The Other Face of Iloilo

Victorino P Mapa

The grandeur of the city is gone. Time has chiseled the faces of the Greek busts at the four corners of Plaza Libertad. The ruins of Casino Espanol now embraces squatter huts. Palatial homes of long absent hacenderos stand shuttered, creeping Kudzu vines strangle once flowering gardens. They are remnants of the city’s halcyon days of grand balls, rigodons and carnivals – gentle ghosts of remembrances that have long fallen asleep. It is where I was born, where my thoughts and dreams and character was shaped. It is why I am prejudiced about the place , my Lorelei, and why I keep coming back to Iloilo.
The center of the city has moved elsewhere, where a Shoe-Mart shopping mall is its heart. Iloilo City is no longer the “Queen City of the South”. The tiara has passed on to Cebu City.But it is all that the city and province has ceded. She has retained the jewels of Ilonggo hospitality, the richness of the soil and the quiet magnificence of her countryside for the visttor to experience and cherish.You too can discover them when you take a jaunt to the southern tip of Panay.
Few sightseers take this route for most are pre-sold for points north, to the pink sands of Boracay where they can swim, scuba and snorkel. The trip to the southern tip of the province then north offers no similar diversions , at least not in a packaged way. The main attraction is the drive itself, over a smooth paved highway and the scenery that unfolds. It takes a mere three hours or less to negotiate the sixty kilometers and back if you’re hairbreath-harry. To the less demented it can be a well-spent full day trip. PU (not phooey you but Public Utility) air conditioned cars are easily hired from your hotel for P600 a day. with Toto the driver as your guide. Expensive? Not if it’s translated to app: US$14. Incidentally, “ Toto” is almost every male’s name in Iloilo. It’s the local term of endearment pronounced in so many sing-song ways.
Molo is worth a first stop if only to buy a tin of “sopas de Molo”. Despite its name it isn’t soup but locally made assorted biscuits that the town of is famous for. Everybody knows where the Panaderia de Molo is. Any local can likewise direct you to the only extant “sinamay” display house and factory.The weaving of this sheer Visayan cloth from banana fibers is a dying industry, its death knell sounded by wash-and-wear Tetorons and Polyesters. Drop by the Asilo de Molo orphanage and pick up beautiful barongs and handkerchiefs made of the delicate fiber - all exquisitely embroidered by the little orphan Annies supervised by nuns Fronting the Plaza is its Renaissance church made of coral rock. The Molo church is teasingly dubbed the “Women’s Lib church “ because all the displayed saints are female. I tried to debunk the name by pointing to two angels but I was shot down when the priest replied, “Angels have no gender .”
“You mean, they have no sex?”
“ I don’t know about that, but they are neither male nor female.”
I quit the small talk while I was ahead.
It was market day at the town of Oton and we paused to buy “Pinasugbo” an Ilonggo delicacy of crispy sliced bananas dipped in gooey molasses. I was intrigued by the plaza’s concrete figures of the common man at work. “Man in his Environment” the sign said. I wanted to graffiti “…and his severe handicaps” because so many of the statues were missing arms and legs. The figures were in neglect but the bloom of the flowering bushes were not. The edge of Oton is by the sea and dotted with beach resorts that Ilonggos escape to on weekends. During weekdays hardly anyone uses them – a great place to be alone with your cooler and Walkman.
The other towns we passed through offered the distinct sameness found in all Philippine hamlets: town square fronting church, city hall direct opposite and the mandatory monument to a famous native son and Dr Jose Rizal who forever seems to be perpetually pointing at something. Beyond Oton the Master Painter’s handiwork begins.
To be continued.