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BY HERBERT VEGO
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IF YOU are a senior citizen, as I am now, looking back to the proverbial “good old days” would bring back the cherished memories of youth.
I remember those grade-school days when my late father would often remind me to set aside coins (at that time mostly made of silver) for my piggy bank. If I could save a million pesos in old age, he said, I would have enough to spend till death. In those days in the 1950s, a million pesos seemed inexhaustible. My father, a school teacher, was earning a P120 monthly minimum wage – big enough to make both ends meet.
He thought that if he had a million pesos in savings, he would retire rich. But it was not meant to be.
When he died in 1992 due to lung cancer, he had spent more than a million pesos in hospitalization and medicine.
Most retiring wage earners in today’s generation have no doubt made millions of pesos. Unfortunately, a stash of one, two or even 10 million pesos today does not guarantee financial sufficiency to a retiree for the rest of his life.
Sa totoo lang, we Filipinos have much more money now than we had half a century ago but it could buy less goods. Today, a thousand pesos could melt in a visit to a mall.
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 took care of the house rental, food and shopping expenses. In fact, the rental rate for the two-storey apartment we occupied on 23-A Dapitan St. was only P60 per month. We only paid half as much because we shared the apartment with another family.
The second time I went to Manila to pursue college education in 1967, prices were still very affordable. The minimum wage had increased to P180. As a night student, I found work at the Manila International Airport post office on a comfortable daily wage of P6.
In the mid-1970s, even when President Ferdinand Marcos had already declared martial law, 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 P700, of which P80 went to house rental.
When I transferred to Iloilo City in 1981 to edit the then fledgling weekly Panay News, the so-called PUs (small Minica taxi cabs) were still charging a flat rate of ten pesos for an inter-city ride. There were times when publisher Danny Fajardo and I would sleep at Hotel del Rio for P120 – a princely price at that time.
Times have changed. While much more money has gone into circulation, the average employees’ monthly income – now around P15,000 – is not enough for a decent family life.
A word of advice to single breadwinners earning that amount today: Stay single.
The low value of the Philippine peso has forced Juan dela Cruz to decrease consumption. He would buy a half kilo of meat instead of a kilo. He would cancel family vacation trips. He would stop going to the movies.
Even the supposedly affluent Filipinos can’t seem to catch up with inflation. This explains why more and more professionals fly abroad, leaving behind spouses and children.
Meanwhile, fellow seniors, to keep on smiling, let us reminisce the good old days. (hvego31@gmail.com /PN)
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