The year was 1802 when Juan Jabonitalla first set foot in Barrio Balahutao, a quiet settlement that would one day become Barangay Kauswagan in Misamis Oriental. Beside him walked Feliza Salcedo, his wife, both carrying nothing but the memories of their Ilocos Sur hometowns Santiago and Candon, and the hope of building something new.

The land was harsh but forgiving to those willing to work it. Juan and Feliza planted their roots deep, and from their union came five children: Ignacio, Faustino, Miguel, Leoncia, and Bonifacio. Each child grew strong under the Mindanao sun, learning the ways of their father’s perseverance and their mother’s quiet strength.

Years passed like the changing seasons. The children married, had children of their own, and spread throughout Misamis Oriental. But somewhere in that expansion, perhaps in a clerk’s hasty pen stroke, or in the natural evolution of spoken dialect, the name Jabonitalla began to shift. The “J” softened, then disappeared entirely. Abonitalla, the people said. The Abonitalla Clan.

Back in Ilocos Sur, La Union, Isabela, and Nueva Ecija, the Jabonitallas remained, their surname unchanged, unaware that across the sea, their distant kin now carried a different version of the same name, a testament to how migration reshapes not just lives, but identities themselves.

Juan never knew his descendants would one day wonder about that missing letter, that linguistic ghost. He only knew the soil, his wife’s hand in his, and the five children who would carry forward, in whatever form, the legacy of a journey begun in faith.