'Kahel' of my father, Remo Centeno Causing

'Kahel' of my father, Remo Centeno Causing

By BERTENI "TOTO" CATALUÑA CAUSING
Author of the book entitled "Simplified Libel Law in the Philippines."

One of the most favorable fruits for me is "kahel" or "dalandan" or Filipino citrus. It is a sour kind of citrus.
This is so because when I was young and not yet studying in elementary school, my father, Remo Centeno Causing, would bring me and my siblings to a plantation of "kahel" at the back of our house, which plantation was owned by the family of Baldostamon.

I recall that our house then was a bamboo house whose floor was elevated by five feet from the soil ground, whose walls were made up of chopped-up bamboo and whose roof was of cogon grass and coconut leaves.

At that time, there were only about ten houses in our area. Today, there are already thousands.

My father, who is a son of Lourdesita Doctolero Centeno and Agosto Posadas Causing, would pick a few of these, slice them and extract the juice into an old "pitchel", thereafter pour into it water from our pitcher pump, add some "central" sugar, a term we call brown sugar, and even without ice cubes his children would enjoy it.

My father did it everyday, particularly during Holy Week when the summer heat was so hot.

He must be remembering this, too, as he tends to his sari-sari store now in our house.  He would have not known then that his son would someday become a civil engineer-lawyer.  For how he would think when he was just a multi-talented man: a photographer, a carpenter, a radio electronics technician, a building electrician, a welder, a tricycle driver, a harmonica player who also knows how to play saxophone, a plumber, a tractor driver, a tinsmith and a blacksmith.

My father was born while her mother, was hiding under a balite tree to avoid the Japanese soldiers.  My grandmother "Lola Onding" is a daughter of Cornelio Causing Centeno and his wife whose family name is Doctolero.  She never married my grandfather, Agosto Posadas Causing, youngest son of Severo Arriola Causing of Ajuy, Iloilo.

My lola was separated from my lolo when she was brought along for a homestead offer in Mindanao by her father who I fondly called "Papang."  World War II followed suit and my lola was told that my lolo was killed by the Japanese army in the war, although not true.

So, my lola married another man, Narciso Deocampo, who I fondly called "Lolo Nasing," who was very loving to me when he was yet alive.  Lolo Nasing would come everyday to my father at our house at Baldostamon Subdivision in Koronadal City for hours of happy chatting. That was how good the old days then.

Nevertheless, I love my daddy.