Trip to Bicolandia
At exactly 4:00 p.m. the following day after making a hasty preparation, the three of us were on an AM bus bound for Magallanes, Sorsogon, where the ancestors of the Bicolano Vergaras where supposed to have come from. The bus would go as far back as Bulan where passengers for Masbate would get off to transfer to a ferry boat. I thought the bus would go straight along the coastal road to Magallanes, a trip of perhaps 30 minutes or less. Instead it turned back with five remaining passengers towards Manila and in Juban, turned left to a winding road towards the coast. I was wondering at this long detour. Only later would I learn that it was probably the increasing communist guerillas' activity in the barrios along the coastal road, not the deteriorating conditions of the road. This would be verified the very next day.
Fifteen hours after leaving Quezon City, three hungry, sleepy and dead-tired passengers arrived at Magallanes 625 kilometres south of Manila. The few passengers were greatly outnumbered by enthusiastic tricycle drivers who promised to drive us anywhere we wanted to go. Because we did not know anybody, we decided to walk around. Eventually we had to reveal the reason for our presence to a few onlookers who were really dying to find out what we were really on about. A question on where José Mella Vergara lived was answered right away, and we were hustled like sheep to a waiting tricycle. Some 5 minutes afterwards, we were taking advantage of the hospitality being offered by the sought gentleman and his wife, Rita Mortega, the parents of two Augustinian priests. José was recovering from a stroke. He was a retired Secondary School Principal. Rita used to be a Primary School teacher. A son, Fr. Manuel M. Vergara O.S.A., Ph.D., holds a very important position at the University of San Agustin, Iloilo. The younger brother, Fr. Arlon, has been a missionary priest in South Korea for eight years.
After resting, we were asked to take part in a luscious lunch of fresh alimango and alimasag, bisugo, lapulapu and 'ginataang laing' with gabe and rice. José informed us many things about the Vergaras in Magallanes. According to the original story as told in the book written by Ricardo Vergara of Bato, Catanduanes, Oligario and three brothers were natives of Magallanes. Oligario was stranded in Catanduanes after a typhoon, and married a lady from the landed gentry. Another brother went to Bacacay, Albay. The third brother stayed in Magallanes and the fourth one wandered up north and 'disappeared' from history. José's parents, originally from Bacacay, went to Magallanes during the 1920's eruption of Mayon volcano.
One of my aims in this journey is to find out who the descendants of the brother who had stayed in Magallanes. José could not tell anything about them. The youngest son, Arden, drove us around the town. Unfortunately there had been an electricity brown-out so that Rusty could not re-charge the videocam battery that had gone flat. Consequently the beautiful sights from the town pier of the islands and the sea would just be etched in our memories. Arden, a medical technologist, introduced us to his boss, (you would not believe it, a Vergara descendant from the Ilocos region!). Dr. Irene Vergara Ella, originally from Balungao, La Union, was the current Medical and Health Officer of Magallanes. Her parents' names are included in Ilocandia clan list. She was more than willing to share her Vergara clan details. It was such a small world as I found out that she was a classmate in the medical school and a very close friend of my second cousin on my father's maternal side. Her son, Virgilio Vergara Ella, Jr., an A.B. Philosophy graduate, and Arden, stored the genealogy program from the Church of the Latter Day Saints and the entire web copy of the 'Vergara of the Philippines' from the CD ROM disk that I have been carrying around. It is just a thought, but I could not help pointing out that for the first time the some descendants of the three major branches of the Vergara family from Bicolandia, Ilocandia and Central Luzon, were together for the first time.
Still the descendants of Oligario's brother remained a mystery. Arden and José mentioned the existence of many Vergaras in the barrios of Salvacion and Sin-oton alond the coastal road to Bulan. Sin-oton was claimed by the local people to be the where the first Mass was said to have been held when the Spaniards 'dicovered' the Philippines in 1521. I presumed the Vergaras there were the descendants of Oligario's brother who had stayed in Magallanes when his three brothers had left their place of origin. I could not check this because I have been told of the wisdom to stay away from the said places where there was an increased level of NPA's presence and activity. This must be the reason why the bus we had come by had avoided the coastal road and instead taken the much longer route inland to Magallanes. It was revealed that two years ago, the municipal hall had been badly damaged by fire and a few policemen had been killed when the communist rebels overran Poblacion. There was nothing to fear but I was pretty sure they were aware of our presence here.
Arden introduced me to Mrs. Melina Labin Vergara-Balimbing who came from Salvacion, one of the those two barrios along the coastal road. She claimed that they were all descendants of the 15 of the 18 siblings who had left Bacacay for Magallanes. The three other siblings had stayed behind in Albay. If this was true, then the Vergaras of Magallanes had all originated from Bacacay. Where are the descendants of Oligario's brother who had stayed behind in Magallanes? Did he produce only female descendants and the Vergara surname on his side disappeared in history? Did he remain childless? Did he really exist? If not, where had the Vergaras of Bicol originated as it was originally claimed they had their origins in Magallanes?
The following day after thanking José and family, the three of us left for Bacacay. José had written for us a letter of introduction to Arsenio Vergara who he addressed as 'primo'. Arsenio's father, Crispín, had founded the first high school in Bacacay in 1948. An asthmatic from childhood, Crispín had been among the first students of the Thomasites, the Americans who had come to the Philippines aboard the ship USS Thomas in the 1900's. Dying at the age of 48, he left a school which is now kown as Zamora Memorial College. His son, Arsenio, was the current Director of the school. Unfortunately we did not meet him as he had left for Legaspi on a business that day. His wife, Aida Ante Bes-Vergara gave as much information as she could recall on her in-laws' details.
In the make-shift bus terminal, the bus despatcher was in a friendly, talkative mood. So was I! José Artista's sister was married to a Vergara. As I was trying to dig out his Vergara connections, his brother-in-law all of a sudden was speeding in a tricycle. The actor (I mean José Artista) dutifully left his despatching post to chase Rogelio Vergara. A few minutes later the brothers-in-law were both eagerly collaborating on behalf of the Bacacay clan to contribute to the grand Vergara Family project right to the time when the bus had to leave Bacacay.
The bus bound for Manila from Bacacay had to waited for some time in the terminal at Tabaco. A ferry boat from Catanduanes was soon to arrive with passengers some of whom were bound for Manila. The idea of jumping onto the ferry boat to be moored in the Tabaco pier which plies between Tabaco and the island of Catanduanes was seriously entertained by myself. If it had not been for my two companions and serious time constraints, I could have been in Catanduanes the same day. Instead we were back in Bulacan 6:00 a.m. the next day, January 18. During the long trip back to Manila, I did not have the courage to display my talent in the on-board videoke singing. I did not want to be blamed for the dark clouds behind which Mayon volcano continuously hid as the bus wound its way through the towns at the foot of the volcano. The original plan to proceed north of Luzon or call in at Los Baños in which crossing the bus had passed through around 3:00 a.m. was also dropped.
A couple of days after, we made it to Los Baños, Laguna where Dr. Nap Vergara of the Mangatarem, Pangasinán clan showed us the different sights and features inside UPLB and Los Baños town proper. Angeling, Nap's wife, had prepared some delicious snacks in their place after which Nap shouted us (again this is an aussie slang) at a hefty lunch in a beautiful resort somewhere in Bai, Laguna. Rusty and I were definitely losing the battle of the bulge. We also met a long time friend, Bino Flores, originally from Hagonoy, Bulacan. He just lost his wife who had borne him three children. He was also looking after a one-year-old child whom they had adopted before his spouse's death.