Game in the Brain

Felizimo Saavedra Arguelles was the youngest child of Crisostomo
Arguelles and Felicia Saavedra. His father comes from a mestizo family
that traces its roots to Cuba, while his mother comes from a minor
branch of the Saavedra clan in Cebu. Although his family only had
a modest amount of land holdings, his father was the cabeza de barangay
of one of the towns bordering Tabaco City, Albay. Thus his family
has a small amount of status in the area.

As the youngest son, Imo, as his friends would call him, had relatively
few responsibilities compared to his elder brothers. He would
spend a lot of his time in the fields and became close to his paternal
grandfather, a fierce man even at that age, who taught him horseback
riding, the pistol, and the family arnis style. Imo started his
training in arnis at the age of 6, initially being taught only footwork
for over a year, before moving on to weapons, quickly joining his brothers in
practicing the family style.

Imo was also friendly with the family caretaker, who taught Imo hilot as well as
regaled him with tales of aswangs, kapres and other engkantos, how to fight them
and ward against their spells.

Although Imo’s father frowned on his activities, which he considered
“too dangerous,” there was really nothing else for Imo to do, so Don
Crisostomo was just thankful that Imo wasn’t getting involved in any
mischief. All this changed when Imo turned 16. There were
reports of bandits and cattle rustlers causing trouble in one of the family’s
lands. Two of Imo’s elder brothers were going to check it out, but Imo insisted
on coming along.

The three brothers caught the bandits in the act of stealing a carabao. Though
none of the bandits had firearms, there were still 15 of them, and armed with an
assortment of weapons. Though the Arguelles brothers had pistols with them, the
bullets soon ran out. Five bandits fell after the initial volley, but the
remainder were emboldened when the brothers shot off the rounds in their
revolvers. With no time to reload, the fighting became a fierce and bloody
melee. The brothers’ arnis training carried the day, with Imo himself killing
two and subduing one before the surviving three bandits yielded.

After that incident, Don Crisostomo decided that enough was enough and sent the
young Imo to live with an uncle in Manila and enrolled him in the Ateneo de
Manila, though he did bring his beloved bolo, a gift from his grandfather, and
pistol with him (after all, Tabaco was well known for the quality of its
blades). After graduating, Imo went to medical school in Paris, where he
learned the use of the rifle and the hunt when he went out with his classmates
during the weekends.

Imo decided to practice medicine in Madrid, and opened a small clinic there.
But after two years, homesickness prevailed so Imo closed the clinic and
returned to Manila with the intention of going back to Tabaco City. His uncle,
as well as some friends from the Ateneo, prevailed on Imo to stay in Manila, at
least for the meantime, so that Imo could gain more experience outside of his
rural hometown.

After settling down at his uncle’s house in Sta. Mesa, Imo looks out of his
bedroom window, his face caressed by the warmth of a setting sun, pondering his
immediate future….

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Some trivia:

– The Saavedras are indeed a clan located in Cebu, though they are not political
powerhouses like the Osmenas or Duranos. This family though is well known for
their eskrimadors. Lorenzo Saavedra was one of the founders of the Doce Pares
club (originally the Labangon Fencing club). He was also one of the teachers of
Anciong Bacon of Balintawak and the Canete brothers of Doce Pares fame.

– Arguelles is the maiden name of my paternal grandmother. According to one of
my aunts who did the research, there were four Arguelles brothers who migrated
from either Cuba or Argentina (my bet is Cuba, because Argentina was a Portugese
colony, while Cuba was a Spanish one). One decided to settle in Leyte, one
settled in Batangas, another one settled in Quezon province (the branch of my
lola) while I don’t know what happened to the other one. So if you run across
an Arguelles in Batangas, that would be a relative of ours, albeit a distant
one. This is where I got the inspiration for Imo’s father.

– Bicol really is known for the quality of its blades, especially Tabaco City.
In the 1980s my uncle saw a street hawker selling bolos from Bicol, and in order
to see if they were any good, my uncle asked the hawker to cut a nail (one of
those big nails meant for concrete). The hawker chopped the nail cleanly into
two and there was no nick on the blade. My uncle immediately bought that bolo
and it’s with him until this day. Also ask any vendor who sells blades, they
will say that Bicol blades are better than even Batangas blades. I bought my
current bolo from a Tabaco City blacksmith for P500. As I was lifting it up
from the pile of blades, it cut through one of the newspaper sheets without too
much effort.