An ‘oldie’ looks back to the 1950s

By Herbert Vego

YOU must have heard it said that the young look forward to the future while the old, back to the past. In a sense, it’s true, but if you were 73 years old, as I am now, looking back to the proverbial “good old days” would be worth looking forward to.

Believe it or not, if I could travel back in time, bringing with me a few thousand pesos in my pocket, I would live like a millionaire.

I remember that Christmas day when our parents gave each of us kids a coin bank, asking us to set aside part of our “baon”. If we could make it a habit, Dad said, we would grow up rich in old age. Today, I wish he were right.

He was wrong, and only because the Philippine peso has shed much of its buying power. Gone are the days when I could buy a piece of candy for a centavo.

Looking back, I realize I have already made millions of pesos in half a century of working life. But it has all gone with the wind. I still have to work to preserve my pride – meaning, to avoid financial dependency on my son working abroad.

My late father was wrong in thinking that a million pesos would last a lifetime.  Unlike in his time, today it would not go a long way. In fact, anybody with a stash of ten million pesos does not have enough to retire comfortably.

Pero sa totoo lang, we Filipinos have much more money now than we had half a century ago. Unfortunately – no thanks to inflation – our peso has lost most of its buying power. Today, a thousand pesos would not be enough for a family meal in a restaurant. But, believe it or not, the same amount could feed a family for six months or more in the 1950s and even in the early ’60s!

I was 10 years young in 1960 when our parents took us four kids to Quezon City for a two-month summer vacation. Our two-hundred-peso baon, believe it or not, took care of the house rental, food and shopping expenses. Miraculous? Not really. At that time, the minimum wage nationwide was ₱120 per month. The rental rate for the two-level apartment which we shared with another family at 23-A Dapitan Street was only ₱60 per month.

The second time I went to Manila to pursue college education in 1967, prices were still very affordable, while the minimum wage had increased to ₱180. While studying, I worked at the Manila International Airport post office on a daily wage of ₱6.

In the mid-1970s, even when President Ferdinand Marcos had already declared martial law, the economy was still relatively stable because price increases were infrequent and would be met with salary increases. I was then working for a music-recording company and was also freelance-writing for newspapers and magazines. With a wife and a baby boy, I made both ends meet on an average monthly income of ₱700, of which ₱80 went to each month’s house rental. I could eat a budget meal in a restaurant for ₱2.

I abandoned Metro Manila life in 1981 to edit an Iloilo City-based newspaper. At that time, the so-called PUs (small Minica taxicabs) were still charging a flat rate of ₱10 for an inter-city ride. There were times when I would sleep at Hotel Del Rio, which was then charging ₱120 per night.

Imagine, if prices have not changed, a millionaire would truly live like a king today.

-oOo-

RAZON LAUDS LOTILLA

ASKED by a Manila-based vlogger who among the current government officials he admires, billionaire Enrique Razon – who is chairman of MORE Power, among other companies — mentioned the name of Energy Secretary Raphael Lotilla.

Eh di wow! Lotilla is my kababayan from Sibalom, Antique.

Indeed, Lotilla deserves public support for his advocacy on transition to clean energy

In an interview by Alena Mae Flores for the Manila Standard, Lotilla said he is committed to address that transition even if it is going to entail huge costs, as Indonesia and Vietnam had done on budgets of $20 billion and $15.5 billion, respectively.

“We have to take advantage of all sources of energy that are currently in place and to use that in a wise manner but at the same time be able to transition to a cleaner environment,” he said. “The growth in demand will be replaced by renewable energy and more efficient power plants and cleaner sources of energy.”

Lotilla’s encouragement could have encouraged Razon to inject a massive investment of P200 billion for the solar and battery energy storage system (BESS) project under his new company, Terra Solar Philippines (Terra Solar).

Tara na sa solar!