A RENEWED PASSION

SOMEONE once said that human nature is at its weakest inside a bookstore. I found the absolute truth in those words one Wednesday morning while browsing a shop that exclusively sells secondhand books: Booksale at WalterMart near the Muñoz Market in Quezon City.

It was 11:30 AM by my watch, leaving me exactly thirty minutes to spare before I had to head to work. Yet, that half-hour stretched on until past noon. I knew I was going to be late, but I simply couldn't decide which book—or books—I should buy. To make matters worse, I had only ₱400 left in my wallet to get me through the rest of the week. With such limited time and an even tighter budget, I had to whittle down a massive pile of potential candidates to just one or two final choices. Dammit, the shelves were overflowing with incredible finds that morning; on regular days, I would be lucky to spot two or three worth taking home.

I stood there balancing my heavy haul: Main Street by Sinclair Lewis (₱65), John Lennon by Alan Clayton (₱180), East of Eden by John Steinbeck (₱180), Mitla Pass by Leon Uris (₱45), Mexico by James A. Michener (₱65), and Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow (₱85). If I held onto the pricier titles, I could only afford one or two; if I opted for the cheaper ones, I could take home at least three. The clock was ticking mercilessly.

To think, just a day prior, I had also thoroughly raided a secondhand book stall in the lobby of TriNoma, another mall along EDSA. After nearly an hour of rummaging, I had proudly walked away with five excellent titles: Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard, The Cider House Rules by John Irving, Roger’s Version by John Updike, alongside Dingoes at Dinnertime (from the Magic Tree House series) and the Happy Feet junior novelization. The last two were treasures for my two boys, who have happily inherited my fondness for reading pocketbooks.

Over the past few months, I have fallen into a steady rhythm of purchasing an average of one secondhand book a week. Given my financial constraints—after all, I am a father of three, balancing a part-time job while trying to finish a law degree—expensive new releases on display at National Book Store are a luxury I cannot justify. Even when I do have a little extra cash to spare, I have severe second thoughts about shelling out ₱300 or ₱400 for a single brand-new book. I would much rather stretch that exact same amount to buy four or five secondhand gems from Booksale. Why shouldn't I? I don't explicitly need modern bestsellers when there are myriads of brilliant older books out there—so many, in fact, that I won't be able to read even a fraction of them in my lifetime.

Admittedly, I haven't even touched the twenty or so other books I've bought since June. But I don't mind looking at my unread pile. There is a distinct comfort in knowing that the moment I finish my current read, I can immediately scan my own shelves and pick my next adventure from a ready selection.

This reading fever has been steadily climbing since the middle of last year, sparked when a friend invited me to open a Shelfari account. It felt wonderful downloading titles from my memory box—everything from childhood storybooks and whirlwind romances to bestsellers and timeless classic novels. I compiled them all into a virtual library, complete with familiar cover art and publication details.

But looking at that digital shelf also made me think about all the books I hadn't read. It was then that I realized how much ground I had lost since I stopped actively reading and collecting years ago. I had a tragic falling out with the hobby, courtesy of a colony of termites that completely devoured the first collection of pocketbooks I had painstakingly built in our old rented space near Muñoz Market.

Now, in a desperate bid to catch up, I read everywhere. I read while squeezed into vehicles during my grueling, one-and-a-half-hour commute from our home in Marilao, Bulacan to the office in Quezon City. During office hours, I stealthily steal a few extra minutes beyond my official coffee breaks to squeeze in a few more pages. And I have firmly established a habit of reading late into the night before going to sleep. By those metrics, I am firmly on track!

The only unfortunate side effect is that my allocated study time for law school has plummeted to an absolute minimum. I have been spending far more time getting lost in fiction than analyzing my codals and heavy textbooks on Taxation and Civil Procedure. Consequently, I find myself frantically cramming for those subjects most of the time.

I don't think this is a belated passion for reading. I haven't truly stopped reading pocketbooks since high school, but I have never consumed them at the breakneck speed I am maintaining now. I am finally rebuilding my home library—a proud second attempt to establish a literary sanctuary after that heartbreaking incident with the termites.

Back at Booksale,  I finally made my peace and settled on the two more expensive titles: John Lennon and East of Eden. They are rare finds for a secondhand shop like this, and the copies were in pristine condition, looking as though their original owners had never even cracked the spines. The damage came out to ₱360—plus an hour's worth of deducted salary due to my inevitable tardiness at the office that afternoon.

