Does the supposedly newly-implemented Anti-Noise ordinance apply to our part of the City? In our immediate Daro neighborhood, I can’t help wondering.
I live in a small bungalow-type house built in 2005 for my late husband’s and my retirement here in our old family compound along Aldecoa Road, a block away from the SU Medical Center. Next door is my twin sister in the larger, older l950’s two-story wooden house that was my late father’s. Decades ago, my siblings and I left that house to discover on our own what we could do with our young lives.
My father was involved “hands on” in the construction of his house, with the professional help of family friend, Gil Severino Sr., of the SU Buildings & Grounds department. My ever practical-minded father had drawn up its compact floor plan that wasted no space within the house. (When the Divinity School built its first housing project for DS personnel behind what is now Coco Grande on Hibbard Ave., SU adopted his floor plan for the houses. In time, those houses would become general University faculty housing. DS housing was moved to the present SUMC site, before ending up in is present location along Aldecoa Rd as the Divinity School Village.) I remember my excitement when we could finally move into our own house after living in rentals before.
Our Daro area was sparsely populated then, in the middle of coconut and banana groves, and scraggly clumps of guava trees among narrow grass-grown dirt paths with carabao wallows traversing the landscape.
At the corner of two dirt roads (that in the future would become Aldecoa Rd. and Ipil St) stood a big kamanchili tree, rumored to be inhabited by dili pareho nato (those not like us). When my father dared to trim some of its branches, our superstitious neighbors expected something bad would happen to him. Nothing did.
(On the other hand, decades later, pushing for the Senior Citizens building to be built on the site, an elderly American dared to cut down the tree, and died soon after, which the neighbors attributed to the tree’s other-worldly powers.)
Neighboring Laguna to the east was closer to the SU campus. In comparison, plus the fact that the City center was farther away, Daro seemed isolated from the “action.”
Since there were no real streets then, there were no street lights. The area was pitch black at night, except for the lights filtering out from homes. (Coming home at night after choral practice or some campus event was always anxiety time. For us girls, aside from the imaginary rapist waiting to ravish us, we were concerned about walking straight into a grazing horse in the dark, as did happen once to our cousin: returning home one night, he was rudely startled when he found himself almost about to kiss a horse’s face! I wonder now why we didn’t carry flashlights–the impracticality of youth?)
In our area, the houses were spaced far apart to allow for front-and-back yards, as well as gardens. There were still empty fields where pythons were known to live. Our immediate neighbors then were fellow-SU families, the Decenteceos and Ebarles (newly-weds Ben & Eve Bokingo briefly); Mrs. Dionaldo, whose young children attended SU (her husband was the mayor of Jimalalud); Tikay (janitress at SU who was always bitching about something); the young couple Berting (carpenter) and his pretty wife Mary; the skinny widower-cochero who, with his drinking-singing companions, disturbed the quiet of night on more occasions than I can remember.
Scattered within the groves of trees throughout the area were smaller homes of native materials. A sad Daro Market on the north never took off, but Daro then was best known for a thriving pottery industry. Ours was a small part-urban part-rural community with professionals and non-career families (cocheros, labanderas, handymen) who raised chickens and pigs in their backyards, fed their friends at fiesta time, and whose fighting cocks challenged each other in greeting the arrival of each new day.
The present bustling site of the SU Medical Center used to be the quiet lab site of the SU Agriculture department. Mr. Simeon Futalan and his family (son Allan Futalan, now a well-known lawyer) lived there as caretaker (Simeon also worked at the SU High School).
During those early years when the Water District’s service was still frustratingly incompetent (daytime low water pressure forcing us to collect water at night, or completely dry faucets for extended periods when the pumping station in Piapi got flooded after heavy rains), we were grateful for Simeon’s permission to fetch water from the more dependable SU water source in his compound.
The nearby Silliman athletic field with its track-and-field oval and wood-and- nipa grandstand was seldom used by the University, and served as our playground where we rode our bikes and flew kites.
Sometimes we would climb up to the highest tier of the grandstand for a different perspective of our house in the surrounding sprawl of trees and fields.
But our excitement would turn to disgust when we would catch a whiff of an all-too-familiar smell, and see the pile of “turdish” evidence left in plain view on the wooden tier. Alas, some irresponsible neighbors, mostly children perhaps, used the grandstand as their private toilet.
The University’s half-hearted attempts to fence in its athletic field were always foiled by neighbors who had no respect for private property. They would cut a hole in the wire fence large enough to go through, or knock down portions of the fence so that their horses, goats, and pigs could graze or root around in the grassy area, leaving their droppings all over the field. (That was of practical use, however, when my father would sometimes send someone out–not my sister or me but maybe my brother, definitely the help–to collect some horse droppings to fertilize the plants in our yard.)
We always knew when an important event was about to take place on the athletic grounds because of a flurry of sprucing-up over a number of days by a crew from the SU B&G. It was either for the annual University intra-mural sports contests, or whenever SU played against visiting teams from other schools, such as the SU-UP Dual Meet, as well as provincial and regional meets. (When we joined the audience on the grandstand, those of us who knew its “secret” would say a silent prayer when we had to sit on the wooden tiers).
The SU Physical Education department’s regular show of mass folk dancing and calisthenics by students (called “mass demonstration” before the term got appropriated by militant activists) was always a huge draw for the Dumaguete community. Then our quiet corner of the world would become lively and loud with the excitement of crowds. And after they left, our life would revert to the quiet of an isolated neighborhood.
