Happy Father's Day
By Loi Gillera My recollection of my father to this day is of a middle age man with a perennial smile. Slightly balding on the crown of his head, his hair looks full in front with an unruly lock that dangles like a comma on the center of his forehead. Born in 1910, in a tiny islet called Bantayan north of Cebu province, he was a fisherman since he was a child. He came to Manila with my mother in 1936 to work in the government as a motor pool guard. He stand straight and appears taller than his 5'7" frame. Looking lean he must have weight no more than 150 lbs. A regular "Joe" so to speak. Like all fishermen, my father drinks a lot. Never miss a glass of "Shyok Tong" with lunch. On weekends, along with other Manila boy "Bantayanons", they muster in our house, drink, sing and tell the same war stories over and over again until they are stupor with alcohol where they sit. But my father was the one who taught me the rudiments of arithmetic. It wa...