Kwentong Kapuso: What the Silent Generation did for 'fun'

Editor’s note: Time Magazine referred to them as the “silent generation;” in England they were known as the Air Raid Generation, referring to the children coming of age amidst the crossfire of World War II. Nearly 50 million Americans were born in this era from the beginning of 1925 through 1942. A member of this generation, author Ludy Ongkeko writes a refreshing rejoinder to Lawrence Ochoa’s piece on the Millennials’ sense of values.

 

What took place in my teen-age universe would undoubtedly be called ‘ancient,’ and, certainly totally unheard of in today’s world. A common mode of interaction with my peer group was absent. I was a ‘child of war.’ World War II came. Schools were closed initially.

 

Numbers of the population from the city of pines (Baguio City, about 152 miles north of Manila) fled the scene. They were part of the huge evacuee groups that left as fast as the bombs started to fall.

 

Suddenly, troops that bore the ‘flag of the rising sun’ engulfed our city. Sentries were posted all over: areas that featured our summer resort of a city were full of that military in their full attire.

 

When the powers then decided to re-open the school system, I was just entering the realm of my teen years. Not even there yet. I no longer had the very same classmates and friends when we were allowed to return to school. High school courses were the same. But the dark days of enemy occupation, close to four years, were responsible for so much change in anything. In everything.

 

Our high school graduating class (late 1944) had one social called a ‘jam session,’ when all of us learned some dance steps under the scrutiny of our parents and teachers. Dates were unknown. Nobody had any date. We were all in one hall. Dancers who showed us those fancy steps were close to their twenties, willing to illustrate dancing, the “boogie-woogie,” one that made a hit.

 

What I distinctly refer to as my teen years would be leaving my mountain top home, proceeding to Manila, the Philippine capital, as soon as the University of the Philippines opened its portals in 1946. I enrolled during that school year’s second semester when the College of Liberal Arts (L.A.) opened its doors on Padre Faura Street, close to what was then called Taft Avenue. Other colleges drew their respective enrollments, but as far as I was concerned, it was the College of L.A. (still in rubble and ruin) where I pursued my university education.

 

I became a boarder at a dormitory under the aegis of nuns. There weren’t too many among us who were minors. As a minor, I had to adhere to the rules of our dormitory. Unless I had clearance (in writing) from my parents, allowing me to go to specific occasions with a chaperone, I was not allowed to go to evening socials at all. I accepted those circumstances as a boarder. If I had male visitors, they were escorted by a receptionist to the visitors’ lobby; they had to sign the guest book, replete with their address and phone number. I could receive them only at that particular station.

 

I did not date. I would attend a party only ‘by invitation,’ when a male friend or classmate had a fraternity dance or an ROTC occasion of which I was allowed to go because of my affiliation as a sponsor: only in the company of at least two other friends, never, never alone with male hosts.

 

Manila’s weather was so tropical, the opposite of Baguio, my old hometown. Whenever I could make it, I would go home: 5,000 feet above sea level, just to breathe the fresh air and be back to the scenes of my childhood.

 

The life of teenager counterparts, depended on the rules laid down by each one’s household, parents or guardians. Every household was different.

 

My parents’ word was law. They wanted all of us, five children, to complete our bachelor degrees only from the University of the Philippines. Thankfully, we abided by their wishes not solely out of obedience, but out of our own yearnings for the goals of higher education and a future.

 

I firmly believe my parents’ determination in seeing that all of us met the aspirations regarding the education they exacted from us brought immense comfort to them: fulfillment of their parental mission.

 

Mama was a principal of a secondary school. She had high expectations of the kind of discipline that the student body had to maintain. Mama did not mince words when she discussed the deportment expected from girls. Chastity was one requisite.

 

“You will be mothers one day; you have to preserve yourselves for your husband, who will be the father of your children who will make up your families. Preserve that pride in you, that you kept that chastity you can pass on to your own children is your treasure, and be proud that you did.”

 

Insights from my mother looked extremely unyielding then but they were received as forms of enlightenment to her listening audience. What I went through in college, even after graduation when the quest for a profession beckoned, served me well; humbly, I kept that discipline aflame.

 

Parental guidance was my cornerstone. I complied with my parents’ wishes even after I was graduated with my bachelor degrees, already employed as a reporter on beat with a Manila daily that had nothing but rigid standards in journalism.

 

Writing is such an exacting call. If I didn’t adhere to my parental bid for discipline, I wonder if, at this stage in my chronological life, I would have maintained that aura of determination.

 

Little did I know then that Lawrence Ochoa, my godson, would, decades and decades away, one born on these shores, would be spurred by the same cherished principles of parental guidance.

 

Over time, I am grateful that values remain unchanged in that same ancestral home. It gladdens my heart to read Lawrence’s evaluation of what he knows only from afar; yet, from the way he writes, I feel a surge of pride that his generation, the Millennials, still accept the idea of chastity, a virtue that can never be dubbed old-fashioned. - The FilAm Los Angeles