09-03-11
Winston "Arf-Arf" Arpon '64
Pitong (not Peyton) Place
My friend and I – we both have our senior moments.
Like her, I forget things. But every now and then, I do worse. I forget what I forgot.
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In Monday’s issue of the Philippines Daily Inquirer, my favorite CC, I mean Cavalier Columnist, Ramon “Mon” Farolan ’56, dedicated half of his column, Reveille, to Republic Act 9257, the Expanded Senior Citizen Act of 2003.
He had the strongest words for people and institutions violating the spirit and letter of the law. Without question, his heart inevitably goes out to senior citizens.
So, I am perplexed why his heart does not go out for me. I am a senior citizen. But my plea for his attention – always an item in past issues of WTW, except the first one – continues to fall on deaf ears.
If I can’t get his heart, I am willing to settle for his ear.
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To run after cops posing as agents, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency has formed a crack team.
Members of this team are not on crack.
And crack under pressure they won’t, if they, as expected, take a page or two from their superiors and likely models, Cavaliers Dionisio “Dionix” Santiago ’70, PDEA chief, and Ferdinand Marcelino ‘94.
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The winner of the 2009 Binibining Pilipinas-Universe contest was Pamela Bianca Manalo.
The odds were definitely in her favor. How can a Manalo possibly lose?
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Item. RETIRED ARMY GEN. VICTOR TIGAS JR. (emphasis by the reporter, PDI editor or copywriter, not mine) still keeps documents of the Aquino-Galman double-murder case piled high as a filing cabinet in his house near Fort Bonifacio, 20 years after he was acquitted in the case.
A check of my copy of the 2009 Alumni Register confirmed what I thought. His name is Vicente, not Victor. This was not one of my senior moments, thank you.
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Item: GMA assures bishops that she’s for the extension of CARP, that she’s always “been consistent” in her support. But the ball, she says, is not in Malacanang’s court but in Congress’.
The report didn’t say that upon hearing this, Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales and Cebu Archiishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal said, that’s a lot of crap.
CRAP, I mean CARP, is the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program of the Philippines.
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The original email we received referred to it as Rancho Cucamonga, thereafter “ranch” and then a “stable.” For indeed, if you come to visit or simply do some Google Earth, you will see a horse, a stable and a home right smack in the hills of Rancho Cucamonga. But eventually we settled on Pitong Place.
The problem with ‘Pitong Place’ is that it calls to oldtimer’s mind like mine, memories of ‘Peyton Place,’ the novel and the movie by the same title. Since author Grace Metalious published the book in 1956 and Warner Brothers produced the movie in 1958, Peyton Place “has become an expression to describe a place whose inhabitants have sordid secrets.”
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It is no secret that Pitong Place is not a secret. In fact, we heard of Rancho Cucamonga from a least likely source – not from someone in California but from someone across the miles – a Cavalier based in Cebu. This Cavalier admits he has yet to visit the place, but he can find it if he has to. Find the mountain of Bud cans in Rancho Cucamonga, he suggests, and you find Pitong Place.
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Pitong Place is not seven but only one mailing address – 12819 Rose Court, Rancho Cucamonga, to be exact.
Pitong is Cavalier Agapito B. Heredia Jr. He is one of 8 Heredia alumni of PMA (Agapito ’43; Pedro Jr. ’52; Armando ’66; Agapito Jr. ’70; Raul ’75; Renato ’77; Rommel ’79. Louie Kent 2012).
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Kabayo was a nickname of Agapito ’43, the head of this PMA family. We would like to stick with the legend, but with Pitong Place (my sources tell me that that’s a horse tethered in front of his house), he has made the legend, fact.
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The Kissing Rock as center-“piece” of this column, not once but twice in consecutive weeks, yes! But why Pitong Place?
Why not? Pitong is the voice of the PnC, especially when the other dominant voices – those of his firstie, Cavalier Leopoldo “Pol” Aliac and his mistah, Cavalier Fiorello “Bang” Adriano – are temporarily stilled. PnCers easily warm up to Pitong and Pitong to PnCers, their rapport most evident. Some would say
PnC, created in late 1903 as a spin-off of ACF, the Academy Cavaliers’ Forum, is the mail group of ‘Plebes and Cavaliers,’ and members of this mail group will say that as far as this forum is concerned, Pitong rules.
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In less than a week, Cadet First Class Karl Winston Cacanindin, topnotcher of PMA Class 2009, will receive the Presidential Saber.
If my father were alive today, I would have told him thusly: who said a Winston can “only” be number three in his class?
Thank you, Cavalier Harold Ochoco ’81, for bringing this to my attention.
Congratulations and thank you, Karl Winston, for letting me basks in the glow of your crowning achievement.
Yes, my name is Winston too. Winston Atilano.
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When last week’s Witful Thinking, Wednesday, was posted late Friday, we added this to the title of our posting: (Never Mind What Day is Today).
“There was a good reason for the delay, Cavalier Jaime “Jimmy” Viernes ’72 wrote, “so I didn't bother asking why. I knew it would come, sooner or later.”
Come, it did, but later. Thank you, Jimmy for giving us the benefit of the doubt. I recall that during the early days of ACF, I wrote in Reveille, Tattoo, Taps that you were, indeed, Man Friday – and not because of the Viernes in your name. I would like to say it again.
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The Kissing Rock, center-“piece” of the last two WTW (But Where is the Kissing Rock; Kissing Rock – Lost and Found) won’t go away.
Once again, former PMA Superintendent, Cavalier Manuel “Nonoy” Caranza Jr. ’69 dials in. “I believe Mone' and I have a black and white photo taken at the kissing rock way back in 1967 or 1968 taken by a child about 7 years old who was her chaperon otherwise I couldn't take her out on a date.”
It looks like a good 15 years the Caranzas followed the footsteps of the Moretos, literally and figuratively, black and white picture and all. Nonoy’s admission: “what can the poor girl do… it was a kissing rock and we had to kiss otherwise we would be breaking traditions which might bring bad luck… That was the first and last time we ever went to the kissing rock.”
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@arf-arf ‘64
wtw 09-10
http://blog.djlf.org
Deakins Hall, Maryland