'Bagong Lipunan', the Metrocom, and my other memories of Martial Law

To my five-year-old mind, something was up.

 

I was too young to make sense of it all, but I do remember walking over with my mom and my sisters to the house of our neighbor, Tita Vita, one night. All the lights inside their house were on, and soon we were there in the sala where fellow neighbors were already praying before a statue of the Virgin Mary.

 

Tita Vita seemed distraught. She was distraught and tearful. I remember this because Tita Vita was normally boisterous and happy. Things weren’t the same that night.

 

It was many years after when I remembered to ask my mom what happened that night at Tita Vita’s when I was just in kindergarten. My mom said Tito Efren, the husband of Tita Vita, was picked up by the Metrocom police, among the many people arrested when Martial Law was declared by then President Ferdinand Marcos.

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Building memories

Looking over the chocolates on the shelves at the supermarket today, I smiled at seeing a bag of local cheap chocolates individually wrapped in white-and-orange stripes. “It’s still alive!” I thought to myself, as I picked up the little bag and added it to my basket. Memories of me in my grade school uniform unwrapping those little chocolates while in the school bus (more like a school jeep) on the way home came to me on the way to the cashier’s counter.

Then other grade school memories flashed: filing past displays of swimming fish at the Manila Aquarium (there was such a thing back in the 70s), eating my classmate’s baon back in Grade 4 (since she lived near our school, she had hot lunch delivered every lunch break, and often times could not finish her meal), running around and going up and down the slide in the playground under the hot noonday sun, swimming with my father in a beach (me in T-shirt and shorts, he in maong pants), going from tomb to tomb at the cemetery with my cousins to collect candle wax on All Saints’ Day and rolling them up in huge hot balls, and traipsing down Session Road in Baguio with my family, all of us bundled up in sweaters and jackets.

Those were the days when we had nary a care in the world about traffic, debts, bad news, sickness, inflation, catastrophes, love life, and what have you. What mattered then was that precise moment, when we just did what we had to do and lived for that moment alone.

A few years ago, I interviewed Heinz Bulos, a money-smart dad and editor of a personal finance magazine, about family finances, and he said something that stuck to my mind: “Spend for experiences rather than stuff,” he said. “As dads, we have a tendency to lavish our kids with material things, partly out of guilt for not spending enough time with them and mostly because we just enjoy seeing the smiles on their faces. But their excitement is gone weeks or even days after getting something they want. So instead of buying more and more stuff, spend for experiences–trips to the zoo, the park, the beach–since memories of happy experiences last much longer than the fleeting enjoyment of toys and gadgets. Plus you get to spend quality time with them. More experiences, less stuff.”

What memories are you building with your children? I hope that someday, even when he is a grown man, my son will remember us going to Manila Zoo and Enchanted Kingdom, swimming in the clear waters of Boracay, eating sushi in Tokyo, watching cars drift in an exhibition game in Greenhills, plunking down on the floor of a bookstore at the mall to read a storybook together, or just sharing a piece of chocolate at home on a lazy summer afternoon.

Click here to read this on the Smart Super Women blog.

The candies and sweets of my youth

At the foot of the MRT station near my workplace a few weeks ago, I screamed in my mind at the sight right in front of me: Butter Ball candies in the familiar yellow plastic packaging.

I quickly gave a P5 coin to the woman vendor, who looked up at me quizzically. I then scooped up 5 Butter Ball candies and said, "Piso isa, 'di ba?" She nodded, and I smiled.

I popped one in my mouth soon after and was immediately transported back in time when I was in my grade school uniform, white socks, and black shoes, waiting for my turn at the Chinese garter game--a piece of long garter is held by two girls, and one has to jump over it, making sure to touch the garter with one's legs. The garter is held higher and higher as the game progresses.

Ah, it's the same Butter Ball of my youth, with the same sweet "butter" taste. Now this was contentment, never mind if the candy now costs so much more than it did back in the '70s.

Butter Ball isn't the only candy I loved back then. There was Cola, a round candy wrapped in purple, which tasted like Coca-Cola.

Then there was Serg's milk chocolate which I preferred more than the crumbly Choc-Nut. The latter one is still around today, but sadly, Serg's is nowhere to be found. My schoolmate Analyn said the owner's daughter was her classmate in prep, and she thinks they may have migrated already.

I remember I was in Grade 3 or 4 when I discovered Pop Rocks--an imported candy which, when you put inside your mouth, would literally 'pop' in what seemed like baby explosions. I would close my mouth and listen to the pops, afraid that if I opened my mouth, the 'rocks' would pop out of my mouth, and isn't that so dyahe?

I didn't quite get the science behind it, but I suspect there was some carbon dioxide thrown in there. Now come to think of it, Pop Rocks could have been my first exposure to "molecular gastronomy."

Goya chocolates in football-shaped balls and round gold coins have also been treats I enjoyed as a child, and so were Ricoa Flat Tops and Curly Tops--cheap and satisfying. I stayed clear of Milky Ways and Hershey bars in grade school since these would cost a big part of my baon, and so I settled for local chocolates.

Just last week, I discovered that Goya has pretzels dipped in dark chocolate, and twice this week I gleefully had that for snack in the office. I so liked it that I didn't share. Ooops. Sinful.

But still nothing beats the candies our helper bought recently at the sari-sari store--Lipps candies! These were the bright red candies that made your tongue (and lips) bright red. My classmates and I would stick out our tongues at each other and laugh at how red they have become. And yes, we would take the red candy and apply it on our lips as "lipstick." I was happy to discover that Lipps is still around these days, even though they changed the packaging.

And so yesterday at the office, after lunch, I unwrapped one pink Lipps candy. Ten minutes later, I checked my tongue in the bathroom mirror and chuckled at seeing my fuchsia tongue. I felt like a kid all over again.

Funny how little things like candies bring back memories of your childhood. And to think I haven't even started on the drinks, like the Choco-Vim I used to buy with chits at the school canteen.

BOOK OF THE WEEK: I'm almost done with Finishing Well: Book Two: Is This Really My Life's Work?, written by Bob Buford. It challenges people in the midlife stage, or those beyond 40, to discover how to make the second half of their lives count.

The author does this through interviews with accomplished people conducted over lunch, such that you feel as if you're there and part of the conversation.

What is the second half of life (or what he calls Life II) all about? He says it's all about relationships and priorities, it's about family first, it's about saying no, and it's about giving and receiving a blessing. It also involves having a new purpose, repositioning, and finding or creating the right context.

So much to learn in this little book.

VERSE OF THE WEEK: "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." Psalm 139:14