Even in my half-slumber state, I could tell that it was not the same morning that usually woke me up. For some eerie reason, I did not hear the neighbor’s roosters crow their usual daybreak “tok…to…roo-ok!” and there were no voices from next-door fishermen getting ready to go to sea to fish. Instead, I could hear church bells tolling, not in their usual go-to-mass timbre, but rather in a frantic crescendo. When I opened my eyes, I saw my mother and stepfather stuffing things into sacks and bags. They were packing our belongings! By the way they moved and by the expression on their faces, I could tell that they were nervous, frantic, and even terrified. “They’re here!” my mother gasped when she saw that I was awake. “The Japanese are here!” That explained the frantic tolling of the church bells. As an eight-year-old, I often heard adults say that Bacolod Cathedral, located in the center of the city, would repeatedly toll its gigantic bells to warn the population when the Japanese had landed. Even as a child, I gathered that it was a certainty that the Japanese were coming; it was just a matter of time. “You can go to the seashore quickly and look at the ships, if you want,” my mother hesitantly suggested, probably thinking that I might be curious. “There are two big ships docked at Banago wharf.” We lived on a beach area, which was why our community was called “Lupit Beach.” Banago wharf was quite visible from the shoreline of Lupit. We saw it clearly, regardless of any weather, every time we were on the shoreline. In fearful anticipation of the Japanese invasion, older folks would speak reassuringly that Japanese ships could not possibly drop anchor at Banago wharf because the water was too shallow for big ships. “I’m not going,” I stammered to my mother, all the while stifling my nervousness and curiosity to see how big the Japanese ships were. I tugged along as my mother and stepfather strode out of our house with sacks and packs of our belongings. Everywhere around us were panicky neighbors streaming out of their houses with their own sacks and packs. I saw all kinds of people—old, young, children, infants on their mother’s arms, even invalids on the backs of relatives—leaving Lupit and Bacolod and going in the same direction. The same direction? I did not know specifically where they were going. Meanwhile, the incessant tolling of the church bells seemed to intensify the confusion and magnify the panic of a fleeing city and neighborhood. I had no idea where the other evacuees were fleeing, but I knew exactly where we were going. My mother and stepfather didn’t have to mention our destination as we scampered to flee; each of us simply assumed that we were going to seek refuge in Hacienda Paquita, a remote farming area in the town of Victorias. My aunt and maternal grandmother were already there. They moved there to live with my uncle months before the Japanese invaded Bacolod. Rumors of rapes and other atrocities committed by the invading Japanese armed forces in Manila frightened my grandmother into taking away my aunt, who was then an attractive, single young woman, into what she considered the pastoral hideaways of Hacienda Paquita. And aside from being a safe haven for my aunt from the dreaded soldiers of an invading army, Hacienda Paquita was also an economic and familial sanctuary. My uncle had lived there for many years as a tenant farmer, harvesting one bumper crop of rice after another. He used to brag to my grandmother that, in the unlikely event that a famine would beset Negros Occidental, he and his big family would survive on the sacks and sacks of rice stacked in his house and in his cavernous bodega. My grandmother must have felt some emotional anchor visiting my uncle and his large family that, in addition to his wife, consisted of seven children—a boy and six girls. And now that war had come, my grandmother’s occasional visit had turned into an indefinite stay—and this time with my aunt. By today’s modern means of transportation, Victorias is probably a three-hour drive from Bacolod. However, at the time the Japanese warships lay anchor at Banago wharf that frenetic morning, Victorias might as well have been a world away from Bacolod. We had to traverse four other towns—Granada, Talisay, Silay, and Saravia—before we could reach Victorias. And getting to Hacienda Paquita on foot would take many additional hours. It must have been mid-morning by the time we and other evacuees reached the outskirts of the city. It was a picturesque morning; too bad that fear and the flight for survival made us oblivious to the beautiful scenery. As if in mockery of our flight, the foliage seemed greener, the sun brighter, and the sky before us bluer. However, when we looked back to the city proper of Bacolod behind us, we could see thick, gigantic columns of black smoke spiralling into otherwise clear skies. We learned later—I cannot recall how—that a contingent of the Philippine army methodically set certain strategic buildings in the city on fire. This was to prevent the Japanese from making use of those buildings after they had entered the city. Our evacuee columns were in this snake-like position when suddenly, from nowhere it seemed, two planes with blood-red circles painted on their sides roared overhead. Everyone unthinkingly fell to the ground or hugged any nearby embankment. The planes hovered and circled over us several times. They were flying so low to the ground that, as I crouched on a slope, I could see the goggles and mustache of one of the pilots. I feared that they would shoot at us, but eventually disappeared into the clouds, faster, I thought, than they appeared.
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