Ex-General Loves this “Odorous” Fruit

 By Mortz C. Ortigoza

Many folks in the gargantuan Province of Pangasinan don’t have any iota of knowledge as dictated by their olfactory system how the King of Fruits’ durian smell when it permeates the thin air.

When my two sons ventured to haul this pungent and thorn-covered rind stuff and other Mindanao’s fruits (This yokel went back to the “unprofitable’ pen pushing, er keyboards pounding profession, his loved of his life after guiding them the nuances of getting the stocks in the Southern Island) and bringing ‘em here in the Kingdom of Princess Urduja through a lorry and plane, they are immediately besieged by the presence of high purchasing middle class of the Northern Luzon’s province every time they opened, of course with presence of the missus Miles, the temporary fruit stall in front of McDonald – Tapuac in Dagupan City.

Strategical location to snare the human traffic, eh?

Customers who regularly patronized our weekly crates full of the export variety Puyat Durians, Malaysian variety D-101 durians, Arancillo, and Thailand variety’s Chanee were Pangasinan Fifth District Congressman Ramon “Mon-Mon” Guico, III, former Police Three-Star General, Ex Nine-Year Congressman, and incumbent Capital Town Lingayen Mayor Pol Bataoil, San Manuel, Pangasinan former mayor and present Vice Mayor Alain Jerico Perez, renowned lawyer and Mangaldan Councilor Joseph Emmanuel Cera, and other members of the “Illustrado Class” as what my Davao City based classmate Resty Pancho quipped upon seeing these privileged class acquiesced to my request to have a photo ops with either them or my two kids carrying the prickly thorns fruits that if not handled property can hurt some skins.

FANATICS. Durian “zealots” (from upper photo clockwise) Presidential Adviser for Northern Luzon and  Cagayan Special Economic Zone (CEZA) Administrator and Secretary Raul Lambino and author showing to all and sundry the Davao durians, marangs, and other Mindanao fruits, San Manuel former mayor and incumbent Vice Mayor Jerico Perez with author’s kids Nico and Jigger,  Capital Town Lingayen Mayor Leopoldo Bataoil, and Pangasinan Fifth District Congressman Ramon “Mon-Mon” Guico.

Did I hear somebody scream the name of Solicitor General Jose Calida? Hahahaha!

“Pag mag train ka doon sa Maguindanao pag panahon ng durian everybody eats durian. Kami naman na mga taga Luzon tikim tikim kami. Then eventually nagustuhan na namin. First tikim parang alanganin pag na accustomed na ang taste bud mo and iyong smell para bagang naano na siya its just a delicacy na na condition ka and later on you crave for it,’ Bataoil, who was a three-star police general, told this writer his first encounter of the cultivar whose full-bodied creamy and mild sweet-tasting flesh can be addictive, when he was first assigned in Parang, Maguindanao.

He narrated to me his adventures in Mindanao as a young alumnus of the Philippine Military Academy Class of 1976 and as Philippine Constabulary’s Second Lieutenant prowling the jungles and the boondocks to kill warriors of the Moro National Liberation Front in Maguindanao and the elusive hit and run guerrillas of the commies’ New People’s Army in the provinces of Davao, Agusan, and Surigao.

“Noong 1976 pag graduate namin sa PMA dinala kami sa Cotabato ang unit namin ay 54^th Ranger PC Batallion. Lahat kami nag-graduate PMA na 1976 na Easy Group ginawang platoon leaders iyan dalawang batallion 57^th at saka 54^th PC Ranger Batallion. At saka meron pang isa ang PC Brigade noong araw. Tatlong lugar iyang pinagdalhan sa amin mga combat battalion ng mga PC/INP.”

His first deployment in 1976 as training officer of the new PC recruits in Parang, Maguindanao where he trained these newly recruited infantry units of the Constabulary (a gendarmerie-type police force founded by the Yanks in 1901 and ended by the Philippine Congress in 1991) and minted them to be a “killing machine” versus the bad guys operating on these provinces I mentioned recently.

“During a lull in the operation against the MNLF I told my men not to spend their siesta under a durian tree because the falling lethal sharp thorns of the fruits would kill them instead of the bullet of the enemy,” he once told reporters during the Mindanao First Fruit Festival held at the Capital town September last year.

 Geez, as a teenage growing up in the Promised Land (as dubbed by U.S tutelage’s Common Wealth Government under the Flips, er, Filipinos' President Manuel Quezon) I remember a saying in Indonesian, ketiban durian runtuh, which means "getting hit by a durian",

I learned later that there is a Bald Durian, susmariosep, growing in Davao and Malaysia where it is spineless and could be safe to the soldiers of then Lieutenant Bataoil to have their nap under its tree. The Malaysians and those in Borneo, an Island just below my place in Mindanao, called the Bald Durian as “Durian Botak”.

 Nope baby, they ain’t the slang word of Takbo or Run (reverse of Butak) coined by Manileños.

The former Congressman said that his family except the youngest daughter loves to eat the “exotic fruit” considered as one of the most expensive fruits in the world.

“My wife and kids eats durian except one. Camela when she was small I bought her along sa Cotabato City kasi and that time she was only about three to 15 years old nag stay kami doon she ate durian. During her younger days nasanay siya doon. Ngayon iyong pangalawa ko she never liked durian,” Bataoil, who was a former Metro District Commander of Cotabato City recalled his assignment in the war torn Mindanao particularly in the province known as Kutawato where I spent 16 years of my life after we migrated from PMA, Baguio City to join my military father reassignment there in the middle of the 1970s.

When he texted me via Facebook’s Messenger to buy the export variety Puyat Davao and Malaysian D-101 in August this year, this writer could still remember the longing of the nostril-and taste bud of the general when he first encountered the fruit during his first assignment in Mindanao.

"I'm craving for them, Mortz," he quipped.

"I could not blame you General sir. You were once a favorite son of Cotabato, Maguindanao, and Agusan Provinces when you were a young graduate of the PMA," I retorted as I asked Galman and Abbie, our two salesmen at our Davao Fruits Stand to prepare the species scientifically called durio.

The Javanese in Indonesia believe durian to have aphrodisiac qualities or one that stimulates sexual desire.

When some radio commentators visited me at the house and quaffed my Jack Daniels while they make pulutan (finger food) the butter liked creamy durian pulps and bitter-sweet Davao mangosteen, media men Atong Remogat, a descendant of Sultan Durio of Borneo, and Ruel Camba argued emphatically that the prickly rind fruit is an aphrodisiac.

To pacify them I quoted a Java, Indonesia axiom: Durian jatuh sarung naik (Durian falls and the sarong comes up).

Sarong (we called in Cotabato as Malong) by the way is a large tube or length of fabric, often wrapped around the waist of a man or a woman who  either wear or not an underwear there.

READ MY OTHER COLUMN:

The General Who Saved Mindanao

(You can read my selected columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too at totomortz@yahoo.com)