Pardo, Cebu, that's where my roots truly took hold. From the late 1960s through the early 1980s, it shaped me in ways I only came to understand much later. Although it was less than ten kilometers from Cebu City proper, Pardo had its own pace. Life wasn't measured by the clock but by everyday routines, the changing seasons, and the simple rhythm of the community.
Everything moved more slowly then. Life revolved around family, neighbors, and traditions that were never written down but faithfully lived. Those shared values quietly held the community together.
What I remember most, though, is the strong sense of belonging. As children, we wandered freely from one end of the neighborhood to the other without fear. Our parents rarely worried because someone was always keeping an eye on us. The people around us knew our names, knew our families, and looked after us as if we were their own.
That was the kind of place Pardo was, a community where everyone shared the responsibility of caring for one another, and where a child always felt safe, welcomed, and at home.
Here's more of Old Pardo.
Between the Mountain and Sea
The geography of Pardo was generous to children. A short walk in one direction led to the hills; in the other, the sea awaited. Both were vast playgrounds, mostly without fences, shaped only by nature and creativity.
In the hills, we searched the undergrowth for spiders, following them with the patience and curiosity only children seem to possess. Toward the shore, we swam and laughed at the waves during a high tide. We waded into the shallow waters at low tide, gathering clams, shrimps, small fish, and crabs from the exposed seabed, a quiet kind of harvest that demanded only sharp eyes, quick reflexes, though most of the time, I brought an improvised catching tool.
The path to the mountains was lined with coconut palms and fruit-bearing trees, punctuated by the occasional scattered houses. The path seaward led through rice paddies that turned brilliant green in the wet season, through groves of coconut trees and banana plants, and eventually into the mangroves, those salt-rooted trees standing guards alongside the brackish riverbanks, their tangled roots catching everything in ways that seemed almost deliberate.
At times, the breeze picked up reliably, carrying with it the rustling of leaves and the company of wild birds, butterflies, dragonflies, and bees drifting past in no particular hurry. My father would sometimes take me to fly kites in the open fields on his days off, the string humming under the wind's pressure, the kite climbing until it became a bright speck against the blue.
Other times, we took his boat out with my two older brothers, who never missed a chance to tease me. They'd toss me into the deep water to "test" my swimming, laughing as I flailed. Those mornings felt more like a special day.
The air in the open field had its own kind of medicine. The scent of damp earth in the rice fields and the smell of the mud mixed with salt off the sea, are the kind of aroma I still can locate in my memory. It wasn't really happiness, it was a feeling of being complete, as if everything in the world fit perfectly and nothing was missing.
What the Tides Left Behind
The sea was generous, and we accepted its gifts with gratitude.
When the tide was high, we swam among the mangroves and along the riverbanks. The water was warm and slightly murky, teeming with small fish, crabs, and other creatures that made the shoreline feel alive. We spent hours splashing, diving, and drifting with the current, never tiring of the sea that seemed to welcome us as one of its own.
When the tide receded, it revealed another world. The exposed seabed became nature's pantry, and families would venture onto the tidal flats to gather whatever the sea had left behind, shellfish buried beneath the sand, small crabs scurrying through shallow pools, shrimps darting between patches of seagrass, and tiny fish trapped in pockets of water. We collected them patiently, knowing that even a modest harvest would become a meal shared at home.
Those outings were never just about gathering food. They were occasions for family and neighbors to spend time together. Someone always brought cooked rice, while others shared whatever dishes they had prepared. We ate on the shore without ceremony, seated on the sand beneath the open sky. In those days, meals were meant to be shared, not photographed.
My own meal was usually simple: corn grits or boiled unripe bananas paired with ginamos, the pungent fermented fish paste that seemed to capture the very essence of the sea. Its strong aroma might surprise those unfamiliar with it, but to me, it was the unmistakable taste of home.
Every now and then, however, I prepared something a little more unusual. Whenever I found a jellyfish stranded on the exposed seabed, I carefully rubbed its slippery surface with sand until the slimy coating was gone. After rinsing it thoroughly in seawater, I soaked it in vinegar before eating it. To many people, the idea may sound strange, but I found it surprisingly tender, refreshing, and delicious. Whenever we spent time by the sea, it became one of the foods I looked forward to most.
I was fortunate to have lived in one of those places before they gradually would disappear beneath the tide of modern development. That is a privilege I have never taken for granted.
What Will Be Gone Soon
Time changes everything. Even the places we believe will always remain the same eventually yield to change, often more quickly than we expect.
In 1991, plans were approved to reclaim a large portion of Pardo's coastline. The open sea that had been my playground, the horizon that framed my childhood, the source of food and livelihood for countless families, and a sanctuary for marine life would gradually disappear beneath layers of earth and stone. A once-living shoreline would be transformed into reclaimed land, reshaping the coast into something entirely different.
Where waves once met the shore, commercial establishments, roads, and business districts would eventually rise symbols of economic progress, yet also quiet reminders of what lay buried beneath their foundations.
The mangrove forests would disappear.
The tidal flats would vanish.
The riverbanks where we once swam would no longer exist as I remembered them.
For decades, Cebu has expanded by reclaiming land from the sea. With limited space available for urban growth, reclamation became one of the city's responses to the demands of a growing population, commerce, and infrastructure. It created opportunities for investment, employment, and economic development, helping shape the modern Cebu that exists today.
Yet every gain has its cost.
Such as the North Reclamation Area that we know today, this commercial land was once an open stretch of sea.
My mother often showed me old photographs from the 1950s of her family swimming along a shoreline that is now part of the North Reclamation Area. Looking at those photographs, I realized that the landscape of her childhood had already disappeared long before mine shall begin to change.
The original vision of land reclamation was to create space for urban expansion and economic growth. While many reclaimed areas have achieved that goal, others have also become informal settlements, showing that physical development alone cannot address the deeper social and economic challenges of a growing city.
Now, the place that shaped my childhood will undergo the same transformation. The familiar shoreline of my youth will soon become wider roads, commercial centers, residential communities, and business districts. These developments promise jobs, investment, and economic progress to benefit the city and its residence.
Cities evolve, coastlines change, and communities grow.
Change is inevitable.
Whatever Pardo becomes in the years ahead, no reclamation project can erase the childhood it gave me, the friendships it nurtured, the values it instilled, and the enduring fond memories I will always have for the place I call home.
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