MY CHAMPION TEAM

NO matter how busy I am with office jobs and school assignments, I always find time to watch my favorite team San Miguel Beer when it has a game on TV. That’s why when classes in college were suspended that Friday due to a heavy downpour (a typhoon signal wasn’t even raised in the metropolis by the weather bureau that day, July 17), I left our office earlier than usual and went straight home to catch up the live telecast of an SMB game. But it wasn’t an ordinary game. It was the do-or-die Game 7 Finals match between my favorite team and a more popular and very aggressive opponent, the Ginebra Gin Kings—yes they are still the most popular ball club long after the exit of its legendary playing-coach Robert Jaworski.

I had plans to watch the game live at the Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City, perhaps with my two boys in tow, but I didn’t have the luxury of time and extra budget within that week to go to Cubao for the ticket. Watching a live telecast on TV of a do-or-die match, anyway, is no different than watching it live in the venue; the thrill of the action is also present, except the deafening cheers and boos, and heart-thumping exhilarations from thousands of fiery fans. But no one can prevent me to shout and cheer with wild abandon, even when I am alone in the living room and the clock is ticking into the last quarter of the day when most neighbors are already snoring in their beds.
But for this rare Game 7 of the finals, my cheers and that usual panicky feeling was rather subdued, not because my two boys and their little sister were already sleeping (my wife would rather watch a teleserye than a basketball game for more than an hour), but because I felt relaxed with the Beermen leading the scores throughout the game, thwarting every rally the Gin Kings could muster on the crucial stretch. And halfway to the fourth quarter, I knew my team was a cinch to capture the PBA (Philippine Basketball Association) Fiesta Conference title.

I have been rooting this team since 1993, after the disbandment of Great Taste, an old favorite team of mine, and the eventual transfer of its streak-shooting franchise player Allan Caidic, my idol way back in my high school years, to the Beermen. But this time Caidic, was on the other side of the fence as Ginebra’s assistant coach. Yes, even with the transfer of Caidic to Ginebra in 1998, my loyalty remained with the Beermen and the talented crew now headed by Danny Ildefonso, Danny Seigle (in the injured list), and Olsen Racela.

With the Beermen leading by 8 points with a minute to go, I saw some Ginebra fans starting to negotiate their way out, hoping to leave before the balloons and confetti fall on the arena. I knew how they feel. I also had a painful experience at the big dome in 1998, when my favorite team was on the losing side of a Game 7 match.

It was an All-Filipino championship between the San Miguel Beermen and the Alaska Milkmen, then bannered by the formidable triumvirate of Bong Hawkins, Jojo Lastimosa and Johnny Abarientos. That was my first time to watch a championship live on the venue. I was so excited and hopeful that my favorite team will bounce back from its loss a game before. I was with two of my female officemates, both Beermen fanatics, who turned from demure office workers as if with the flick of a switch into shrieking unlady-like fans. In the final two minutes, I knew that the chance of our team for the title was already buried by an insurmountable lead of their opponent, and with Nelson Asaytono and the rest of the Beermen fumbling with the ball all the way into the crunch time. We decided to go out of the arena half a minute before the final buzzer, hoping to beat the onrush of fans exiting the venue at the same time. And lo and behold, we were joined by thousands of other SMB fans, in a funeral-like procession toward the exit, silent and sluggish, and exhaustion and disbelief imprinted on our long faces.

I fear of a repeat of that heartbreaking Game 7 loss with this present game between San Miguel and Ginebra. Thinking of a déjà vu made me go aarggh! And the number was not on our side, because prior to the season-ending Friday game, the Beermen had lost all their last four Game 7 matches in the finals, yes, including that defeat from the Alaska Milkmen in '98. And the last time the Beermen lost in the finals two years ago, it was on the hands of the same Ginebra team (sans their marquee player Mark Caguioa whol, like Seigle, was sidelined with injury).
But what I fear didn’t come to pass. Bilog ang bola, indeed, as one Ginebra ad would say! After a four-year title drought and heartbreaking losses, six semifinals and one finals, in between, the team finally captured the crown, the Beermen's first with Siot Tanquincen as head coach. It felt good, damn it, seeing Ildefonso and Racela again leading the victory whoops for the team.