But we were generally content living where we were. Except when we needed a ride home from the SU campus or downtown. The horse-drawn tartanillas, then the leg-powered tricycles which replaced them that we called pedicabs were often reluctant to take us because our area was tuluyo-on or layo (far).
Often, we would end up just walking home, good exercise unless the sun or rain was beating down hard, in which case we had to be willing to pony up more than the regular fare.
But oh, the peace and quiet reigning over our barrio, accentuating the beauty of nights when the moon would climb up a clear sky above the coconut grove edging the athletic field: the scent of flowers in the air, fruit bats flying about, fireflies encircling a bush in our front yard; tiny frogs chirping like birds in our small man-made pond; the tuneless call of crickets, the snort or neigh of a horse grazing outside our fence; sometimes the dark suddenly broken when a short line of men with torches would emerge from a banana grove and head for the sea to fish.
And later in bed, when the wind was right, I thought I could hear the timeless surf from the beaches of Piapi and Looc. More definite were the sound of boat and ship horns from the harbor announcing their arrival or departure (three blares for arrival, two for departure). I would know when huge foreign freighters were at the harbor because their deep booms bounced off the mountain, their echoes floating, lingering in the dark over our slumbering town.
I would live abroad for more than 30 years, and, had I not been making balikbayan trips, the changes in my Daro neighborhood when I retired here would have made me identify with Rip Van Winkle when he awoke from his long sleep.
The coconut and banana groves have been mowed down to make room for new streets and buildings. The huge SUMC enterprise sprawls where used to be the Agriculture grounds and surrounding individually-owned family lots that were acquired by the SUMC. (Of irritation to us area residents is the failure of SUMC to provide adequate parking for its staff and clientele whose vehicles clog the side of streets outside our fences, blocking our gates. It’s a major problem that should be addressed by SUMC before they continue adding more buildings inside their compound.)
Across SUMC is the now well-maintained fenced SU athletic grounds used frequently for various activities (sporting or otherwise), with a brand-new grandstand with office space on the ground floor donated by business-man alumnus Julio Sy.
Also inside the compound now are modern toilets, the archery range, the Col. Roman Yap Hall (after its Alaska Trading and SU trustee emeritus donor) where the ROTC offices are, and the SU Power House. The gate to the compound that’s locked at night is manned by a security guard. Two SU-owned horses for its pangpa-display-lang tartanilla graze inside.
Now, paved well-lit streets crisscross our area: beside our property, Aldecoa Rd, a busy, noisy major thoroughfare running east and west, with its line of businesses: drugstores Mamita, Crown, and DOH; pensions, carinderias, a smoke emission testing center. 
What used to be a nondescript dirt road is now Ipil Street where the two-story Office of the Senior Citizens Affairs and its botica stand. Across from it where the Decenteceo property used to be are: the Senior Citizens Center, and a big concrete building housing diverse businesses: Alima Cafe (a spinoff of KRI Restaurant), Pinili Dental Clinic, Tru Dermatologe, and Sure Care Agency. (Behind them are good friends and neighbors, Rudy and wife Dr. Erlinda-Lim Juan). Where the Ebarles used to be is now Sta. Theresa, an eatery.
Gone is the once-thriving pottery industry because, I’m told, the clay supply was depleted (the few potters left now sourcing their clay from Pulantubig).
When I came home for good, my father’s property had been greatly reduced in size when my late brother, deciding to retire in Antipolo, sold his inherited share.
No longer is our main gate located along Ipil Street, but fronts busy Aldecoa Rd instead. I wept when the new owners cut down my father’s fruit trees one day to start construction of a multi-story business building next door.
For a long time, however, the enterprise came to a standstill when it was involved in court litigation, the unfinished building an eyesore in the neighborhood. (Those who mistakenly thought our family still owned the property would ask us why we weren’t doing anything to finish the building.)
When the case was finally settled, the new owners finished the five-story building, and added a very tall firewall between it and my father’s old house.
The whole first floor of that new building is now a brightly-lit 7-11 store. At first, my sister and I were anxious about all the noise and traffic the business would generate. To our surprise and delight, that tall wall keeps out the noise completely, and the store traffic is no problem. In fact, unless one knew it was there, the 7-11’s presence is barely noticeable to us.
Our once residential area is now zoned business-residential with businesses predominating. Our family compound is among the few left still mainly residential.
If we were younger, we would probably move elsewhere because of the noise level from Aldecoa Rd. The traffic, a continuous cacophonous river of noise (including frequent ambulance drive-bys with screaming sirens) picks up at 7 AM, lightens somewhat at 7 PM, and only abates around 2 AM, the cycle resuming again the next day. But I’ve accepted the fact that it’s here to stay. I can live with that. Granted, hailing a ride is also easier.
But what’s an aberration are the sleep-rousing, conversation-stopping muffler-tampered motorcycles that gun their motors with impunity. That’s why I wonder whether our area is covered by the City’s Anti-Noise ordinance. It would be great if traffic-policing personnel could just spend some time by Aldecoa Rd during the day and some nights. I can guarantee they’ll reap a harvest of fines off the noisy motorcycle-riding scalawags, as well as noisy motorized tricycles. But I may be wishing for the stars.
Meanwhile, I can just try to mollify my irritation with homicidal thoughts–my favorite fantasy: I own a machine gun which I keep ready at all times. When I hear those cocky, arrogant law-breaking exhibitionists approaching, I stand by our gate in anticipation, waiting, waiting; when they’re within range, I aim, aim and fire–spraying, raking the riders unsparingly, mercilessly, blasting those *#! SOBs and their infernal machines to kingdom come!
Madahan? Haay, I wish!
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Author’s email: billmirnsweet@gmail.com