You could certainly call that a textbook sign of weak human nature. But as I walked out, it was incredibly nice to think that the moment I got home, I would have fresh text waiting for me. It is the perfect inspiration to hurry up and finish my current read, The Sandman: Book of Dreams, and I have officially vowed to conquer one more book by the end of the week.

My latest Shelfari account on books read

POLITICAL

I AM an apolitical grade schooler when Senator Ninoy Aquino died on August 21, 1983. But I was aware of that event early on. I could feel that most if not all people of Ilocandia (the Ilocos Region) just shrugged the event off as nothing serious as to distract President Marcos—yes, the Apo Marcos of us Ilocanos. And the old folks wouldn’t care! The Apo is a strong man, they said. That settled things then, the event would never be a distraction, even children of my age would agree.

But more than two years after Ninoy’s assassination, the “event” would lead to a monumental uprising, no longer a mere distraction of the strongman’s rule. After the snap election pitting Marcos against Cory, Ninoy’s grieving widow and a political neophyte, crucial episodes of our history unfolded before us. When the regime’s Defense Secretary and one of his trusted generals defected, citing massive cheating in the election as one of their reasons for their heroic act, hundreds of thousands of people had began to gather in EDSA to support them.

I remember that fateful day of February 25, 1986. It was wee hour of the morning. I was stirred from my slumber by a neighbor calling on my father to go out and hear for himself a very important scope. “Awanen ni Marcos! Pimmanawen! (Marcos is gone! He’s left!)”

As I had been a captive listener to my grandfather’s radio and to gossips and serious conversations of adults who had been following the developments in EDSA since day one, I was interested to know the outcome of the said rebellion or revolution (whatever side you were in then). My grandfather was hoping early on that these rebel soldiers and oppositionists and opportunists alike, including the Catholic Church hierarchy, would eventually see the light and concede to the Apo’s election victory. My father, my neighbors and almost all Ilocanos shared the same sentiment, at least during those troubled times.

But now the Apo had given up the fight. I hurriedly went out with my father and proceeded to our neighbor’s house. Heard over the radio in crackling signals was a report about a US helicopter slipping Marcos out of the country while nobody was looking.

My father was speechless for a moment, so with our neighbor, and his sons who were also stirred from sleep like me. It was as if a light went off and a breath of life snuffed out. It was sad for my grandfather, my father, my neighbor and the rest of the Ilocanos.

When I went to school, where I was a high school freshman, an overcast air is evident in the campus. I could sense the somber mood among the students, teachers and school administrators while they discussed about our future. The school owner, a staunch Marcos supporter, after a moment of gloom would eventually shift its loyalty to Cory, as there was no more chance for the Marcos loyalists to fight back, and a support from the new government would be necessary for the survival of the private school. But even months after EDSA, political discussion would rather center on Cory as usurper of power; otherwise, Marcos loyalists, most if not all of them in Ilocos, would rather not talk about it. So I finished high school with no politics bothering my life again.

But my self-imposed ignorance was only short-lived. By the time I entered college, the Cory administration had been fighting tooth and nail to ward off rebel soldiers. The bloodiest of this series of coups happened in 1989 during my first year in college.

By then, I know what’s good and bad for our government. I had learned enough what Marcos had done to our democracy, and the excesses of the dictatorial regime. I would know then that the military cannot just grab the government from Cory. It helped that I regularly read the Free Press, which I bought almost every week with whatever I could save from my allowance. I started subscribing to the opinions of Teddy Locsin and other magazine contributors in their defense of democracy and the Cory administration, and their aversion to dictatorship and its clones. Gen. Rodolfo Biazon, the Marines commander during the series of Honasan-led coups, would become my hero for successfully defending the State against power grabbers.

There wasn’t a time that Cory became popular among us, at least in Ilocos. I heard people mumbling that they’re better off with Marcos, and they thought that if life wasn’t as easy as before, why would they have to embrace a new regime. Marcos was still and always be their guy.

But to those moderates, or those who would rather embrace Cory administration and its shortfall than to revert to martial rule, believed that there were other factors beyond the control of the Cory administration that kept us from progressing as a nation, such as these tragic calamities (Mt. Pinatubo eruptions, earthquakes), series of coups, and the fact that Cory inherited a bankrupt government. That Cory wasn’t popular in the region was also true at least with student leaders and campus activists. For them Cory was a “tuta ng Kano” because she had wanted to extend the stay of the US bases in the country. But the magnificent 12 in the senate, headed by then Senate President Jovito Salonga, thwarted her when they rejected a proposed bases treaty that would have given the U.S. more years to maintain its bases here.

