It’s fiesta time once again in the city of Golden Friendship, Cagayan de Oro City. The Kagay-an festival is held every month of August in honor of the Patron saint of the city St. Agustine. Here are the key events and hightlight of this years festival

August 8, 2010:

* Dance Sport, Limketkai Rotunda

August 10, 2010:

* Manila Symphony Orchestra, Rodelsa Hall

August 13-14, 2010:

* Smart Day Dance Crew, Night Cafe

August 16, 2010:

* ABS-CBN Kapamilya Overseas Job Fair with OWWA, Provincial Capitol Grounds

August 17, 2010:

* ABS-CBN the Biggest Loser Mindanao Auditions, SM City

August 17-19, 2010:

* Housing Festival, Rotunda Limketkai Center

August 19, 2010:

* My City, My SM Grand Launching, Atrium, SM City

August 18-20, 2010:

* Kumbira, Limketkai Atrium

August 20-21, 2010:

* Smart Day Dance Crew, Night Café
* XCCA’s Active Vista Film Festival Cinema with a Conscience, Xavier University Little Theatre and SM Cinema 2

August 21, 2010:

* Lets Groove the Night featuring Muzic Majic(SMB) Lantaw Cagayan, Upper Carmen

August 21-22, 2010:

* Cagayan de Oro City Football Festival, Xavier University Main Campus

August 22-29, 2010:

* 1st Canon Kagay-an Photo Competition, Kagay-an Festival Core Events Venues

August 25, 2010:

* Bibo Kagay-an Y2KX Clash 2010 Grand Finals, Dynasty Court Hotel
* Kapamilya Fiesta Caravan(ABS-CBN), SM City Las Ramblas
* Lets Groove the Night featuring Muzic Majic (SMB) Lantaw Cagayan, Upper Carmen
* Uniliver’s Pop Fiesta (DXCC), Pelaez Sports Center

August 26, 2010:

* Tilt House Party Tilt, Velez St.

August 26-28, 2010:

* 1st ETF Shooting 4th ID Shooting Range, Camp Evangelista

August 27, 2010:

* KAPUSO Night (GMA Network,Inc.), SM City
* TM Astigfest – Pahalipay sa Kagay-anon Concert, Limketkai Parking Area
* SMB Night at the Site featuring Brownman Revival, The Site Parking Lot, Rosario Arcade, Limketkai
* Sayaw Sayaw sa Kadalanan, Velez Street
* Lets Groove the Night featuring Muzic Majic (SMB) Lantaw Cagayan, Upper Carmen
* “El Ovido” Latin Party Tilt, Velez St.

August 27-29, 2010:

* 3rd Cagayan de Oro Fiesta Cup Westside Badminton Court; Shuttle Square Badminton and Sportszone

August 28, 2010:

* Kapuso Mall Show with Party Pilipinas Cast (GMA Network,Inc.), SM City
* SMART Day, Limketkai Parking Lot
* Tag Asia – CDO Party, Tilt, Velez St.
* Handog ng Bombo Radyo sa Kagay-an Festival: Free Concert, Free T-shirt, Pelaez Sports Center

Kagay-an Festival 2010 Sponsors

Co-presentor:

Globe Telecom

Major Sponsor:

Samsung Electronics Phils., Co.

Other Sponsors:

Smart Communications, Inc.

San Miguel Beer Corporation

Pepsi Cola

CEPALCO

STEAG

SM City

Seaoil Corporation

Ayala Land

Pueblo de Oro

Nature’s Spring

The city of Cagayan de Oro is now in the festive mood for the upcoming city fiesta celebrations on August 28, 2009 in honor of St. Agustine the patron saint of Cagayan de Oro. The city fiesta is dubbed the Kagay-an festival. Here are the events and activities for the whole duration of the festival.

August  13-15
Kumbira 2009 – Limketkai Atrium

August 16
Ms. Kagay-an 2009 Meet the Press and Fashion Show – Limketkai Atrium

August 19
Ms. Kagay-an 2009 Talent Competition – SM City

August 21
Ms. Kagay-an 2009 Swimsuit Competition – Hotel Koresco

August 21 – 23
National Horseshow and Competition – Fil-Estate Grounds, Gusa

August 24
Kagay-an Dance Fest – City main streets

August 24 – 30
Kahimunan Northern Mindanao: Regional Trade Fair 2009 – Limketkai Rotunda

August 25
Ms. Kagay-an 2009 Pageant Night – Limketkai Atrium

August 26
Kagay-an 3rd Golden Float Parade Competition – City main streets

Dekada ’70 – City tourism hall

Beatles: Reminiscing – Divisoria Kiosko Kagawasan

August 27
Halad sa Lambagohan – Cagayan de Oro river

Philippine Airforce Skydiving Exhibition – Pelaez Sports Complex

Abonitalla.com domain was registered with the intent of using it as my unique email address and for my family and relatives who may be interested in having a unique email address for themselves. As time goes by I decided to make use of the idle http part as a blog site but without any theme in mind.