Hoorah to the Beermen!

GOODBYE, MJ!

I GROANED when I heard from a female officemate, her eyes glued to her eMac, about Michael Jackson’s untimely demise. It was early morning in the office that day (June 26, Philippine time) when the news came in via the Internet. Elizabeth Taylor would be saying then: “I still can't believe it. I don't want to believe it. It can't be so.” And I felt the same way that moment.

In a wink I joined millions of people—fans, die-hards and just curious—who utilized the worldwide web to confirm the death of the King of Pop, and just like them, I Google about Michael Jackson’s life. I made broadband-quick flashback from the 70s when the popular quintet The Jackson 5 with the prepubescent Michael and his brothers singing “I’ll Be There,” to the zombie dance in the “Thriller” video and space walk-inspired move in the 1980s, up to his startling physical transformation and allegations of child abuse, and to his reclusive years in the latter part of his life. I was born when Michael released his first solo single “Got to Be There” and since I was a kid, I have enjoyed listening to every chart-topping hit he churned in his long career.

I’m sure, people like me, who were born during the peak of the early part of his career, along with the bell-bottomed pants and afros and hippies of the 70s, who had spent teenage life in the turbulent 80s—fashion-wise, and who had matured along with musical fusions and crossovers in the ‘90s, cannot escape from the looming presence of Michael’s music in their lives.

I myself love many of his songs and some had remained a significant imprint in my life. “Give Love on Christmas Day,” as ubiquitous as parol, Christmas trees, and puto-bumbong during the yuletide season, was an early favorite Christmas song of mine. I’d love singing it from the moment I heard it from our old vinyl record. “Ben” was also an easy favorite, not only for its melody but also for the reason that I have a very dear brother whose nickname is Ben. “Beat It” made me dance and sing during my elementary days, trying every way I can to copy his eye-popping dance moves and be popular in school. “We Are the World,” his collaboration with Lionel Richie and other topnotch celebrities of the decade, opened my eyes to starving multitudes in Africa. “Heal the World” made me feel the same civic feeling at the time when I was contemplating with what to do with my life after college.

Now I can only think of his 750 million records and record-breaking albums and complicated dance techniques, not for whatever he had become or for whoever he was. I must say that his pedophile cases, his penchant for plastic surgery, and his Wacko Jacko persona are just sidelights of his stunning musical versatility that I admire, and loads of sheer star power that had entertained music lovers around the world.

Wacko or just plain wacky, pedophile or not, black or vitiligo white, I don’t care, because Michael has always been one of my idols in music. What he had done to music—our soul, his legacy, is far-reaching. Look at how many artists, from Mariah to Usher to our very own Gary Valenciano, he had influenced. And as one blogger puts it, MJ made the world a better place for a lot of people.

His music, from his boy soprano to his androgynous high tenor, will live on in my playlists.

Thanks, Michael!

RIGHT PLACE

BEING at the right place at the right time spells success. No problem about that. Are we not all aspiring to be at the right place when the right time comes? Love stories are replete with this theme. And there are some simple stories too. Sometimes we are not conscious about it, but God puts anyone right on the spot, not only for one’s sake but for others’ as well.

It happened so pretty in my case a couple of weeks ago, and this I want to share.

Call it a coincidence also, or a sheer act of providence. But whatever it was, it saved my family from embarrassment, and (thank God) it saved our house and everything I have from the wrath of fire. Otherwise, every neighbor would point to my two sons, 11 and 9, as the culprits; and my wife and I were the ones to blame for being reckless.

Almost.