While in college, I also joined some student movements, campus demonstrations and forums against US bases and everything that stinks of neocolonialism. As part of the student publication, I became a member of a militant writers’ group.

Immediately after college, I went back to my high school alma mater to teach for a year. There my third year students would remind me of the usual apathy that most Ilocanos had for Cory. I remember that class we had in February that year. A day earlier, the Ramos government had just declared the EDSA anniversary as non-working holiday. Now my brief discussion on the date as part of my motivation for the lesson, turned out to be a question-and-answer forum. “Do we really need to celebrate the People Power?” somebody asked. That started it all. Then they barraged me with questions centering on Ninoy, Marcos and Cory. Is Ninoy a hero? Was Marcos really bad? Did he really order the assassination of Ninoy? Or was it Imelda? Why a revolution happened in the first place?

I was surprised that I could tell them in simple words and with conviction about what I know and felt about the People Power. I narrated the events that preceded it, and saying in summary that Marcos was bad, that Ninoy had good reasons to go against Marcos, and that Cory was brought to the fight, by a stroke of God’s hand, to save our democracy from the dark reign of a dictator.

From that day on, I affirmed my admiration for Cory and my political conviction, that everything contrary to democracy is bad.

That, I admit, must have started my real political awakening, and the burden that I must bear until now. It pains me to see our country still wallowing in extreme poverty many years after that euphoria and exhilaration of the success of People Power of 1986. I feel nothing but utter disdain to our present leaders. It upsets me to see politicians doing everything to perpetuate themselves in power, obviously by nepotistic and patronage type of politics, and by charter change. It disturbs me to see leaders of rebel soldiers who wanted to grab power by force, disregarding our Constitution in the process, but who are now so eager to join democratic elections just to continue their greed for power.

But what disturbs me more is to see deposed President Erap Estrada raring to run for president again. Erap even becomes an admirer of Cory, something he didn’t hide during the wake of the former president. He even extolled the heroism of Ninoy and his ideals. Now this pardoned convict wants to run again. For what? To go back to the government that he plundered from 1998 to 2001?

Well, we are in a democratic country. It’s damn complicated living on it. But even with the kind of political leaders that we have right now, I never regret living with this country. There’s always hope, as Cory, the plain housewife, had shown us during trying times after the death of her husband.

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. There is no argument about that. Aren’t we all aspiring to be exactly where we need to be when the right moment comes? Love stories are replete with this theme, but so are simpler, everyday occurrences. Sometimes we aren't even conscious of it, but God puts people right on the spot, not just for their own sake, but for the sake of others as well. It happened beautifully in my case a couple of weeks ago, and it is a story I feel compelled to share. Call it a coincidence, or call it a sheer act of providence. Whatever it was, it saved my family from utter embarrassment, and—thank God—it saved our home and everything we own from the wrath of a fire.

Had things gone differently, every neighbor on our street would be pointing fingers at my two sons, aged 11 and 9, as the culprits. My wife and I would have shouldered the blame for being reckless parents. We came terrifyingly close.

It was a Friday morning during the summer break. I was at the office, and my wife had taken our youngest daughter to her ballet class. Because of this, my two sons were left home alone. On days like this, they were free to watch TV, watch movies on DVD, or play with their collectible cards—provided they didn't step past the front gate or invite any of their playmates inside. Aside from the inevitable kalat—the scattered mess of toys, books, kiddie magazines, and playing cards left in their bedroom and the sala that always vexes their mother—the boys had proven to be quite responsible. They were already old enough to prepare their own simple meals and wash the dishes.

On this particular day, a phone call came from one of my sons' classmates. They were scheduled to have a practice session for the local church choir, where they were brand-new recruits. My aspiring singers were eager to go, so they passed a message along to our good neighbor—my kumare, who also happens to be my daughter’s godmother. At that exact moment, she was busy supervising a repairman who was fixing a stubborn leak inside their restroom wall.

My kumare texted my wife to ask for permission. My wife agreed, but on two strict conditions: the boys had to eat their lunch first, and afterward, they had to heat up the leftover ginisang munggo (mung bean stew) on the stove so it wouldn’t spoil before the next meal.

Eager to join their friends, my kids quickly finished their chores. They locked the main door and the front gate, handed the keys over to my kumare for safekeeping, and rushed off to choir practice.

Then, as if on cue, my kumare’s six-year-old boy began to fidget. He was suddenly struck by an intense stomach ache and desperately needed to relieve himself. However, their repairman gave them a strict warning: they had to wait a few more hours, or perhaps even until tomorrow, before using their newly patched toilet. But as anyone who has raised a six-year-old knows, nature refuses to wait when it calls. The poor boy was squirming, visibly on the verge of an absolute explosion.

