Building a New Life

Building a new home

With resources abounding on lands and water, coupled with a mild climate well suited to human habitation, the Daisog area — particularly Puntod — became the abode of the new settlers. Realizing that life depends so much on water, they lived near the river and the seacoast.

Here, Toribio and Rita, with their three children — Narciso, Januario, and Alejandro, already grown to manhood — and some relatives, nephews, nieces with their husbands, numbering about fifteen persons, started to carve a new home in the vicinity of Barra. They cleared the land and began to cultivate it for planting rice, corn, camote and other crops, fished in the river and sea, and befriended the native Subanus.

Though the progress had been terribly slow, they gradually made improvements that made their existence a bit better. They built houses of light materials, tilled the soil and stored grains, domesticated animals, and established religious and burial sites.

Planting the cross

A year after their arrival, they enjoyed a harvest and set a day for thanksgiving and prayer. On this occasion, Toribio presented a cross made of concrete and painted with black and white combinations at both sides of the cross. The cross had been brought from Bohol and had been revered by his parents.

A celebration was held, to which the friendly Subanus were invited. Prayers were recited and sinulog dances were performed before the altar of the cross by members of his family. Dinner was served to the visitors. Among the menu served were salanga boiled with coconut milk (tinono-ang salanga, devil fish), raw mullet (kinilaw balanak), roasted pork paired with rice and root crop, supplemented with boiled chicken — a favorite dish for the invited Subanus. Tuba drinking was allowed and made the visitors gay and talkative, but they preserved their proper respect to the Santacruzan celebration.

Thus, for the first time, the time-honored Boholano tradition of celebrating Santacruzan was performed on the new land they settled. The event also marked the first anniversary of their landing on the shore of Daisog.

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It was from Narciso, subsequently called Esok, that through his teaching and exemplary leadership the Aca-ac descendants continue to celebrate the feast of the Sta. Cruz.

Beating all odds

At its inception, naturally, life for the new settlers was simpler and harder. But as a family, they worked as one against all odds in carving out new territory from the forest. They lived in crude cottages. But under Toribio’s direction, cooperative efforts were employed to attain a desired result. Construction of more cottages was intensified to accommodate growing families.

While the men were busy building cottages, the women on their part prepared the foods and snacks and got them ready for serving. In his own ground Toribio set up a sort of chapel, which he himself attended together with his family and relatives. It was opened to all, and encouraged mothers and their children to pay reverence to the cross, which was the central figure in the chapel.

The old cemetery

He also allocated a lot for burial at the side of the river Daisog. This cemetery was fully utilized at the time of the cholera epidemic outbreak in 1890. Toribio and his wife were among the unfortunate victims.

Division of the Acaac property

As long as Toribio was alive, ownership of the land was held in common. No landholdings were to be divided, parceled or partitioned under one individual member of the family. That is why the Acaac properties — whether a cocoland or riceland — were kept as one communal property of the family. However, after his untimely death due to the outbreak of cholera, the land was partitioned by his three sons.

The territory north of the Daisog River, roughly the present Poblacion Napo and Hasaan, was assigned to Alejandro, the youngest, whose children were mostly females. This plurality of daughters would likely doom his family name to extinction in the generations to come. The southern part — roughly present Barangay Mansabay and part of Barangay Puntod — was appropriated to Januario. And the long, narrow stretch of highland in between, including the valleys of Puntod and Sapa Naga, was retained in the name of Narciso, who in the meantime took care of the orphaned relatives and in whom the custody of the cross was entrusted — just as he was the one who took care of their parents in their old age till their death.