• Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

author and editor

  • Home
  • About
    • Interviews
    • Sources
  • Books
  • Other Books
  • Media
    • Blog
    • Travels with Cecilia Manguerra Brainard
    • Creative Writing Tips by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard
  • Contact

Mactan 50 Years Ago and Now

August 25, 2018 by admin

Mac­tan, 50 Years Ago And Now

By Cecil­ia Manguer­ra Brainard

The last time I vis­it­ed Mac­tan, I stayed in a five-star resort with a man-made lagoon in the mid­dle of clus­ters of hand­some Colo­nial-style build­ings. It felt like a pic­ture-per­fect vil­lage with well-appoint­ed rooms, pools, ten­nis courts, and won­der­ful restau­rants. The spa offered a vari­ety of mas­sages and had won­der­ful hot and cold pools with cas­cad­ing falls. The beach fronting the sea had fine white sand (bought by the ton and dumped there to cov­er the rocky shore).  There were horse-drawn car­riages, a for­tune teller you could con­sult for fun, and I even saw mer­maids in the lagoon – fake but fan­ci­ful crea­tures that round­ed-out the sense of being in a fan­ta­sy world.

There are many sea­side resorts such as this one in Mac­tan, and I had to reflect on how dif­fer­ent Mac­tan is now, com­pared to what it had been when I was grow­ing up.

When I was a child and liv­ing in Cebu, the Island of Mac­tan was a dry, unre­mark­able place that we vis­it­ed only once in a while. Despite being only 8 miles away from Cebu, Mac­tan seemed cut off by a deep chan­nel. Before bridges were built, we had to take a fer­ry to get across, and it was a major expe­di­tion to pic­nic there on beach­es that had jel­ly­fish and spiny sea urchins. We chil­dren pre­ferred the Cebu beach­es in Tal­isay or Liloan where we would swim, go clam­ming and eat lechon, atsara, puso (rice in woven pack­ets), and my favorite con­sil­va or caramelized sliced plan­tains. The beach­es of Mac­tan did not offer such a vari­ety of local delicacies.

My moth­er, how­ev­er, who was a devo­tee to the Vir­gen de la Regla of Opon (for­mer­ly Lapu-Lapu) liked to vis­it Mac­tan with me in tow because she had been at the fies­ta of the Vir­gin when her birth pains began and she had to rush back to Cebu to give birth to me. My moth­er enjoyed telling me how the Vir­gen de la Regla had cured my grand-aunt from a seri­ous med­ical prob­lem, and in grat­i­tude for this mir­a­cle, my great-grand­moth­er, Reme­dios Cuen­co, donat­ed a pair of dia­mond ear­rings to the Vir­gin. The ear­rings, my moth­er said, would some­times adorn Our Lady dur­ing her Novem­ber fies­ta. The jew­el­ry was a con­nec­tion between “her” and “us” and I felt, even at a young age, that I could count on the Vir­gen de la Regla for help if I need­ed it.

The folksy vis­its to the De la Regla Church in Opon were spo­radic, how­ev­er, and the Island of Mac­tan remained that “small island across the channel.”

Some­time in the 1950s, the air­port in Lahug Cebu was trans­ferred to Mac­tan, and because I attend­ed schools in Mani­la, Mac­tan became a reg­u­lar ter­mi­nal stop when I trav­eled to and from Mani­la on school breaks.

The time when Mac­tan grabbed my imag­i­na­tion was in the late 1960s when the Amer­i­cans built an air base there. The Viet­nam War was at its height from 1965 to 1968, and Mactan’s Amer­i­can Base housed the 772nd and 774th Troup Car­ri­er Squadrons and oth­er ser­vice­men on R&R there. I recall being sur­prised to fly home one vaca­tion time and find­ing young Amer­i­can men walk­ing the streets of both Mac­tan and Cebu. Sud­den­ly both places were rock­ing with honky-tonk bars and accom­pa­ny­ing col­or­ful girls.

I was a teenag­er then and my girl­friends and I noticed that some of these young Amer­i­can men were “cute” – tall, young, good-look­ing, but although no one actu­al­ly spelled it out to us, we knew that “good” girls did not date Amer­i­can sol­diers. Even though we were born after World War II, we had heard sto­ries of young women dur­ing that war end­ing up with GI babies, na-dis­gra­cia — dis­graced. Despite this strict rule of con­duct, some young women we knew would occa­sion­al­ly date Amer­i­can sol­diers and we would run into these young men in par­ties. Those of us in the “good-girl” cat­e­go­ry were always mild­ly scan­dal­ized that these “loose” girls ran around with these sol­diers. But frankly, even those of us in the “good-girl” group were not entire­ly inno­cent. Once, three of us girls picked up an Amer­i­can sol­dier in Cebu, and we drove to Mac­tan and dropped him off near the Amer­i­can Base. One of the girls was flirt­ing with him, but I was too shocked by the “wrong­ness” of what we were doing that I zoned out and missed out on what went on.

