Childhood in La Loma and Ocho

Part 1

Today is June 05, 2026. It's 9.50am and am starting to write the first part of chapter of my life story as reference for posterity if and when my two sons and grandkids become curious about who I really am. It includes my wife since we became related.

Image by Dmitriy from Pixabay.

According to my dad, I was born at the Philipine General Hospital (PGH), by cesarian birth, and was the only boy in the nursery. I was a little bit heavier than 7 pounds, the biggest baby then at PGH. Much later, when I was courting my wife, Linda, I'd learn that she, too was born at PGH, but 5 years after in 1965. My dad named me after San Juan (St John the Baptist), the patron saint of his twon in San Juan, La Union. And since Juancho Guttierez was among the popular actors then, they decided to name me Juancho.

In my childhood in Project 8, QC, my friends started calling me Choy.

Anyway, after my birth, we went back home to Hernani St in La Loma, QC where we lived for a number of years. I have lots of fond childhood memories there and still remember today how our apartment (number 8) and neighborhood looked like. We are 5 children in the family, 2 boys and 3 girls. But during the La Loma days, we were yet 4 and I was the youngest. I grew up always with my 2 sisters and their girl playmates since my older brother was out of the house often, hanging out with his friends.

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Each morning I would hang out on the narrow ledge of the front window of our second floor (where mom's and dad's bedroom was) and drank the coffee that remained in my dad's cup while he read the newspaper. He was then the editor-in-chief of  The Philippines Herald, a major and respected daily in those days. I was about 3 or 4 when I drank the few drops of coffee in his cup and imagined myself a cowboy drinking coffee, as I often saw on TV commercials. Then I would watch people below walking in the streets and wondering about them.

I would also climb up the steel window grills and strain my eyes to see afar in the distance where I saw big trees lined up on the horizon under puffy clouds that looked like the "dirty ice cream" on sweet cones that we bought in the afternoon from the vendor who pushed his wooden ice cream cart and shook his bell. We called it dirt ice cream though we didn't think it was really dirty. 

When I was 7, I attended school at the Lourdes School in QC. I started at kindergarten level and was accompanied to school by my dad and fetched later before lunch by my mom when I was in kinder and grade 1. Later, in grade 2, mom got me a daily school bus schedule for taking me to and from school. I still remeber the faces and names of my school bus mates, boys from Lourdes and girls from St. Theresa's. I also remember many of my classmates in Lourdes, and some of them are my FB friends now. 

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When my younger sister was born (our youngest), we transferred to GSIS Village, Project 8 in QC and that was around 1968. I think that was when I was in grade 2 or 3. Project 8 then still had a lot of patches of forests here and there and only a few residents were around, with majority of the houses still unoccupied. The air was fresh and different wild birds sang almost through the day. You'd feel the rustic atmosphere in the place. My first cat then was named Jim, and I had so many pet cats. I still remember the songs that were popular in those days. 

Grades 2 to 4, I attended Lourdes School while living in Project 8. But in grade 5, I transferred to a nearby school, St. Patrick School on General Avenue, a walking distance from our place. It was a new adventure and I was excited to meet new classmates and friends. Because I was a transferee from a popular, quality, private grade school, I was like the star of the class as a new comer. The new kid in town, as it were. But that didn't last. In grades 6 and 7, I had some problems with my grades, alhtough I was considered the "scientist of the class" in grade 5. I guess the trauma of martial law in September 1972 (I was in grade 5), when my dad lost his job because the newspaper company closed, had a lot to do with it. My performace in class slowly dwindled as grade 5 was ending.

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