After an hour or so of watching her son suffer, my kumare texted my wife, asking if they could use our restroom in the emergency. Given the urgency of the situation, my wife readily agreed.

The moment my kumare unlocked and pushed open our main door, she was hit by the horrendous, suffocating stench of burning food. Thick smoke was already emanating from the kitchen, slowly engulfing the entire house. She rushed inside and discovered the truth: in their frantic haste to leave for choir practice, my boys had completely forgotten about the metal pot of leftover munggo they were heating. The stove was still burning, completely unattended.

It was only a matter of time before the house would have gone pop and boom like a firecracker.

The near-miss left me spiraling with questions. What if my kumare hadn't called the repairman that Friday, deciding instead to schedule the work for Sunday as she originally intended? What if her son had chosen to use another neighbor’s restroom instead of ours? What if his stomach had felt completely fine that afternoon? What if?

At times, I am possessed by the firm belief that there is no such thing as random coincidences—that two or more circumstances intersecting without a clear causal connection is impossible. Everything happens for a reason. I know there must be a grander reason behind this near-tragedy, but for now, I am simply grateful that my family was spared and that I owe an immense debt of gratitude to my kumare.

And, of course, my kids learned an unforgettable lesson about kitchen safety. As for my nephew? Well, he learned that when nature calls, using a neighbor’s restroom can literally save a home. Just kidding!

NAMELESS

THE DEATHS of the nameless, faceless people we hear about every day usually bring only transient sympathy. The feeling lingers for just a minute before it slips away. Yet, it keeps our feet firmly on the ground, reminding us that life is fleeting, as are the memories of images passing our sight and the emotions that go with them.

I came to validate this thought when I heard about the death of a sidewalk vendor whose face I used to see every day on my commute to work. I called him Tatay or Manong, as I never knew his real name. He was one of the many familiar, nameless faces that populate my daily routine—like the jeepney drivers in our subdivision, the barkers, mall guards, churchgoers, beggars, and the vendors occupying street corners and bus stops along my usual path. Our interactions were simple: a smile now and then, a familiar look.

Biak-na-Bato Street, Quezon City

He must have been around 70 years old, lanky, with square shoulders that seemed perpetually propped up by a clothes hanger. His skin was as brown as the soil, weathered to the texture of prunes. I almost always saw him wearing faded shirts and shorts. His kariton—a wooden cart about the size of a standard office desk—had extended posts at each corner covered by a recycled tarpaulin. It housed a wide variety of merchandise: yosi (the street term for cigarettes), gum, candies, biscuits, pens, tabloids, and packets of instant coffee, mostly 3-in-1 blends. I was his suki, a regular buyer of his instant coffee and SkyFlakes crackers.

He parked his cart on a portion of an asphalted street near a sectarian school on Biak-na-Bato Street. I always wondered why sidewalk vendors, despite their name, prefer to occupy the edge of the road rather than the sidewalk itself. His regular patrons were the daily passersby: employees heading to nearby offices, residents, students, churchgoers bound for the massive Dominican church nearby, and commuters waiting at the loading zones along Quezon Avenue.

His highly visible spot stood just a stone’s throw away from where two holdup men had been gunned down by the city police two or three months prior. It was also very close to a Land Transportation Office (LTO) branch, where cunning and accommodating fixers abounded, completely ignoring a prominent sign that read, "Bawal ang Fixer Dito" (Fixers Prohibited Here).

The last time I asked Manong for a packet of 3-in-1 coffee from his mobile sari-sari store, he was fanning himself with a folded tabloid.

"Naubos," he said with a toothless grin.

That was just two days before I heard the news of his death. Manong had fallen victim to a hit-and-run. He was crossing the four-lane expanse of Quezon Avenue, clutching a bottle of Red Horse beer, in a section of the road where pedestrians were forbidden to cross. A speeding van struck him before he could reach the safety of the other side. He was gone like wisps of cigarette smoke—a nameless death. He was erased from the surface of the earth, and even the memory of him would soon wash away, just like his bloodstain on the asphalt.

I wondered why I cared so much that he died that day. Tomorrow is no different from yesterday, save for the absence of that familiar kariton in its usual spot.

The next morning on my way to work, I bought a 3-in-1 coffee from a different store. As I sipped my warm cup, a thought crossed my mind: there is a world I belong to, and there is a world I am merely passing through. And I realized how often I bother myself with things I cannot reach—or things that even death cannot treat with respect.

