So what’s so extraordinary
about him? It just so happened that he – Miguel Guevarra Lingat – has been
blind as a bat since birth.
“Ige” – as those close to
him, our family included, fondly call him – is never batty though. No matter
the daily rigors of climbing the steep, narrow, winding and enclosed staircase
to the church belfry to ring the bells.
For as long as I can
remember, there has never been a campanero
in our parish church other than Ige. And no other than him too who can really
make the bells distinctly sound the message intended, be it celebratory or
funereal.
If fading memory still
serves right, there is the palagad –
slow one-two-one two cadence of the big bell to call the faithful to early
morning Mass – which turns to siyam –
nine continuous dongs from the big bell signaling the start of the Mass, and
the dupical – continuous turning of
the small bell at the end of the Mass. It is the dupical too that accompanies baptisms.
In those days of my youth
in Sto. Tomas, we knew from the punebre -- the slow tolling of the bells to announce
death in the parish – the gender of the deceased: the big bell for a man, the
small one for a woman.
Never been married, Ige
made bell ringing his lifelong vocation. Even on Good Fridays when the church
bells fall silent, Ige does his chore of calling the parishioners to join the
night’s procession with the matraca –
a clapper of wood and metal.
For his services to the
church, Ige has received special citation and blessing from Archbishop Paciano
Aniceto himself, and public recognition from the local government unit.
At the 2010 Most
Outstanding Kapampangan Awards rites, it was the turn of the province to honor
Ige with a special award of recognition. Instead of making a speech, Ige played
the harmonica as his way of expressing his acceptance of the award. That
geysered in me more memories of Ige from the childhood onto young adulthood I
spent in Sto. Tomas.
From the third week of
October, leading to All Saints’ Day, groups go from house to house at night
singing the gosu – the life of a
saint, usually Sta. Lucia – and ending with a prayer for the poor souls in
Purgatory. It is some sort of Halloween trick-or-treating mixed with caroling.
Ige made himself a
permanent solo fixture of the gosu
with his harmonica, playing simply the melody.
Not so extraordinary feat
there, you may say, what with the likes of Jose Feliciano with his guitar,
Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles with their pianos lording the global music scene
in their times.
So how about this yet
another facet to Ige’s multi-tasked life? That of being Barrio Poblacion’s
one-man aguador?
Before the waterworks
system finally came to Poblacion less than ten years ago, households drew their
potable water supply from those Magsaysay pumps, which later morphed to
artesian wells.
With the tambayuc – a bamboo slat over his
shoulder, from where hung two tucung
– oil tin cans filled with water he himself pumped out of the wells, Ige made
his way house after house filling the tapayan
with the day’s supply of water.
So how did he know the way
to each house, I once asked him.
“Bibilangan ku ing takbang ku. Pakirandaman ke ing
pali ning aldo keng lupa ku ampon deng misasabing tau. (I count my steps. I feel the warmth of the sun on
my face (whichever side is heated). And I listen to the sounds of
conversations).” Indeed, he could distinguish people by their voices.
Some years back, he was
passing by our house when upon hearing me talking to my mother he blurted: “Cesar, ati ka pala. Komusta na ka?
(You’re home. How are you?).”
Extraordinary too is Ige
being once known in town as the “Incredible Digester.”
That title he got from his
unbelievable capacity to gorge on a variety of food in one seating which earned
him too some money from the side bets: clean-up he wins, left-over he loses.
In one “contest,” he
finished one large bilao of bibingki (rice cake) downed with three
“family size” Sprite. In another, it was three small bilaos of pancit guisado (noodles) and a dozen pandesito, again with his favorite
drink, Sprite, by the liters. Then there were too 20 pieces of balut at one time and eight large
watermelons at another. Never did Ige lose in any of them.
Sightless, it was awesome
for Ige to have served for long as the ears and mouthpiece of the local folk
when it came to the latest events in the community, tsismis not excluded. He put to flesh the umalohokan (town crier) of yore.
Ige got his information
from the corner sari-sari stores – the socialization sites of rustic Sto. Tomas
– as well as from the households he serviced with his water deliveries.
Pre-Pentium times, the
fastest way to circulate any information around Barangay Poblacion at the time
was to have it overheard by Ige. Especially if it came in the tone of a
conspiratorial whisper.
For national news, Ige
relied on the transistor radio tied to his waist. His favorite programs were Lundagin Mo Baby of Johnny de Leon, Ito ang Inyong Tiya Dely of Dely Magpayo
and Kahapon Lamang of Eddie Ilarde.
Ige got the greatest joy of
his life when one time he heard Ilarde mentioned his name and read a story
about him published in a national newspaper through the then Department of
Public Information. Ilarde ended his spiel with a dedication to Ige of Freddie
Aguilar’s Bulag, Pipi at Bingi:
“... Madilim ang 'yong paligid, hating-gabing walang
hanggan
Anyo at kulay
ng mundo sa 'yo'y pinagkaitan
H'wag mabahala,
kaibigan, isinilang ka mang ganyan
Isang bulag sa
kamunduhan, ligtas ka sa kasalanan…”
Blind bellman. Blind
musician. Blind water carrier. Blind town reporter? And magnificent eater, on
the side. Miguel Guevarra Lingat is the star of folklore, the stuff of
legends.
SO I first wrote here in December 2010, after the
Capitol’s citation bestowed on
Pampanga’s unarguably ablest PWD, reprinted now as a tribute. On July 1, Ige
crossed over to ring the golden bells by the very gates of heaven.
Extraoedinarily heartwarming indeed.
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