Remember when a jeepney ride was 10 centavos (libre pa ang kandong)?
When only women wore earrings?
When only death row convicts in Muntinlupa sported tattoos?
And girls who wore skimpy short pants with belly buttons exposed were malandi?
The ’50s, our high school years, were cool years. Our country’s president, Ramon Magsaysay, the man who was responsible for breaking the back of the communist rebellion, brought some peace and order to the land and won the trust and hearts of the common tao. He made the Time Magazine cover. Magsaysay said, “I’ll jail my own father if he violates the law.”
The exchange rate was P2 to $1. A movie was P1.20. Coke was 15 cents. A hotdog sandwich was 40 cents. Ten pesos bought 10 liters of gasoline. Traffic was light. We breathed fresh air, not air pollution.
When I took a trip to Majayjay, Laguna, the bus passed every town. There was no SLEX. In between towns were long, vast rice fields and forested hills. I could smell the sweetness of the rice grains when they were ripe and golden brown.
We knew clearly whom to fall in love with and whom to hate. It was Grace Kelly or Doris Day for us boys. For girls it was either Rock Hudson (a closet gay) or Clark Gable.
The baddies were Edward G. Robinson, Richard Widmark and Jack Palance. All had a mean scowl on their faces.
Radio was the medium that covered the entire country. “Tawag ng Tanghalan” was the phenomenal No. 1 program that made Diomedes Maturan a national icon because of his mellifluous singing voice. Frank Sinatra and Sarah Vaughn songs were top hits.
Sinful shows
The sinful shows were Margo the Z-Bomb at Astor Theater and Virgie Knight, the Burlesque girl at Inday Theater, a few blocks away from the basilica of the Black Nazarene in Quiapo. Both buxom temptresses had white skin and shapely legs. We covered our faces as we hurriedly exited the theater. If our Dean of Discipline got wind of our naughty escapades, we would surely be expelled from Ateneo. Our mothers would’ve died of shame.
We learned how to smoke by puffing Chelsea or Fatima Cigarettes. Drug addiction was unknown.
The car of our dreams was the two-door Ford Fairlane with Hollywood muffler, or the sleek two-tone Chevy Belair.
Our mothers bought our school needs at Vasquez Bros. on R. Hidalgo, our clothes at Good Earth Bazaar on Avenida Rizal. The middle class shopped at Aguinaldo’s in Echague, a US-style department store that looked like Macy’s.
When eating out, we all went to Ma Mon Luk for mami and siopao and the steamed chicken was dumalaga, manok Batangas. The Magnolia soda fountain in Echague was where we treated ourselves to American-style milkshake and banana split.
Jopson and Tropical Hut were the supermarts, a tiny fraction in size compared to today’s SM Megamall.
Our high school batch at Ateneo was the first group made to transfer from the Quonset hut in Padre Faura to the unpainted, box-like building in Loyola Heights. Loyola Heights was a virtual prairie with dusty roads and tall cogon grass, the whole hundred hectares sitting on a promontory. Below were vast rice fields and grazing land called Marikina Valley.
De Dios buses, painted yellow, ferried all the students to Ateneo, from pickup points all over Manila. The buses dropped students off at the same spot after classes. If you missed the bus, you got stranded, and had to walk all the way to UP Balara or Kamuning to get a ride home.
Lunch at the cafeteria was P1, served on army metal trays, ladled with arroz a la valenciana topped with fried egg, boiled rice, sautéed Baguio beans and watery soup.
Ateneo was a school for boys only, and our days were filled with rites of passage to manhood. When our yellow De Dios bus and Maryknoll’s red JD bus were stopped side by side by a red light, the mere sight of girls caused a riot inside our bus.
Immortal
We possessed young bodies; agile, tireless and immortal. At the covered courts, we drove goal to goal a dozen times, did a flying lay up and landed on our butt gracefully without a scratch. We could down six bottles of Coke a day, eat extra bowls of rice at lunch at Eagles Nest, and not gain a pound. Our metabolism worked like clockwork, burning all the calories we could take.
We were war freaks and waged battles of fisticuffs against the mestizos of La Salle after an NCAA game.
The Jesuits of the ’50s were Americans who belonged to the New York province. They held sway over our student life. Their main tool was a curriculum called ratio studiorum, the Jesuit system of education that prepared students to be leaders along sapientia et eloquencia, and balanced with athleticism for mens sana in corpore sano.
You couldn’t be idle or bored at Ateneo High. Aside from conjugating Latin verbs, writing endless English compositions and book reports, there were posts (duck walk and cutting grass) as our punishments for infraction of school rules.
We were also encouraged to join many activities. To be holy, be a sodalist; to be an arbiter, join the Brebeuf Club; to do apostolate, join the ACIL; to act, apply at the Dramatic Society; to sing, be a Glee Club member; to love the Eucharist, join the Mass Club; to be an altar boy, join the Sanctuary Society, and many others.
After 50 years, I’m proud to say we have not forgotten our Fabiliohs and Halikanus. We’ve kept the habit of going to confession, communion and hearing Mass often. And when push came to shove, we did what all Ateneans know by heart. One Big Fight!
We were 216 who graduated in 1955. For our graduation photos, we were all dressed in gray suits and dark ties (all rented), looking handsome, clean-cut and extremely presentable—thanks to 3 Flowers Pomade and Cashmere Bouquet Brillantine.
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