grave. “You’re going there as a volunteer?”
“Yes, Bettu. I have volunteered to go.”
“But you’re quite past the age.”
“I know. And don’t mention my age to Teodora. About the army’s age limit–influence, Brother, can
work wonders.”
“Why do you do it? You won’t make any difference.”
“Maybe not, but it will help.”
“What about your plan for the senate? Have you abandoned that?”
“It can wait. Besides when I come back, having been out there should help that project, too.”
“Brother, you surprise me. Or maybe I’m not surprised at all. You are finally convinced of America’s
intention in the Philippines, aren’t you?”
“That has nothing at all to do with my decision. It’s not only America that believes there’s this kind
of duty to do.”
Before he left, Hilarion handed Lamberto a large Manila envelope. “Anything can happen out there.
I’m leaving you all my papers.”

WHEN TEODORA finished high school Lamberto decide to send her to boarding school to Manila.
Luisa was not receptive to the plan. “Manila is so far away, Bettu. It would be different if she were a
boy.”
“She’ll be alright. St. Cecilia College is an excellent school for girls. She’ll live in a dormitory on the
campus.”
“High school is more than enough education for a girl. What use does a girl have for a college
degree?”
“You know, Isang, I don’t have a degree. I had a year left and didn’t care.”

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 “And want Teodora to get it for you? I never heard of a sillier idea. It would seem you regret having
married me.”
“Now, Isang, that is nonsense. You know if I were to do it over again I wouldn’t have it in any other
way.”
“Then why do you make that kind of a plan for Teodora? She’s seventeen. At that age I was two years
promised to you. In another three years she should be married.”
“But nobody has come around to propose. That’s the difference.”
“There’s no reason why she shouldn’t stay here and wait. “Tell me this–is Teodora attractive
enough?”
“Why, Bettu, of course she is.”
“She’s different from you, in many ways. She has your skin, but she looks more like your mother
than anyone else.”
“Didn’t you know my mother was attractive in her time? If she wasn’t, do you think my Basque
father would have married her?”
“Why did he leave her then?”
“It had nothing to do with how she looked. My father had to go home when his grandfather died–my
father was fearless when he came here as a soldier. His grandfather had left him some property. My father
wanted Mamang to go to Spain with him but she refused. Maybe she was wise to stay, I don’t know.”
“Well anyway, getting back to Teodora. Wouldn’t it be a good thing for her to go to Manila for a year
so that when she comes home for vacation the boys will look at her with new eyes?”
Luisa laughed. “Oh, Bettu, you’re the oddest man. Where do you get such ideas?”
“You see, this school I have in mind for Teodora is the kind that teaches a girl many things. Not only
Spanish and history and music and such. They teach charm and prepare girls to be good wives.”
“You mean to say your married me I lacked–”
“No, Isang, I didn’t say that. You didn’t have to study charm–you have more than you share of it. But
there are those who could be helped by a school like St. Cecilia. In this school girls are taught how to talk,
how to meet people, even such things as walking and sitting properly.”
Luisa laughed again. “What an expensive way to learn to walk! Oh, Bettu!”
“Isang, listen to me. I’m only thinking of what’s best for our daughter. Money doesn’t matter in a
thing like this.”
Luisa wanted to go along with Lamberto and Teodora to Manila.
“It’s a long trip, Isang. And you’ve been complaining of tiredness lately.”
“If Teodora can stand it I can.”
“She’s seventeen and you’re forty-two.”
“Bettu, I have never gone out of Vizcaya. I want to see how it is outside of these mountains. I want to
see Manila.”
“All right, this is what I propose. I’ll see how the trip is between here and Pangasinan and then at the
end of the school year, if the way isn’t so bad, we’ll both go to Manila. We will even plan a trip abroad.
We may go to Spain if you want, how’s that?”
Teodora had one advantage over her mother; she sat her horse well. The girl could handle any of their

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horses with skill. But she would get tired of horse-riding after three days, Lamberto thought. When they
reached Santa Fe he asked, “How do you feel, hija?”
“Fine, Pang.”
“We can have a day’s rest here,”
“If it’s all the same to you, why don’t we go on to Dagupan?”
The train ride from Dagupan to Manila was not as comfortable as he had remembered it. And yet the
train should have been a relief after four and a half days in the saddle. His bones were getting brittle, he
told himself, and he was forty-five. The towns along the way seemed shabbier than he had recalled them.
The bigger towns were more bristling and energetic than Bayombong, but there was also something
frantic about them. Ten-year-old children balanced baskets loaded with food on their heads and raced to
the train windows or scampered up the narrow passages shouting their wares: balut, sugared popped rice,
siopao, banana fritters. A child’s thin stringy arm thrust balut under his nose; the wheedling, defeated
voice assaulted his ears. It was a relief when the train wheels crunched heavily forward again. He would
rather have Bayombong and the enclosing Sierra Madre any time.
When the train pulled up at the Tutuban station in Manila, Lamberto had an overwhelming sensation
of being swallowed up. Teodora was matter-of-fact. He had last seen the city over twenty years before.
Now it was completely strange to him. Manila was probably twice as large as it had been when he was a
Letran student. Unhappy and disoriented, he wished Luisa had come along, but he wondered, if she could
have endured the rough trip. She had been troubled lately by headaches and blurring vision and
occasional shortness of breath.
From the time they had taken the train in Dagupan, Teodora seemed to have detached herself from
him, her face showed wonder and muted excitement at her new surroundings. He left his daughter in the
college dormitory, knowing that she was now a person apart from him. He felt the ache of separation and
even loss. He had never been too close to his child; now he felt keen regret that this had been so. Passing
through the narrow and impersonal streets of Manila he had the uncomfortable conviction that–anyone
even Teodora, living in the safe oasis of the convent dormitory–could get lost in this sprawling,
inhospitable city. During his six years as a student in Manila, whenever he had come back from
Bayombong he had felt lost and disoriented. But after a while there had been the challenge of
competition; and sometimes, when exploring with Hilarion some interesting such as a Buddhist shrine or
a duck farm they had moments of high adventure.
When Lamberto asked for his key at the hotel desk the clerk gave him a telegram from Luisa.
“Hilarion wired he arrived Manila a few days ago.”
Hilarion was home from France after almost two years. Without even going up to his room Lamberto
took a calesa to his brother’s office on Avenida Rizal. It was only a little past three. He was impressed by
the size of Hilarion’s office; it was a spacious as three government offices in Bayombong put together.
There were five large shiny desks for Hilarion and his four partners and smaller ones for the clerks. In the
reception room, several clients were awaiting in their return.
One of the junior partners told him Hilarion had gone home, and Lamberto went on to his brother’s
house in Sampaloc.
Hilarion was preparing to go out when he arrived. “I was going over to your hotel, Bettu. You’re
looking very well.”
“So are you. In fact you’ve never looked better.” Hilarion, he was cheerful and almost roguish. “Did
Luisa send you a telegram?”

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 “Yes. I just got it.” Hilarion called out to the servant and told him to get his brother’s things at the
Metropolitan Hotel.
“I should go, I’ve got to settle my bill there.”
“I’ll take care of that.” He phoned the hotel. As Hilarion went over to a low rattan chair, Lamberto
noticed a slight limp in his gait, but otherwise he really looked better. He had a settled air about him.
“You had us all worried. The war was over eight months ago. Two letters and then nothing.”
Hilarion lighted a cigar and offered one to Lamberto, who refused. “I did a bit of travelling after it
was over. Three months in England, sometime in Greece, and then Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Italy,
and Egypt. These places seemed to be a natural extension of my private expedition to France.”
Lamberto studied his brother’s face intently as he blew the smoke slowly from his cigar.
“There were times this past year when I thought I had chosen the wrong profession. I’ve written two
books, one on corporations and the other on criminal law; and they’re being used in our law schools,
Bettu, and I'm respected for them. But probably I would have been happier as a political scientist. I’ve
always been interested in the attempt to define freedom–man’s search for it. Who knows–I may even
write something when I’m sixty-five.” He put his cigar on the ashtray beside him. “By the way, I wanted
to go to Spain and look-up Luisa’s father, if he is still alive. But I just couldn’t force myself to go there.
That part of our history is still a bit raw for me.”
After a while Lamberto said, “I’m going home day after tomorrow. Why not come back with me?”
“I’m afraid I can’t make it–this bad leg. In fact I have only recently learned to walk without
crutches.”
Lamberto was expecting his brother to show him the damaged leg; it seemed a natural thing to do.
But Hilarion never so much as lifted the cuff of his pants. Thinking about it, looking for a reason for it, he
decided that Hilarion showing his wounds would be like his wearing whatever medals he had won.
“How did it happen?”
“Left foot shot off. It happened the third time I was sent out with battalion to take a forest, and hold
on to it. Now in our time, Bettu, when we went out to the Bayombong jail to set Papang and the others
free, we besieged the company of guardias civiles in their garrison, and that was it. In France, you were
just a serial number. You went along with half a thousand other men to take a wooded area–and before
you reached the slope, half of them were dead. Finally, getting to the top and holding on to what you’d
gained, there was this constant anonymous gun fire reducing your number gradually, until you felt you
weren’t in a group any more. You were cowering in some hole wondering what was happening, or what it
was all about.”
“You sound disillusioned.”
“Do I?” Well, one could be, I suppose. But I’m not. Germany had to be knocked out. It had to be
done so that we can walk the streets without fear, even here.”
He was the same old angry idealist.
“A strange thing, Bettu. Or perhaps not strange, only inevitable. No sooner do we win one fight and
think we learn what freedom means than we are asked to consider giving it up. A strange paradox, isn’t
it?”
Lamberto didn’t say anything, waiting for his brother to go on.
“We belong to the world, too. This is what I mean. To be free in a family of nations, some self-

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interest must be sacrificed. That is why, personally, I felt I had to go to France.”
“That’s too big a concept for a small country, and we’re not even independent yet. Do you think it
was our concern, really?”
“There is no other way. You can’t have political freedom in a vacuum. No country exists by itself
when a major issue is at stake.”
Hilarion stood up. “But enough of this. Let me show you the house.”
“I stopped at your office on my way here. Big business. I can see why you wouldn’t go back to
Vizcaya.”
“My place is here, Bettu. I belong here.”
“Sometime ago you thought of running for the Senate. When does happen?”
“In good time. I seem to have the habit of being on the losing side. I’m a Democrata.”
“Now if you ran in Vizcaya, Democrata or not, you’d be representing the Cagayan Valley district.”
“That wouldn’t be honest, Bettu. I don’t even feel a part of Vizcaya any more. How could I ask the
people of the district to have me represent them? Besides, even if I applied for residence, I’m in no
condition to go around with a bad leg.”
“About the residence. Others have done it. Some of our senators live here in Manila and go to their
districts only for elections.”
“Because it’s done doesn’t make it right.” Before Lamberto left for Bayombong three days later, both
of them went to see Teodora in the dormitory. After the visit Hilarion said, “Tell Luisa not to worry about
Teodora. Great Christopher, man, she’s a grown-up person, none of your frail ladies, either. She’s
sensible–and besides, I’m here if she needs anything.”

CHAPTER 4
DURING THE FIRST FOUR MONTHS of Teodora’s stay in Manila, Lamberto made three trips
there on business. He was negotiating the lease on a thirty-thousand –hectare timberland concession, and
when he finally got the papers he arranged for machinery for a lumber mill. He personally supervised
hauling the machines from Manila to Dagupan to Bayombong by horse cart and carabao. It took nearly
two months foe all the parts to get to Bayombong. Early in the year he gave all of his time to the
installation of the mill in Maglaya, at the foothills of the Sierra Madre. As this was the only lumber mill
in the three provinces of the Cagayan Valley, Lamberto planned to distribute his lumber in all the towns
along the Magat River and even in certain towns in Isabela, where the Magat joined the Cagayan River.
Eventually, he might make Aparri, the seaport town of Cagayan at the mouth of the Cagayan River, the
depository of the lumber for export.
The mill was beginning to turn out the first pieces when, eleven months later, Lamberto received a
telegram from Hilarion: “Teodora married Primo Sandoval, my junior partner. They will come to see you.
Letter follows.”
Lamberto was speechless with rage. He pounded on the table sending the porcelain vase crashing to
the floor.
Luisa hurried out of the kitchen. “What is it, Bettu?”
He unclenched his fist and tossed the crumpled telegram on the table. “Within a single generation. A
poisoned generation!”

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 She sank into a chair without touching the balled-up paper. “Bettu, what are you talking about?”
“Well, read that.” She picked up the telegram, opened it. “For five years I had to work like a serf
before I could marry you. Now our daughter gets married without even telling us. Why? Can you tell me
why?”
“What do you mean, why?”
“Why she should marry this way. We have given her everything–and this is what we get.”
“It is partly your fault, Bettu.”
“My fault?”
“Yes. For sending her away. She could have just stayed home. I told you she’d had enough education.
But you wanted her to know how to sit, how to talk, how to walk. Look what you got.”
“That has nothing to do with it. Absolutely nothing at all. This is a matter of considerateness of
gratitude, of decency.”
“Do you suppose Hilarion had anything to do with it?”
“How do I know? And why would you, my own brother, do a thing like this to me?”
“Well, he isn’t the best influence, is he, with all those women he runs around with.” A week later the
promised letter came:
Relax, people. Primo Sandoval is a junior member of my law firm, the youngest member, twenty-five
years old. I didn’t know that he went out of his way to pay much attention to Teodora–you see, he is a
good-looking young man himself. Part Spanish–his grandfather was the overseer of some church
holdings. One week-end, early this year, I got Teodora out of the dormitory; she wanted to see where I
worked, among other things. Another time I asked Sandoval to pick up Teodora at her dormitory because
I was taking her out to sarsuela. Believe me, I had something very urgent to finish at the office or I would
have gone myself. That was six months ago. That must have been the start of it. They came to me the day
after they were married. I was angry. I’m tolerant about certain things, but marriage is this manner, no. I
asked them why they didn’t wait, why they didn’t write to you about it, why they didn’t tell me. Sandoval
works in my office and I’ve always treated him well. They didn’t want to make any fuss, they said. If they
went to Bayombong to ask you, they were afraid they may have to wait five years the way you did.
Sandoval naturally didn’t like the idea of doing servant’s work for five years. And it seems he loves
Teodora and wouldn’t wait. I said they should have at least told you bout it. There was no question about
your waiving the years of servitude, but they said–Teodora said so, too–it was too much without even
telling me anything.
I was going to throw Sandoval out of my office, but Teodora pleaded. You know how she is; in her
own quiet way she can be as compelling as her mother. What could I do? Besides, firing him wouldn’t
have helped; Sandoval is a brilliant lawyer, although that’s not why I’m allowing him to stay. I mean, if
he goes on working here, I can keep my eye on both of them. The only thing I asked them to do was go to
Bayombong to see you. They agreed to do that. But two days later Teodora came to me to stay they’d
wait for a while until you stopped being angry. She does not want to lose your love. Knowing her as well
as you, I’m asking you to look at all this from her side, to understand why she did it. I’m not condoning it
in the least. But don’t be too hard on them.
I can’t blame you for feeling, considering how you yourself had to wait for years. But Bettu, do you
remember that if it had been at all possible, you would have wanted a much shorter term, if not to have
the years of servitude waived altogether. I am asking you both to forgive Teodora and her husband…

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 Luisa and Lamberto could say nothing after reading the letter. It was not until after reading the letter.
It was not until after supper that Luisa brought it up again.
“Hilarion is right, Bettu. Let’s not be too hard on her.”
“I don’t want to see them, not in a month, not in a year.”
“What’s wrong with you, anyway? You were sending her to a finishing school so she would be able
to attract young men. Now that she has one–and a good one, according to Hilarion–now you refuse to
consider her side.”
He looked at her icily. “Are you siding with her now?”
“That’s not the point, Bettu. Just because you had to wait five years doesn’t mean Teodora had to.”
“You know as wee as I that the servitude was not the question. What matters is her lack of respect for
us.”
Although Luisa had been the one to conciliate Lamberto, when Teodora and her husband came two
months later, her own feelings were almost violent. Yet, when she had calmed down she treated her
daughter as though nothing had happened. Lamberto admired and respected her for that. He marvelled at
the friendly spontaneity with which she treated Primo, Teodora’s husband.
He was a colourless sort of a man, thin, almost emaciated, and very quiet. He seemed tense as though
staying out of his office was torture for him. Lamberto did not know how to treat him. After a week the
young couple left. He felt a relief, but also a vague sense that the tie between him and Teodora had been
weakened. The house seemed quieter than ever, and Luisa sat in her chair on the veranda for longer
periods, gazing at the ranges of the Sierra Madre. Then suddenly she would stand up and go into the
kitchen or down to the orchid house in the yard. Three long parallel sheds sheltered the largest collection
of orchids in the town. She was constantly examining them for worms or snipping off the diseased leaves,
spending hours cushioning varieties of potted vanda and phalaenopsis and cymbidium with slices of
osmundine, or sticking new shoots of the whip orchid into the spongy roots of an aerial forest fern
suspended from the branches of the avocado and santol trees that protected the house from the afternoon
sun. Resting from her work, she would lean back on the canvas lounging chair in the orchid house
kneading her forehead and temples with her fingers. For some weeks she had suffered from sudden
headaches that just as suddenly disappeared. A month or two after the visit of Teodora and Primo, Luisa
was her old self again.
For Lamberto home really meant being enveloped by the lively spirit of Luisa. More than ever now,
he turned to her as she gave warmth to the large empty house. Several months later she told him her
headaches had reoccurred. The town doctor couldn’t find anything wrong; he thought it might be her time
of life; women going through menopause suffered or imagined all sorts of ailments.
One afternoon, a year after Teodora’s marriage, when Lamberto had gone with his encargado to
inspect the construction of a new irrigation ditch, the servant Rufino came running up to him.
“Señor, come home at once. The Señora is sick. We called the doctor. He must be there now.”
When Lamberto got home Luisa was unconscious. “What is it, Doctor?”
“I can’t say just yet.”
“What happened, Rufino?”
“She was knitting those little things those glass holders and she called out, ‘Rufino’, and she said, I
cannot see, get my husband.” I sent Teban to get the doctor.”
Lamberto asked Dr. Celis to stay. Three hours later Luisa had not regained consciousness.

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 “Perhaps a clot in the brain,” the doctor said. “Or a tumor. I am not sure.”
“Is there anything you can give her?”
“I have no medicine for this kind of thing.”
“What can you do? What can we do?”
“I’m sorry. We’ll have to wait and see.”
“Wait! In God’s name, isn’t there anything we can get, send for in Manila, anywhere?”
“For sickness of this sort, Señora Alcantara, there’s a little that can be done.”
“Perhaps we should send a telegram to Manila to someone who knows what can be done.”
“We could try to get Dr. Antonio Flores.”
“A specialist.”
“He’s a professor at Santo Tomas, if anybody in the country knows anything about this, it’s Dr.
Flores.”
Dr. Celis wrote out the telegram himself, a long one, describing the headaches and other symptoms,
the coma, and asking Dr. Flores for instruction.
“If Dr. Flores has any medicine for Señora Isang,” he said, “is there a way to rush it here?” It will
take at least three days otherwise.”
“I’ll send another telegram to my brother. I’ll ask him to see Dr. Flores or any other specialist and
bring him here in Bayombong. I’ll send a team of horses to meet them in Dagupan.”
“In any case, we’ll lose more than twelve hours. The post office is already closed.”
“I’ll ask the postmaster to send this.” He wrote a note to the postmaster and sent Rufino with the two
telegrams. Lamberto called for Ifan and another tenant to be ready to leave with horses for Dagupan.
In a short time Rufino was back. The postmaster was going to try to send the telegrams. Lamberto
sent rufino back to ask the postmaster to keep trying, till midnight if necessary. The man tried all night,
but it was not till eight o’clock the next morning that the telegrams were received in Manila. At ten a
reply came from Hilarion. “Coming at once with doctor and medicine.”
But at seven that night, Luisa died.
It cannot be, Lamberto told himself, it cannot be. Through the night vigil over Luisa in the light of the
flickering candles, he saw her serene face and he could only cry out his disbelief. At times he thought he
saw her eyelids flutter and her bosom move. But each time he stood up to touch her forehead or to feel her
pulse again, her stiff cold flesh was a shock to him. He went back to his chair and closed his eyes but
Luisa was always in the opaque darkness. She lay fearfully straight and still and then she sat up and he
was following her swiftly up the winding stairs and when he caught up with her she was laughing, “Oh,
Bettu, you scared me, I thought you wouldn’t do it for me.” He strained to hear more, not opening his
eyes, but it was his father’s booming voice, saying “My son, you’ve got a woman there!” when he opened
his eyes there was Luisa lying awesomely still, her face was defined and remote, her mouth silent. He
wept.
The funeral was held the day after Teodora and her husband arrived; Hilarion had come the day
before. The horse-drawn carriage was the same one used for ‘Tan Lucas years before. Directly behind the
carriage were three acolytes in white cottas; the middle one carried the crucifix and the two others swung
the censers scattering the strong odour if incense. The new Belgian priest followed behind the acolytes.
He was a tall thin man in his early forties with along, narrow face that showed both austerity and

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mildness. Lamberto walked a few feet behind the priest; he was flanked by Hilarion and Teodora, with
Primo to their right. Following them were Luisa’s parents, Bacat Sencia and Wayi Floro, and then the
other relatives on both sides. The Alcantara tenants and many townspeople brought up the rear of the
procession. The cortege proceeded from the house to the church, where the requiem mass was said; and
then, its numbers swelled by groups of mourning townspeople, continued to the cemetery.
The street to the cemetry passed by Luisa’s parents’ house. Lamberto looked up and saw the empty
windows. His throat tightened as he thought of the occasions years before when two other processions
had led from his father’s house to Luisa’s, and the band music had been brisk and happy.
The grave had been dug in the family plot, beside ‘Tan Lucas’ tomb. Again Lamberto heard the
droning words of the priest, the somber Gregorian chant echoed by the choir in the late afternoon air. The
priest extended his hand to sprinkle holy water from a vessel held by an acolyte, and then the coffin was
lowered. The people waited for Lamberto to scoop up a handful of earth to drop on the coffin, as was as
the custom. But the only stood staring at the casket set in the bottom of the pit. Hilarion bent down to pick
up a bit of earth and placed it in his brother’s hand. Lamberto dropped it mechanically on the coffin. The
grave diggers then shovelled the loose earth back into the grave. In a moment the casket was gone. There
was a finality about it, and for Lamberto the world had ended.
Lamberto and Hilarion returned to an empty house. Relatives and friends came to participate in the
novena; after the prayers came the eating and drinking to crowd death out of the house was the quiet but
at sundown people began pouring in. Wayi Floro took charge; the tenant Ifan saw to the daily butchering
of one pig and two goats and a dozen of chickens to feed the people, but Wayi Floro supervised
everything. He herded the people into the sala and to the porch for the prayers, he herded them back into
the living room and kept order during the supper. He led in the games and served as arbiter in imposing
fines on the losers; the fines were exacted in the form of verses and even dance exhibitions.
“Sorry to say this, Bettu,” commended Hilarion, “but your father-in-law is a loathsome vulture. Of
course he’s not Luisa’s real father.”
After the nine-day wake, Teodora and Primo left.
Hilarion stayed with Lamberto for two months. The two men moved about the house quietly, not
talking much but finding comfort in each other’s company. They sat on the veranda facing the misty
ranges of the Sierra Madre far into the night. For Lamberto the numbing emptiness remained.

ON THE ANNIVERSARY of Luisa’s death Hilarion came to Bayombong and stayed two weeks. As
in the past, the two brothers spent most of their time on veranda smoking and talking little. While having
coffee on the first day Hilarion said, “Did Teodora tell you she’s going to have a baby? I dropped in at her
place three weeks ago, and she said she’s expecting the baby in seven months.”
“Yes, she wrote to me about it.”
“What do you want–a boy or a girl?”
“A boy, of course.”
“That’s what I want, too. A boy is so much less trouble. And I don’t want our race to die out.”
“You never did anything to prevent the possibility.”
“I have, Bettu. I have. In fact, more than you have. I would have gladly acknowledged any son or
daughter by any of the women I’ve had, and there have been quite a number of them. But no luck.”
Hilarion knocked off the ashes of his cigar on the ashtray. “We’re a dying line, brother. Look at you.

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After more than a quarter of a century you had only Teodora.”
The night before he returned to Manila, Hilarion said, “I suppose this is not the time to say this, but I
must speak. I think it is best for you to marry again, Bettu.”
Lamberto looked at Hilarion to see if he was joking, but his brother’s face was serious.
“I mean it, Bettu. It’s not desecrating the memory of Luisa. You’re the kind of man who must have
wife. A man your age–”
“I’m fifty this year, Hilarion.”
“Fifty isn’t old. I’m fifty-four. I don’t feel old.”
“No, Hilarion. You know that’s out of the question.”

TEODORA’S BABY WAS A GIRL. She invited Lamberto to the baptism but he couldn’t come. Six
months later she wrote to him: “You must come, Pang, to see Consuelo. Her features are more defined
now and don’t you know she looks like Mamang. Tio Hilarion comes to see us very often now. He also
says Consuelo looks like Mamang.”
A week later Lamberto arrived in Manila, and Hilarion was at Teodora’s house when he got there.
The baby was in the crib sleeping on her stomach. Hilarion turned her over.
He watched Lamberto’s face closely as he looked down at the baby. “What do you think, Bettu?”
“There is a certain resemblance. The mouth and the deep-set eyes, and the forehead, probably.”
“Not Probably. It is Luisa, Bettu. The face–the oval face, the eyebrows, and that chin. There’s a
dimple there, Luisa’s little cleft.”
“How do you know she won’t change when she grows older?”
“Why should she? If she does, it will be for the better.”
“What do you know about such things?”
“Teodora is an example.” Lowering his voice he went on, “You remember how she was. You had to
send her to convent school to be refined. Before the year had ended she got herself a husband. But she
does have a tendency to grow hefty like her grandmother Sencia.” Lamberto turned back to the baby
again. “She has a flat nose.” What do you think, Hilarion?”
“She’s a baby–all babies have flat noses, Teodora says. I think she’s right.” Lamberto had planned to
stay three or four days. He stayed three weeks.

WHEN THE NATIONAL HIGHWAY from Manila reached Bayombong, Lamberto bought a car so
that he could go to the city more often. Consuelo was seven then. At the supper table one night, with the
child seated next to him, Lamberto said, “You were right, Hilarion.” He tweaked the girl’s nose. “Her
nose isn’t flat at all.”
“It’s Luisa’s nose, all right,” said Hilarion.
Lamberto looked at his granddaughter with silent pride. “How do you suppose it happened? The
resemblance is incredible, Lolo?”
“Incredible, child, means hard to believe.”
“Why is it hard to believe I look like my grandmother? You and Lolo Hilarion look alike, too.”

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 “Do we now?”
“Yes. You have the same very big cheeks, too big for your face.”
Lamberto threw back his head and laughed. “Is that the only way we look alike, our big cheeks?”
“Oh yes, the eyebrows, too. You have a lot of hair above your eyes like the goblin that scared the
billygoats.” She added hastily, “but I’m not scared of either of you.”
“You have seen your grandmother’s picture, Consuelo?” Hilarion asked.
“O yes. She’s very pretty.”
“Don’t you think she was too pretty for your Lolo Bettu?”
She before she replied. “Yes, maybe. But I love Lolo Bettu and I love you, too Lolo Hilarion.”
On the porch after Consuelo had gone to bed Lamberto had a proposition to make. “I’d like to add
Luisa to Consuelo’s name.”
Hilarion withdrew the cigar from his mouth. When nobody spoke he said, “You named the child after
your mother, Primo. Do you have any objection?”
“I don’t know. Another name might just confuse the girl.”
“Why should it, Primo?” said Teodora. “I don’t object.”
“Well, I don’t know what you two fellows are up to. But I won’t object, if Consuelo comes first.”
Hilarion caught Bettu’s eye. “That’s reasonable enough. You won’t object if Bettu and I call her
Luisa?”
“I can’t do anything about it, can I?”
“What you can do, Primo,” said Hilarion, is to give us another grandchild. A grandson, if possible.”
Primo chuckled, and a chuckle came to him rarely. “I suppose I’d have to call him Hilarion
Lamberto.”
Not a bad idea,” said Hilarion quickly. “In that order, I’d insist. Seniority ought to count.”

A FEW YEARS LATER a group of Nueva Vizcaya politicians came to see Lamberto. He was
surprised because two of the men were leaders of opposing factions in the same party. One was Braulio.
Altavas, one of Hilarion’s trusted friends in the Revolutionary days. The other, a young man, was
Filomeno Saccal, whose father-in-law was Cabesa Julio Tomasa, a fellow Revolutionist.
Braulio spoke first. He was a spare, loose-jointed man whose scraggly eyebrows against a dark
leathery face seemed whiter than his shaggy hair. “As you know, Bettu, we represent the factions of our
Nacionalista Party in Vizcaya. You also know how the division came about when our governor decided to
accept the position of undersecretary of agriculture. Filomeno and I haven’t agreed on certain matters, and
any split in the party will mean our defeat in the elections next November. The liberals are stronger now.”
Altavas turned to his companions. “Let’s face the facts, gentlemen. The Liberals are getting stronger. And
what’s worse, they play all kinds of tricks. Unless we stop this bickering in our party we’ll be axed.”
“Braulio,” said Filomeno, “get to the point.”
“I am. The trouble with you, Filomeno, is that you are impatient. You’re young enough to be my son
and now you want to be governor.”
Alfonso, one of the Party Leaders, broke in quickly, sensing danger. “Now, Braulio, we’ve been
through all this before. Tell Bettu why we’re here.”

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 Braulio contained himself with an effort. “In this little group, Bettu, two are interested in becoming
governor next November. Frankly, I want to run. Everyone knows I have a larger following, much larger
than Filomeno’s.”
“Hold on, Braulio,” Filomeno protested, “you haven’t counted noses–”
“My friends,” said Alfonso, “we are not getting anywhere. Let me speak for all of us. You see, Bettu,
how it is with our party right now. The liberals will slaughter us. Unless–now we have agreed to have you
run for governor. That’s the only way to stop the party squabbles. That’s why were here.”
Lamberto did not show any surprise. “What about the convention next month? Why not let the
convention decide on the party’s candidate?”
“Bettu, we have discussed it over and over. But it’s no use. Neither Braulio nor Filomeno will respect
the decision of the convention, and if that happens, the rift cannot be healed. We’re asking you to run to
save the party.”
Lamberto looked thoughtfully at Alfonso. It was obvious that he was uncertain and far from a
decision, one way or the other. “Bettu, it was not easy for all of us to agree to see you about this.”
“My friends,” Lamberto shook his head, “you know I’m not a politician. I’ve never taken any interest
in any public office. I have my work–the farm and all.”
“That’s why we couldn’t agree on any other man. The fact that you’re not a politician is a strong
weapon against the liberals why have been harping on graft and corruption, real or imagined. I’m saying
this confidentially, gentlemen, because we have to admit there have been certain things our administration
shouldn’t have done.” Alfonso turned to Lamberto. “What do you say, Bettu?”
“I have someone in mind. A man we all respect. Not only is he interested in politics, he was once
governor of Vizcaya. What about my brother Hilarion?”
By the way they looked at one another Lamberto was sure they had already considered it.
Alfonso spoke again. “We didn’t choose him for the simple reason that he has long detached himself
from Vizcaya. He does not seem part of us any longer. Besides he has a huge income from his law
practice in Manila. The salary of a governor won’t interest him.”
“The salary would be of minor importance to Hilarion. And I wish to correct the other impression.
My brother belongs to Vizcaya, his heart is here. I ought to know that.”
Alfonso said righteously, “He hasn’t shown it to us.”
“There’s another thing,” said Braulio. “He’s not a Nacionalista any longer. He belongs to the
Progressivas.”
“But suppose,” said Lamberto, “he would run as guest Nacionalista, is that all right with you?”
Cristobal, the oldest man in the group, raised his hand to speak. “As far as I am concerned I have no
objections to Hilarion. He is a good man. Lamberto or Hilarion–either of them to save the party.”
“I can go to Manila tomorrow to see Hilarion,” Lamberto offered.
“Wait now, Bettu,” said Braulio. “We have not agreed on it yet.”
“We ask Hilarion to run as Nacionalista candidate.” Alfonso said emphatically. “Only on that
condition do we agree to it.”
“What if he is not agreeable?” said Filomeno.
“Then it’s Bettu,” said Alfonso. He turned to Lamberto. As a good Vizcayan you can’t refuse to serve

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the province. It’s time for you to stop stacking up money, Bettu, and serve the people for a change. You
owe it to the province. How about it?”
“I’m moved by your reproaches,” said Lamberto. “All right, I agree.”
The following morning he drove to Manila to consult with his brother. It would also be good to have
an excuse to visit his daughter and to see Luisa Consuelo again, now ten years old. He went straight to
Teodora’s house when he arrived in Manila, and Hilarion joined the family group at dinner. Afterwards
the two brothers were left alone over their coffee, and Lamberto spoke about the governorship.
“This is the one big chance for you, Hilarion, if you’re still thinking of the senate.”
“But I’m not a Nacionalista. I belong to the spit group, a minority. And I’m staying with my party.”
“But your group is still a part of the Nacionalista Party in a way.”
“No, Bettu it’s a different party. It’s independent now. Besides I’m being groomed to be a senatorial
candidate of the Naciolista Progresiva in the next election.’ Hilarion looked at his brother thoughtfully. “I
think you’ll make a fine governor, Bettu.”
“I don’t want it. That’s why I came. Is your decision final, Hilarion? How about a few days to
consider it?”
“No, Bettu, My decision is final.”
Before he left for Bayombong Lamberto invited Luisa to spend the Christmas vacation with him.
“I’d like to go, Lolo,” she turned appealingly to her father. “Pa–please. May I go?”
“Christmas is still two weeks away,” said her father. “You may go if you’re a good girl.”
“Couldn’t I go with Lolo now, Pa?”
“And your classes?”
“I can easily make up.”
“She can, too,” said Teodora with pride. “You’re number three in your class, aren’t you?”
“Number two. And I can still be number one.”
“Not if you skip classes,” Lamberto said.
“Lolo, I thought you wanted me to come along.”
“Yes, but wait till Christmas vacation.”
In the car on the way back to Bayombong it was not only the governorship that was on Lamberto’s
mind. He was seeing the miracle of Luisa living again in a ten-year-old girl.

CHAPTER 5
WHEN LAMBERTO ACCEPTED the nomination for governor, he knew about some of the
machinations that often take place behind the scenes of a political campaign; however, he did not know
how vile they could be until he himself was deeply involved.
At the first important rally of the liberals at the public plaza, he listened quietly on the fringed of the
crowd to hear what the opposition had to say. One of the speakers was Martin Golas, a member of the
provincial board. He was a dark, fat man whose protruding belly rubbing the flat from railing made him
look obscene.
“What kind of government can you expect from a man like Lamberto Alcantara? We know for a fact

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that this man did not want to run because he knows his own incompetence; however, he was seduced by
men of questionable integrity to run for an office which calls for the highest qualifications. What can you
expect of a man who has not had a day’s experience in government administration? Golas shook a fist and
all the rest of him shook as well. An aimless, incongruous gesture, Lamberto thought, and yet it seemed to
hit him in a physical way.
“In contrast, consider our candidate–who will be the next governor of Nueva Vizcaya. Fidel Mendoza
has risen from the municipal council of Bagabag, first to become the vice-mayor and then the mayor of
that town. Did he stop there? No. He became a provincial board member and then a provincial fiscal, and
after a brilliant career as government prosecutor of the grafters in the Nacionalista administration, Fidel
Mendoza became a congressman. He has had an enviable record in congress. What has Lamberto
Alcantara to show? Nothing, fellow citizens. Absolutely nothing. Zero. Oh yes, I almost forgot. He has
something to show. He has money. He and his family own one-fourth of the land of Bayombong and they
have various interests–ranches, rice and lumber mills, and timber concessions in our province. He has that
to show, but little more. In other words, Alcantara is the candidate of the landed, the rich, the privileged
class in this province. On the other hand, consider our candidate, our next governor, Fidel Mendoza. Who
were his parents? Aripans–serfs, whose status is no better than that of slaves. Of course the Mendozas
were not serfs of the Alcantara family. If that were so, Fidel Mendoza would not have been able to
become the man he is today. Fidel Mendoza is the candidate of the common people, of people like you
and me, who represent ninety-eight percent of the population of this province.”
Such arguments made Lamberto wonder if he had been naive about the social and moral climate he
had lived in all these years. He had never thought of himself as a feudal baron among his vassals. In fact,
he did not consider the aripans as “lower people.” Any Alcantara would be ashamed to think of himself as
“superior”.
In other speeches, Mendoza’s political leaders brought up Lamberto’s family history. One speech,
repeated in Bayombong, was made by Canuto Marola, who was the most relentless of Mendoza’s men.
He had no compunction about using any bit of information he could find.
“Let’s consider the two candidates from the standpoint of academic training. Fidel Mendoza is a
brilliant lawyer. From primary grades though law school he was always at the top of his class. In the bar
examinations he was fourth among more than the two thousand candidates. Can anybody in Nueva
Vizcaya match that record? Certainly not anyone in the Alcantara family. Take Lamberto Alcantara’s
own record. He did study, so we are told, in San Juan de Letran half a century ago. Did he finish the
course? No, he did not even get a bachelors degree, which was easy in those ancient days, if you had
money as the Alcantaras have. Why didn’t he get a degree? Fellow citizen, we are not dealing with very
interesting historical facts. Alcantara gave up getting a degree for a certificate of matrimony. And listen to
this, fellow citizens. How did he get his wife? By complete servitude, doing a servant’s work for seven or
eight years. And at the climax of his term, the woman who was to become his wife exacted yet another
demand. And what was the demand? That the Nacionalista governatorial candidate for Nueva Viscaya,
Lamberto Alcantara, should appear before the guests, including the woman who was to be his wife–he
was to appear with nothing on, nothing but a G-string.
“Fellow citizens, that is the kind of man the Nacionalistas would have you vote for your governor.
Such indignity- to parade at a public gathering wearing only a little strip of cloth! If he had a bone in his
spine, he wouldn’t have countenanced such a disgraceful demand from any woman. Take his brother
Hilarion. As we all know, he is not married because marriage means nothing to him. With all hgis money
he can buy his meat. Even Hilarion has lost count of the number of women he has had–harlots really.

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 “But going back to Lamberto Alcantara. Who was this woman who forced him to disgrace himself in
public? She was not one of us. She was a Castilla, and not the best of her kind either. Her father was a
common Spanish soldier who shot many of our ancestors.”
Lamberto walked home in anger at the vicious degradation of his private life. So this was it, he
thought, and no escape from it now. He was no man to retreat. And certainly not from unprincipled
rascals who would stoop to despicable tactics.
Resting in his lounging chair on the veranda, he felt calmer. The servant Rubio brought him a glass of
sherry. A pale quarter moon was tipping near the rim of one of the highest peaks of Sierra Madre. The
sultriness earlier in the day was now relieved by the cool air drifting down from the mountains. The wine
had dissipated his anger; indeed, he chuckled at the lies told about the details of his servitude and the
reference to the G-string.

SEEN FROM THE DISTANCE of nearly half a century, the end of his years of servitude in the house
of Luisa had truly been absurd. The marriage itself had been precipitated by a funny situation which tool
place several months before the end of the five years of servitude. A few weeks after his release from
prison, he saw her still puttering around her flower beds in the yard. Somehow the picture of casual
unconcern which she presented made him furious, especially after the maddening way she had entertained
the attentions of Mesa, the young Spanish Captain of the guardia civiles who, against all Gaddang
tradition, had proposed to her even he knew she was promised to Lamberto.
Aware that both Bacat Sencia and Wayi Floro were nowhere around, Lamberto approached her.
Evidently Luisa saw the purpose in his steps.
“Yes, Bettu?”
It was the sound of her voice, the way she straightened up and looked at him coolly–he’d teach her to
bedevil him! He got his hard arms about her, fully expecting a struggle; he was surprised when she did
not protest. He recovered promptly and kissed her and was even more surprised that she took it calmly.
Why, the witch was letting him kiss her as though it was the most natural thing in the world!
Suddenly she pushed him away. “Bettu! You’re just a big bull–“
“Oh, am I?” and he held her again.
“You’re disgracing me. Let me go, you–“
“They aren’t here, Isang. That dragon mother of yours isn’t here to stop me.”
“Brute! I’m not married to you!”
She broke free. She stood far from him, her face was flushed and for once she couldn’t meet his eyes
with her quick and level gaze. She couldn’t stand his gloating triumph.
“Whoever thought–! Where did you learn such manners, Bettu? In Manila?”
“Maybe. But one question, Isang. And I want an honest answer.”
She looked at him, more curious than angry now.
“What does the Spanish captain mean to you?”
She burst out laughing. She had completely recovered her self-control. “What do you think?”
“I’m asking you.”

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 “And suppose I don’t answer, what then?”
“I know what to do.” He was advancing toward her.
“Now, Bettu–“
“So?”
She spun away and ran. She turned in at the door and flew up the front stairs, but he was at her heels.
She raced across the sala and into her room, but before she could slam the door he had caught her. She
struggled in earnest, but his arms were tight around her and he kissed her repeatedly. He could feel her
heart beating and suddenly her arms went up and tightened about his neck. After a while he pushed her
head back and searched her dark smouldering eyes.
“Now, Isang, what about Captain Mesa?”
“Idiot–a hopeless–“
“Luisa!” Bacat Sencia, scandalized, cried out from the door.
Lamberto and Luisa separated awkwardly.
“Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves behaving like this–you, Luisa, running like a shameless wanton
and you, Lamberto, chasing her like a maniac?”
Neither of them could say word. It would only feed the ire of the horrified Bacat Sencia, and so they
remained silent.
“This is never done. People will talk about it. This house is dishonoured. I will tell Floro about this.
He must do something.”
The Bacat was as good as her word. That same night after supper Wayi Floro was at Captain Lucas’
house. Even before Wayi Floro had appropriated the most comfortable chair on the veranda, from which
to deliver his complaint, ‘Tan Lucas and Hilarion knew something was wrong. Lamberto had not told
them anything and was remarkably quiet. In the frosty light of the chandelier Wayi Floro’s little old face
looked like an unhappy gnome’s.
“Something happened at our house today, Compadre,” Wayi Floro blurted out. ”My wife told me
about it. I come because something must be done about it.”
They contemplated the old man’s indignant quivering whiskers silently.
“My Sencia said she came home and found Bettu holding Luisa–in a compromising way.”
Hilarion burst out laughing.
“This is no laughing matter, Hilarion,” Wayi Floro snapped.
Hilarion turned to his father, but ‘Tan Lucas said nothing and his face was sternly composed.
“Exactly what were you doing, Bettu?” Hilarion asked.
“Just what Wayi Floro said–holding Luisa.”
“Is that all?”
“That is all.”
“But Wayi Floro said, in a compromising manner. It must have been serious or Wayi Floro wouldn’t
have come.”
“Well–I was holding her.”
“Well, go on.”

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 “That’s all there was to it.”
“Well, Wayi, what’s compromising about that? Were you holding her close, Bettu?”
“What’s the difference?” said Lamberto. ”Anyway Luisa didn’t mind.”
Hilarion turned to Wayi Floro and spoke gravely. “There seems to be nothing to worry about, Wayi.
Nothing at all. ”
Wayi Floro looked affronted. “Don’t say that, Hilarion. It simply is not done. That sort of thing is just
not done. What makes it worse is that Bettu took advantage of our absence from the house. What would
people say? They would think that Sencia and I were consentodores.”
It was the old man’s outraged manner that made Hilarion needle him.
“Look, Wayi, Bettu and Luisa are almost married, after all these years.”
“They are not yet married, that is the point!” He added, “I didn’t want to say anything about it, but
Sencia found them in Luisa’s room–“
“Wait now, Wayi. Is this true, Bettu?”
“It wasn’t like that–“
“Are you saying, Bettu, that my wife was lying?”
The quiet tone of Tan Lucas cut into the near-screech of Wayi Floro. “What do you propose then,
Compadre? Because you see, I doubt if Bettu and Luisa can promise they won’t do it again. If I might
state the obvious, you were young once, Compadre, and you know how these things can happen.”
They could see Wayi Floro visibly pulling himself together. “I propose that they get married, before
anything worse happen, in a few months, by the end of September, to be exact, Bettu will have completed
the fifth year of his servitude.”
The next day ‘Tan Lucas wrote out a formal letter to Wayi Floro asking him to set the date for the
second pa-unek. He wrapped the letter in the prescribed silk handkerchief and had it delivered to the
house of his distraught compadre.
Wayi Floro’s prompt reply gave ‘Tan Lucas only three days to prepare the pa-unek.
More pigs, goats, and chickens were butchered than had been at the first proposal five years before;
and the procession of food-laden servants and tenants’ wives and their daughters trooping to the house of
Wayi Floro was longer and more impressive. There were ten men bearing the roasting poles strung
through with the lechonadas, a dozen pots of caldereta a richly-spiced preparation of goat meat, baskets
and baskets of chicken dishes and rice, and three dozen bottles of basi and Pedro Domecque. As in the
first procession five years earlier, ‘Tan Lucas, flanked by his two sons, led the group of relatives
marching behind the blaring band. The old man walked with head held high because to his right was
Hilarion, the governor of the province, and to his left was Lamberto, the conqueror of the prettiest girl in
Vizcaya.
“No funeral marches.” he had instructed the band.
“This is the end of my son’s servitude.”
This time Luisa moved among the guests, even helped to served them. She wore the traditional full
ankle-length skirt with large designs of blue-green leaves; it was topped by a long-sleeved camisa and a
panuelo of delicate jusi.
The Alcantara men were elegantly attired. Lamberto was in a formal barong of very sheer pina cloth
and he wore dark blue woollen trousers. For the first time he felt he now had right to Luisa. As he

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watched her move among the guests, he knew this feeling did not come from the fact that the second
proposal was at hand: it all went to the incident that afternoon, three days before. This new sense of
mastery was bubbling inside him now. He felt he deserved all this and more after the long years of
subjugation and trial.
When everyone had eaten and the wine was starting to enliven the talk, Wayi Floro clapped his hands
and called for attention. “My brothers and friends, I ask your help. I want you to form a circle in the sala.
We will soon bring to a finish what was begun five years ago. There, now, we make a second circle
around the first one. The folks in the second circle will have to stand. You see, we have a humble house
and cannot accommodate you all comfortably. In the house of my esteemed Compadre Ukat it is different
thing. My friends, forgive me and my family for the discomforts of our miserable abode.”
Wayi Floro paused for a drink in the murmur of approval from his relatives. “We are about to
celebrate the union of two young people and two families. My family will soon give one of our blood in
marriage to a son of Capitan Lucas Alcantara. Within my memory our family has had none fairer, I am
proud to say.”
Luisa’s people applauded heartily; Wayi Floro allowed the noise to die down. “Lamberto Alcantara
has proved his devotion to Luisa by the faithful way in which he has fulfilled the years of servitude. The
five years of willing service also proved that Bettu is now ready to assume the serious duties of a
husband. There are a few months left of the stipulated time. If a criminal in the penitentiary is rewarded
by a reduction of years of imprisonment for good behaviour, there is no reason why Bettu shouldn’t be
granted the same consideration.” Wayi Floro paused to savor his inspired analogy. “We have decided to
waive the remaining months in recognition of Bettu’s devotion and because we have seen that Bettu is
most desirous, in fact he is most impatient, to have Luisa for his wife.”
Hilarion nudged his brother so violently in the side that Bettu made a strangled sound in his throat,
and Wayi Floro glowered at him.
“And so,” concluded Wayi Floro,
“In consideration of all this, we have decided to set the date of marriage three days from today.”
There were pleased exclamations from Lamberto’s folks.
Wayi Floro waved his hands again to quiet the gathering. “One more thing before I am done. We also
feel that before we finally give Luisa away, it is only fair that she be asked to name her last maidenly
wish.”
The expectant silence was broken by ‘Tan Lucas. “Whatever my lovely daughter-in-law-to-be should
ask, if it is in our power to give, we will be happy to give it.”
Applause came from the relatives on both sides.
“Now let us hear Luisa,” said Wayi Floro.
“Speak up, Luisa.”
Luisa was embarrassed. She remained quiet in her chair.
“Come now, Isang,” urged Wayi Floro. “There must be some little thing you want before you become
Bettu’s wife. Diamond earrings maybe,” he whispered, “or a necklace.”
Luisa raised her head and rubbed her hands together. The air was tense with waiting.
“I wish,” she said, quite boldly now, “I wish that Bettu would walk before us–with nothing on–except
a G-string.”

