@ 40

That’s in 1968. Among the million events that happened all over the world that year, a batch of 200 boys and girls finished high school at what was known then as Divine Word College, now Holy Name University in Tagbilaran.

Tagbilaran then just became a city, but it was so awfully small and sleepy that any stir at one end of it would most likely be felt in no time at the other end. Everyone knew everybody else. A newcomer was immediately spotted.

Aside from the Cathedral, the public market and the schools, the other places where we tended to go ‘to see and to be seen,’ were the two or three movie houses which were still showing wholesome movies.

Now, of course, I realize that at that time the city was already into a quiet, hidden but intense ferment of change. No matter how isolated, it could not help but be affected by what was happening in the country and the world in general then.

Marcos was still into his first term. The socio-economic and political atmosphere was still relatively peaceful and stable. But one could already detect traces of dark forces lurking around.

In those years, I never heard my parents talk about budgeting. There was total trust in God’s providence. Though we had our share of hardships, quite common in many families, miraculously we fared rather well. We just worked and did what we thought were the practical things to do. God did the rest.

I seldom went hungry, because as a last resort there was always the sea to get some mollusks from during its low tide. My siblings and I survived with something like a 10-centavo daily “baon” to school, but I didn’t hear any complaint. Envy was kept low. I also raised hogs. Life was fantastically simple.

The movies started retiring the Amalia Fuentes-Susan Roces tandem, and began to show the likes of Divina Valencia and Stella Suarez. That’s when I started going to the movies less and less, in spite of my free passes, courtesy of the owners who hired by father as their lawyer.

When I went to Manila for college, I was exposed to a sharper contrast of a more innocent age that was slipping away and a supposedly “enlightened” generation that was coming in.

I, for sure, would have gotten lost in that kind of environment, if not for the fact that I did not have money to go around and get involved in some experimentations. I must say, poverty saved me.

That, plus, the fact of course that I met some good friends who always brought me down to earth whenever I stupidly thought I could fly to some make-believe world. They became my prophylaxis.

The environment I’m referring to was that of a liberal, free-thinking, free-dissenting and free-loving one, where you could smell marijuana both in the classrooms and in the boarding house. And smut was just around the corner. Its icon was the hippie movement.

Agitation and student activism gripped many school campuses. Many of my college classmates went underground. Alongside these were the discos and the bad films many of my contemporaries got hooked to. Discipline and obedience to authority almost disappeared from the horizon.

The Church situation was not spared. Many crazy experimentations, especially in the area of liturgy, were made. The sacraments, especially confession, emptied of their sacred nature, became either just a social event or a purely personal affair with no social character.

There were a few theologians who seemed to have specialized in doctrinal dissent. Many priests abandoned their cassocks and would wear them only during demonstrations against the government. Vocations dwindled. Doctrinal error and confusion spread. Scandals exploded.

Sad to say, many of these things that I saw in Manila found their way to my province. It was a painful sight. But God has his ways.

During the class reunion we had recently, I can’t help but think of these things, and tried to discern the hand of God guiding us through all these years and the many things we still need to do.

It took me effort to recognize many of my classmates. Time and its vagaries have left surprising changes in us. But on the whole, I found everyone happy and the class spirit vibrantly intact still. Thank God!

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