RED ANTS AND CRUMBS

SHE said she had a date that night, so I didn't ask her again.

I went back to my table in the other room and dived into the mountain of manuscripts I had been proofreading since morning, letting her slip from my mind. It was February 14, but what the heck. I had just received my payslip. I figured I could just stay in my rented space in Roxas District to read another Leon Uris or John Grisham book, or treat myself to a simmering bowl of bulalo at a sidewalk eatery along Aurora Boulevard in Cubao.

By past 5:00 PM, most employees had already left. Through the glass wall separating the editorial office from the circulation department where she worked, I could see her still completely absorbed in paperwork. She didn’t look like someone raring for a date, but I resolved not to ask her again. I was the only one left in my department; unlike my officemates, my official shift ended at 6:00 PM because the company allowed me to extend my hours from Monday to Friday so I could keep my Saturdays free for post-graduate studies.

When the clock struck 6:00, I found myself asking her again anyway. She admitted she wasn’t sure about her date and needed another hour to finish up.

Returning to my desk, I closed my manuscript and checked the wall clock repeatedly. I lost myself in thought watching a column of tiny red ants marching toward the flower vase atop my cubicle, gathering crumbs left over from my 3:00 PM crackers. Eventually, I left the room, locked the glass door, and walked over to the circulation department. I told her that if she was indeed going on a date, I could keep her company in the meantime so we could leave the office together and part ways at the street corner. She agreed.

As we talked, I casually skimmed through back issues of the company’s showbiz, sports, and music magazines. She had only been introduced to me six months earlier, back in August, by her college best friend who had convinced her to join the company. She was shy, slim, just a little over five feet tall, with an attractive face, observant eyes, and long, flowing tresses.

I had gotten to know her more closely one Sunday afternoon a few days after our initial meeting. She was alone in the office because her best friend couldn't make it that day. Meanwhile, the magazine editor who had called me in for press work changed his mind and canceled at the last minute. I went straight to her office, said hello, and stayed for the next two hours just talking. That was when I discovered we had graduated from college in the same year, that her family was Ilocano, and that her late father, brother, and sister all shared the same birthday—September 21, which also happened to be my birthday!

That same night, I invited her to dinner at a sizzling joint and bakeshop near the office, just across from Sto. Domingo Church. Over our meal, we talked about our college days, our wacky officemates, Eraserheads songs, and her goals in life. More dinners followed. Once, at a fast-food restaurant near Welcome Rotunda, I handed her three 100-peso bills to repay a loan from her petty cash. On those bills, I had written the three words I desperately wanted to say to her. She counted the money, looked at me in utter disbelief, and quietly slipped the bills into her purse.

"I'm in a relationship," she had said then. That must be her date tonight, I thought to myself.

We finally left the office at 7:00 PM. "So, you don't have a date after all?" I asked.

She nodded. I offered to take her home, which had become our routine whenever we left the office at the same time.

We hurried out to the street corner along Quezon Avenue and flagged down the first Malate-bound jeepney we saw. The entire city seemed swept up in a romantic mood. Inside the jeepney, two or three young couples were making goo-goo eyes at each other. On the sidewalks, couples openly displayed affection, holding hands as they walked, some girls clutching single flowers. Even through the glass walls of fast-food chains, lovebirds were visible everywhere. No doubt there were even more packed into cinemas, motels, and the shadowy corners of public parks. We just smiled at our observations, choosing to talk about absolutely anything except romance.

We alighted in front of Malate Church and walked toward Remedios Street. The night was clear and starry, and the cool breeze blowing in from Manila Bay felt like a sweet caress. I suggested dinner, and when she agreed, I brought her to a burger stand near her place.

I was secretly overjoyed by the unexpected turn of events—spending Valentine's Day with her, even if it was unplanned and unprompted.

"I finally got a date with you today," I teased.

She laughed but said nothing to confirm it. We simply enjoyed each other's presence. She knew the real me. I didn’t need to play the part of the perfect guy; I just allowed myself to be a genuine friend, and in turn, I came to know her deeply. I grew so comfortable with our setup that I stopped overthinking my feelings and just embraced being with her.

Before she knew it, a deep, resilient friendship had formed between us. Eventually, she found herself stepping into the very love territory I had quietly marked out for her.

That evening was our very first date—a friendly Valentine's Day outing. Yet, it remains our best date ever. It also proved to be our last "casual" date, because in December of that very same year, I married her.