On the street where we lived

Where do you live?

"Fifth Avenue." Wow! The reporter’s heart rate sped and regretfully flat- lined when I added, "…in Grace Park, Caloocan, Rizal."

Grace Park was not a white, picket-fence type of a neighborhood. It was a misnomer in fact for we had no parks or picnic grounds; only factories, foundries and warehouses with rows upon rows of corrugated roof and plywood structures to house the hardworking daily wage earners.

However, it was a mecca for builders, manufacturers and the relentless merchants who walked our dusty, unpaved roads, wiping beads of cider sweat. Here is where we gave a face to toil and tears. In Grace Park we had everything that was essential to life and commerce: tin, aluminum, rubber, kapok, foam, white appliances, plastic ware, balloons, candies, kropek, vegetable oil, etc. Strong, muscled men loaded them by the bale and truckload. The key word was volume.

Why we relocated here was my father’s sole decision, against the counsel of family and friends. He wanted to be in the same street where they set up a factory, literally just a stone’s throw away.

In 1937, on a modest capital of P50,000, my father Arturo and his brother Hermogenes shook hands to put up a rubber shoes factory in a 350 sq. m., one-story building in Grace Park. With 30 workers, they made 200 pairs of shoes a day under the brand name Daylight. In four years, the compound grew into seven separate factory buildings in a one-hectare lot. They now made 1,000 pairs of shoes daily. When business stabilized, my father involved the rest of the Jacinto brothers and sisters, thus Jacinto Rubber and Plastics Co., Inc. was created. World War II left the factory in ruins but it resumed operations in 1946 under the brand name "Custombuilt Jayson’s." When the factory celebrated its silver anniversary, it employed 550 workers capable of turning 10,000 pairs of shoes with branches in Cebu and Davao and a labor record which was clean of industrial strike or unrest.

Fifth Avenue became a shoe hub because our next-door and proximate neighbors were also in the same business: Don Toribio Teodoro and his Ang Tibay shoes and Don Tomas C. Geronimo with his own brand, Elpo. (Elpo was a contraction for El Porvenir, which means "the future," and opened for business in 1933. The impressive Elpo Compound covered two blocks on 2nd and 3rd Avenues).

After heavy rains, 5th Avenue would resemble the moon with deep potholes and craters. Because it was the regular route for heavy, cargo trucks, the asphalt road never lasted, making pebbles and loose dirt more practical. Talking about eating dust? It was our morning cereal!

A nephew, architect Alejandro Arellano, designed our house. Red brick roof, heavy stonewalls, iron grills – it looked like a fortress standing sentry in a post where there were no enemies! Our immediate neighbors lived with very basic, even frugal means. But it was in the bare and innocent simplicity of our surroundings that gave rise to happy and unforgettable moments.

My mother could not stop us from inviting children from the street; rather, it was more exciting to play out in the street! Games like tumbang preso, patintero and luksong tinik kept us ruddy and smelling of sun. When the stomach groaned, we would simply run to Mang Goh Po’s sari-sari store for some hot and steaming pancit canton wrapped in banana leaves and yesterday’s news.

Under the mango tree, I traded my Junior Classics Illustrated for my neighbor’s Pilipino Comics that greatly improved my written Tagalog and got me hooked on Mars Ravelo and his serialized stories like Darna and Dyesebel.

Garden parties were strictly for the grownups, so we had to contend with our view from the balcony. Mother made sure we didn’t completely miss out by sending up catered food from Selecta. Whenever my older sisters had proms and soirees, I got a five-centavo bonus for weaving a hand corsage made of sweet jasmine or sampaguita blossoms picked from our garden. The dama de noche growing next to our bedroom sweetened the cool evening air and the mad profusion of bougainvillea provided an all-summer canopy above the iron gates.

Across the street, the Elpo Compound had a huge Olympicsized swimming pool and a big dancing pavilion that made it a perfect venue for fabulous parties, jam sessions and beauty pageants. Marilou Verano remembers meeting celebrities like the "Mambo King" Tito Puente, Xavier Cugat and his Latino band, the Platters, Neil Sedaka, the Harlem Globetrotters, right in their own backyard.

