a word from tito onching NEPOTISM was my baby because my siblings provided me with a whole nurseryful, to which I was ninong on birth¬days (even if not the actual godfather). Santa Claus on Christmas (with a double gift: toy and coin), babysitter on occasion, tutor during the grades, composition ghostwriter during high school, refuge from parental wrath, host at family Sundays together, and Tito Onching all the time. (Onching is Tagalog slang for small fry.) Incidentally, my nepotist nursery was a medley, being composed of Spanish mestizos by one brother, American mestizos by another brother, and Chabacanos by a sister. Eldest of my nepoteria is Tony Joaquin, eldest son of my eldest brother (no, they're not mestizo anything, although their father Ping was assumed to be Creole by the Spanish, and Californian by the Yanks). His children when young-and Tony especially-looked rather Mandarin in manner. But poor Tony didn't get to enjoy my avuncular style because he was born when I was only 12. That makes us practically contemporaries, though we're actually succeeding generations. Anyway we never had any trouble empathizing and I can't remember that he and I were ever at war, as is only usual between adjoining frontiers. Rather are we the club called mutual admiration. He admires my prose, I admire his poise. He reverses my gods, I revere his guts. I can't think of anything to add to his self-sell except my own memories of his side of the family. When his father was courting the girl who became his wife and Tony's mother, the lovers' telephoning began at seven or eight in the morning and lasted for hours and hours-so long, in fact, that from time to time my brother Ping had to yell: "Orinola! Orinola!" And a maid would come running to introduction: 7 bring him a chamber pot, into which, never letting go of telephone or inter¬rupting the dialogue, Ping would piss a much-needed leak. My mother finally decreed that when such dialogues began, a chamber pot was to be stationed at the telephone. But that didn't stop my brother Ping's frantic yells of "Orinola! Orinola!" And a maid would come running with a fresh chamber pot because the one at the telephone was already brimming. In those days, eloping lovers kept the proprieties by seeking refuge at the home of a close relative, who saw to it that the runaways stayed chaste until lawfully wedded. Ping and his Sarah eloped to our second hometown, San Pedro, Makati, where the house of our maternal aunt, Dona Magdalena Jimenez, was the biggest in town. When you said Makati then you meant the poblacion, or town proper, through which the River Pasig ran, and in which stood the ancient church of Saints Peter and Paul. What's now Ayala Makati was then still fodder field and carabao wallow. And in that poblacion was still located the Makati municipio, or town hall, where Ping and Sarah became legally man and wife. Their second, or church, wedding was again in Makati, at the altar of Saints Peter and Paul, and on a beautiful date: November 26, feast of the nuptials of Mary and Joseph. By that time Sarah had reconciled with her parents, so the wedding was a family reunion as well. The newlyweds came back to live in Manila, in the old borough of Paco, on Perdigon Street, in the entresuelo (or ground floor) of a four-unit apartment house. It was a very narrow flat, with a single bedroom, a single bathroom, and a no-space that was parlor, dining room and kitchen. Into these quarters were squeezed Ping and Sarah, two very fat maids, and me-myself having been recruited to keep Sarah company because Ping was working nights as vaudeville pianist. Sarah was pregnant with Tony and had become very devout to Saint Anthony of Padua. She wore his brown habit and went to church every Tuesday, the special day of Saint Anthony. I accompanied her to church but stayed at the back, where stood all menfolk, while Sarah went to the pews, where all the womenfolk were. This wasn't (more) - NICK JOAQUIN