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The first to leave their sleepy hometown was Liwoy and Awo. They boarded a Philtranco bus with only a hundred and fifty pesos in their pockets to the lure and promise of Imperial Manila. Armed with only a written direction and a sketchy sketch of the address of a distant relative where they could seek temporary shelter, they pack their worldly belongings and ventured into the unknown and found themselves staying in the cramped place of the relative standing precariously on the edge of the Pasig River in the Baseco Compound in the notorious Tondo District in the City of Man.

 

The next day, they decided to try their luck by applying as a factory worker in one of the many factories in the industrial area of Pasig that manufactured rubber casings for heavy equipments used in the building of electric cables used in underwater explorations by a multinational oil company. But luck was not on their side that day for there was no vacancy in the factory, instead they found themselves wandering the harsh streets of the inner Barangay Kapitolyo looking for any job that would require their meager skills. Their first day in the capital city proved uneventful until they chanced upon a group of men fighting. They found themselves witnessing ominously the street brawl between the Sigue-Sigue Sputnik and OXO, the two dominant gangs in that part of Pasig.


They watched in sheer astonishment as the two rival gangs went for each other’s throats. They observed and took notice of the fact that unlike in the provinces where scores are settled right there and then and in a gentlemanly manner, the fight in the big city is far dirtier with no clear-cut winner even with numerous casualties on both sides. There was always the possibility of a resbak* by the opposing parties to even up the score. So, one will have to be literally on one's toes to avoid finding oneself buried six feet under the ground. That knowledge and observation, they bear in their young minds as they began their new lives in their new roles as the newest promdis* on the block in that small clusters of barumbarongs* right in the heart of Bangkusay as they now walk with a swagger and crisscrossed their way into the dark, filthy and smelly eskinitas* acting like the real " Manila Boys."

 

 

Bebot

 

At exactly eight o' clock in the morning, Kalasyo found himself entering and staring at the graffiti filled walls of the empty classroom in Aquinas University’s College of Arts and Sciences building for his first subject in the morning- Philosophy.


He flipped his wrists every now and then as he checked and re-checked his trusted Seiko 5 stainless wristwatch that his father gave him on his graduation from high school the past summer to see whether he is early or not for his class. He was on time indeed but being a first year college student, he was not aware of the fact that the schedule in a college class, at least on this side of the earth was entirely different from the way that he was used to in high school especially if it was the first subject on a Monday morning of the first day of the school year. He lazily proceeded on the farthest part of the room and took the last chair in the corner, sat and waited. A dozen minutes have passed before two girls entered the classroom, smiled and nodded at him to acknowledge his presence as they in turn occupied the front seats and chatted to themselves before he could say a word or two.

 

Slowly, several students began to trickle in until finally a fat bespectacled balding man in his late 20' s entered the room that made the students think he was a person of authority. They all stand up to greet their new professor but he waived them off with his right hand and a sheepish grin on his face by saying that he was not their  "professor" but rather one of their own, a classmate in fact, eliciting catcalls and a thunderous roar from the body of students who could not contain themselves for their slipped. Nevertheless, the name stuck throughout the entire semester. The boisterous noise was unceremoniously cut off when a gray-haired waif- like lady, probably in her 50 s entered the classroom, proceeded and sat at the teacher’s table and asked for the submission of class cards before introducing herself as their resident “philosopher”. After writing down some instructions and reading assignments on the green board, she vanished as fast as she came into the comforts of the faculty room on the far end of the building for a quick breakfast that consisted of a steaming cup of brewed coffee and pan de sal.*

 

Thus, Kalasyo’s first day in school proved uneventful except for the fact that his dreamy eyes caught the sight of one of the girls throwing him a glance from across the room just before they managed to slip out of the door after the class was dismissed unceremoniously. He then asked a classmate for her name, a name that will became an integral part of his young life.

Her name was Bebot.  

Email: basaganforce@gmail.com

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