By Mortz C. Ortigoza
This story is not about an American preacher in a village in the Philippines asking his congregation who are mostly peasants “Who among them have sex with a ghost?”
The preacher, whose intention was to jest, was surprised when a farmer in his early 20s stood to affirm he had copulation with the object.“Really, you had sex with a ghost or spelled G-H-O-S-T?” the stunned preacher asked.The peasant immediately apologized to the pastor that it was not a G-H-O-S-T he had sex for countless of times but a G-O-A-T.“Unfortunately that stocky female goat, er, doe had been butchered when Mortz Ortigoza arrived here in the town in March 13, 2020 and could not go back to Luzon because of the locked down because of the Corona Virus Disease-19,” he said embarrassed.***I bumped into my former “neighbors” in the middle and the late of the 1970s Manong Korning and Virgie Sullaga when I passed by with my mountain bike in front of their swanky bungalow - a far cry to their humble nipa and sulanggi made abode perched near a big canal where the water egress at the M’lang, Cotabato River.They told me at that already dusk meeting that they were retired already as vegetable vendors in the M’lang Market.We recalled the old days when I opened up those harrowing and gory grenade throwing incident among vendors and their children who were practicing a dance number for their Christmas Party presentation one cold December night.
“Where are you going now?” Nang Virgie asked me.I told her at an old house in Rivas Street near the town hall.“I will be passing that iron footbridge for a short cut to go at my brother’s newly bought vintage wood walled house near the plaza. I stayed there for almost a month now after I was caught by President Duterte’s Luzon Lockdown. My airplane’s flights to Clark have been cancelled three times,” I retorted.Nong Korning told me he knew that house. It was owned in the 1960s by Mrs Gastar his Grade 4 teacher at the M’lang Pilot Elementary School.My brother told me that the storied now sulangi (bamboo plates) walled two floor rooms’ house was originally owned by then Kidapawan town Mayor Angeles.“Ginpa nuble ni Mrs Gastar kay uncle niya Mayor Angeles. Tapos si Gastar gin baligya nya kay Dr. Sorongon ang balay worth P93,000 in 1991. Si Doc Sorongon gin panubli niya kay Kabot ang balay. Gin baligya ni Kabot sa akon ang balay worth P2.5 Million (Mayor Evangelista bequeathed the house to his niece Mrs. Gastar. Then Gastar sold the house to Doctor Herman Sorongon worth P93,000 n 1991. Sorongon gave to his son Kabot. Kabot sold it to me for P2.5 million),” my younger brother, who was a former military professor at the Philippine Military Academy (our birthplace) texted me when I asked him the history of the house I called Dako nga Balay as compared to our concrete ancestral house near SBC.
“May multo dira nga balay kag bagat dira nga banda sa may mga acacia. Sang 1970s gaage kami dira para Simbang Gabi. Sang galakat kami sang mga 3 A.M may natumba nga kahoy kusog sa likod namon. Siling ka kumare ko Virgie diretso ang lakat naton pakadto sa Saint Teresita Church indi ka magbalikid diretso lang ang lakat (There is a ghost lurking at that house and those acacia tress. In 1970s we passed by there for the Simbang Gabi. While we walked at 3 A.M a huge tree fell loudly at our back. My lady friend and co-wedding sponsor told me to walk straight and never looked back as we were going to the Saint Teresita Chuch),” Nang Virgie, formerly Miss Delco a Cebuano, recalled that frightening early dawn experience at Rivas Street.She said after the mass they pace back the same route, already broad daylight, but lo and behold “ain’t no falling tree blocked the road way.
I had goosebumps listening to Nang Virgie’s recollection.“Ti ikaw may nabatyagan ka man nga multo dira sa gina tulugan mo nga ten rooms’ nga balay? (How about you, have you noticed a specter bothering you in that ten rooms’ house?)” she asked me curiously.“Hu-od last week. Tunga sang gab-e (Yes last week at midnight),” I quipped while standing in front of her Sari-Sari (Mom and Pop) Store.Nong Korning asked me with bated breath what happened while those nervous kibitzers who are residents of the Sullaga and Catubay Subdivisions wait for my eerie experience.“Naga inum ako ka Tanduay nga long neck tapos nahubog ako sa second floor kung diin naga panago ang White Lady sa mga kuarto didto (I was imbibing Tanduay Long Neck then I became cockeyed at the second floor where the White Lady hid in one of the rooms there)”.“Ti ano natabo (Then what happened)?!” an effeminate man in his early 50s surnamed Greco, who used to pass by at our house in the late 1970s near the river bank owned by the Jusons, blurted with his nervous poser.Nag singgit ako (I shouted): White Lady mag pakita ka (White Lady I challenge you to appear in front of me)!“Ti ano nagpakita siya (So what happened, did she appear?” Nang Virgie butted in.“Wala pero nag sabat siya (Nope, but she retorted)”.“Ano gin sabat niya sa hangkat mo nga pakita siya (What was her answer to your dare)?” Mr. Catubay, the eldest still handsome son of former councilor Catubay, a known ladies' man, asked me while the crowd was deafeningly silent.I emphatically retorted:“Nag sabat siya, indi takon pakita sa imo basi it*ton mo ako (I will not come near you. You’re going to rape me)!”Everybody guffawed while Korning told me: Marcelo amo kalang gihapon maskin pila na ka dekada kita wala makita nga ga inum tuba upod mo si Tintay sa tubaan ni Kalongkong dira sa lot road karon nga puno na ka mga squatters halin sa Slaughter House (Marcelo you’re the same comic guy I know countless decades ago where we listen to your antics quaffing tuba (coconut) wine with the village lass Tintay at Kalongkong Tubaan at the old highway inhabited by squatters who came from the old Slaughter House)..
