A Place Called Malatapay

 A PLACE CALLED MALATAPAY

By DF Deloria

  IT WAS ANOTHER ORDINARY WEDNESDAY, a market day at a small place called “Malatapay” for most Filipinos particularly the ones residing in the town of Zamboanguita and other neighboring municipalities in the province of Negros Oriental, Philippines. Malatapay is a famous and favorite tourist destination of both local and foreign. It is situated in the town of Zamboanguita 28 kilometers south of Dumaguete City. Malatapay’s wharf is also the nearest point to one of the country’s world-renown diving spots – the Apo Island - that scuba divers from all over the world would love to visit now and then to experience an underwater wonderland filled with a myriad of tropical fishes and different shapes and colors of corals.

 Every Wednesday in Malatapay, as early as 4:00 in the morning, you could see stalls already set up even along the National Highway and doing brisk business. Piles of variety of fruits, vegetables and root crops were laid on the ground, or on the tables or wherever a vacant space is available. As you begin to enter a narrow road leading to the mini-port, it was already filled with both traders and customers. Stalls were lined both sides of the road with array of goods being sold. Whatever homemade and native product you want for your home, you probably would get there. There was something for everyone. By 8:00 o’clock the place would already be overly-crowded with people going in and out as well as trucks and tricycles carrying livestock products and squeezing in the narrow road. Even a motorcycle could not easily pass through from the entrance way up to the wharf.

 As you continue down the 4-meters passage and would reach mid-way where the livestock area was located, you can see a line of domestic and farm animals like chickens, pigs, goats, cows, carabaos and even horses being led to a gated enclosure few meters away from the road and being traded. As you move to the quay, you can start to smell the appetizing aroma of fresh fish and pork meat being grilled from the line of makeshift huts busily serving other variety of local food delicacies such as the all-time favorite “kinilaw or binakhaw” (a fresh fish eaten raw but superbly spiced up with different condiments), “tinolang isda” (fresh fish cooked for about 10 minutes in a boiling water and mixed up with sliced tomatoes and chilli), or a hot “linat-ang baka” soup (stewed beef). One order of a steaming bowl of hot “linat-ang baka” soup with chunks of tender meat would all be enough for a heavy meal or if you are nursing an upset empty stomach or headache from hang-over. These Filipino delicacies would usually be paired with well-cooked cornmeal, or with “sinakol” -- a well-milled corn grain cooked inside a long bamboo tube sticking out in a clay pot filled with water and cooked by steaming. After cooking, you just have to gently tap and shake the bamboo tube and slowly then a cylinder of steamed cooked corn grits will slip out. Usually it will be placed on a banana leaf and will be cut into an inch thick circles ready for serving. If you don’t like cornmeal particularly if you are a foreigner or a local residing outside the southern part of the province, there is the “puso” to choose of. “Puso” is a cooked rice wrapped in a heart shaped woven strips of coconut leaves. If still, your taste buds will not like it, there’s always a ready cooked rice in the rice cooker.

 Not far from those lined small eateries, your eyes would also certainly catch attention of one or two pigs twirled slowly over a bed of hot coals. This well-roasted pig is called “lechon” – a quintessential Filipino recipe. This will be chopped off to pieces and will be sold at 400.00 – 500.00 pesos a kilo in the late 2018 way up. It used to be twice cheaper several years back. After a bite of a small piece of that crunchy and juicy “lechon”, its very good taste would surely linger in your mouth that you would crave for more and even would make you lick your fingers.

 Preparing “lechon” every Malatapay day was just a very ordinary task for Michael. His job every Wednesday morning was to gradually rotate a pig attached to a long rounded iron bar (usually two pigs on two bars) over a bed of hot burning coal but not flaming until all parts were evenly and well-roasted, and then he would also make sure all would be ready by 11:00 in the morning when people would start to crowd the vicinity to find good dish for lunch and eat. That’s where he was getting paid off and already a reliable source of income that can bring enough food on their table for his family. He was doing that for more than ten years. He was able to provide his family their basic needs and he was also able to slowly purchase for himself some of his desired items such as clothes, pants, watch, cellphone and even a motorcycle on an installment basis. Everything was so smooth and business was doing very well that his employer was also getting a good sum of profit every Wednesday. There were even times that they had to add up one more pig when two weren’t enough for the day as customers still flowed in until dusk.

 But that was almost two years ago. Those good old days came to an abrupt end when the COVID-19 pandemic struck the country last March of 2020 and shook all business operations nationwide. Malatapay was also forced to shut down at the start of the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) and ‘lockdown’ implementation of the entire country. Malatapay’s every Wednesday normal hustle-and-bustle scenario was gone. The place turned into a ‘ghost town’. No single activity as the entrance was manned by cops and a roadblock was put up. It went on for several months until it was recently re-opened for commercial activities. But business was no longer as robust and alive as before. Most small-time operators permanently closed their small businesses there and transferred to another more lucrative location. Only a handful are re-operating at present but will wrap up early too. Livestock trading also went downhill that by 10:00 o’clock in the morning the area will be closed already. The usual time of the day in the past and pre-pandemic years when the place was full of life and became so overly-crowded with people from different races and walks of life, and all types of vehicles crawling in and out that even a needle will not drop. Today is a lot different. You can no longer see and experience that scenario nowadays.

 So for Michael, the every Wednesday routine that was supposed to be exciting and just another piece of cake became somewhat tough and heartbreaking. His simple task of preparing “lechon” that used to be so easy for him to do, now seems to be so hard to start and finish everytime it will flash at the back of his mind that there will be no much buyers to come actually, plus, the number of health protocols he has to undergo first every Wednesday that made things even more complicated. Their "lechon" sale, after re-opening, also flunked down that one roasted pig can no longer be sold entirely throughout the day.

 Well, it’s always true that some good things just won’t last. He just have to accept the reality that there is always “ups” and “downs” in this mortal life. But everybody’s hoping and praying that everything will return to normal after this pandemic.

 God willing.