Alabang Town Center: Second home for southern families

MANILA, Philippines - Spend a late weekday afternoon in Alabang Town Center (ATC) and you will typically see a lot of teenagers walking around and kids with their moms. They are mostly coming from school with their friends or, for the little ones, they have just been picked up from playschool by their parents.

Spend the same time on a weekend and you will find the same people — except now with the whole family in tow — out for lunch or dinner, a movie and some shopping.

Through the years — from the time ATC was just a supermarket and two-cinema mall and everything around it was idle land —  Alabang Town Center has expanded and added to its roster of shops, restaurants, movie houses and service centers.

It’s amazing how ATC, despite its size today, has maintained that small-community feel where everybody knows everybody, even though the south itself has expanded, spanning anywhere south of Makati to as far as Laguna to nestle some of the country’s biggest residential subdivisions.

ATC still has that second-home atmosphere where people come out in shorts and flip-flops and feel neither under-dressed nor out of place.

For these three families, bonding over a meal in a restaurant at Alabang Town Center is pretty much like having a second home in the south. 

Fernando & Richell Bermudez: Raising Helena & Zapatitos

Richell grew up in Ayala Alabang and for college she lived in London while Fernando grew up around the world until they got married in 2007 and decided to settle down in the Philippines.  

“The Philippines for me is a place where I’m finally growing roots,” he says of the many times he has had to move as a child and never establishing life-long friends. “I feel so at home here, the culture is very similar to Honduran culture. “

The couple absolutely loves living in the south and even with their recent move to their new house in Southwoods, you will find Richell and their two-year-old daughter Helena at Alabang Town Center almost every day.

“We’re still only 10 minutes away from ATC, so it is still here where we do our groceries and shopping,” Richell says. A must-do for Helena is to ride the carousel (at least once!) and a refueling stop at Jamba Juice.

On weekends when they are joined by Fernando, who works for a shipping company, it’s a game of football for him while Helena swims or goes to the park with mom. The family starts malling around lunchtime at their usual haunts like Abe and CPK.

When it is just the two of them, they like to chill at Hossein’s and Barcino.

To Richell, there is no better place to raise Helena than the south. “It’s very laidback, you go to your friends’ house, you live in the same community, share the same activities. Kids are not so much into TV (and other gadgets that Fernando calls ‘digital pacifiers’), you actually go out and enjoy. That’s how I grew up. We were always at a friend’s house, swimming, or our parents would throw barbecues.

 â€œMy favorite at ATC when I was a kid was Pancake House, it’s been here ever since and there’s this one guy that’s still there since I was 12 years old. When I was in high school, my friends and I would hang out at McDonald’s because it was cheap. It was always a burger and Royal for me after school. And then we’d walk around, buy a donut, watch a movie. Nothing fancy. When you grow up in the south, you feel that in the north, there’s too much going on, too chaotic. The suburb feel is great.” 

 Fernando adds, “You see people walking around in shorts and tsinelas, which you don’t see as much in Makati.”

There is also no better place to start a business than here. Last year Richell brought in the Colombian brand Zapatitos, which sells footwear for infants and toddlers (0 to 24 months), and opened a stall at ATC.

They are shoes made of premium supple and soft leather from South America, handmade by what Fernando says are called “the head of household moms in Colombia.”

“Filipinos have to be informed about the health benefits of soft-soled shoes,” says Richell. “Kids here wear hard rubber shoes so young — when their muscles and cartilage are still developing — and this could lead to getting flat-footed, back problems or arthritis. Their little toes have to be able to grip and get a hold of the surface so they can balance themselves, which you can’t do with hard-soled shoes because they are constricting. The business came about because I couldn’t find a lot of choices for Helena and I had been researching on shoes fit for babies.”  

A hands-on mom, Richell is able to mix her family time with Helena and her business when she’s at ATC.

Donny & Patricia Feraren: A model family

Donny and Patricia Feraren literally have a model family with their three kids: Kayla, 15, Chloe, 11, and Enzo, 9. Donny has appeared in TV and print ads including BPI; The girls - Patricia, Kayla, and Chloe have all done lead roles in local tv commercials while the youngest, Enzo has appeared in Philippine, Malaysian and Indonesian ads.

They also have businesses. Donny owns a full-service car shop in Sucat while Pat has her own preschool in BF Homes called Child’s Home.

The Paranaque-based Ferarens are also familiar figures in Alabang Town Center. “I bring my kids to Alabang for school every day,” says Pat. “The two girls in Woodrose and Enzo in De La Salle Zobel. In the afternoon, we usually make a stop at ATC for snacks after school at FIC Summer Cafe, Burger King or Shakey’s. Then the kids go to National Book Store for their school supplies.”

On weekends, it’s a three-generation affair with Pat’s dad, Paquito Garcia, and Donny’s mom, Bel Feraren. The whole family has lunch or dinner at Chilli’s or Friday’s, or the kids’ favorite, Healthy Shabu-Shabu. Birthdays are also celebrated in ATC restaurants like Cibo or Pepper Lunch.

