Papa's Hero

(I am taking a respite after being bombastic in my 3 previous articles.  Kidding aside, May 24, 2013 marks the 37th Death Anniversary of the Rt Rev Msgr Fidel E Albano, my grand uncle [in white cassock; sat at the middle of the picture above] .  In honor of Lolo Padi, as we would call him, my father Mario [sat at Lolo Padi's left] has kindly written this piece.)

For a young boy, summertime in Bacarra, Ilocos Norte was no vacation. The place where we regularly stayed did not have electricity, water is to be carried in pails from the ground floor up to living quarters, forget about the toilet for it was a bottomless pit with a wooden seat designed like a commode and oh, the doors were tremendous in size - they creaked when you opened them, the windows were so wide you might just suffer an unfortunate accident if you were not careful. The church ceilings housed thousands of fruit bats; hanging on the rafters and along the high walls, they attracted very large monitor lizards. We slept on floor mats made of thatch grass or dried palm fronds.

To live with my uncle, the Right Reverend Monsignor Fidel E. Albano, you worked. The day started at 4:30 AM. We’d get ready ASAP for his 5:00 AM Mass. You see, my uncle was the parish priest of St. Andrew Catholic Church for the longest time I can remember. The boys took turns as sacristans, altar servers, ushers, or candle sellers. Everyone’s favorite assignment was to sell candles and it doesn’t take much imagination why. Mass was in Latin, so you had to memorize the appropriate responses. After Mass and breakfast, my uncle apportioned a good part of the morning for us to read Latin and English books and to write in English.

Church bells were rung during Angelus and after most church events. The belfry has three bells: large, medium and small size. With cables, you need to have a strong leg to kick-pull the cable attached to the dong in order to bang the large bell. Your arms must also be strong enough to pull the cables for dongs to bang the other 2 bells. I enjoyed swinging on the cables to ring the large bell. Over time, one learned the sequence and space in the sounds of the dongs as well as the frequency of the sounds created as it relates to the activity in the church.

After lunch, my aunt, his younger sister, Candida E. Albano made sure we had an afternoon nap while the older boys get to gather Dangla branches and leaves, a local brush that grows on arid and gravelly soil that surrounded the church. We’d use the leaves from these branches to sweep the floor tiles of the church and it would produce a fresh woodsy scent that to this day I can only remember Bacarra as the origin of that scent. A few hundred yards from the church, there is a river where we’d skinny dip later in the afternoon. The surrounding area of the church was covered with large trees: Acacia, Anunang, Kamatsile, Kaymito, Sinigwelas, Duhat, and Malungay species.

My uncle had a block of wood he would shave into powder as a remedy for minor cuts and bruises we’d suffer from horseplay during our stay. The incense he used in church came from the Itneg people in the Kalinga-Apayao mountains. It was delivered in large chunks of hardened, glassy tree resin. He used a mortar and pestle to ground the resin into fine granulated aromatic incense powder. The heavenly scent is so unforgettable that you’d have to be in Bacarra to experience it.

At the front of the church stood a gnarly, old, and very large Acacia tree. From one of its branches, the Judas Iscariot dummy was hanged and burned every Easter Sunday. Among kids, this was one of the most awaited spectacles to witness during Holy Week. We’d have a procession of carts with the Blessed Virgin Mary and a host of saints and kids in angelic costume throwing to us bougainvillea flowers in multiple colors from a good enough elevation. The carts with the holy figures had illuminating gas lamps created from the mixture of water and kalburo, a fruit ripening chemical. At that time, I did not realize the explosive element in some things we found and took for granted in church.

He had one story how one very early morning, as he went to open the church doors for the daily Mass he felt some presence near him. Challenged, he asked in the darkness: “Ah sinno kayyu?” (Who are you?). “Daccami Apo!” (Just us, Lord!) came a reply from unknown sources and just as soon the presence was gone. For my uncle, it was the Angels who visited the Church of St Andrew that time.

He always wore a linen cassock, its edges frayed and a pair of white patent leather sungkit (slippers). During harvest season, he’d go to his favorite tobacco farmers and select his own cured tobacco leaves. He rolled his own cigars and the stubs he’d stick in his Briarwood pipe. Experimentation with his implements was not good at all, the cigars tasted horrible, the tar that accumulated on the bore and lip of his pipe was so bad it seemed forever to get rid of taste and if you get caught, you’d get an ear pulled, a whack of the slippers on your rump or a Batarrag (thin bamboo stick) beating. He owned a pink-colored 1947 4 - door Dodge Plymouth. He was always chauffeured in it; it was a very useful vehicle in the sense that my brothers, cousins, and friends learned to drive courtesy of my uncle’s car. On those many learning occasions, we pushed the vehicle out of the garage, down the road farthest away from his earshot before we started the car engine.

My uncle made sure we ate vegetables with every meal and no one got up from the dining table unless his plate was clean as a whistle. There was no cooler or refrigerator and no electricity, remember? You stayed there until you finished your food!

He was not a confrontational individual and was not a great story-teller, per se. He was a man of few words, except when he was at the pulpit to give homily. Outside of Mass, he was more instructional and directional than as an engaging communicator. I thought his devotion towards his role in the parish was exceptionally focused. His life was geared to the fulfillment of evangelizing the faithful who listened and to teach the Catholic way of life. I learned from my parents that he was a school teacher and shortly thereafter changed his vocation to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. I never asked and so did not find out his reason for the career change-up (a love story gone bad, perhaps?); whatever it was, his decision was the better one for himself and us (the convent in Bacarra was very large enough that we used to have a busload of people from Manila vacationing with us!).

My uncle strongly believed the town of Bacarra is where one can fine the root of the Albano family, not from the town of Sarrat, from where his parents, my grandparents came from. To support this contention, he would mention a true to life event that he himself experienced. Msgr. Fidel E. Albano gave the Blessed Sacrament (last rites) to a dying criminal with a surname like his. He found out the lady physician who tried to save the dying man has the same surname. The criminal was shot and killed by the town sheriff with the same surname. Of course, the town judge in the case has the same surname!

I never witnessed or heard of my uncle to suffer any illness throughout his life. Msgr. Fidel E. Albano did not get sick and as a far as I know, this was a man of steely constitution. He had a full set of teeth, blackened from tobacco use, did not brush his teeth and just gargled with salt and water regularly. He did not have a sweet tooth either. The only time he saw physicians was during summer when my parents, both practitioners of medicine in Manila, visited him in Bacarra, not for any treatment but for the annual family reunion at Easter time. I’ve never seen him overweight. Yet, he enjoyed his basi, the homegrown liquor made from sugar cane juice aged in burnay (earthen jars).

He retired from duties at the Parish of St. Andrew and settled in Tondo, Manila. He exchanged a huge and tremendous responsibility for a small bedroom in his brother’s household. In his new environment, he adjusted easily with his nephews, nieces, and their children. Noise level in a bustling household was high and probably one major item he had to overcome. He loved to sit by the front porch of the house where he read the daily missal, in between watching passers-by along busy Cavite St. During regular days, he was chauffeured to St. Joseph Church in Gagalangin to say morning Mass. On most days, he preferred to walk that distance. He wore his signature white cassock and buckled black shoes every day to church. One day, he had a heatstroke while walking on his way home from Gagalangin. He recovered from that and his brother made sure he was to be brought to and picked up from St. Joseph Church.

As unobtrusive and as quiet an individual that he was, Msgr. Fidel E. Albano left to meet his Creator at the age of 79, at peace with himself and all.