I Built It and They All Came: The Piñahan of Our Dreams

- Forget about the seemingly egotistical title that would be the only time it will be about this author.

It was not an original idea at all. Fresh, yes, but still more of a creative adaptation. FaceBook, rather one of its members, has sprouted a new fad for social interaction. The seemingly harmless and unobtrusive “You know you are an (insert your group here)...” group invitation that asks you to complete the sentence based on anecdotal experience. It was almost always open and non-restrictive but purely bounded by respect, self-discipline, and a lot of self-deprecation. The facts will surely out the impostor or at the very least correct a long-held, protected or otherwise created reality of a member. It was totally unwise not to join the bandwagon and I wanted to be in the front outer seat so that before it overturned it would be easy to jump! Thus “Taga-Cannery ka kung...” (You are from Cannery if...) was born. It was a perfect complement to my recently created blog about traveling to my Hometown. Purely coincidental and yes highly opportunistic.

For the uninitiated Cannery is the Dole Philippines Cannery (The Pineapple and now more other food Company) at Polomolok, South Cotabato in the island of Southern Mindanao in the Philippines. Say where? Yup even up to now with Google Maps and Google Earth it would be quite difficult to explain the geographical location of what I and apparently many more fanatically claim as our “Hometown Paradise”. Thanks to Manny Pacquiao it would be much easier to explain that it is a 20-minute hour drive from his two mansions in General Santos City.

The first post which I now believe was sheer luck on my part to have written because I actually fired off almost 20 in a row was about Badin or Baden pronounced and spelled according to your tongue’s dexterity but never ever with the American twang for “a” as in ey-pol (apple) rather “a” for Achtung (I swear many would claim Hitler was “BisDak” Bisayang Dako). Badin was our one and only beloved homeless man. Well homeless is not even the right term because he would actually live in 3 different houses of very nice and welcoming families. His movement is dependent on the amount of housework available for him to do in either of them. He was an amiable guy, harmless. He had a thousand and one personalities though depending on one’s perspective. Young kids feared him mostly due to the parents making him look like the boogie man. He was a drinking buddy for some. He wasn’t perfect, he had his flaws but our community accepted him. It was frowned upon when kids or even adults would try to harm him. I could not say it before but I know it now we all loved him! There and then talking about this guy the community grew exponentially. My mailbox was filled with requests for membership from friends, acquaintances, and a lot of people I could not remember. I added friends even with just an inkling of connection to Cannery. It was spectacular. It was sweet. I felt like Mark Zuckerberg in the early days of Facebook, really!

202 members in 24 hours and 235 unique posts. Not much you say but imagine that 80% of this people have never seen or talked to each in more than 2 decades! It was comparable to amoeba fed with sour milk. I added more Admins. My notifications went crazy. I egged it on. I knew of friends online who were there still, even from the very beginning just like me. We were crazily competing for the most memorable posts! The most number of comments! All agreeing that if we tell an outsider about how the company would use a truck to wet the dirt road going to the city with pineapple juice to get rid of the dust that they would all think we were not just crazy but has the tallest tale of all!

We would all have looked stupid laughing on our own in the wee hours of the morning. Some were online on the dot during lunch break, coffe break, dismissal time, in between rests from doing laundry and taking care of the kids. I wonder how many children were surprised they were sent to bed 2 hours earlier than usual! Members from different time zones would suddenly pop up during their day time. It was like a perpetual machine. And then I had to sleep and I had the most amazing dreams about my childhood!

And when I woke up it was already a world of its own. A Wikipedia of our wonder years. A Wikipedia of our Soul! We rebuilt the Piñahan of our Dreams on the web. And now it will forever be immortalized. Honed and refined but most importantly revisited and cherished. Three generations linked to a community of less than a hundred houses who I’m sure would have all said a prayer or two for Badin :-).

If you know Bisaya (both Illonggo and Sebuano) visit our open group Taga Cannery ka kung... If you have a picture of Badin please PM them to me.