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 If a thunderbolt had suddenly struck someone dead in the room, the effect of her words could not
have stunned them more. Even Wayi Floro, who had the most reason to cackle at Lamberto’s
discomfiture, scowled at her.
Everyone turned to Lamberto. He sat there in the midst of the suddenly leering people and he
clamped his teeth like a vise to hold back the torrent of his rage.
‘Tan Lucas spoke. “Luisa, my family will discuss this in another room.” And he grasped Lamberto’s
shoulder and led him away. They were followed by their relatives.
They had hardly left the sala when Lamberto exploded. “No! I’m not going to be insulted!” he struck
his clenched fist on the wall. “No! I’ll struggle her first!”
‘Tan Lucas made futile remarks. “Now, now, Bettu. Mad impulses only end in catastrophe. Let us
keep calm.”
Lakay Agaton, first cousin of Tan Lucas and the bearer of the proposal letters, quickly advised, “Your
father is right, Bettu. You must remember that you have labored for five years to marry this girl. If you
didn’t love her, you would have given her long ago. Don’t throw away in a moment what for five years
you have toiled for.”
“This is an insult to me and to every one of you. Do you ignore that?”
“You should look at it from another side,” spoke Ama Kulat, his dead mother’s second cousin.
“She has the blood of a Castilla, a Basque, and who knows this maybe the custom in the land of her
father.”
“I hadn’t considered that,” Lakay Agaton hastily agreed. “It’s not a disgrace after all, looking at it that
way. You must give in, Bettu. And besides, what will people say if you don’t marry Luisa after all this
years?”
‘Tan Lucas looked long and rather cryptically at his son. “We have our honour to uphold, Bettu,
because I have given my word. We must submit to this girl’s wish.
“You know, Bettu,” said Hilarion, chuckling, “Luisa is a most interesting girl. She’ll make life very
lively for you.” He winked at his brother. “Her request is a good sign.” He slapped his brother’s shoulder
and said lightly, “It’s your fault. Five years, and you didn’t give her more proof of your manhood.”
Finally Lamberto give in.
The older people sat in embarrassed silence when he walked into the sala wearing only a G-string.
The young snickered and the few children laughed openly. Lamberto glared at Luisa. She looked at him,
from his feet to his hairy legs and strong naked torso, his deep chest curved like cymbals, at his muscled
arms, and then she dropped her eyes. He and Hilarion both saw the smile at the corners of her mouth.
Three days later Lamberto and Luisa were married. ‘Tan Lucas had planned to give the most
impressive and expensive wedding ever known in the province, but he changed his mind because of the
ordeal his son had been forced to endure. Eight cows and fourteen pigs, ten goats, besides dozens of
chickens, had been fattened, because he had planned to invite all the important people of Bayombong and
the neighboring towns, but on the eve of the wedding six cows and ten pigs and half of the goats had been
released, and only three dozen chickens were slaughtered. Wayi Floro and Luisa’s relatives had expected
a three-day celebration, and were disappointed with the scantiness of the wedding feast.
On the weeding night, when they were finally alone, Lamberto demanded,
“Why did you ask me to do it?”

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 She threw up her head and laughed.
“You scared me, Bettu. You got me scared.”
“What do you mean?”
“I thought you’d embarrass me.”
“Embarrass you?”
“Yes, by not complying.”
“Suppose I hadn’t given in.”
“That’s what scared me. Because I know you’re stubborn bull. But I would have swallowed my pride,
Bettu. I’d have married you just the same.”
He picked her up and held her with all the passion and the hunger of five years’ waiting.
“But that was not all, was it? Why, Isang, why did you ask that?”
“Oh, just a curious whim.” she smiled with mischief. “Who’d want a husband with some infectious
disease or something above his knees?”

LATER THE SAME MAN who had spoken about Lamberto’s public exhibition in a G-string
appeared at a rally in another town wearing a large, heavy bandage on his face, “I, Canuto Marola,” he
said, I want to show you what happens when you expose the truth, fellow countrymen. Certain people
cannot face the truth. A few nights ago, after I had delivered a speech about the Nacionalista candidate for
governor in which I talked of his incompetence, I was walking home when I was attacked by hired
criminals. They beat me up. I come here to show you this battered face, because I want you to see what
happens when you speak the truth. This indicates the kind of reign of terror you will live in if you elect a
man like Lamberto as governor. If you want to be treated like cattle, then elect him. If you want to be
pushed around, then he is your man. If you want a tyrant and a dictator, vote for Alcantara. As for me,
fellow citizens, I will speak the truth no matter what happens. They will have to kill me before they can
silence me.”
Early the following morning, Braulio Altavas met with a group of Nacionalista leaders at Lamberto’s
home. Braulio was in a vindictive mood.
“If you did it, Bettu, good for you. It’s the only way to handle some liars.”
“You think I did it?”
“Beating up that man of Fidel Mendoza might lack finesse, but the lesson is there. He’s sporting a
bandaged face.”
“He said I hired men to beat him up. And you say good for me? The man deserves to put out of
commission.”
“I’m glad he’s telling the public–and exhibiting himself.”
“Well, I didn’t do it,” Lamberto said abruptly.
At the same time he wondered if he was capable of hiring men if angered enough.
“Of course you wouldn’t do it, Bettu” said Braulio. “But somebody did.”
Lamberto suddenly became violently angry. “I’d like to bash in his face myself. Sorry, friends, I
didn’t hire anyone to beat him up.”
Braulio laughed as though at an unexpected discovery. “Clever. Very clever. I’ll bet there is nothing

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under that bandage. For sheer ingenuity and brazenness you can’t beat that. The man’s a genius. This is
what I propose. We’ll bring that man to court. We can have the judge issue a summons–and then we’ll
find out.”
The man was summoned and as Braulio had suspected there was not a scratch on his face. Braulio
and his group dragged the man from one town meeting to another under threat of a libel suit and an actual
beating. He was displayed to the public with the bandage on his face, and then it was removed to show
how far the Liberals would go to besmirch the name of an election candidate.
The incident did much for the Nacionalista campaign, but Lamberto’s leaders were not resting on it.
They thought up strategic moves that challenged, amused, or confounded Lamberto. At one of their
caucuses Alfonso, one of the party leaders, came up with some hard facts.
“Bettu, we must have the barrio of La Mano by all means. There are two hundred fifty voters there.
And it’s controlled by two brothers who have influence, but don’t have any fixed party loyalty.”
“We all know that,” Lamberto said. “But how can we do it?”
“Buy the votes.”
Just like that. Go to the market and buy so many cabbage heads, thought Lamberto.
Alfonso was looking intently at Lamberto.
“Five pesos for each vote–and of course a satisfactory arrangement for the brothers.”
“And you think everyman there will sell his vote for five pesos?”
“Some for less.”
“I see, “said Lamberto coldly. “And how do you know a candidate will get their votes?”
Alfonso laughed. “Bettu, you’re an innocent. That’s why you’ll win. But we must have La Mano.”
“All right, I’m a simpleton. But how can you tell they’ll write my name on the ballot?”
“By some agreed a countersign, Bettu. It’s done all the time.”
“That doesn’t mean a thing. We all know it’s downright wrong.”
“Don’t you think the Liberals are doing it? It’s standard procedure. You know they’re pouring money
into this thing.”
And so Lamberto bought the votes of La Mano, and of more voters in seventeen other barrios.
A few weeks before the election Braulio Altavas warned Lamberto that they would need armed men
in Bambang for the election.
“The Liberals know they’re going to lose there and they’re hiring goons to scare our men away from
the polls.”
“That would mean bloodshed if we have armed people there.”
“Maybe–maybe not. If the Liberals start something we want to be able to give it back to them. If we
don’t have the men, Bettu, we might as well give the whole thing up right now.”
Armed men were hired for Bambang and eleven other places in Vizcaya. But as fast as a problem was
solved, others sprang up. One evening Celso Infante came to Lamberto’s house with Filomeno Saccal and
two other party leaders. Infante was the Nacionalista mayor of Kayapa. A sly specimen, Lamberto
decided, taking immediate dislike to the lean eager fellow and his lash less eyes.
“We have a problem in my town.” The Kayapa mayor, a gaunt man of forty-two, was an alert,
business-like vulture. On the left side of his chin a repulsive patch of hair almost three inches long grew

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on a mole as big as a corn kernel. Lamberto could not help staring at the mole and its wagging growth of
hair. Infante reached up to touch it briefly and attempted a laugh. “It’s a sort of talisman, you know.” This
was his usual explanation; the actual reason was his fear that trimming the hair might cause the mole to
turn malignant.
Seriously he said, “I have done the best I could for the people of Kayapa. I have built them a dam to
protect their crops and their houses and their lives. Other mayors had promised the dam, but I finally gave
it to them. Now I’m afraid the Liberals might win by a big margin.”
Lamberto knew why the Kayapa people would not want Infante back to their mayor. The man
received a large continuing share from the town cockpit and he was responsible for the two other week
days, in addition to the usual Sunday cockfights allowed by the law. He also received cuts from mah-jong
and card games which he had legalized; his wife owned the electric plant and her rate was higher than
those in neighboring towns. Lamberto was careful not to mention any of this. Instead he forced himself to
treat the matter strictly as a political problem.
“Do you have any plans,” he asked, “to offset the Liberal majority in your town?”
Infante did not speak; he just nodded at Filomeno Saccal to take over.
Filomeno Saccal’s face was a study. “Kayapa, as you know, is a crucial place, Bettu. In the last three
provincial elections the town seems to have made the difference. We get the election result from Kayapa
last because it’s the farthest Vizcaya town from Bayombong. It was the Nacionalista majority in Kayapa
that made the difference for our last governor.”
“What’s on your mind?” Lamberto had sensed something and was cautious.
Again the Kayapa mayor looked at Filomeno significantly.
“Bettu,” said Filomeno, “What we have in mind may shock you. In any election one has to be
extremely realistic.”
In spite of himself the edge of Lamberto’s temper showed itself. “What do you propose?”
“It has to do with the dam that the mayor built for Kayapa.”
Lamberto did not help and Saccal plunged on.
“As you know, the dam controls the economy of about half the population of Kayapa. In the past
whoever promised to build the dam got the people’s votes.”
“Well, the mayor here built it and he should get the votes.”
“We’re thinking the dam might have to be built again.”
Lamberto thought he could discern the pattern of an ugly scheme. “You mean it is in adequate and
should be enlarged or improved.” He directed the question at Infante.
The man looked at Filomeno but Lamberto said quickly,
“I’m asking your opinion, Mayor.”
“The dam is good enough for the needs of Kayapa.”
“But a moment ago–“
“It’s like, Bettu. The people of Kayapa know that mayor Infante, having built the dam, can build it
again. As I said we have to win in Kayapa for you t o win as governor.”
“You said that before,” Lamberto said dryly.
“To win,” said Filomeno, “We use any means within our power.”

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 “Go on.” I’ve been waiting for one of you to suggest something specific.”
“I go back to the dam. We destroy the dam and blame the Liberals for it.”
“It took some time to get around to it, Filomeno, didn’t it? I thought I knew what you were suggesting
but I wanted you to say it. You’ve learned the tricks at a frightful pace. In no time you could even teach
the old hands who have absolutely no hesitation about what they do. Buy the votes here; put armed
hoodlums there–as simple as that. But destroying the dam–I don’t want anything to happen to dam. And
before I lose my temper I want to end this interview.”
Three days later the dam was dynamited; the ripening rice fields were flooded and part of the ton
center itself. Mayor Infante lost no time in broadcasting the perfidy of the Liberals. Lamberto called for
Filomeno at once.
“I had nothing to do with it, Bettu, absolutely nothing. My stake in this election isn’t as big as yours.
Believe me, I knew your stand on it and I wouldn’t betray you.”
Lamberto took Filomeno to Kayapa. Closeted with the mayor in Infante’s house, Lamberto did away
with preliminaries.
“You’d really do anything to win, wouldn’t you? You would cheat and lie and destroy to hold on to
your mayorship. Infante, you’re going to have to pay a high price for that dam. These are the things you
will do and you’ll announce it at a town meeting tonight. First, you will tell the people you won’t receive
your salary beginning this month and though all three years of your incumbency, if you’re re-elected.
You’ll tell them your salary will go to rebuilding the dam. Second, effective this month, you’ll reduce the
electric light rates–same as the neighboring towns. Third, effective this month, all kinds of gambling will
be out-lawed. Fourth, cockfighting will be held only on Sundays. Fifth, you will promise the town two
hundred cavans of palay for seeding.”
“And if I don’t do it?”
“Then you’ll stay in prison for the next twenty years.”
“You can’t prove I did it.”
“It won’t be hard for Filomeno and me to prove it, and I’ll be happy to spend money of my own to put
you in jail. I can send the wire now to the provincial constabulary and the fiscal to have you arrested.”
Lamberto stood up. “You prefer to take this up in court, Infante?”
“Now, Señor Alcantara. So you set yourself up as judge and jury. And how do you go about it, tell
me. What we talked about a few days ago won’t hold up in court.”
“Then we will have the court decide the issue. Come, Filomeno, we’re going to the post–office “
“Wait! We have to talk this over. Considering that you belong–“
“You know the conditions. Simple, Infante. Agree, or face the court.”
“And you think you are dispensing justice. You’re mistaken, Señor Alcantara, If you think your
dictatorial manner is serving the name of justice.” And slyly, “How do you know you haven’t imposed
too little or too much?”
“Not too much: the replacement of the dam and the attempt to compensate for the destruction of the
people’s crops or twenty years in jail.”
“Where will I get the palay for seeding?”
“That’s your problem.”
“Am I allowed a few days to think it over?”

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 “We’re giving you only until tonight. I want your municipal band to go around the town this
afternoon with an announcement about the public meeting. There should be a large crowd in the plaza.
Filomeno and I will be on the platform with you. In fact I’ll make a speech myself after you have
spoken.”
The mayor clutched at straws. “About the cockfights and the gambling, the people want it. If we stop
them we’ll lose many votes.”
“I don’t mind losing the votes of gamblers. You will agree to all five conditions.” And the two men
left the mayor’s house.
“Bettu,” said Filomeno when they were on the street, “I never saw a more scared man.”
“He had better be.”
“Suppose he tricks you?”
“How?”
“Suppose he decides not to run, seeing that as mayor he’ll get nothing.”
“He’ll have to go to court.”
“Suppose he runs, but supports the other side secretly?”
“Then the man wants to go to jail.” Lamberto said simple, “Rascals like him can understand only the
big stick.”
“All right, so he decides to go to court and drag us with him.”
“Huh. That would be a fight, wouldn’t it?” Lamberto looked Filomeno, who looked worried. “What
do you think?”
“It could cost you the governorship.”
“Don’t worry, man. Don’t worry.”
There was a large crowd in the public plaza, mostly because of the news that the Nacionalista
candidate for governor was going to speak.
The mayor looked flushed as he faced the crowd. Before going up to the platform Lamberto had
smelled alcohol on Infante’s breath and he wondered if the mayor could talk straight. Infante’s hands
were heavy on the concrete railing as he leaned forward as though to whisper to the crowd. When he
finally opened his mouth Lamberto was startled, for the mayor had a round booming voice.
“In the long history of Kayapa,” Infante was saying, “people have talked about building a dam to
protect us from floods. Mayors of the Liberal party have promised to give you a dam, and their words
remained mere promises. I, too, promised a dam when I ran for the mayorship three years ago, and I gave
you a dam. Now that my term is nearly over some criminals, probably hired by the Liberals in this town,
have destroyed the dam to discredit me in their most vile attempt to put me out of office. Where can you
find a more shameless act of villainy? Not only was government property destroyed but your property and
mine. Fellow citizens: your crops and mine were ruined. I pledge to you, fellow citizens of Kayapa, that
as builder of that dam I shall use all the strength that I command to find the culprits among the Liberals of
this town, and once I get them they will have to pay the full penalty of the law.”
Lamberto and Filomeno looked at each other calmly as Infante pulled out a magenta-colored
handkerchief from his trousers’ pocket and mopped his sweating face and neck.
“But more than that, I believe that the mayor of a town is the father of its people and especially so in
times like this. I promise, in the presence of two of our men of the province, Filomeno Saccal and Señor

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Lamberto Alcantara–I say in the presence of these two worthy men that if you return me to the mayorship
and if you give your votes to Señor Alcantara for governor, I pledge to you the following: first, that my
salary beginning this month through the three years of my term as mayor of Kayapa will be used to
rebuild the dam.”
There were shouts of approval although many in the crowd looked disbelieving.
“Nobody has made that promise before,” went on Infante, “and I doubt that any other mayor after me
ever will. What I promise, I do.”
Studying the faces of the crowd Lamberto wondered if any of them suspected that Infante had that
dam blown up. The few who had shouted were unmistakably rabid Infante men.
“In the second place, in the presence of the two illustrious men with me, I promise to donate two
hundred cavans of seed palay to those farmers affected by the flood–although I am one of the victims
myself.”
The shouts of approval grew only slightly. The mayor was not happy at the unappreciative attitude of
the crowd, and Lamberto himself to get uneasy.
Infante plunged on to a general statement about the electric rates. The crowd perked up. “Especially
after the destruction of the dam, people of Kayapa, I feel that we must share each other burdens. My heart
bleeds for your misfortune. And my gesture of personal concern for the communal tragedy is to reduce
the electric rates starting this month. And I will see that this reduction is continued while I am your
mayor.”
There was more applause this time and the mayor paused again to wipe his face.
His proposals to stop all kinds of gambling and to abolish cockfighting on Saturday an on other
weekdays were received with mixed reactions. “I wish to mention to you, people of Kayapa. That these
last two proposals were suggested by Señor Alcantara, who feels that gambling should minimized here so
our people can give more time to honest work. Perhaps Señor Alcantara will explain this himself when he
speaks to us tonight.”
The man was wily, thought Lamberto; he took care of his skin first and foremost.
“I am very much impressed,” Lamberto told the crowd when it was his turn, “by the promises of your
mayor. I will spend money of my own to advertise his promises and have them displayed in posters in all
the barrios of Kayapa. These promises, five of them, could very well serve as his political platform in this
election. And it is interesting that he promises to put these things into effect this month. He does not even
wait till he is re-elected. This proves his sincerity. I wish to remind you that this has not been done before,
and as I said I am greatly impressed. I also add that I am deeply touched. Mayor Infante’s promise
challenges me to do something myself. Two little things: first, I will match the mayor’s two hundred
cavans of seed palay with two hundred of my own, and I will have it delivered to you before the election
time which only two weeks away.”
Lamberto paused to let the applause subside. This was not going to be a wasted meeting after all, he
thought. “People of Kayapa, this is the second thing: If you vote for me as governor I will give my first
year’s salary as governor to the rebuilding of your dam.”
He was interrupted by a resounding cheer.
“I can’t promise you my three year’s salary because I need the rest of it to help the people in other
towns. Also this: as soon as I get elected I’ll advance the money for the dam, and you won’t have to wait
twelve months for it. In other words, the three years’ salary of your mayor and mine for one year will go

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toward the total amount which I promise you will be appropriated by the provincial government to rebuild
your dam. Both your mayor and I will put all these promises in writing, so there will be no going back on
our world.”
In the car to Bayombong Filomeno was all praises.
“Your political reflexes, Bettu, are instinctive. You can compromise like a veteran. You learn fast.
Only you could enable the Nacionalistas to win this election in Vizcaya.”
A week before the election the Nacionalista leaders asked him to provide to trucks for every Vizcaya
town: “To bring the voters to the polls, Bettu. We don’t want anyone going astray.”
On election day, his ranch in Solano was depleted by forty cows to supply from four to six cows to
every town. Feeding the voters helped them vote for the right candidates.
Lamberto won by a frightening margin of only 157 votes. Mayor Infante squeaked through by only 89
votes in Kayapa. Five Liberals and two Nacionalistas were killed in gun and bolo fights. Lamberto had
spent one hundred thousand pesos of his own money to gain the shaky margin.
After the election he went to Manila to see Hilarion.
“It was worth it,” he said.
“I’d have spent more, if only to protect our family honor.”
Hilarion gave him a knowing look.
“They dragged our names in the mud, Hilarion–you, Papang, myself, even Luisa. They called me
names. They accused me of being incompetent. I was ready to spend more, just to prove that I can run the
province as well as anybody.”
“And the Liberals are protesting the election results.”
“I don’t think they have a chance.”
“How do you feel, Bettu?”
“Oh great. I want to start running the province.”
“Fine. No scars then. Those seven dead men–it couldn’t be helped. In fact it’s a good statistical
average, like five cows to every town. And that business of the dam in Kayapa.”
“I don’t think I care for this kind of talk.”
“I’m taking about scars. You won, good. But the other things are not exactly meaningless.”
“If you mean I had anything to do with the killing, you’re wrong. And you do me an injustice. They
played dirty. We were forced to play their game. That I admit. But you can’t wipe up mud without getting
your linen dirty. You have to start spading or it piles up on you. An eye for an eye, that’s our kind of
politics. You turn the other cheek and you get exactly what you ask for. I didn’t want to get slapped
twice.”
“That thing about the dam, why did you do it, Bettu?”
“Brother, I didn’t want to be governor that badly. I told them that. But the three days later Infante
blew it up, anyway. In the presence of Filomeno I gave him an ultimatum. Either court indictment or
some really high-class philanthropy.”
Lamberto told him the five conditions he had imposed on the Kayapa mayor.
“That does not exculpate Infante and you know it. Knowing the crime without exposing it makes you
an accessory. That’s the law, Brother.”

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 “You’re right–legally. But I had to work the situation for what I could. Rogues like that slip out too
quickly. When your law can’t move fast enough somebody has to tie them up good and hard. Even my
first year’s salary goes to help rebuild the dam.”
“That does not excuse you in the slightest. I know what I'm talking about.”
“What are you getting at?”
“Let me just mention this. My book on corporation law brings in money because corporations come
to me. But lawyers in the country know me for my book on criminal procedure. Those seven who were
killed, and that business of the dam–I Wouldn’t want to have to defend the criminals in court.”
“Is this a threat?”
“No, Brother, you are in no trouble at all. The murderers of the five Liberals, even if they were
convicted, wouldn’t stay long in prison. Your Nacionalista administration–presidential clemency and all
that–will take care of the scoundrels some Christmas and the spirit of goodwill. This is the usual practice.
And you’re in no trouble, Bettu. So that’s not the point. It’s the wonderful fact that you’re come through
this completely–unscathed.”
“If you’re talking about scars again, I carry none. I had nothing to do with the killings nor with the
destruction of the dam.”
“Then why did you agree to pay the hired men? Why didn’t you expose Infante to the authorities?”
Lamberto shrugged. “If after all my explanations, if any are needed at all–“
“Let’s not quarrel, Bettu. We have not quarrelled since we were boys, and at our age it’s childish.”
“You seem intent on picking a fight.”
“Not at all, Bettu. I’m just concerned about us, as human beings.”
“Let me be as frank with you as you’ve been with me. I didn’t want to get into this election. I
convinced my friends that you were the man for the job. I came to Manila to ask you to run. Now it seems
you begrudge me the election.”
“If you really mean that, it’s gross misinterpretation. Oh hope you don’t mean it.”
“I’m saying that you seem to begrudge me my election, perhaps because you didn’t even get the
senatorial nomination from your own party.”
“No, no, Bettu. I wish you hadn’t said that. I did get the nomination. But I was expected to pay fifty
thousand pesos toward the campaign fund for it. I could afford it. The whole affair was simple bribery. Of
course we needed funds, but I didn’t want to belabour the point. My political ambitions were not that
important. Compromise, of course. But never at the cost of principles.”
“And now you’re implying I have no principles. That I’d get what I want at any cost. Remember I
didn’t seek the office. You can’t deny I was forced into it, in a way. I didn’t mind, or wouldn’t have
minded so much the accusations about incompetence. You are the competent one, Hilarion. If I didn’t
believe that, I wouldn’t have wanted you to run. If you still don’t understand, let me tell you again it
wasn’t self-seeking. What happened was a matter of family honor. They raked us over, Papang and Luisa,
both of them dead, who had nothing to do with the dirty mess. And I vowed vengeance because that was
the way it had to be. For the rest, I admit I proceeded on what I believed was the realistic attitude about
Infante. On what basis you must judge me. And you condemnation of what happened in Vizcaya
shouldn’t be too harsh.”
Hardly a week had passed after Lamberto assumed office before mayors and political leaders of his

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party began trooping into his office. They even came to his house asking him to place some relative or
friend in this or that position, demanding recommendations, special concessions such as timber rights,
franchises, the revision of already approved plans for roads to have them pass through one area instead of
another.
After three weeks of being besieged, Lamberto called a meeting of all the town mayors and his
election leaders.
“I’d like to thank everyone who worked for me. I am deeply grateful. But I would like to think you
worked for me because you believed I could run the province as competently as I run my business. At
least this is what I was told by the one of the men who proposed my name. As you well know I didn’t
want this position. I was persuaded to run for it. But now that I am in it, I am to do my best.
“The matter of competence was a major issue in the election campaign. The opposition said I was not
qualified for the governorship, that I had no experience in government service, and doubted what could be
expected of a man who lacked the will to finish college. I personally thought the Liberals would win on
that single item alone.
“My friends, I want the chance to prove to you and to those who doubted my qualifications that I can
be a good governor. And to do it, I need only the men who are themselves competent in the government
service of this province. I will not fire any Liberal in public office who has proved himself. Not even if he
attacked my integrity or my unfitness during the election campaign.
“On the same principle, if there are positions to be filled–and there will be because I promise to weed
out all inept and dishonest men–I will fill the vacancies with those who can give our province the best
service. And so I do not want to be pestered by recommendations and requests for positions. I want to be
guided in my choices by strictly official and impartial opinions.
“I’ve been told that if I follow this policy, I won’t be re-elected. Frankly, my friends at this moment I
don’t give a hoot. I want to act in the best way I know during the years I am in this in this office. I wish to
add this also. During the election campaign I was made to do certain things against my will. Perhaps I
shouldn’t say this because there are Liberals depended more on the defamation of my character and that
of my family. I don’t want any part of that again. I want to live down all the muck by doing what I believe
is for the highest good of Vizcaya. I want to do what is right and honest. I may incur the animosity when
of my own friends–I sincerely hope I do not. But if I do displease, that is the price I pay for accepting this
challenge. I am sorry to sound pompous and God-almighty, but this is how I want it.”
During the next three years Lamberto followed this policy unrelentingly. He agreed to run again in
the next election only on the condition that he would not buy a single vote nor kill a single goat to feed
the voters.
“If the people of Vizcaya don’t want me back in office, that’s their choice.”
Even some Liberals voted for Lamberto’s second term as governor.

CHAPTER 6
WHEN LUISA TURNED FIFFTEEN, Lamberto persuaded Teodora and Primo to let him take her
with him in Bayombong to celebrate her birthday there. It was to gratify an old man’s whim but of course
he didn’t tell them that. The first Luisa was fifteen when he proposed to her. Upon the young Luisa’s
arrival he asked her to stand in front of a recently enlarged picture of his wife taken when she was fifteen.
Luisa was fascinated. “Wait, Lolo.” She tripped from the living room and when she came back her
shoulder-length hair was twisted into a tall topknot like her grandmother’s.

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 “We do look alike, don’t we? Almost like twins. I didn’t realize it, Lolo, it’s almost frightening.
Though her complexion was probably lighter, wasn’t it?”
“Not too much, hija. Only a shade lighter.”
“Lolo, are there other pictures of my grandmother?”
“A few. When she was twenty, the year she married; another when she was thirty-five, just a few
years before she died.”
“I’d like to see them. May I, please, Lolo?”
“Yes, of course, but not now. I’ll show them to you at the proper time.”
“Did she change much? Is that why you don’t want me to see how I’ll look at thirty-five?”
“No, she didn’t change much.”
“I suppose she got heavier, like Mama when she was thirty-five?”
“An amazing thing about your grandmother, hija, was that she never grew any heavier after she was
twenty. Her problem was to gain weight, though she wasn’t thin.”
“Isn’t that nice, eat and eat anything without gaining weight.”
The government officials of Bayombong and the mayors of several neighboring towns were invited to
the birthday dinner. As the guest started coming Luisa asked, “Lolo, where are the young men?”
“I’m not inviting young men until you’re eighteen.”
“That’s not fair. You proposed to my grandmother when she was fifteen. Who knows I might find
some young fellow here who’d propose to me.”
“Would you want him to undergo five years of servitude too?”
“That depends.”
At dinner Luisa appeared in one of her grandmother’s ankle-length dresses with her hair done in a
bun. She was seated at the end of the table opposite Lamberto. The older people who had already
commented on it were startled by the uncanny likeness. Braulio Altavas, sitting at Luisa’s left, couldn’t
help staring at her quite openly. At one time he had himself wanted to marry the first Luisa.
“How do you feel, Bettu, having your wife reincarnated in your granddaughter? Aren’t you a little
disturbed that this girl here might be her ghost?”
“Don’t talk like that, sir,” said Luisa impulsively. “This is my birthday.”
I can’t believe it, Lamberto was saying to himself. I can’t believe it. These were the words he had
muttered years ago at the celebration of his eighteenth birthday.

“WHAT CAN’T YOU BELIEVE, SON?” his father had asked. He jerked his head toward the sala
where the first Luisa was seated among four other girls.
“Yes, yes,” said Tan Lucas, “you mean Luisa.” He had a quiet knowing look. “The chick becomes a
pullet.”
“A most untidy chick, Father, is what I remember from two or three years ago.”
The five girls sitting in one corner of the sala looked pushed together like mice. Except for the
governor’s daughter, they wore dresses of almost identical design: the camisa sleeves drooping from the
shoulders and falling over the arms in neat-folds, the skirts spread out bell-shaped from bumblebee-waists

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and the hems barely touching the narrow embroidered zapatilla. Two of the girls were sisters, daughters
of Ina Susana, a landed neighbour who lived on the other side of town plaza. Nerissa, the older and
prettier of the sisters, had caught Lamberto’s attention on his last vacation from Manila; but she was shy
and unobtrusive, and now she was suddenly in the shadow beside Luisa.
Most of the important guests had arrived. Governor Tobias Arlegui, a keg of a man, was restraining
his ebullience in the presence of his wife; this was obvious from the way he looked in the Señora’s
direction after his fourth glass of Pedro Domecque. She looked even taller because her long, heavy neck,
with its beginning of a goiter, seemed stretched by her dark-brown hair coiled into a hard topknot on her
round head. Their thirteen year-old daughter, sitting next to Luisa, was buxom girl and ripe-looking at her
age. She wore gauze mantilla over an apple-green vestida de boda.
Don Nicolas Monverde, the Alcalde, was one of a small circle at the end of the veranda. Don Nicolas
was a tall gaunt Spaniard, slightly stooped, but known for his physical strength even at fifty-five. He
seemed inseparable from his walking stick, which everyone knew was really a weapon: a thick-pointed
blade jerked out of the hollowed end when the thumb pressed the button on the handle. With it the alcalde
had run through the chest of a man who had insulted him by protesting a court decision he had made. The
man, so the alcalde asserted, had attempted to assault him.
Captain Silvino Montuya, the Spanish commander of the guardias civiles, loomed over his small
wife. Dona Concha was wearing gigantic earrings like bracelets bobbing heavily from her elongated ears.
Captain Montuya was to send Lamberto to jail three years later.
Only Padre Pascual, among the town dignitaries, had not yet come and the dinner could not start
without him.
Joining Luisa’s group would cause undue attention, so Lamberto decided to move to the alcalde’s
little circle. As an avid student of cane fencing, he was curious about the alcalde’s walking stick, but in
the past visits of Don Nicolas to the house he had never dared to ask to examine it. Made of ebony and a
meter long, it had a ball-like knob that fitted snugly in the palm. Feeling like a man for the first time–this
dinner was in his honor–Lamberto thought he would now ask the alcalde to let him see it. In the high-
backed chair Don Nicolas looked more enthroned than seated.
“Don Nicolas, may I see your cane?”
The alcalde looked up at Lamberto in silence, as though he had not understood, but his knuckles were
hard on the cane’s head. He said in a level voice, “I don’t allow anyone to hold my walking stick.”
The men paused in their drinking. Lamberto was quickly unmanned. Trying to recover himself he
explained,
“It is all right, Don Nicolas. I happen to be interested in canes–all kinds of canes, but especially
fencing canes. Yours, I hear, is a very special kind.”
The alcalde’s ears became red as boiled lobsters. His knuckles tightened dangerously on the head of
the stick. Conversation was suspended. Feeling like a man again Lamberto walked away without another
word.
“The effrontery!” The alcalde suddenly struck the floor with his stick. “I should have thrown the wine
in his idiotic face.”
The men in the group turned around to look at their host, but at the moment ‘Tan Lucas was talking to
the Governor’s wife in the sala.
The governor hastened to placate the alcalde. “Come now, Nicolas. He’s only a boy trying to sound

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like a man. And I don’t think he’s an idiot. He has a head, a little too big perhaps, on those shoulders.”
“The nerve of some Indios,” the alcalde went on. “Give them a piece of rope and they strangle you
with it.”
“There are all sorts of ropes.” The governor sounded mild. “You cannot deprive the people of some of
them. Take that young man now. You cannot just say, ‘No, you cannot go to Letran or Ateneo or Santo
Tomas. The parochial school is enough for you.’ Ah, no, we cannot do that. The more we repress, the
more natives rebel.” The governor added hastily, “I am saying this not because Lucas is a friend. I feel
that our government should try to understand the side of the natives; and, furthermore, we should adopt a
more liberal policy.”
“We allow them far too many things, sir.” Captain Montuya was still standing, one hand on the back
of his chair. “I should like to mention, for example, the guns we permit some natives to carry. With all
these reports of a revolutionary society I think we ought to take all precautions.”
The governor’s face was inscrutable. “How many permits have we issued here in Bayombong?”
“Ten or eleven, sir.”
“One of the holders, I suppose, is Lucas?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who are the others?”
“Some of them are here tonight. Samuel Altavas is one. Cabesa Julio Battag, Tiburcio Santos,
Eusebio Enriquez–I can give you the list from headquarters.”
“The men with permits–do you consider them dangerous, Captain?”
“No, not exactly, sir. Only–“
“You need not worry about the permits, Captain. Should you have any reason to be suspicious of any
one of these men, notify me.”
At this point Padre Pascual puffed up the stairs. The priest clasped a feather fan in one hand; with the
other he tried to keep his soutane raised enough to avoid stepping on it.
He was a large man with a ruddy color to the top of his bald head, as though he had just emerged
from a steam bath. At the threshold the priest extended his hand for ‘Tan Lucas to kiss. Everyone rose and
some murmured greetings, except the governor who pretended to be engrossed in conversation with the
alcalde. The men did not have to sit down again because ‘Tan Lucas announced dinner. Flanked by the
governor and the priest he proceeded to the dining room. All the ladies in the sala rose as the priest
passed, but only the wives of the Spaniards and of the few prominent Filipinos such as Gobernadorcillo
Samuel Altavas sat at the table, a long one seating twenty-four persons. Lamberto, who sat near the
middle, felt quite uneasy that the girl Luisa and her parents were to eat at the second serving. Padre
Pascual sat at one end of the table as a matter of course, and the governor at the other; ‘Tan Lucas never
revealed which was the head, although at family meals he sat at the place where Governor Arlegui now
sat.
Six roasted suckling pigs crouched on platters arranged in a file, the tail of the first about two feet
from the snout of the next. Six stuffed ducklings were also arranged in a row, all facing in the opposite
direction from the roasted pigs. There was also curried chicken; calderreta; pigs’ knuckles in rich brown
sauce; and squabs, this last delicacy cooked according to the recipe of Padre Pascual, who himself had a
pigeon house which did not yield all the squabs he wanted.
“You have a remarkable sense of humor, Lucas,” Ama Hermogenes observed. He was an uncle of

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‘Tan Lucas, known in the town for having a mind of his own. “They look doomed, don’t they? The poor
ducklings swimming towards Padre Pascual and the pigs crawling on hands and knees towards the
governor.”
Governor Arlegui, who had raised his wine glass, chortled heartily and spilled his wine.
Encouraged, Ama Hermogenes sliced off a wing of the duckling in front of him. “A pity. Anyway,
the miserable bird seems too heavy to fly.”
Padre Pascual looked at Ama Hermogenes speculatively, and then with absolute concentration sank
his teeth into the squab.
Lamberto’s eyes were on Luisa, who was talking with the governor’s daughter. He was startled to see
Nerissa, sitting beside Luisa, smiling at him.
“This rumor about a secret organization in Manila, what did you hear about it, Bettu?”
Lamberto turned to Don Eusebio across the table.
Captain Montuya saw Lamberto’s confusion and laughed. “Your mind’s on something else, eh boy?”
“There is such a secret organization, isn’t there?”
“I really don’t know, sir,” said Lamberto. “I had my studies–no time for things going on outside of
school.”
“You seem worried, Eusebio.” The wine had calmed down the alcalde. “You shouldn’t be. Any
organization like that has no chance of spreading. Even if it does get a following our soldiers can take
care of it. It is insanity to fight us with bolos.”
The priest waved a fork which still held a thin square of fat from the suckling’s belly. He was left
handed. “Gentlemen, gentlemen. Let’s give proper appreciation to these delicious pigs and the beautiful
squabs–and consideration for our stomachs. Remember the words of the prophet, Omnia tempus habent,
et suis spatiis tansuent universa sub caelo. Tempus nascendi et tempus moriendi, tempus belli et tempus
pacis, tempus tacendi et tempus loquendi.”
“That sounded very good, Padre. But what does it mean?” Ama Hermogenes sat in an attitude of false
meekness.
The speared fat was trembling on the prongs of the Padre’s fork. The priest eyed the old man for a
brief moment and expertly delivered the bit of pork to his mouth.
The diners were waiting for the priest to say something. Padre Pascual masticated calmly without
turning his gaze away from Ama Hermogenes. He picked up the wineglass and drank, to push the food
down his gullet. “The prophet Ecclesiastes,” he spoke with distant dignity. “The prophet could have
intended those words especially for you, Hermogenes. ‘For everything there is a season, and a time for
every matter under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a
time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time for war and a time for peace, a time to keep
silence and a time to speak.’ Now, Hermogenes, are you satisfied?”
Everyone at the table thought Hermogenes was put in his place, and now they could go on eating in
peace. But the old man had something else on his mind.
“Thank you, Padre, for the information. He must be a very wise man, this Ecclesiastes. I have another
question, Padre, if I may.”
Padre Pascual had just transferred another juicy squab to his plate and was now twisting off one leg
with his fingers.

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 “May I ask the question, Padre?”
“Proceed!” He crushed the pigeon’s leg in his mouth, bones and all.
“Your translation from the prophet just now was very enlightening to all of us. We would profit much
more every Sunday if the mass were said Spanish–or better yet, in Gaddang.”
“Muchacho,” the priest called out to the servant Rodrigo, making a sign to fill his empty wineglass.
“Hermogenes, you have the makings of a heretic. You know what they used to do to heretics? Burn them
at the stake! But I wouldn’t let the picture of the burning fagots spoil the beauty of this squab.” He turned
to his host. “Lucas, your cook can prepare squab almost as well as mine can. This little baby has suffered
just a little too much heat, some of its juice has run out.”
The priest contemplated the bird on his plate. “But I must build me three more pigeon houses. I don’t
yet have any proper supply.” He turned to his questionnaire again. “Hermogenes, there are some things
you must accept on faith. Est autem fides speradumsubstantia rerum argumenium non apprentium. For
your information, Hermogenes, those are the words of St. Paul. ‘Faith is the assurance of things hoped
for, the conviction of things not seen.’ ”Padre Pascual raised his fork like a trident. “Not another word
from you, Hermogenes, or my suspicions about you heresy may be confirmed.”
The priest fortified himself against more possible onslaughts; with a last flourish of knife and fork he
finished off the squab.
Lamberto saw Luisa the following day. His father had a piece of rice land adjacent to Wayi Floro’s
near the western edge of town; he was going to see his father’s tenant, a good excuse for stopping Luisa’s
house. Wayi Floro’s two story house of well-selected wood stood twenty meters from the street. A
bamboo fence encircled a generous lot planted mostly to citrus trees. Wayi Floro was working under a
trellis from which yard-long upos dangled like Neanderthal clubs. Lamberto got off his stallion and
hitched it to a post of the trellis. Wayi Floro was bracing a joist to the bamboo frame on the floor of a
sled.
“What’s wrong, Wayi?”
“This came off.” With a shake of his head he indicated a deep rut near the gate. “The sled tilted there
and hit the kapok tree. Had a load full of water that spilled from the cans.”
When the Wayi had the joist firmly erect, Lamberto helped to return the bamboo poles that served as
the walls of the sled. This they did by fitting the pole ends on the posts through the holes in each bamboo
siding.
“You shouldn’t be doing this, Wayi. Why don’t you ask one of the sons of your tenants to do it?”
Wayi Floro looked at him. “I can’t spare anyone this time of year. Besides the hour has not yet come
for me to sit on my tail in some dark corner.”
“Is Luisa home?”
There was something knowing about then way the old man looked at him.
“She went to the spring, not twenty minutes ago.”
Did the Wayi mean for him to wait? He wasn’t sure, but since he didn’t invite him to the house,
Lamberto unhitched his horse and mounted it. It was an awkward moment.
“I’m going now, Wayi.” He jerked the bridle and the stallion ambled to the gate. He turned to a
footpath a hundred meters from Wayi Floro’s house and stayed on the path until he saw a man who just
about to climb a coconut tree. He asked for directions to the spring. The man pointed to a clump of trees a
couple of hundred meters away, at the edge of a rice paddy. “There’s a fork in the path there. Take the

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left. You’ll get there.”
The spring was in a gulch that started quite abruptly from a roughly semicircular wall of igneous
rock; water flowed out of a crevice about a meter wide, dropped onto a depressed ledge, and fell into a
basin about four meters across. The natural basin was edged by boulders forming an uneven shelf-like
projection from sections of the wall. The water was chest deep and so clear the pebbles in the bottom
were visible. The stream flowed from the basin down gradually sloping declivity and then formed a knee-
deep creek along the meandering gulch.
Along both banks of this creek a few women were washing clothes. Lamberto saw Luisa and two
other women higher up on the ledge above the basin. It was cool and shady under the towering bancal and
catmon trees along the edge of the wall. The roots of the trees had grown thick as arms; snakelike, they
probed into the fissures of the rock under the loam.
Luisa sat with her legs submerged in the pool in front of her. Beside her was a smooth rock where she
was pounding gogo bark with a stone. Her patadyong, a rectangular piece of plaid cloth, was draped from
her knees to an inch above her breast and knotted under her left armpit. The wet covering of cloth clung
to her, defining her firm slim figure. Her skin glowed a rich milk-golden hue.
She had looked up briefly when Lamberto’s horse stopped to drink at the water’s edge a little below
the basin, but she was now intent on pounding the bark. Wanting a longer look at her, Lamberto decided
the horse needed a bath. He got off and tied the reins to a protruding root. He pulled off his shoes, rolled
up his trousers, and started splashing water on the horse. By the time he was through, Luisa had pounded
the goo fine and transferred it to her basin. She was now shampooing her hair with the sudsy juice of the
bark. He could see the white hollows of her armpits and the firm bulge of her breast. Suppose, he thought,
the careless knot of the patadyong came undone.
“Bettu, one of the women teased, “Don’t you want to take a bath yourself?” She was a neighbour of
Luisa and it was obvious that he was not there to bathe his horse. “There’s plenty of room here,” she said,
exchanging glances with the other women.
Lamberto was half-angry, half-pleased with the taunt. At least the woman considered him a likely
suitor of Luisa. On the other hand, he burned inside at the taunt and at his inability to make a reply,
especially because only last night he had a ready retort to the arrogant words of the supercilious alcalde,
Don Nicolas, Finally, he found himself sleeking the horse’s wet flanks with his palms.
He thought later, when he was on his horse again, that he might have said, “Do you think Luisa
wouldn’t object?” One of the women might have suggested, “Why don’t you ask her yourself?” What
would he have said then?” Could he have said, “Do you object, Luisa?” It would have been as easy as
that. Other young men his age would have said it without thinking about it. Now why should he, who
hadn’t done so badly in college, be so tongue-tied, so idiotic in the presence of this girl? His brother
Hilarion, and his father, too, would have been master of the situation.
Suppose, he thought further, he had asked the question and Luisa had answered, “There isn’t room,”
or “You come any closer and I leave,” or “Come, if you want a rock thrown at your ugly face.” He had
heard about the temper of the girl, how her tongue lashed out at the least provocation. And so, he thought,
almost patting himself, “You did right, Bettu. Caution is, at this stage, the safest weapon.”
That night he got three young men to go with him to serenade Luisa. He had asked them that
afternoon at merienda. Paterno, the guitarist, had a quizzical look in his fine deep-set eyes shadowed by
long lashes, but he had readily assented. The other two tipped their cups of coffee and made no comment
except a quick, “Of course.” Alfonso was the town’s professional serenade. The third man, Felix, a pale
youth, could take turns with Paterno on the guitar and sing the second voice to Alfonso’s tenor.

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 Lamberto was thankful for the absence of the moon when they were beneath the window of Luisa’s
room. The darkness gave him the anonymity he needed to hide his inadequacy as a singer–for he was
expected to sing. After Alfonso and Felix had sung, the guitarist said it was Lamberto’s turn. Lamberto
asked Paterno to sing first, but after the fellow had complied Lamberto hedged again. “I don’t know how
to sing.”
Then recite a poem, they told him.
“I have no poem to recite.”
“Improvise your own.”
The guitarist struck some chords to accompany Lamberto’s recitation.
“I can’t,” Lamberto protested.
At this point a lamp was lighted in the house and Luisa’s stepfather opened a window. He held the
lamp before him as he peered out. “Come up, men,” Wayi Floro said. “Come up to our humble house.”
This was the first time Lamberto had been in the house of Luisa. He felt a little chill in spite of the
company of the three young men. Bacat Sencia had gone to the kitchen and built a fire in the stove. After
a while she came back to the sala and called to Luisa to come out. A few minutes passed and no Luisa
appeared. Bacat Sencia stood up from her chair; there was a hard set to her jaw as she moved off towards
Luisa’s room. “Luisa, come out.”
“I’m sleeping.” The voice sound muffled but stubborn.
“Luisa,” the old woman said, “These men didn’t come here to serenade me. Come out and not another
word.”
Bacat Sencia resumed her seat. Her folded hands lay tight and unmoving on her lap. After about
seven minutes Luisa came out.
Lamberto’s heart jumped to his throat. It was evident that she had not been sleeping at all. She wore a
pale yellow bodice that hung loosely to her waist. The wide sleeves were soft about her arms; their large-
scalloped edges fell away from her elbows as she moved. In front the heavy skirt looked straight and snug
about her slim form, but in the back it was full and even trailed a little. As she took her seat on the sofa
across the room Lamberto thought he detected a stormy look in the dark eyes that swept the four men in
one quick glance before she turned away her head.
In the meantime Wayi Floro had sleeked his hair and changed from his house clogs to a pair of leather
slippers. He spoke again. “Tell us, whose serenade party is this?
The three young men turned to Lamberto, who said solemnly, “I asked them to come with me.”
“Well, now let’s continue with it,” said Wayi Floro, cupping his knees with his hands. “Let’s have
another round of singing from you, and then perhaps Luisa may answer, if she wishes. “Who’ll begin?”
“Bettu has not yet sung,” spoke Paterno, the guitarist. “It’s his turn now.”
Lamberto had expected to be asked to sing; he knew the custom. And he had memorized and
practiced a ballad. But now he was unnerved again. It would have been much easier singing outside, in
the dark, “The reason I asked my friends to come along is–I can’t sing.”
“Every man,” spoke Wayi Floro heavily, “Who wears trousers must know how to sing–or recite a
verse. A verse will do.”
A verse was harder yet, Lamberto realized. But he knew he couldn’t get away without complying. He
now regretted that he had come, especially because of the smile lurking on the pretty, proud mouth of

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Luisa. He looked at Alfonso, appealing for help. “Sing one,” said Lamberto, “while I prepare mine.”
The town’s professional serenade did not need any pressure. He had a wholesome, urgent tenor voice
and Paterno’s accompaniment was truly inspired. Lamberto wished they could go on and on. The song
was soon over and Wayi Floro turned to Lamberto. “Now, Bettu.”
The old man was determined to assert his right as head of Luisa’s family. It was only right to expect a
song from the man responsible for the serenading party. Lamberto knew Wayi Floro was not trying to
embarrass him. The Wayi was not dazzled by Lamberto’s social position in the town; he had seen Luisa
had been attracting considerable attention.
Lamberto spoke in a sober tone. “As I said a while ago, Wayi, I don’t sing. But I will try.
Paterno brought his chair beside Lamberto. He caressed his guitar in luxuriant preliminaries while
Lamberto bent down to adjust his voice.
It was a pathetic performance. Lamberto’s voice cracked several times. He saw Luisa cover her face
with her hand and with a great effort compose it. How he wanted the floor to cave in and swallow him in
disgrace.
Wayi Floro’s face was a mask. “Good. That was alright, Bettu. It was not the best kind of singing, but
the feeling was there. That is important.” He turned to Luisa. “Now, Luisa, it seems to be your turn.”
“No, Ama. No”
“It’s up to you, Isang,” Wayi Floro said. “It’s only as you wish.”
Bacat Sencia had gone back to the kitchen. They heard the batidor twirled vigorously in the chocolate
pot; then she emerged with a tray set with cups of streaming chocolate.
“Luisa,” she said. “Pass the cups.”
“That is all our humble house can offer you, men,” Wayi Floro piped up from his corner.
Luisa stood before Lamberto. He raised his head and met her dark eyes briefly.
“Thank you for singing,” she said quietly.
He held out both hands to receive the cup, as though she offered a chalice.

