HOW IT WAS.

Compiled from my previous Facebook posts. 

In my life as a boy to young adulthood in the Philippines, the main transport vehicles were jeepneys, tricycles, and buses. Bus companies in the city: DM, JD, Love Bus. I’d sit by the gate of our (ancestral) house in Quezon City awaiting mom to alight from one of those buses. We maintained two residence cities: Manila/Quezon City and Baguio, up north–so the buses that serviced us, mostly: Pantranco, Dangwa, Dagupan Bus, Pambusco, or Philippine Rabbit. 🚌🇵🇭🚎

Sunday mass as community convergence and afternoon hang-out with friends and relatives. I was born into a predominantly Catholic culture interspersed with tribal ways or indigenous traditions in the Philippines or Asia. Contrary to what some consider it in these days of “culture wars,” I was culturally conditioned to heed Sunday mass not as a religious devotion or Faith-based allegiance. Culture. Life. Primal reasons to gather or coexist in a peaceful vibe. 👥👥☮️

Gardening in grade/high school in Manila. We called them “Practical Arts,” which included carpentry, home economics (cooking, sewing, cleaning house, budgeting food etc), automotive, electronics etcetera. I loved gardening the most. (Obviously.) I’d come home from school with a bag of “pechay,” eggplants, tomatoes, “ampalaya,” and cabbages. I’d prefer to spend the rest of my (old) life gardening. The feel of wet soil on my hands is transcendent. 🍆⛏🥬

Tricycles refer to a type of motorized vehicle consisting of a motorcycle and a passenger cab attached to it. In the provinces, a (pedaled) bicycle is mostly used. Along with the jeepney, the tricycle is one of the most common means of public or private transportation in the Philippines, especially in rural areas and suburban neighborhoods. Tricycles either ply a set route or are for-hire, like taxis. Very, very convenient for shorter routes. 🛵🛺🚲

Newsroom crunch time in those days. Busy, insistent chatter of typewriters as beat reporters deal with the day’s deadline. The editor would be hollering or shouting as he/she shuffled in the smoke-filled room. Before stories/copies were brought to the press, following editing by the desk, “war-room” discussion ensued. Each news report is discussed, discoursed, debated–especially those that ended on the front page or headline a.k.a. banner. Gone are those days. 📜✍️📰

Have you ever bathed in the rain? If you were born and grew up in the Pacific islands, as I am, then you spent many Julys of your childhood enjoying these sweet vertical graces from the heavenly sky! Fun! “Wet season” starts around late March to early September, punctuated by 100+ summer heat. So the rains that fall for weeks are much-welcome blessings in-between the punishing heatwave. We’d run, slide, and surf as laughter frolicked with the storm. 💦☔️💦

Street theater. I was a member of the premier, progressive theater organization in Manila, the Philippine Educational Theater Association / Kalinangan Ensemble. The group was instrumental in the protest movement vs. the dictatorship in the 1980s. We also taught in urban enclaves and grassroots communities. I wonder, in these times of internet/computer bombast, if street theater is still alive. What I see are activists who ruin classic art as protest. Sad. 🤹‍♀️🎭🎪

Midnight banter at the Luneta Park in Manila. People randomly gather to share thoughts and discourse stuff. Politics, religion, arts, culture etcetera. No rudeness, no heated debates. Yet there’s no appointed mediator. Just people in civil, peaceful conversational mode. Luneta Park is a.k.a. Rizal Park, a historic urban park located in Ermita district in Manila. It is considered one of the largest urban parks in the Philippines, covering an area of 140 acres. 🗣👤👥

Songs then were “different.” Major reason why I don’t post/listen to a lot of new music but not that I am not into today’s music (or genre). Although I am not a fan of hip hop or rap, I am a huge listener of old R&B and soul. Black music, if you may. Today’s rock also sounds like the past. Nothing’s new. Sure, the Rolling Stones are still here but they are older than grandparents now. Jagger/Richards got nothing new to offer anymore. Old music is it for me. 🎼🎸🎼

Jeepneys or “dyipni” in the Philippines. Minibus-like public utility vehicles, serving as the most popular means of public transportation in the Philippines. They are known for their crowded seating and kitsch decorations, which have become a widespread symbol of Philippine culture and art. Music blares inside as passengers sit side by side. A Sarao jeepney was exhibited at the 1964 New York World's Fair as a national image for the Filipinos. 🚍🇵🇭🚍

Photos: CTTO. Nomadical Sabbatical. X.