By Estanislao Albano Jr.
One time while they were in the evacuation site, she and her sisters were playing on an arrosip tree. She was on top the tree pretending to be a doctor and her sister Teresita on the ground playing the part of a pharmacist. (The role playing turned out prophetic as Amelia became a medical doctor and Teresita a pharmacist.) They were talking through a make believe telephone made of cans and thread. That was when a low flying Japanese plane passed right overhead. Their instinct was to scamper to safety. In Amelia’s rush to climb down the tree, the back side of her clothes got caught by a branch stump causing her to be suspended in mid air as the Japanese plane buzzed the area. She was only able to free herself from the hilarious position sometime after the plane had gone.
How the family got its salt
Near the end of the war, the escalation of hostilities halted commerce cutting off salt supply from Pangasinan. The Belandres family had run out of the basic commodity that would have lasted until the end of the war had it not been for a curious incident.
Arriving home one day, Filomena and Amelia got the shock of their lives when a Japanese soldier emerged from under their house clutching a squawking chicken from the nest installed there. The sight enraged Filomena and she forgot her fear and seized the chicken from the Japanese telling him in her limited Japanese how dare he take the chicken when she is so poor and has a lot of children to feed. Amelia who can no longer remember if the soldier was armed at the time recalls that strangely, the soldier did not react violently to the actuation of her mother. Instead, with a mixture of Japanese and sign language, the soldier negotiated for the barter of the chicken with the salt he kept in his small kidney-shaped metal food container. In the end, Filomena acceded and that was how the family got the salt which they used sparingly until the end of the war.
The long walk
Graduating from the Tabuk Central School in 1947, Amelia enrolled in the St. Theresita’s School in Lubuagan the following school year. She stayed with a relative although they had a house there. To get to Lubuagan, their workman would bring her to Gobgob crossing the plain and the Chico River where she would wait at the house of a relative for any of the trucks bringing livestock to Baguio City passing through Lubuagan. She would ride in the back of the truck among the livestock where she would sometimes get sprinkled with the urine of the cattle. Sometimes it would take some days before the truck comes and they would start the bumpy ride to Lubuagan.
For her second year, she transferred to the Sacred Heart of the Infant Jesus (now St. Paul’s University) in Tuguegarao on the invitation of cousin Angelita Moldero, daughter of Saturnino Moldero. Coincidentally, during that time, her father was working in the veterinary office in Tuguegarao. When the Christmas holidays came, she and her father came home to Tabuk to celebrate the occasion with the family. Not long after the trek started, Amelia regretted her decision to go along with her father. The two walked all day cutting through the hills between Enrile and Rizal town which at that time was still part of Tabuk and then the hills between Rizal and Bayabat. It was like walking in the desert as there were no trees along the way.
Amelia said that the trek brought her to tears. The 60 kilometers distance over hills took almost all day. She held the food provision made of bread and when her father asked for some, she could not give any as she had eaten it all up. She does not remember how she went back to Tuguegarao but is certain that that was the last time in her life that she hiked the distance between the two places.
Caught in the darkness
One afternoon while they were living in Bayabat, she, her sister Teresita and the daughter of their farm worker, Sanang Baradi, went to the house of their aunt Caridad Rosario in Balong intending to play with their cousins. They rode on their carabao. When they arrived at the home of the Rosarios, they did not linger long because they noticed that their cousins were not happy to see them. That was around 4:30 PM. The evening came very fast so that when they were about to pass the old Dilag cemetery located near the edge of the valley, it was already almost dark. Afraid to pass the cemetery in the dark, she tried to head the carabao in a different way but the the carabao balked insisting to retrace the path they took going to Balong which was through the cemetery. By this time, darkness had descended so much so they could no longer see each other’s face. Noting the resistance of the carabao to Amelia’s leading, Sanang told Amelia to just let the animal be and let it pass where it wants because it knows the way. So Amelia let go. The carabao passed through a thicket so that their faces were hurt by the grass that blocked the path. Engulfed in complete darkness and terrified they were lost, they prayed in unison shouting their petitions to God while astride the carabao. Before they were through praying, a brush fire broke out in the valley below. The conflagration gave them an idea where they were. They were reassured when they realized that the carabao was headed to the direction opposite the fire which was to the general direction of Bayabat. Eventually, the carabao brought them to the door of their house.**