LAMBERTO LOOKED ACROSS the long table a little confused. Sitting there was his fifteen-year-
old granddaughter. A creature of another time, and yet time that was also his. This was no dream; to her
left was his lifelong friend, Braulio Altavas, who had wanted to marry first Luisa. There was a link
through the years, ineluctable and mysterious, spoored in memory now unmixed with desire. There
indeed was a priest at the table, two chairs to Luisa’s right, ascetic and fragile-looking, Father Stephen
from Belgium, who had officiated in the burial of the first Luisa.

CHAPTER 7
THE EXPLOSION of the second war on December 8, 1941, causes harsh reverberations in Vizcaya.
From the first landing of the Japanese in Lingayen to the fall of Bataan and Corregidor, during the first
week of May, things happened so fast that Lamberto was still holding office when the first Japanese
troops occupied the towns. The sensible thing to do, Lamberto decided, was to follow the order of
surrender, just as the other governors in the neighbouring provinces had done.
Colonel Muru Kubayashi, commander of the occupation troops, was a fussy and abrupt man. He
assured Lamberto that civil administration was to continue unhampered, and that the Japanese army

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would not interfere. Lamberto had one big reason for choosing to remain in office: as governor he would
find it easier to go to Manila to see Teodora’s family.
In spite of Colonel Kubayashi’s assurance, the first Japanese administration of justice was a
staggering revelation. Soon after the enemy had occupied the province a man was arrested for breaking
into one of the storehouses confiscated by the Japanese from a Chinese general merchant. The merchant
was now a prisoner-of-war. After the thief had been jailed, the Japanese colonel ordered Lamberto to
gather the townspeople at the public plaza. Lamberto thought there would be speeches. But the town was
shocked to see the thief spread-eagled on four pegs in the middle of the square.
A Japanese captain was in charge of the public exhibition. He was brief and business-like. The
condemned man was going to be stretched in the sun until he died–the penalty for anybody caught
stealing government property.
Lamberto left the plaza in a cold rage and went straight to the colonel.
“The man has not been tried in court.”
“He was caught stealing.”
“Then he should be tried and the court should impose the penalty.”
“Too slow. He was caught in the act. You see he is a criminal.”
“The punishment for a convicted thief is imprisonment.”
The colonel’s eyes narrowed to lashless slits. “It is time to teach your people a lesson, Mr. Governor.
In the future they will be more respectful to proper authorities.”
On the way to his office the following day Lamberto saw the condemned man again. Only a few
people loitered in the square. The victim was begging for water.
Back he went to the colonel. “If he is condemned to die, kill him outright!”
The colonel struggled to control himself. “Mr. Governor. Let me remind you. Japan is conquering
nation. Your conquered country must remember that. Mr. Governor, you will please not interfere with my
decision.”
Other atrocities followed the torture of the thief. Lamberto himself was not beyond the pale of
Japanese law. When higher taxes were imposed colonel Kubayashi spoke to him.
“You must set example, Mr. Governor. You own one-fifth of the land in Bayombong, you have
ranches and rice and lumber mills. You do not need much for yourself, you are alone, no family. And so
you must give two-third of the produce of all your property. This we do in Nippon.”
Soon after this bit of official extortion Kubayashi summoned Lamberto again to his office.
“We receive reports that officers and soldiers of your defeated army are hiding in the mountains.
They have not surrendered. You will order these people to surrender. You are respected and they should
obey you. You will distribute General Wainwright’s order of surrender.” The colonel picked up a sheet of
paper from his desk. “My office prepared this, to save you trouble. Please sign it.”
As governor of the province I am asking you, soldiers of the USAFFE, to surrender yourselves and
tour arms to the Imperial Japanese Army. The war is already over. I am asking you to respect the order of
General Wainwright, a copy of which accompanies my personal appeal to you. If you do not obey
General Wainwright’s order, you will be considered outlaws according to international law. Not only you
will bear the consequences of disobedience; your families will become hostages and upon them will be
imposed the supreme penalty in your place. It is useless to resist the might of the Imperial Japanese Army.

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America is finished, and you have been liberated from the exploitation and selfish rule of the United
States. This is the time to join hands with our Japanese liberators in the rebuilding of our country and in
creating an Asia for the Asians. The Japanese are very sincere in helping us to rule ourselves, and so as
governor of Nueva Vizcaya I am personally appealing to you to go back to your homes and together we
will establish a new order of peace and freedom and prosperity.
“Very good,” Lamberto said. “I have an idea, Colonel. I know a few of these unsurrendered officers
and I’d like to speak to them myself. My tenants can help me get to them. It’s the best to talk to them
personally; they will never pay attention to anything like this,” shaking the letter in his hand.
Kubayashi’s immobile reptilian eyes were probing him.
“You can get the soldiers to surrender only by talking to the officers. That’s how it is with my
people,” Lamberto was emphatic.
“Let it be, then. You will be escorted by Nipponese soldiers.”
“You do that, Colonel, and I might as well stay here. With Japanese soldiers around, all USAFFE
men will be forewarned throughout the Sierra Madre. They will simply disappear.”
Colonel Kubayashi was irritated, and then grew thoughtful. Apparently he knew mountains and how
elusive men could be in them.
Lamberto looked at the ranges of the Sierra Madre, through Kubayashi’s office window. If I were one
of those soldiers I’d be satisfied where I was. But If I could talk to them they might listen. They may kill
me as a traitor for doing this, but it’s a risk I have to take.”
“All right. We try it your way. You go.”
Lamberto had made up his mind. “I am now sixty-seven,” he told himself. “Only a few years left for
me. I’d rather die in the jungle than be a part of all the viciousness and degradation.”
Twice he had received word from Major Remegio Salazar, a Bataan veteran from Vizcaya. The major
had organized the guerrillas and was asking him to move to a free area to run the free government. Major
Salazar had over a hundred armed soldiers and more men had indicated their desire to join him.
Before doing anything else Lamberto sent Rubio, Rufino’s son, to Hilarion in Manila with all his
papers. The documents included the will in which he bequeathed the bulk of his property to Luisa. After
delivering the papers Rubio was to stay in Manila if the family there needed him; if not, he was to return
to Vizcaya and join Lamberto at Cambago, in the Sierra Madre foothills where Salazar operated.
Lamberto’s instructions to all his tenants were identical: those who wanted to flee from the Japanese
–occupied territory could join him at Cambago. Those who preferred to stay were not to cooperate with
the Japanese, and if compelled, should work as a little as possible; and part of what they produced should
be cached at designated points.
The delicate task in the days that followed was hauling away as much of the grain as could be secretly
transported, as well as the smaller stock–pigs, sheep, goats, chickens–to certain places in Sierra Madre
foothills. The men in charge of the two ranches were to move the cows and horses to several grazing areas
which were protected by Salazar’s soldiers.
Major Salazar was a balding man of thirty-nine and built like a wrestler. When he was on his horse,
which was not much bigger than a caless pony, the creature seemed to sag under him. His eyes were sharp
and smoky holes in his face.
“Be very sure you want to do this, Governor,” Major Salazar told Lamberto when they met. “Life in
mountains is hard. In Bayombong you could be useful, too, you know. You could pretend to collaborate–

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a ticklish thing, but of course we’ll need all your help.”
“Major, if I pretended to work with the Japanese I’d be branded a traitor. I have only a few years–one,
two, maybe five years. I’d rather die of malaria or some bug in the mountains.”
Lamberto had three shacks built. The one near the foothills was an hour’s hike from his tenant Ifan’s
place; the second hut, which was a two-hour climb from the first, was deep in the Sierra; the third was
built in the clearing where he had caught his first deer for Luisa. In each of the three places several tenant
families had also built their huts, Banwag, the last evacuation area, had several hundred hectares of rich
rolling land that could be cleared for crops and livestock. Later, Lamberto had more than half of his cows
and carabaos and horses moved there. A semi-permanent settlement of his tenants and other evacuees had
begun to grow in Banwag.
He made his headquarters in the Cambago foothills that were nearest the town, but he was prepared to
flee into the interior if he had to. With the headquarters of Major Salazar only two kilometres down the
slope from him Lamberto felt safe enough. He had a skeleton staff for the office he set up as a governor of
Free Vizcaya. He appointed Filomeno Saccal, who was a member of the provincial board, as deputy
governor. Saccal in turn had three assistant deputy governors in charge of the three sections of Free
Vizcaya. Each assistant deputy had three to four mayors under his direct supervision. He organized his
office this way because all of the free areas were from three to six kilometres outside the perimeter of
most of the towns. Travelling within anyone section was difficult since the Japanese controlled the roads.
other evacuated officials who had carried away to the free government all the provincial funds available,
the other provincial board member, the assistant fiscal, and a few minor officials.
Lamberto’s shack, like all the others, was made of slit jungle palm leaves for the roof. Two of the
posts were the trunks of living lauan trees so that, Lamberto thought wryly, if he remained in this jungle
dwelling several years, he might find the house slanting to one side from the uneven growth of the living
trunks. From one end of the porch he could see part of the town of Bayombong. The tower of the Catholic
church stood out like a thrust of chalk above the drab galvanized iron roofs of the residential houses.
From the church his own house was two blocks to the northeast; he could not see it clearly except when
Major Salazar came around with his binoculars.
Even after a few months in this shack, Lamberto felt a kind of inverted reality that sometimes
disturbed him. It was still hard to believe he was living within the very shadow of the Sierra Madre. From
the porch of his Bayombong house he had often looked at the wide range of the Sierra Madre to appoint
where it merged with the Caraballo to the southwest.

FORTY-SIX YEARS BEFORE, in 1896, sitting on the porch overlooking the mountains, his
guerrilla. Hilarion had proposed to conduct guerrilla warfare, if the Spanish government troops overcame
the three hundred volunteers that he had organized. Their initial armament had been almost ridiculous.
Bolos, spears, axes, bows and arrows, bamboo lances, and the dozen shotguns available–anything that
could kill, anything they could use, Hilarion had told his men. However, he had arranged with seven men
from the guardias civiles to watch for a given signal and escape with as many Spanish guns as they could
get. The signal was to be the arrival of the courier from the revolutionary headquarters in Nueva Ecija,
after all telegraphic communications between Bayombong and Manila would have been cut. Everything
was to be carried out in absolute secrecy.
Two hours after the arrival of the courier, a squad of guardias civiles led by Captain Mesa surrounded
the Alcantara house. Mesa was a replacement for Captain Silvino Montuya, who had been assigned to the
more sensitive province of Bulacan. Flanked by two soldiers Captain Mesa strode up to the house, where

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he met Captain Lucas.
“What is the meaning of this, Captain?”
“I have come to arrest you and your sons.”
“For what?”
“Treason. Where are your sons?”
“That you will have to find out for yourself.”
‘They will soon keep you company.”
From the veranda Mesa signalled to the Soldiers below. Two of them tramped up the stairs and led
‘Tan Lucas away between them. The captain and his bodyguards searched the house.
One of the servants who was feeding the chickens in the poultry crept past the coffee bushes, ran
across a field, and followed a shortcut to Wayi Floro’s house.
Luisa’s mother was on the porch busy with a feather duster.
“Bacat,” ‘Tan Lucas’ servant called out, “Where’s Bettu?”
“Gone to the spring for water. What’s wrong, Anastacio?”
“They’re going to arrest Bettu. The soldiers and the Spanish captain have already got Señor Lucas.”
He ran all the way to the spring where he found Lamberto filling the water cans.
“Bettu, they got Señor Lucas! And they’re going to get you and Hilarion.”
“They? What are you talking about?”
“The guardias civiles. The Spanish captain and six soldiers were in the house just now to get the three
of you. They got the Señor.”
“Where’s Hilarion?”
“He went out with the man Capas, the house guest. A stranger on horseback came after you had left.
The three of them went out together.”
“And the guns? Did the soldiers take away the guns?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know about any guns.”
“Go back home, Anastacio. The guns are in the attic above Hilarion’s room. Seven guns. And a box
of ammunition. Wrap them up in a mat and take them to Pinoy’s house in Bayawa. Do this only if no
guards are posted on the premises. Otherwise take them away after sundown.” Lamberto paused. “Before
you go home, stop at the houses of all our tenants close to the house. Tell them to look for Hilarion and
warn him. I’ll be at Pinoy’s. Now go, and be most careful.”
Lamberto left the cans, three of them still empty, on the carabao sled and proceeded to the house of
Juvenal, an Alcantara encargado, living on the other side of the gulch. Lamberto needed a horse. Juvenal
had seen him coming and hurried out, pulling a sleeved undershirt over his long dark torso. Lamberto told
him what had happened.
Mounting Juvenal’s horse bareback, he requested the encargado to get one of his sons to drive the
carabao sled to Wayi Floro’s. “And tell them I’ll see them tonight.”
“I’ll bring the sled myself.”
“Thank you, Juvenal.” He rode off, stopping at tenants’ houses and leaving word to warn Hilarion if
he chanced to stop by. In half an hour he was crossing the Magat.

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 Pinoy’s wood-and-bamboo house in Bayawa, a couple of kilometres from the Magat, was sheltered
from the wind by a veritable barricade of bamboo and banana clumps. Three carabao carts were being
loaded with sacks of rice from the granary in one corner of the yard. Two men were hauling a squealing
pig from a pen to a sled.
To Lamberto’s silent question Pinoy’s wife explained, “They’re taking them to Ifan. His men will
take them to the foothills of the Sierra.” She was a hefty woman whose melon breasts seemed about to
burst through her camisa.
“Pinoy went out to meet some other men. Hilarion came not long ago and they left together. They’re
coming back this afternoon. That’s what they said.”
“Faquina, did Hilarion leave any word for me?”
“Yes. You are to ride to Solano to tell a certain Aurelio Serdan about the time of the signal. It will be
at midnight and this man Serdan will know what to do. Then you’re to come back here immediately to
wait for Hilarion.”
“What is this midnight signal?”
“I don’t know. But Hilarion says Serdan will understand.”
When Lamberto saw Serdan in Solano, four kilometres away, the man laughed in a dry way that
seemed characteristic of him. “I already got the message from somebody else half an hour ago. Your
brother–he just wanted to be sure, so he sent you. He’s the kind who doesn’t take any chances.”
“Isn’t it about time somebody explained what this midnight signal is all about? What we are to
expect? What happens, exactly?”
“While you attack the garrison in Bayombong, we do the same thing here. That goes for the other
towns, though the farther ones may attack a few hours later. It’s going to be like a chain in Vizcaya. Your
brother planned all this months ago.” He added, “We will have a much easier time here in Solano. We
have only twenty-four guardias civiles to take care of.”
By the time Lamberto was back in Bayawa it was afternoon, and a large crowd had gathered in
Pinoy’s yard. The group included about thirty Igorots led by Pug-guwan, the man who had carried away
the python Lamberto had killed in his first deer hunt for Luisa. Three men had just finished skinning a
cow. Three large steaming pots squatted on belly-sized rocks arranged in triangles. Chunks of pork and
yam tubers were simmering in the iron carahays. Two long bamboo tables had been set up in Lamberto’s
absence. There was a festive air in the yard in spite of the armed men.
Pinoy came down from the house and spoke to Lamberto. Pinoy was a stocky man, a shorter than his
wife, with a matter-of-fact manner. His sunburned face seemed to peer at people–an impression created
by his probing, suspicious eyes.
“Hilarion should be here any time now.”
At sundown Hilarion arrived on horseback, together with fifteen other men. Nine of them had
shotguns, three had rifles. One shotgun belonged to ‘Tan Lucas; the soldiers had not found the guns in
Hilarion’s attic after all. With Hilarion was the man Capas; Ifan and two other tenants; Tiburcio Santos,
son of Don Felipe, the landowner; Lamberto’s good friend Braulio Altavas, son of the incumbent
gobernadorcillo, who was Lamberto’s godfather; Martin Tanseco, brother of the justice of the peace; and
other men Lamberto did not recognize.
Hilarion drew Lamberto aside. “I was at Gabriel Claudio’s when we heard Papang had been arrested.
Shortly after that I was told you were coming here. Do you know that six others were arrested with

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Papang? ‘Tan Samuel, your godfather, and Braulio’s elder brother Eustaquio; Juan Batang, the justice of
the peace; Cabesa Julio Tomasa, and Apo Hermogenes. Someone talked–we’ll find out who later.”
“Why should they include a very old man like Apo Hermogenes?”
“For his heresies. Anyway, there’s something I want to say. I want you to stay behind–“
“No, Hilarion. You’re forgetting I was jailed for six months at hard labor. And there’s this Captain
Mesa, he flaunted his disrespect for our marriage custom. My reasons are more personal than yours, but
they’re valid, too.”
“The work I have in mind for you, Bettu, is most crucial. I want you to take charge of all supplies,
food and livestock, to move and store them in strategic places all the way to the foothills of the Sierra, and
beyond, if necessary.”
Other men on horseback, about ten of them, arrived just then. A few of the newcomers had shotguns,
most had bolos.
Hilarion turned to Lamberto again. “I’m leading the men to attack the prison. If I don’t want you to
come along, it’s because I don’t want people to think this is merely something personal, that it’s just
because of Papang. Tiburcio Santos with seven men will get the governor, Braulio Altavas will take care
of the alcalde. There’s another group to get Padre Pascual–“
“Padre Pascual, too?”
“Yes, him, too. In fact, we’re getting all the Spaniards in Bayombong. You may want to join the
group that attacks the garrison. The captain, our house guest, is in charge. By the way, his name is not
Capas. He is Captain Villasin from the general headquarters in Cabanatuan.”
Lamberto said, “I don’t think people will mind if I go with you to get Papang. I can join Villasin
later.”
Hilarion looked at his brother thoughtfully “Very well, then.”
Hilarion turned away and walked to the ladder-stairs. He stood on the second rung and called out to
the men to gather around.
“Now, men, I’d like to have a few words with you before I come to the details of what we will do
tonight and in the next few days. Let this be understood. We’re not fighting for my father and the six
other men arrested today. As you know we planned all this long months ago. My appointment to lead
Vizcaya came from the central headquarters in Manila three years ago. The Vizcaya revolutionary council
is composed of Gabriel Claudio, Tiburcio Santos, Braulio Altavas, and Martin Tanseco. I want to add that
if anything happens to me, these four men will elect a new leader for Vizcaya.”
Hilarion paused. “Let me go back to what I said a moment ago. The arrests today do not really
surprise me; it’s just what happens when someone blabs. We will know what to do the man who talked.
The arrests were serious–and we had not expected them. But enough of that. Early this morning our
courier arrived from Bambang, where he had received the message we all have been awaiting. Three days
ago, on August 27, to be exact, the fight started in Balintawak, near Manila, and has spread to many
provinces. That these attacks took place simultaneously was no accident. They had been very well
planned. My orders come from Nueva Ecija, specifically from the revolutionary headquarters from
Northern Luzon located in Cabanatuan. The Spanish Garrisons here in Vizcaya are bottled up. We’re
lucky here, thanks to the Caraballo and the Cordillera and, of course, the Sierra Madre. In any case, the
Spanish garrisons here cannot expect reinforcements from the South, because our big force in Nueva
Ecija will stop all the Spanish troops south of Santa Fe. Even if reinforcements were sent to the garrison

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here, they would have a difficult time coming through because the passes in Santa Fe are very well
guarded. There will be simultaneous attacks in the northern towns, and so our main concern is getting the
Bayombong garrison. The arrests today mean that the guardia civiles are now on the alert. This is a
disadvantage. We had hoped to take them by complete surprise. Our signal will be three shots at midnight
to be fired from inside the garrison. Our men in the garrison, seven of them, will do three things as soon
as the light in the jail is put out; first, control the armory; second, give a chance to the other native
soldiers to surrender by running out of the garrison with their guns; third, give the signal shots. Their
shots will be followed by the ringing of the bells in the church tower. They will be rung loud enough to
wake the dead. But those assigned to the garrison will count five hundred before they attack. This is to
give the seven men inside enough time to get out–as well as for any more guardias civiles who choose to
get out. Captain Villasin will have complete charge of the attack. I want to tell you, men that the captain
here is very well trained for this kind of work. His command is law. I’ll ask him to meet the squad leaders
shortly.”
He paused for questions. “If there are no questions, I will go on to the other assignments. Tiburcio
Santos leads the group to get the provincial governor at his house. Braulio Altavas is in charge of the
alcalde, and Martin Tanseco leads the group assigned to the prisoners. Everything is to be done quickly
and quietly. No shots are to be fired, no matter what happens. Most important of all, no prisoners are to be
killed, unless they offer violent resistance. Any questions?”
“Suppose Padre Pascual resists,” spoke one of Tanseco’s men, “What then?”
“Our brother Martin will make the decision.” Hilarion looked at Tanseco, who nodded agreement.
“The four groups to get the civilian prisoners should be in their places by eleven o’clock. They begin
their operation at that hour. And whether they succeed or fail the signal of the church bells will be rung at
exactly twelve o’clock. The prisoners will then be brought here to Bayawa and Braulio Altavas and five
men will take charge of them. The rest will join the attack on the garrison. The password for everyone in
the next twenty-four hours is ‘Ifugao’. That is also the password for those inside the garrison who will run
out to join us.”
“What about the wives and children of the Spaniards?” one of Tiburcio’s men asked. “Do we bring
them here with their men?”
“The council has agreed to take the women and children with their men. It is safest for them that
way.”
Braulio Altavas observed quietly, “It will be good for the souls of the rulers to see how their subjects
live.”
A few let loose with loud guffaws, but quickly fell silent at Hilarion’s dark look.
“I want to say again that what we are undertaking tonight is not easy. It may cost us our lives. But we
are not alone. At this very moment thousands of our countrymen are doing the same thing we are doing
here in Vizcaya. Also, I must warn you. The garrison may hold out for days, even weeks. We are
preparing for that eventuality.”
After supper Lamberto sought out Hilarion. “I have promised to see Luisa and her folks tonight. I will
be back before eleven.”
Hilarion studied the face of his brother. “I’ll have two men to go with you.”
“No, Hilarion. It’s best for me to go alone.”
“Be most careful then.”

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 It was obvious that Luisa and her family had been waiting for him; their supper had been over two
hours before, and this was the time the family normally prepared for bed.
“I suppose,” Lamberto said, “you know what happened. Papang is held prisoner with six other men.
Captain Mesa and his soldiers were at the house this morning to arrest my family. It is lucky that Hilarion
and I weren’t there. I have joined Hilarion and his men.”
Luisa was quiet, her head bent. Baccat Sencia looked at Lamberto, then at her husband.
Wayi Floro laces his fingers and touched his chin with his joined thumbs. “Captain Mesa, eh? What’s
going to happen, Bettu?”
“Who can tell? Not even Hilarion, who planned this resistance. Anyway, we have decided to fight.”
“Isn’t it foolish to fight the Spaniards with all the advantages on their side? You have nothing to fight
with.”
“Maybe we are fools. But we will fight, all the same.”
“All your property will be confiscated. House and all. Not only that. Now you’re branded as traitors.”
The Wayi’s whiskers went askew and drooped over his mouth. It always startled Lamberto to see a
sensual mouth on a man of the Wayi’s age.
Lamberto turned to Baccat Sencia. The rocklike face was impassive; it was hard to know what she
was thinking.
“I want to be frank and honest with you all,” he said, looking at Luisa. “These past seven months the
intentions of Captain Mesa have been clear to me and to the three of you.
Luisa was looking at Lamberto now.
“It’s been plain he wants to marry you, Isang. I want you to forget any moral obligation you might
feel you owe to me because of the servitude. Don’t even think there has been any. As far as I am
concerned there has been no servitude. But you must make a decision, Isang, one way or the other.”
“What do you mean, Bettu?”
“I won’t be around. Life seems suddenly quite uncertain. And so if you decide to marry Captain
Mesa–“
“Who said anything about marrying Captain Mesa–or are you all right in the head, Bettu?”
She turned to her mother. “Mamang, I’m asking you to come along with me to go with Bettu.”
The Wayi looked scandalized.
Luisa hurried on, “I supposed two women who can cook and wash would be welcome in a rebel’s
camp. You might even teach me to use your father’s shotgun, Bettu.”
The mother looked at Luisa, and her impassive face softened.
“Mamang?”
Baccat Sencia’s answer was an almost imperceptible nod.

AND NOW, AT SIXTY SEVEN, here he was fighting the Japanese in the jungles of the Sierra
Madre. He was doing this, too, for the first Luisa, who had gone with her mother to the Sierra’s foothills
and cooked and washed for the soldiers. They had returned to their home in Bayombong three months
later, when the Spanish garrison finally surrendered. He could say he was fighting then, as now, for
principle. But after all these years he knew better. The fight went beyond such as abstraction. Luisa’s

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decision that fateful night and his rejoining Hilarion to get their father and six other men out of prison had
been deeply personal. And wasn’t living in this jungle shack now also a personal matter? How was one to
place a dividing line between an imperative personal action and an abstract belief? Hilarion would make
the distinction could be blurred.
One late afternoon two months after he had settled at Cambago, a ragged and footsore Rubio limped
to the shack. He had come from Manila.
“I gave the papers to Señora Teodora. Señor Hilarion was in prison.”
“In prison?”
“That is what the Señora said. In Fort Santiago, she said.”
“Did she say why?”
“The Japanese wanted him to be a justice of the supreme court. And he wouldn’t do it. And he did
something else, he gave money to the guerrillas.”
“Did they know how long he was to stay in prison?”
“No, Señor.”
“How was my granddaughter?”
“Very well. She and the Señora told me to come back to you. They are all right, they said. They said I
was needed here.”

CHAPTER 8
AFTER ABOUT A YEAR at Cambago, Lamberto and his people were forced to retreat to the second
evacuation area. They had received a warning just before a large Japanese patrol reached the foothills and
burned the headquarters and all the shacks in the Cambago area. As the enemy patrols went deeper into
the mountains, they were decimated along the trails by the silent arrows of the Igorots. At a prearranged
point, halfway between Cambago and the second evacuation place, Salazar’s men finally stopped the
Japanese, who were forced back to the lowland with their wounded.
Six months later Lamberto and his people had to go up even higher, to Banwag, the third evacuation
settlement. Major Salazar was running short of ammunition and the Japanese were regularly sending out
bigger patrols. Lamberto decided to make a last stand; at sixty nine he felt the strain of traveling around
the steep slippery trails.
The original groups had been increased by other evacuees. Fringed by primeval jungle the cleared
area in Banwag was three kilometers long and a kilometer and a half wide. There was a slight roll to the
land. The stalk of the upland rice was tall and thick on the rich dark loam. In the middle of the cultivated
stretched two small streams joined into a single creek. The shacks of the evacuees were built inside the
border of the jungle trees to avoid being spotted from the air.
Lamberto’s own thatched hut was on the side of a hillock above the creek. It stood on stilts upon a
wide ledge that broke the curve of the slope. He had a small porch made of split palm wood planks and
across the two porch posts he had stretched a hammock of woven rattan. Here he had a good view of the
countryside: a man with a clay jar was fetching water from a spring beside one of the streams, a boy of
twelve was riding his carabao to a mud wallow, a wisp of smoke curled upward from a hut at the far end
of the clearing, the solid wall of trees extended in all directions up to highest peaks of the Sierra Madre. In
the late afternoons when he looked down at the green rows o yams on the banks of the creek with a breeze
stirring the shield-like leaves, he sometimes imagined deer antlers sticking out from among them. He

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would relive the hunt of half a century before, his solitary hunt for deer for Luisa. More and more he
found himself indulging in long reminiscences, probably to give meaning to the harsh and uncertain
present.

HE RECALLED ONE MORNING of his seventh month of servitude in the house of Luisa. She had
announced soon after breakfast, “I want venison for a change.” Looking at Lamberto boldly she had
added, “I’d like to taste one you got by yourself.”
Lamberto had gone deer-hunting many times before, but never alone; several times with Hilarion and
a tenant or two; quite often, while his brother was studying in Manila, he had hunted with five or six other
men. In past hunts it had usually more than one day to bag a deer. Sometimes they ranged for three to five
days in the Sierra Madre before they spotted any sign of deer.
Across the table Lamberto met the girl’s level look and held back any comment. He had expected
such capricious demands. One day it was hito, a species of catfish, which looked more like an eel but with
the hooded head of the cobra–and she insisted that he bring it home alive because it was no good cooking
a dead hito. Or it was shrimps, or the meat of wild boar. Such demands were breaks in the daily routine
chores. From sunrise to sundown he had to feed the pigs and clean the sties, fetch eight kerosene cans of
water on a carabao sled from the spring half a kilometer away twice a day, plow fields assigned to him by
Luisa’s stepfather, take the carabaos to the mud wallows by mid-day, repair the fence or the house, chop
wood for fuel, husk a day’s supply of rice, drive the animals to the pasture at the sunset. It was a full work
day, going home with the sun the next day.
Luisa’s mother, Bacat Sencia, was a taciturn woman who discouraged any flippancy, and Wayi Floro
was a quiet man, except when the rice wine he occasionally drank unloosened his tongue. Mealtime was
solemn as a prayer session, except that Wayi Floro attacked his food seriously, sucking the brain of a fish
or the meat from a crab’s claw or the marrow from a bone, making explosive noises and annoying Luisa,
but amusing Lamberto, who envied the old man his honest enjoyment of his food. Lamberto had very
nearly stopped trying to fathom the motives behind her eccentric demands. Sometimes he thought she was
trying to punish him, or to strip him of all his pride. Why, he did not know, as he was careful not to
offend her in any way. This latest thing about the deer was beyond him.
He went home to get his father’s gun. ‘Tan Lucas was one of a few men in Vizcaya allowed a gun
licence. When Lamberto entered the small shadowy store room where his father kept his gun, he
hesitated. He saw the bow and the bag of arrows hanging beside the gun and was uncertain which he
should take. One of the servants was an Igorot who had taught him and Hilarion how to use the bow and
arrow. With this weapon he had always outdone his brother, although Hilarion could handle the gun
better. On one hunting trip Lamberto had bagged a four-pointer with his bow. Almost regretfully he
decided on the gun. With enough food for three days he set out for the Sierra Madre. He left word with
one of the servants to tell his father where he was going.
Just a he got to the bank of the Magat, Lamberto came upon Ifan, a tenant of his father, who was
going home from a baptismal celebration in the house of Kusep, another tenant of ‘Tan Lucas. Ifan was
crossing to his own house on the other side of the Magat.
“I’ll go with you, Bettu,” he said, his black button eyes shining.”
“No, not this time, Ifan.”
“You really want to go by yourself? My harrowing can wait a couple of days. The Sierra Madre is a
very lonesome place, you know.”

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 “Not this time, Ifan.”
Ifan looked at Lamberto, and then some sort of understanding dawned on his flat, nondescript face.
The two men stripped themselves. The Magat was about a hundred meters wide where they were
crossing it, although it was only forty meters in the deeper parts where the rocky blanks were steepest.
Lamberto wound his trousers and his shirt around his neck. He hoisted his knapsack in his right hand and
the gun with his left. Ifan splashed in after him, whooping noisily. They forded the river at a transverse
angle because even where it was only waist deep the current was strong enough to carry a man away if he
tried to buck it.
On the other bank they put on their clothes. Ifan turned to the gate of his house and asked Lamberto
almost timidly, “How is it with you in the house of Wayi Floro?”
“I have no complaint.”
“He is known to be hard driver. I know, I was his tenant once.”
Two hours later Lamberto approached the foothills. The tall trunks of the trees towered above the
jungle growth, and he thought of the Sierra Madre as he saw it from his father’s house. It was a long blue
range, mist-shrouded, forming a rugged arc around several towns and joining the Caraballo in the south
and the Cordilleras in the west so that Bayombong and five other valley towns were almost encircled. He
started his ascent through the hush, hardly penetrable rain forest. He followed a hunter’s path for about an
hour and a half and then it was abruptly cut by a shallow mountain stream. He glanced up to see the sun
but the canopy of jungle trees shut out the sky. He knew it was almost noon, yet under the trees there was
cool twilight darkness. He saw the path on the opposite blank, but he decided to follow the creek for a
time. He chose a boulder for a marker. It was about twelve feet high, and flanked by a giant jungle fern
and a lauan tree about two meters in a diameter and so tall its top was hidden by the crowns of the smaller
trees. After an hour he stopped to eat. On a smooth flat rock jutting from a bank he ate enough to satisfy a
hunger that astonished him: sausage and dried fish and a half an onion. He drank from the stream to wash
down the food. He had tidied up and was resting for a few minutes when he heard a brushing sound in the
undergrowth close to him. He sat up. An iguana spotted him and scurried away with amazing stealth into
a thicket of vegetable fern near the curve in the stream. Partly concealed by the fern leaves, a young doe
was bending down to drink. The deer stood only about two feet high, innocent and unaware, its faint dark
blotches on the mouse-colored fur almost merging with the vegetation.
Lamberto’s heart pounded as he reached for his gun beside the knapsack. His breathing impeded his
aim as he fired. The jungle exploded, the doe sprang, forelegs clutching the air, and then knuckled down
on the water’s edge. But in a moment it was up again and scuttled unsteadily into the undergrowth. Drops
of blood stained the fern. Slinging his sack over his shoulder he followed at the trail of blood. His
progress was slow because of the thick underbrush. After about twenty-five minutes he lost the trail. He
looked around but found no sign of blood. A sudden rustling sound over head brought him up short.
Above the serrated leaves of a half-grown forest palm, swinging in mid-air was the doe whose head had
disappeared into the mouth of a python. Lamberto’s immediate impulse was to run, but he saw he was in
no danger. The python was hoisting its head up to the bough of a low tree where half of its body was
coiled. In mid-section was a big around as Lamberto’s thigh. He loaded his gun and aimed at the python’s
head which was only a dozen feet above him. He fired and the ugly coil loosened and slid and crashed
just a yard from him. The repulsive body, all twenty feet of it, writhed with concentrated violence; the
flattened underside, where the large light scales were more defined, looked hideously alive and the stubby
tail was unspeakably more aware now than the blind and mangled head.
Suddenly Lamberto could not stand to look. He hurried back to the stream and there sank to his knees

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and doused his head in the water to rid himself of the image of the writhing python. If it could swallow
the doe, it could have swallowed him, too. This was not the first time he had seen a python; he had seen
another just as big and probably longer, but things was the first time he had come so close to one. He
thought again of the doe in the python’s mouth. He himself could have been as easily crushed and
swallowed. He doused his head once more, straightened, and flicked off the drops from his head. It was
then he noticed two flat leeches clinging to his right arm. From mere matchsticks they had bloated to the
size of his small finger. He pulled these off and another one from the back of his neck. He had picked up
the leeches while stalking the wounded deer.
He decided to follow the creek, half hoping to see another coming for a drink, but he knew it was
mostly because he felt safer doing so. After about three hours darkness began to settle in; and his past
jungle experience told him it was time to find a sleeping place. He followed the creek a while longer;
around a bend the creek bed widened and divided to form an islet in the middle. He knew he would find
no safer place than this. He gathered some pieces of dead wood for a fire. A can of coffee would make
him stay awake for some time; he had heard about headhunters of the Ilongot tribe that roamed the Sierra
Madre. On a trip with his father and a few others three years before he had seen skulls hung as trophies
under the eaves of a head-hunter’s house. After eating a slab of dried pork and a fist-size lump of cooked
rice, he put out the fire; a fire would be an invitation. Opaque darkness swallowed him completely. The
heavy layers of tree crowns above him shut out the light of any star.
He was gripped by another kind of fear, more terrifying because he couldn’t even see his hands. It
seemed his head was one dark jungle bursting with mysterious, oppressive sounds; magnified cricket
chirps punctuated by spasmodic skittering noises; bird wings flapping, some spanning twenty feet
between wing tips; fall of branch or rotting fruit or some creature betrayed by sleep; an abrupt cry
sounding much like a human cry; guttural gecko calls like little thunderclaps. The most ominous sound
was a furtive rustling that might very well be a head-thunder stalking him. Several times before he had
spent nights in the jungle forests of the Sierra Madre, but then there had been the comforting company of
a group. The danger had been shared and the assigned watch had been a protection from sudden ambush.
Now he tried to shut out the eerie sounds by listening to the soft gurgle of the water surrounding him. He
tried to imagine the gurgle as the warm laughter of Luisa. But whenever he closed his eyes the ugly scales
of the python’s belly and the twisting body blotted out Luisa’s laughing face. He willed himself to listen
only to the purling water, a very intimate, friendly sound. Before he knew it he was asleep.
It seemed he had slept a long time when he began to gasp for breath. A python had wound around him
and was tightening its coil around his body, around his neck. With his free hand he struggled to extricate
himself, and before his neck was crushed he let out a loud cry for help. He woke up still gasping;
sweating and his hand instinctively gripped the gun. He muttered, God, God. His eyes opened to a slate-
colored dawn and he could barely distinguish the lighter trunks of the trees. He sat up feeling strangely
chastised.
When daylight had penetrated through the thick arching foliage, he continued following the creek.
Going upstream was not easy because among the limestone rock that made broken bridges on both sides
of the creek where huge boulders that formed little falls in unexpected places. After two hours of skirting
and climbing he stopped to eat. Half an hour later he saw a hunter’s trail to his right. He took it, and for
one hour went up a steep inclines that leveled off into rolling terrain. Under the trees he could not tell
what direction he was going. After mid-morning he came upon dampish ground and a little farther on,
near a few mud wallows, he heard some cautiously, crouching, his gun ready. About forty feet ahead he
saw a wild boar with a sow and a litter of little pigs rooting around in the ground among some jungle
tubers. The boar stood to feet high, gristly and truculent, with scimitar-shaped tusks curving from neither

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side of his elongated snout. Knowing boars, Lamberto climbed a low tree. He wouldn’t shoot; Luisa
wanted venison and venison he’d give her. He broke off a dead branch and hurled it at the pigs, shouting
and shaking the bough where he perched. The animals scampered away and in an instant the jungle was
quiet again.
After another kilometer he came upon a creek, smaller and shallower than the one he had followed
the day before. Running through loamy soil, it joined the other creek some distance below. Wading
upstream he saw day-old deer tracks on the soft bank, the first he had seen so far. Around a bend he was
surprised to see a stretch or five or six hectares of what had once been a clearing. He felt good, seeing the
sky after two days of twilight gloom, even if it was a grey sky and heavy with threatening rain. There
were no tall trees here, only second growth bushes thickly interspersed with giant ferns and tall sharp
grass. He skirted the area quietly; on the edge, about a hundred meters from the creek, he found the tracks
of a herd of four or five deer. He moved around the other side and later found himself back at the creek, a
short way from where he had started. He decided to wait there and if nothing happened in a couple of
hours he would go on. He ate his lunch and lay down on a mat of ferns by the side of the creek.
He was awakened by the muffled voices of people. He sat up, holding his gun, terrified to see five
men standing around him with spears and bows and arrows. Head-hunters! His eyes went beyond the five
men to four others who shouldered two poles supporting the cut-up sections of a python. He realized it
was the python he had killed.
The oldest of the group spoke. “You killed the python?”
Lamberto nodded, recognizing the dialect of the Igorot.
The seemed face stared at him dispassionately. “You wasted very good meat. It is ours now because
you left it.”
Lamberto’s fears subsided somewhat. Under their dirty plaid shirts the Igorots wore nothing but G-
strings. They exuded the strong acrid odor of unwashed bodies. The tallest among them, over five feet
five and of indeterminate age, had a three-inch swath of eroded beehive-like skin eruptions, which started
at his right knee, ran along the inner side of his thigh, and disappeared under the G-string.
“Where do you go?” Lamberto asked them.
“Home. Not far from here.”
“I’m looking for deer. Do you know a good place?”
There was a stir among the men. The old man whom the others addressed as Pug-guwan spoke again
as he waved his hand around the old clearing. “This is a good place. If you want another, there is one
close, only one tobacco smoke away.” He pointed upstream along the creek. “But I’d stay here and wait
for a while if I were you.”
As the men carrying the python passed close by him, Lamberto saw the meat protruding richly under
the snake skin. It was bluish-white meat, with circular layers around the vertebra, very much like the
cross-section of a tree trunk Pythons are not scavengers, they eat nothing but live victims, and their meat
should be clean. Seeing the shattered head and the pale under side scales Lamberto felt repulsed again.
“Did you see the doe in his mouth?”
The old man spoke matter-of-factly. “We ate it last night. I wish we had a gun. There are many
pythons in these mountains. We cannot kill them with arrows and they do not come close enough for our
spears.” He gestured abruptly to his companions. “We go now.”
When the Igorots had gone Lamberto moved around the clearing once more. Seeing no new sign of

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deer he followed the creek upstream; he might come back to this place before nightfall. The water flowed
down from a steadily rising incline although the soil was still loamy, with a few scattered boulders here
and there. He had provisions for only one more day; he might have to go home empty-handed. He
regretted now that he had not shot the boar; with the meat he could have stayed a few days longer.
Two hours later he came upon the clearing that he was sure the old Igorot had told him about. He
judged that this was a newer clearing from the abundance of lush cogon grass and the absence of second
growth trees. He turned around a bend and spotted three bucks sixty yards ahead of him to his left. His
heart pounded violently. The wind was not from his direction, so they couldn’t get his scent. He crouched
and slowly moved closer. The biggest buck was an eight-pointer; the other two were not much smaller.
When he was only about forty yards from them one of the bucks, a six pointer, lifted his head and sniffed
the air. Lamberto paused and aimed at the front shoulders of the eight-pointer. The gun exploded and he
saw the smaller bucks leap high in the air; in an instant they disappeared into the jungle. Lamberto rushed
forward and found the buck still kicking his hind legs where he had fallen among the ferns. He
unsheathed his hunting knife and plunged it into the buck’s heart.
From the light in the sky he thought he could still reach the boar wallows before dark. He lifted the
buck tentatively; it was heavy. He finally hoisted it on his shoulders with the legs draped around the neck,
holding the front legs with his right hand and the hind ones with his left. He slung the gun on the crook of
his left arm.
It was dark when he reached the first clearing and found the spot where he had slept that afternoon.
He laid the deer down and hurriedly gathered dead branches from the second growth trees for a fire. After
his supper and a cup of coffee he sat down by the buck feeling refreshed. He had expected to see stars
above the clearing, but the sky had turned murky and there was a heaviness in the air that meant rain. He
would have liked to cut a few fronds of forest palm for shelter, but beyond the circle of light from the
dying fire it was completely dark. He lay down, with his head on the back of the buck.
The night sounds were different from those of the night before. He heard a multitude of cicadas
chirring away on the tree trunks, the seven-buttoned grasshoppers whistling their cool liquid notes like
short-long signals, the intimate droning of smaller insects under the blades of the cogon grass, the
chirping or crickets under fallen leaves and in the crevices of stones.
As he was falling asleep, the sound of rain drumming some distance away came closer and closer. In
a very short time the whole forest was engulfed in rain. It was impossible to find any shelter in the pitch
darkness. All he could do was to sit on the buck’s rump and hug his knees to expose himself as little as
possible to downpour. This kind of rain, he thought, would stop soon. An hour passed and then another
without any let-up. As he was now thoroughly soaked, he lay curled on the ground, pulling the buck over
part of him. Hour after hour he alternately shivered and slept fitfully. By dawn the creek water had
reached him and he dragged the buck to higher ground. The creek and many others on the ranges of the
Sierra were tributaries of the Magat. After a night of hard rain the Magat was a dangerous river.
As soon as he could make out the objects around him Lamberto slung on his gun and started
downstream. The rain had not let up. The day before, the creek water had been knee-deep at the deepest
parts; now it was over his waist most of the way. To make faster progress he dragged the buck behind him
by the antlers. On the stretch between the two creeks he carried it once more on his back.
He reached the foothills around eight o’clock. The persistence of the rain made Lamberto wonder
where all the water from the sky had come from. It was well past mid-morning when he arrived at Ifan’s
house.
“We will have to salt your deer, Bettu,” said Ifan. “You sleep here tonight and cross tomorrow–if it

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stops raining today.”
“I will cross.”
“You can’t cross the Magat, Bettu. Look.” Ifan pointed at the overflow beyond the bank where they
had crossed two days before.
“I’ll do it.”
“You’re a good swimmer, I know. But no one can swim in that. It would be suicide. We’d be fishing
for your body in Bagabag.”
“I’ll need a long rope.”
“I have ropes.” Ifan looked at Lamberto as though he didn’t know what to think of him. “You know
what ‘Tan Lucas will do. He’ll shoot me for this.”
“I need two lengths of rope, Ifan. Meantime, I want you to call out to Kusep across the river.”
If anything happened, Ifan thought gloomily, at least he’d have company. He went over to the bank of
the river; with hands cupped around his mouth he called in a loud drawn-out voice for Kusep who lived
on a low promontory on the opposite bank.
In Ifan’s kitchen Lamberto pried up one of the shorter strips of palm wood flooring, a strip about two
inches wide and six feet long. He tide a rope on one end and bending the wood a little stretched the rope
taut and fastened it to the other end to make a bow. He cut off about a fathom length of a guava sapling,
forked at one tip. He got a large coil of rope and carried the bow and the sapling, which he intended to
serve as an arrow, to the narrowest bend of the river where it was about forty meters across.
Kusep was now standing on the opposite bank. It was reassuring to see the lean, dark Kusep clad in a
long-sleeved undershirt and trousers up to his knees. The long and powerful muscles were the kind that
remained unnoticed until they were brought into play. His two sons, slighter versions of Kusep, presently
joined him. Lamberto and Ifan indicated to Kusep by shout and gestures what they were going to do.
Lamberto uncoiled the rope and tied one end of it to the base of the sapling’s fork. When he had
braced the improvised bow beside the trunk of a mabago tree, he signaled Kusep and his sons to be ready.
They all had to wait a few minutes while an uprooted dapdap tree about sixty feet long swirled
ponderously past. With Ifan holding the free end of the rope, Lamberto stretched the bow to its fullest and
released the sapling. It flew with a crazy wobbling motion because of the trailing rope, but it landed a few
meters beyond the edge of the opposite bank. One of Kusep’s sons tied the rope to a stout tree. Ifan pulled
the rope taut from the other end as Lamberto tied it around the neck and antlers of the buck. When the
three men on the other side were in place he released the buck. The swift current carried it in an irregular
arc that cut through a tangle of floating debris and logs.
“If the rope breaks,” Lamberto told the grinning Ifan, “at least Kusep can tell Luisa that I really did
get her a deer.”
The buck was dashed against the rocky bank close to where Kusep and his sons were waiting and the
three hauled it up the bank. Lamberto shouted to them to wait.
“I need more rope, Ifan. What’s left here is not enough.”
“Are you out of your head, Bettu? It was all right for a dead buck.”
“Now, Ifan. Get me some more rope.”
Ifan walked off to his house as Lamberto began cutting another forked sapling. He pulled out a log
about ten feet long that was snagged on the bank and after testing it he tied one end of the rest of the rope

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around it. As he waited for Ifan, he watched the roof of a house looming out of the river fifty meters
upstream. It rushed past, bobbing widely s though held up unevenly by men walking under the water; it
was dashed against the bend where the buck had landed. There it swirled around crazily near the center of
a whirlpool. Unaccountably, after a while it disentangled itself and sailed into midstream again.
Lamberto was thoughtful as he knotted the rope Ifan had brought to the one anchored to the log. With
Kusep waiting, again he let fly the second improvised arrow with the trailing rope.
Ifan looked on with a mocking smile. “Bettu, there’s no woman in the whole world worth this kind of
risk. After all you can ask Kusep’s sons to carry the buck of Luisa. And you can cross tomorrow or the
day after.”
“Don’t be too sure, Ifan. If you wanted your wife the way I want Luisa–“
“No, Bettu. I wouldn’t do it, not for any woman.”
Lamberto pushed the log before him. He looked up at Ifan speculatively and seemed to be considering
something but just said, “Kusep will keep the ropes for you.”
Near the bank was a counter-current. He waded deeper into midstream and before he knew it he was
clinging tightly to the rope tied to the log. Panic surged up in him as the raging floodwater pushed him
until he was like a stick tossed around by the current. Hold tight, look out for the impact against the rocks
on the bank. The log danced widely. What if the rope should break? Without the rope and the log to
which he clung desperately the Magat would swirl him about like a straw. They’d fish out his body in
Bagabag, fourteen kilometers downstream. A series of swells threw him well to the other side; to his
immense relief there was a counter-current produced by the bend in the bank. It cushioned his landing.
“Bettu, Bettu,” Kusep muttered as Lamberto scrambled up from the river.
Lamberto heaved up the buck to his shoulders. Kusep protested. “No, no, Bettu. My son will carry it
for you.”
“No, Ama. I’ll do it. Thanks for helping.”
Luisa and the family were at lunch when he appeared at the door of the dining room with the deer on
his shoulder.
“Bettu?” Luisa could not conceal her amazement.
He laid the buck down in the kitchen.
Wayi Floro was agitated. “The Magat could have killed you, son.”
Luisa had something more to say. “Are you all right in the head, Bettu? I didn’t wasn’t deer meat that
much.
Lamberto had vowed to sleep one whole day, but with words of Luisa–the kindest he had ever heard
from her–he thought he could cross the Magat again for another buck from the Sierra Madre.