I was at the office that Friday morning during the summer break. My wife was with my daughter, our youngest, in a ballet school. That’s why my two sons were left at home; and in days like this, they were free to watch TV, or movies on DVDs, play with their collectible cards, as long as they do not go beyond the gate nor allow any of their playmates come inside the house. And except for the usual kalat (litters of toys, books, kiddie magazines, play cards) in their room and in the sala which vex their mother everytime she arrives home from the ballet school, the boys have been very responsible as they can already prepare their own meal and wash the dishes. It so happened that this particular day, a call came from a classmate of one of my sons: they were going to have a practice for the local church choir in which they were new recruits.

My aspiring singers had to go, so they coursed through their message to our good neighbor, my kumare (my daughter’s godmother), who at that time was supervising the repair of a leak off their restroom’s wall. My kumare texted my wife. My wife agreed, but first the boys had to have their lunch first, and after that they had to heat what would be left of the ginisang munggo so it will not be spoiled for the next meal.




So off my eager kids to their choir practice. They locked the door and the gate, and then gave the keys to my kumare. And as if in a cue, my kumare’s 6-year-old boy started to fidget with a stomach trouble and that he wanted sooo badly to relieve himself, but the repairman told him that they must wait for a few more hours or until tomorrow to be sure. But just like any 6-year-old who couldn’t endure when nature calls, the boy squirmed, as he was about to explode. After an hour or so my kumare texted my wife if she could just use our restroom. Being a very urgent case, my wife readily agreed.

It was when my kumare opened the main door of our house that she discovered the horrendous stench of a burning food in a metal pot. Smoke was emanating from the kitchen, almost engulfing the whole house. She found out that my kids, in their haste, forgot the pot of leftover they were heating, leaving the stove with flame unattended! It’s only a matter of time before the house would go pop and boom like a firecracker.

What if my kumare did not call for the man who repaired their CR that day, as she was supposed to do the repair on a Sunday? What if her son wouldn’t like to use our own CR and choose another neighbor’s house instead? What if he just felt fine that time of the day? What if…

At times I have been possessed by the belief that there are no such things as two or more circumstances without obvious causal connection, and that “everything happens for a reason.” I know there must be reasons for this near-tragic event, but by now, for whatever reason, my family is spared and I have something to be grateful to my kumare.

And sure, my kids had learned their lesson. When they poo, they can also use any neighbor’s restroom. Just kidding!

NAMELESS

THE death of nameless faceless people that you may hear about everyday could only bring a transient sympathy. It just stays there in a minute, and then it goes away. But it keeps your feet firmly on the ground, reminding you that life is fleeting, and so are memories of images passing our sights and the emotions that go with them.

I come to validate this thought when I heard of the death of a sidewalk vendor whose face I would see everyday in the route to my place of work.


Biak-na-Bato Street, Quezon City

I called him ‘Tay or Manong as I didn’t know his name. He was one of the many familiar faces and nameless people, like those of the jeepney drivers in our subdivision, barkers, mall guards, churchgoers, beggars and sidewalk vendors on street corners and bus stops along my usual route to work, that I meet everyday. A smile then and now, and a familiar look.

He must be around 70, lanky, with square shoulders seemingly propped by a clothes’ hanger. His skin was brown as the soil, the texture like prunes. I’d almost always see him wearing faded shirts and faded shorts.

He had a kariton, a wooden box the size of a regular office table, but with extended post in each corner above the surface, which was covered with recycled tarpaulin. He had a wide variety of merchandize—yosi (street term for a cigarette), gums and candies, biscuits, pens, instant coffee, mostly 3-in-1’s, and tabloids, among others. I was his suki, or regular buyer, of his instant coffee and Skyflakes crackers.

He would stay in a portion of an asphalted street (I always wonder why sidewalk vendors, even with such a name, would rather stay in a portion of a street than in the sidewalk), near a sectarian school on Biak-na-Bato Street. His regular patrons were those passersby that go to offices and residences around the area, those going to the school, to a huge Dominican church nearby, and to loading/unloading zones along Quezon Avenue.

His very visible position was a stone’s throw away from the spot where two holdup men were gunned down by the city police two or three months ago, and very near to an LTO office where cunning and very accommodating fixers abound, in spite of the sign that says “Bawal ang Fixers Dito (No Fixers Allowed).”

