Floods, Stainless Jeeps and Fish Sauce of Malabon

I grew up in Malabon, formerly part of Rizal Province, but now part of Metro Manila.  Malabon is well known for its delicious “Pancit Malabon”. The ingredients of a special pancit Malabon includes shrimps, oysters, squids, pork, gound “chicharon”, smoked fish flakes, boiled eggs and “pechay Baguio.” The noodle used in this noodle feast is called “pancit luglog”. It is rice noodles that are a little bigger than the spaghetti noodles. Rosie’s Pancit Malabon is known to serve the best pancit Malabon in my hometown. Today, there are restaurants and stores outside Malabon that sells “Pancit nag Toga Malabon.”

            Malabon is a fishing town situated right next to Navotas by the Manila Bay. Its other popular product is “patis” or fish sauce. It is a clear salty tasting fish sauce that when put in a bottle looks like brandy or whisky. Rufina Patis has a factory in Malabon that puts fish sauce in bottles just like the softdrinks bottling plants do. There are other popular brands of fish sauce from Malabon, which includes Dalisay, Lorin’s, and Tentay’s. Anybody who comes from Malabon will not have a complete meal without this famous fish sauce that we fondly call “patis”.

            Since Malabon is a town near the bay and is surrounded by rivers, the breeze that comes from the sea is salty. Sea water or salt water causes metal to rust and hasten its corrosion.  That is probably why Malabon also became famous for its stainless jeeps, tricycles and pedicabs. Stainless steel is rust proof.  Growing up as a child in Malabon, we also had an owner type jeep made out of stainless steel. If you go around Malabon, you will see houses with gates made out of stainless steel. In Malabon, even refrigerators are custom built using stainless steel.

            When I was in grade 2, President Ferdinand Marcos declared Martial Law. Metro Manila was established and his first lady, Imelda Romualdez Marcos became its governor. That was when Imelda started grand infrastructure projects like the Cultural Center of the Philippines and the reclamation of its surrounding complex. She also reclaimed part of Manila Bay near Malabon and Navotas and built a housing complex that she called “Kapitbahayan”. This place later came to be known as Dagat-dagatan which covered parts of Navotas, Malabon and Kalookan.  But the part of the bay which was reclaimed was the mouth of the river coming from Malabon. It actually closed the mouth of the river going out to Manila Bay. So now, when it is high tide, there is nowhere for the river to flow out and it goes back in, which causes the flooding in Malabon.  I guess, even with the construction of a mega dike around KAMANAVA (Kalookan, Malabon, Navotas and Valenzuela), the flooding of Malabon will never be solved because of the Kapitbahayan reclamation project.

            There are other interesting trivia about Malabon. It is in Malabon that other well known products are manufactured like the Silver Swan Soy Sauce, Spring Cooking Oil and the small chocolate peanut bars known as ChocNut. Well known personalities who are from Malabon include Epifanio De Los Santos (the hero after whom EDSA was named), Fr. Robert Reyes (the running priest), Senator Loren Legarda, Armida Siguion Reyna, Angelica Dela Cruz (actress) and Erik Santos (singer), among others.