AFTER HIS FAILURE to get a degree at Letran, Lamberto had always been careful never to start
anything he could not finish. If at ranging Magat, foolish as it might appear at sixty-nine, there was no
reason to regret coming back this way to the heart of the Sierra Madre. Perhaps the very place that had
tested his youth was the right place in which to die,
Quite often as he was lulled to sleep in the afternoons by the swaying hammock, the buck would
come out of the tall grass and a huge python with half of its length anchored to a bough would explode
and the buck would leap wildly as Lamberto awakened in a sweat with his heart pounding. Sometimes he

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woke up when the fog had muffled the trees and in the moonlight even the porch and the hammock
seemed to be swallowed up. Or when he stirred in the middle of the night and got restless in bed he went
out to the porch to stare out at the valley soaked in moonlight. The droning insects were drowned out by
the spaced cackles of a gecko or by a baying stag, and Lamberto would wonder if this was all a dream, if
he was really alive; and the voice of Luisa would tease him, “Are you all right in the head, Bettu?” Or he
would wake up not knowing where he was and finally knowing, it was with the confused certainty that
the north, indicated by the head side of his bed, was not where it should be and knowing north was what
mattered most to him because the knowledge told him he was alive and sane. Could this be a mistake,
where he was? What was he doing here, what was he fighting for? He and Major Salazar and the soldiers
with their guns, even the Japanese occupying the towns and living in relative comfort and being
unexpectedly attacked by guerrilla patrols were parts of a dislocation of time and history, and not one
person mattered at all when the parts were put together again. But of course he was wrong to doubt.
Hilarion, wherever he was, would never wonder as he did. Hilarion’s bearings were sure, the north was
always there for him and a bug-ridden dungeon cell or a python’s burrow were all the same, each just so
much rust to weaken the conqueror’s chain. Yes, Lamberto thought, to Hilarion this time and this place
would be an absolute truth, not a fantasy but a living fact against which his own life meant nothing.
On the edge of the jungle the kalaw flapped too close, shaping the day’s rhythm so that time seemed
to stand still. If the place was a twilight of unreality, a faithful link to any kind of continuity was Rufino
and Rubio. Rufino had been three or four years old when Lamberto proposed to Luisa. Rodrigo, Rufino’s
father, had been ‘Tan Lucas’ trusted servant, and so had been Rodrigo’s father to ‘Tan Lucas’ father.
When Luisa died, Rufino was thirty-six and his son Rubio was only nine. Now in the third year of the war
Rufino’s son Rubio was a husky twenty-six. Certain facts were more fantastic than the imagination:
Rodrigo’s grandfather, Ariston, had been save by ‘Tan Lucas’ father from execution at the hands of the
Spaniards; in gratitude the man had vowed not only to serve his savior as long as he lived, but also he
charged that a son of his family line, or a daughter if the line bore no male child, would serve in the house
of the Alcantaras through the generations. It seemed ironical to Lamberto that his family name would die
with him and Hilarion, but that Rufino’s would go on.
One day he called Rufino and Rubio to him. “There is something very important I want you to do,” he
told the son. “This may be the last thing I’ll ever ask of you. I’d like you to go to Manila again to see my
daughter and granddaughter and my brother, if he is out of prison. I have money for them and some
letters. Would you do this for me, Rubio?”
“Yes of course, Señor. It will be a good to get out of this jungle for a change.”
“We can get you a Japanese pass. Major Salazar will take care of it.”
The youth’s father stirred. “Señor, I have a favor to ask.”
“What is it, Rufino?”
“I’d like to go to Manila in my son’s place. It is my turn to see Manila.”
Lamberto looked at them both. He knew why Rufino wanted to go. The trip was not only difficult–
one might have to walk most of the way to Manila–it was outright dangerous. Rufino wanted to spare his
son.
Lamberto felt the matter rapidly slip out of his hands. “What do you think, Rubio?”
“I’d like to go. But if my father wants to go and if that’s your wish, Señor, then I stay.”
Lamberto shook his head. “You know how the trip will be. You think you can make it, Rufino?”
“I can, Señor. Besides, I don’t think the Japanese would bother an old man. I can take a bus or truck

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in Bambang so I won’t be recognized.”
By Rufino, therefore, Lamberto sent five thousand pesos and letters of instruction on property matters
in the event of his death.
A month passed, then other, and still another, but Rufino did not return.
Lamberto’s radio had been installed in the next house where Saccal maintained his office as deputy
governor. He had the radio transferred from his own house because he could not stand to hear the news;
the progress of the American counter-offensive from New Guinea was slow and depressing. Moresby,
Buna, Morotai, Tarawa, and other strange names of atolls, all seemed too far away and had no true
connection with what was happening here. Rubio pedaled a bicycle to charge the radio battery each time
the news came on, but it was wasted time and energy. Even Bayombong was now another world far away.
The only real things about the town were the bits of information he occasionally received about the
execution of certain townspeople. Some of the victims were his friends, Braulio Altavas and his three
sons, Cabesa Julio-i-Tomasa and a son-in-law, two of his own tenants who had died rather than betray his
location. There was news that the puppet governor, Carlos Tamayo had been a friend of Lamberto; he
wondered how the man could endure the contemptible life of a puppet.
“How much longer do you think?” Lamberto asked Major Salazar once when the guerrilla leader
stopped by on his way back to his headquarters in the Cambago foothills.
“Nobody can tell, Governor. But it shouldn’t be long now.”
Salazar’s round, almost flabby face and full sensual mouth betrayed a man of brute stubbornness and
discipline. After three years in the mountains he had not run out of ammunition; he managed to get a
supply, much of it from the enemy. He was never out of his khaki uniform, thought his men had log been
reduced to wearing clothes cut out from jute sacking.
Salazar and his men did not have to worry too much about food supplies. By previous arrangements
with Lamberto and other landowners in the lowlands they received a share of the crops. Salazar’s supply
officer gave Lamberto and the others receipts for everything: cavans of rice and corn each harvest, heads
of cattle slaughtered, poultry, pigs, goats, root crops like camote and yam, bananas, cabbages, peanuts.
The meticulousness of the supply sergeant was ridiculous and pathetic.
“Keep the receipts, Governor,” Salazar had told him, “including whatever receipts the Japs gave you.
You’ll need them to collect on your claims later when this is all over.”
“Are you sure,” said Lamberto with a trace of humor, “that your receipts will count for anything?”
“They should be honored, sir.”
Lamberto was sleeping in the porch hammock one afternoon after lunch and was having a vivid
dream: he saw again the three antlers moving among the ferns. Then came a loud explosion, and another,
and another, and during the brief intervals the belching staccato of machine gun fire. He must be going
mad–he had fired only once at the biggest buck. Presently he heard screams cut abruptly by a series of
three explosions that made his hammock sway. He leaped from his hammock and out of the house.
Crouched behind the huge trunk of a lauan tree, he watched three planes as they circled around and
swooped down to strafe the shacks of the evacuees. Twenty minutes went among the stricken families, his
old feet stumbling through the shambles of huts. There were five casualties, a man stride his carabao,
another working in his clearing, a boy of fifteen fetching water at the spring, and a woman and her
daughter whose house was one of those that had been hit.
The next day an officer and a few soldiers came from the headquarters of Major Salazar. “A costly
lesson, Governor. Of course the Japanese would be very suspicious of a cleared stretch like this deep in

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the Sierra.” The officer was a young man who wasted no time lamenting the incident. He advised those
who lived in the cleared space to rebuild their huts under the trees where they would be safer. More than
likely the Japanese planes would come again.
Unbelievably Banwag had unbroken quiet for a year after his incident, except for two occasions when
thirty or forty families came trooping up to escape the heavy Japanese patrols that had twice penetrated
the lower slopes. In a week their own areas were safe again and Major Salazar advised them to return. All
along there were the usual community worries, the need for medicine, the shortage of clothing materials,
including blankets for the chilly Sierra Madre nights; little commotions caused by a python entering a
poultry shed, a monkey or a wild boar shot for venturing into the fields of corn and rice and yams. One
day was much like the next for Lamberto in his house under the trees. And he lost track of time.
As the kalaw, a mournful bird, called out from a jungle treetop to announce the coming of sunset,
Lamberto from his porch would see Dulnoan, the young Igorot soldier, stalk from the government shack
to stand guard outside his house. He had protested that there was no seed for his nightly guard duty. He
had his own servant and two or three tenants to stand watch if it were necessary, and to him it was not.
Salazar had his own opinion. “The guard is a symbol of your office, Governor.”
It must be the military mind, Lamberto thought, to insist on protocol even in the jungle.
“In case of an emergency Dulnoan can lead you to the safest place in the Sierra Madre.”
The young Igorot soldier, dressed in a loin cloth topped by a loose, locally woven, striped brown
jacket, was armed with an Enfield rifle as well as a bow and a quiver of arrows. Although Dulnoan used
the bow and arrow with great effectiveness for ambuscades, the rifle, Salazar insisted, would give a
general alarm. Dulnoan’s sad brooding eyes. Set in a strained, concave face, seemed incongruous in a
man with a neck buttressed on powerful shoulders; he was tall for an Igorot, probably more than a foot
taller than Pug-guwan, the chief Lamberto had met after killing the python forty-six years before.
“Have you ever heard of Pug-guwan?” Lamberto had asked the young Igorot soldier on the first day
of his assignment. “He was a chief of your people long ago.”
“Yes, sir. He was a cousin of my grandfather. My grandfather fought under Pug-guwan against the
Spaniards.” Dulnoan explained, “Our tribe had lived in this part of the Sierra for a long time. We are
small group, and we keep alive the stories of the past.”

IN A WAY PUG-GUWAN had played a part in Lamberto’s imprisonment for six months at hard
labor, under the Spanish regime. He had been working out his years of servitude in the house of Luisa.
One afternoon on his way home he saw people working late at the garrison. For two weeks the
government’s demand for “Voluntary” service from the barrios had been concentrated on the breastwork
surrounding the garrison. In addition to the two-peso cedula, each citizen was annually taxed a total of
thirty days work on government projects: roads, bridges, canals, ditches, dikes along the banks of the
Magat. Usually work stopped at five o’clock but this afternoon, nearly an hour after the church bells had
announced the angelus, the men were still hard at work. About sixty men on the breastwork were carrying
away the rotting logs and replacing them with new timber. Each log was about thirty feet long and one-
and-half feet in diameter and had to be hauled by eight men. Captain Silvino Montuya, with a squad of
armed guardias civiles, supervised the different teams.
At the far end of the garrison a Spanish sergeant shouted, “No back talk! You may be the head man of
your group but you’re just a flunky here.”
A lower voice persisted, “But the men are tired. We are all hungry.”

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 Silence from the sergeant.
“Señor, if you will listen–“
The sergeant turned to a Filipino corporal. “This man has been making trouble for days now. We have
to teach these lazy Indios a lesson.”
The corporal dragged the man to the whipping post in front of the flag pole.
Lamberto saw that it was Ifan, his father’s tenant across the Magat. Ifan was the head man of the
workers in his area. Ifan’s shirt was stripped off and he was hog-tied to the post; his raised hands were
bound over his head, and his ankles clamped to the stocks.
The sergeant left to fetch Captain Montuya at the other end of the garrison and together they strode to
the post. The sergeant blew his whistle and all the men stopped working.
“Indios,” Montuya said, “you do not learn your lesson. This is the fifth man we will lash today. He is
your head man and we will be harder on him. Any more back talk and you get forty lashes instead of
twenty, and what’s more you’ll have to serve an extra week. I don’t want any more of your sluggishness.
You, Indios, are so proud of it.” He turned to the corporal. “Give him thirty lashes.”
The corporal holding the long ox tail planted his legs apart in a solid stance. Each sharp screech of the
whip left a long straight welt across Ifan’s back.
Lamberto turned away. He was boiling with fury. He noticed some men in G-strings working at the
far end of the garrison and, moving toward them, he recognized two in the group: one was Pug-guwan,
the Igorot chief, and the other was the fellow with the beehive-like eruptions along his thigh. Lamberto
waved to the old Igorot chief. Pug-guwan walked over trying to make out who he was in the gathering
darkness; he finally recognized him and raised his hand in greeting, but he was stopped by a shout from a
Filipino guardia civil.
“You dog-eating salvaje, get back to your work!”
The little man, unruffled and erect, walked back to his group which was preparing to hoist a log.
“You!” the guardia civil pointed at Lamberto. “Get moving. You have no business hanging around
here–your turn will come.”
Lamberto stood where he was.
“I said,” shouted the guardia civil, “get moving!”
“What’s wrong with standing here?”
The log-work between them was only knee-high. The guardia civil advanced and placed his left foot
on the log. “I said get moving or you get a colata.”
“Just because you’re a guardia civil you think you can order people around.”
“Once more I tell you to get moving!”
“I’m not moving, soldier.”
“Then you get this–“
The guardia civil had stepped over the log work and raised his gun to hit Lamberto, but Lamberto
parried the thrust, chopped at the man’s wrist with the edge of his palm, and wrenched the gun with a jerk
that knocked the solder’s head with the gun butt. In the next instant he had disarmed him and the guardia
civil slumped down on the breastwork. Captain Montuya rushed forward, his gun pointed at Lamberto.
All along Montuya had been watching from a distance and had waited impatiently for the guardia civil to

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give a colata to the presumptuous young Alcantara, to teach the punk a lesson in obedience.
“Drop that.” Montuya was quiet.
Lamberto dropped the gun.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Montuya had neatly barbered hair grey at his temples, pale blue eyes,
and a general look of icy ruthlessness.
“I was standing here, Captain, when the soldier shouted at me to keep moving,”
“And why were you hanging around?”
“I was on my way home. I stopped for a while and the soldier shouted at me to keep moving, and
when I didn’t he came over to butt me–“
“You think you can disobey orders because you are an Alcantara? You’re wrong. You have resisted
authority and I am placing you under arrest.”
Montuya paused to look squarely into his face. “This is to remind you, Indios, including your family,
to respect authority.” He turned to the guardia civil. “Get up, you clumsy animal. Take this man to jail.”
The jail was a solid one-story brick structure squatting about sixty meters east of the garrison. The
floor was only two about ten meters by fourteen. The warden’s office next to the jail entrance was barred
like the two cells. The left cell was partly blocked from the longer cell by the office.
The odor of urine and human waste assailed Lamberto’s nostrils the instant the prison guard opened
the door of the bigger cell. Lamberto said, “Please do me a favor. Could you send word to my father that
I’m here?”
“Yes I’ll do that.”
As the lock clicked shut Lamberto felt stifled and also choked up. The two small barred windows
were seven feet from the floor and what ever breeze came in could not expel the foul air. Lamberto saw
half-shadowy figures in the cell with him, seven others prisoners lying on narrow beds. Later he learned
they had been convicted of crimes ranging from petty theft to murder, but they had all been placed
together. The bamboo beds were arranged in two rows on opposite sides of the cell. Lamberto sat down
on one unoccupied bed. This indeed was a rude and violent turn for a day that had started as rather dull.
But if he had to witness again the same kind of cruelty and be insulted, he would still do what he had
done.
The guardia civil was the clenched fist of the Spanish administration. Before this afternoon the
guardia civil had been only rumor, something like the angry but righteous belt of a father imposing
discipline upon erring children. To him Governor Arlegui and Doctor San Andres and Padre Pascual were
not wielders of belts. All along Hilarion’s anger at Spanish injustice had been only an abstraction to
Lamberto. Whatever personal animosity Hilarion felt toward the government, Lamberto wondered now if
it had the shocking reality of his present experience. This one personal involvement had become so
magnified that even the fine Spaniards he knew were included in the narrow focus of his wrath.
Lamberto was not allowed bail. ‘Tan Lucas requested postponement of the trial so that Hilarion could
return from Manila to defend Lamberto. The request was denied. ‘Tan Lucas began to wonder about
Governor Arlegui and Don Nicolas Monteverde, the alcalde, both of whom he had considered friends and
whom he had often entertained as honored guest and his house. Frantic, he had to ask Fulgencio Cueva, a
procurador judicial, to defend Lamberto. Cueva was not a lawyer but was licensed to practice law. He
was a stooped, tubercular-looking man, dark even for a Filomeno, who bristled his eyebrows as and
affected other mannerisms. The man preceded almost all of his ponderous statements by placing a tiny

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pinch of snuff first in one nostril and then in the other; he took the snuff from a multi-colored periwinkle
shell dangling by a golf chain from his breast pocket.
The central issue, the government prosecutor stated before the court, was the admission of the
accused that he had disarmed the guardia civil; any departure from that was irrelevant. This was the issue
that he hammered home as he interrogated Lamberto.
“You were told to leave the garrison ground, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you leave?”
“The guardia civil shouted at me.”
“You didn’t want to be shouted at, is that correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You were told you had no business hanging around the garrison, am I right?”
“Yes, but it was the way he spoke to me.”
“How did you want a guardia civil performing his duty, to speak to you?”
“When a little common courtesy.”
“When you’re told you have no business hanging around the garrison, would you expect a guardia
civil to smile and say please go, the way your lady might when she has had enough of you for a while.”
Lamberto had an urge to smash the fiscal’s whiskered face. The man was actually smacking his lips.
“Another question, and I want an honest answer. Just what did you mean to do when you stood there
at the garrison waiting for the guardia civil, the guardian of our laws–as you stood there, legs planted like
this, as was described by the guardia civil, and the Captain Montuya? What was in your mind, Lamberto
Alcantara? You were mad, weren’t you?” the fiscal shouted, “You were ranging mad, weren’t you?”
“Don’t shout at me!”
“You have quite a temper, I see. Answer the question. Weren’t you mad?”
“Yes, I was mad.”
“And what did you intend to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you were mad.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Maybe you wanted to crack open his head, eh?”
“No.”
“Then you just wanted to beat him up, didn’t you?” The fiscal shouted, “Answer me. Didn’t you?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? I am told you are fencing expert. Is this true?”
“I know cane fencing.”
“And you knew you could disarm the guardia civil?”
“How could I know?”
“But you did disarm him. Say yes or no.”

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 “Yes, I did.”
“In other words, you admit you violently struck his wrist, wrenched the gun out of his hands, and hit
him on the head–and he fell down on the log-work. Is that correct?”
Lamberto nodded.
“Say it!”
“Yes, that’s what happened.”
“What did you intend to do as the guardia civil lay there at your feet?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were still mad, weren’t you?”
“Yes, I was.”
“And it was at this time that Captain Montuya came along, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“That is all.” The fiscal turned to the alcalde. “Your honor, the prosecution rests its case.”
The verdict of the alcalde was swift: six months of imprisonment at hard labor.
Hilarion arrived two days later. He was enraged at the arbitrary conduct of the alcalde. There was not
the slightest reason under Spanish Law, he told his father, why Lamberto couldn’t be granted bail or why
the trial couldn’t have been postponed. “There’s a prime example, Pang, of autocratic rule, flagrant and
arbitrary violation of the most basic rule of justice.”
Later that day Hilarion took his father to the house of procurador. He wanted to find out for himself
what had happened in court. Cueva corroborated what his father and Lamberto had told him.
“I’m questioning the integrity with which Cueva conducted the case, Bettu. At the very heart of your
resistance lies the argument in your favor. At that point the emphasis should have been on what caused
you to act the way you did. And Cueva’s silence, meant a lack of integrity.”
“You know perfectly well why he wouldn’t bring it up,” said Lamberto. “You couldn’t ask that in
court without questioning the whole system of the Spanish Administration. Enforced labor and unjustified
corporal punishment are a part of it. If he had asked that, he would be a marked man, he’d be through as a
procurador, and that would be the end of his family.”
“At that point, Bettu, Cueva wouldn’t have been speaking for you alone. He’d be striking at an
ancient evil.”
‘Tan Lucas asked, “And you would have done it, Hilarion?”
“By God, I would!” Hilarion controlled himself with an effort. “There’s a man with the grasshopper’s
mentality. Eat, sleep, drop–and never bother about slavery.”

SIX MONTHS after Lamberto was freed from prison he saw Pug-guwan again. The chief and about
thirty of his mountain tribe had joined Hilarion’s revolutionary force of two hundred and eighty men.
Except for about twenty-five who had guns, mostly shotguns, the rest had only bolos hanging on their
string waist bands. There were axes and spears and bamboo lances that had been sharpened from a light
species of bamboo the size of a man’s wrist. Except for these crude weapons it seemed the men might
have been gathered to move a house to a new site or build a dike for a communal irrigation system. They
were mostly farmers whose contact with violence was mainly from cockfighting on Sunday afternoons.

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The Igorots, under Pug-guwan, were the only ones who looked like fighting men.
Lamberto walked over to the old Igorot chief who stood apart with his men. “Glad you are in this
too.”
“Why not? We want to live peacefully in the Sierra. Hunt, sleep, hunt some more. But the guardias
civiles hunt us also. You saw that at the garrison. We are treated worse than the animals we hunt. That’s
why we are here.”
He was a lean little man with a sagging stomach, heavy-lidded eyes, and high, sharp cheekbones. His
whole face showed a searching, restless nature.
Lamberto pulled out an arrow from the quiver hanging on the chief’s back. It was a sturdy arrow
whittled from the tough bark of a jungle palm; three feet long, it had feathers on the bow end. Lamberto
looked intently at the dark, sharp point.
“Poisoned?”
The little man laughed. He opened the lid of a small receptacle made from the tip of a buck’s antler; it
was strung from his waist. “More of in it here. Look. We dip in the arrow before we shoot.”
Lamberto rubbed the feathers with the back of his index finger. “And these?”
The little man smiled. “Just a small offering to the dead, man or animal.”
Lamberto returned the arrow to the quiver. He got the bow and bent it for strength. It had the tensile
toughness of the bow he himself owned; but this Igorot was a small man. “It’s strong.”
“It has to be, or the arrow has no strength.”
Lamberto looked at the Igorot’s naked shoulders, and his deceptively lean arms. Returning the bow,
Lamberto felt of Pug-guwan’s shoulders. “They are strong.”
The chief jerked his bow. “We live by this.”

AND NOW, after almost half century, from his jungle porch Lamberto looked at the young Igorot
warrior with the sad, brooding eyes shouldering a rifle and a bow and a quiver of arrows, fighting yet
another war.

CHAPTER 9
ONE DAY TOWARD THE END OF OCTOBER Saccal hurried to Lamberto’s house to tell him
about a big naval battle near Leyte Gulf. “That means it’s only a matter of days!”
The Leyte landing took place soon after, followed by other landings in Mindoro and Lingayen.
February brought the news of bloody fighting in Manila with reports of heavy casualties among the city’s
civilian population. Lamberto brooded over the safety of Luisa and Teodora and Hilarion. His anxiety
mounted when the fighting extended from Intramuros to the Malate section, where Teodora and Primo
lived.
Early one morning, a month later, Lamberto heard what sounded like rolls of thunder. The noise
continued all day and through the night, intermittently. “Rubio, what could that be?”
“I never heard of thunder lasting as long as this, Señor.”
“Rubio, go down to Major Salazar’s headquarters and find out. Hurry back.”
Four hours later the excited Rubio brought the news. “Fighting in Balete Pass!”

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 “Balete Pass!”
“They say no. The Americans and Japanese are fighting there.”
The high narrow pass was on the Caraballo side where the Sierra Madre merged with it; it was less
than half an hour from Banwag on a crow’s back.
That same day Major Salazar sent out a patrol to the Pass; a lieutenant and five men cut through the
mountains to make contact with the American troops. At the same time Salazar moved his headquarters
temporarily to Banwag. The sound of artillery fire was persistent now, and seemed even closer. Meantime
American reconnaissance planes flew over the Banwag area and beyond it, covering the long valley
which included Bayombong and Solano. On Salazar’s second day in Banwag an American plane flew so
low that the major and his men waved their hats and raised their guns over their heads, and the pilot
dipped his wings at them before he finally zoomed away. The next day a helicopter hovered in the middle
of the clearing and Salazar and his men rushed out to meet it. The helicopter came to rest on a grassy flat-
topped knoll, and even as its motor was still running an American captain got out.
“I’m Major Salazar.” The major gravely extended his hand.
“Captain Thompson.” The American officer glanced around at the men clad in patched civilian
clothes and jute sacking. “Guerillas?”
Salazar nodded. “I have three hundred and fifty men in this area.”
Thompson was a heavy man, short for an American. His pallid skin was covered with fine white
down; his straight pale-yellow hair and eyelashes marked his Nordic origin. Among the ill-clothed,
unshod guerrillas, Captain Thompson was a strange creature from another world.
Lamberto joined them and Salazar introduced him. “Señor Lamberto Alcantara, our provincial
governor.”
The captain signaled to his pilot and in the next instant the roar of the helicopter stopped.
“How is it out there?” Salazar waved his hand at the other side of the range.
“Heavy fighting. We’ve been slowed down at the Pass. A heavy concentration of Japs there. Excuse
me just a moment.” He went to the helicopter and came back with a large aerial map of the area from
Balete Pass to Banwag, and another that covered a larger section, including the foothills of Cambago to
Bayombong and Solano. He pointed his pale stubby finger at a point on the map. “The fighting is right
here.” He moved his finger to the left. “And this about where we are, roughly twenty miles. Is there a trail
from here to Balete Pass, Major?”
“Yes. Just two days ago I sent a patrol of six men in the direction of the gunfire hoping to make
contact with your troops. Two of the men were Igorots who know these mountains quite well.”
“When will your patrol be back?”
“As soon as they’ve made contact. Three or four days perhaps.”
“You get reliable information about the Japs?”
“Very good. We have two posts between here and the foothills. About a company in each post. Our
contact men in Bayombong–that’s the town below us–are dependable. One of them is very close to the
puppet governor himself.”
“How big is the Jap concentration in that town?”
“Usually about two companies. Recently it has been a battalion, sometimes a regiment. They keep
coming and going and never stay too long.”

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 “How far is it to the town?”
“Three hours going down–four coming up.”
“How are your supplies?”
“If you mean arms, only half of my men have guns, mostly old Enfields and shotguns. We have to
rotate them among the men. And we’re very short on ammunition–the reason our patrols are spaced so far
apart. We’ve done nothing the last few months except let the Japs know we’re still around.”
“Excuse me.” Captain Thompson went back inside the helicopter and spoke for a time with the pilot.
He returned with a walkie-talkie. “I’ll leave this with you, Major.” He demonstrated how it worked. “By
one o’clock past noon tomorrow I’ll call you. My signal is Milwaukee–yours is Chicago. Let’s
synchronize our watches.” Noticing Salazar’s old wrist watch he gave him his own. Thompson nodded to
the pilot. “Get the time right, Jim. It’s 10:17 here.” Before he climbed back into the helicopter he told
Salazar, “We’ll try to drop supplies here in a couple of days.”
“Captain, may I keep one of the maps, the larger one? I haven’t seen anything like that of this area
before.”
“You can have both.”
The captain saluted, a rising roar filled the air, and the helicopter lifted itself like a huge, ungainly
insect.
At one o’clock the next day Thompson called Salazar. Later in the afternoon three twin-engined
planes dropped parachuted loads: a variety of weapons from carbines to bazookas, ammunition, uniforms,
blankets, shoes, canned goods, candy bars, cigarettes, even soap and toothpaste. The next day three more
planes dropped more supplies; one box contained a small radio transmitter and receiver. In the afternoon
Milwaukee notified Chicago that Salazar’s patrol had established contact with the Americans at the Pass.
Six days later another helicopter hovered over Banwag and squatted down in the middle of the
clearing. A tall officer emerged. Salazar was there to meet him as were the governor and Filomeno
Saccal. The officer was a thoughtful-looking bespectacled man of thirty-two. Long straight legs and lean
hips supported rather heavy shoulders that were slightly stooped.
“Lt. Col. William Lansing,” he introduced himself.
Hardly had they finished their greetings when three Japanese planes swooped down from the western
rim of Banwag toward the helicopter. The first plane slashed the helicopter and hit the pilot who had been
caught by surprise. The second plane exploded it, and the third concentrated its fire on the surrounding
area. The planes zoomed up and returned, this time strafing the fringes of the valley where some houses
were visible. One plane making for the guerrilla headquarters was met by machine gun fire. It swerved off
near the trees, zoomed up and came back to drop a bomb. The two machine guns on the ground rattled
again and the plane wobbled and crashed into a towering wall trees. The two other planes circled around
the clearing twice. They were cautions and flew higher up. They unloaded their bombs where a few
houses were huddled, close to where the plane had crashed. Finally they roared away.
Colonel Lansing had pulled the governor behind the wide trunk of a felled lauan tree. They were well
concealed. When the planes started to concentrate on the fringes of the valley Lansing crawled out to the
helicopter debris. The pilot was nowhere to be seen but some distance from the burning pile he saw a
severed arm. He crawled back to the governor. There he sat up and leaned his back against the log and
wiped his glasses. His unseeing eyes were turned to the tops of the trees across the clearing.
Thirty meters from the guerrilla headquarters two houses had caught fire from the provincial

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treasurer’s house, which had been hit directly by a bomb. Besides the American pilot three soldiers of
Salazar, two of them Igorots, had been killed and seven wounded. Two families near the southern edge of
the valley had been killed as well as five other civilians, including the wife of the provincial treasurer.
In Major Salazar’s headquarters some time later Lansing made contact with Milwaukee. “This is Lt.
Col. Lansing. Relay this message the colonel Schroeder. My chopper was blown up by enemy strafing at
Chicago area. Lt. Kelso killed. I advise not, repeat not, to send any more choppers to Chicago until further
call. I advise you send 437 to designated point as planned. Over.”
“Colonel Lansing, from Milwaukee. Hold on, Colonel Lansing. Colonel Schroeder on the line. Over.”
A high voice, like a woman’s came on. “Bill? You, okay?”
“Yes, Clyde, I’m fine. I repeat advice to go on with movement of 437 to designated point. Over.”
“Okay, Bill. Good luck. Over.”
Lansing turned to Major Salazar, who sat across the table from him poring over the larger of the two
aerial maps. Lansing pointed out Balete pass. “We haven’t moved a hundred meters from this place for
two weeks now. An unusually heavy concentration of Japs.” His pencil moved a few inches to the left.
“Here’s where we are.” He made an irregular arc to Balete Pass. “That’s roughly the trail your patrol
took, Major. The patrol leader said it should take six to seven hours for my battalion to reach us here.” He
marked a spot two inches away from Balete Pass. “My battalion’s here. Your patrol, Major, will lead
them to us. We’re to establish our position,” he searched for the spot, “Right here, to outflank the Japs.”
Now his pencil moved northwest from Banwag to a spot marking the town of Dupax. “There’s this road
from Dupax. When we get through Balete pass, the Japs will either go from Dupax to Baguio or go
through the Cagayan Valley to Aparri, the port town in the north. My Battalion will spearhead to block a
possible Jap retreat to this Valley road to the north. Another battalion, or even a regiment or more, will be
airborne to help stops the Japs. The idea is to contain them in or along the Dupax-Baguio road.”
He sat back and took out a cigarette and passed the pack around. “You don’t know how glad we were
to make this contact with you,” he told Salazar.
Very early the next morning the valley was filled with the roar of planes.
“Parachutes!” someone cried. “Parachutes!”
Lansing scrambled to the window of the hut. Parachutes were floating down; some had already
crumpled safely to the ground about three hundred meters away.
“Did you expect paratroopers, Colonel?” Salazar asked.
“No, but I thought it was just possible headquarters–“
A corporal came running up. “Jap paratroopers, sir!”
By then all Banwag was awake. Major Salazar was barking orders. A company was deployed around
the fringe of the valley. A platoon stood by at the headquarters.
Salazar turned to Colonel Lansing, “There’s another clearing much smaller than this, three or four
kilometers south here. I want the governor and all the civilians to evacuate there.”
Lansing nodded.
Salazar sent a sergeant to the governor and the provincial officials with the order. All the while heavy
gun fire was going on from both sides.
“If I may suggest, Colonel–” Salazar said. “I think these Japs know you’re here. These are suicide
squads. They’re here to get you and others they think are here. I suggest you go with the governor while

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we deal the Japs.”
“Is there a possibility of Jap reinforcement from the town?”
“Our outpost in the foothills should have sent us a report if something’s cooking. But we can never
tell.”
“I’m staying, Major. Besides–I hope you don’t mind this–I have orders to have your unit attached to
my battalion if it becomes necessary.”
“That’s quite all right, Colonel. Only it’s just possible–I don’t want your battalion arriving to find
they no longer have a commanding officer.”
“The first order of the day,” said Lansing, “is to clear the area of these prowlers.”
“Yes, sir! You’ll find that our Igorots and their arrows can do that kind of job better than any group I
know.”
By noon an all-clear signal was given.
“I forgot to tell you,” said Salazar evenly. “My men don’t want Jap prisoners here. Just more mouths
to feed and my men have been on slack rations. Also, the Japs refuse to speak English and you can’t get
anything out of them anyway.”
Lansing was thoughtful. He stood at the window of the headquarters watching some Igorot soldiers.
Sweat glistened on their skin; some were naked except for the bit of loin cloth. Their quivers of arrows
were slung behind them. A silent bunch, he thought, even as they were hanging around their fellow-
soldiers cleaning their guns.
“Do they know how to use guns?”
“Oh, yes. Probably as well as anyone. For jungle fighting they prefer their arrows. It’s the element of
surprise. They know the mountain like their own hands. I have fifty of them around me all the time.”
“I saw a few Igorots in action near Balete Pass. Part of the local guerrillas attached to us. A few were
assigned as guide. Some of them actually climbed up on the moving Japanese tanks to be sure their
grenades dropped inside. I’d never seen anything like it.”
He turned around. “Major, this other place you sent the governor to. I’d like to see that. It might be a
good alternate area for our operation.”
Early that afternoon Lansing and Salazar and the signal officer left for Lunas, the new clearing. A
squad of soldiers including four Igorots accompanied them. Earlier another squad had escorted the
governor and the civilians there. On the trail cows were being driven along by Lamberto’s tenants.
Lansing looked at the cows with interest.
“How long is the governor been here with you?”
“Almost from the start. His land has been supporting my unit.”
An hour later in Lunas, Lansing got in touch with his battalion. His men would arrive at nine or ten
the next morning.
The settlement was neat and compact. Sometime before, Lamberto had ordered the shacks build in
Lunas, in case of emergency. Two cottages were set for offices, and the civilians who couldn’t be housed
in the five others lived in temporary lean-tos together with rattan and jungle vines.
The colonel, Major Salazar, and Filomeno Saccal were guest of the governor at the supper that night.
They had fresh boiled beef and fragrant mountain rice and a bowl of crisp fern greens. The four men sat
and smoked on the palm wood floor of the governor’s shack. The room was lighted by a burning wick

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floating in oil in a clam shell. The shell, the size of two cupped hands, seemed out of place in the jungle.
Luisa had given it to Lamberto as a bedroom ashtray, but for a long time now he had used it as an oil
lamp.
The soldiers ate their meal huddled around a fire outside. The Igorots squatted at their heels as they
ate. Lansing noticed that the Igorots ate only after the other soldiers had eaten. He was looking at a young
warrior biting off the meat from a roasted thigh bone.
“These tribesmen,” he said, “weren’t they head-hunters in the past?”
“Some of them still are,” said Salazar.
“The real head-hunters are the Ilongots–that’s another tribe–and they live in these mountains, too.”
“But these Igorots here, Major, they aren’t head-hunters, are they?”
“In a way they are. They enjoy hunting Japs.”
“They must have some reason. It isn’t just an urge to kill, is it?”
“Well, for one thing, being in the army means they eat regularly.”
Lamberto looked up at Salazar and his voice was sharp. “They know why they’re fighting. This is not
the first time for them. In the war of the revolution they contributed more than any other group to free
Vizcaya. My whole family got involved in the Revolution–and the Igorots with us.” He stared at the
lighted wick in the calm shell and for a moment seemed to forget his surroundings. His gaze shifted to
Lansing and suddenly the white Colonel was not a stranger, not a ghost in their midst. “Yes, Colonel, the
Igorots know why they’re in this–it’s not only for the food!”
After a moment Salazar said, “Governor, I am properly rebuked.”
“Let me tell you something, Colonel,” Lamberto went on. “I have not talked much during the last
three years here in the mountains. There’s has been nothing to say. Lying in my rattan hammock, looking
at the clearing and the jungle year after year, I’ve wondered sometimes what the war was all about. There
were moments when I thought I might even be losing my mind. But these Igorots have gone on quietly.
Now and then they stumble upon friends or relatives with Japanese bullets in their skulls, just like what
happened yesterday; and they know they have to fight back. I suppose it has become that simple to them,
but it’s certainly a great deal better than doing nothing but lie in a hammock and wait.”
The American had been listening intently. “It’s been like that for me at times, sir. One can get
confused. That could be why I wondered what they were in this mess for, the Igorots, I mean. I’m afraid
many people have reduced the war to a bare matter of killing and trying to avoid getting killed.”
Later, when he had settled himself to sleep on the floor, Lansing was still thinking of the governor
and the Igorots. Saccal beside the other wall was wide awake. Lansing was about to ask Saccal an
inconsequential question that had nagged at him since supper, about why the Igorots did not eat with the
other men. He held back the question, not wanting to be misunderstood. Presently, though, he spoke into
the darkness, “These tribesmen, they don’t seem to be on the same social level as the rest of your people,
Major.”
Salazar was smoking quietly. He blew a long cloud into the air. “You mean the Igorots do not eat at
the same table with us. No, we wouldn’t might a bit if they did. But they prefer not to.” He added bluntly,
“That’s not a purely local problem, I believe. You have a worse one in your country, we hear.”
Early the following day Lansing and Salazar returned to Banwag.
Lansing was a bit tense. “In a couple of hours my men should be here. I’d like Able Company to
proceed to your lowest camp and Baker to the middle camp. The rest will stay here until further orders.

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How does that look to you?”
“Sounds all right. Though I’d like one thing clear. Do you want me to have my men under a single
command, or would you rather distribute them among yours for deployment reasons?”
“I must think about that, Major.” Lansing turned to the map on the table. “How far is it from the town
to the outpost in the foothills?”
“Roughly seven kilometers–five if you start from the river.”
Lansing’s finger described an arc equivalent to two kilometers. “We can establish a perimeter of
defense around this area while HQ drops supplies and men – -at least a battalion – -a kilometer from the
foothills. Your men, Major, may defend this sector,” he pointed to a third of the arc to the east, “and my
men will take the rest of the sector. Does that seem reasonable?”
“Very good, sir.”
All of Lansing’s battalion had arrived by mid morning. By early afternoon they had gone down to the
foothills; early the next morning they were all deployed as planned. At eight o’clock the airdrop of men
and supplies started.
At nine-thirty the first Japanese patrols from the Bayombong garrison stumbled on the perimeter from
the south and were cut down by heavy gunfire. The perimeter expanded with the addition of another
battalion. Salazar’s men later probed into the outskirts of the town and learned that the Japanese troops
had with drawn to Dupax with the bulk of the retreating Japanese army to join General Yamashita’s
forces in Baguio.
Shortly afterwards the Banwag evacuees started moving back to the town.

CHAPTER 10
ON THE VERY DAY Lamberto returned to Bayombong, he went to the communications section of
the American military headquarters to send a telegram to Teodora. Also, he sent Rubio to Manila on an
army truck to find out what had happened to Rufino and to see how it was with the family. The return
wire from Teodora came later that day. Every body, including Hilarion, had come out safely. With that
happy information Lamberto felt he could postpone going to Manila. He had a great deal of work to do.
First, he had to look into the condition of his property. Through some legal trickery, the puppet governor,
Carlos Tamayo, had tried to confiscate the two ranches and the rice and lumber mills. Primo, his son-in-
law, did a good job of frustrating the man’s crooked scheme. The rice lands and the crops had been left
almost entirely to his trusted tenants for the past four years.
Also, the running of the provincial government claimed much of Lamberto’s attention. Colonel
Lansing was now the commander of the USAFFE troops in the Cagayan Valley provinces which were
temporary under military rule, and he was also concerned about the administration of civil affairs. He
would not listen to Lamberto’s pleas to let him resign the governorship; and Major Salazar completely
agreed with Lansing. “Filomeno Saccal was my deputy and right-hand man,” Lamberto had insisted. “He
could do a better job.”
“Considering you have been with it from the start of the war, and even before that,” Salazar
countered, “you’re the man to put things in order.”
So he stayed on, but was promised release from the governorship in six months.
One of his first concerns was what to do about Carlos Tamayo, the puppet governor, and a few other
officials who had collaborated with the Japanese. Salazar solved the problem in his characteristics way;

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he had them all imprisoned. When Lamberto first saw Tamayo in the provincial jail the man was almost
hysterical.
“Listen, my friend, they clapped me into this place like a common criminal. You must get me out of
here, Bettu.”
“Of course you know, Carlos, I can’t do anything about it.”
“How long will they keep us here?”
“There will be a trial–“
“For what?”
“Collaboration–although it’s not for me to say.”
“Is this what I get for staying behind and protecting our people while you ran away from your duty?”
Lamberto controlled himself with difficulty. “Obviously Major Salazar has evidence against you or
you wouldn’t be here.”
Rubio returned from Manila with letters from the family. They had gotten the money and the papers
from Rufino, who had stayed only four days and then had left for Bayombong; they had no idea what had
happened to him. Lamberto did not know it but Rubio had long since resigned himself to his father’s fate.
When months had passed without a word about him, he had taken it as a sign that his father was dead.
Lamberto took a month to attend to the most immediate problems, personal as well as official, and
then he left for Manila. He rode in the colonel’s jeep with Lansing himself driving. All along the way they
saw the burnt-out emaciated faces of people, a sight also common in Bayombong. For the populace the
nightmare of the war was not over. The yellow bloated faces were too heavy for the spindly necks and
bodies, the result of malnutrition. The healthy well-clad ones, with their shining buttons and unmarked
shoes, seen with the hungry faces or against ruined buildings looked immoral.
In Manila, Lamberto and Lansing were quiet as they drove through the ruins of the city, the torn-up
streets, the broken skeletons of buildings. As Lansing surveyed the destruction his blue eyes were coldly
alert; at other times he looked sad and distracted.
“I never thought it could be like this,” was all Lamberto could say.
“The other day a radio commentator said the destruction here is worse than in Warsaw. That’s saying
a lot. Warsaw was one of the cities in Europe that look a terrible beating.”
When they reached the house of Teodora in Malate they noticed that there was not much damage in
the immediate neighborhood, except where scattered houses had been demolished.
As they went through the driveway Lamberto realized the full measure of his relief. He had not dared
to indulge his fears for the safety of his separated family all during the war.
“There’s room in the house, Bill. We’d like you to stay if you have no other plans.”
“Thanks, Governor, please don’t think about it. I’ve planned to bunk with an Army friend. Anyway,
I’ll mostly be out seeing what there is to see.”
It was Teodora who opened the door. She looked at her father and then she reached out to grasp his
thin arms. “You’re all right, Pang, thank God.”
“My daughter, Bill. Teodora, this is Colonel Lansing.”
“How do you do, Colonel.” She turned to her father. “Look at him, you look so spent, Pang. It’s us
who should have gone to see you. But it’s impossible to find transportation.”

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 “Where are the others?”
“Primo’s in the office and Luisa won’t be home till supper time. She works in an advertising firm.”
“Teodora, the colonel is staying with us.”
“Colonel.”
“As I said, Governor–“
“At least you can freshen up after that dusty ride,” said Lamberto. “After supper you may go out if
you like.”
“You won’t find a room anywhere in the city, Colonel,” said Teodora, “and that probably includes
your army quarters.”
“Then that settles it, Bill.”
In a little while Lamberto left for his brother’s house. He shocked at seeing Hilarion. He was gaunt
and haggard; for the first time he looked like a tired, crusty old man. Hilarion was seventy-four but before
the war he had managed, in a manner that mystified Lamberto, to look twenty years younger.
“A miracle,” Hilarion said, “it’s a miracle I got out of that hell-hole alive. For most people Fort
Santiago was the end of it. Think of it. Almost two years.”
“Why did they get you, Hilarion?”
He grunted. “Perhaps because I’m one lawyer who says ‘Objection, your Honor’ too many times. I
suppose I carried the habit out of court. It all started when they asked me to fill a vacancy in the Supreme
Court and I said I wasn’t well and couldn’t accept the position. They had dug up my record from the
Katipunan days through the First World War–you know how efficient the Japanese are about such things
No one was expected to refuse an appointment like that and they kept their eye on me. Well, I objected to
a number of other things and later they accused me of contributing money to Colonel Marking’s guerrillas
and that was all they needed to send me to Fort Santiago.”
It was his turn to scrutinize Lamberto. “Rubio told us about your years in the Sierra Madre. You
look well preserved, Bettu. Before the war we both seemed to be indestructible. Now the forces of
deterioration are working overtime, on me at least.”
“Oh, you’ll live to be a hundred. Remember we had an uncle who was at least a hundred and fifteen
before he decided to quit.”
“I don’t want to live to be a hundred. Ninety might even be too long. I don’t want the indignity of
doddering and losing control of my body. Still I do feel a little tired, Bettu. There are times when I want
to go home to Bayombong and stay there.”
“Not a bad idea. The house won’t be so empty.”
“What do you think of our Luisa?”
“I haven’t seen her yet. She wasn’t home when I arrived.”
Hilarion was so quiet and then he burst out angrily. “That’s her trouble. She won’t stay home. And I
can’t–no one can–do anything about it.”
“Why, Hilarion, what does she do”
“You’ll see for yourself.” He added, “Why don’t you take her back with you to Bayombong? It might
do her good.”
“I’ll ask her. How does she look?”

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 “The mirror image of the first Luisa. That’s why you’ll be so upset the way she cuts up”
“But what does she do?”
“Stays out more than she stays in. I know what can happen to a girl like that.”
“I hear she’s working.”
“Piffle. Anyhow, that’s even more reason why she should stay home after office hours.”
Lamberto was walking up the driveway to the house when he saw Luisa on the porch with a young
man.
“Lolo!” she flew down the stairs and into his arms. “O Lolo. I’ve thought and thought of you these
horrible years. And you in the mountains all that time. I can’t imagine how you stood it.” She straightened
her arms to look at him. “A lot thinner, Lolo, but you look fine. Better than Lolo Hilarion. Sure you’re
okay?”
Hilarion was right. She was the miraculous living image of his Luisa. Only she spoke an almost alien
tongue.
She tugged at his arms. “Hey, Lolo. You all right?”
“Yes, yes, of course.”
They walked up the stairs. “Lolo Hilarion claims he’s all right but you know he isn’t.” On the porch
she introduced the young man. “Lolo, this is Antonio Perez. This is my grandfather, Tony. And thanks for
bringing me home. I’m sorry I’ll have to ask you to go, but I didn’t see my grandfather all during the
war.”
He was a tall young man. Lamberto noticed he had a little limp, but he was good looking in a
muscular way.
When the young man had left, Lamberto asked, “Is that how you treat your friends, Luisa?”
“O, yes, sometimes. But it’s really all right.”
He looked at her. He knew she was puzzled because he was so thoughtful and stern. He roused
himself as he remembered his guest.
“By the way, where’s the colonel?”
“What colonel?”
“Colonel Lansing. He drove me here. The commander of the American troops in the Cagayan
Valley.”
“No, Lolo, I didn’t see hem. I came in only a few minutes ago.”
In the living room Luisa called to her mother. Teodora came out of the kitchen still holding a wooden
salad spoon and fork. The figures of the grotesque human heads carved on each handle looked throttled in
her hands.
“Where’s the colonel, Teodora?”
“He took a shower and then went to PX to get some cigarettes. He’ll be back for supper.” Back in the
kitchen she called out, “Table is ready when you are.”
Luisa sat on a low hassock by her grandfather’s chair. “It’s good to have you, Lolo. This time you’ll
stay a month at least, to make up. I insist I do.”
“I’m going back day after tomorrow, hija.”

