Category Archives: Vintage

The Instalment Man

Modern business today thrives on the commercial instrument of credit.  By proper spaced payment, an item can have by a buyer from the creditor who sells the desired items.  The spaced payment is known as instalment or “hulugan”, the amount depends on the arrangements usually on the paying capacity of the buyer or customer.             Long before the… Read More »

The Professional Pickpocket

He was small of built, thin to a point of near emaciation, long bony-faced and with long fragile arms.  His hands with long tapering fingers ideal for playing piano were too big for his small delicate frame.  His coarse tousled hair, burnt complexion, bulging eye, thin aquiline nose, lobed ears, and bushy eyebrows with two ogling eyes underneath… Read More »

Mang Badong, The tennis caretaker

No one could remember how Salvador Nolasco got the job as a caretaker of Victoria Tennis court before the outbreak of the Pacific War.  Nobody seemed to be interested for in the first place, he was doing a hell of a good job.  What many knew, to include many players, was that this man of over fifty was… Read More »

The “Flores de Mayo”

Barrio residents regarded the month of May a very significant and memorable for various reasons.             Firstly, this month would usher the arrival of the rainy season thereby ending the long dry hot summer months; secondly, May was the second month of the long school vacation enabling the school children to help their parents in the home and… Read More »

ANG TAGUMPAY NI MANG SINTONG BAGYO

Sa mga lalaking naninirahan sa aming barrio ay si Mang Sinto lamang ang may taguring tunay na lalaki, ngunit kung siya ay nakatalikod  at hindi niya naririnig ay Sintong Bagyo, ang bansag sa kanya.  Si Mang Sinto ay hindi magsasakang katulad ng marami sa aming baryo, hindi rin karpintero, mangagawa o’ kahit anong trabaho na maaring kumita ng… Read More »

Inspired and Itinerant Ideologue

Marcelo Martin was a small frame man with squarest jaw, bristly hair, bog forehead, bushy hair and of average height.  His constant work under the sun tanned his skin is like a leather.  He had large uneven stained teeth due to smoking.  Shortly before the outbreak of the Pacific war and during the Occupation, Marcing, as he was… Read More »

Mang Atong, the Perennial Loser

  “The public loves a winner” could never be so applicable in the chronicling of events.  In battles, the names of the winners were emblazoned in gold and marbles markers.  In crime cases, the police officer who solved the case would get the accolades.  In political contests, the names of winners were in the headlines of newspapers.  … Read More »

“ HULI NA ANG LAHAT’

Si Mang Berto ay isang pangkaraniwng empleyado sa gobierno sa maynila at may sariling bahay sa Santa Mesa. Magmula ng siya ay maging balo hindi na ninya inisip na mag-asawa pang muli at ang panahon niya ay inukol na lamang sa kanyang dalawang anak na si Amanda na may gulang na labing pito at si Bonnie na labing… Read More »

Something sinister about Arroyo ads

There’s more than meets the eye in the two-page advertisements that the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) has been running in three major newspapers in the Philippines heralding the alleged accomplishments of the Arroyo administration in the economy, social development, public works, law and order, job generation, agriculture, energy, environmental protection and digital infrastructure in its nine years in… Read More »

Lenten Legacy

Taller and heavier than most of his friends of his age in the quiet barrio, Turing grew up with his younger brother Atoy under the care of their grandparents.  No one in the barrio seemed to know the parents of these two boys and their grandparents refused to talk about them.  Some said that the parents of the… Read More »