Starting now the new theme of this blog will be Cagayan de Oro city society and its heritage. I will post here different stories about people in Cagayan de Oro as well as its heritage. I welcome any contributors who may want to write in this blog about the new theme. I will also be inviting some of my relatives who might be interested to write something here.

City Mayor Constantino G. Jaraula (far left) leads city officials in laying down the time capsule, highlighting the groundbreaking rites of the McArthur Marker at the old pier in Barangay Macabalan, Cagayan de Oro City, Feb. 1. Assisting the mayor are 2nd District Rep. Rufus Rodriguez, City Councilors Dante Pajo, Roger Abaday, and Alfonso Goking, Macabalan Chairperson Gertrudes Beja, and Historical Commission member Nanette Roa. Once completed, the marker would serve as a reminder that Gen. Douglas McArthur once passed by Cagayan de Oro enroute to Australia from Corregidor when Japanese imperial forces invaded the Philippines during the Second World War. (Cagayan de Oro City Information Office/PIA-MisOrOccCam i-Net)

Place name explanations often border on the fantastic and the comical. Intramuros, for instance, was said to have been named “so that the Moros will not entra.” Arnold Azurin (1995) calls this cultural malpractice the abuse of folklore in our national culture, coining the term “fakelore.”

What is the folklore and fakelore of the name “Cagayan”?

The usual recourse is to cite the local legend that ascribes the name to a love story between a beautiful princess and a vanquished warrior. It was said that a slave-raiding party of Maguindanao warriors descended upon the town. The town datu, however, sends instead his beautiful daughter to meet the Maguindanao chief, Rajah Moda Samporna. Captivated by her beauty, the rajah marries her and settles in the town. Instead of conquering them, the Maguindanao warriors were conquered. They retreated in shame, traumatized by the turn of events, calling it a “place of shame.” In Binukid, “kagayha-an” is “place of shame.” Later Spanish mispronounciation, the usual much-abused alibi, is said to have then evolved into the name “Cagayan.”

The story has other variations. One identifies the princess as a Maranao and the vanquished warrior as the datu of Cagayan. Other variations claim Kagayhaan as the name of the princess. However it varies, the plot remains the same: the Moro contravida versus the Christianized vida. The consistency of that plot cannot be underestimated in the historical discourse of Christian-Moro antagonism. It is possible then that the Kagayhaan fakelore came about as a way of promoting the supremacy of the Spanish colonial masters, much in the same way the moro-moro used mental conditioning to prejudice the Christian population against the Moro people.

The use of Moro antagonists is a stereotype of Spanish-inspired plots where the Moro is never the victor but always the vanquished, never the protagonist but always the antagonist. The already-discarded and archaic moro-moro should make the Kagayhaan fakelore a source of quibble so cruelly prejudicial in these cross-cultural times.

That is one reason why the ascription of folk etymologies to place names or toponyms is at most times inaccurate and clearly devoid of historical basis, besides being sources of amusement, comedy, and ethnic inequality and social marginalization. In this case, the “place of shame” story suffers a lot from its time elements alone. Rajah Moda Samporna was indeed a real persona, but eyewitness accounts narrate that he came to Cagayan only in 1889 (Pastells). That is nearly three hundred years removed, in fact, from the Spanish colonization of Cagayan in 1622.

One of the first contrary positions to the Kagayhaan claim was that one by Bernad (1987) who cite the name “Cagayan” as having been derived from a progenitor language, long extinct, and meant “place of the river.” A subsequent check, however, of such name in David Zorc’s Proto Philippine Finder List proved futile. Obviously, the origin of the name is beyond recall. The answer must lie elsewhere.