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 “But it’s so soon, it’s no real visit.”
“I’m lucky I could come at all. But what about this–you come along and stay in Bayombong for a
while.”
“I have my work.”
“Bother the work!”
Luisa laughed. “You sound exactly like Lolo Hilarion. Work’s good for the mind, Lolo, even for a
woman. Mama agrees with me. She thinks it cuts down on the mischief.”
He studied her face. “Why aren’t you married yet?”
“Bother the marriage,” she mimicked him. “There’s plenty of time for that,”
“Your grandmother married me when she was twenty.”
The doorbell rang and Luisa went out to the porch. “O, it’s you, Monching,” she was saying, “I
completely forgot about it. I should have caked you. My grandfather is here.” The man mumbled
something but she interrupted him.
“He’s here for only two days and we haven’t seen him for four years. So sorry I can’t go.”
“You’re sure it’s a ‘Lolo’ you’ll be seeing tonight?”
“Will you get out!”
“I’m sorry Louise. I thought this was just another one of your excuses. This isn’t the first time, you
know.”
“I said I was sorry, and I hate impatience. Good night!”
Listening to his talk Lamberto thought Luisa handled the men with a great deal of confidence. She
couldn’t be the giddy girl Hilarion had pictured her.
“You seem to have a lot of them hanging around,” he commented when she came back to the living
room.
“No worry about that, Lolo.”
“You have anybody special?”
“Well, let’s say, not yet.” She paused. “O, yes, there was, but the Japs killed him. A few months
before Lolo Hilarion got out of the Fort Santiago. The man was in the resistance, with the Marking
Guerrillas. He did get out of the Fort Santiago, but not alive.”
“You’re taking it well, hija.”
“It’s all over. No sense in brooding about it any more.”
The doorbell rang again and the maid admitted Colonel Lansing.
“There you are,” said Lamberto. “Bill, this is my granddaughter, Luisa.”
“How do you do?” He added, “It seems I’ve seen you before.” He looked a little puzzled.
“Oh yes, of course. The portrait on the wall. The pictures in your living room, Governor.”
“You mean my wife’s?”
“That’s it.” He turned to Luisa. “I’m in your grandfather’s house very often. The pictures are most
impressive, I mean the dresses of your grandmother. Quaint and beautiful.”
“You disappoint me.” Luisa said. “People are always saying my grandmother was a beautiful

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woman.”
Lansing laughed. He asked Lamberto mock seriously, “Was your wife a vain woman, Governor?”
Primo came in at that moment and there were greetings and introductions. Teodora’s husband had not
changed at all. He was as pale, thin, and harassed as ever.
“It’s the traffic, Ama,” Primo said drily. “You try battling the traffic four times a day and you’ll look
exactly like me, all nerves and frustration.”
“About a year ago,” said Luisa at the table, “we used to have a colonel to dinner. A Japanese colonel,
Lolo”
“You must know we jail the collaborators,” Lansing told her.
“It was the colonel who wanted to collaborate,” Luisa said evenly. “It seemed he had learned to enjoy
poetry in two of your good schools, Colonel. Undergraduate work at Amherst; then he went on to
Columbia. He actually had some of his haiku poems published in the States. Can you imagine a poet
turning into a soldier, Colonel?”
“Why not? My field is economics, which has nothing directly to do with guns.”
“Of course, it has. Asia for the Asiatics, economic imperialism, including the American brand–you
have to use guns, don’t you, to protect your economic interests?”
Lansing turned to Primo. “Your daughter, sir, can scare away man.”
“You’re quite wrong, Bill,” said Lamberto. “Within half an hour before you came, she drove away
two young men, almost with a stick.”
“Well, I suppose she finds other uses for her pretty head.” He turned to her. “About your Japanese
friend. How did he know if you really enjoyed his haikus?”
Her laughter was low; it had a warmth and sparkle that made her grandfather glance at her sharply. It
was the laughter of the first Luisa. “Who knows; for him it wasn’t only the poems, Colonel.”
“You see what I mean, Governor? I mean about the vanity–of her grandmother.”
Lamberto nodded. “Yes, Bill, you’re right about the first Luisa. She was vain all right. Though it
shouldn’t take a shrewd guess, with most women.”
Lansing reminded her, “You’re not wiggling out of this–we’re still waiting to hear your defense of
your collaboration. Or is there a defense?”
“Well, you see, this was how it happened. During the war our groups here in Manila used to stage
plays, if only to retain our sanity. In Cyrano de Bergerac Colonel Yamaguchi was moved to think Roxane
delivered her lines with some amount of intelligence.”
Lansing studied her face with interest. “Wonder where he is now, this Japanese colonel.”
“Who knows? He was here only a short time. One night he said he was being sent to some island in
the South Pacific. We never saw him again.”

ON THE RETURN TRIP to Bayombong, Colonel Lansing stopped the jeep before the mound that
marked the grave of General Dalton at Balete Pass. The ridge was on a three-thousand feet elevation in
the jungle country of the Caraballo. The ranges of the Caraballo bottled up Nueva Vizcaya and the rest of
the Cagayan Valley from the south. The narrow road going up to Balete Pass from the south zigzagged
around the rims of declivities that dropped sheerly hundreds of feet below. After the Pass the road went

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downhill nearly all the way to Vizcaya. A few tall pines stood near the grave of General Dalton. The
general had been a division commander of the American army that pursued Yamashita’s troops retreating
northward to Baguio.
On the way to Manila Lansing had also stopped the jeep there.
“Were you with the general, Bill?”
“No, not exactly. The battalion I took to Vizcaya through the mountains was part of General Dalton’s
command. The Japs gave us a bad time here. Very rough and bloody.” He threw away the butt of his
cigarette and started the motor. He saluted the grave before he drove off.
Easing down the road Lansing said after a long pause, “Your granddaughter, Governor, is a beautiful
girl, and intelligent. If I were not married I could fall in love with her.”
One afternoon, on one of his visits to the governor’s house, Lansing stood before the framed pictures
of Luis’s grandmother in the living room. Lamberto knew the colonel saw only the young Luisa there.
Lansing observed quietly, “It’s amazing, truly amazing. Except for the way the hair is done she is your
granddaughter.”
Four months later Lamberto finally resigned from the governorship. He went on a hurried business
trip to Manila. Luisa spoke to him about Colonel Lansing.
“I went out with him half a dozen times, Lolo, before he flew back to the United States.”
“Did you know he was married?”
“Yes, he told me.”
“And you thought it was all right to go out with him?”
“Why, yes, Lolo. He is a fine man. Did you know he was a college professor before he joined the
army?”
“He didn’t mention that.”
“He has a doctor’s degree in economics. Pity a man like that should carry a gun to shoot Japs or
anyone else.”
“You recall your Japanese colonel? You said guns and economic imperialism went hand in hand.”
“Yes, I know. In some ways Bill was a bit like Colonel Yamaguchi.” She added, “It’s not surprising
really. A number of G.I.’s are an odd lot.”
“What do you know about them?”
“I get around, Lolo. At parties nowadays you see a lot of them. Once at a dance I met a PFC with a
master’s degree in English literature.”
“What’s odd about that?”
“Private first class. So the poor fellow couldn’t mix with the officers. And this PFC was intellectually
superior to many officers I’ve met.”
“Maybe he was the kind who couldn’t give orders.”
She laughed. “Probably. I certainly ordered him around. They can be handy that way, Lolo.”
“Now, Luisa, what kind of talk is that?”
“From what I’ve heard, Grandpa, you were quite a handy man yourself around my grandmother.”
“Did Hilarion tell you that?”

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 “Only a little, mostly hints here and there. Come to think of it, Lolo Hilarion says very little about
what happened before 1900. What do you suppose is the reason, Lolo? Was he unhappy about
something?”
Lamberto did not reply at once. “Yes, yes. He didn’t like the Treaty of Paris of 1898.”
“Which was that?”
“I thought you were an honor student. This is history, the most interesting part of the history of your
own country.”
“To tell you the truth, Grandpa, I was more interested in the literature of the age of Queen Victoria,
and she died about the time of the Treaty of Paris.”
He looked at her almost sternly. “Well by this Paris Treaty, Spain sold the Philippines to America for
twenty million dollars. And Hilarion thought–he still thinks–Spain had no legal right to do it.”
“That’s something else about Lolo Hilarion. His anger is the abstract sort–I mean it’s about abstract
things, but he gets so deeply involved. You know what I mean. Life, Liberty, and the pursuit, etcetera.
Seriously now. He is happy in his own way, isn’t he, Lolo?”
“I should think so. Why do you ask?”
“He is a most unusual man. Living by himself, how can he feel complete?”
“How can you be certain he isn’t? Remember that Plato thought the complete life, the perfect life,
was the life of the mind–or something like that. My brother has something of that and not only an abstract
anger either.”
“But where were we a while ago, Grandpa? O yes, we were talking about my grandmother making a
handy man of you.” She was laughing. “The practice of servitude is so fascinating. Did you know I did a
research paper on it? I’m glad servitude is not expected any more. I think Mama was right in breaking
away from it, a very unfair and impractical tradition. Poor Lolo.”
“Don’t say that, Luisa. Your grandmother was worth it.”
She put her arms around him. “Yes, I know. Even Lolo Hilarion, for all his rakish ways–he thinks she
was worth it. Honestly, Grandpa, wouldn’t you have wanted to be born in 1924 instead of 1874? All those
painful and embarrassing five years of servitude were so unnecessary.”
“I wouldn’t trade the world of my generation for yours, hija. Yours, I suppose, is as good as your
mother’s and Teodora’s as good as your grandmother’s. You have your own advantages; my generation
had its peculiar advantages, too. But servitude or not, the matter of responsibility is basic at any time. Oh,
I have made mistakes, hija, wrong decisions–fortunately, not too many, I think. Your Lolo Hilarion could
tell you about a ruined dam, for example. But I did admit the mistake and faced the consequences,
because I think a man isn’t a man unless he feels responsible for his own actions.”
Luisa was quiet, and then she asked, “Do you think I am irresponsible, Lolo?”
“I wouldn’t want to think so. But I can’t answer that, child. It’s something you have to prove every
day of your life.”

IT WAS THE MIDDLE OF NOVEMBER and in Bayombong there was a sight chill in the air. Late
one afternoon Lamberto was seated on a rattan lounge on the veranda, his feet resting on the cement
railing. He sat facing the misty-blue range of the Sierra Madre. He was refilling his pipe from a pouch
when he heard a car drive up to the house. A jeep. In the next moment Luisa got out from behind the

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wheel, followed shortly by Hilarion who walked with slow and halting steps.
Lamberto stood at the top of the stairs to meet them.
“What good wind brings you two here?”
“Lolo! We wanted to surprise you. Good tidings! From now on you won’t have to walk around by
yourself in this big house. Lolo Hilarion is going to keep you company, permanently.”
“This is not a joke, Hilarion?”
“I’m afraid not, Bettu. I’m laying my tired old bones here.”
“This calls for a celebration.” He turned to Luisa. “You’re resting your tired old bones here, too?”
“Only for a few days, Lolo, I’ll leave when you two are used to each other again.”
“Good enough. That may take a long time. Hilarion left this house half a century ago.”
“It’s hard to think it’s been that long. But for all we know he may keep you company another half
century. Right, Lolo Hilarion?”
“Some old fellows don’t ever count their days, Luisa,” Hilarion said. “Probably they get tired
counting.”
Later in the living room she looked at the picture of her grandmother at twenty in her wedding dress.
She had not seen this one before, and she stood before it for a long time. “Poor Lolo. I can see why you
never married again. She’s really an eyeful.”
Lamberto gave a dinner-dance and invited the young people of Bayombong and Solano. “Who
knows,” Lamberto told Hilarion, “she may meet some young fellow who could convince her to stay in
Vizcaya for good.”
“Don’t be optimistic, Bettu. The country bumpkins are too tame for her and you know it. But suppose
an acceptable fellow proposed, would you demand the traditional servitude?”
“Certainly not. Luisa is twenty-two. It’s time she settled down.”
“The old order changeth, giving place to new,” Luisa intoned, and her warm laughter filled the room.
The two men turned around. “This is one time you didn’t make your presence known,” said Hilarion,
sounding stern.
“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, my friends. But it’s good to find out what you two talk about.” She put
her arm around her grandfather. “Thanks, Lolo, for your generosity–about waiving the servitude.’ She
turned to Hilarion. “I always knew you’d have nothing to do with that old self-bondage.” She said with
utter blandness, “You must have been a fascinating rake.”
Lamberto exploded with laughter. Hilarion didn’t think it was so funny.
Two weeks later Luisa is ready to return to Manila. She said, looking at a picture of her grandmother,
“Do you remember a promise you made, Lolo, when you gave that birthday party when I was fifteen?
You promised to give that picture to me. I’m not holding you to it. I think you’d feel lost if I took it away.
I’m leaving this here instead.” She gave him a framed photograph of herself, taken only a few weeks
before.
The two men looked at it. “I think the first Luisa was better looking, don’t you think, Bettu?” Hilarion
glanced up at the portrait on the wall. “The first Luisa had more charm. A large part of her was hidden.”
“Shame on you, old hypocrite.” Luisa calmly tied the bandanna under her chin. “You know you want
it the other way around.”

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 She was driving the jeep to Manila, but Hilarion had asked his driver to go with her and bring it back.
She waved at the two old men standing on the walk in front of the house. “Behave yourselves, my lads.”
She started the motor and drove off and the street was suddenly empty.
The two old men started up the stairs and the sound of their steps seemed to echo in the still house.
That evening after supper they sat smoking on the veranda. They lay back on lounging chairs facing
the mountains which seemed to be closer in the stainless moonlight.
“This is not a bad way to end one’s days,” mused Hilarion. “Although in a way coming home to die
could be taken as evidence of failure.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I dreamed of big things for myself, Bettu. After being governor of Vizcaya I wanted something
bigger. I thought nobody could become president of the country if he stayed in Bayombong. Don’t laugh,
Brother. Didn’t you know I had a touch of megalomania?”
“I think,” said Lamberto seriously, “you have what’s needed for national leadership. I mean it,
Hilarion. Except for one thing. You wouldn’t–you don’t–compromise, even if the compromise doesn’t
really conflict with your principles.”
“I know. We’re quite different, Bettu. You’re the pragmatic one. You accept things as they come,
perhaps with resistance at first, like what happened when Teodora ran away to get married. But you’re the
kind that inherits the earth.” He said seriously, “You are also the kind that makes life sensible and
livable.”
“Couldn’t you have stayed in Bayombong and worked your way to the top? For you, it would have
been easy to go up that way. Nobody would have been opposed you in Vizcaya and in the Cagayan
Valley. If anyone did it would have been token opposition.”
“I couldn’t have lived in Bayombong, no, Bettu, not the way I did. Aperson needs your kind of
temperament and moral tone to live in a sleepy, moral town like Bayombong without splitting his
personality.”
The hour was late and the town was preparing to go to bed. The ticking of the ancient clock in the
living room was the only sound in the house.
Hilarion spoke into the silence. “Isn’t it strange you and I have never really quarreled? Oh, yes,
except that one time when you came to see me after you were elected governor.” He said thoughtfully,
“We had a fine father. He never felt obliged to preach to us. But I can’t remember our mother. Can you,
Bettu?”
“No. I was only five when she died.”
“All I remember is a quiet woman, very quiet. The exact opposite of Luisa–the first Luisa–who filled
our little world then.”
“Don’t forget the second Luisa is like her grandmother in many ways.”
“The first Luisa is different. In a way, Bettu, it’s good you didn’t marry again. Taking another wife
would have been like a betrayal.”
Lamberto recalled his granddaughter’s remark on her grandmother’s beauty only a few days before.
Maybe both she and Hilarion were right.
“I envy you, Bettu, for your memories of the past. I mean about Luisa and all that she represented–
fire and spirit and gentle fun.” He paused, weighing his next words. “I was in love with her, too. Maybe in

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a different way. Don’t laugh at me. Maybe that’s why I never married, I really don’t know. You can never
be sure about such things.”
Lamberto was not shocked by his brother’s revelation; and he was a bit surprised that he was not.
Probably, he told himself, he had always known it, for it would not be surprising for anyone to have loved
Luisa. Possibly Hilarion had even felt a metaphysical bond with her through himself. If this were so, then
his brother had not been completely isolated.
“I don’t have a good past to look back on like you, Bettu. One woman after another. Grasping,
scheming, cheap, some of them; others quite decent, really. One or two I’ve known for a year, some for a
night, and it was all–frippery!”
His voice ripped like a knife’s edge.
“That’s why I’ve come home to die. Here I won’t suffocate with the sins of my past.”

CHAPTER 11
FROM WHERE HE RECLINED on the rattan lounging chair on the veranda Lamberto watched the
jeep stop at the gate, and then the long thin legs of his brother as he got out. At seventy-five, Hilarion still
walked erect. Looking at his narrow, cubical head self stiffly on a lance-straight spine, no one would
suspect his left leg was wooden from the kneecap down. His steps were firm and the silver point of his
camagon cane hit the cobbled walk with rare sharpness. Lamberto knew at once that he was angry about
something. Even while he was coming up the stairs Lamberto called out to Rubio to bring a bottle of
Pedro Domecque, his brother’s favorite.
“I thought I had come home to rest,” Hilarion snapped before he was fairly settled on the high-back
chair near Lamberto. Lamberto’s chair had a comfortable curve and a soft rattan weave to fit the back, but
Hilarion’s was straight from the seat up. “Now I find there’s work to do.”
Lamberto looked at him quizzically.
“A Japanese puppet running for governor–the ultimate brazenness! Bettu, we have a fight on our
hands.”
Lamberto smiled at his brother’s intensity. “Then you’re running for governor.”
“No, but it will be like it–for both of us, so don’t treat it as a joke. It’s a polluting shame. This
quisling must be crushed.
Rubio came in with a decanter. Lamberto dropped two ice into his own glass; Hilarion drank his
brandy straight.
Soon after Lamberto retired as governor, people had begun talking about the political alignments for
the first post-war elections. The Nacionalistas had decided that the appointive successor, Filomeno
Saccal, was to be their candidate for governor. He was the logical man since he had served as Lamberto’s
deputy in the free government during the Japanese occupation. There were rumors that the Liberals were
grooming Carlos Tamayo, the puppet governor under the Japanese, to run against Saccal. But the
Alcantara brothers had dismissed this talk as unthinkable.
“I’m not really surprised that Tamayo is running after all,” said Lamberto. “The governorship will
mean everything to him, especially after being jailed for collaboration. The man would stop for nothing to
live down a disgrace like that. He has the money and he’ll use it–and other means as well.”
“But we’ll beat him and, Bettu, I’d like us to beat him without money. The candidates and the issues
demand it. The people of Vizcaya should learn that a candidate can win on issues alone.”

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 Lamberto put aside his drink and looked at his brother gravely. He appeared to be making up his mind
to say something. He filled his pipe and lighted it. The gesture had almost the effect of the shrug. “I don’t
know how it can be done your way. You know it can’t.”
“You did it when you ran for the second term.” He watched Lamberto intently.
“That was a different matter, completely different. I’d shown the people I can give them the kind of
government they wanted.”
“You proved it, anyway, and it can be done again. Why not? It’s absurd that a man just released from
jail can hope to win. His position is altogether untenable, don’t you think?”
“I agree.” Lamberto’s voice was muffled. He put down the pipe. “Yes, I agree. But you know as well
as I about elections.”
“The tricks and the unpredictables. I know. But, Bettu, if we’re getting into this at all–it’s going to be
purely on public issues, on principles, exactly the way you did it in 1939.” He finished his drink and took
out a cigar. “This election could show our character and judgment as a people.”
Hilarion moved to his lounging chair and arrange his long length on it carefully. Above the concrete
porch railing the blue ranges of the Sierra Madre were misty and serene against the darkening sky.
Lamberto chuckled. “You were away from the home town for half a century–and then comes
retirement. It’s just three months and you’re rearing like a lashed colt.”
“You don’t fool me, Bettu. You’re in this, too. And that’s how you want it.”

IT WAS THE FIRST IN political meeting after the war and the Bayombong plaza was crowded.
Lamberto and Hilarion were on the platform with the Nacionalista candidates and other party leaders. The
group included Filomeno Saccal, the two candidates for the provincial board, and Fidel Mendoza,
Lamberto’s old political opponent in the 1936 election who was now running as Nacionalista candidate
for Congress.
Saccal, as the official candidate for the governorship, outlined the main issue of the election.
Although he was barely five feet tall he had a booming voice that was startling at first; but his intense,
python face hypnotized his listeners:
“We have just been through a war and we are once again enjoying the rights of free men. The basic
issue of this election is reduced to one thing which goes beyond collaboration. I am speaking of integrity.
For all our people in Nueva Vizcaya the choice is: shall you elect men who were used by Japanese as the
tools of cruelty and terror, of shame and degradation? If that is the kind of man to lead this province, then
vote for Carlos Tamayo. Here you know no greater cohort of the enemy than Tamayo himself. Or would
you elect the fighting men who endured unspeakable hardships in our jungles in order to restore the
freedom that Tamayo and his friends destroyed? That is the question at stake in this election, my fellow
countrymen.
“Consider some of the men on the platform before you tonight. There is Señor Hilarion Alcantara
who has fought through three wars. He was our leader here in Vizcaya in the revolution against
Spaniards. After he had led us in our fight for freedom, he became our first governor. But after the
infamous Treaty of Paris in 1898, when Spain sold the Philippines to the United States for twenty million
dollars, he believed that our country had been betrayed and he joined the guerrilla forces of General
Malvar. In the first world war, he left his lucrative practice in Manila to volunteer as a soldier in France.
As we know he left part of himself there–he lost a leg in battle. In the second world war, because he was

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too old to carry a gun, he gave his money and substance to the famous Marking guerrillas. Before that he
had been ordered by the Japanese to serve as a justice of the Supreme Court; this he refused to do. He was
unwilling to ally himself with the Japanese administration. For his connection with the guerrillas he was
sent to Fort Santiago where he languished for two years. We had our Fort Santiago here in Vizcaya also,
and it was there that Carlos Tamayo and his Japanese friends sent our people to be tortured beyond human
endurance for resisting their kind of tyranny. Some of the imprisoned men were innocent, but suspicion in
the eyes of the government that Tamayo served was a final conviction. In our own Fort Santiago here in
Bayombong a great patriot Hilarion Alcantara would have been jailed by the Japanese and their
collaborators.
“But probably the two men Tamayo and his Japanese friends wanted most, dead or alive, were our
own Governor Lamberto Alcantara and myself. I include myself because I, Saccal, served as a deputy
governor in the free area of Nueva Vizcaya. But I speak primarily about Lamberto Alcantara. You
remember our people had to persuade him to run for governor; he was entirely free from self-interest.
When he ran for re-election 1939 there was practically no opposition in Vizcaya. He was already an old
man when the war broke out. He did serve under the Japanese, but after a few months of being used as
their tool, he decided to fight them. For four years he lived in the jungles of the Sierra Madre. This man
was one of the few who left the comforts of his home and property to fight everything that Tamayo
represented.
“My friends, why do I take this time to tell you about the Alcantara brothers? They do not have to sit
here on the stage, for they do not need this kind of public adulation. That they have served our province is
reward enough for them. They should not get involved in any more elections, especially in the kind of
election we have. Then why have they come to us now? The only reason is that the basic–and perhaps the
only–issue we must consider in this election, the issue which goes beyond that of collaboration, is
personal integrity.
“One other thing I’d like to mention is the question the people of Vizcaya must be asking themselves:
Why has the Liberal Party chosen a man such as Carlos Tamayo to run for governor? This group of men
who are deserters of the Nacionalista party–is this rebel group so bankrupt in leadership that they need a
man like Carlos Tamayo? What kind of skin this man has? How can he look at his fellow citizens of
Nueva Vizcaya and ask you to vote for him, after he had sent your own relatives and friends to suffer
unspeakable tortures for aiding the resistance? This same man is now asking you to elect him governor of
this province! Either he must have the skin of a crocodile, or he must think that the voters of Nueva
Vizcaya have the memory of idiots! These are the only logical conclusions.
“My fellow citizens of Vizcaya, I ask you this simple question: Do you want a traitor like Carlos
Tamayo to be your next governor? Answer that from where you stand!”
“No!” “Traitor!” “He should be sent back to prison!” “It’s his turn to go to Fort Santiago!” The angry
shouts rose in instant reply.
Four other speakers followed Filomeno Saccal.
After the meeting the Nacionalista candidates and a few leaders joined Hilarion and Lamberto poured
wine and filled the humidors. “I was pleased with the meeting,” he said. “There has never been anything
in my time like the reaction of the crowd tonight. This should be an easy election.” He turned to his
brother. “What do you say, Hilarion?”
Hilarion turned his glass in his hand. Under his grey brows the eyes were dark and remote. “It should
be, yes. But the Liberals must have something up their sleeves. We’ll wait and see.”
They did not have to wait long, for the Liberals held there meetings three days later. The crowd in the

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public plaza was almost as large as that at the Nacionalista meeting. The people were curious to know
how Carlos Tamayo would answer the attacks of Filomeno Saccal.
Tamayo was a round-faced balding man in his early fifties. His stomach was larger than his chest and
he looked like an indulgent seahorse. But everyone knew that his innocuous appearance hid an aggressive
animal cunning. His speech was mainly a defense of his former position as puppet governor.
“I did not ask for the position, I did not want it. But who could say ‘No’ to the Japanese? Tell me, was
there anybody who could? Oh, yes, of course there were a few, but where are they now? Under six feet of
ground. When I was forced to accept the position of governor, I told myself, when they tell you we are
brothers because we are fellow Orientals and Asia is for the Asiatics, they actually mean: This rich
country of yours shouldn’t be wasted but should be developed by capable people like the Japanese who
have no more land to develop in their country. They wanted to own our land and enslave our people. All
this with cunning, with cruelty, and without shame. Now I told myself when I was forced to become
governor: The only way to survive is to match their cunning with our own cunning. I couldn’t match their
cruelty and unscrupulousness. I was insulted and ordered around like a common servant. I was even
slapped by the Japanese colonel. I saw men, people of Nueva Vizcaya, stretched in the sun, howling
crazily for water until they died. I saw our own people shot or sent to prison to rot. I even saw some of
our girls abused. I suffered with them, I died a thousand deaths as puppet governor. I had three enemies:
first, the Japanese themselves, who watched my every move because they didn’t trust me. I could stand
that. But I had two other enemies. The second was the people of Vizcaya who lived in the Japanese-
occupied area and thought I was a collaborator and that I had sold my body and soul to the enemy. The
third was those who had run away to the hills either as soldiers or civilians, like Filomeno Saccal and
Lamberto Alcantara. To them I was a quisling, a traitor of the lowest kind. But of the three, the group that
hurt me the most were the people here in the Japanese-occupied areas who should have known that I was
working for them, that I suffered with them, that I endured more than anyone, because I knew what was
happening and couldn’t shout my protest. All I could do was to minimize the number of those killed,
jailed, or tortured.
“For staying here and trying to help, I have been branded a traitor. I could have chosen the easy road
by running away from the Japanese and living in a free area as the one occupied by Filomeno Saccal. At
the time, former Governor Lamberto Alcantara himself offered to help me get out of the town. I was
sorely tempted, citizens of Nueva Vizcaya. But if I left the town I knew I would be turning my back on
the people of this province. They needed leadership at a time when all the responsible leaders of Nueva
Vizcaya had deserted and left them to the mercy of the Japanese. I repeat, I decided to stay because
people like Filomeno Saccal and Lamberto Alcantara had abdicated their position of leadership, thinking
only of their own safety. And here I suffered all sorts of humiliation at the hands of the enemy and the
scorn and contempt of my own fellow countrymen. Living with the Japanese was very precarious. From
day to day I didn’t know if I would be their next victim; to die at their hands would have been to offer my
life for my country’s freedom. But to be marked later as a traitor by the guerrillas and by men like
Filomeno Saccal was the lowest depth of ignominy. For me and those who knew what I was doing as
governor, my death at the hands of super-patriots such as Filomeno Saccal and Lamberto Alcantara would
have brought the great glory of martyrdom.”
Overcome by his feelings Tamayo paused and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his
eyes.
Someone shouted, “I don’t see any tears!” “Yes, I see tears,” someone else said, “but they’re the tears
of our Magat crocodile!”

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 Tamayo raised the hand that held the handkerchief. “Fellow citizens, you can see that the crucifixion
has not ended. You can also see that our governor, Filomeno Saccal, has hired hoodlums to heckle this
political meeting. “You can see–”
From a corner an old man shouted, “Carlos Tamayo, you helped to kill my son! I defy you to deny
it!”
“Policemen!” Tamayo shouted. “I order you to arrest the man who made that accusation!”
“What for?” A man from another quarter shouted back. “Your Japanese friends are gone now.”
Tamayo was floundering. “I call on the policemen to arrest anyone creating any disturbance!” Seeing
a policeman on the fringe of the crowd, Tamayo pointed to him. “You, there! I demand that you keep
peace and order. I demand it as a citizen!”
A man in the middle of the crowd cupped his hands around his mouth. “You earned your Japanese
citizenship! Go home to Japan!”
Hilarion had been listening unobtrusively under the old jackfruit tree near the edge of the plaza.
Impulsively he strode toward the platform and mounted the steps. He stood beside Tamayo, who was so
stunned to protest this temerity. Hilarion waved his hands to get the attention of the crowd.
“Fellow citizens of Nueva Vizcaya. Fellow citizens and my friends, you all know that my brother and
I are supporting Filomeno Saccal for the governorship. I have come up here to ask you to give Señor
Carlos Tamayo and his party the courtesy you gave us a few nights ago on this same stage. Let him and
his friends say what they have to say, and then you may give your answer at the polls. I’m asking you, my
friends, who believe in the democratic process, to give Señor Tamayo and his party a chance to state their
views.”
An uneasy silence followed. Hilarion nodded at Tamayo and without another word went down from
the stage. When Tamayo spoke again he could hardly keep the fury and resentment out of his voice.
“I wish to thank Señor Hilarion Alcantara for his generosity in coming up to restore order among you.
It seems that my party and I have no control over the policemen of the present administration. Indeed, it is
a most unhappy commentary on the administration of Filomeno Saccal and the Nacionalistas. I promise
you, ladies and gentlemen, that such shameful disregard of all decency and this naked assault on one of
our basic freedoms will never be tolerated in the government under my leadership, if you elect me and my
fellow Liberals. Tonight is just another evidence of what they are like, these patriots like Filomeno Saccal
and his supporters. By abdicating their positions and hiding in the mountains during the years of suffering
under a terrifying regime, they have abdicated their right to ask you to elect them to the positions for
which they are running. They talk loudly about freedom, but in the same breath they slaughter freedom. I
was despised, spat on, threatened with liquidation–I who listened to the stern call of duty in our darkest
hour. I have no doubt but that the verdict at the polls a few weeks from today will vindicate the position
that I and my fellow Liberals uphold.”
“A clever man,” Hilarion decided as he turned his steps homeward. “A dangerous and vicious man.”
The next morning a group of Nacionalista leaders were at the Alcantara’s. Simeon Valera, the
campaign manager, commented on Hilarion’s action at the Liberal meeting. “You should have left
Tamayo alone, to stew in his own juice.”
Saccal was thoughtful. “I wonder what Tamayo would have done or what would have happened to
their meeting after that strong reaction from the crowd.”
Hilarion sensed that the men were blaming him for his action. “There could have been a riot,” he said

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quietly. “Would you have liked that?”
“Don’t you think Tamayo deserves it?” demanded Valera.
“No. If we tolerated pre-election riots, we might as well do away with elections. One riot like that
leads to another and you never see the end of it. If Tamayo must be defeated, and he should be, let it be at
the polls, with all the people’s sanity intact.”

CARLOS TAMAYO delivered the same speech in all the other towns of Nueva Vizcaya. Fidel
Mendoza, who had run against Lamberto Alcantara for the governorship in 1936, answered the statements
of Tamayo. A former Congressman, Mendoza was again running for Congress, but this time as a
Nacionalista. He had been an oppositionist together with Tamayo; his climbing on the Nacionalista
bandwagon branded him as an opportunist. Tamayo had called him a turncoat, a man with boneless legs, a
spineless fence-sitter who peddled his conviction to the highest bidder. “How can we have democracy in
this country if we elect a man like Fidel Mendoza who is bat-like in his political allegiance, whose loyalty
is only to himself? And this man Mendoza is supported by a political has been, a Nacionalista renegade, a
Nacionalista-Progresiva, and now a Nacionalista in this election. I am of course referring to no other than
Hilarion Alcantara, a great man in his day, I will admit, but he has returned to the political scene like a
tottering ghost from the past. Ladies and gentlemen, people like Mendoza and Hilarion Alcantara in the
Nacionalista Party today are making a joke of democracy. Our country and our province need men of
strong convictions, who stick to their guns no matter what happens.”
Both Mendoza and Saccal refuted Tamayo’s speeches in every town and barrio where Tamayo has
spoken. The Nacionalista leaders admitted now that the man was a dangerous opponent until the people
were convinced he was a traitor. At Nacionalista public meeting exposing the treachery of Carlos
Tamayo, three or four witnesses were always present to give their testimonies. At a rally in Solano one
witness is a guerrilla soldier who had been caught by a Japanese patrol and sent to the torture chamber of
the provincial jail. The man’s emaciated condition was a proof of his testimony.
“You can’t imagine how my fellow-prisoners and I suffered in that hell.” He was lanky and stooped a
little and his khaki shirt was too big for him. “A water hose is placed in your mouth while you are
stretched on your back on a bench and tied up. When your stomach is bloated, they put a plank of wood
across your stomach and one Jap straddles each end of the plank. These two go up and down like on a
seesaw until the water comes out of your guts and this they did, pumping water in and out of me more
than ten times until I no longer knew what was happening. There were other tortures like hanging you by
your thumbs with your toes touching the floor, and they the bastonados, and eating what little they gave
you in the midst of all the human waste matter around you. To talk about these things is to suffer again. I
lived through all of this to show the Japs that a Filipino soldier could take it. What I couldn’t believe,
what I couldn’t take, was what happened when I was sent to the office of the puppet governor, Carlos
Tamayo, who is now running for governor. It’s like this. There are no Japs around, see, and only a
Filipino policeman outside his door. And this is what Tamayo said: “You’re an outlaw, you’re a bandit,
you and those who continue to fight the Japanese. Why don’t you and your fellow bandits give up and let
everybody live in peace? Don’t you know the old government is finished? For this banditry of yours you
pay a painful price.”
The man swallowed several times and his sharp Adam’s apple moved like a choked valve. “The
tortures were beyond anything you can imagine, but what maddened me more than the screaming Japs
jumping up and down on the plank across my stomach, or the cane beatings I got from the Japs guard,
these were nothing–what drove me mad were the treacherous words of Carlos Tamayo spoken voluntarily

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when no Japs are around. Now this same man is shamelessly asking for my vote to elect him governor!”
Another witness was a short and stocky fellow. He was of the peasant type and had a well-fed,
unconvincing air about him, almost as though he was a bit on the balmy side. He obviously enjoyed
sitting on the stage. Saccal introduced him. “Friends, this is Clemente Rivas. He was a spy recommended
to the Japanese by Puppet Governor Carlos Tamayo himself. When we caught him, Major Salazar and his
staff were executing him–justifiably, according to the international law on espionage. But Governor
Lamberto Alcantara and I spoke up for him, not just out of clemency but because Rivas will speak for
himself.”
“I was a Japanese spy,” said Rivas with unusual directness but without emphasis. “I was a servant of
Señor Felipe Viernes and I lived with his family in the mountains. I stayed with them there for one year
and two months. Señor Felipe was the justice of the peace of Bayombong and he evacuated to the
mountains nearly in the occupation of the town. After a year and two months in the mountains, my master
sent me to get some medicine from his brother who lived in the town of Bayombong. My master’s son on
the mountains, who was fourteen years old, was sick with malaria. In the town of Bayombong I was
caught because I was known to be the servant of Señor Felipe Viernes. I was put in jail, in the room of
torture. The water torture that man was talking about,” and he turned to point at the lanky fellow who had
preceded him, “I was able to stand it. Seven times they put the hose into my mouth and all the time this
Governor Carlos Tamayo was there. I begged him for mercy in the name of God. ‘Yes, we will give you
mercy,’ Tamayo said, ‘but first you must lead our Japanese soldiers and friends to the evacuation places
of your master and of the outlaws such as Lamberto Alcantara.’ And they put the hose into my mouth
again and then I did not know what happened after that. When I woke up there was the governor again,
this Tamayo, looking down at me and a man was tying a rope around my legs. ‘This is the last chance for
you,’ this Tamayo said. Then the Japanese soldiers strung me up from the ceiling by my legs and they
used a pulley to lower me over a barrel full of water. They lowered me until my head touched the water.
‘This is your last chance,’ said this Carlos Tamayo. ‘Will you guide our soldiers?’ When I did not answer
they lowered me some more until my head and shoulders were in the water. When I was fighting for
breath they raised my head and the governor said again, ‘I have no more patience with you. Yes or no,
because this is your end.’ I did not speak, I couldn’t speak. And as they lowered me into the barrel again,
I saw this Carlos Tamayo walk out of the room. I fought and fought for air and once more I was raised. A
Japanese officer spoke this time. ‘You guide? Or you die.’ Suddenly I wanted to live, because I promised
myself to kill this Carlos Tamayo when I had a chance. And I couldn’t understand it then but it was easier
to obey the Japanese. And so there I was guiding the Japanese patrol. In the jungle I knew where there
was a ravine, not a very deep one, near the trail leading to the evacuation hut of my master, Señor Felipe
Viernes. I said to myself I’d jump there and hide. But before we reached the ravine there was gunfire
from all around us in the jungle and I fell on my face pretending to be hit and as soon as I could I crawled
away and was caught by the guerrillas. I was going to be shot as a spy, but Señor Filomeno Saccal
prevented the soldiers from shooting me. I was not a spy, I had been forced to guide the Japanese. All the
time as a prisoner in the house of Señor Filomeno Saccal I was thinking of the time when I could kill this
man Carlos Tamayo. When the time came for me to return to the town of Bayombong I couldn’t do it. My
anger was still alive and also my wish to kill him, but I am a coward about it. When I was asked to be a
witness, to talk about this man, I told myself, ‘You don’t have their liver to kill the man but now is your
chance to tell the people about him.’ I ask you not to vote for a man who is cruel and heartless. If Carlos
Tamayo is angry about it, then I am happy. Then I consider myself partly avenged.”
The next witness was as man of about forty-five who looked tubercular, and kept covering his mouth
with his left hand to hide some missing teeth. He was the father of a girl, he said, who had been raped by

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a Japanese soldier; he had recognized the rapist and he went to the puppet governor to report the crime
but Carlos Tamayo had advised him to keep quiet about it to save his daughter from further dishonor.
Tamayo had warned him that the best thing to do was to cooperate with the Japanese.
The last witness was Faustino Mallari, the secretary of the provincial board during the Japanese
occupation. He was a short, curly haired man in his early forties who looked like a bantam pugilist. “The
resistance government planted me in the provincial board to inform on what was happening in the
Japanese-controlled areas. It was a most dangerous position. The least suspicion about the nature of my
work meant immediate reprisal, all the unimaginable tortures you have heard about, no easy death. Even
Carlos Tamayo himself was ignorant about my connections. I had to pretend complete cooperation with
the Japanese to gain the full confidence of Carlos Tamayo and his friends. During the first year of his
puppet administration, Tamayo seemed to be an unwilling tool of the Japanese; he executed their orders
because he had no choice. But from the second year through the end of the war he was a changed man.
Perhaps he came to believe that the Japanese had come to stay, and that the guerrillas and the forces of
liberation were fanatics who only hindered the functioning of the puppet regime. He thought that America
was not coming back because she couldn’t come back, that the Japanese had put an end to any hope of
America’s return. I suppose some people, when they got nothing but Japanese propaganda for so long,
couldn’t help turning to a man like Carlos Tamayo. I mentioned to him the possibility of eventual
Japanese defeat, pretending that I had heard it from radio reports and responsible people, but the man had
been finally convinced that the Japanese were really sons of the Gods. It’s a wonder he didn’t accept the
Jap religion, too.
“He did many things that he did not have to do because the Japs couldn’t be watching him all the
time. For example, a very ordinary business like road construction or building a dike along the Magat. In
pre-war days each gang had a capataz to oversee the work. Do you know what kind of capataz Vizcaya
had in the puppet administration of Tamayo? In case you have forgotten let me tell you about it. The
capataz was like a Gestapo that reported the least hint of sluggishness of inefficiency or sign of non-
cooperation on the part of the laborers. And those reported by the capataz were sent to the chamber to be
punished by the Japanese soldiers. I talked to Tamayo about the slavery of our laborers, that it instilled
fear and hatred. In fact, one capataz in Bayombong was found murdered one morning and the puppet
governor sent his gang to the torture chamber without any kind of investigation. All this Tamayo did to
impress his Japanese friends. When I spoke to him about the treatment of the men he said, ‘Our workers
must be taught a lesson. If we don’t adopt the Japanese methods they will accomplish nothing.’”
Mallari paused for a while. “Fellow citizens, I am one of those who believe that our laborers should
work for what they earn; I am for honest work and honest pay. But our puppet governor treated our
laborers like slaves during the war. Tamayo did not have to do this. I do not believe that the Japanese in
their own country worked under such conditions. It was all Tamayo’s idea. If he is elected governor, who
can say he wouldn’t adopt procedures like that for our people?
“I can give many other examples, fellow citizens, but I don’t have to, because those of you who were
in the Japanese-occupied area know the kind of governor he was; and besides we have other speakers.”
Fidel Mendoza, the candidate for Nueva Vizcaya’s one seat in congress, was the main speaker of the
meeting. His soft tenor voice grew strident and harsh when he got excited, but even in his excitement his
logic was unimpeachable. “You have heard the four witnesses against the puppet governor. We can and
will present many more. In fact many of you listening tonight could be our living witnesses. I am one of
the thousands who could testify because, as you all know, I was in Bayombong all the painful years of the
war. I would have been with Lamberto Alcantara and Filomeno Saccal in our mountains, but my wife was
very sick and getting out of town was impossible. She is still sickly and continues to get medical

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attention. I was in town with Carlos Tamayo and I know what was happening. A few days ago on this
same platform Tamayo said he had been forced into the governorship. ‘Who could say no to Japanese?
Tell me, was there anybody who could?’ Those were his exact words. Those who said ‘no’, he went on,
were put under six feet of ground. Citizens of Vizcaya, the Japanese asked me to be a puppet governor
before they asked Tamayo. I said ‘no’ to the Japanese. But of course Tamayo couldn’t and wouldn’t say
no. that was his only chance to hold such an important position. For who was Tamayo before the war?
Would anybody have thought of him as a candidate for governor? He wouldn’t even have been
considered for the municipal council. Before the war he was just another average citizen of this town who
owned a few hectares of land planted to rice and bananas.
“What is he now? How much land does he hold? Who owns biggest rice mills in the province? These
are very interesting questions, fellow citizens of Vizcaya. We have some of the answers. We all know that
neither he nor any one in his family inherited his present holdings. How did he get them? More important,
who owned the various titles that Tamayo now claims as his. Most of these people had government bank
loans with the land as collateral. The war came and the loans were still unpaid. In Tamayo’s
administration he had these lots auctioned, a perfectly legal procedure, you may be sure, but by some
mysterious means the titles ultimately went to Tamayo. During the war three of the former owners come
to me for legal advice. Tamayo, in his devious way, learned about it, and when the owners came to me
later they said they had been warned not to obstruct Japanese justice. What could they do under such
circumstances? After all, no amount of property could be more precious than one’s life. Tamayo got the
titles all right. And where are the three owners of the land? They died quite mysteriously. We all know
what life meant during the war. To the Japanese and their friends human life meant nothing if it was
obstructive.
“And of course, the rice mills weren’t hard to get, either, once you acquired a large property. But
there was a mystery, too, about how the rice mills were run during the Japanese occupation. For the rice
planters, practically all of them, had their rice milled in the mills of the puppet governor.
“That was not all, people of Vizcaya. You see, greed begets greater greed. Not content with what he
already had, Tamayo wanted much more. He also coveted the leases of the two ranches of the Alcantaras
and the lease for their lumber concession. It was quite easy to establish a case against the Alcantaras
during the war; to the puppet governor Lamberto Alcantara was an ‘outlaw’ in the Sierra Madre, and
Hilarion was in Fort Santiago. But then it happened that Primo, Lamberto’s son-in-law and a lawyer in
Manila, held all the papers; and this man frustrated Tamayo’s ambition. But a man like Tamayo always
finds other fish to fry. There are other fine ranch lands in Vizcaya and he got a good one in Bagabag
without any trouble, and a lumber concession of fifteen thousand hectares in Dupax. Than concession is
ten times the size of Bayombong, ladies and gentlemen, and Tamayo’s timber could supply all the coffins
needed in Nueva Vizcaya for the next fifteen thousand years. That’s how rich he is now, thanks to his
position as a puppet governor.
“The people in the resistance movement offered him protection and help to get out of town, and this
chance was given to him when the guerrillas and the free government leaders thought he was leaning too
much toward the Japanese. Tamayo himself told us he refused the offer. The reason is obvious. Could he
have got rich in the jungles of the Sierra? On this platform a few days ago he brazenly talked about his
martyrdom under the Japanese, that as a puppet he was under attack from three sides. The testimonies you
heard tonight reveal that he was indeed expecting bullets to end his treachery. Aware of this threat and
without waiting for time to soften the ugly outlines of his record as a puppet, he accuses people like
Lamberto Alcantara and Filomeno Saccal of having abdicated their positions. He demeans their heroism
by inventing a fictitious easy way out: hiding in the mountains. Fellow countrymen and friends, a man in

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Tamayo’s notorious position cannot accuse anyone. He is to be feared, to be abhorred, indeed he should
have been forced to bear all the punishments of those he had sent to the torture chambers of his Japanese
friends. To elect him, fellow citizens, is to place a noose around your own necks!”
“Fidel Mendoza and his witnesses moved from town to town, adding new witnesses to the nefarious
activities of Carlos Tamayo. Sulpicio Pinta, the liberal candidate for Congress, did not escape Mendoza’s
barbed accusations. But Pinta was a satellite and a defeated Tamayo would bring down Pinta and the
other Liberals with him. Mendoza himself finally ignored his opponent for the congressional seat and
concentrated his fire on Tamayo in every speech.
Tamayo’s replies were quick and direct. He attacked the matter of collaboration as irrelevant to the
election: “I was accused of collaboration. In fact, I was put in jail even before I was tried. Then there was
a trial and I was acquitted. The Nacionalistas insist on bringing up this issue. Fellow citizens, this is
persecution in its worst form. The Nacionalistas present so-called witnesses to testify against my activities
during the darkest period of our history. Why were not these same witnesses presented in court when I
was on trial? There were witnesses against me in court, but not these same people. Even so, our court
discredited those witnesses, or I would have been convicted. It seems that men like Fidel Mendoza have
no respect for the decision of our courts–and yet he is running for the highest legislative body of the land!
It is clear that these new witnesses are hired to assassinate my character and the character of those running
on our ticket. You can always find witnesses who will say anything for a few pesos.
“Another thing, fellow citizens. A great deal has been said about the property that I own, including
my pasture and lumber concessions, that these were acquired illegally. My accusers should face me in the
courts if they wish to contest my possession of any property. They would be questioning the government
that has issued the legal rights. The courts have settled the matter of my holdings and the question of my
war-time activities, and men like Filomeno Saccal and Fidel Mendoza who make issues out of them are
really mocking our courts of justice.”
Tamayo paused to draw a handkerchief from his pocket. The red border looked as though he had
wiped blood from his face and neck.
“There is one last question I want to settle tonight,” he said, folding the handkerchief carefully as
though he were performing some magic. “A most important question. The issue of collaboration that the
Nacionalistas have brought up is not a local concern. It is a national issue and as we all know, our liberal
candidate for the Presidency of the Philippines, General Manuel Roxas, has also been branded as a
Japanese quisling. The facts are now clarified: Roxas, a great patriot, was working for his country and
fighting the Japanese all along. But this is not the point I’m calling to your attention. A more vital matter
is the fact that the United States is backing the Nacionalistas in this election with millions of dollars to
defeat General Roxas and the Liberal Party. This country is being flooded with American dollars to buy
our people’s votes.
“Fellow citizens, we received our independence from America only four months ago, on July 4, 1946.
But are we truly independent? Are we free to pursue our aspirations as a people? No, my friends, we are
not. This enslavement that is imposed on us is more dangerous, more insidious than the so-called
enslavement under the Japanese. We could see the Japanese as an enemy, but the inimical acts of the
Americans are not easily discernible. This insidious evil seeps into our national bloodstream like cancer,
and before we know it the nation is poisoned beyond redemption.
“The Nacionalista Party, ladies and gentlemen, has sold its soul for the American dollar. The
Nacionalista party is selling our country’s freedom to American interests. And men like the Alcantara
brothers, Fidel Mendoza, and Filomeno Saccal are all banded together to corrupt the election by buying

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your votes. They will buy your votes and your freedom with American money added to their own.”
His voice had turned hysterical and his knuckles clamped down on the platform railing like flat claws.
“Fellow citizens, this election, besides its judicial and political implications, is of vital importance to
all of us and especially to me. In my case my personal integrity and honor have been impugned, and I am
willing to pay any price for my vindication.”
Filomeno Saccal and Simeon Valera, the campaign manager, were listening at the far end of the plaza
Saccal said, “What’s he’ talking about? I haven’t seen a centavo of these American millions myself. Do
you know anything about it?”
Valera was indifferent. “There’s no doubt that the U.S. wants president Osmena to win and there is
money. But not the kind the boob is talking about. The money goes to the provinces which are definitely
Liberal. Our national headquarters in Manila thinks Nueva Vizcaya is unquestionably Nacionalista in this
election, and so far we haven’t received anything.”
The ambiguous reference to a price that Carlos Tamayo said he was willing to pay became clear a
short time later. He was buying his votes.
Nobody was surprised. At the Alcantara house Fidel Mendoza summed up the general feeling.
“Getting elected means everything to that man. Of course he’ll pay any price to become governor. It
would guarantee the protection of his holdings.”
“Don’t forget one little item,” Saccal said, “The vindication of his allegedly integrity. His election
would wipe out automatically any stigma of treachery attached to him.”
Campaign manager Simeon Valera was specific. “Tamayo has allotted seventy-five thousand pesos of
his own money for vote buying. At five pesos a vote that means the equivalent to fifteen thousand votes,
which further means–if these are purchased Nacionalista votes–a loss of thirty thousand votes for us. With
the other Liberal candidates chipping in they’ll have at least one hundred thousand pesos. In simple
arithmetic that’s twenty thousand Nacionalista votes or forty thousand in Tamayo’s favor.”
Lamberto said, “You think we have that many people in Vizcaya who will sell their votes?”
“In your time, Bettu, when you ran for your first term, we managed to buy about five thousand
votes.” Bautista waved a hand at Felix Mendoza, who had been the opposition candidate Lamberto had
defeated. “And we could have bought more.”
“That was a long time ago,” said Lamberto, “and the issues were not so important.”
“True,” said Bautista. “And certainly, the thinking voters won’t be bought. But we all know there are
people of the other sort right here in Bayombong,” He added, “To defeat the traitor I will contribute five
thousand pesos for vote buying. I’m sure Hilarion and Bettu together will give ten times that much.”
Hilarion was weary and impatient. “We have gone a very long way since 1896, haven’t we, Pantaleon
when we fought Spaniards we told ourselves we didn’t want reforms only, but complete freedom and the
rights that went with it, like suffrage. Suffrage as we dreamed of it was something scared. And now you
are offering five thousand pesos to buy one thousand votes.”
Pantaleon was exasperated. “Face the facts, man. Tamayo is paying to get what he wants. Unless we
use the same weapons we’d better stop fighting him right now.”
“We have better weapons, Pantaleon. Truth, principles, ideas–what stronger weapons do you want?”
“Yes, yes, I grant you that. But see how this man Tamayo twists the truth to his own purpose. All this
high talk of principles is fine if you have a principled opponent. But Tamayo–can you find a more
unprincipled son of a bitch?”

