Grease Lightnin' (Circa 1960's)

My father was a good-looking feller. He was born with a pair of beautifully arched brows that required no intervention from tweezers, a perfect mestizo nose that any vain person would pay good money for and thick, straight jet-black hair that refused to turn grey nor fall in the face of old age and cancer.

But more than anything, my father was the epitome of cool...

Cory In My Mind

I still remember that Saturday afternoon in January 1986. It was the day Cory Aquino, standard bearer of the United Opposition, was motorcading though our town in a Southern Batangas campaign sortie. She was speaking at the patio in front of the parish Church. With my childhood friend beside me and my father's yellow "Ninoy Hindi Ka Nag-iisa" band round my head, I listened intently and passionately raised my right fist in a seemingly grown-up show of support for my candidate despite the fact that I was a mere fifteen-year old, obviously powerless to show that support by means of the ballot.

When she left the patio, my friend and I ran after the van she rode, wanting for one last glimpse of our hero in the flesh. She did not disappoint us. Cory appeared through the window and flashed the Laban sign. It was my Cory moment, one that still runs very clearly in my head after more than 20 years, after undergoing general anaesthesia, after a bout with hormonal imbalance that all interfered with my memory bank. But then I guess a Coryista will never forget.

* Image grabbed from Google search.

Good Fridays

Last Friday was a good time to go back to the Good Fridays of my childhood.

I remember we would almost always start the day with flagellant-watching. The flagellants were men with covered faces who would repeatedly hit their bare backs with sharp objects, drawing blood in the process. We would stare mouths open and wince when someone poured vinegar over these men's open wounds. Last Friday I waited the whole morning to take pictures but not a single flagellant passed by our house. It was obviously passé in the town where I grew up.

Then there was Visita Iglesia. Seven churches to visit, usually Calaca, Lemery, Taal, Nasugbu, Lian, Calatagan and Tuy. If we didn't go church-hopping, we would more often than not spend the day in front of the boob tube for reruns of bible-based films and docus, most notable of which was Jesus of Nazareth. We were not allowed to turn on the radio. Oh and never forget the fasting! Or should I say abstinence? Lunch and dinner meant fish, crabs, shrimps or lobsters when available. But I was never into seafood even as a kid and making do with a cheese sandwich every meal was my annual little Lenten sacrifice.

The highlight of the day was the 6 o'clock procession led by the parish priest that went around the poblacion like a funeral parade of the dead Christ. This year it was attended by hordes of people, young and old alike, that appeared to be thinning as time went by. When I was quite small I used to go with my sister Pie, my aunt Nading, my cousin Ron and his dad Ninong Paeng. It was playtime for us kids as we made balls from melted wax coming from the candles that we held in our hands. I also never missed a procession as a teenager. It was the "in" thing to do on a Good Friday.

St. Peter, easily identifiable by the rooster by his side (though not seen in this photo), was always the first saint in the long procession. The saints were garbed in expensive-looking velvety garments with golden appliques and placed atop flower-decked carrozas brightened by generator-powered lights.

Next in line, without fail, was St. John the Evangelist.

I'm afraid I have no idea who this saint is. I never saw it before among the ranks of the other saints in this Lenten tradition.

Veronica of "Veronica wipes the face of Jesus", which incidentally, I heard from my mother, has been excluded from the new version of the Station of the Cross.

Mary Magdalene with perfume in hand, actually a very beautiful statue.

The Blessed Sacrament, also a new addition.

The Blessed Virgin Mary with a dagger piercing her heart, an image that I always found disturbing as a child.

The dead Christ in a glass coffin always came in last. Among the carrozas, it attracted the biggest crowd of followers. There were people who pushed the carroza in a somewhat frantic manner, determined to fulfill their panata, a promise made in exchange of a miracle. It was a bit reminiscent of the mad scramble for the Nazareno of Quiapo, only there was no madness here.

After the procession, we would always go to kalbaryos to take a look at the decors and the spectacle that was the pabasa. But there were no kalbaryos to visit last week, maybe for quite a number of Holy Weeks past already. No one must have been willing to shoulder the cost of setting up a place for pabasa during these hard times. Nor fill in the shoes of yesterday's mambabasa during these modern times. The only pabasa I witnessed lately was this scene I captured on video from last Friday's procession—the "grandma singers" as my 11 year-old nephew called them, probably the last of the mambabasas in our side of the world.

* Flagellation photo grabbed from Google.

Life's a Beach

One look at this picture of my Indie and her cousins and I was immediately transported back to the 70s. The beach in the town where I was born was not made for pretty pictures. It was never the white beach on the verge of becoming a major tourist destination. Its shoreline was long but covered with dark unremarkable sand; its waters, clear but certainly not crystal.

Even so, we kids were big fans of our very own beach. It was another venue for play. A huge one complete with water for wading or swimming for the adventurous among us. There was endless supply of sand for building sandcastles for which none of us had any talent. And the sea breeze! Yes, even that one could make us happy.

By the 80s, we had all grown into adolescents and the beach had lost all attraction whatsoever. Aside from the changes in hormones and preferences that happened in all of us, we had every reason not to go anymore. What used to be our favorite haunt had turned into some, I'm sorry to say, God-forsaken place in the span of a decade. The water was not just dirty, it was dangerous given that a power plant was just close by. It literally stank. There was litter everywhere. And where there was none, there were dog poops and human waste lying in wait like booby traps for the next unsuspecting beach goer.

Oh yes, life could be a bitch sometimes.

Mad Hair Days

Those were the days. When big hair was the rule rather than the exception. When female crowns rose to dizzying heights they could have sent hairsprays to the endangered list. When teasing reigned supreme anywhere in the world, pushing past the confines of moviedom and catwalks, enslaving ordinary mortals like, well, my mom.


It was the 1960s, fresh out of the bouffant and beehive movements of the 50s and my mother, true blue fashionista that she was, made sure that her clothes—including her hair—always kept up with the times. The mountainous puff on top of her head was elevated enough to require maybe half a day of prep work. But my mother, the college instructress, must have been very talented with the teasing comb she fixed her tresses that way even during ordinary school days and still managed to come to class on time.


By the late 60s, my mother had not let go of her favorite comb. The towering hair was gone, replaced by a short bob. But the teasing did not stop.


Some decades later when she was into her 50s, my mother's crowning glory had been relegated to a wash-and-wear style—cropped, cut to reveal her natural curls and dyed a dark shade of brown typical of ladies of a certain age—signaling the close of a hair-raising era long gone.