Two Pinoys abroad reminisce about growing up in Batangas and Iloilo

Memories will one day fade, and this realization drove two successful Filipinos based abroad to look back and write about their hometowns.

For Vancouver-based Bong Serrano, it is Batangas City and the municipality of Lobo. For Beverly Hills-based Vina Magallanes Lelim, it is Barangay Jorog in the municipality of Lambunao in Iloilo.

Bong flew in from Vancouver and held an intimate book launch last January 27 in Batangas City for his memoir “Batangas: My Sky and Earth,” published last year by FriesenPress in Canada.

Vina, meanwhile, also went back to the Philippines and invited family and friends last February 9 at the Peninsula Manila for the launch of her book “From A Philippine Village to Beverly Hills: Vina’s Journey,” which she self-published last year.

Vancouver-based Marketing professional Bong Serrano says he decided to write his memoir after his elder brother was diagnosed with cancer in 2014. Photo by Jordan Acorda

Batangas musings

For Bong, a Marketing professional, what pushed him to sit down and write what he could still remember was his Kuya Boying’s battle with cancer. In July 2014, on a flight back to Manila from Vancouver to be with Boying who was then confined at St. Luke’s Medical Center in Quezon City for stage 4 cancer, Bong sobbed.

“I couldn’t bear the thought of losing my brother, of watching his body wither away, of seeing how his memories would plunge into disarray. What if one day I lose my memories? Who will remember us?” he wrote in the book.

And so he started gathering his thoughts and went on a journey back to his childhood, so to speak. Bong is the youngest child of Cayo and Crispina “Pining” Serrano. His father Cayo was a law graduate who worked at the Bureau of Commerce, while his mother was a pharmacy graduate and a soprano who once won in a singing contest over the young Conching Rosal.

Bong reminisced about the house in Arce Subdivision in Batangas City where he grew up with his sisters Majel, Susan, Evelyn, and Josie, and his brother Boying. He would climb trees in the backyard, fly homemade kites, and join in salagubang fights with his siblings and neighbors.
 
In Lobo, meanwhile, where his grandparents had coconut plantations, Bong and his family would spend summers riding on kalesas to get to the beach. They would queue with the locals at Kakazu Bakery to buy freshly baked monay, pan de regla, and pan de bonete baked by Kakazu-san, an officer of the Japanese Imperial Army who stayed after the war and married a Filipina.

Bong’s memoir is filled with such heartwarming recollections of Batangas in the 60s and 70s, memories that have stayed with him long after he has settled in Canada, where he lives with his life partner of 30 years.

'I wrote this book because I just want to share my story and my humble beginnings,' says Beverly Hills-based Vina Magallanes Lelim. Photo by Karen Galarpe

Simple life in Iloilo

“I wrote this book because I just want to share my story and my humble beginnings. I want to share it with other people, [a book] by me, an OFW [overseas Filipino worker] who tried hard to change her life,” Vina said in her speech during the book launch.

Vina’s life wasn’t easy. Her barrio had no electricity and running water. Baths were taken at the nearest creek, where they also washed their clothes. She lived in a nipa hut which had no bed and no toilet. Vina had to go to the forest every other day to gather wood for fire needed for cooking. Meals were usually rice and sweet potato or steamed banana, and seldom did Vina and her family eat meat or fish.

“I had six siblings. My parents could not afford both to buy food and send all of us to school. So, my three brothers did not go to school because they had to help my father on the farm. My mother sold vegetables and fruit in the public market to help our family get enough for our daily needs,” Vina wrote in her book.

“To a present-day observer, my family’s life might be considered as horribly basic. But, let me share with you that I do hold beautiful memories of those early years. From a child’s perspective, I was surrounded by natural beauty and a family’s love. I hold those memories today. Life is truly amazing!” she added.

Now how did Vina, who rode carabaos in the rice field as a child and walked four miles to school, end up in Beverly Hills as a successful entrepreneur running home care facilities catering to the wealthy? Vina credits it to education and hard work.
 
The book chronicles her life journey and lets readers in on her advocacy of helping others reach their dreams.

“Batangas: My Sky and Earth” and “From a Philippine Village to Beverly Hills: Vina’s Journey” are both available on amazon.com. —KBK, GMA Integrated News