By Maricon Gelera Latoja<\/p>\n\n\n\n
(The author is the eldest daughter of Francisco Bermejo Latoja and Elizabeth Brillante<\/em> Gelera. She is an assistant professorial lecturer at De La Salle Unviersity Manila, and a<\/em> research writer-editor at DLSU Angelo King Institute. She is the favorite grandchild of<\/em> (the late) Ladislao Gelera and is set to inherit all the recipes of her grandmother,<\/em> Veronica Gelera.)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Mention Villa and this image unfailingly comes to mind: the concrete steps leading to the uphill area where the Church is located. At the age of three (3), those steps were my \u201cstairway to heaven.\u201d Climbing those steps was long, tiring and precarious, hence caution was necessary. A wrong slip and one could end up with a broken ankle or dislocated hip, worse, a head injury. So climb we did carefully. Little did I know then that those steps would make for a great metaphor: climbing it is similar to overcoming the challenges that accompany the desire for a successful life in the city, and the concrete of which it is made of is akin to the sense of attachment I will always have for Villa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I come from a generation of Villahanons who grew up for the most part in Manila \u2013 I breathed city air, fed on urban values and paid the price to ride the vehicle of modern dreams. Like most of my contemporaries, I carried the torch of hope my parents passed on to me. I was raised on the conviction that education is a passport to the good life, and that perseverance and honest work could actually lead you to a life far greater than what Villa could ever offer. I went to private schools that cost far too much than what my parents were making in terms of income. But my Nanay was adamant – to her, a good education was the only gift she could give me to ensure my future. The pressure to do well academically became a measure of the potential to succeed, so my school age years revolved only around two areas: home and school. Social interaction was limited to playing with friends, cousins and relatives who come over from Villa to spend a week or two in our house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Life in the metropolis is probably too seductive to resist that very few bother to think about the costs involved \u2013 the dislocation, the adjustments, and all the expenses that go with trying to have a life within the city\u2019s modern standards. Manila life was very fast paced, but our family adjusted to the urban sense of time. And in the process of imbibing urban values, some things that were particular to being a Villahanon began to erode. In my case, these were language and family ties. Because our family is Manila-based, the first thing to slowly cave in was my facility with the Waray dialect. I grew up speaking mostly Tagalog at home, and English at school and at work. When I was young, Waray was spoken only by adults and was reserved for serious conversations. Although I can still perfectly understand Waray, I cannot write in it and my grasp of Waray words has diminished significantly through the years. I can still speak it (mostly just to my Nanay) but not with the same level of comfort and confidence as I had when I was a kid. Now, I can only stare in wonder while Lola Eca (my grandmother) and Ate Baby (my cousin) talk animatedly in Waray, complete with hand gestures, about the recent and juiciest topics involving our Villa-based relatives. It\u2019s like a movie that I could only watch but no longer be a part of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The other major change exacted by city living was the ties with close family members and relatives, which got looser as most of them were herded to foreign lands. Economic and practical reasons had taken precedence over the need for proximity and family togetherness. Hence, my father chose New Jersey, Rodney chose Saudi Arabia, Regina chose United Arab Emirates, and other relatives chose either Norway, Canada or different parts of the United States. The irregular flow of emails, the infrequent rain of text messages, the once-in-a-blue-moon phone calls and the ten-minute Internet based chats have now replaced birthdays and other special occasions celebrated in their company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite these changes, my affinity with Villa stays strong. Like those concrete steps, it remains intact even if it may have been weathered by time. I have been to a number of great places yet there are memories, texture and tastes, which are distinctly Villa. And I connect them all to persons close to my heart. I can tell from a plateful of samples which de ca\u00f1a, torta or moron is made by my Lola Eca. And there is absolutely no one who can rival the way I cherish the memory of my Lolo Ladis \u2013 my maternal grandfather, my first teacher, my Superman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like other Villahanons, I dream of a prosperous Villa. I dream of a Villareal that can show the rest of the Philippines so much more than the concrete steps leading to the Church area \u2013 a place whose provincial road doesn\u2019t turn into a swamp during the rainy months, a sensibly and efficiently governed municipality with rising household incomes, where trade is active and local industry activities are flourishing, a hometown with infrastructures in place to make it a worthy tourist destination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I am a Villahanon. Like my contemporaries, I am part of the giant answer to the challenge of developing my hometown, of adding to the number of concrete steps that will eventually and proudly put Villa on the Philippine map. I am a Villahanon and I will do my share in making Villa a place that will proudly be ready for the next generation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Maricon Gelera Latoja (The author is the eldest daughter of Francisco Bermejo Latoja and Elizabeth Brillante Gelera. She is an assistant professorial lecturer at De La Salle Unviersity Manila, and a research writer-editor at DLSU Angelo King Institute. She is the favorite grandchild of (the late) Ladislao Gelera and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/villarealsamar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/villarealsamar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/villarealsamar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/villarealsamar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/villarealsamar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=501"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/villarealsamar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":502,"href":"https:\/\/villarealsamar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501\/revisions\/502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/villarealsamar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/villarealsamar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/villarealsamar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}