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 “Then our argument is the fact that Tamayo is unprincipled, and we have the proof. It shouldn’t take–
“
“Wait a moment, Hilarion. We have the proofs, but they are belated. Tamayo has a better proof, he
was acquitted of the charges of collaboration.”
“True, but our people are not simpletons. We all know that what is legally right is not necessarily
morally right. That should be emphasized in all our campaign speeches. You can’t root out evil by doing
evil. You’re only adding to it. Oh, yes, there might be some gain, but it would be temporary; a thing
gained that way is never permanent. Gentlemen, we just have to work harder and reach as many people as
we can. And there is this, too–by playing Tamayo’s brand of politics we are under-rating our people. I
don’t believe five pesos can truly corrupt the voters. This is our chance, gentlemen, to do two things with
one stroke: elect our candidates, and show that principles and ideas can make them win.”
The group was not convinced, nor did Hilarion expect them to be. He turned to Simeon Valera. “How
much money do we have?”
The campaign manager shook a doleful head. “A little over two thousand.”
“I’ll add another two thousand,” said Hilarion. “But purely for campaign purposes.” He paused. I’ll
make it four thousand, because I want more voices added to the old ones. And I’d like more young voices,
and more printed materials distributed.”
Lamberto had listened with mild cynicism to his brother. “Put me down for four thousand also.”
“Five hundred for me,” said Pantaleon Bautista. “I’m a poor man, but if you change your mind,
Hilarion, my five thousand will be ready.”
Hilarion said nothing and placidly resumed his pipe.
In the weeks that followed, Hilarion felt a growing tolerance in the attitudes of people toward
Tamayo; he even suspected that with many the man’s argument had justified his puppetry fairly well. The
rumor about the huge amount Tamayo and his party were going to use to buy votes had become a fact.
When the Nacionalista leaders considered fighting Tamayo with his own weapons, there was no question
but that they could raise more money than the opposition. When it came to that, Hilarion thought grimly,
he and Lamberto together could put an end to the man’s political ambitions. But he had told his friends
came from the conviction of more than half a century. To yield to pressure now would be to destroy what
had become a part of his very bone and fiber, the essence of himself.
He did much more campaigning in his jeep. He had only one speech for the remaining days of the
election campaign, and this is repeated in town after town, even in the barrios. “No,” he said, “We do not
question the courts of justice for acquitting Carlos Tamayo. The error did not lie in our courts. The error
was in the sin of omission, and this the people of Vizcaya must regret. The sin lay in the prosecution’s
neglect: it did not gather all the evidence needed to convict the man. It seems that in the people’s rejoicing
over the end of the war they had forgotten their duty to convict a man like that. We must constantly
remind ourselves of the ancient admonition that to preserve the necessary price is unrelenting vigilance.
Going back to Carlos Tamayo. We now have all the evidence needed to convict him if he were to be tried
again. But we all know about double jeopardy. Still the decision of the court to acquit him does not in any
way mean he was not culpable.
“The charges against him are confirmed by the witnesses we have presented to the people of Nueva
Vizcaya; they are not lies and the witnesses are not paid witnesses. The charges are there and Carlos
Tamayo can sue these witnesses for slander and defamation of character. These are serious charges,
indeed. All of our witnesses can be convicted if Tamayo can prove they are lying. We wait for Carlos

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Tamayo to file charges of slander and defamation, and unless he does that he stands truly accused and
convicted by the people of this province.
“The matter of his land holdings has been brought up as a political issue; it is not a personal attack. It
is brought up as an issue because a man running for public office, especially that of governor, should be
of unimpeachable integrity. The people must know what kind of men they are electing for positions of
responsibility. The integrity of these men, their sense of right and wrong, must be a subject for public
discussion and concern. Again, I say, we do not intend to contest in the court that legality of Carlos
Tamayo’s acquisition of very large estates during the Japanese occupation. But we do contend that what
is legally right is not always morally right. Here again our public witnesses in the matter of his
questionable holdings assert serious charges against Tamayo’s integrity. He can sue for slander and
defamation of character if he pleases. These witnesses are ready to face his charges in court. And again,
unless he brings them to trial and has them convicted, his integrity remains questionable.”
Tamayo refused to respond to Hilarion’s challenge. His subsequent blasts were directed against the
Alcantaras. He ridiculed Felix Mendoza and especially Filomeno Saccal as spineless stooges of the
Alcantara brothers. “Even in their dotage the Alcantaras is to be ruled by a dynasty stemming from
Spanish times. Why don’t we prove at last that we can run the province without them? We can
understand, of course, why Lamberto Alcantara would want Filomeno Saccal for governor. They were
together in their retreat from responsibility; and with Saccal as governor the Alcantaras can be sure of
protection for their business interests. On the other hand, we wonder at Hilarion Alcantara’s sudden
interest in Vizcaya politics. Was this not the man who deserted Nueva Vizcaya when he was badly needed
to lead the province? But why did Hilarion desert Vizcaya? He did it to go to greener pastures in Manila–
for more money and prestige. He did get both, but how? By defending the rich, the moneyed criminals,
and law breakers. Look at the law books he has written. They are the kind to train lawyers to be more
cunning, to train corporation lawyers who can defend the wealthy against the masses, to train criminal
lawyers who can free moneyed criminals. Hilarion had political ambitions; he wanted to be elected to the
Senate. But what happened? He was not good enough for the people in Manila. As a matter of fact, he is a
man given to lost causes. He is not the kind needed for dynamic leadership, especially in the period of
reconstruction we are now facing.
“Yes, fellow citizens of Nueva Vizcaya, the Alcantaras have had their day, and for them to continue
to exert their influence on our politics is an insult to our intelligence and leadership. We must protest
against the spread of their power and their influence, especially because people like them will stop at
nothing; they will corrupt our voters with their money. That’s how Lamberto Alcantara won the election
in the past–he bought the votes our people. The Alcantaras are doing it again; and they will hire hoodlums
again to frighten our Liberal voters from the polls.
“But fellow citizens of Nueva Vizcaya, we Liberals will employ our own measures against their
attempts to corrupt the politics of our province. I promise you that, because your interest is upper most in
my heart.”
They had come home from the meeting two hours before, but the two men still smoked on the
veranda and talked late into the night. Lamberto was saying, “That was the kind pf lie and twisted talk
that made me mad in 1936.”
“He is clever, don’t doubt it. And as I said before, a very dangerous man.”
“Suppose he becomes governor?”
“He’ll be the disaster of Vizcaya.”
“You know, Hilarion, that reparation money we got for the family property, I didn’t expect to get it,

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did you?”
“What about it?”
“It’s money we don’t need for ourselves.”
“We have some more we don’t need for ourselves. And so?”
“Well, why not? When you have a megalomaniac like Tamayo you’d do anything to defeat him,
wouldn’t you?”
“I thought you had learned your lesson in 1936. I know how you feel, Brother. But we must not let
our emotions undermine what is the highest good for Vizcaya. Winning at any cost is bad for the
conscience. At our age, Bettu, it wouldn’t do. More important, buying our way would strengthen the evil
practice.”
The day before the election a group of Nacionalista leaders met at the Alcantara house to map the
final strategy. There was cautious optimism, Simeon Valera was predicting victory, though perhaps a
narrow one.
“Let’s take the roll by towns,” Lamberto suggested. “What about Bayombong?”
“Ours, by at least a thousand votes,” said Valera.
“Solano?”
“We expect a good fight there, but we should have an edge–about three hundred.”
“Bagabag.”
“Give it to them. All these years Bagabag has been Liberal.”
“Bambang?”
“Same thing.”
“Aritao?”
“Fifty-fifty there. Fifty-fifty-forty-five, if you want to be optimistic.”
“What about Dupax?”
“We should win in Dupax. Six to four.”
“Diffun,” said Lamberto, “should be ours. It was five to one my time.”
“Probably six to one now,” said Valera. “Diffun should offset our big loss in Bagabag.”
“What about Kayapa?”
Valera looked glum. “Kayapa is doubtful.”
“Aglipay?”
“Theirs. No question about that.”
“That leaves Madella, which is of course Liberal because it was created by the Liberal
administration.” Lamberto went on, “So we have Bayombong. Solano, Dupax, Diffun. Aritao and Kayapa
are to be contested. If the results there are about even, we will have an edge in the total votes. We have
the bigger towns.”
Fidel Mendoza spoke gloomily. “What Tamayo and the Liberals are doing today–this very day–
gentlemen, will make all the difference. This is the day they buy the votes.”
“We have a counter-weapon.” The campaign manager sounded firm and angry.

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 A few in the group, including Mendoza, knew what Valera was going to say at this point.
“We have the constabulary at our disposal. Filomeno Saccal can send the troops anywhere we say.”
Hilarion looked at Valera without a word. The silence was oppressive and embarrassed.
“I mean, Hilarion, that they’re hitting us below the belt and we should hit back where it hurts.”
“Take advantage of the constabulary which is at our disposal.”
“Be more specific, man.” Hilarion didn’t raise his voice.
“Well, if you want it spelled out–in the places where Tamayo and the Liberals are buying votes–and
we know these places–the constabulary could make sure the corrupted voters don’t go to the polls.”
“You actually mean that, Simeon?”
“Why not? It’s plain justice.”
Hilarion turned to Valera, but he was speaking to them all. “Winning the election–by force, at all
costs–is it that important to you?”
Fidel Mendoza was earnest and not at all apologetic. “Compañero, we are sure Simeon would not
have suggested it if we were not fighting a scoundrel like Carlos Tamayo. I even feel we would be doing
our province and the country a great service. We must keep this criminal from winning, prevent it at all
costs.”
“You Fidel Mendoza, a lawyer and former fiscal–you can say that?” he looked around the room.
“Tamayo may be a scoundrel, but no one has any right to use government troops or any forcible means to
prevent anymore from going to the polls. That would be a thousand times more evil and criminal than
Tamayo’s buying votes. He added with subdued anger, “Anyone goes ahead on this and–I mean it–I’ll be
on the prosecution to convict him!”
It was noon after election day when the returns began to form a clear profile. In the five towns that
had turned in complete reports, those closest to Bayombong–Solano, Bagabag, Bambang, Aritao, Dupax–
the Nacionalistas had a margin of 257, where they had expected a lead of at least a thousand. They had
counted on a stiff fight in Aritao, but it was now obvious that opposition money had silenced Aritao.
Diffun and Maddela were small towns and the votes there–Diffun for the Nacionalistas and Maddela for
the Liberals–would not affect the final results. There was still Kayapa. If it had been polluted, the
Nacionalistas could not hope to win. Kayapa was one of the towns farthest from Bayombong and the
reports that trickled in slowly were narrowing the Nacionalista lead.
In the meantime the party leaders had stopped coming to the Alcantara house and the brothers knew
why. It was soon quite obvious that Kayapa, like Aritao, had been bought. All the votes were reported on
the fifth day after the election; by then the announcement of the victory of the Liberals, by a margin of
129 for Carlos Tamayo, came as a weary anti-climax. The only Nacionalista who won was Fidel
Mendoza, as a congressman.
A week passed, and then two, and not a single Nacionalista leader had come to the house. Even
Pantaleon Bautista stayed away. He was a life-long friend who had come at least twice a week since
Hilarion’s return from Manila.
Lamberto himself was indignant and hurt and for days nursed his anger and frustration about the
election results. One night he burst out at Hilarion, who was smoking on the porch. “You are unaffected;
you don’t seem to have any feeling for Vizcaya at all.”
Hilarion said nothing.

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 “We could have won the election, or didn’t you know,” Lamberto persisted.
“Yes, we could have.”
“And you’re not mad at the way Tamayo and the Liberals cheated us–cheated everybody?”
“I should be.”
“You mean you are not?”
Hilarion inhaled deeply and released the smoke in slow puffs. “Bettu, democracy is only fifty years
old in our country. I should be impatient and angry. But think of America and England. England has had a
democratic system for centuries. It isn’t necessary to buy votes there now. America has had it foe over
two hundred years. The democratic process isn’t an easy one; we grow into it. Tell now, do you think
Tamayo and the Liberals could buy the votes of those who had gone beyond elementary school?”
“I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not.”
“When you consider what a good many of our people, especially those who can barely scribble their
names on a ballot–when you consider what these people really think of the ballot, perhaps we shouldn’t
be too angry. I can’t imagine high school graduate or any decent man selling his vote. He might accept
five pesos from a candidate, but it wouldn’t follow that he would vote for him, and the candidate knows
it. We know that for a fact.”
“That’s all fine. In the meantime you get a scoundrel who’ll take over this province for himself.”
“I know. That’s the hard thing. Don’t think the election has not affected me. But there’s this also, the
people in Vizcaya know how Tamayo got himself elected, they must know that. And you can be sure
there are those who won’t stand for any kind of foolishness from him or any one else. They are the people
who set the pattern of thinking. And the children of those who sold their votes–I’d like to think one day
they will refuse to sell out. The time will come when they won’t, as it did in America and England.”
Hilarion knocked the ashes off his cigar. Reclined on their lounging chairs the two men watched the
three-quarter moon as it was cut by the corrugated and left behind a cool, blue sky.
“Listen to the crickets, Bettu. Suddenly they’re there when you stop to listen.”

CHAPTER 12
A FEW WEEKS AFTER THE ELECTION Lamberto was in Manila. He noticed a change in Luisa
and was disturbed by her behavior, particularly toward one man. It was clear that she felt differently about
him; where the fellow was concerned she was not the capricious, imperious girl he had known.
On the porch one afternoon Lamberto heard a car honking in front of the house. He stopped the idle
rocking of his chair. Through the diamond-shape openings of the balustrade he scrutinized the man rooted
at the wheel, hand upon the horn. Lamberto was surprised at his quick range. The muscles of his neck
tightened and he felt his jowls throb like a separate breathing animal. In my time, he thought, if I were
Luisa’s father, I’d have my hands on your throat! His long bony hands tightened around the arms of the
chair.
Luisa came out of her room and fluttered to the window. “In a minute, Fel,” she called out. “Why
don’t you come up?”
“If it’s only a minute,” the man said, not moving, “I’d rather wait here. And make it a short minute.”
The man had stopped his car in front of the house in this manner for the second time in five days.
Lamberto had not seen him closer; what he had seen he didn’t like–the unmanly groomed-look, the way

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the fellow lifted his thin hand from the wheel to inspect his fingernails, the careless slouch as though
expecting the world to wait on him, and treating Luisa as a common person he was favoring with a ride.
Luisa had been ready for over an hour. The one minute she requested was for her grandfather’s
benefit, a gesture of respectability because she had lost it by the impatience she had shown and by the
lack of gallantry of the man in the car. Before she had cajoled the man over the telephone into taking her
out, Lamberto had asked her if she was not using wrong strategy in not waiting for the man to ask her.
Lolo, she had told him, if I didn’t ask him some other designing female would.
“Lolo, how do I look?”
“Perhaps you’d look better with another man.”
“O, Lolo,” she said, bending down to kiss his forehead, “you’ll like him when you get to know him.”
“He’s going to marry you, isn’t he?” It was quite easy to be frank with this girl who looked like his
wife.
She put her hands on his shoulders. “I should be angry with you for saying that, but you’re so naive!
Grandma must have loved you so much. But patience, Grandpa. Patience.” She went to the door of the
kitchen. “Mama, I’m going now.”
“Don’t stay out too late, Louise.”
The way his daughter said it was so casual. She probably didn’t even look up from what ever she was
doing in the kitchen. Even the way she called her Louise sounded natural. “Calling her Luisa, Teodora
had told him, “is like impertinently addressing my own mother.”
“Lolo,” Luisa called out from the cobbled walk, “don’t smoke in bed. See you tomorrow.”
She waved her hand from the window of the car.
For a confused moment Lamberto felt enraged, as though his wife were going out with another man.
The car purred off and staring at the deserted street he felt a chilling emptiness mingled with an undefined
sense of evil. He stood up from the rocking chair and walked to the kitchen. Teodora was supervising a
maid. They were making cream puffs.
“Teodora, I want to talk to you about something very important.”
“A moment, Pang. I’ll be with you. This has to go into the oven right away.”
He went back to the rocking chair. The clock in the living room pulsed slowly; it had chimed another
quarter before Teodora came out to the porch, bringing with her the small out sour dough.
“They’re all in now,” she said, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “What is it, Pang?”
“It’s about Luisa. Who is this man she is going out with?”
“He is the son of Belmonte–old man Belmonte owns the second biggest transportation company in
the country.”
“I didn’t know she needed anybody’s money.”
“He has social position, Pang.”
“What do you care about that?” he demanded harshly. “Do you trust the man?”
“He is still unmarried.”
“Can you trust him?”
“Pang, you’d ask that of almost any other man.”

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 “Has he proposed marriage?”
“Pang, you sound as if Luisa has gone wrong.”
“Is he proposing marriage?”
“She is leading him to it. You’ll have to admit he is a good catch. She may get him yet.”
“Must she throw herself at him to do it?”
“Pang, don’t be old-fashioned.”
“Teodora, what has happened to you?”
“Why, nothing at all has happened, Pang.”
“Why do you allow Luisa to go out with a man in this manner?”
“There’s nothing wrong about it. Everyone does it, the best people do it. Even if I thought it was
wrong, I couldn’t do anything. Repression only makes them wild.” She stood up. “Excuse me, Pang. I
have to see about the cream puffs. Primo doesn’t like them overdone.”
He followed Teodora’s expanding back to the kitchen and for a moment forgot Luisa. Teodora’s main
concern was to increase her husband’s weight and reduce her own. Primo was now the head of Hilarion’s
law firm and was making good money, but it did not seem to improve his health. Teodora, and perhaps
Primo was also, were undisturbed by Luisa’s conduct. To be sure, Teodora was not the proper yardstick
by which to judge Luisa. But she was a consentedora and was as guilty of moral turpitude as Luisa.
Control your language, Lamberto told himself. After all was it not possible that he himself was not proper
yardstick; he was two generations removed, and this city with its impersonal, jostling people was not
constricted by the rules that the folks living in the narrow circle of a valley imposed upon themselves.
Now that is the world for you, he told himself. After supper he had gone back to the porch where it
was cooler. He sucked his pipe clean and filled it from a pouch. That’s where you build muscle and
fortitude. Fortitude arising from frustrations, from one indignity to another.
For instance, the first Luisa had sometimes seemed to encourage the company of other young men.
She had not reproved serenaders, although it was taboo for anyone to serenade a girl except the man
betrothed to her. Gadding tradition was straight-lace, especially about little things. When Lamberto
protested about the serenaders she had smiled in her provocative, exasperating way, “Why, Bettu, I only
want a little entertainment sometimes.”
“What would you think if I went out serenading another girl?”
“I haven’t thought of that. Should I?”
“You’re suggesting I do.”
“But you wouldn’t. Would you?”
“You mean, you wouldn’t mind if I did?”
“O? But you’re not the kind.”
“Do you want that kind?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But do you?”
“This is getting interesting. I don’t hear you talk like this very often.”
“Don’t change the subject.”

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 “No. in fact, I want to talk about it.”
“You have not yet answered me.”
“But the answer is not very important, Bettu. This kind of talk, this is important, especially because
you started it.”
Lamberto looked at her smiling face. He had an overwhelming urge to set his hand on the smile,
crush it. Instead he turned and walked away.
Later, when he talked to Wayi Floro about the serenaders, the old man did not seem properly
indignant. “She knows what I think about it, Bettu. It’s not done, I told her. I think of what your father,
Compadre Lucas, would say. But she tells me it’s nothing, it’s only for entertainment. And remember,
Bettu, I’m not her real father. If I were, I’d do something, don’t you doubt it. If I should insist, I’d only
cause unnecessary trouble. You know her temper. The night of the proposal I warned you about this
temper of hers. It can be vile, although she smiles and smiles. Of course her anger blows over quickly
also. Sometimes,” Wayi Floro observed slyly, “I wonder what makes her so touchy. Have you talked to
her yourself?”
Lamberto ignored any implication Wayi Floro might have intended. “She opens the window to the
serenaders, doesn’t she?”
“No, no, Bettu. I do.”
“Then why don’t you tell the men it’s not done?”
“If I did, if I told them to go away–you see, an old man doesn’t want to be spoken to uncivilly by his
daughter, you know that.”
The situation was uncomfortable for them both.
“The best way, Bettu, is it to understand her. She’s not like us really. She has the blood of the Castila.
You mix basi and domecque and the result can be explosive. All we can do, Bettu, is to have patience.
You may tie her to a post later, if you want. I’d like to see you do it for a change. Or gag her. Do
whatever you want. Show her and everybody you are the master. But for a moment, patience, son.”
Lamberto thought Wayi Floro had finished, but the old man had more to say. “But you know, Bettu,
except for her temper, Luisa is a fine girl. She treats me like her own father and that is something.”
Later there was the Spanish captain of the guardias civiles who called on Luisa day after day while
Lamberto did the chores. To his protests that the visits were against Gaddang tradition, Luisa’s parents
could only say that the man was not only a Spaniard, he was also the commander of Vizcaya’s guardias
civiles.
One afternoon when Luisa was puttering around the flower beds at the side of the house and
Lamberto was nearby chopping firewood from the tamarind trunk he had cut down the year before,
Captain Mesa rode up on his horse.
Over the fence he exchanged greetings with Luisa. He called out in Spanish to Lamberto.
“Oy, muchacho, I’m talking to the Señorita. Go, chop your wood else where.”
Lamberto straightened up.
“Didn’t you hear me? I said go away, I’m talking to the Señorita.”
Lamberto swung the axe silently in his hand. The captain turned to Luisa, still speaking in Spanish.
“Bonita mia, will you tell that blockhead to go away?”
Lamberto spoke up. “Captain, I have work to do. If you don’t want me to hear what you have to say,

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you and the girl get out. And be careful with your tongue. If there’s a blockhead around, it’s not I.”
The captain made a move to run him down in his horse.
Lamberto gripped his axe. “One false move, Captain, and I’ll kill–your horse.”
“The Indio answers the master, eh? I’ll root out your tongue.”
“Try it, Captain.”
Captain Mesa got off the horse.
Seeing that the Spaniard had brought neither sword nor revolver, Lamberto threw away the axe.
“Bettu,” Luisa pleaded in Gaddang. “Bettu, please get out of his way.”
“I’m not in his way, Luisa.”
The Spaniard strode forward, and hesitated. “The Señorita does not seem to want any trouble.”
Without another glance at Lamberto he turned and mounted his horse. I wouldn’t soil my hands on an
Indio. Bonita mia,” he said, “my afternoon is spoiled. Goodbye till tomorrow.”
“Bettu,” Luisa said, when the Spanish captain had gone off, “Bettu, don’t you realize what you did?”
“What now?”
“You made an enemy of him. He could arrest you.”
“For what?”
“You insulted him.”
“Who insulted whom?”
“But he is a Spanish captain. He’s not just anybody. He is a Spaniard, and he could arrest you.”
“And if he does?”
“Don’t you ever learn your lesson?”
“You mean my stay in jail? It wasn’t a bad lesson at all.”
“O, Bettu. You’re–you’re impossible!” And she ran into the house.
Lamberto was not arrested, nor did Captain Mesa come the next day to see Luisa as he had promised.
Lamberto and Luisa worked silently for an hour on the rice supply for the next day; pounding was a
job that discouraged idle conversation. When Luisa was preparing to put the winnower away, Lamberto
finally unburdened himself of the question that had nagged him since the day before. He set down the
pestle.
“Luisa, what did the captain mean when he called you ‘bonita mia’?”
She was truly amused. Her attitude was relaxed and not all withdrawn, although she contemplated
him curiously. “Bettu, are you mad? You know that’s only an expression. You know he’s only a friend.”
And then she added, “Would you be suspicious now if I tell you I crave the meat of wild boar?”
“You demand a lot, don’t you?”
“You don’t have to do it, if you don’t want to.”
“I suppose the captain will get it for you?”
“Nonsense.” And then as an afterthought she asked, her eyes dancing, “If the captain did try to root
out your tongue, what then?”
“He still has to prove to me, and to you, that he could do it.”

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 “Could he, do you think?”
“Even if you helped him,” Lamberto said evenly, “It wouldn’t be my tongue. It’d be his–and yours.”
She rocked with laughter, and then she stopped abruptly and glared at him. “Did you say mine?”
“Yours, too, I said.”
“Sometimes you’re the devil himself.”
The third year of his servitude was drawing to a close. On a sultry day shortly after lunch, Lamberto
piled eight empty kerosene cans on the sled to fetch waster from the spring for the needs of the household,
for Luisa’s flower beds, and for her afternoon bath. He harnessed a bull carabao to the sled. It was not
completely broken in, but it was the only one available just then; the rest were working the fields. As the
carabao passed under Luisa’s window, the sled hit the stump of a kapok tree he had cut down a few days
before. The sudden violent jerk sent the empty cans rattling. Luisa’s angry dishevelled head popped out.
“Bettu. You knew I was taking my siesta! Did you have to make so much racket under my windows?
If you don’t want to do that sort of work, just say so.”
Lamberto was speechless. He was astride the carabao and could only pull brusquely at the rein. He
pointed at the kapok stump. “The sled hit that,” he said, with rigid control.
“Why don’t you keep away from it, if you can’t handle a sled?”
The countless humiliations and indignities were suddenly too much for him. “Who do you think you
are, proud and insolent hussy? A queen? Who are you to order me around and shout at me? I have slaved
these past three years and all for your petty insults. I can’t stand it any longer. Do you hear? I won’t stand
it any longer!”
Luisa was too astonished to reply.
“I knew a girl in Manila. Better looking than you, and of a fine family. She treated me with respect–”
“Well, now,” said Luisa sweetly, leaning her arms on the window sill, her chin cupped in her palms.
“That’s very interesting, Bettu. A revelation. I didn’t know, I honestly didn’t know. I wouldn’t have
thought it possible.”
Lamberto said quietly, “A sweet girl–the exact opposite of you, whiter than you, and dignified,
trained n a convent school–”
“Just wait a minute, Bettu. Let me ask you a question before you go on. Where is she now, this sweet
convent girl? Deserted you, I suppose, for another man?”
“No,” he said calmly. “She didn’t desert me. She wasn’t that kind.” He was watching her face, feeling
he had brought her down from her lofty perch.
“Well, then, why did you come to me, a small town hussy as you said, and endure this servitude? Tell
me, Bettu, where is she?”
“She is dead.”
“Now that’s sad–too sad.” With sudden hysterical rage she screamed, “Now you gawky ugly oaf, dig
up the sweet bones of this woman–dig them up, I say, and lie down with them!”
Lamberto lashed the carabao’s back with the rope clenched in his fist. The carabao bolted, the empty
cans rattled; running faster and increasing the din of the cans, the frightened animal went berserk.
Lamberto hauled on the rein helplessly. He pressed his legs to the carabao’s sides because, at any
moment, he could be thrown off and crushed by the sled. The animal swerved off the cart trail, crossed
the newly plowed field of mongo beans, then turned into a narrow opening between two banana clumps.

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Lamberto bent down and clutched at the neck of the beast to duck under the low branches of the
camanchile tree. One corner of the sled hit the trunk with a jolt that snapped the harness on the right; the
sled keeled to the left and slammed into an ipil patch. Freed of the sled the bull sprinted faster. Now that
the rattling had gone, Lamberto expected the animal to slow down but it kept up its mad pace. Bareback
riding on a galloping horse was smooth and exhilarating, rider and horse became one; but the bumping
rocking motion on the broad slippery back of a demented carabao was terrifying.
Lamberto waited for a chance to jump off and all the time he pulled hard at the rein and desperately
pressed his legs against the animal’s sides. After about two kilometers the carabao began to lose its
ferocity; its sides heaved like a blacksmith’s bellows. At last it slowed down, and after a while it was
completely subdued. Lamberto turned it around. He got off at a tenant’s house for a drink of water. He
asked the tenant to take the sled and cans to Wayi Floro.
He went straight home. The following day he did not go to Wayi Floro’s, nor on the second or third.
After a week, ‘Tan Lucas asked him what had happened. Lamberto told him.
“What do you plan to do now?”
“I’ll think about it, Pang.”
It was not easy to be away from Wayi Floro’s. The slave had learned to like his chains. Luisa had
become a habit with him. He did not regret telling her about Corazon, the youngest daughter of a Spanish
doctor in Manila. Corazon was attractive, he had told the truth about that; her mother was of mixed
Filipino and Spanish blood. Lamberto was in his sophomore year at Letran when he broke his left wrist,
and Hilarion had to take him to the doctor’s clinic. They rang the bell beside the bronze plate which read,
in ornate letters: AGUSTO SAN ANDRES, MEDICO-CIRUJANO. The doctor’s thirteen-year-old
daughter met them at the door.
“The doctor, please,” Hilarion said.
She seated them in the reception room. “We saw you coming up the steps. My father will be down.”
She turned to Lamberto. “How did you get that?”
“Cane hit it.”
“Were you in a fight?”
“Not exactly.”
“What do you mean, ‘not exactly’?”
She was blunt, curious girl who was determined to get her answers.
“You see, we have this cane practice in school.”
“You mean the two of you?”
“No. This is my brother. A classmate and I had this cane practice in school. Have you ever seen the
kind we use?”
“No. What is it?
“It’s a rattan cane, a yard lone and as big around as your wrist. Each fighter has this cane.”
“Each fighter? You do fight then?”
“It’s a friendly fight. You practice for self-defense. There are different thrusts and each thrust has its
own parry. You know, like fencing with swords. Except in this game we use the canes.”
“Why the broken wrist if it was only a friendly game?”

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 “Well, I hit the fellow–that is, my opponent–by accident, and he got mad. You’re not supposed to get
mad when you’re hit because it’s only a game, but he got mad and started to fight for real.”
“Why did you let yourself be hit? You have large arms and you shouldn’t have allowed it.”
Lamberto and Hilarion laughed.
“I’m a big target, as you can see.”
“Didn’t you hit him back?”
“I got mad, too, when I got this. My friend had to go to the hospital with a huge bump on his head. In
fact, I got scared because I thought I might have cracked his head open.”
The girl laughed with enjoyment. She was a very pretty girl, and she laughed like a grown-up woman.
“Oh, good for you, I’m glad–I’m glad!”
Dr. San Andres was short and rotund, and his big genial smile was like the girl’s.” What’s all this?”
“Papa, he cracked a man’s head.”
“That’s no laughing matter, hija. What have you got there yourself?”
“He broke it, Papa, before he cracked the man’s head.”
While the doctor was examining the wrist and later, when he was preparing the plaster cast, the girl
kept up a running account of the cane fencing, making up details, to their amusement.
After this, whenever she saw Lamberto pass her house on his way to school, she would wave to him
across the wide lawn, and sometime she ran to the grilled fence to talk to him. At first he was embarrassed
by the friendship. Hilarion teased him about it. “What have you got, man, to attract a pretty kid like that?”
“It’s her arithmetic problems. I solve them for her.”
“That serious, eh? Just be careful now; the doctor might shoot you.”
In the cholera epidemic in 1890 Corazon fell ill and her doctor father had been unable to save her. For
days after her burial, when we passed the house he imagined the girl waving at him across the lawn.
What he had flung at Luisa about the girl was only partly true. He felt guilty about mentioning this
innocent friendship, although its effect on Luisa had amazed him. Her disbelief that there could be
another girl was spoken partly as a taunt, but mostly in genuine surprise. All in all, the half-truth about
Corazon had been worth it. When Luisa had screamed for him to dig up the girl’s bones, he knew it was
from her rage at his duplicity, and–most satisfying thought–out of hurt pride.

THE HEADLIGHTS OF A CAR were turned on the gate. That must be Luisa, he thought. But it was
Primo who opened the gate and drove the car slowly up the driveway to the garage.
“Buenas noches, Ama,” Primo stopped briefly on the porch to greet him. “Had to finish something at
the office.”
He felt a little uneasy that his son-in-law must explain why he was late coming home. Do that, he
wanted to say, to your wife. But perhaps that was the way in this dark secret city. It was easy to hide
secrets in this big city where people were so impersonal. And the impersonality seemed to have invaded
this very house, in the casualness with which a girl could go out in the night with a man.
Within the two generations following his own, Lamberto felt that there had been some kind of
accretional degeneration in his own family line, a weakening of the blood he could not understand: first
Teodora, who now had married without his consent, and now Luisa, imposing servitude upon herself for a

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man who obviously didn’t know the meaning of gallantry.
But this is nothing unique, he told himself. He was only one of an entire generation, and those who
still survived were a fragile scattering of lizard-eyed, crotchety, misunderstood freaks who should have
been buried long ago. All they did now was to rock in their chairs and suck at asthmatic pipes and in their
anger at the looseness of the present, they tried to find refuge in the virtues of the past. He knew the past
had its faults, but he would still cling to one of its virtues: the belief in testing people, long testing, hard
testing. Nothing like it to make a man. No, he said aloud, you can’t have good things the easy way
without being immoral; said aloud, it sounded right.
Five years of testing might be too long, he admitted; it would be very impractical now. Fifty-four
years ago, in a little town shut off from the world by the enclosing mountains, where nothing spectacular
was expected to happen except in the occasional acts of God–in the seasonal rampaging of the treacherous
Magat that carried away houses and animals and people, or in clouds of locusts that covered the land with
pestilent darkness–in those times there was need for years of testing through servitude, even if only for
the element of drama that went with it, when the little trappings of tradition took on much meaning, such
as the elaborate wrapping in a silk handkerchief of the letter his father had written to Wayi Floro after the
years of servitude, years that at times, it was true, dragged on his body and on his spirit, weighted antlers
on his shoulders, the unlocated north, dislocated time, blue smoke from his pipe, green mists blanketing
the Sierra Madre–
Lamberto woke up with a start, Luisa’s hand was on his shoulder. “Lolo, why aren’t you in bed?
You’re courting pneumonia our here.”
“What time is it?”
“A quarter past one.”
“After one o’clock! You mean to tell me you have just come home?”
“One o’clock is early to a young horse, but it is well past your bedtime. Come on,” and she led him to
the living room. “We can talk here if you want.” She helped him to a deep armchair and she sat on a low
hassock at his feet, her hands clasped around her legs. “I know you want to talk, or you wouldn’t have
been lying in wait for me out there all night.”
He wanted to laugh, for he was comparing the down-to-earth stolidity of Teodora and this girl’s
sprightly forwardness.
“Come on, Grandpa. As old man Shakespeare would say, ‘Out upon it.’”
“Luisa, you do want this man, don’t you?”
“You should know by now that I do.”
“A change of strategy might be a good idea.”
“I know what you mean. But playing hard to get won’t work with Felix.”
“Where is your strategy getting you?”
“Patience, Lolo. Patience. You’re the last man in the world I should say that to. Just a minutes, Lolo.”
She rose and went to the telephone.
“Whom are you calling at this time of night?”
She dialled a number. “Routine check-up, Grandpa. O, hello, Fel.” She turned to her grandfather,
laughing, covering the mouthpiece with her hand. “At least I have good timing.” She spoke into the
mouthpiece again. “Nothing, Fel. I just wanted to say goodnight.” And she hung up.

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 “How else would I know he had gone straight home?” She sat again at the old man’s feet.
“Where would a man be at this time if not in bed?”
“O my poor innocent friend.” She patted his knee. “If you feel a little frustrated maybe you’d go to a
billiard pool. Now that’s a place to steady frazzled nerves. Or a burlesque show to cool down excess
energy. Or a bee joint–to end it all.”
“Luisa, you are not drunk, are you?”
She pulled his face down and breathed on his nose. “It hasn’t come to that yet, Lolo–maybe it won’t”
He controlled a sudden urge to laugh. Laughter would be a relief; he realized now that he had not
understood this girl, who lived in a world with strong stench of corruption and remained uncorrupted–or
so the jigsaw remarks she had thrown offhandedly at him seemed to indicate. He could make out a
wavering pattern of decency that was blurred for him by the distance of their worlds.
The corner light striking the side of her face gave her a childlike softness. His own Louise had been
just two years younger when she married him.
“Luisa, I’m going home tomorrow.”
“But you’ve been here only a week.”
“I want to relax. I’m too old to play billiards and beer does not agree with me. I cannot relax here.
Anyway, you can always come to see me, if you wish. I’d like you to come to see us soon.”
“Yes, of course, Lolo. Felix will want to come along, too, if I ask him.”
He sat up in his chair. “Luisa, you will not do that, unless you want to shove me into my grave.”
She laughed. “You don’t fool me, Grandpa. I don’t think I really shock you. Luisa the Elder did
worse things than I and you know it. I rather suspect you loved her all the more for it.” She inclined her
head wisely. “Of course you don’t want me to bring Felix along. It’s the little town you’re scared of.”
She stood up and led him to his room. “I could talk till dawn–you’re such fun to talk with, my dearest
friend. Only a few men in the world are like you–and Lolo Hilarion. I mean you’ll never really change,
even if you live a hundred years more, and I’m lucky to have you and Lolo Hilarion. But it’s time you get
to bed.”
Half asleep he heard one quarter chime after another, time passing by in liquid, eager notes, never
tired, like laughter floating in space through the years, sometimes so distant he couldn’t hear it,
sometimes the laughing face disappearing for long stretches, and he pushed his hand across the void
searching, and he knew he was coming back, and would keep coming back, to this dark secret city from
his misty blue hills again and again.
The following morning Lamberto received a telegram from Bayombong. It was from Hilarion. “Hurry
home if you can. Holding on.”
Primo was preparing to leave for the office; instead he called up his secretary at once. Since he
wouldn’t be back for a few days, he gave some instructions for the time he would be gone.
In half an hour they were all in the car heading for Bayombong–Lamberto, Teodora, Luisa and Primo.
“How was he when you left, Pang?” Teodora was beside Primo who was driving.
“He seemed fine. His usual self.”
“What do you think is wrong, Lolo?”
“At our age, hija, Hilarion’s and mine, you can never tell what might happen. Hilarion is seventy-

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five.”
“I didn’t think you and Lolo Hilarion were that old. Especially Lolo Hilarion. He only showed his age
after Fort Santiago. In fact until the outbreak of the war he was a thorough-going Don Juan.”
“Louise,” Teodora said sternly. “This is no time for such talk.”
“O, I bet he’s all right. He probably only misses your company, Lolo. You’re both indestructible.”
When they arrived in Bayombong, Hilarion was already dead.
Lamberto insisted on a quiet funeral. “He’d have wanted it that way.”
Teodora and Primo returned to Manila the day after the funeral. Luisa stayed on to keep her
grandfather company in the empty house. In his will Hilarion left all his property to Luisa and the law
firm to Primo. Three weeks later, when she was leaving for Manila, she said, “Lolo, why don’t you leave
this place and make your home in Manila? I wish you would, Lolo.”
“Thank you, child. But this is my home.” He placed his hands on her shoulders. “Thank you for
staying a while.”

CHAPTER 13
LAMBERTO HAD BEEN RECLINING on the lounging chair on the veranda and puffing absently
on his pipe for over an hour. The street, Bayombong’s main thoroughfare, was visible beyond the sparse-
leafed frangipani and the ancient bougainvillea coiled in the iron archway over the gate thirty meters
away. Jeepney tops and the heads of a few pedestrians floated past and seemed disembodied as they
moved above the stone wall.
The servant Rubio moved quietly to Lamberto’s side, anticipating his every need almost by instinct.
The late afternoon was his time for a glass of sherry.
“In a while, Rubio.”
The man stood by the side table for a moment, hesitating, as though he wanted to say something, but
in another instant he walked away. Lamberto listened to his retreating steps wondering what Rubio had on
his mind. He emptied his pipe on the ashtray and filled it again from time he watched the lazy smoke of
his pipe merge with the blue mists over the peaks of the distant Sierra Madre, now blurry blue against the
afternoon sky. It seemed that if he stretched out his arm he could brush away the muddy ball of a cloud
snagged on one of the peaks. His mind went back to Rubio. Now there’s a man. One dependable link with
the past. Rubio’s grandfather, Rodrigo, had been a servant in the house and Lamberto’s childhood
companion; Rodrigo was only a few years older than he. Rodrigo’s own grandfather, Ariston, was an
Aripan, the lowest order in the Gaddang socio-economic scale. Ariston had been saved from execution by
the guardias civiles by Lamberto’s grandfather, who was a gobernadorcillo at the time. For having saved
his life the man Ariston promised to serve the Alcantara Family for the rest of his life; furthermore, he
had exacted from his son Zacarias, under the threat of a curse, a promise to serve likewise, and for
Zacarias to adjure one of his male children in turn, and so on down the line. Thus Rodrigo had laid the
charge on his son Rufino, who in turn gave it to Rubio.
He heard Rubio’s steps and soon he was facing him. There was nothing servile about Rubio, only a
diffident acceptance of his master’s benevolent regard for him. He stood at respectful ease, an attitude
which Rubio’s father had never had; nor had Rodrigo. Rubio had never behaved like an Aripan, because
he had never been made to feel that he was one.
Lamberto glanced up at him. Rubio had a square solid face darkened by heavy brows meeting over a

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flat coconut-frond nose; a head staunchly rooted on bull shoulders. The old scar of his sewed-up harelip
always looked startlingly raw.
“What is it, Rubio?”
“I have no problem, Señor. It is only three months since Señor Hilarion died and now I’m asking a
very important thing which is not proper at this time.”
“Well, what is it?”
“I am asking your permission, Señor, to get married.”
Lamberto was not too surprised. He had seen him in the plaza with a dark, buxom girl during the last
fiesta.
“How old are you now, Rubio?”
“Thirty-one years, Señor.
“That is good age. Who is the girl?”
“Saturnina Patacsil is her name and she is the fifth daughter of Adriano Patacsil and Genoveva
Timbre of this town. They are not aripans, Señor.”
“Neither are you, Rubio.”
“I am an Aripan, Señor like my father and my grandfather and all of them before me.”
“I have never thought of you as an Aripan, Rubio. You know that. I gave your father Rufino his
freedom from the pledge that his grandfather had made to grandfather. The original pledge carried
through the years has been a noble gesture. Even my granting Rufino his freedom couldn’t begin to repay
it. When he was getting married I gave him a piece of land and money and animals, and I was going to
build him a house so he could be on his own. But he wanted to stay with him. That was all right with me
if he wanted it that way. Yes, Rubio, I’m giving you what your father would not accept. It will be a bigger
piece of land, titled in your name, two carabaos, male and female, cows, a fine sow and a boar, goats–“
“Señor–“
“Let me finish, Rubio.” Lamberto hadn’t realized how heavily the debt of gratitude had lain on him
and his family all these years. “I will build you a house on your land and deposit one thousand pesos in
bank in your name. And I will pay all the expenses of your wedding.”
“Señor, but–“
“You deserve it all, Rubio.” He would not tell him now what was assigned to him on his will. There
was no doubt that Rubio was going to make the best of what he was being given now; his inheritance later
was further reward for what he and his family before him had done.
“What are the terms of–” Lamberto checked himself. The matter of the traditional servitude had come
spontaneous to his mind.
“What about the marriage portion, Rubio?”
“Saturnina’s family has not asked for any, Señor.”
“Is there a date set for the marriage?”
“Now that you have given your permission we will agree on the date. I will ask her family that it be
soon.” Rubio paused. “There is one other thing Señor.”
“What is it Rubio?”
“I would like to stay on in this house.”

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 Lamberto studied his face. “How would your wife feel about it?”
“I am marrying her on that condition, Señor.”
“But why, Rubio? What about the other things? Don’t you want to be your own master?’
‘Yes, of course. And I thank you for your concern. But I want to serve you to the end of your days.
And then later my family and I will live on the land you give me.”
“Is that what you really want to do?”
“Yes, Señor.”
“You are delaying the enjoyment of your freedom.”
“No, Señor. It is hard to explain. When you offered the land to my father, and the house and the
money and the rest, you freed him from my family’s promise to serve this house. When my father chose
to stay I think he did right. I also choose to stay. There is one more thing I wish to ask you, but if you do
not grant it, it is all right.”
Lamberto waited.
“If it is not too much, because I have no other relative but a poor sickly aunt, would it be all right for
you to stand for me at the wedding?”
“I will be happy to do that.”
“Thank you, Señor.”
Rubio was married two weeks later and after the ceremony in the church Lamberto proceeded with
the relatives of the bride and the guests to the house of Adriano Patacsil for the wedding feast. Adriano’s
wood-and-nipa house was perched on a rocky promontory overlooking a wide area that included the
houses of a few of Lamberto’s tenants across the Magat. Because Patacsil’s house was small the
celebration was held in the yard. The ground under and around the house had been swept clean. Three
buri mats were hung at the front of the house to hide the bamboo rice bins, a mortar, a plow, and a few
hen coops under the house. At the back, next to the kitchen, the pig sty had been washed and the ground
under it was concealed by coconut and banana fronds propped against the wall. Propped-up bamboo poles
tied together where placed around the yard to serve as benches. Two tables in the middle of the yard were
loaded with food and dishes; on a smaller table were four bottles and a small demijohn of wine
surrounded by cups and glasses.
Patacsil welcomed Lamberto Alcantara and gave him the best chair of the house, one with a narra
frame and finely woven rattan for the seat and back.
“We are honoured, Señor Gobernador.” Patacsil said. “We are especially honoured that you stood for
our son Rubio Lariola.”
Patacsil was about five feet six, lean-muscled, sun-backed, and of indeterminate age. He was a little
stooped, but he looked at his fellowmen with a frank and honest face. He was not a man to make
extravagant excuses about his miserable house. He accepted the world as he accepted himself, a man who
had to make three hectares of rice land produce adequately for his family. His plain Pina barong had two
creases at the front and back, and it smelled faintly of mothballs. He was the kind, Lamberto thought, who
would conceal his pig sty for the sake of his guests, but wouldn’t spare the time to trim his own broken,
worked-stain finger-nails. As Patacsil nodded to his daughters to distribute the cups and glasses,
Lamberto wished he had men like him to run his own farms.
He looked at Rubio, who was helping with the guests, and he wondered if he would be able to stand
on his feet like Patacsil when his time came.

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 Rubio’s bride was offering him a glass. Like her younger unmarried sisters she was plain but built to
suckle a dozen children. She had a faint trace of hair above her mouth, a firm line set against strong jaws;
Lamberto thought that Rubio, a ram of a man, might have chosen a woman less robust.
As Patacsil picked up a bottle to pour the ceremonial rice wine a woman called out, “Wait!”
“It was Rubio’s aunt. She walked to the wine table with determined steps. She was a small thin
woman whose narrow skull was covered by a baby-fistful of gnarled hair. Her transparent cream camisa
topped a loose trailing thickly starched cotton skirt of a mud-brown color that made her look even
smaller.
“Wait!” she repeated. “I am Nieves Lariola, the aunt and only living relative of Rubio Lariola. I am
Aripan, like Rubio Lariola. My father Rodrigo Lariola,” and she pointed to a nondescript little man in the
crowd, “he is an Aripan. Come here, Ignacio. I said, come here, Ignacio.”
Her husband, wearing borrowed shoes a full size too big for him, shuffled self-consciously over to
her; he planted his feet on the ground with care, fearful that the shoes might come off.
“From this day,” the woman went on, “from this day, because my nephew Rubio Lariola married a
woman who is not an Aripan, I and my nephew and my husband are aripans no longer,” She took off her
brown leather slippers. “Take off your shoes, Ignacio. I said take off your shoes Ignacio.”
The little man slipped off the shoes and exposed knobbly feet. She filled another glass and handed it
to her husband. “Wash your feet with it, Ignacio. I said wash your feet with it, Ignacio.”
The man washed his feet with the wine.
The woman turned to the crowd once more. “From this day I, Nieves Lariola, and my husband,
Ignacio Tattangan, are Aripans no longer.”
“Rubio Lariola, come forward and take off your shoes.”
“Ina,” Rubio said, not moving, “there is no need for that.”
“Rubio Lariola, I said come forward and take off your shoes.”
More than anybody in the crowd that was watching with amusement as well as apprehension, old
Lamberto Alcantara sat tensely in his chair. To him this was more than just a contest of wills. There was,
too, for Rubio the acceptance or rejection of the time-honored Aripan ritual of emancipation. It was as
though he was watching the scene from a distance because he was seeing Rubio as a stranger, and he
wanted it that way, for himself to be neutral. Feeling that even a wish or a will in his mind might affect
Rubio’s decision.
“Ina, please listen to me.”
“Rubio Lariola,” the woman’s voice had grown strident and wouldn’t brook denial, “I said come
forward and take off your shoes.”
Rubio stood his ground. “Ina, I am a free man, even without that.”
Rubio was rejecting the ritual. Being free was feeling free. Rubio’s way of showing it was defying his
aunt who, in the Gaddang and Aripan tradition, was as respect-demanding and respect-deserving as one’s
blood mother.
“I am a free man, Ina. My father was also a free man. There is no need for that.”
“You say you are a free man, but you are not.” There was anger in the woman’s voice and also defeat.
“You do not have the will to change. Your master has given you your freedom, he has given you land and
a house and animals and money. But what do you do? You throw them away, you go on being a servant–

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because the blood of the Aripan has drowned the blood of the free man in you. With your land and your
house and your animals and your money you could even be a landlord and my husband Ignacio Tattangan
could work as your tenant. Rubio Lariola, you say you are free? No, you are not, because you don’t want
to be.”
She paused, looked around briefly, and realizing once more that she had not been obeyed said, “Rubio
Lariola, come forward and take off your shoes–unless you are disobeying my blood.”
There was pathos in her voice and it was not because of the violation of a cherished sacrament; it was
a mother publicly defied.
Driven, Rubio didn’t hear the woman’s voice or, so Lamberto thought, refused to hear it. Lamberto
saw that nothing, not even external compromise, could hurt Rubio now. And because Rubio had stood his
ground and respected him for it, Lamberto said quietly, “Rubio, obey your aunt.”
Rubio turned to the old governor, confused at his order. And then he moved to the woman’s side and
as he unlaced his shoes he swept.
“Now,” said the woman, handing him the glass of wine, “wash your feet with it.”
Rubio took the glass, looked at his aunt with pity, and poured the wine on his feet.

