Philandering moments ...

28 December 2008. People usually ask me how could my father fool us for more than 2 decades? I have always suspected even before but my friends always advised me that it is a marriage problem between my parents and thus not my problem - and I tried to console myself that it was nothing serious, just another series of non committal flings after all, other mistresses have been found accidentally in the past.

1. I was very young then, I was definitely still in the elementary, we still have that red cougar car. My father usually excused himself to go hunting with some friends and relatives. So that weekend, with my father gone - Tia Celing invited us and my Mom, obliged, reasoning out that we have nothing better to do really. So we were picked up from Pasay to go to Guadalupe Makati where Tia Celing's bakery store is located, which is downhill.

As the jeep we are riding was going down, it cross path with our red cougar!!! My father was in the driver's seat together with a girl. BUSTED!! I was worried that history have repeated itself then and that I would have a broken family.

True enough, my father came back later apologizing to us. Nothing monumental happened, as if the girl and the lie about hunting .... this is the earliest philandering moment I can recall.

2. My father likes mestizas - fair white ladies. Thus I found out later that one of our store helpers have become his mistress, her name is Alona. It was all kept secret from me, but I learned because I came across her letter to Mercy, another helper in the cash drawer in Tramo. Since I was in grade 4, I have learned to count and handle money, and I would not only accompany my mother but would also be manning the store and the cash drawer. So there, I saw the letter, Alona calling Mercy "Man og". I never did confront my Mother about it, if she chose to keep silent, so did I then. This would be the 80s, we had another store in Belarmino, Bangkal, Makati - it was more likely I was in college, or late High School. We had the store there for seven years, then the lease contract was not renewed, so bye bye store. Mercy explained that "man og" meant snake in their visayan dialect, and that because she told my mother about the affair.

3. It was also in the Belarmino store that we first learned about Chile. Apparently some relatives, some family went to the store to ask my father to stop the affair, instead they chanced upon my Mother. To my knowledge, My Mom paid out Chile a plane fare to go back to Davao, to distance herself from my father... of course, this, Chile denied when I talked to her in 2006.

Secrets ... we all have them ... and as they say, secrets are eventually discovered ...