A good place to start the investigation is oral ethnohistory. It has already been established that the Cagayan proto people were the Proto Northern Manobo from among whom branched out today’s Higaunon of hinterland Cagayan de Oro. As in all ethnic groups of Mindanao, the Higaunon record their history by means of chanted epics, in their case, the olaging. The folk hero of the olaging is Agio, and mentions Agio’s elder brother Pamulaw as having taken as wife Yumagmag Katiguman (Opeña, 1979). The olaging describes her as “Lady of Kagay-an, Queen of Lambagohon,” clearly indicating Kagay-an as a place name instead of a personal name. Note also the glottal stop which today’s natives of Cagayan de Oro retain.

There is mention of the name Kagayhaan in the epic but it is the name of Pamulaw’s first daughter. One other significant light is that this is the only ethnohistorical basis of a written documented reference to the name Kagay-an as related to “Lambagohon.” Folk knowledge in Cagayan de Oro relates that the area was also known prehistorically as “Kalambagohan,” because of the abundant Lambago tress on its banks (possibly “Bago,” Gnetum genemone Linn. or Fagraea racemosa, as cited by Paredes, 1997).

Ethno-epics such as the Bukidnon olaging do not belong to the same category as folk legends. Although many elements in a folk epic are legendary, the entire epic is handed down from one generation to the next. Epics can only be sung by prescribed chanters. Hence, they contain a higher level of accuracy than simple folk legends. They are also chanted during special occasions.

Then the usual option is to explain place names by way of Spanish corruption of the original indigenous name. This simplistic recourse, however, which is seeing Filipino history through the colonial perspective, has long lost credibility and validity. In the case, for example, of Cagayan de Oro, the Kagayhaan proponents claim this name as having been corrupted eventually by the Spaniards to Cagayan. Another version traces the origin of the name to 1779 when the Spaniards were said to have found the bashfulness of its inhabitants. But the Spaniards were already in Cagayan in 1622.

The other way of verification is to consider comparative chronology. Two important historical documents already identified the place as Cagayan even before 1622, when the Augustinian Recollects first came to Cagayan, One was the donation of the area in 1571, only five years after the arrival of Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, as an encomienda to a certain Juan Griego (Fray Juan Francisco de San Antonio, 1738-1744). The other document identified Cagayan as a cinnamon-producing region (de Loarca).

It has already been established that at the time of the Recollect arrival, Cagayan was a tributary of Sharif Kabungsuwan’s great grandson, Bwisan. We know that Kabungsuwan came to Mindanao in 1480 and Bwisan was his fourth generation descendant. Cagayan then could have lost its independence to Bwisan sometime in the late 1500s. But at this time, the place was already known as Cagayan. That is another deficient time element in the Kagayhaan legend.

A third recourse would be to look at comparative toponymic nomenclature. Kagayhaan proponents have never explained why there are other places in the Philippine archipelago also named Cagayan. There is Cagayan province in Luzon, Cagayan de Mapun (formerly Cagayan de Sulu, subsequently Cagayan de Tawi-tawi) in the Sulu Sea, and Cagayancillo Island in Palawan. How is it that in these places, they do not have the same elements in the Kagayhaan folklore? Surely Princesa Kagayhaan could not have bilocated on these places too?

There are, in fact, striking geographical commonalities among the place names Cagayan de Oro, Cagayan province, and Cagayan de Mapun. In all three, there are remarkable bodies of water. Not only are there major rivers that dissect through both Cagayan de Oro and Cagayan province. Both rivers, in fact, exhibit a very similar terrain of karstic limestone topography on vertical cliffs interspersed with lush forest vegetation. It has been said that in Spanish times, Cagayan de Oro was compared to as “Cagayan el chico” (little Cagayan), a diminutive of Cagayan in Luzon where the river was known as “el rio grande de Cagayan.” One historian brought up the possibility of the Spaniards having observed “geographical twins” (Burton, n.d.).

On the other hand, in the island of Cagayan de Mapun are two fresh water crater lakes which are its most remarkable natural features, Ernestine and Singuwang (Casiño, 1976). There is also a perfect circle crater bay, Jurata, with a seaward wall that opens to the sea to form a bay. Could the toponym Cagayan be associated then with water?

In the case of Cagayan province, the Ilocano word for “river”, karayan, was said to have given the province its place name (de Jesus, 1982). It would appear that place names are determined linguistically. Hence, a useful recourse is to look at linguistic kinship or the study of cognates. It is little known, for instance, that there may be more than linguistic coincidences with Ilocano [karayan], Isneg [karayan], and Central Cagayan Agta [keheyan] (Elkins, pers. com., 2001). The name surely has something to do with water.