The last time I asked Manong of a packet of 3-in-1 coffees from his mobile sarisari store, he was fanning himself with a folded tabloid. “Naubos,” he said with a toothless grin. And that was two days before I heard of the news of his death.

Manong was a victim of a hit and run. He was crossing the four-lane Quezon Ave. grasping a bottle of Red Horse beer in the part of that stretch of the road where pedestrians are not supposed to cross. A speeding van hit him before he could reach the other side.

He was gone like a cigarette smoke, a nameless death. He was erased from the surface of the earth, which even any memory of him would soon go away like his bloodstain on the asphalted road. But why did I care if he died that day, tomorrow is no different than yesterday, except the absence of the familiar kariton on its usual spot.

The next day when I went to work, I bought a 3-in-1 coffee from another store. And while sipping my cup, it comes to my mind: That there is a world I am in and there is a world I am just passing through. And how I sometimes bother things I couldn’t reach, or things that even death couldn’t treat with respect.

RED ANTS AND CRUMBS

SHE said she was having a date that night. So I didn’t ask her again. I went back to my table in the other room, and dived into a bulk of manuscripts I had been proofreading since morning.

Then I forgot about her. It was February 14, and what the heck. I’d just received my payslip. I could just stay in my rented space in Roxas District, read another Leon Uris or John Grisham book, or treat myself with a bowl of simmering bulalo in a sidewalk bulalohan along Aurora Blvd. in Cubao.

It was past 5 and most employees had left the office. And over the glass wall that separated our editorial office and the circulation department where she stayed, I could see her still absorbed in paper works, and I didn’t think she was raring for a date. But I won’t ask her again.

I was the only one left in our department, because, unlike my officemates, my official daily time would end at 6 (the company allowed me to extend additional hours from Monday to Friday so that I can have the whole Saturday for my post-grad studies).

It was 6 when I asked her again. She said she wasn’t sure about her date, and she must stay for an hour to finish some job. I went back to my table, closed the manuscript, looked up the wall clock, again and again, and then lost my thought watching a column of little red ants marching to the flower vase atop my cubicle. They were gathering tiny crumbs from the crackers I had for my 3 p.m. snack.



I left the room, locked the glass door and off I went to the circulation department. I told her, if she’s really going on a date, I could stay with her in the room for the meantime, and then we could just go out the office together and part ways at a street corner. She said it’s OK. So I stayed on, and between our conversations I skimmed through back issues of the company’s publications—showbiz, sports, and music magazines.

She was introduced to me only in August, or six months earlier, by her best friend, a classmate in college, who asked her to join her in the company. She was shy, slim, a little above five feet, with an attractive face, observant eyes and long tresses.

I came to know her more closely one Sunday afternoon, days after the first meeting. She was alone in the office. Her best friend wasn’t able to join her that day. Meanwhile, the magazine editor who called me for a press work that day, also changed his mind and cancelled our work schedule at the last minute. I went straight to her office, said “hello” and stayed on for the next two hours talking with her. It was then that I learned we finished college at the same year, her family is Ilocano, and her late father, a brother and a sister, share the same birthday, September 21, which is also MY birthday!

That night, I invited her for a dinner in a sizzling joint cum bakeshop near the office, just across Sto. Domingo church. While eating, we talked more about our college days, some wacky officemates, Eraserheads’ songs, and her goals in life.

More dinnertimes together followed after that. And in a fastfood near Welcome Rotunda, I paid her three 100-peso bills as payment of my loan from her petty cash. The bills contained the three words I wanted to say to her. She counted the money, looked at me in disbelief, and then put the bills in her purse. She said she is on a relationship.

That must be her date now, I thought.

We left the office at 7. So you’re not having a date, I said. She nodded. Then I offered myself to just bring her home, which I would usually do when we leave the office at the same time. So we hurried out of the office, and flagged down the first Malate-bound jeep that we saw from the street corner along Quezon Ave.