But sex­u­al mores aside, I did watch TV news and read news­pa­pers and mag­a­zines, and as ear­ly as 1963, had tucked away in my mind images of Viet­namese Bud­dhist monks who had set them­selves on fire to protest the South Viet­nam regime. I was start­ing to puz­zle over how Amer­i­ca, a demo­c­ra­t­ic coun­try, could prop up the likes of Viet­namese Pres­i­dent Ngo Dinh Diem. And like­wise, in the Philip­pines, I was begin­ning to scru­ti­nize Amer­i­can sup­port for Pres­i­dent Fer­di­nand Mar­cos, who by that time was start­ing to exhib­it an author­i­tar­i­an streak.

By 1967, when these Amer­i­can sol­diers were in Mac­tan and Cebu, I had an under­stand­ing that the US was inter­fer­ing in Viet­nam. I had feel­ings of love-hate towards the Amer­i­can ser­vice­men who in my eyes rep­re­sent­ed Amer­i­ca. Love, because Amer­i­ca was still what I read about and saw in movies – wealthy and beau­ti­ful, and yes ide­al­is­tic, at least in the Democ­ra­cy it spoke about. Hate, because America’s “slip was show­ing,” mean­ing, I was start­ing to see the dark side of Amer­i­ca, the side that was will­ing to sac­ri­fice non-Amer­i­cans to get what it wanted.

I became aware that Amer­i­cans them­selves ago­nized over their country’s involve­ment in Viet­nam. They were con­flict­ed, and I under­stood that Amer­i­cans were divid­ed on this issue. Years lat­er, I would even be sur­prised to hear my father-in-law, a retired gen­er­al who had served in Viet­nam, say, “We didn’t belong there.”

The Amer­i­can ser­vice­men over­ran Mac­tan and Cebu for a few years. Before the Viet­nam War end­ed in April 1975, the huge num­ber of Amer­i­cans in Mac­tan and Cebu petered out. Even­tu­al­ly, the Mac­tan Air Base was turned over to the Philip­pine Air Force. The honky-tonk bars and col­or­ful girls van­ished along with the young men who had walked the streets – my streets — of Mac­tan and Cebu. Now, 50 years lat­er, the mem­o­ry of the Amer­i­can Air Base and the Amer­i­cans in Mac­tan has grown dim and dis­tant, like ghosts, almost forgotten.

~end~

(First Pub­lished in Pos­i­tive­ly Fil­ipino, Sep­tem­ber 27, 2017)

Cecil­ia Manguer­ra Brainard is the author and edi­tor of 20 books includ­ing her recent nov­el, The News­pa­per Wid­ow (Uni­ver­si­ty of San­to Tomas Pub­lish­ing House, 2017). 

Tags: #Philip­pines #Mac­tan #Cebu US Air Base, his­to­ry, Fil­ipino, Visayas,  #Viet­namWar #trav­el

Filed Under: Nonfiction Tagged With: Cebu, Mactan, Personal Essay, Philippines, Vietnam War

Welcome!

I am a daugh­ter of the Philip­pines and an adopt­ed daugh­ter of Amer­i­ca. I have also trav­eled to many places so I am also a daugh­ter of the Earth. My expe­ri­ences have found their way into my sto­ries, which try to depict char­ac­ters caught in impor­tant moments in their lives, sit­u­a­tions that force them to act, make deci­sions, change. I try to see the world from my own point of view, not the dom­i­nant West­ern one, thus my inter­est in his­to­ry, cul­ture, and set­ting. But my char­ac­ters car­ry my sto­ries; they are the most impor­tant in my sto­ry-telling. I have to dive deep into them to under­stand their human­i­ty – their good­ness as well as their bad­ness, their beau­ty as well as their ugli­ness. Just like us. Just like each of us. I need to know where they came from, where they are now, so I under­stand where they are going. Just like us.

Please read my full biog­ra­phy here

 

LET’S GET SOCIAL

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Search this site

Featured Book

When the Rainbow Goddess Wept

View Book

Say Hello

Cecil­ia Brainard
c/o PALH
PO Box 5099
San­ta Mon­i­ca, CA 90409
USA

Let’s Get Social

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Recently on the Blog

  • Cecilia Brainard’s Selected Short Stories Wins 40th National Book Award in Short Fiction
  • GROWING UP FILIPINO 3 Book Launches and Talks 2023
  • Carlos Bulosan Book Club Launches Growing Up Filipino 3

Copyright © CECILIA BRAINARD 2023 · DESIGNED BY FANCY GIRL DESIGNS