The noted linguist Richard Elkins (2001) is of the belief that there is most likely a connection between Ilocano and Manobo. “There are some features which both language sub-families share with each other that they do not share with any languages found in other parts of the Philippines.” Citing the linguist Isidore Dyen, Elkins posits that this strongly hints of genetic relationship. The Western Bukidnon Manobo, in fact, pronounce Cagayan as kegey?an (? = glottal stop), in much the same way that multi-generational natives of Cagayan de Oro do.

The curator of the Crisologo Museum in Vigan, a native of Cagayan province, informed me that among some old folks of the place, the name is said with a glottal stop, Cagay-an, much like the way Cagayan de Oro old folks say the same.

Elkins further offers the view that the Ilocano “karayan” could be a cognate of “kagay-an” because of the r-g-h correspondence found in Philippine languages (June 22, 2001). He is therefore of the position that Kagayan from a possible Proto karayan for “river” is very likely (July 4, 2001).

Elkins also offers the so-called “siak connection” (citing Dyen, July 6, 2001). Dyen once pointed out the fact that both Ilocano and many Manobo languages have the topic personal pronoun “siak,” probably indicating some close genetic relationship with the North. None of the central Philippine languages (or those south from the far north) use this form. The Manobo subfamily, Dyen claims, is very likely closely related to Ilocano and its sister languages than it is to languages of other subfamilies.

But how does one bridge the great geographical divide between these two very diverse ethnic groups? The Ilocano and the Manobo are literally on two separate poles of the Philippine archipelago. We must remember that thousands of years ago, when the sea was a highway, there was only a Proto Philippine language that existed in the Philippines (Walton, 1979). We are thus of the hypothesis that in that time period, the antecedents of the Ilocano and the Manobo had some form of interaction. The name Cagayan was a vestige of that interaction.

There is also the “ag” connection that Elkins points out. In the Manobo and Ilocano, the verbal affix “mag” of Tagalog and Cebuano is “ag-.” Hence, note the following comparisons.

Ilocano: Agtugaw kayo (sit down); siak ti agtugaw (I am the one who will sit down) Manobo: Agpinuu kew en (you will now sit down); siak is agpinuu (I am the one who will sit down).

Contrast this with Cebuano:

Ako ang maglingkod (I am the one who will sit down).

Such similarity seems to corroborate the possible connection between Ilocano and Manobo.

Finally, as to the nominalizer “an,” this sometimes marks the location, as in: belayan (place of houses), seyawan (dancing place). In most Philippine languages, “an” functions similarly, that is, locative. Thus, Cagayan can be “place of the river.”

Based on this foregoing evidence, the name kagayan is a Proto Philippine form that probably became long extinct, but continues to be manifested in its daughter languages. The bestowal of this place name to the place now known as Cagayan de Oro dates back to prehistoric or protohistoric times. Because of the wide use of the name in many ethnic regions of the Philippines, only a linguistic deduction can explain the origin of the name.

Cagayan de Oro is certainly not a condescending “place of shame,” but sometimes it is good to let out a loud guffaw over the side-splitting absurdities of toponymic fictionalizing.

Seriously speaking, fakelore must not dictate the culture of identities.

REFERENCES CITED

Azurin, Arnold 1995 Reinventing the Filipino Sense of Being and

Becoming: Critical Analyses of the Orthodox

Views in Anthropology, History, Folklore and

Letters, 2nd ed. University of the Philippines Press.

Bernad, Miguel 1987 editor’s note in “Oral Tradition in Bukidnon

Prehistory” by Mardonio M. Lao, Kinaadman

Journal, vol. 10 p. 31, Xavier University

Burton, John William n.d. “Northern Mindanao: A Historical Synopsis”

Xavier University

Casiño, Eric 1976 The Jama Mapun

Ateneo de Manila University Press

Dyen, Isidore 1962 The Lexicostatistical Classification of Malayo-

Polynesian Languages, Language vol. 38 no. 1

Elkins, Richard personal communications:

June 22, 2001

June 25, 2001

July 4, 2001

July 6, 2001

de Jesus, Ed C. 1982 “Control and Compromise in the Cagayan Valley”

