Happy birthday, Mang!

ISheT’S my mom’s birthday today, January 18. She turns 78. was born in San Fabian, Pangasinan, a few years before the Japanese invasion, then they migrated to Baguio after the war.

Aside from her business acumen, McGyver abilities, ‘commander’ attitude, and her encompassing love for all her kids and grandkids, I think what impresses me the most about her is her courage and bravery.

She used to tell us stories about how her uncles and aunties would scare her about ghosts and elementals, but she scoffed at them, unafraid of the dark or being all alone.

Everytime our landline phone rings, I remember her.

When I was a young girl, about 10 years old, there was this prank caller who would call and say “mamatay ka” in a creepy, scratchy, wavering voice.

I got so scared by this, it made me dread answering the phone. If he was on the line, I would just hang up the phone, slowly, quivering inside.

One day, the phone rang, and my mom answered. I heard her say, in what must have been the creepiest voice she could muster, “Mamatay ka rin”. That was the end of the prank calls. A few years ago, my phone got left behind in a pedicab. It must have fallen out of my bag. We were in Divisoria, about to go home.

I called my number, asked the pedicab driver to return my phone, but he said no.

We asked around, found out the address of the guy, and my mom bravely went to get it.

We were advised against going with her because the driver lived in the slums, where holdups were frequent, and strangers were regarded with distrust. She wasn’t daunted.

She was able to get my phone back. She said she knocked on the driver’s door, asked for my phone, and he just gave it. No questions. Maybe