Prologue for Mandaluyong

(Being a draft for a foreword to a book on the city)

Mornings are rare in Mandalu-yong, depending which side of Boni – the main road that stretches from Kalentong in Shaw Blvd. side to Pioneer across EDSA – you are on. It seems mornings were made for Mandaluyong, the sunlight hitting the unwary resident like a benediction, the view to the east virtually unobstructed from any point on the young city’s rolling, hilly terrain. If there were to be a newspaper based here, it would be called "The Sun," the Mandaluyong Sun. Mornings here were made for walking, literally, into the light.

Three years is perhaps a reasonable enough length of time to get settled in one place, in this case in a cluster of mid-range apartments off Boni, on Sacrepante St. You know the storied dread felt by any resident for the follow-up question once it is revealed that he or she comes from the city, inside or outside? (Meaning, the mental institution, Mandaluyong’s first known landmark). It’s the same queasiness we feel when asked to repeat or even spell out the name of our street, Sacrepante, sacred panty, street of the sacred underwear.

When first we moved in Mayor Benhur Abalos was already at city hall and was in fact about to run for reelection, which he won handily. The city’s representative could have already been Neptali "Boyet" Gonzales Jr., and when he again won the congressional post he was promptly designated one of the House leaders. Both men are sons of their fathers, politicians and elder statesmen who grew up in the place when it was still practically a backwater town between the banks of the river Pasig and the old Highway 54.

Abalos’ and Gonzales’ fathers, Benjamin Sr. and the late senator Neptali I were friends, although the Gonzaleses père et fils are older than the Abaloses père et fils. Yet age does not matter in politics, and neither should it in love or friendship. In the elections just past, there apparently was a gentleman’s agreement between the political scions to switch posts, with Benhur running for Congress, and Boyet this time running for city hall. Both still had at least one more term before their constitutionally prescribed three-term limit was up. But perhaps the young men decided to preempt any dilemma that would surface once the three terms were up – do we field our wives or what – and so decided, in a manner of speaking, to change partners and in the process reinvent themselves.

The latest joke was a take-off from the old one, with Abalos and Gonzales dividing the city equally between them (hating kapatid!), and the plot would go something like this: Sa akin ang labas, sa ’yo ang loob! Or words to that effect, again making reference to the famed loony bin.

But the truth is that all mornings must progress to afternoons and evenings, just as Mandaluyong has through the years graduated from being the town that housed the mental hospital to become a city with the biggest mall in the country. There is in Mandaluyong the best of both worlds, and when we say that we are not merely echoing PR copy. Because even as it has made inroads with the construction of malls, high rise offices and condominiums that could rival nearby Ayala and Ortigas, it has retained something of the quaint charm of old – I am almost tempted to call it provincial – with the buzzing of tricycles, the short walk to market or the barber’s, and the feeling that one knows everybody in one’s own small circle of daily transactions and meanderings.

And the food joints, dare we say it, have begun to take a life of their own. One of the favorites, and even Rizal High alumnus Neptali Sr. would attest to this were he still around, is Aling Tonang’s with its unbeatable pancit palabok. If you want bami, Corinne’s is just a phone call away on Sikap St. A place we haven’t tried but which continues to tickle the imagination, is Pancit Malaboni, where the pancit malabon could be the best on Boni.

Of course, one of the commonest complaints about having to live in Mandaluyong is the dreaded floods, flashes of which one encounters after a sudden unseasonal downpour when the decloggers have yet to do their work before the onset of the rainy season. Particularly vulnerable is the Sto. Rosario area near Maysilo fronting the municipal hall, as well the stretch on Boni between Ortigas housing the Good Shepherd School and Aglipay St. near the San Felipe Neri Church. In such cases of impassable roads, the vehicle owner is advised to take a detour via Makati or EDSA, or in lesser catastrophic situations, take San Raphael, which has finally finished its street widening project after about a year.

As for writers, there are more than enough in this city: Recah Trinidad and Ching Alano in riverside Vergara, Teo Antonio in Barangay Hulo, Kathy Moran on Yulo, Kap Aguila on Halcon Street, Marjorie Evasco in Barangay Hagdang Bato, Charlson Ong behind the former Polymedic, Giselle Kasilag on Bulalakaw off Sgt. Bumatay, and yours truly on sacred underwear beside Rizal Technological University that hosts the WNCAA. The next three years will be even more interesting for Mandaluyong, with Benhur in Congress and Boyet in City Hall. It’s a shifting of roles and might be the first step for these respective sons to break out of the shadow of their fathers, since the late Gonzales was known as a legislator and the old Abalos has carved his name in local government. It won’t be difficult, we surmise, considering the quality of light on most Mandaluyong mornings.