Philippine Social History: Global Trade and Local

Transformation, Ateneo de Manila University Press

de Loarca, Miguel Blair and Robertson

Opeña, Ludivina 1979 Olaging, the Battle of Nalandangan: a Bukidnon

Folk Epic, translated from the Binukid,

Kinaadman Journal, vol. 1, Xavier University

Paredes, Oona Thommes 1997 People of the Hinterlands: Higaunon Life of

Northern Mindanao, Philippines

Masters Thesis, Arizona State University

de San Antonio, Fray Juan Francisco 1738-1744

Cronicas de la Provincia de San Gregorio Magno

Walton, Charles 1979 A Philippine Language Tree

Anthropological Linguistics

In the center of Wadhu’s Quality Store stands a 1931 NCR cash register, bought by the store’s founder by mail order from Sears & Roebuck in the United States 71 years ago. During the world war two, the owner wrapped it in grease and buried it in his backyard. After the war, he dug it up and it still serves the same store now run by his grand son Wadhu John.

That cash register is the living testimony of the traditions that has made Wadhu’s Quality Store Cagayan de Oro’s oldest surviving retail store, a tradition established by the store’s patriarch and carried on by the third generation who now runs it.

Seventy one years ago, Wadhu Dharamdas Uttamchandani set up in Cagayan de Misamis (as Cagayan de Oro was then known) ‘Wadhu’s Home of Quality’ near Plaza Divisoria, the town’s social and commercial center.

Mr. Wadhu arrived as a 12-year old boy from India in the Philippines in 1924. He was employed at the Indian Bazaar owned by his uncle Nebhraj Ramchand Buhdrani in Zamboanga City for 12 years where he gained his basic knowledge and business savvy in the retail trade. In 1936, he felt he had enough seed money, contacts and experience to establish his own store in Iligan, but eventually decided on Cagayan instead.

His thatched roof store featuring items bought by mail order from Sears & Roebuck was set amidst stores run by Japanese nationals near the Heroes de Cagayan monument. Divisoria was the Escolta of Cagayan in those days, and the nearby public market ensured the fledgling store flourished until World War II exploded.

“My father survived the war by bartering his goods for food and clothing,” said his son, Wadhu “Dodong” Jr. “He married my mom, Trinidad Babiera Valmores at Balingasag, Misamis Oriental in 1943 and had two children, myself and my sister Linda.”

In 1946, “Mr. Wadhu” (as he was fondly called by friends and customers) reopened at a new location in Plaza Divisoria just across the public market, but moved to the next block after two years, when its present name as “Wadhu’s Quality Store” was first seen. The store moved to its present site in the corner of J.R. Borja and Pabayo streets when Mayor Justiniano Borja moved the city public market to the Cogon area in 1958.

“My dad didn’t want to be too close to the Cogon market where competition would be fierce but he also didn’t want to be too far from the former site in Divisoria and his regular customers,” Dodong explained.

In 1973, the elder Wadhu felt the younger generation was ready to take the reins of the business and turned over the store’s management to Dodong.

“The idea was to help infuse faster and newer approaches towards marketing and merchandising without changing the original concepts on which we made our reputation,” Dodong recalls. “We introduced new products catering to the tastes of the younger generation and terminated others which were slow moving.”

And not too soon. By 1975, retails giants Ororama and Gaisano came into the picture, forcing other stores to fold up due to the intense competition.

“We took this as an opportunity, a challenge to make our strategies competitive with the giants,” Dodong said. “I have always welcomed competition because it is the only way to serve the public with better service and cheaper prices.”

For instance, when more people from Butuan, Surigao, Bukidnon and Iligan began coming to Cagayan, Wadhu’s still multiplied its customers despite stiff competition from the bigger stores.

“Our overhead is not as large as the big ones, so we were able to adjust our prices and compete,” Dodong said. “Since we were also getting the same merchandise from the same suppliers, we were able to attract more customers with our lower prices without sacrificing service and quality.”

The 1990s brought even stiffer competition from malls like SM City and Limketkai Mall which featured a wide variety of stores and merchandise and attractive amenities like national food chains and cinemas all under one roof.

“We kept our loyal customers and even added more through our personalized service,” Dodong said. “Most of the sales girls in the big malls are hired on a casual basis and are no match for better paid and motivated sales staff of smaller stores who have better experience and training, not to mention knowing the customers on a first name basis.”

“Everyone is equally served and each person is attended to no matter how small their needs are,” he adds. “We train our sales people never to look down on anyone and treat them as regular adult customers regardless of age, gender or appearance.”