Almost everybody around us seemed in a romantic mood, from two or three young pairs who made goo-goo eyes at each other inside the jeep, to PDA couples squeezing each other's hand while roaming the streets, some girls holding a flower, and to couples in glass-walled fastfoods. And for sure there could be more lovebirds inside cinemas and motels, of course, and in some bushy spot of a public park. We just smiled with our observations, and would rather talk about everything but love matters.

We alighted in front of the Malate church. We walked on towards Remedios Street. The night was clear and starry, and the cool breeze coming from the Manila Bay wafted like sweet caress. I suggested a dinner, she said it was okay, so I brought her to a burger stand near their place.

I had been wildly delighted at the prospect of going out on a V-day with her, and that was it, though unplanned and not necessary. I finally had a date with you on this day, I said. She laughed, and she said not a word to validate it. We just enjoyed our company together. She knew the real me. I need not be the right guy for her, but I just allowed myself to be a real friend to her. And it was the same way that I came to know her more. I was so comfortable with the setup that I stopped thinking about my feelings for her and simply enjoyed being with her.

And before she knew it, a long-lasting friendship loomed large before us. Until she was nudged into love territory I marked my own.

That, I must say, was our first date—a friendly date—in a Valentine’s Day. But it was a date and our best ever. And our last, because on December that same year, I married her.

JUST THREE WORDS

WHAT is your motto in life? It was a bonus 5-point question—so unexpected like a lightning at this time of the year, in my midterm exam for a civil law subject. But it was a breeze to answer it in not less than 50 words and having the extra points.

When was the last time I answered the same question? High school days, when I had to fill out slum books of my female classmates? Before I graduated in college, when the yearbook committee asked me about it?

It didn’t take me a minute to think what to write in the exam, because I have been consistent about it and live by this motto: NEVER GIVE UP.

Winston Churchill during the war had uttered these words in a speech before British students (some say “Never give in” were his exact words). Christopher Columbus and Thomas Alba Edison might have uttered these words also in their respective undertakings. I can’t imagine the world now without Columbus who never gave up during his voyage to the New World, what with the uncertainties of his destination, unfriendliness of the sea, and mutinies among his men. And what would the world be without inventors like Edison who persevered to make our life easier than before?

Never give up! Perhaps one of the most evocative mottos, and it has proven to have woven magic to people who take these three words to heart. For me, it has become like a mantra every time I am in a bind. For without it I would not have accomplished things and become the person I am now. My college education was filled with uncertainties and consistent combat against poverty. I had lots of rejections when, as a probinsyano and an inexperienced fresh grad, I applied for a job in the big city. And in pursuing my dream to buy a house with my hard-earned money, I was robbed thousands of pesos by a scheming real estate agent.

But did I give up? In those particular cases, NO. I finished college by supporting myself; I worked as a student assistant for a time and an underpaid farmhand during semestral breaks. I persisted in my job applications, until I was hired by a publishing company which up to this time is still providing me the work I need to earn a living. And I was able to acquire a house on mortgage from a new and legitimate broker (though I wasn’t able to recover my loss).

My father used to say to me, if you think you can do it, you can do it. I remember I was tempted to add: if you think you can’t do it, then forget it. But I realized early enough that this is wrong, because the resolve to do something must dwell first on the mind, that’s why there’s this mental conditioning: if you think... Now if you think and you believe it can be done, then you can do it, as what my father used to say. But if you lose, there’s always a second chance, and third, and so on.

But the best one that gives me the real push comes from the bible, thanks to a Born-Again Christian friend in college who first shared this verse to me: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Philippians 4:13). Now this added a new dimension to the three-word motto “Never give up” as I say it now because a resolve that comes with it, is now hinged on a belief that I cannot fail because Someone’s up there to help me all the time.

There are times, however, that I wasn’t able to use the motto, along with my father’s words and my favorite verse, to my best advantage. Sometimes I falter, waver in my faith, and give up things for good reasons. And some, for bad reasons.

When did I give up? I can only think of a few. I gave up playing chess, though I have been good at it when I was younger, because I had been very emotional when I lost in a match; I gave up my post-grad studies midway to the course because I decided that I rather start a family of my own than embark on a new career; and I gave up a friendship because I chose the will and weal of a group rather than nurture a close relationship with this person.

