TWO PLACES in my home province of Antique bring back pleasant childhood memories. One is the “split river” where my elementary-school classmate Joe Escartin and I used to swim on weekends. The other is the upland site of the Antique National Agricultural School (ANAS) in the town of San Remigio.
In that decade of the 1950s, the barangay was known as “barrio”. Our barrio San Pedro in San Jose enjoyed the distinction of having two river tributaries that emptied into the nearby seashore. It was actually the mouth of the Sibalom River divided by a wide sandbar. We called the farther and deeper one “suba mayor”.
There are no longer two of them. They have become one, what with the sandbar already gone, and the river has stretched so wide that titled lots on opposite banks have eroded, no thanks to unabated quarrying of rocks, sand and gravel.
More than half a century has passed since our last swim in that river. The mouth of the river is now clogged, heavily silted and darkened by mud deposits. Based on studies made by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), it could endanger the environment and residents.
Fast forward to the present: Joe broke to me the good news that a Manila-based corporation is interested in dredging and reclaiming the land mass, and that he would talk to San Jose mayor Elmer Untaran about it.
The site could then morph into an ideal seaport at the mouth of the river, a transit point for vessels carrying goods from or to other Philippine ports.
Joe and I also talked about government neglect of what used to be the cool rolling hills of San Remigio, which used to be the location of the Antique National Agricultural School (ANAS). The school relocated to another barangay in the town of Hamtic long ago.
Today’s young Antiqueños are not aware that San Remigio in the 1950s was way ahead of other Antique towns in its journey to progress. It had electricity and telephone lines.
My late dad, an ANAS teacher, would occasionally take me there on horseback for a 30-minute run from our barrio of San Pedro. We would gallop back home with a sack of cabbages and watermelons which I would peddle around the streets.
The recent win of first-time San Remigio mayor Mars Mission – an entrepreneur-franchisee of JD Bakeshop – could be the key to restoration of the town to its lost glory as San Remigio’s equivalent of Baguio City.
The finished road network linking San Remigio and Leon, Iloilo would eventually be opened to vehicular traffic, which would cut today’s travel time between Iloilo City and San Jose, Antique from three hours to only two. No doubt, the reroute would initiate tourism and revitalize agricultural trade along the way.
This could be food for thought for Antique’s aggressive lady leaders, Gov. Rhodora Cadiao and Cong. Loren Legarda.
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Our Mommy Neonita Gobuyan, retired head of the Philippine News Agency (PNA) in Iloilo City, contributed the following observation.
“As in the immediate past, the governor and vice governor of Iloilo belong to opposite political camps. But by working harmoniously with each other, both have gained national recognition. Governor Art “Toto” Defensor has been elected as deputy secretary general for Visayas of the League of Provinces of the Philippines and Vice Gov. Ting-ting Garin, as vice president for Visayas of the Vice Governors League of the Philippines.
“Congratulations!” (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