CHAPTER 14
ONE AFTERNOON seven months after the death of Hilarion a car stopped in front of the gate.
Lamberto saw Luisa step out of the car. She stood for a moment on the brick walk in front of the house.
She had set the suitcase shell-pink frock, she looked more feminine than he had ever seen her; the dress
made her seem strangely fragile and tall. As always when he saw her after any length of time he had the
odd impression that he was looking at the ghost of his wife. He called out to Rubio to pick up the suitcase.
Lamberto stood at the top of the stairs to greet her. As she came up he saw that she looked haggard and
tired. Something was wrong.
“O Lolo,” she said, embracing him.
“What’s the matter, hija?”
She buried her face in the hollow of his shoulder as she tried to control the shaking that wracked her.
“What is it, Luisa?”
“I’ve done something wrong. Something terrible.”
“What is it?”
“Lolo, I’m going–to have a baby.”
Lamberto stiffened as sudden rage choked him.
“Please don’t send me away, Lolo.”|
His voice snapped. “Why did you do a thing like that?”
“I don’t know, Lolo. I don’t know. But I love him.”
“Who is he?”
“You know him–you saw him. Felix Belmonte.”
“He’s marrying you, isn’t he?”
“I don’t know, Lolo.”

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 “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does he know about this?”
“No. I didn’t tell him.”
“And why not?” Listening to her Lamberto was growing increasingly bewildered, as though he were
thrashing helplessly in a sucking morass. “Why don’t you tell him–that should settle everything.” When
she did not speak he demanded brusquely, “Wouldn’t it?”
“It isn’t as simple as that, Lolo. I don’t think I’ll tell him.”
“Now, isn’t that stupid! He has to marry you know–even if I have to shoot him.”
“No, Lolo, no. I don’t want him to marry me that way.”
“The absolute stupidity! I didn’t know there was that kind of stupidity in my family.”
She was sobbing as she bent double in the chair.
“Does your mother know about this?”
Her sobs choked off the answer in her throat.
“Did you tell Teodora about this?”
“Yes, Lolo.”
“And what did she say?”
“O Lolo, it’s horrible. It’s horrible what she said.”
He waited for her to tell him.
“She said I should go away. Out of the country. To Hong Kong–anywhere. Get an abortion–or
abandon the baby there.”
“Does your father know?”
She nodded and started to shake again. “It’s horrible, Lolo. He was going out with his gun–after
Felix. But Mama stopped him and calmed him down.”
“What did he think of your mother’s suggestion?”
“He didn’t say. Lolo, I’m afraid of Papa.”
He was quiet for a long time. “The absolute idiocy. It is degeneration of the blood, all right. First,
your mother eloping without a word about it to anyone. Complete degeneration. That’s what you get for
your idiotic ideas of emancipation. It’s hell you get, a living hell. And you drag me along with you. And
this has to happen when I’m about through with myself. God, why?”
Luisa stopped crying.
“What do you plan to do?”
“I don’t know yet, Lolo. But I won’t stay here in Bayombong. I won’t shame you more than I already
have. I only came because I felt lost. I’ll go away tomorrow, Lolo.”
Lamberto did not speak.
“I’m not going back home. I’ll rent a house somewhere, or maybe use some of Lolo Hilarion’s money
to build a house.”
Late that night Lamberto was on the veranda sitting in the darkness, his pipe untouched. He was still

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numb with futile anger and defeat. He couldn’t help feeling momentarily that his own life had betrayed
him, had dishonoured herself and him, had allowed herself to be violated, knowing all along that he
would suffer the outrage and the shame. He wondered if this annihilation would have been less
overwhelming if Hilarion were alive to share it; in the next moment he stifled the thought of his brother as
co-witness: suffering shared dishonour which could not find any relief because there wasn’t any, a
revolting stigma on anyone who shared the polluted blood. Death from sickness or from an act of God
would be preferable.
He stiffened. Someone was on the veranda with him. A timid hand touched his shoulder.
“O Lolo. If there was anybody I didn’t want to hurt it was you. I’ve hurt you more than I’ve hurt
myself. I didn’t mean to give you pain. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be all right.”
The voice was that of a ghost, of the present and of the past. When he did not reply she said, “It’s
time you went to bed. Come, Lolo.” And she held him by arm and led him to his room.
As she closed the door she said, “I’m very sorry for everything–you know that, especially because
what I’ve done can’t be made right.” She paused and then said, “I’ll go early tomorrow so it won’t be so
hot on the road. And don’t get up on my account. Lolo–please try to forgive me.”
She had gone to her room before he could think of anything to say.
Lamberto was up very early the next morning when Luisa came out of her room with her suitcase.
“You are not going, Luisa. You will stay as long as you want.”
Three weeks later she decided to leave. “I’m glad I came. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be all right.”
“Are you going back to your mother?”
“No, Lolo. I’ve decided to get a little house somewhere. It’s best that way.”
“Is that what you really want to do?”
“Yes, Lolo.”

LAMBERTO HAD THE HOUSE BUILT on a quiet lot in a newly opened area in Quezon City; at
the back of the Lot was a rocky gulch that dropped into a creek thirty feet below. He had seen an architect
and had the plan approved by Luisa. It was a sprawling brick-roofed bungalow with a courtyard, a kind of
atrium, accessible from every room in the house. A four-foot adobe wall, topped by two feet of tile work
in a diamond design, enclosed the half-hectare lot. Three months later, when he finally took Luisa to the
house she found it bigger than she had anticipated. “I didn’t know it was going to be like this, Lolo.”
“I figured I should get some comfort in my old age.”
Seeing a separate annex she asked, “What’s that doing here? It was in the plan.”
“I had the architect add that. Rubio and his wife are staying there. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Of course not, Lolo. I’m glad they’re coming.”
Lamberto had engaged Major Salazar, after his resignation from the army, to manage all his business
interests. For almost a year Salazar had done the work efficiently, and the old man could leave
Bayombong without any qualms.
Luisa was kept busy in the next few weeks furnishing the house and supervising the men who laid out
the rolled carpets of Bermuda grass and planted the trees as suggested by the architect. She tended the
flower boxes, scoured the nurseries for the plants she needed–vines, aerials, creepers, bulbs; she spotted

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many of them to give the house a lived-in look. She seemed cheerful enough, especially when she kept
busy. There were times when Lamberto caught her crying, and then trying to cheer up for his sake, but he
never caught her whining. She had backbone. He could understand less than ever why she had been
unable to control? A life was wasted, a beautiful life such as his wife had lived; this made him curse in
renewed anger and shame. There were times when it seemed he was watching his own wife waiting away.
This girl could have commanded, as his wife had; she was perhaps more arresting than her grandmother
because she had the wit and polish to disarm any man. It was incomprehensible. Realizing that he had
forsaken the house in which he had lived his whole life to stay in the city with her, Lamberto sometimes
wondered if, somehow, she hadn’t taken him in. But he remembered her helplessness in Bayombong; and
seeing her attempts to conceal her suffering and shame seemed to lighten his own, although he continued
to feel the stubborn numbness.
Luisa’s child was a boy. He was a crumpled, anonymous mite that aroused in Lamberto a confused
feeling: of resentment for causing Luisa all this misery, of pity for being born without a father’s name.
Could Teodora have been right in suggesting that Luisa leave the country and return without the baby?
Quickly his own sense of rightness snuffed out the thought. There was no question but that this baby was
going to complicate Luisa’s life. In the first few days he even felt an urge to see Belmonte and threaten
him into marrying her, to shoot him if he refused.
“Why don’t you tell the man about the baby?” he asked Luisa a few weeks later.
“No, Lolo, now you know why I’ll never do that. There’s no sense in it. He must know about all this–
even if Mama hasn’t already told him and I’m sure she did. It wouldn’t be hard for him to find me.”
“What do you feel about him now?”
“I don’t know, Lolo. For a long time now, I’ve felt empty. I really don’t feel anything just now.”
Six months later Luisa announced to him that she was going back to work.
“What about the baby?”
“I’ve thought of him, of course. The yaya will take care of him until noon, when I come home. I’ll go
back to work at two and come home at five.”
“You don’t have to work, do you? Especially just now.”
“Work is good for me, Lolo. Good for the mind.”
“What kind of work is it?”
“In the advertising firm where I used to work. Writing copy and helping in public relations–much the
same thing I used to do.”
Lamberto thought that for her there was nothing to be gained in being tied to the house. Work might
give her a new start.
She had become a quieter person, with the some poise but without the jauntiness. She needed to work
because she felt that she had to get out of herself and beyond what had happened. She was glad to be back
at the advertising firm; but at the same time her situation and her pride made her defensive and she told
Manuel Aguilar, her immediate superior, “If I came nosing around for my old job, it’s because I liked it.
No other reason.” She wasn’t going to let others see it as a desperate form of therapy.
Aguilar cocked an eyebrow at her. “So? Purely intellectual motives.”
She gave him a level look. In the past she had thought Aguilar too sure of himself, a little too
aggressive. “Yes,” she said with composure. “Even if intellectual disinterestedness has its
compensations.”

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 Even as she said this she felt dishonest. She didn’t like being defensive. It was something new to her.
She realized more and more that she had set up her financial independence (with the money Hilarion had
left her, and her grandfather’s backing) as a screen against anybody’s probing into her private life. She
didn’t insist on her advantages, and yet she secretly gloated over certain things, such as driving her own
car when only the two top men of the company had cars. Beyond the genuine cordiality with which she
treated the people in the office there was always an air of aloofness; the easy efficiency with which she
did her work was her justification for holding the job.
About two months after she started work Manuel Aguilar came to her desk as she was clearing up
before going home. He was an engaging fellow of thirty-four, cynical and brusque to anyone who did not
do his work to his satisfaction. He had been a newspaper reporter before he joined the advertising firm.
“If I asked you, would you go out to dinner with me tonight, Louise–and a movie later, if you want?”
She looked up at Aguilar; was there a studied tentativeness, a deliberate bumpkinism in the self-
satisfied cynic? She couldn’t be sure. “Thanks, Manuel. I’m sorry I can’t go out.”
Three weeks later Aguilar remarked. “You were quite active in college dramatics, weren’t you?”
“How did you know?”
“I used to read items about the plays you were in. The Drama Guild has been doing Pygmalion and
the reviewers are enthusiastic about it. I have two tickets, Louise.”
“I’ sorry, Manuel, I can’t go out at night. I have a baby.” Luisa watched his face for his reaction.
“What has that to do with your going out?”
It was obvious he had known about the child.
“I’m taking care of my baby, after a whole day away.”
“But he’ll be asleep by then, and there’s his nursemaid.”
Luisa laughed. “How did you know it’s a boy?”
He had a straight face. “I had a stint in marker research after my newspaper days. Now how about
Pygmalion?”
“I’m really very sorry, Manuel.”
Six months later, at the coffee break, Aguilar had some news for her. “I hate to lose you, Louise.”
“What do you mean?”
“The big boss is taking you away from my department. He said he’ll need you full-time in public
relations. Rodriguez has given a month’s notice.”
Luisa looked unimpressed and almost solemn.
“Don’t tell me you’re unhappy to leave my department! Are you?”
“I don’t know–but I’ve enjoyed working with you, Manuel.”
“Well, now that’s encouraging, although the promotion doesn’t seem to interest you much. I know
you don’t have to work. Why do you work, anyway, and rob some decent fellow of a means of
livelihood?”
“Manuel, you are an angry man.”
“I’m in love with you, Louise.”
She looked at him but made no comment.

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 “You’re not in love with that man anymore, are you?” After this bas–pardon–brought home a Spanish
wife from abroad–or haven’t you heard about that?”
“O yes, I knew that. In fact, I don’t think he meant anything to me after I had the baby.”
“The why the deep freeze? Why in God’s name can’t you thaw out a little?”
“I’m not ready for that, not after what happened.”
“That as a long time ago.”
“Two years isn’t so long ago.”
“It’s along time to me.”
“I’m very sorry, Manuel.”
Three months later Aguilar accepted a similar position in a bigger advertising company.

ABOUT A YEAR LATER Luisa was leaving the building when she heard someone call her name.
She turned around. Felix Belmonte was getting out of his car.” Just a moment please, Louise.”
Taken by surprise she couldn’t think of anything to say.
“May I drive you home?”
“No, thank you.”
“How about a cup of coffee?”
“I’m hurrying home, I’m sorry.”
“It’s about the child,” he said. “Please step into the car for just a moment.”
She walked with him and got into an air-conditioned Cadillac.
“About the child, you said. What’s on your mind?”
“I’ve placed some money in trust for him–and for you–please don’t go. Please don’t be offended.”
She was not even angry. “I don’t need your money.”
“I know. But I just want to do it. I’ll put it all in the child’s name then.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t need your money and I can take care of my son quite well. I’d like to go now,
if you don’t mind.”
“Just a minute, Louise. Please.”
She waited.
“I made the biggest mistake of my life. But never mind that now. Louise, can I see the boy once in a
while?”
She looked at him. “I’m sorry again.” She added. “If you went to the house to see the boy my
grandfather wouldn’t approve. And now I’d like to go.”
She had an odd feeling as she got out of the car. Even as she drove home, and in bed that night she
was glad she had seen him. She felt a kind of liberation.
Several weeks later she received a telephone call from Manuel Aguilar.
“How are you, Manuel?”
“Not so bad. Now you can be safe with me. I got married a couple of weeks ago. She’s a fine girl, not
so pretty as you, but pretty enough for a huckster.”

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 “Congratulations, Manuel. I’m happy for you.”
“Good riddance, eh? I called because I’ve heard an excellent report, something that warms the
cockles of my heart.”
“What’s this excellent report? Another promotion for you?”
“”It’s even better than that, unfortunately. I’m the vindictive kind and I enjoy my vindictiveness–
gives sharper dimension to life. Now this, begging your pardon, this man Belmonte–oh, yes, it’s about
him. He’s getting exactly what he deserves. This is no gossip, Louise. It’s straight research. His wife–the
woman he brought home from Spain–she’s running around, really running around with another man. It’s
Belmonte’s own best pal and second cousin, and Belmonte knows all about it. Now tell me, isn’t that the
ultimate in poetic justice?”
Luisa did not speak.
“Hello? Louise? I thought you’d hung up on a busybody. And before you do or say anything–good
luck, my friend.”

CHAPTER 15
WHEN LUISA FIRST RETURNED to work she had gone at it with grim efficiency. After nearly
three years she was relaxed and much happier. One morning she glanced up to see a tall man standing
before her desk. Her face broke into a slow smile. “Bill! Bill Lansing! What on earth are you doing here?”
“It’s a long story. Could I get you away for a while?”
“You may, sir–in half an hour. Can you wait?”
“You bet.”
“When did you come?”
“Last night. I called your place. Your mother said I could find you here.”
“Now, Bill, if you walk around the block three or four times, I’ll be done with this–happens to be
super-urgent.”
“I’ll wait in the lounge.”
He took her to lunch in a downtown restaurant near her office.
“You’ve changed, Louise. You’re more beautiful than I remembered you.”
“What brought you here, Bill?”
“I’m with the ERA on a year’s appointment.”
“The ERA. O yes, of course. Economic Reconstruction Agency, isn’t it?”
“That’s right.”
“How about the teaching?”
“When I left the army I went back to teaching. Later, after a bit of personal trouble, I was feeling
restless. I left teaching and joined a business firm. The pay was much better, but I got restless again, so
finally I applied for this ERA job. It was a painless way of coming back. A chance to see what has
happened here after five years. A lot of reconstruction going on.” He paused and looked at her. “You have
changed, Louise. How are you?”
“A lot has happened since you left. I’m a little wiser, I hope. I’ve had my Shattering Experience.”

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 He looked at her, wondering. “Never mind the shattering experience, we’ll talk about that later. It’s
wonderful to see you again. I want to go to Bayombong, too. That’s another reason, I supposed–mostly
undefined–why I took this job.”
She reached for her glass, but put it down as he started talking again. She had caught an earnest note.
“It’s like this. I seem to have been more successful as a soldier than as teacher, or husband, or as
anything else. Going back to the places here–Leyte, Manila, Balete Pass, Bayombong–I had a vague
notion it might help mend my fractured morale.” He picked up his glass. “That’s enough of that. How’s
the governor?”
“You mean my grandfather?”
“Yes, how is he?
“Grandpa’s all right.”
“I’d like to see him again.” He was quiet, looking at her. “You’ve toned down, Louise.”
“Five years can change one. Where are you staying? Is your family with you?”
“No. No more family. Judy got a divorce.” He spoke matter-of-factly. “A year after I returned to
civilian life. Incompatibility, that’s what the court papers said. Perhaps that wasn’t really the reason. We
were married just five months before I went to the army. I guess we hadn’t known each other long
enough. Or it could be I suffered from some kind of dislocation from the war–I don’t know. It was quite a
mess. She’s married again, incidentally.”
He saw her back to her office. At the door he said, “This is a happy surprise. A girl like you still
unmarried–what’s wrong with the men around here, anyway?”
She shook her head noncommittally.
“I’d like to take you out to dinner tomorrow evening.”
Her reply was swift and firm. “I’m sorry, Bill. I can’t.”
“Evening after tomorrow then. Look. After all I might get lost around here.”
“All right, do you have a car?”
“I’ll hire one,”
“Where do you stay?”
“Mabuhay Hotel.”
“Suppose I pick you up at six.”
“I can drive to your place, if you tell me where it is.”
“Let me come for you, it would really be more convenient.”
“That’ll be fine then.”
Her grandfather was playing with the little boy when she got home from work. The old man had
grown fond of the boy and sat with him by the hour. Ruben was now three and a half years old.
“Lolo, your old friend Colonel Lansing is in Manila.”
“Bill Lansing? What is he doing here?”
“He’s with the ERA. It’s an American agency that decides on the reconstruction projects needing
American aid. He’ll be here for a year. He wants to see you, Lolo.”
“He’s not a soldier any more then?”

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 “Not any more.”
“Is his family with him?”
“No, Lolo. He has no family. He’s divorced. That’s what he said.”
“He didn’t seem the kind to get involved in a thing like that.”
“Incompatibility–that’s what it was, Bill said.”
Lamberto was silent for some time, and then he said thoughtfully, “I wouldn’t want our own marriage
laws liberalized. Concubinage on the part of the man or adultery on the part of the wife, yes.
Incompatibility makes a mockery of a marriage contract. Snoring could be given as a cause for divorce
under incompatibility.”
Luisa looked at her grandfather. For the first time she thought he was mumbling just like any old
man.
The following afternoon, home from work, Luisa told him she had promised to go out to dinner with
Bill Lansing that night.
The old man received the news without a show of surprise. This would be the first time she had gone
out with a man since they moved to this place for four years before.
“You think you should go?”
“I think it is all right, Lolo.”
“Does he know?”
Lamberto remembered the look of Lansing’s face those times he had surveyed his wife’s portrait in
the old house, the portrait that looked so much like the young Luisa.
“No, he doesn’t know, but that’s mostly why I’m seeing him tonight. I’ll tell him, Lolo.”
She had almost forgotten the feeling of preparing to go out on a date. She could not help the poignant
twinge after the foolish messed-up years. Probably this would be the last, because when Bill Lansing
knew… He had thought her attractive after the war, and he still thought so; he had told her that. But she
dreaded seeing his face when she told him about the boy. The disillusion, the embarrassed silence.
Although she wondered, what do I really care.
Manuel Aguilar knew she had a baby, he knew about disgrace, but he had proposed marriage, and had
seemed sincere about it. But then why had he proposed? What was to keep her from thinking that Aguilar
had an ulterior motive? Aguilar the rising executive, hard-bitten, money-wise, Aguilar the realist. Well,
she thought, in bitter self-discovery, the experience must have really messed her up if she could think of a
man this way. Or probably the hurt was still too new for her to be affected by Manuel’s interest. Perhaps
it was the man himself, who pushed too hard and too blatantly in his work, making a virtue of it. Or it
might have been the cold-blooded way he pursued his interest in her private life. It was odd, she told
herself, that she should think of Manuel, that she should be gauging him and his intentions only now.
Finally, she took three dresses from the hangers. She tried on the silk-organdy frock with a frost-work
of white Chantilly lace brightened by pearl beads. Cocktail-length, the décolletage rounded in front and
dipped to a V in the back. The sash, cross-girdle, was a gleaming swath of white satin with its own
fringed knot. The kind, she thought, for the daring days, or for tonight, if she intended to dismiss his
disillusion with frosty shrug.
She put on the next one, a dark blue jersey dress, unadorned, almost severe, with only a spray of tucks
at the hem of the wide, bell shaped sleeves, and a corset-like waits. The dress for her state of mind and the

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kind, she added, for Antigone after her defiance, or for Medea after discovering Jason’s infidelity. But she
took it off and decided on the third, a beige linen sheath with a bow-trimmed self-belt to define the waist;
a casual dress for a casual evening, and if it turned out to be one of distressing revelation, there was
nothing she could do put on a calm show of casualness.
She suggested a small place on Dewy Boulevard. “They serve an excellent Danish tossed salad and
some really good Danish pastries.”
“The Danes have it,” he agreed.
They got a table in the small pleasant restaurant and ordered drinks.
“Here’s to you,” he said. “You’d be beautiful anywhere.”
“What do you mean, anywhere?”
“You’d be stunning in Evanston, the college town where I used to teach. That’s saying a good deal, a
university campus has many pretty faces.”
“Easy there, Dr. Lansing. After all, you’ve just arrive and you should go easy.”
“I’ve been feeling pretty good since I saw you the other day.”
After the dinner he said, “Which is it now, dance and music, or a movie?”
“Bill, I’d rather go home after a while.”
“I don’t understand. What’s wrong?”
“I have an idea. Why don’t we drive around the city, since you’ve just come? Is that all right with
you?”
He was unusually quiet during the hour that she drove around. When she finally stopped the car in
front of his hotel he said, “I’m taking you home. I’ll take a cab coming back.”
“Too much trouble that way, Bill.”
“Not for me. I insist on it. Look, Louise, I don’t understand, but anyway I promise to stay only until I
can get a cab.”
“I’d like to go home alone, Bill.”
“Louise, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong, not with you. It’s me everything’s wrong with me.”
“I see, there’s someone, is that it?”
“No Bill, no one. I must say goodnight.”
“Louise–“
“Goodnight, Bill.”
The next day he called her at the office. “I must see you. It’s important–because I think I’m in love
with you.”
“Whoa, boy. That’s crazy.”
“The crazy thing is that it’s true. Louise?”
“You don’t really know what you’re saying, Bill.”
“I’d like to see you. I’ll wait in the lounge.”
“Very well, then.” She said it to herself, let’s see how you can take it.

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 When he arrived she suggested they go to some place where it was quiet.
“That’s exactly what I want to do,” he said.
She was silent and tense as they drove.
“I thought I knew a girl named Luisa a few years ago. You’re a different girl.”
“Yes, Bill. You can’t know how much.”
She stopped the car in a quiet section of Dewey Boulevard. A few people were strolling around the
waterfront and some couples sat on huge boulders on the waterline watching the sunset.
“Look at that,” he pointed at the sun about to dip behind Mariveles, a bit of land looking like a
gentled gnarled land, palm on water, encrusted with mist, under a sky that seemed to announce the last
beautiful sunset of the world.
“There’s nothing like this where I come from. One good reason for crossing the Pacific.” They
watched the sunset quietly.
“The few sunsets I saw from a ridge in the Sierra Madre–you know, where I first met your
grandfather, up in Banwag, a wild country–the sunsets there were different. Beautiful too, but less
spectacular than this one. Something very sad about them. Like the sunset at Waputki, the site of some
Indian ruins up a mountain in Arizona.”
For a moment Luisa forgot why they had driven to his spot. Bill’s reaction was not unusual, people of
all sorts, tourist or native, were normally arrested by the sunsets of Manila Bay. It was his tone, more of
remembering than excitement. This merging of the now and the past that she sometimes saw in Bill gave
him a kind of vulnerability in her eyes, is spite of his outward competence and efficiency.
He turned to her. “Now for the better reason for crossing the Pacific. I love you, Louise. But surely,
you must know that.”
“You certainly go fast, Bill Lansing. Over the phone you said you thought you did.”
“It’s the same thing.”
“Well, it won’t be when I tell you what’s wrong.”
He laughed. “You sound frightening.”
“What I have to say could frighten any man. Bill, when I went out with you the other night, it was the
first tome I had been out with anyone in four years.”
He looked puzzled.
“You see, Bill, I have a baby. Five years ago, sometime after you had left, I was in love, crazy in love
with someone–my son’s father. That man is married now. He was married two years ago. That’s the
whole story. My world was destroyed, Bill. I haven’t accounted for all the pieces yet.”
His face had tightened while she talked. He said nothing.
“My mother wanted me to have the baby out of the country and come back without him. It was
horrible; I wouldn’t think of it. I didn’t go out of the country to have Ruben. My grandfather–the finest
friend I never hope to have–he built a nice house for me in Quezon City, because I wouldn’t go back to
my mother’s house. My grandfather is there now; he has seen me through all the pain, from the very first.
I went back to work, to rehabilitate myself. So you see, Bill, I do understand about your ‘fractured
morale’. Mine needed straightening out, too.”
She turned the key and started the motor. It was only when she stopped the car at his hotel that he

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spoke. “Are you still in love with him, Louise?”
“No, Bill. It was over long ago.”
“Thanks for telling me. You’re a brave girl–one of the finest I’ve known.”
The tears blurred the road as she drove. At the first side street she turned and stopped the car and
wept.
She hoped her grandfather would not see how disturbed she was, but she found it didn’t matter. The
moment she got home, he said, “I called your doctor half an hour ago. The boy has a high fever.”
She felt the boy’s forehead and then went to the telephone.
“He should be here in a minute, Luisa.”
“I’ll call again, anyway.”
The wife answered; the doctor was on his way to the house.
He came presently and examined Ruben. “I think it’s pneumonia. We must get him to the hospital. I’d
like to use your phone.”
He made arrangements at the hospital where he worked.
For nine days Luisa stayed with her son. She had asked her office for a leave. Sometimes Lamberto
took turns staying with Ruben, who kept asking for him.
On the afternoon when she finally came home with her son Lansing called up. “I’ve called and called,
Louise. I didn’t know the boy was sick until yesterday. Your grandfather told me on the phone.”
“We just got back from the hospital.”
“How’s your boy?”
“Ruben’s fine now. I brought him home.”
Lansing was quiet and then he said, “May I go there? I’d like to see you and the boy, and the
governor.”
“If you wish, Bill.”
“By the way, I’m broke. I bought a car. Can you give me supper?”
She laughed. “Delighted. Grandpa will be happy to see you.
Her grandfather was just leaving Ruben’s room. The boy had dropped off to sleep.
“Lolo, your friend, Bill Lansing is coming tonight.”
Lamberto did not speak, but the question showed in his face.
“Yes, Lolo, he knows. He’s coming for supper.”
It was the old man who met Lansing at the door. “Welcome back, Bill Lansing.”
“It’s good to see you again, Governor. I had meant to go to Bayombong to see you there. It was just a
few days ago that I learned you were here.”
Luisa came from the kitchen and joined them.
“I’d like to see the boy. May I?”
“Yes, of course,” she said. “He’s sleeping. We’ll go to his room.”
She switched on the table lamp near Ruben’s bed. The boy was lying on his stomach; his right leg
was crooked up slightly as though he were climbing a stair.

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 “He’s a good-looking boy, Bill, if I say so myself.”
“Good to hear you talk like that for a change.”
By the time supper wad ready Lansing was sure it was almost like old times again and that the
governor, as well as Luisa, was feeling as he did.

LAMBERTO WAS on the sand lot behind the house playing ball with Ruben. The little boy squealed
in triumph each time he caught the soft rubber ball. “Stay farther away, Lolo, farther away.”
The old man took a few steps backward.
“Ready?”
“Ready.”
The ball slipped from the boy’s hand. Ruben chased it as it rolled away on the grass. Just as he got
hold of the ball, Rubio came up to them. A man wanted to see Lamberto. The old man called out to the
nursemaid.
“But I want to play with, Lolo,” Ruben protested when the girl came over. “I play only with you,
Lolo.”
The old man patted him to the shoulder. “I’ll be back. Be a good boy now.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“Stay here, hijo. We’ll play again in a little while.”
“Hurry back, Lolo.”
The man who stood up as he came into the living room was Felix Belmonte. “Señor, I am the father
of Luisa’s son. I want to see him.”
Lamberto stood rooted. Hard anger gathered into a knot in his throat. His teeth clamped tight, there
was a nervous pulsing of the muscle of his right jaw as though it were an animal flexing to spring.
“Probably you don’t remember me, Señor,” went on Belmonte.
“I remember you. I never forget scoundrels.”
“Señor–“
“You are a scoundrel. The boy has no father.”
“Your language, old man. If it were not for your white hair–“
“You’re lucky for my white hair. In my time I would have broken your back in a moment. Rubio!”
Rubio came to the room at once.
“Get this scum out of here and break his bones for me if he gives you any trouble. One more thing,
Belmonte.”
But Belmonte had turned his back.
“I said one more thing–“
The man kept walking, and Rubio strode toward him and spun him around. “My master was talking
to you.”
“Keep your dirty hands off, you swine–“
Rubio’s fist crashed into Belmonte’s face. They would have fallen but for a heavy narra armchair

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which he grabbed in time. Blood came out of his mouth.
Lamberto looked on, unmoved.
“That’s a sample, Belmonte. I warn you. If you come again–if you try anything with the boy or bother
my granddaughter in any way, it won’t be Rubio but my gun. It would be a pleasure to kill you.”

LATE ONE AFTERNOON two weeks later, Belmonte was waiting for Luisa to leave the office. She
had left the building and was standing at the curb. He walked toward her quickly.
“Louise, may I speak with you–it’s something very important, something you ought to know.”
“I’m sorry, I’m waiting for someone.”
“A few minutes, please.”
“Then may I see you tonight–dinner perhaps.”
Bill Lansing, with Ruben in tow, was heading for them.
“O, there they are. I’m sorry, I can’t make it.”
“What about tomorrow night? Please, Louise, this is very important.”
Lansing and the boy had joined them.
“Mama, look in the box. Roller skates, Mama. Uncle Bill bought them for me. He’ll teach me, he
says.”
Luisa saw Belmonte staring down at the boy.
“Bill, this is Mr. Belmonte. Mr. Lansing.”
“How do you do Mr. Belmonte.”
They shook hands but Belmonte’s attention was on the boy.
“I’m sorry,” said Luisa, “we have to run.”
“How about it, Louise? I’m asking you.”
Lansing looked at him sharply.
“I said I’m sorry.” She paused and said evenly, “All right. Lunch hour tomorrow, Botica Boie.”
Near the corner of the block Lansing observed, “He seemed unusually insistent. Old friend of yours?”
“Later, Bill. Not now, please.”
In the car Ruben spoke up again. “Uncle Bill, I like the skates. This is my second long ride. The first
time, my Lolo took me to a big house with many books. Thanks, Uncle Bill.”
As they got out of the car the boy said, “When do we go out again, Uncle Bill?”
“Very soon, if you behave yourself.”
“Run along to, Lolo.” Luisa told the boy.
“And you’ll teach me to skate, Uncle Bill? You promised.”
“Later, boy, later. Go and show Lolo your skates.”
“But, Lolo doesn’t know how to skate.”
“Go on to Lolo now and show them to him. Tell him I’m teaching you.”
“When, Uncle Bill?”

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 “You little, rascal. In a little while. I’ll have a word with your mother first.”
“Make it quick, Uncle Bill.”
He turned to Luisa. “Now, my dear lady. What’s this all about?”
“That man, Belmonte is Ruben’s father.”
“Belmonte?”
“Yes, Bill. I thought you had guessed. That was the first time he’d ever seen the boy.”
Lansing said quietly, “What does he want?”
“He came to the house a few days ago to see Ruben. I wasn’t home. Lolo threatened to shoot him if
he ever came again. Rubio told me.”
“What do you think fo your grandfather’s threat?”
“You mean, does Lolo mean it? Of course he does. You know Lolo.”
“What do you feel about it–Belmonte trying to see the boy?”
“Felix means well.” She told Lansing that Belmonte had put money in trust of Ruben. “I told him I
could take care of my son. He said he wanted to do something for the boy.”
“And you’re going to see him tomorrow?”
“Yes, Bill.”
Ruben was back. “Uncle Bill, lets go.”
“Okay, boy. Okay.” he kneeled down to strap the skates onto the boy’s shoes.

LUISA KEPT her appointment with Belmonte. “I want to be direct about this, Louise. I’m divorcing
my wife. I’ve had to take a lot, much more than you will ever know. There is no problem about the
divorce. No problem according to our laws.” He hesitated. “That’s what my lawyers say and I know
they’re right.” He pounded the table suddenly. “I’m sorry,” he said. I’ve suffered a lot, too Louise.”
She said nothing.
“I want you, Louise. I want you to marry me after the divorce goes through.”
Luisa though of the things Manuel Aguilar had told her about Felix’s wife. Feeling spiteful she said,
“There are only two causes for divorce in this country–adultery and concubinage. You’re not guilty, are
you?”
“No, Louise. But my wife is. I have proofs, real proofs.”
She suddenly wished she had not asked the question.
“He’s a good-looking boy, Louise–my son. Perhaps your grandfather told you about my visit a few
days ago. I’ve made a terrible mess of myself. “
After coffee she said, “I have to get back to the office.”
He was staring at her almost sullenly. “You don’t have to work, do you?”
“I like to work–I love my work.”
“Louise. You know that if anyone deserves a chance to make up for a mistake, I deserve that chance,”
She stood up. “I have to go.”
As she was starting home after work that afternoon Bill Lansing was waiting in the lounge.

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 “Buy you a cup of coffee before you go home?”
“I must run home, Bill.”
“May I bum a ride to your place then? I’ll take a cab back. I’ll just leave my car where I parked it. I
have something I want to tell you,”
She shrugged. “Fine. Come on.”
“I’ll drive,” he offered.
When the car was out of the heavy city traffic he said, “You can tell me it’s none of my business. But
I’m interested in what happened, what decisions were reached at lunch time.”
She gave him a quick glance.
“Louise, please. You can be so blasted cool.” He added, “Before you say anything, I want to go on
record, again. I’m in love with you.”
She received this quietly. Then she spoke. “In spite of what happened?”
“You mean Ruben and all?”
“Yes, everything.”
“I love you and I want to marry you.”
She laughed. “This is a rare day for me. That’s the second proposal today.”
“Well!”
“Yes, at lunch Mr. Belmonte, Ruben’s father, offered to marry me.”
“That’s crazy, he’s married.”
“He’s divorcing his wife; he claims she’s been misbehaving behind his back.”
“You don’t want to be tricked again, do you?”
“He’s not fooling, Bill, not this time.”
“So?”
“I can’t make up my mind.”
Lansing turned into a side road. He stopped the car, drew her to him, and kissed her. “So you haven’t
made up your mind. What did the fellow say?”
She was looking at him thoughtfully. “I like you, Bill–very much. Come to think of it, you’re the
third man whose company I really enjoy.”
“There is someone then?”
“Was. A friend in college. The Japs took him to Fort Santiago and he never came out alive.”
“I suppose your grandfather is top man.”
“I think a lot of my grandfather–and of his brother, also. Oddly enough, I sometimes think of them as
being one person.”
She paused, then said, “Give me time, Bill. I need more time. It isn’t easy.”
When they got home Major Salazar and old Lamberto were having coffee on the terrace. Lansing
joined them.
“Well, said Salazar, shaking hands with Lansing, “my old commanding officer.”
“You’re looking well, Major.” Seeing him in civilian clothes Lansing said, “You’re not on the army?”

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 “No, Colonel, I left the army five years ago. I’ve worked for the Governor here since then.”
“He runs my business, Bill. I couldn’t live here in peace if I didn’t have the major in Vizcaya to
handle things.”
A maid came in with more coffee and a cup for Lansing.
Salazar stirred his second cup of coffee, “I’ve wanted to see you, Colonel. About a project which was
originally started by the governor. We both thought it might interest you and perhaps it might get ERA
support. It should be discussed in your office, but do you mind if I mention it in here?”
“Go ahead.”
“Do you remember our Banwag headquarters–the area in the Sierra Madre where you took your
battalion from Balete Pass?”
“Yes, of course. We called it Chicago, didn’t we? In fact, I want to go up there soon, while I’m still
assigned here.”
“Well, it is very rich, rolling country. You remember, too, the alternate camp where we had supper
with the Governor. That camp, the area around it, it is a plateau contiguous to Banwag. After the
liberation, all the lowland evacuees returned to their homes and these mountains clearings went back to
grass land. Some of the old places have started second growth forest. The Igorot tribes live on the fringes
of that plateau. As you know, the Igorots did a great deal for the resistance army. Well, we–especially the
governor–have long wanted to do something for them. We’d like to see that whole area turned to a
settlement for them.”
“They should have a place, Bill,” Lamberto explained, “a good place of their own, something like the
Banwag area, or they will disintegrate in time. We’d like the Igorots to have a reservation similar to those
the Indians in your country.”
Lansing nodded, but voiced a question, “Is there enough land for what you have in mind?”
Salazar was enthusiastic. “The Igorots in the part of the Sierra Madre could have a settlement of ten to
fifteen thousand hectares of rich agricultural land. With that kind of land they wouldn’t be forced to
destroy forest areas for kaingin clearings. We’re thinking of constructing a road from Bayombong to
Banwag–starting from the foothills where your troops, Colonel, were air-dropped. Also a school and a
clinic, and of course the necessary agricultural help-tools, work animals, money loans, farm education,
and such.”
Lansing said, “Sounds like a splendid idea. Very ambitious. You probably know this, but all projects
sponsored by ERA are on a government-to-government basis. Any project presented to us must have the
backing of the government. This means your government puts up a counterpart in pesos for the dollar
commitment of ERA. If we give one hundred thousand dollars to a project, your government contributes
one hundred thousand pesos. You said this project was started by the Governor?”
“That’s right, Colonel. We will have no problem getting it taken up by our congressman. He belongs
to the party of the present administration. Congressman Mendoza assures us that there will be no
hindrance from the Philippine Government. He will sponsor the project in Congress, as a matter of fact.”
Lansing spoke quietly to the two who waited for his reaction. “You both know that I have a very
special interest in this, because I was in that area with you and I saw what the Igorots did. I also know
what they need. It’s this kind of help they need. You’re both my dear friends, but I’m afraid this in not the
kind of things ERA would sponsor.”
Salazar said earnestly, “The project is economic in nature, Colonel, more than anything else, and that

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is what your agency is geared to help, isn’t it?” the education and health aspects of it go right along with
economic aspect.”
“I know. Still it’s the kind that must be solely the concern of your government.”
Lamberto thought he was seeing into the real difficulty. “I suppose our government could do it, Bill,
but it would push the project back twenty, thirty years. Right now we have bigger problems, and many
just as urgent as helping Igorots. Our government could allot only a small amount for this project. ERA
help will mean quadrupling the amount of our outlay. It should make all the difference in getting things
done in a shorter time.”
Lansing was thoughtful.
“Could you tell us, Colonel,” said Salazar, “What programs the ERA had helped since it was set up
here?”
“Quite a few. It has helped to build harbors and port facilities in practically all the major cities;
airports; landing strips; railroads; major highways. Of course our main help consists in funds for imported
machinery for sugar refineries, telephone companies, transportation lines, and the like.”
“Talking of highways,” said Salazar, “I understand that sections of highways in Mindanao built by
ERA funds are wide enough to serve as emergency landing strips. Are they intended for civilian or
military planes, Colonel?”
“Both, we don’t want to be caught flatfooted again, do we?”
The irrepressible Salazar chuckled. “I can see now why a project for a mountain tribe wouldn’t fit
into your program, Colonel. Besides these highways, most of the projects you just mentioned are directly
or indirectly involved with the American capital. I’m sorry for saying so. Also, I suggest that we drop the
discussion about our Igorot friends.”
Lansing and the old man looked relieved.
But Salazar had something to add. “This has nothing to do with the Igorots, Colonel; but it has
bothered me and others, too, I’m sure. I’d like your views on it. You see, there’s been a lot of hedging all
along.”
Neither Lansing nor Lamberto had an idea of what Salazar was going to say, and they looked at him
expectantly.
“It’s about the American military bases in the country. Take the Air Base at Clark Field, it’s the
biggest one in this part of the world–about an hour from here by car, Colonel. You might even have
landed there when you came over from states. Well, as you know, American soldiers who commit such
crimes as murder in the performance of their duty do not come under the jurisdiction of the Philippine
courts. Here’s one very recent example of a crime committed in the so-called performance of military
duty. It was in Manila cabaret–a Filipina girl was a shot by an American soldier. The American soldier,
like others before him, was supposed to be tried in a Philippine court since very obviously he was not
performing any military duty at the time of the crime. But this particular soldier was placed under
American military custody and shipped out of the country. Eventually, he got off scot-free. Did you hear
about that, Colonel? It was headlined in the papers a couple of months ago.”
“Yes I did,”
“The point, Colonel, is that in all other foreign countries where American bases are located, such
crimes, whether committed inside or outside the military installations, are always placed under the
jurisdiction of the host government. Japan is an example. Japan never had a semblance of a democratic

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system until three or four years ago. Yet today an offending American soldier is tried in Japanese courts.
Same thing is true in Spain–in spite of the fact that it is a dictatorship of the Mussolini kind. It’s
completely ironical, the situation at Clark Field or in any American military base in the Philippines. It was
the U.S that brought us the democratic system. We were the first democracy in Asia. Our legal system is
patterned after yours. Even our Supreme Court has nine justices, like yours. But it seems that although
your government trusts the courts of a former enemy like Japan, like or those of a dictatorship like Spain,
it doesn’t trust our courts.”
Salazar paused and looked at Lansing intently.
“I’m mentioning this, Colonel, because I’d like to know a responsible American’s reaction to a matter
such as this cabaret case.”
“Frankly, Major, I don’t like it. It stinks. I’m absolutely opposed to the arrangements about legal
jurisdiction at Clark Field–or in any other American base.”
From his direct reply it was obvious to Salazar and Lamberto that Lansing had done some serious
thinking about the situation.
“But, of course, this is a matter that can be altered only on a government-to-government basis. Your
government, Major, must fight, and fight hard, to have it rectified.” He added. “I’m glad I’m not in
uniform. If I were I’d probably feel uneasy walking in your streets.”
When Lansing had gone Salazar was still heated up. “I don’t know how you feel about it, Governor,
but I just had to bring up those other questions about the American military bases.”
“I’m glad you did. But I wouldn’t have doubted Bill’s position. A man who was with us in the Sierra
Madre couldn’t, in conscience, feel otherwise.”
“He may be all right as far as that is concerned. I think he is sincere. But it’s obvious that all along
American foreign policy in the Philippines and elsewhere has been dictated by self-interest. This isn’t
anything new. The Babylonians, Assyrians, Romans, British–all colonial empires, without exception–
have had one common aim: to despoil. We have been brought up to think the Americans were different,
but same as with the Spaniards, the missionary and the mercenary rode on the same boat. So I’m a bit fed
up with all this talk about altruism.
Salazar shrugged. “Our Igorot project, Governor, seems destined for the waste basket.”
“You sound as though that were the end of it. No, Major. We can do something about it in a small
way. Fidel Mendoza will introduce it in Congress. We’ll keep on pushing. Our means may be limited, but
ultimately it’s better this way; our government should do it without any outside help. It’s good for our
dignity and self-respect.”
They were silent for a long time. Finally Salazar spoke as though he were summing up a long train of
thought. “Economic imperialism, that’s what the ERA represents. Other agencies, too, and in the altruistic
guise of economic reconstruction. It’s even worse than that, really. There’s the imposition upon our
government, dictating what’s good for us, what is most important in the way of rehabilitation. The
freedom to choose what is good for the country is superseded by the imposed judgment of an agency–of a
country–that wants this especial control of our economy.”
Lamberto studied Salazar’s face through the smoke of his pipe. It was quite rare to see anger on the
Major’s round squash-like face. The old man laid down his pipe. “I like bill Lansing as a person. He is a
fine man. I don’t think he’s a conscious tool–or wants to be a tool–of what you regard as economic
imperialism. Do you think he was in Balete Pass for any kind of imperialism? Then, as now, he was just
caught n it. And he can’t do anything about it.”

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 Lamberto considered it further. “Besides, Major, you can see the United States’ position on the
functions of its agencies like the ERA. They wouldn’t set up an instrument like that purely for the benefit
of isolated little countries.”
“We aren’t isolated. We all saw during the war how crucial a tiny Pacific atoll could be. And what
happens to it could shake the whole business.”
“Precisely, Major. And the ‘whole business’ seems to be the concern of an emergency like the ERA.
They put their efforts behind a project whose benefits may go beyond the interests of any one country.”
Salazar looked unconvinced.
Lamberto went on calmly, “It reminds me of what my brother Hilarion said years ago. He was trying
to explain why he had to go to France and donate his left leg to the war there. He said he wanted to be
able to walk the streets of Manila without the fear of bullies. I was skeptical then. I thought it was enough
if we could keep ourselves by the skin of our teeth.”
Salazar stood up. “This is all stimulating talk, especially because I have my own opinion on some of
these things. But I have to go to Manila on an errand. I’ll be back rather late. Don’t get up early for me;
I’m leaving early tomorrow for Bayombong.”
He stood up. As he looked at Lamberto a queer proud look crossed his face. “I’m glad. Though, that
you want to go ahead with the project. I know it’s the best way, but it’s hard when you see the heavy
clutch of power being used the way it is.”
“Many ways of looking at a situation, friend. The ‘imposition’ you mentioned is still there, but we
can try to rise above it, and ultimately the sin, if it is sin, will not be on our conscience.”
Lamberto put away his pipe and added wryly, “The notion of an old man. Some people like to call it
wisdom. I might have picked up some of it for all that, at my age.”