Some years ago, a ruggedly dressed barefoot gentlemen wanted to buy an expensive watch. Sensing the sales clerk was at a loss on how to deal with him, Dodong stepped in to personally entertain him and he paid in cash.

“It was only a week later that I found out he was the owner of a big building which housed many stores in Bukidnon,” Dodong wryly recalls. “He told me ours was the third store he went to and the only one who gave him any attention.”

More recently, traders from Mainland China, Taiwan and Korea have swamped the city with low quality merchandise at very low prices. Together with the “ukay-ukay” vendors selling smuggled garments and shoes at rock bottom prices, they have crowded the city’s sidewalks and even areas fronting regular stores.

Instead of caving in under the assault, Wadhu’s opened a new branch in the Carmen market area. It carries the same merchandise for which the main store has been known for such as watches, sporting goods, and related items and is managed by Dodong’s eldest son Haresh. Meantime, the management of the main store has been turned over to his younger brother Wadhu John.

The third generation of Wadhus take all the competition and changes in stride, having been born and raised in Cagayan de Oro under the tutelage of their father and grandfather. They remain confident the “Open Door” policy of the original Wadhu’s Home of Quality will see them through the next 71 years and beyond.

“We grew up in this store and we don’t see any reason to change how it looks or operates,” said the elder Haresh, who runs Wadhu’s Quality Store-Carmen branch. “Since my grandfather first started this store, he insisted to my Dad to leave the store’s doors wide open. So, even people from the rural areas would not be shy to come in and window shop. They don’t feel pressured to buy something and can look as much as they like.”

In the center of the store, Wadhu John rings up another sale in the NCR cash register. If the sale totals more than the P99.00 the machine is capable of calculating, he uses a small calculator. It looks like the old machine could easily outlive a dozen or so of its modern counterparts, just like the store it serves in the corner of J.R. Borja and Pabayo streets in Cagayan de Oro has done to many of its competitors.

I have long pondered the question because of the vast number of transplants who have decided to stay and make Cagayan de Oro “home”.

Some understandably uprooted themselves from their hometowns and settled here because they married into local families. Prime examples : Segundo Gaston of Silay and Dionisio Fabella of Pagsanjan who married my grandfather’s 2 younger sisters, Celerina and Rosario Neri, respectively; Diego Imperio & Crispin Joaquin to Celerina’s & Rosario’s younger sisters, Gracia and Violeta, Jose Montalvan of Belmonte, Cuenca, Spain to Concepcion Corrales y Roa (my great grandmother’s sister), Dr. Francisco Xavier of Antique to Dolores Roa ( my grandmother’s sister), Valente Camacho of Bataan to Luz Chaves y Neri, Benjamin Denosta to Enriqueta Garcia y Corrales, Casimiro Tamparong of Ozamis to Felisa Neri, Silvino Maestrado to Josefa Chaves y Abejuela, George Willkom of Ohio to Maria Ramos (cousin of my grandfather, Lucio), Dr. Jose Marfori to Carmen Neri, Justininiano R. Borja of Bohol & Ilocos to Dulce Valdehueza y Roa, Monico Gacula to Nena Montalvan y Corrales, Manolo Jaldon of Zamboanga to Flora Yamut, Hernando Pineda of Manila to Trinidad Reyes y Roa, Fernando Torres to Victoria Avancena, Rosauro Dongallo of Cebu to Didi Valmores, Mike Siojo to Naty Tabique, Jaime Munoz & Johnny Wilson to sisters Soly & Editha Corrales, Bernabe de la Fuente of Cotabato to Mercedes.Velez y Xavier (actually, 3 de la Fuente brothers, all boarders at the Ateneo de Cagayan, married 3 local belles – Mercedes Velez, Dulce Bautista & Violeta Fernandez). and the list goes on & on.

But what about those who did not really have close ties to this town ? What magnet drew them to Cagayan? Was it a new job assignment or a business venture? Or perhaps just a pining to go elsewhere & try one’s luck someplace other than one’s turf. Some must have been assigned here – that is probably what happened to government doctors – Jose Zamora, Manuel Montenegro, Iluminado Almonte and Dr. Macaranas; or military doctors/dentists like aforementioned Dr. Marfori and Dr. Reynaldo Agoncillo, or judges like Ben Gorospe and Judge Antillon; still others worked for companies like Del Monte, San Miguel & Coca-Cola like Nene Celdran of Iligan and Juan Aguirre of Ormoc; or other families like the Floirendos of Luzon and the Luminarias brothers and the Vitorillos from Bohol who set up businesses.

