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extracted text: The Years That Counted Evelyn T. Miranda “If I were to live my past again, I would follow the same course I took. I have no regrets. I have no com plaints.” His voice rang with earnestness as he leaned back in his swivel chair. Leaning there, 58-year-old Professor Saturnino Cabanatan was a picture of years and exper ience. On the other hand, sitting informally on one of the steps of the spiralling stair below the azotea of the Lit tle Theatre of the Universtiy of the Philippines, friendly and always-smiling Professor Alfonso Santos confessed: “Whatever I am now, I owe to .those hard days when I was a young man.” Both mentors in the Uni versity of the Philippines, Ca banatan and Santos paused from their hectic schedules and took time out to sit back and muse over those days gone by, days which to them made the years count. Those “younger days” were about forty years ago in the 1920’s when both were still at their prime. They were ambitious young men but without the means to im prove their lot. However. America made all the differ ence in their lives. Filled with the spirit of adventure as characteristic of youth, they sailed for the United States with one common aim — to get a better and higher education by all means! “It was easier to go to the United States then than to day,” Cabanatan explained. “No visa or anything of that sort was necessary. A cedula could bring you to any point of the country. Don’t you think we were luckier?” he chuckled. It was in May 1926 when the 23-year-old Cabanatan sailed for the new land. He had only a few hard-earned pesos tucked in his pocket when he went down the steer OCTOBER 1961 age, the cellar section of the boat that would carry him to America. His adventure brought him to Washington where he be came a dishwasher in restaur ants for about a year. That was the best thing that he could do in the meantime, considering that he was com pletely a stranger in the country and that his resources were fast thinning out. For another two years Cabanatan wandered around the United States doing all kinds of me nial jobs that came his way. “I spent a couple of weeks in Seattle picking strawber ries. It was a back-breaking job, but besides your pay you could eat as much strawber ries as you want until your teeth ached. Another time I went to California to pick asparagus,” Cabanatan re counted. “I also went to Alas ka and worked in a salmon canning factory. Just for ex perience, I tried stevedoring there, too.” After saving enough dol lars to enter school, Cabana tan enrolled in the Univer sity of Michigan. “I was both a university student and a waiter in the university un ion,” he said. “The job that really kept me in school until I finished my Master of Arts in English was dishwashing. It was a great meal-saver.” One of Cabanatan’s ‘firstrate” jobs was as assistant of Mr. Freize, a professor in the University of Michigan. Ca banatan helped him in the revision of the Oxford Dic tionary by reading all kinds of newspapers and listing down certain words showing how they are used by news paper writers. Cabanatan said he got about a thousand dol lars during his entire stay with Professor Freize. Another job that helped him greatly in solving many of his financial problems was as machine-tender in the Pac kard Motor Company. He was paid $80 to $90 every fifteenth day of the month. But soon hard times came. “I experienced real pover ty in 1933,” Cabanatan smil ed as if to dismiss the whole incident as a bad dream. “The United States was in an eco nomic crisis, and so was the whole world. I found myself out of school. I was then in my first year working for a doctorate. I looked for work — any kind of work — just to keep both body and soul together but jobs were so few. I later landed in Califor nia picking fruits and getting the measly sum of twenty cents an hour! That w^s ter rible. Before the crisis, fruit pickers were paid fifty cents an hour.” Panorama Famine reigned all over the country, and there was no immediate sign that the cris is would end sooner. Caba natan, after saving enough money to pay for his fare, packed and came home to the Philippines. Looking back at those dif ficult years, Professor Caba natan, now U.P. assistant dean of student affairs, could only sigh and say: “I enjoyed those years. Hard work was nothing to me. I have been working as far as I can re member.” Professor Cabanatan got married after his arrival from the United States. He is the proud father of three practicing son-lawyers and a daughter who is studying in the U. P. Professor Alfonso P. Santos of the English Department, like Cabanatan, was a poor man’s son. He left San Anto nio, Zambales for the United States at the tender age of 16. “I persuaded my parents to mortgage our only piece of rice land so that I might be able to go to the United States. With P250 which was the mortgage cost, I boarded a boat for America. I stayed in steerage and I had the cows for company,” he recall ed with amusement. He stayed in Palo Alto, Ca lifornia for a year and start ed his first year studies there. He transferred to Glendale and stayed there until he finished high school. All the time, he was working his way through school. “I was a jack-of-all-trades. I practically handled all the lowest jobs there were. I be came a dishwaster, janitor, waiter, cook, bellboy, tele phone operator, ice-cream can washer, ice-cream and candy maker and many oth ers.” Santos gave a good laugh while enumerating his string of achievements. After he graduated from the high school, he enrolled in the University of Southern Cali fornia as an A.B. student. Studious and hard-working, he graduated cum laude. Santos was a popular fig ure in the campus. For three consecutive years he was the “poet laureate” of their uni versity. He was also the reci pient of many scholarships. Asked how he managed to excel in so many fields, San tos revealed his assets: “It was all a matter of mental concentration and discipline. My poverty was my discip linarian. I believe,” he addgd, “that poverty should be res pected.” After getting his Bachelor of Arts, Santos continued stu OCTOBER 1961 63 dying until he got the mas ter’s degrees in education and English. He was about to get his doctorate’s when the Sec ond World War broke out. After undergoing military training in the United States army in New Guinea and Australia, he became the per sonal aide of General MacArthur, with the rank of staff sergeant. “Indeed, it was quite a pri vilege for me to be so close to so great a man as General MacArthur,” he said. Santos came home in 1945 after the Liberation with one intention — to marry a Filipina girl. Asked why he did not pick an American for a wife, Santos simply replied: “Sandwich and bagoong just cannot go together.” As a scholar and poet, San tos appears in Who’s Who in American Education and in the Directory of American Scholars, 1957. He is also an elected member of the Aca demy of Political Science. Professor Santos has pub lished three volumes of poems. They are the Santang Buds, Etude in Blue and Di liman Echoes. Presently he is working on another volume called Yellow Bells. Even as poor, struggling students during their college days, Cabanatan and Santos were not devoid of youthful joys. Now and then they went out with American girls to movies, ball games, par tiesx and other social activ ities. “Of course there was a slight racial discrimination,” Santos explained, “and for that matter, Filipinos and other colored students were not welcome to fraternity or sorority organizations. Any how, we still had fun.” Those were the years, the years that did count in the lives of these two humble scholars. They did count be cause they were spent care fully and wisely. Today, as Professors Cabanatan and Santos recall the past, no trace of regret or disappoint ment could be noted in their voices. There is only warmth and enthusiasm as they nar rate their stories because they know they have quite a story to tell. ♦ ♦ ♦ 64 Panorama
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