The Fish Market of My Town

By Mortz C. Ortigoza 

“I am a follower of your Facebook Page. I always “liked” your posts,” a blond haired morena held my left elbow and told me in Ilonggo inside the fish market of my town.

“Sino gani kamo ? (Who are you by the way?)” I posed a question smiling.

“Si Susan Soriano Agustin of Bialong. Classmate ko sang highschool si Glory Ann Balajadia (I’m Susan Soriano of Bialong. Glory Ann Balajadia (a stunner-author) was a classmate in the secondary school),” She retorted.

She told me to buy fish at the section owned by her younger sister who became my school mate in my five years in high school at the Protestant College in the rustic town.

“She’s the partner of Dalay ( a successful  businesswoman who lived in Sitio Baluarte),” by referring to a mestiza looking woman, probably in her late 40s, named Marecon .

FISH SELLERS' PALS. (Above photo clockwise) From left: Author, Shaira Jean Soriano, Fish Czar Dalay Soriano and life's partner Maricon Lamintac, and my avid Facebook Follower Susan Soriano Agustin. Other photo: Author, Susan, and a certain former Miss Rubio my neighbor and schoolmate who lived at Magsayo Compound, Inas in Mlang, Cotabato.

“Ano apelyido ninyo?” I asked her.

“Lamintac “

“Ano niyo si police nga Lamintac?”

“Tatay ko”

“Baw linte. Di ko malipatan si tatay mo rival ko ina siya kay Miss ABCD (controversial lass who consorted with married men in the early and mid 1980s)( Damn, I could not forget your cop father we were rival to that lady who was controversial),” I jested about my experiences in the middle of 1980s in the landlocked town dominated by Ilonggos.

Both Susan and Marecon and their pretty niece Shaira Jean Soriano, probably in her early 20s, guffawed.

“Ano mo si Ba-o (turtle in Ilonggo, woman’s  private part among the Pangalatoks) atong ga baligya ka isda sadto (How are you related to “Ba-o, the fish seller then)?

“Lolo ko,” she quipped.

“Atong Ba-o nga tiyo mo nga ga escuela sang college sa SBC (How’s your uncle Ba-o who studied college at SBC)?”

She said her uncle Raffy, the pitch dark, susmariosep, funny man who was a common fixture in front of the waiting shed at SBC , died a long time ago.

***

This met up with my townmates happened while I was leaving our ancestral house near SBC at dusk and I paced for exercise sake the almost one kilometer length to the Dako nga Balay in the plaza, I stopped by the fish market located at the old Slaughter House and yelled at Susan.

“Tag pila bangrus niyo (How much is your milkfish)?

“P160 ang kilo,” the morena looking Susan said.

When I told her to give me two kilos so Jenjen Laxamana Hermo, the Ilocana-Kapampangan operator of my brother’s Kamalig Water Refilling Station, could cook sinigang nga bangus, Susan gestured to the location of Dalay who was at another section talking with two guys probably her gofers.

I went to Dalay and greeted her: Happy Birthday to my rich trucking business person classmate.

We exchanged pleasantries until we recalled our highs school reunion held at her huge bodega at Baluarte.

“I saw you talking with Rodolfo Pioquinto, the proprietor of Rodencar Hardware who was assassinated last year in his new shop in Barangay Sangat,”   she cited.

“Oo, he is a friend in Pangasinan but married the daughter of former policeman Jaromay of Barangay Langkong”.

I told Dalay he was there because the four Fundadors I bought for my male classmates to quaff ran out at 10 pm.

“I called him by phone to bring the new white pick- up truck he bought in Calasiao, Pangasinan (the moneyed Torreja brothers of Sangat bought their Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs) in Pangasinan because they were cheaper- Author) and buy me at his expense another four bottles of Fundador”.

When I was paying my almost two kilos of bangus, Dalay scooped by her hands a P300 per kilo of tiger prawns and squids (pusit in Tagalog and lukos in Ilonggo) from General Santos City and told me they are free adds on since it was her birthday.

“He is a journalist!” she crowed to all and sundry in the fish market, located at the old slaughter house, to hear.

Wow. Thanks Dalay and Marecon for your generosity. Time to go back at the Mercury Drugs to buy my anti-hypertensive tablet Losartan because Jenjen, my niece by affinity, would no longer be cooking Sinigang na Bangus but the sumptuous high cholesterol Sinigang na Pasayan, sanamagan!