CHAPTER 16
MANILA, it seemed, was determined to forget the war. Lansing saw this in the jostling downtown
crowds in the Quiapo and Santa Cruz districts, where the stream of commerce still held the blatant life of
the Eastern bazaars and close stalls of the outdoor marts it was apparent even in the Malate district, which
could be a less sedate section of Evanston. Wherever he went in the city he saw the scars of the war
slowly disappearing. The noise of cranes and electric drills and cement mixers drowned out the echoes of
the shells that had made jagged skeletons of the buildings.
He had the same feeling when he drove north to Balete Pass and Bayombong. After six months with
the ERA, he was given a week off which he decided to spend revisiting the old mountain pass and the
northern valley towns where he had spent the last days of the war. The bomb craters were still visible
along the way, they were overgrown with grass, and in the lower areas they had become carabao mud
wallows. Balete Pass had been renamed Dalton Pass. A wider space had been cleared around the small
obelisk marking the grave of General Dalton, Lansing’s former division commander. He left the car near
the monument and walked up to a stream where the water was drawn into a culvert under the road. The
culvert siphoned the water to fall over a precipice three hundred feet below. The sheet of water was about
two meters wide where it flowed into the culvert. He had been to this stream before; now he followed it
along the easier bank for a hundred meters to a spot, a trough-like section, where the water was knee
deep. He had bathed in it once during a lull in the fighting. He had a sudden impulse to strip off his
clothes for a quick dip, but the trough seemed pitifully narrow now and the furry moss on the rocks made
the water murky. He took off his shoes and immersed his feet in the chilly water. The thick growth under

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the trees, the towering trees themselves, their huge crowns merging together two hundred feet-up–even in
this primeval dusk the jungle looked less formidable. It had once been a source of terror-the Japanese
snipers that lurked in it had been elusive and deadly.
Walking back to the road he saw three Igorots looking curiously at the car. They wore coffee-colored
shirts over their G-strings, the same attire worn by the Igorots who had fought here and also by those
Major Salazar’s troops in the guerrilla headquarters. Each man had a basket of camote slung behind his
back. Lansing wondered if they had been in the fight; he wouldn’t be surprised if they had been in the
fight; he wouldn’t be surprised if they had been among those lads who had clambered on to the attacking
Japanese tanks.
“Good morning.”
They nodded, smiling their response. They stepped away, still watching with friendly curiosity as he
got into the car and drove off again. He had mixed feelings–of depression and uneasiness and even guilt–
as he thought about the Igorots. This project of Salazar and the governor was indeed what the tribesmen
needed. But it was something neither his government nor his agency could do anything about. Thinking
back to that evening as the old man’s house he was relieved that Salazar had suggested they drop the
subject. He himself had acknowledged the truth in Salazar’s statement; many of the projects approved by
ERA did involve American business interests. Long before then he had felt that the ERA represented
American vested interest. At the same time he felt that ERA projects were contributing to the economic
rehabilitation of the country; there was no question about this in his mind. He had joined the ERA
because he believed in its usefulness, bit it was also true that he was interested in coming back to the
country where he had spent some of the most meaningful months of his life.
Still he could see the reason for rejecting the project for the Igorots. The ERA and other U.S agencies
were concerned with a comprehensive commitment and the goal was long range. Sometimes it became
necessary to deny a project of national interest for the sake of the bigger picture. However, he was not the
one to tell this the old governor. That was a large-minded man back in the hills; how could such a person
escape these implications? Of course, the old governor couldn’t help it if he felt let down, particularly
since the U.S had been so generous with Japan, a former enemy. Salazar and the old man, they’d see how
in the large view what it could mean in Asia if Japan were rehabilitated properly. Strong, prosperous, and
with a change of heart, it could become a vital buffer.
But he was troubled; he couldn’t forget that talk with Salazar and the governor. He had been in
Manila for only six months, but sometimes he thought he would ask to be transferred to the Tokyo office
to escape what seemed to be unspoken accusations by the old governor. But he couldn’t get away from
Luisa.
The road zigzagged around the familiar precipices. This was Igorot country. It was a bleak land with
eroded clearings hanging on to the edge of the train forest. It was incredible how the Igorots could live on
it. The three tribesmen and their baskets of camote. The American stranger in his car probably made their
day for them. Inevitably, he also recalled the fellow in Manila from whom he bought his packs of
chesterfields. The man kept his ware tidily piled in a wooded case slung from his shoulders. The case
contained several brands of cigarettes. He covered a busy corner two blocks from Luisa’s office. He was
always neatly dressed and stood erect, even with the wooded case dangling in front of him. An empty
sleeve hung from his shirt.”
“Soldier?” Lansing had asked while he waited for his change.
“Yes, sir.”
“Where were you?”

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 “Bataan, sir.”
The man was casual and even humble, but no one could miss the pride and conviction in his manner.
Lansing tried to look at the city with fresh eyes. The shoeshine boys and the department store barkers
and the hawkers of balut. The sweaty woman tending a basket of oranges on a sidewalk; the salesgirl at
the cotton goods stand who always looked tired. Somehow they made up for the silent pickpockets and
the operators working on their innocent victims. One time he even felt compelled to buy a sweepstake
ticket from a shrunken ten-year old girl who stopped at his table in a restaurant. He had watched the
shabby child go form table to table; some spoke gruffly to her but mostly she was ignored. He bought the
ticket, not because he is a pitiful creature; it was partly because a few minutes before, midget whose head
barely reached the table top had also stopped in front of him and had spoken a few rapid words in a mixed
tongue. His knobbly hand held a booklet of sweepstake tickets above the tabletop. The midget had startled
him; suddenly the black, protuberant eyes were peering at him over the edge of the table. It was hard to
tell his age, forty or forty-five, perhaps thirty. Lansing shook his head vehemently as much as to shut out
the sight as to dive the man away. These needy people didn’t mean to flaunt their human misery, but they
were there wherever one walked in the streets of Manila. It was not long before he was free of his own
chafing self pity.
Against this gain, here he had been almost ten months in Manila and he was still trying to break the
cold cyst Luisa had built around herself. Furthermore, the uneasiness he felt in the presence of old
Lamberto continued; it was absolutely unwarranted but he couldn’t help it.
One afternoon he brought Ruben home from a ride and decided he would have a little talk with Luisa.
He also sensed that the old man had something on his mind, but was hesitant to bring it up.
“Stay for supper, Bill.” Luisa had changed from her office dress and looked cool in a white frock.
“I’d like to, Louise, but I can’t. I’d rather talk a few minutes with you.”
She led him to the swing on the terrace. She sat down, looking up at him with a patient smile.
Suddenly he resented her patience and her cheerfulness and her self-possession.
“Louise, I have three months left with ERA. I want you to marry me–and I want us to go to the
states.”
“I’ve thought about it, Bill. More than you realize. But you know as well as I do that a few things
complicate the situation. One of them is Ruben, of course. The boy makes a lot of difference.”
“What difference?”
“Bill,” she shook her head. Her face was firm but her voice was sad. “For one thing, Ruben doesn’t
even have a father’s name.”
“Oh, Lord, is that all? Louise, he’ll have mine.”
“I want to tell you something. I love you, too. Bill. I shouldn’t, but I do, and I’ve fought it. But don’t
you see, in a case like this love shouldn’t be everything. There are times when I’m tempted to marry
Ruben’s father just to set things right for the boy.”
“That’s the craziest thing you could do to yourself–and to him.”
“Maybe. Maybe. But I must think of my son. Even now he’s beginning to ask questions. I’ve made a
terrible mistake and I owe it to him to correct it. Try to, anyway.”
“Marrying that man wouldn’t do it, Louise, not if you don’t love him and you love someone else.”
“It might be the right thing, as far as Ruben is concerned.”

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 “Ruben likes me –likes me a lot. I could be his father.”
“Could you? There would be endless explanations, and not only to him, either.” She said, more
quietly, “There’s this too–I know how it is in your country, Bill. I know about your race situation. I don’t
want us–you, Ruben, and me–I don’t want us to be hurt that way.”
“You know it depends a lot on the people concerned. Don’t be absurd.”
“I’m trying not to be. Perhaps it’s you, Bill, who are being absurd. I’m only being realistic.”
“You love me, you said you did. Even before now I had a feeling you cared. That’s the important
thing. It’s us.”
“We live among people. It might not matter for a few weeks for a few months. Bill, things can wear
themselves thin. I know. I did love a man desperately once. I don’t care at all for him now. That’s the
miracle of healing–and of breaking, too.”
Her face was still composed, but listening to her face wondered if, after all, he had been mistaken
about that shell she had built around herself.
“Don’t think it easy for me to say all this. I know how it is to be lonely, to have to choose to be alone.
And don’t think I don’t need to be loved. These past five years have been dearly bought for me and my
grandfather and my folks. Their hurt has made the whole thing so much more painful.”
“We all get over things, one way or another. What you feel for the man is gone, you admit yourself.”
“It’s true. One does get used to any situation. I’ve proved it and so have others. One can get used to
anything.”
He drew her to him. “Don’t do it, Louise. Even for the sake of the boy, don’t marry Belmonte.”
Even in the brief safety of his arms there was one fear, the most secret of all that she could talk about.
Or maybe it wasn’t fear, but just caution. She felt that marriage was a kind of bondage, servitude, in the
noble way her grandfather had undergone it. In the last five years she had not consciously examined his
old code, but she had grown to respect it, and instinctively she accepted its relevance not only for the
three generations before her, but for her own as well. Her grandfather had rightly accused her of having
the kind of emancipation that had resulted in a degrading bondage for her. Her grandfather’s servitude
had been an expression of a unique form of freedom: the voluntary submission of the self, something she
had to learn with pain. The freedom to act or to choose meant setting limits, a self-built cage. This was the
stern code her grandfather had lived by and had tried to teach her.
Bill must see what was plain after all. Marrying Felix Belmonte was a kind of bondage on her part, in
order to free her son. And it was very much worth it.
But to marry Bill, wasn’t that a clean, easy way out of moral embarrassment? After all, had she not
developed a tough, protective carapace after five years of living with her shame? If marriage was
bondage, what kind would it be for Bill Lansing? His concept of marriage would be different. There were
legal grounds for divorce; she knew that incompatibility was only one of many and that incompatibility
could cover a multitude of sins. Marriage to Bill could be a kind of emancipation to her. But she couldn’t
talk about this view of marriage with Bill. How cold she? You couldn’t bind a man to marriage by
demanding his pledge to keep it. And she wasn’t forgetting that it also worked the other way around.

ONE AFTERNOON several weeks later Ruben said, “Mama, why doesn’t Uncle Bill come any
more?”
“He’s very busy, sweetheart.”

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 “Ask him to come, Mama.”
When the boy had gone to bed that night the old man joined Luisa in the living room. She was
settling down in an armchair with a novel.
“What has happened, Luisa?”
She put the book down on her lap. “I had a feeling, Lolo, you didn’t want me to become involved.”
He did not speak.
“Isn’t that so, Lolo?”
“I don’t know, hija. Maybe you’re right. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“But you did–you do like him, don’t you?”
“Yes, I like Bill. He is a fine and decent man.”
He stood up and walked over to a shelf and pulled out a book. “I’ve been reading this”. He gave it to
her. It was Racial and other minority Problems in the United States.
She opened it. “Where did you find this, Lolo?”
“A few months ago Ruben and I went to the National Library. I saw the book there and later I called
up the book stores. One of them had a copy, you see, Luisa, I have been quite concerned for some time.”
“Are you relieved, Lolo, that it has turned out this way?”
“I don’t know, hija. I don’t think it is right that you go on this way with the boy. If you meet a good
man, a responsible man who would think of Ruben as his own, I would like for you to marry that man.”
“And Bill doesn’t qualify?”
“I have the highest respect for him. He is good, responsible man, and he is fond of Ruben and the boy
is fond of him. But there is the fact of mixed marriage to consider.”
“I know.” After a pause she said, “What about the father of Ruben himself?”
“What about him?”
“He asked me to marry him.”
“Marry him?”
“Yes, Lolo. He’s getting a divorce from his wife. The law is on his side. It’s the wife’s adultery.”
Lamberto grunted. “It’s like an act of God.” After a while he said, “suppose he gets the divorce–what
do you feel about it, Luisa?’
“I don’t care for him anymore. It’s odd, isn’t it? You know how it used to be with me five years ago.
But now he means nothing. Still, for the sake of Ruben I’ve been wondering about it. As I told Bill, one
can get used to anything, just as I stopped caring for Felix.”
The old man was thoughtful and attentive.
“A few months ago Felix told me he had made out a trust fund for Ruben and me. I told him I didn’t
want or need his help. He insisted on it, at least for the boy. I couldn’t for anything about it, Lolo.”
Two weeks later Lansing called her at her office. “I’ve just come back from Japan. May I see you
after work? I’ll wait in the lounge.”
She had not seen nor heard from him for over two months.
“Louise, are you there?”

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 “Yes, Bill. I’ll see you.”
He had brought a package. “For Ruben. Something I found in Hong Kong.”
“I didn’t know you had been away, Bill.”
They were going down the stairs. “That means you didn’t care. I was away the whole two moths and
two weeks.”
They walked through an alley to the parking lot behind the building and got into her car.
“I was told I had an option to go to our Tokyo office for a three month stint. I left out saying
anything. I decided it would be best that way. Here I am again. You can see it was no use.”
“A few weeks more and you could have been back in the States with this whole thing behind you.”
“Not for me, girl. I worked hard on it in Japan. But nothing has changed. It just happens to be that
way.”
Ruben was on the lawn playing ball with the old man when Luisa pulled up in the driveway.
“Uncle Bill!” The boy came running.
Lansing held him up and tossed him, squealing, into the air.
“Where were you, Uncle Bill?”
“Japan–a land not far enough away.”
“I’m glad you’re back, Uncle Bill.”
“Have you been a good boy?”
“Yes, sir, I think so.”
Ruben opened the package in the excitement. It was a drum for Hindu ceremonial dances. Lansing
unscrewed one side of the drum ad took out a toy elephant.
“Now watch.” Lansing wound the screw under the belly of the elephant and set the toy on the tiled
terrace. The elephant began lumbering around and rearing its head and trumpeting shrilly, to the excited
shrieks of the boy. They tried it again while Lansing played the drum in time to the elephant’s steps.
At supper Lamberto noticed that although Luisa looked happy she was also deeply thoughtful.
Later, when Lansing had gone, Luisa spoke to her grandfather. “Lolo, I don’t like it. I thought he was
not coming back. It would have made things easier for me. In a month he’d have gone and then it would
have been all over.”
Because he did not speak she went on, “I don’t know what you do. Because you see, Lolo, I love
him.”
“Love him enough to marry him?”
She didn’t answer.
“You know the dangers of this kind of marriage.”
“What do you think my grandmother would do, Lolo? She wasn’t absolutely sure either, was she,
about what she was getting into when she decided to let you and your family propose to her?”
They looked at each other, and they both laughed.
“It’s all up to you, hija,” he said. “In the end it’s really up to you.”
Lansing came to the house a few days later to talk to the old man. Luisa was not yet home from work.

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 “I’m going back in three weeks, sir. My term with ERA is about over. I have asked Louise to marry
me and I’d like to have your consent, Governor.”
“Bill, this is something Luisa must decide for herself.”
“There’s no problem about the boy. I’m very fond of Ruben and I think he likes me. Naturally he will
carry my name, if Louise doesn’t object.”
“In this country illegitimacy is a stigma that is hard to erase. Luisa has paid for it painfully.”
“I know. Louise is the finest girl I’ve ever known. The way she has lived with what you call the
stigma is something to admire. There’s no problem as far as I am concerned.”
“What about people, Bill? Your friends and associates will wonder and talk. And that kind of talk can
destroy.”
“Louise has not been destroyed. My own family record, Governor, has been far from happy. Divorce
is a stigma on me, too, and I’ve been trying to live it down. In fact one reason –maybe the main reason–I
came back to this country was to find some kind of assurance for myself. You see, I felt I didn’t do so
badly as a soldier here. But when I returned to the States, things seemed to go wrong. Unhappy family
life, jumping from one school to another, one job and then another. I felt something was wrong with me.
Now I don’t feel that way.”
The old man puffed at his pipe.
“There’s another thing, Bill.” Lamberto stood up to get the book with information about mixed
marriage and gave it to him. “I have been reading on the subject. I know Luisa cares for you very much.
And of course I don’t want her to be hurt.”
Lansing turned the pages slowly. “Yes, Governor, I’m not blind to the situation. It’s an evil that’s
shouldn’t exist, and it doesn’t seem to exist her. I’d like to say that mixed marriages aren’t anything new
in my country, and I know many that have worked out well.”
Like Luisa, the one important thing Lamberto wanted to say he could not speak about: the matter of
incompatibility and divorce and all the implications. He wanted to be fair and this law could work the
other way around, like any law.
The old man knocked the ashes out of his pipe into the ashtray. “I like you, Bill. You’ve always
known that. But Luisa will decide for herself.”
He suddenly realized this was the second time he had come to this conclusion: that Luisa must decide
for herself. In his day it would have been impossible to ask a girl to decide such a thing for herself.

THEY HAD DRIVEN along Dewey Boulevard and Lansing had stopped the car in a quiet place near
the rocks that lined the sea wall. The sun had set behind Mariveles, but left a hazy blue against the rich
salmon sky. A brisk, cool breeze from the bay rumpled her hair.
“I spoke to your grandfather this morning. It’s your decision, he says. You say you love me. You
must show to yourself and to me that you do.”
“All right, Bill. But you have to show it also.”
“I thought I had. But tell me.”
“Couldn’t you settle down here in Manila or anywhere in the Philippines? Living here, Bill, we would
avoid the problems of a mixed marriage in your country. You have seen that we have no such problem
here.”

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 “I’ve thought about that, Louise. I’ve even inquired at three business firms. I could get a job. I could
teach at one of the universities.”
“Then there’s no reason why you shouldn’t stay.”
He laughed. “What about trying it out in the states? Give it a year. If you don’t like it there, we’ll
come back here.”
“Is it wrong to try it out here, Bill?”
“Darling, I don’t have to try. I love this country. In many ways. It’s home to me–maybe because
you’re here. Probably, I just want to disprove your fears. I’d like for you to see that they need not be
justified. I think I know you well enough, Louise. If I thought you weren’t equal to it–whatever you fears
are, and I know you haven’t told me all–and I know you haven’t told me all–I wouldn’t ask you to try.”
“Why don’t we tell Lolo?”
“I talked to him this morning. We understand each other.”
She tossed her head back. “Well, then, Bill, let’s go home.”

FOR A LONG TIME that night, reclining on the lounging chair–the one piece of furniture he had
brought from Bayombong–Lamberto thought about his talk with Bill Lansing. He had spoken to him as
he had felt. It came as a shock that his own time his attitude would have been completely absurd. It would
be quite easy to fall back on his ancient code; he could pretend to feel badly about losing his absolute
loyalty to that code. In the most natural way he had fallen into an almost painless acquiescence to the
demands of a new morality. He chuckled at the last words. New morality? What sort of animal was that?
No generation could claim an authentic vision of it as it got worked into conventions. The stern code of
the Sierra Madre was just one of the ways it showed up. His own daughter’s elopement was a violent
departure from the code of servitude that had been the pride of his day and of his father’s before him.
Servitude as a source of pride was a paradox, but it had not expected, but it had held true for along, long
time. By comparison his granddaughter’s servile pursuit of a man couldn’t go any lower. But seeing the
fallen girl rise with courage and dignity was something he had not expected. He should not have feared
any weakening in the family line. Teodora’s defection and Luisa’s strange behavior had both turned out to
be coins with familiar faces. What mattered finally was preserving a bedrock decency that would be
honor no matter what the time or place. It had taken him all his lifetime to see it that way. He should think
of the young Luisa as the first Luisa–what he had known of nineteenth century goodness and truth in
twentieth century garb…
You’ve come a long way, Bettu, he told himself. Leaving the valley of the Sierra Madre could be
proof that he had also finally understood Hilarion. It was ironic that he who had planned to go to Europe
had remained in the sheltering shadow of the Sierra Madre. And Hilarion, whose revolutionary activities
had tied him to Lamberto’s narrow world, was the one who had pursued an elusive dream. Manila, where
Hilarion had stayed the longest, had only been an incident in his life. And so was France. The countries he
chose for his travel were incidents of the dream, too: Greece, the birthplace of freedom; Egypt, where
there was none; Switzerland and its unique way of upholding its integrity; England to which Hilarion
constantly referred as a lesson in democracy for his own country. Hilarion had a world view which a
treaty couldn’t submerge and a dungeon had not destroyed. Hilarion lived in the dreadful loneliness of
believing ahead of his time, but he had the larger life, and his faith was no less sturdy for being rooted in
worldly cynicism.
Still, Lamberto told himself, I wouldn’t trade what I had for Hilarion’s life. For him, Bettu, living was

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now and here, following a rule of conduct rigid enough to allow for errors. Without consciously doing it
he had been moving ahead himself in his slow, stumbling away.
Now that Luisa was getting married–he saw it was inevitable–what would he do? Would he go back
to Bayombong to end his life there as Hilarion had done? Right now he was especially unhappy that he
wasn’t sure. After more than four years away from the valley, without having once gone back, it appeared
that he had grown new roots here. Where indeed was home? He might even visit Luisa in America, where
Bill Lansing would take her. He shouldn’t worry about the girl and her problems in the new situation. He
paused to think of her son. Ruben was his boy. This would be an empty house without the boy. Couldn’t
he ask that Ruben stay here in the time left for an old man? He might even ask Luisa and Bill to live in
Manila, live here while he went back to Bayombong and visited them here occasionally. He could ask, but
he knew he wouldn’t.
He closes his eyes and willed his mind to still itself. But beyond the opaque darkness, a fine mist
defined green-blue ranges holding giant trunks and giant ferns and bobbing in and out of them were the
tree-like antlers, the sound of tattooing rain and a rushing river, and then the laughter of Luisa, her voice
distant, more teasing than concerned, “Are you all right in the head, Bettu?”
For a long time there was a silence across the void, after a while a vibrating silence walking up from
anywhere, away from edge of a jungle where he had rested his head on a dead stag. A somnolent chirring,
warm and intimate, from under the fronds of creeper ferns in the flower box or from a rock crevice a few
feet away, or from a porch where the edge of corrugated roofing sliced a three-quarter moon. Listen to the
crickets, Bettu. Suddenly they’re there when you stop to listen.

GLOSSARY

Alcalde: title given to the judge in the Spanish regime.

Ama: father
Aripan: in the past, the servant class in Nueva Vizcaya, Philippines
Bacat: title of respect for an old woman.
Balut: a boiled fertilized duck egg about to hatch.
Barong: formal dress for men; a dress shirt worn with the tails out. Usually
made from pineapple fiber.
Barrio: a small community; a group of barrios constitute a town.
Basi: wine from sugar cane.
Bastobado: beating with a baston, a cane.
Bonita mia: my little pretty one.
Buenas noches: good evening.
Buenas tardes: good afternoon.
Cabesa: head, usually of a barrio; a corruption of Spanish cabeza or head.
Calderreta: dish from goat meat.
Calesa: two-wheeled horse-drawn carriage seating two to four passengers.
Camagon: Philippine hardwood.
Camisa: blouse with wide sleeves worn with the hem outside the skirt.
Camote: a variety of sweet potato.

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Capataz: foreman.
Capitan: a little used in addressing or referring to the gobernadorcillo (petty
governor, the principal municipal official during the Spanish regime) or
a former occupant of that office.
Castila: corruption of Castilla, loosely used for Spaniards.
Carahay: frying pan.
Catmon: a Philippine three abounding along river banks.
Cedula: personal tax.
Cerveza: beer.
Colata: beating usually with a club or the butt of a gun.
Compadre: the masculine term used mutually by friends who are drawn together
by ties of marriage or baptism between their families.
Compañero: colleague; companion.
Consentedora: a permissive woman.
Dapdap: a Philippine tree.
Don: title of respect for a prominent person or official.
Encargado: one entrusted with certain responsibilities.
Fiscal: prosecuting attorney.
Gaddang: name given to the native of Nueva Vizcaya.
Gobernadorcillo: petty governor, title given to the head of the town.
Guardia civil: the quasi-military police force composed of Spanish officers and
native soldiers.
Hija: daughter.
Hijo: son.
Hito: species of catfish.
Ina: mother.
Indio: the Spaniards’ contemptuous designation of the Filipinos.
Jusi: fabric made from silk and pineapple fibers.
Kaingin: forest areas cleared, usually by burning, for planting.
Lauan: Philippine mahogany.
Lechon; Lechonada: roast pig; roast pig party.
Lolo: grandfather.
Mabago: low-spreading tree commonly growing along river banks.
Maraya: a variation of the game of tag played on lines drawn with water on the
ground.
Muchacho: boy, usually referring to a servant.
Narra: a Philippine hardwood.
Nipa: swamp-palm; its leaves are imbricated to form the roof and wall of
many Philippine houses in the rural areas.
Novena: nine-day wake characterized by prayers.
Papang, pang: father.

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Panuelo: a stole or shawl going with the formal native costume for women.
Palay: unhusked rice.
Patadyong: a rectangular piece of cloth draped to form a woman’s skirt.
Pa-unek: marriage proposal feast.
Pina: pineapple fiber.
Procurador judicial: a person without a law degree but licensed to practice law.
Salvaje: savage.
Sarsuela: drama.
Santol: Philippine fruit; the rind is candied or pickled.
Señor: sir.
Señora: madam.
Señorita: title of respect for an unmarried lady.
Siniguelas: Philippine plum.
Siopao: pastry.
‘Tan: contraction of capitan.
Tio: uncle.
Tulisan: bandit.
Vestida de boda: wedding dress.
Wayi: brother or sister; often loosely used for a close friend or relative.
Yaya: nursemaid.
Zapatilla: a kind of high-heeled sandal or shoe.

THE PERIOD OF THE SPANISH RULE

1. Certain events, attitudes, and practices narrated in this portion of the novel serve
as thematic details (details contributing to the development and revelation of the
theme), and as representative of the quaint and delightful Philippine traditions that
prevailed during the Spanish regime – specifically, as manifested in the courtship and
servitude [and eventual marriage] of the main character.
2. We see the oppressive side of the administration that was imposed by the agents
of the Spanish monarchy, the oppression as evidenced by the narrated communal
events and by experiences undergone by the main character and others.
3. Very admirable is the spirit of revolt and the acts of defiance performed by the
individuals who resisted the arrogant measures imposed – in particular the defiance of
the main character, Lamberto Alcantara, whom the Spanish authorities imprisoned for
his rebellious acts.

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English 5 / Lit 101, Module VI, Lesson 1
SELF-PROGRESS CHECK TEST

Essay.
1. What event narrated in this period shows the most number of traditional attitudes
and customs practiced by the Bayombong families?
2. While Lamberto was still working out his period of servitude in the house of Luisa, he
was imprisoned by the Spanish military. Explain briefly the incident that caused his
imprisonment.

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English 5 / Lit 101, Module VI
Lesson 2. THE TAG-END OF THE PHILIPPINE REVOLUTION, AND THE EARLY
PERIOD OF THE FIRST AMERICAN OCCUPATION, AND SOME
YEARS THEREAFTER

Lesson Objectives:
After studying this lesson on the tag-end of the Philippine Revolution and the early
period of the first American occupation you shall be able to:
1. appreciate the efforts of the rebels in capturing the Spanish garrison and
ending the Spanish rule in Nueva Vizcaya;
2. get an insight into the character and mood of the first administrative system
set up by the American occupation forces;
3. see examples of a sterner code of conduct as manifested by the first Luisa,
and the first signs of its violation years later, as manifested by Teodora, after
her departure from Nueva Vizcaya.

SUMMARY

1. The novel delineates in meticulous detail the strategy planned and executed by
Hilarion and his group of rebels in accomplishing the capture of the Spanish soldiers'
garrison, thus ending the Spanish rule in Nueva Vizcaya.
2. Full of thematic significance is the first Luisa's decision to stick to the agreement
binding her in eventual marriage to Lamberto (Bettu), when, just before joining the
group preparing to attack and capture the Spanish garrison, he offered to set her
free from the marriage agreement arranged between their respective families.
3. The novel provides a good insight into the character and mood of the administrative
system set up by the first American occupation forces, as distinguished from that of
the Spanish administration; the distinction is clearly inferred from the educational
and political measures and projects initiated by the U. S. troops and the early
government officials.
4. Of obvious thematic significance is the elopement and marriage (sans the required
traditional servitude) of Teodora to Primo Sandoval. Teodora is the only child of
Lamberto and the first Luisa.

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English 5 / Lit 101, Module VI, Lesson 2
SELF-PROGRESS CHECK TEST

Essay.
1.
a. Who was the leader of the group that captured the Spanish garrison during the
Philippine Revolutionary war?
b. What was the official position held by this man at the time?
2. Just before joining the attack on the Spanish garrison, Lamberto offered to set Luisa
free from the marriage agreement arranged by their respective families.
Explain his act as an indication of the paradox involved in the idea of freedom
espoused by this novel.
3. What was the attitude of the very first American troops that occupied Nueva
Vizcaya?
4. Explain the elopement and marriage of Teodora as a critical incident in developing
the theme of freedom.

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English 5 / Lit 101, Module VI
Lesson 3. WORLD WAR II: THE JAPANESE INVASION; U. S. COUNTER-
INVASION

Lesson Objectives:
After studying this lesson on World War II: the Japanese invasion and the U. S.
counter-invasion, you shall be able to:
1. appreciate the guerrilla efforts of Lamberto and his men as they continued
resistance in the forests of the Sierra Madre, aided by the Igorot and other
mountain tribes; and
2. get an insight into how an evacuated "free government" was administered by
Lamberto in the Sierra Madre forests.

SUMMARY

1. This whole portion narrates the guerrilla efforts of a group of Bayombong military
men and civilians and of the resolute leadership of the then Gov. Lamberto
Alcantara in the mountain bivouacs in the Sierra Madre, as they continued evading
and resisting the Japanese forces.
2. The novel pays tribute to the courageous role played by the Igorot and other tribal
kin in aiding the guerrilla resistance in the Sierra Madre against the Japanese forces.
3. U. S. troops saw action in gun battle in the area of Balete Pass, and in being strafed
by Japanese planes.
English 5 / Lit 101, Module VI, Lesson 3
SELF-PROGRESS CHECK TEST

Essay.
1. What were the names of the two evacuation areas where Lamberto Alcantara
administered his "free government"?
2.
a. At separate times two American military officers landed by helicopter at the
evacuation area of Lamberto's "free government." What was the name of the first
American officer to land there?
b. The name of the second commanding officer to come a week later?
3. Were the military men and civilians at the "free government" area even attacked by
the Japanese?
4. What was the name of the mountain locale where the heavy fighting was
concentrated and where the commanding officer of the U. S. troops assigned there
lost his life?

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English 5 / Lit 101, Module VI
Lesson 4. END OF WORLD WAR II WITH U. S. COUNTER-INVASION AND
VICTORY; PERIOD OF REHABILITATION

Lesson Objectives:
After studying this lesson on the end of World War II to the period of rehabilitation,
you shall be able to:
1. learn about the elections in Nueva Vizcaya after the war; 2. appreciate the
efforts of the second Luisa to restore herself
2. and her life after her personal mistake, and the efforts made by Lamberto, her
grandfather, to help in her rehabilitation;
3. understand and appreciate the problems faced by Luisa and Colonel Bill
Lansing as they seek new lives for themselves in their proejcted marriage;
4. understand in its fullness the meaning and the processes of freedom.

SUMMARY

1. The novel expresses the political processes of Nueva Vizcaya; specifically, the
elections held after World War II indicate the corrupt practices being balanced by the
honesty and idealism of right-minded politicians and other citizens.
2. The unfortunate mistake and consequent suffering undergone by the second Luisa
(Lamberto's granddaughter) is intended to show a wrong interpretation of freedom;
that is to say, that self-indulgence and wrongfulness, or a false idea of personal
emancipation could be mistaken for the true moral freedom: The latter demands self-
discipline, limits, and even sacrifice.
3. About Lamberto's decision to sacrifice the freedom he enjoyed in his personal life in
Nueva Vizcaya by undertaking his self-imposed obligation to help restore his
granddaughter Luisa's disrupted life, by deciding to build a house for her and for
himself and her son in Manila – the decision is finally not a real sacrifice but an
inescapable exercise of freedom on his part.
4. The restoration years have proved Luisa a courageous and sensible person capable
of self-discipline and sacrifice – with sufficient strength of character to face the
challenge of a new life for herself and her son as she looked forward to her marriage
to Colonel Bill Lansing, her grandfather's young American friend from World War II
U. S. occupation days.
5. The reader concludes that the idea of freedom as rendered in this novel has two
faces marked strongly with the same basic moral features: 1) freedom that is
uncompromising – as upheld by Hilarion, it functioned as his ideal in his political
beliefs; and 2) freedom as exercised by Lamberto in his life, demanding a
paradoxical but more natural and pragmatic allegiance to its moral requirements.

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English 5 / Lit 101, Module VI, Lesson 4
SELF-PROGRESS CHECK TEST

Essay.
1.
a. Regarding the political election held after World War II, what was the name of the
Japanese collaborator whom the Liberals supported as official candidate for
Governor of the province?
b. The name of the Nacionalista candidate for Governor espoused by the
Alcantaras?
2. Lamberto's granddaughter Luisa gave birth to a baby son out of wedlock. Explain
this personal mistake on her part as arising out of her wrong interpretation of
freedom.
3. Lamberto decided to leave his Sierra Madre home to help restore his
granddaughter's life in Manila. Lamberto's self-imposed obligation and sacrifice in
tying himself to Luisa's need is actually a paradoxical assertion of a moral freedom
on his part. Explain this paradox as a constituent of freedom in this case.
4. Explain the following statement in regard to the restoration of Luisa's disrupted life
and her grandfather's role in the restoration:
To become a genuinely free being is a condition personally earned; it cannot be
something bestowed.

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English 5 / Lit 101, Module VI
Lesson 5. ON THE THEMATIC AND STRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT OF TO BE
FREE

Lesson Objectives:
After studying this lesson on the thematic and structural development of To Be Free,
you shall be able to:
1. understand and appreciate the devices and techniques involved in thematic
development of this novel; and
2. understand and appreciate the devices and techniques involved in the
structural development of this novel.

I. THEMATIC DEVELOPMENT

A. The Theme
The novel defines freedom as a most fulfilling and challenging paradox, thus: In the
collective as well as in the deeply personal application, freedom as rendered in this
novel is operative in two ways (both of them committed to the same high moral
standard): 1) freedom as an absolute guide that demands an uncompromising attitude
(represented by Hilarion Alcantara), and 2 ) freedom that is most natural and beneficial
when it is taken as the pragmatic guide to a moral and useful life, where the pragmatic
social exigencies require bondage [self-bondage] as the other, more challenging and
paradoxical embodiment of freedom (represented by Hilarion's younger brother,
Lamberto Alcantara, who is the main character, around whose life and whose family's
life the story revolves). Lamberto's more difficult view of freedom, complex and
paradoxical, but more workable as it is, is the view that the novel holds as constituting a
true interpretation of freedom.

B. Incidents that develop the theme of freedom

1. In the proposal of marriage arranged between Lamberto Alcantara and Luisa
Aldeguer, the two families agreed for Lamberto to serve for five years in the house of
Luisa's parents, according to the strict traditional practice at the time. Resolved to
win Luisa for his wife, Lamberto deliberately sought this five-year bondage despite
the negative reaction of his father, `Tan Lucas, and his older brother, Hilarion, who
considered it demeaning for him to undergo this traditional servitude. Coming from
the most affluent family in Nueva Vizcaya, Lamberto found it neither easy nor
pleasant to work and be treated as a common servant for five years. But he
persisted.
In his twilight years Lamberto realized that the voluntarily-undertaken servitude

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 developed great self-discipline and moral strength in his personality, and that he was
not at all under bondage because it was his own freedom to choose that made his
servitude a matter of honor and not something unpleasantly imposed on him by
tradition.
2. When the rebel group, of which Lamberto (Bettu) was a member, was preparing to
capture the Spanish garrison, he volunteered, to Luisa and her mother, to release
Luisa from the marriage arrangement agreed upon by their families, so that Luisa
could marry the Spaniard, Captain Mesa, who persisted in courting her. Luisa
decided to stick to Lamberto, dismissing his self-sacrificing offer.
By making the offer to release her, Lamberto showed an admirable exercise of his
freedom: that he was not enslaved or in bondage by his desire for Luisa; rather, he
wished to release her so that she could be free to choose and not be bound by the
traditional arrangement of marriage.
But Luisa exercised her own freedom of judgment and decided to stick to Lamberto.
Both her decision and Lamberto's offer demonstrate the paradoxical element
inherent in the idea of freedom.
3. When Teodora, the only child of Lamberto and Luisa, eloped and married Primo
Sandoval without abiding by the required traditional servitude, she demonstrated by
this act another exercise of freedom: the freedom to put aside tradition and go by her
own free judgment. Needless to say, the unprecedented act greatly hurt and agitated
her parents, particularly Lamberto, her father.
4. The second Luisa, Lamberto's granddaughter, exercised a wrong interpretation of
freedom when she bore a son out of wedlock. She rectified it later, having realized
that waywardness and self-indulgence and a false idea of personal emancipation
could be mistaken for a justifiable freedom; the latter demands self-discipline, limits,
and even sacrifice, qualities which she later acquired for herself.
5. Freedom to express one's right to make a difficult but morally directed decision was
demonstrated in Lamberto's decision to sacrifice the freedom of his own personal life
in Vizcaya in order to perform a self-imposed obligation to help his granddaughter in
Manila who was rehabilitating herself and her disrupted personal life. The novel's
endorsement of the paradox of self-bondage as the other "face" of freedom is again
very evident in Lamberto's decision – a decision echoing his voluntary five-year
servitude.
6. Another display of the paradox of self-bondage so inherent in the freedom to decide
and act: when Colonel Lansing proposed marriage to Luisa, she faced the quandary
of considering marriage instead to the father of her son in order to normalize the
boy's life – she considered this for the sake of her son and although she loved Bill
Lansing and no longer cared for her son's father, who turned out to be a rascally
character, who she thought she could free herself of her guilt and error through this
choice for self-denial and lifelong bondage to a man she no longer loved or

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 respected.
Eventually, she saw the immorality of marrying her son's father, whom she despised
and no longer cared for, and decided to marry Bill Lansing.
7. Her decision to marry Bill Lansing, whom she loved, shows that she had seen
marriage as a bonding of two people that is not meant, to tie them down, but rather
as a mutual "bondage" willingly undertaken because it demands the discipline, the
limits, the controlling factors to make one's freedom true and moral, and not licence
or self-indulgence or a false idea of emancipation.

II. STRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT

Devices and techniques used in forming the dramatic and artistic narrative structure
of the novel, To Be Free.
We have seen in no. IB above how, in this novel, the theme of freedom was
developed by the use of situations and characters dealing with the exercise of freedom.
In no. II, we will see how the structure of the novel is shaped by certain artistic
devices and techniques that produce dramatic effects and generate reader interest.

A. The use of flashback.

A flashback is a device which narrators use for dramatic and other artistic effects;
the flashback involves breaking the chronology of events in the novel – for example, by
taking certain "middle" events and putting these in the beginning, and putting the
beginning events somewhere near the end, etc. In this displacement of incidents as
they occur in time, the necessary turning of the narrative to bring to the present certain
pertinent events that happened in the past is called a flashback.
1. In To Be Free, the novel should have begun, chronologically, during the last period
of the Spanish rule in Bayombong, with Lamberto's proposed of marriage to Luisa
and the traditional arrangement of the terms of agreement between the two families
concerned, and the subsequent five-year servitude in the house of Luisa's parents,
and all the interesting incidents that occurred during those five years.
Instead, the novel begins with the early period of the first American occupation, after
the Treaty of Paris, with Lamberto and Luisa already married, for over three years,
and Luisa expecting their first (and as it turned out, their only) child; and the opening
incident of the novel is about the American military governor, Theodore McIntosh,
paying his first visit to the McIntosh. Alcantara, who were the most influential of the
families in the province.
The narrative continues with the birth of Teodora, and her growing up to the age of
thirteen. `Tan Lucas Alcantara, Lamberto's father, served two terms as governor.
Then he died.

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2. It is only at this point when the novel uses the flashback to recount Lamberto's first
meeting Luisa, and his father's proposal to Luisa's family on behalf of his son. (The
flashback is narrated briefly through Lamberto's reminiscing about his past, just after
his father's burial.) The flashback end with the information that the two families
concerned had agreed that Lamberto was to serve five years in the house of Luisa's
parents.
3. After recounting Luisa's death some years after Teodora got married, the novel
makes use of other flashbacks: Through the reminiscing of Hilarion before he left for
Paris, a flashback narrates his remembrance of the party in Luisa's house, when the
Alcantaras formally presented the proposal of Lamberto. Other incidents are
portrayed in this flashback-reminiscing of Hilarion; one is about the imprisonment of
Lamberto during the fourth year of his servitude because he defied the oppressive
Spanish military and the guardia civil regarding the onerous so-called obras pias, a
compulsory labor enforced on civilians.
4. In the Sierra Madre mountain forests, during the evacuation and the guerrilla
resistance conducted by Lamberto and his men against the Japanese military,
Lamberto in a quiet time one day reminisced about his youth, particularly about his
servitude in the house of the first Luisa. In the flashback of the aged Lamberto, he
particularly thought of the time he went deer-hunting all by himself for several days
and nights in the Sierra Madre forests at the whimsical request of Luisa for deer
meat, and his risking his life by crossing the dangerously flooded Magat River, and
finally laying at her feet the deer he had bagged at so much peril and effort.
5. The flashback device, as may be noted in scrutinizing the structure of this novel,
performs several functions:
a. It generates immediate interest for the reader in by-passing incidents that are
mostly just informational or of lesser interest, and instead presenting a more
interesting incident that occurred at a previous or later time in the chronology of
the story's incidents.
The choice of the interesting incident to be brought forward from the past has to
be judicious, so as not to destroy the element of suspense.
b. It condemns the otherwise drawn-out chronology of events, moving the narrative
faster. (See above, no. II and IIA1, the use of flashback.)
c. It juxtaposes certain events, regardless of their time-sequence, in order to
achieve more dramatic effects.

B. The proper handling of characterization.

1. Characterization as an instrument of logic and believability, and
2. Characterization as creator of surprise and suspense.

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 Concerning 1 and 2 above, narrators run the danger of portraying characters that
are unbelievable and whose acts and motives are illogical and contrary to what is
evident in normal behavior. Such improper characterization tends to destroy the
believability of the novel and whatever meaningfulness it intends to convey.
If properly portrayed, the characters of fiction can generate the elements of surprise
and suspense. In To Be Free, the portrayal of the characters, particularly of the main
characters like Lamberto, Luisa, Hilarion, Teodora, Wayi Floro, among others, are
consistent with real-life behavior and avoids the error of stereotyping. A stereotype
character is depicted as a "flat" character, meaning that the persona is one-
dimensional, portrayed as either absolutely good or absolutely bad; and since we
know that there are no normal people who are absolutely one or the other, these
"flat" characters show up as dull and predictable.
In contrast to the "flat" characterization is the "rounded" portrayal, where a character
behaves as a normal person; that is, the "rounded" character may be intended as a
dominantly good person, but he or she is made to act as someone who also
becomes involved in some not-so-moral involvements. In like manner, the
dominantly bad "rounded" character is developed as someone who is capable of
good deeds and good impulses.
In To Be Free, Hilarion is a good example of the "rounded" character: Hilarion was
very idealistic, very uncompromising about strictly honest measures such as
absolute honesty in political elections; he insisted honest motives on the part of
those running for government service – and yet, with all his high standards and high
ideals, particularly in politics, Hilarion led a rather loose sexual life, remaining
unmarried but carrying on however discreetly, with many women, one after another.
Lamberto is another clear example of a "rounded" character. He, too, was highly
moral and idealistic, but he was capable of compromising, capable of bending the
law in a way that did not harm people, but rather, that the "violation" was done for
the sake of facilitating a general benefit all around.
The result of this device of "rounded" characterization is the evocation of surprise
and suspense on the part of the reader, who is left to wonder and speculate on how
the rather unpredictable characters would react and act in the crucial situations
involved.
3. Characterization as a means of developing and revealing the meaningful theme of
the novel.
As already mentioned, the theme of To Be Free is the demonstration of freedom,
whether personal or national, as a motivating factor that is paradoxical in its nature
and in its processes, wherein the deliberate surrender of freedom and the
acceptance of bondage [self-bondage] for a good cause constitutes a strength and
nobility of character.

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 In developing this theme the other constituents of the novel (plot, setting, dialogue,
tone, etc.) work together to give shape and believability and appeal to the novel as a
whole. The role of characterization in helping to develop the theme and to lend depth
and meaning is its revelation in the end is a crucial role, obviously, because the
characters and their actions and motives are what make the abstract theme no
longer abstract but a concrete realization.
In To Be Free, the theme is given its concrete form through a judicious balancing of
characterization, specifically in the portrayal of the brothers Hilarion and Lamberto,
the portrayal manifesting the points of difference as well as the basic similarity in
their nature: Hilarion holds to the idealistic and unccompromising interpretation of
freedom; this lack of compromise could be finely two-edged, as shown in his
absolute insistence in political honesty, on the one hand, and on the other hand, his
personal freedom demanding the rejection of the marriage bond in favor of
temporary and illusory "ties" with one woman after another, a personal choice that
cannot escape the taint of immorality judging by the accepted social standard.
Lamberto, although also strongly committed to the morality of freedom as its basic
requirement, is of a more practical nature. He would overlook some violation of the
law so long as it harms no one and because its sanctioning, although against the
due process of law, could actually be of benefit to all concerned.
We can see that in these two characters reside the manifestation of the theme of
freedom in its two guises, both as basically committed to morality but diverging in its
interpretation regarding its processes.
4. The novel makes use of the dynasty motif, both in the political history of the
Philippines as well as in the family of the main character Lamberto Alcantara.
The dynasty motif enables the narrative to depict the nature and processes of
freedom as morally changeless in its nature, although subject to change in its
processes, all these as demonstrated in the historical periods as well as in the three
generations of Alcantaras (Lamberto and Luisa, the three generations of household
helpers, the Lariolas, and Hilarion; Teodora; the second Luisa), and a fourth
generation in the making, with the second Luisa's son and the projected Lansing-
Alcantara line. These attributes of permanence and mutation as constituents of
freedom functioning in the course of time is demonstrated with the use of the
dynasty motif.

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English 5 / Lit 101, Module VI, Lesson 5
SELF-PROGRESS CHECK TEST

Essay.
1. The novel renders two "faces" of freedom as represented by Hilarion and Lamberto.
Describe the paradoxical element in Lamberto's interpretation of freedom,
differentiating it from Hilarion's.
2. Give the three advantages performed by the flashback as a structural device in this
novel.
3. What two attributes of freedom are made clear by the use of the dynasty motif in the
novel?

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English 5 / Lit 101, Module VI
ANSWER KEYS TO THE SELF-PROGRESS CHECK TESTS

LESSON 1

1. The event of Lamberto's courtship of Luisa and their subsequent marriage.

2. At the site of the enforced labor, Lamberto was talking to a tribesman, an acquaintance,
when a guardia civil shouted rudely at Lamberto to go away. Lamberto, offended at the
insulting order, refused to move. When the guardia civil threatened him with his gun,
Lamberto disarmed him and hit him with the butt of the gun. The Spanish commanding
officer saw the incident and arrested Lamberto even though the officer recognized Lamberto
as an Alcantara, the most influential family in the town.

LESSON 2

1. (a) Hilarion Alcantara, Lamberto's older brother. b. He was Governor of the province.
2. The voluntary offer of Lamberto to release Luisa from the traditionally-arranged marriage
agreed upon by their respective families was the paradoxical bringer of these two benefits:
1) his offer to lose her enlarged the generosity of his character because his noble gesture
was freely offered; likewise paradoxically, he loved Luisa so much that he was willing to lose
her to make her happy; and 2) when Luisa decided to honor her tie to him, instead, he
became assured once and for all that she was decided to marry not because of the
traditional arrangement but because she also loved him: Paradoxically again, in offering to
lose her, he discovered he had really won her.
3. The very first American occupation troops behaved very casually, did not molest the people,
did not patrol in the streets carrying guns, insisted on maintaining very sanitary living
quarters.
4. Teodora's elopement, and marriage to Primo Sandoval without her parents' knowledge and
consent, and without undergoing the traditional servitude indicate clearly a deliberate
departure from the "bondage" of tradition and an exercise of freedom of judgment on the
part of Teodora.

LESSON 3

1. Cambago and Banwag

2. (a) Captain Thompson; (b) Colonel William "Bill" Lansing
3. The "free government" area was strafed by Japanese planes, and at another time was
invaded by Japanese parachuteers who landed and prowled around the area but were
decimated by the arrows of the Igorot tribesmen who hunted them down.
4. Balete Pass, renamed Dalton Pass after the commanding officer whose troops held the
pass at the cost of his life.

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 LESSON 4

1. (a) Carlos Tamayo; (b) Filomeno Saccal

2. The young Luisa mistakenly thought that personal freedom meant the ignoring of rules and
codes of conduct, and pursuing her own free will; she realized later that, paradoxically, to be
really free is to accept the bounds of moral and ethical standards, that freedom requires self-
discipline and abide by limits, and accept the necessity of self-sacrifice.
3. His self-sacrifice and voluntary gesture of giving up his own personal freedom indicates that
he was free to make his choice, and, paradoxically, he chose the moral obligation to tie
himself to his daughter's need; he imposed this personal loss and sacrifice on himself out of
his own free will.
4. Although Lamberto bestowed his help on Luisa, it was Luisa who earned for herself the
condition of a truly free being; by transforming herself into a disciplined, self-sacrificing,
morally obedient person, she learned to accecpt the self-bondage to rules and codes of
conduct and to live her life, by her own free will, within the constraints of a disciplined and
moral order. No one, no matter how helpful, can give this condition of freedom, it has to be
earned for oneself, by oneself.

LESSON 5

1. Lamberto's interpretation of freedom is open to the requirement of self-bondage, and more

importantly, it admits of compromising one's code of moral conduct if by so doing it benefits
people and harms no one. Hilarion's interpretation allows no deviation from one's moral
code; his insistence is on the absolute practice of the rules on honesty, integrity, and
selfless giving. Basically, both are committed to the same moral code, but they differ it its
processes.
2.
a. It by-passes uninteresting incidents and opens the narrative by presenting more crucial
and interesting events that occur out of the chronological sequence of the story.
b. It condemns the story-telling and moves the narrative faster. A chronological sequencing
tends to be psychologically tiresome to the reader, and often less dramatic in its effect.
3. It puts incidents together from both the past and the present in order to achieve more
dramatic effects.
4. The dynasty motif makes clear these two attributes of freedom.
a. Freedom is morally changeless in time; the basic demands of morality remain
changeless.
b. Freedom is subject to change in its processes in time; certain ways of fulfilling the moral
demands of freedom may and often do change from generation to generation.

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