Because six families lived in the same compound, it was easy to hold impromptu parties, which were usually hatched by their Tito Vicente. Nephews and nieces would dance and choreograph steps all through the night, unmindful of the late hours. Dancing was infectious and fun with the Geronimos. Cousins Eddie, Priscilla, Tito Garcia, Marilou, Boying, Joy were mainstays of the original easy-dancing TV shows, such as Dancetime with Chito, and Penthouse 7, popular in the late ‘60s through the ‘70s.

In the Ang Tibay compound, Don Toribio was generous with housing and recreational facilities for his employees. They had a beautiful chapel with glass-stained windows. Marfina Teodoro remembers her grandfather requiring the whole family and employees to attend Sunday school and services in the compound plus designating every 27th day of the month as thanksgiving day and a memorial day for departed co-employees.

Don Toribio also owned the Manila Grand Opera House so the family was never short of entertainers. Veteran stage actors like Kathy de la Cruz, Pugo, Lupito, Patsy, Dolphy, Pilita Corrales, the Carding Cruz Band, etc. would be seen partying in the compound, wowing guests, family and employees alike.

Every Chinese New Year, a makeshift platform would suddenly appear in front of our house for the annual "Poh-teh-he" – a phrase that we coined to describe the traditional Chinese opera staged with lavish props and costumes by the local Chinese community. The orchestra played the cymbals and other indigenous instruments with vim and vengeance that could wake up the dead and indeed, turn the living to sleep-deprived zombies!

Grace Park was home to people of diverse backgrounds and attitudes about life. Even if the social strata cut across different levels, the community was generally God-fearing, peace-loving, humble and decent. Squatters were beginning to sprout in the libis or open field but they too kept pretty much to themselves.

It was in this environment that a "pay-it-forward" spirit inspired the founding of the Rotary Club of Caloocan in 1959 with my father as a charter member. When interviewed by Manila Bulletin’s Willie Ng on October 6, 1960, my father addressed four issues to make Caloocan a better place to live in: 1) Make Caloocan a city since it contributed over 70 percent of the total revenue of Rizal province; 2) Invite more industries to move to Caloocan instead of losing them to next-door neighbor, Makati; 3) Add more roads to link Caloocan to the other parts of Manila (instead of just the Rizal Avenue extension) and 4) Establish a comprehensive housing plan to address squatting.

My father recognized especially the danger of fire breaking out in factories. Through the Rotary Club, the family donated a sub-station in a 200 sq m lot complete with a two-storey structure along Highway 54 (now EDSA).

In the late 1980s, Fifth Ave. was ap-propriated by the government and was turned into the wide and bustling C-5, linking Caloocan to other parts of Metro Manila and cutting travel time in all directions. My mother eventually sold the family house to a publishing company and retired with her Bible studies and church activities.

The fire sub-station that was donated to the City of Caloocan is still standing but it was poorly kept. An old, utterly useless fire truck is parked in its garage, like a relic. When I asked the weary-looking fireman why it was allowed to deteriorate, he directed me to the DILG office because all fire stations fall under its jurisdiction. Could this be the very reason for its blatant neglect?

The Geronimos sold the Elpo Compound in the early 1970s and their shoe factory is now the main office and depot of Baliwag Transit. The Ang Tibay compound burned down in the 1980s and stopped production under that name. Marfina, however, together with her brothers Toi and Alfy, has proudly continued the legacy of their grandfather with their shoe companies, Martinelli and Alpha Footwear and her own line of toddlers’ and children’s leather shoes under the brand name Striders.

In retrospect, some grand plans were fulfilled while others came unfurled. The three families that spearheaded growth and progress in Grace Park and provided livelihood to a combined work force of about 3,000 ran into trying times from which some bounced back while others moved on.

When Fifth Avenue disappeared, each of our lives was altered. Alexis Loinaz once wrote, "While we can adjust to change, it will also remind us of what was and will make us be more grateful for what we have now."

The street of our youth has long passed – that’s progress. It has not, however, diminished our appreciation for the wealth of spirit that enriched us and influenced the choices we made.

Thank goodness, memories come free.

– With contributions from Marfina Teodoro of Ang Tibay Shoes and

Marilou Limjuco-Verano of Elpo Rubber Shoes