But so far, one thing will never change about me. Not a chance would I give up working and dreaming for something better.

THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE... MALATE

LONG before I become a resident here, Malate to me is just a passive host to many rowdy bars and restaurants stretching up to nearby Ermita district, and a perfect place for people who love to chill out, hang out and have sex.

During my first year in the metropolis in the early 90s, I only heard of the place from news reports about its famous mayor Alfredo Lim, the former chief of police who became the city mayor, became a senator, and now mayor again, padlocking bars and restaurants in Malate-Ermita area which the city council believed were havens for prostitution and lewd shows. Years after, the Supreme Court ruled that the good mayor and his council had acted beyond their power when they padlocked even those legitimate businesses; but even then, some of the bar-owners, entertainers and bar patrons had moved to other red districts in the metropolis.

Mayor Lito Atienza, who succeeded Lim, initiated the rejuvenation of old districts including Malate, along with city squares and mini plazas around the city. New resto bars and KTV joints, most of them now owned by Koreans, were opened. And a motley cluster of new businesses came in, sprucing now that once deserted (at least during Lim’s first term) Nakpil-Adriatico-Orosa stretch, near the Robinson’s Place which is just a few blocks north.

I first came to see Malate closely when I frequented the place to visit my girlfriend whose family resides in one of the remaining pre-war wooden houses along Remedios St., just about 500 meters from the Malate Church. It was 1996, three years after I left Ilocos, and I was then working as a proofreader in a publishing house and a bed spacer in an old house in Quezon City. In that same year, I married my girlfriend in Malate Church, and since then, or from January 1997 up to the later part of 2001, when my family moved to Bulacan, I have been a resident of Barangay 697 of Malate District, and a registered voter of the same barangay a year after that, and the succeeding elections even up to this time.

But even though I am now residing in Marilao, Bulacan, the old district of Malate to my family is always a home. My three children were born in Philippine General Hospital, in nearby Ermita, and all were baptized in Malate Church. When they were babies, we would bring them to the barangay center near San Andres market in Malate for free medical checkups.

We go to Malate during the feast day of its patron Our Lady of Remedies, celebrated every third Sunday of November. We go to Malate when one my kids or my wife is sick and needs a check up (their doctor is in Singalong), or when my wife has to do some important business in the metropolis. Malate is always a home, a stopover point, a watering hole.

But one important thing that gravitates my family to Malate is New Year's celebration, because it is a perfect time for a reunion for the Gundran family (which means my mother-in-law, my wife’s two elder brothers and two elder sisters, plus their kids, in-laws and grandsons). We will welcome New Year watching fireworks just outside the gate fronting Remedios St., and feasting on spaghetti, ham, and pork or hotdog barbecue after that, and exchanging gifts (we do this on the 31st, not on the 25th).

So for the past twelve years, except once where my family went to my hometown in Ilocos Sur in 1999, I would celebrate New Year in Malate. And the first day of the year would be spent usually with my family strolling and taking pictures in the baywalk area along Roxas Blvd. Or we attend a mass in Malate Church, visit Manila Zoo, shop or do funhouse games in Harrison Plaza or Robinson’s Place, or run/play around with the kids in open spaces in Remedios Circle or in Paraiso ng Batang Maynila, along with street kids, some of them running around half naked.

And after every holiday season, we leave for Bulacan with the hope that anytime soon, we’ll be back to old Malate district, to be with my wife’s relatives, and see her birthplace, her city, and her home again. Meaning no matter where my family goes or how far we have been gone, we still go back to Malate if we have our way. And indeed, there’s no place like this one I also consider home for the past 12 years now.

Here are some snap shots I got from Malate this New Year:

San Andres market fruit stands & Paraiso ng Batang Maynila


Remedios Circle & Remedios St. front of Royal Plaza


Malate Church & Rajah Sulayman Park


Manila Baywalk fronting Malate Church & Adriatico St.