In the case of Sally & Annie Ompoc, they were born in Seattle but came back to the Philippines with their parents in 1940, settled in El Salvador & moved to Cagayan de Oro in 1946 then married local boys Bonifacio Avancena & Jose Roa, respectively. Fairly recent transplants are Ben & Alice Trinidad, Jose & Carmen del Fierro, Jun & Cora Salcedo del Fierro, Arsenio & Girlie Sebastian, Mdm. Laureana Rosales and her daughters & their families.

One big family with interesting origins are the Malferraris. The original Cesar Malferrari of Bologna, Italy, was the photographer of a circus from Italy who got stranded in Manila when the circus went bankrupt. He met Dolores Fortich of Cebu; they married & settled in Cagayan de Oro and had Cesar, Jr., father of Tony, Ernesto, Nene, Berting & Nena M. Zablan. When Cesar Sr. died his widow married the father of the late Danding Cecilio, a soldier who came to the P.I. during the Spanish-American war.

The Nobles’ sojourn to our city is another interesting story. Albino Noble, father of Estela Fabella, Angelina Dayrit, Francisco, Rosalinda Vasquez & Mario, was a 9 year old boy in Antique when his uncle, Dr. Francisco Xavier sent for him, raised him & sent him to school at Silliman University. When Albino became a successful businessman, he in turn sent for his other siblings in Antique which included Armando Noble, the patriarch of that other branch, one of whose members is currently Mayor of Talakag.

Bienvenido Cruz of Marikina and his wife, Emma Johnson of Baguio, now both deceased, came to Cagayan because Bien’s brother, Alfredo, was a journalist here. Actually, the Cruzes had 3 cities where they had established their haberdashery/shoe businesses to choose from – Cebu, Davao & Cagayan de Oro but they chose our fair city over the others. Their eldest daughter, Biema was born here after 5 years of marriage so that’s one main reason they thought this was their special place. Another compelling reason was that he liked the local townsfolk among whom he had made good friends.. He used to brag to my mother that he was more Cagayanon than others because he could have had his pick but he specifically chose Cagayan.

Another big family that has found its niche here is the Paras family. Originally from Pampanga, Pabling & Nanang came to town in the early 60’s and have since raised their big brood here. Their original business thrived and their children have since branched out to other commercial ventures. They have all assimilated well and have been very active in civic organizations.

Others of foreign descent – Chinese like the Sias, Tans, Ongs, Ket Kais, Chans, Uys, Yees, and Macmangs (whose father was originally from Canton, China), Indian traders like Wadhumal Dharamdas Sr. & the Moorjanis, Lebanese Wadih Saab who married a Linaac, Americans like the Willkoms, Chaloners (Carrie Gaane, Nena Buhay) Greens, Kempskis, Tompkins, Howlands, Kelly-Limenas, Walters – they and their descendants have never thought of themselves other than as Cagayanons. And so must the Camiguingnons who relocated here after the volcano erupted in the early 50’s – the Magtos, Adazas, Alongs, Quiblats, Reyeses, Paderangas, etc.

The children and grandchildren of abovementioned families were born & raised here and they have made Cagayan de Oro their permanent residence or domicile. They consider Cagayan de Oro home even though they may not belong to native Cagayan clans. For them, there is no other place to call “home” except Cagayan de Oro because this is where they have established roots and found good friends. According to Tommy Aguirre of New Jersey, U.S.A., Cagayan is where he has his fondest memories and experiences, both good and bad; when Tommy & Jett talk of “going home”, they mean Cagayan de Oro, not Leyte where their father came from or Cebu, of which their mother Primitiva, was a native of. The same holds true for Mike Agoncillo who also says that his parents (of Batangas & Pangasinan), even though they left Cagayan and finally settled in Manila after retirement, continued to keep a special place in their hearts for the good memories of time spent in Cagayan de Oro.

Our city is a special place. It has a charm all its own. Even though it has grown tremendously in recent years, it continues to have that small town feel. Cagayan de Oro – the name conjures images of gold. But the gold is not in the meandering river now famous for whitewater rafting nor in yonder hills surrounding the city. It is in the heart of its people, warm and hospitable, welcoming to strangers. For many, they did find gold because they found a permanent place to cherish and call home. And for the lucky few who built their fortunes here – they actually found their pot of gold at the end of the rainbow here in the “City of Golden Friendship!”