The Moro Princess

In my father's newspaper articles about his father, he mentioned something about moro-moro plays or komedya. "The moro-moro is a play that became popular in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial period. It depicted battles between Christians and Moros - as Muslims in the Philippines are popularly known - with the Moros as the perpetual villains who always lost to the Christians in the end. Progressive historians have viewed the moro-moro as a tactic by the Spanish colonizers to demonize the Moros, the largest ethnic group that successfully warded off attempts at conquering them. The moro-moro plays helped fan the flames of anti-Moro sentiments among the Christianized ethnic groups." (from Bulatlat.com)

Moro-moro plays were usually played on a stage set up at the town square during fiestas or the feast day of the town's patron saint. After the Spanish left the country and especially during the times when there were no televisions and moviehouses in towns yet, these plays were widely anticipated and viewed by the townfolks. They can last for several hours to several days... the longest known being a staggering 12 days! Among the lead characters in these plays are the Christian kings, queens, princes and princesses, and the court jesters, who provide comedic relief to the adults and keep the children awake with their antics throughout the plays. In some instances, the plum role is that of a Muslim princess (with whom the Christian prince falls in love) called the Moro Princess. Needless to say, the Moro Princess is a beautiful maiden in real life.

My grandmother, Eulalia Roman L., was a Moro Princess. She must've been a stunner during her heyday (as you can see in the only known existing photo of her) as to rekindle the spark of love in an aging widower more than double her age... heck, she was even younger than my grandfather's first child in a previous marriage! Sadly, i (the youngest then of her youngest child) have very few memories of her... as she died when i was still young and she herself wasn't that old... of lung cancer.

My fondest memory of my Impong Eulalia is her having a small store by their house in the province. Every time my family and i would visit them from the city, my Impo would let me inside her little store and give me everything i want... she'd give me candies, biscuits, and even soda. I remember the two of us making small talks but i don't remember what we talked about.

My saddest memomies of her was when she stayed with us at Quezon City while undergoing radiation treatments for her cancer at the nearby Veternas Memorial Hospital. I remember how we, the three boys, would keep her Bataan Matamis cigarettes in unlikely places and she'd still find them and smoke them no matter what. In the end, she succumbed to the cancer and had to be hospitalized. When the treatments were deemed unsuccessful and they were making only making her weak, it was decided to take her out of the hospital and bring her home to the province to be with her loved ones. I remember well that day... my mom borrowed her cousin's big American car and driver and we took my Impo out of the hospital. She was laid on the backseat of the car on my mother's lap. On the way to Bataan, the car passed by our home where my dad, who was weak because he had the flu that time, said goodbye to her by the roadside ...that was the last time my dad saw her alive and the last time my Impo saw and talked to her youngest.

A few weeks after that, my dad surprised me and my elder brother by showing up at our school. In the middle of class, he entered our classroom looking sad and forlorn with the principal. At first they talked to my homeroom teacher, then he asked me to gather my things because we are going home to the province ...my Impo has just died. My whole family took the last bus trip that night and we arrived in Balanga, the capital of Bataan at 2:00 o'clock in the morning. There were no jeepneys yet running at that time, so we had to take the calesa (horse-drawn carriage) to my father's ancestral home. When we arrived and all our relatives saw us, they met us with loud cries. As my dad approached the coffin there were no dry eyes around the place. i just sat on a chair in a corner crying and crying...with a soda bottle on my lap.

That was in 1963 ....he was 36 ....i was 6 ....and my Impo, the Moro Princess, was 65.