Growing up in the floods of Malabon

Malabon is called “The Venice of the Philippines” because it gets flooded with the slightest drizzle. Even when it does not rain and the sun is shining bright, it is flooded during neap tides. The reason is that Malabon is low-lying and two rivers run through it. At times like this, when it rains every day, the rivers overflow their banks and flood Malabon’s streets and homes.

Malabon folk have learned to live with the floods, however. In fact, children even enjoy it. They play and swim in the little swimming holes created by the floods in their backyards and the streets. And adults are ready to take off their shoes and roll up their pants to wade in the flood. Most homes have calendars that tell the height of the tides so they can prepare for them. If you drive through Malabon, you will see that many houses are built on stilts. That is their answer to the floods.

It is also in Malabon and neighboring Navotas where the World War II amphibian landing craft are still in use. The amphibians are used to ferry fish catch from the fishing boats anchored offshore to the Navotas fish port. During floods, they are put to use to rescue stranded people or to ferry passengers through the flooded streets.

I remember that when I was a boy growing up in Malabon, the start of the rainy season was something the children looked forward to. First, there were no classes most of the time. Second, we could swim and play in the Catmon river any time because it was swollen. And third, sometimes the fishponds overflowed their banks and the fish escaped and it became a free-for-all as the folk chased the fish in the shallow waters in their backyards with whatever trap or fishing contraption they could find.

During especially heavy rains and high tides, we would go out into the streets and watch the tide overflow the river banks, creep up and spread through the streets. When the water was deep enough, we would start swimming in the flooded streets. The older boys would swim in the river, and the biggest ones would dive from the wooden Catmon Bridge to the swollen river below.

At that time, Malabon was crisscrossed with fishponds. Only earth dikes separated the ponds from the river. Mangrove and giant kalapinay trees lined the banks of the river.

Crabs burrowed through the earth dikes and during high tides or floods, you could see the water flowing out of these holes. These holes got bigger as water flowed through them. Sometimes the dikes were so weakened both by the widening holes and the immense pressure of water pushing against them that they would collapse. This was a tragedy for the fishpond owners. The fish escaped and they lost their investment. But it was fiesta time for the people. They caught all the fish they could catch, and some families had free fish for a whole week.

We lived in a house in a compound located in the middle of fishponds. It was a beautiful place. It was surrounded by kakawati trees that bore pink blossoms in September. Some of them had bougainvillea vines climbing over them, so we were surrounded by pink and red flowers the whole year.

There were huge tamarind, santol, guava and camachile trees in the compound, so there was always somewhere to climb and some fruits to eat for children like us. My mother and only sister cultivated flower gardens and my older brothers cultivated a vegetable garden, so we always had plenty of flowers and vegetables. My cousins made sampaguita garlands and I was made to hawk them in the streets of our barrio.

During the rainy season, we would sit at the window and watch the water creep up the banks of the ponds. All the lots around the pond emptied their excess water into the ponds and, during stormy weather, the water level rose quickly.

A species of fish called liwalo or martiniko mistook the water gushing from the lots down the banks and into the ponds as a stream. So they swam upstream and climbed up the banks of the pond, using their spines to climb, and once up on land, they swam in the shallow waters of the flood. From our windows, we could see them swimming and splashing in our yard. Then we would go down and catch them with bamboo fishtraps called salakab. You put the salakab over the fish, then reached down through a hole at the top and grabbed it. We kept the fish in stoneware jars filled with pond water, fed them morsels of rice, and caught them for viands as needed.

Our house in Malabon had a basement. When the fishponds overflowed their banks, the water entered the basement, and with the water lots of fish. When the flood receded, water, with fish in it, was left in the basement. We could hear them splashing in the basement. We did not catch them all at once, but caught only what we needed for ulam. The fish provided us with fresh viand for weeks.

Then of course there was the river. The swollen river became a playground for the older children. In Malabon, all the children learned how to swim almost as soon as they learned how to walk. And so, when the tide was high, almost everybody descended on the river to swim and play.

The river was naturally divided into areas for the children. The small children played in the shallow, narrow branch of the river that ran beside the street. Bigger boys swam in the main channel, provided the current was not too strong. And the biggest ones used the wooden Catmon Bridge as a diving board.

How strong a swimmer was could be gauged if he could swim across the river non-stop. After a brief rest on the far side, he swam back. Whoever made it back first, was declared a champion swimmer.

Alas, those days are gone.