You don’t call him Mario. His name is always said full and complete: Mario Kinghing. And it has always been that way. Perhaps there were too many Marios in Marihatag, like the many persons whose names are Dodong, Neneng, and Inday.
But this Mario is not from Marihatag. He is from the farthest, western side of Mindanao, of Muslim descent whose father came to Marihatag on a large fishing boat called balasian in the 1950s.
The rich marine life of Surigao del Sur lured his father into settling in Marihatag. And Tugbungan, near the sabang where the Marihatag River flows out into the vast Pacific, became their home, sustaining their love for the sea and the diverse life beneath it.
Mario was an indispensable company on his father’s fishing trips, being adept at everything about fishing like his father. He must have learned how to handle a pukot and operate a pumpboat long before he knew how to read. He admits he didn’t like school and would prefer to be at sea with his father as a boy.
Just like his father, he made the sea his sustenance, a life Elma Mondejar of Talacogon unconditionally embraced when he married her in 1974. Fishing was his way of life and his fleet of fishing gear – pukot, langre, subid, and pumpboat were all substantial economic assets for a livelihood that helped him feed and raise nine children.
The construction of new public market at the bus terminal several years ago made a milestone in his life as a fisherman. He moored his pumpboat for good, got himself a stall at the market and went into a business endeavor with his wife
He has ceased from a life of cold, sometimes stormy battles at sea, searching and asking for its bounty. But he never left it altogether. Sometimes, he sets out to the sea alone, his spirit longing for the vast expanse of the ocean. It will remain as a way of life, on that sandy shore of Tugbungan where sunbaked children run barefoot. His periodic longing to set sail will persist for he has forged an innate affinity with the sea.