For shopping, Pat likes Rustan’s, Mango and the newly opened Metro Department Store for home and kitchen accessories.

ATC also played a bit of a role in the couple’s love story. They were set up on a blind date at Tia Maria’s and hit it off. But it was only when they were going steady that they realized they had previously met each other when they were three years old. Both their fathers were PAL pilots — the Garcias lived in Merville while the Ferarens in BF Homes, one of the first families to live there.“When we saw the picture of us together at three years old, we realized that our dads were also mag-kumpare,” Donny says with a laugh.

With their kids, the tradition of hanging out at ATC continues, especially with Kayla, whom Pat describes as “laman ng ATC.” 

Kayla hangs out with her friends to eat or watch a movie and shop at Accessorize. “I like ATC coz it’s near school and the atmosphere is just chill,” she says.

For Enzo, it’s laser tag at Lazerxtreme that he enjoys best with his cousins on weekends.

“Di yata lumalampas ang two days na wala kami dito, and it’s a safe environment for them and the security guards already know them,” says Pat. “The kids just love the mall. Even if we’re here on weekdays, on weekends we still end up here.”

Gelo & Katrina Mañosa: Happiness is frozen yogurt & a hardware store

Gelo and Katrina grew up in Ayala Alabang with both their families as two of the first residents in the village. Katrina’s dad, Dr. Lito Sandejas, an Ayala Corp. man, built theirs in 1979, while Gelo’s dad, National Artist for Architecture Bobby Mañosa built their house in 1981.

And so both remember growing up in a subdivision that was mostly bukid and you could bike all day and encounter few cars on the road, swim at the village and enjoy the outdoors, and when Alabang Town Center was just a community center with a supermarket and two movie houses.

Three years ago, the couple finished their own house — also in Ayala Alabang — designed by Gelo himself, where they are raising their two kids, Andi, 5, and Santiago, one-and-a-half.

Married seven years ago, Gelo reminisces that when he and Katrina were dating, they had their first kiss near the construction site of what would later become the Corte wing of Alabang Town Center. They were also standing near an ATM.

“I think she saw my bank account and said, ‘Kawawa ka naman,’” Gelo jokes.

Yes, ATC has remained a fixture in their lives. Every Wednesday, he says, he knows where to find his wife: at Golden Spoon, which holds an upsize day every Wednesday, which both Katrina and Andi love. Once, they ran out of quart tubs and Katrina had the driver fetch a tub from the house so she could upsize her frozen yogurt.

“Every day we are here, we go there. I have a budget set aside for Golden Spoon,” says Gelo. Another tip from the architect: “Good comfort hangover food is the lentil soup of Café Mediterranean. After a heavy night, it’s a champ!”

For shopping, Katrina loves Rustan’s, “If I need something, I go to Rustan’s first, it’s great for clothes selection for all of us and for gifts; the good toys for kids are there too. I also like the home section of Metro Department Store and their supermarket.”

For DVD marathons — like the recent Easter break — she stocks up on popcorn and chips from Chef Tony’s, Taters and Healthy Options.

“We like to eat and go shopping,” she says. “The kids love Power Books and Dave’s Fun House, where they have costumes and settings for the kitchen or a nurse’s station where they can pretend to be a nurse or serve food in a restaurant. They also like going to TimeZone.”

She adds, “Gelo is happiest at True Value.”

What does he buy at True Value? “Everything I don’t need,” Gelo says. “At the exit, they have all those little things, flash lights you don’t need and laser pointers. The cashier counter is the best section of the hardware store. I guess men buy them for the same reason you girls buy shoes and bags. We can’t get enough laser pointers.”

Well, he does need them for work. Gelo runs two architectural firms, Mañosa and Company, and A. Manosa Architects. On weekdays, when Gelo goes to his Makati and Parañaque offices, Katrina takes Andi to school.

“My daughter gets dressed while sleeping and is carried to the car, then I feed her breakfast. Oftentimes, Santiago is awake so he goes with me to drop off Andi.

Then I drop Santiago at home, I go to the gym, and then I pick up Andi from school and we all have lunch at home. Then we play for a bit, they have a nap while I do my work for the office. Then I wake them up and go to the polo field at Alabang Country Club. We play in the outdoors or go swimming.”

On some weekends, they all get to enjoy the shows at ATC’s Activity Center, when Nickelodeon characters come and visit. “I love the shows here, they always have a nice selection of kiddie programs. Andi has met so many characters and she loves it, like Dora, the High Five cast, and Plants vs. Zombies.”

ATC is a place where friends, lovers, families and people from all walks of life gather.   A place that is considered a home away from home — where sharing stories while shopping, eating or just hanging out is the way weekends work.

Its roster of shops, restaurants, movie houses and service centers meets the needs of every one.  ATC remains close to the hearts of its regulars because it has that close-knit community feel where everybody knows everybody — and just like home everyone is welcome.

 Yet, the newness of it all opens many possibilities to those who have not yet discovered the wonders of ATC.