Small Town Life in the Philippines

Currently living in the city of Glendale , 59 year-old Aracelli Dajay now works as a nurse and living a joyful life helping other people in the community. She wakes up everyday ready for work and even stays up late at night at times when necessary. Her pet dogs are always there to accompany her at home as well. She was born in a small town named Banga, South Cotabato in the country of Philippines . Throughout her life, she goes through many fun times and difficulties in the duration of her lifetime in Banga yet had to decide whether to stay or come into the U.S. Aracelli enjoys sharing stories about the good old days and she recalls the days in Banga quite fun and quiet and there are times when she misses it but wherever she is, she’s always proud of being born in such a great town.

                                                                                I lived in the town of Banga , South Cotabato . When I was growing up, the town itself had a specific schedule for its people and it’s mostly about transportation. You have to do your transportation during the day time since at night, there is no more available transportation to get you home, so if you have any business of going to another town, you make sure you finish that business trip throughout the day. People there didn’t have a lot of money to be able to afford their own car or any kind of vehicle so usually the citizens would just pay to go somewhere and usually you reach your destination without any difficulty.

The town itself was pretty small, probably had maybe about 10,000 people. I didn’t pay attention at that particular time but it seemed like a small town to me. We knew who owned each house in the area. I knew where the pioneers’ houses were located but since then, there have been a lot of newcomers.

If there was a big event happening amongst the neighborhood, the source of news was pretty much reliable but, you know, you could see that there’s some gossip involved in what’s going on. We usually would know whether the source was true or not because the news is not usually written. At the time there was no written local newspaper but only a written national newspaper which is for the whole country, not in the town. The news basically just travels by the word of mouth. If it’s some kind of killing or something then it’s big news yet people knew how to protect each other. Most especially at that time, when the radio system was in place, the crime rate had gone down because people would get in attached with each other.

During celebrations, like family celebrations, people go to their relatives’ houses but that kind thing is just a side of the celebrations. Huge celebrations for the town like the fiesta are when people would go to a specific town hall or town plaza to celebrate. Every gathering or if a parade occurs, it would be at the town plaza. The meals are one of the most important part in celebrating, there’s always that Lechon, you know, roast pig so that’s usually where the center of the event in eating. It’s not a big thing if there’s no Lechon.

The education in schools there was quite successful. The medium instructions are in English and the teachers are very strict in conducting the classes, you know, you don’t have any opportunities to play around because the teachers would just report you to your parents. You parents will then punish you or maybe even both your teachers and parents would give you a punishment.  So that’s why the students there are very serious in going to school, even so, they had no way of escaping it. During my time, the teachers would also have a stick that they could just hit you, but I have not really heard of any teacher abusing a student. They would just use it to kind of give you a little tap on your hand or whatever if you are no behaving properly.

The main religion in the town was Catholicism. There were other sectarians but they were the minority so the majority of the population followed the religion of Catholicism and become Catholics.

The thing that I enjoyed most about my town is how quiet it is. While I was growing up there, we didn’t have to be afraid of anything and there was not a lot of crime and we could just go out and have fun. Kids could just do whatever they wanted after school and there’s no care of somebody intruding so kids could just roam around. We weren’t afraid of what’s going to happen to us.

There are days where I just want to relive the time when we would go shopping in the little market there and, you know, eat and have fun. There would be more people than usual during the market days which are during Wednesdays and Sundays. Many people would be coming from other places selling their things such as merchants. There are a lot of things for sale so people would go out of their holes and enjoy the day.

When I graduated from a nursing school, I went to Manila to seek for some job abroad. I applied for Iran , Canada and U.S. but it so happened that there was an interviewer from the U.S. that came when I was in Manila . So I went for an interview and I was uh given the job offer right away and I took the opportunity of coming here but the things that I enjoyed back in the Philippines are the reasons why I return there once a year.

                                                                        Interview by Jay Gedorio