The man who went to wakes for a living

In the unpaved streets of Gapan, Nueva Ecija in the 1950s, a town crier used to go around the dusty streets ringing a bell to announce a death. Founded by the Spanish curates, Gapan is one of the oldest cities in the country. 

Before barrios became towns, towns became cities, and before urbanization crawled north of Metro Manila, life was significantly different in the provinces. People knew each other. They did their daily shopping — literally carrying woven baskets — at the palengke and the word “mall” was not in their everyday vocabulary. Women wore veils and the men dressed up to church. Houses were built differently, too, often with a silong underneath. Gambling wasn’t much of a vice but more of a pastime. And neighbors knew each other.

Anyone who has ever lived in the province looks back at those days with a sense of nostalgia for when life was simple — and some practices a bit odd. For instance, city folk will never understand why a wake for the dead was held at home and not in the chapel, or why the bereaved served food (full meals, not just sandwiches or chicheria) and, perhaps most baffling of all, why people were gambling during this time of grieving.

One such man who would go to the wakes to set up monte tables was the late Manuel Macainag Sr. Not to be confused with the shell game, “Monte” or “monte bank” is a Spanish card game where the dealer deals out two cards on top and two cards at the bottom, face up. A bettor would then bet on the top or bottom layout. Monte was very popular in the provinces, along with sakla, and the perpetually prohibited but still-common-today jueteng (a game that has gotten on with the times with the use of computers to draw numbers).  

Manuel’s widow, Cecilia Macainag, says that when they met in the province he was already a bangka. She was 21 and tending to her family’s eatery at Gapan’s town theater (movie houses back then had wooden seats and no air-conditioning). Years later, when she and her husband moved to Manila, she would start her own business by pawning a pair of heirloom diamond earrings and a ring to start what would be Ponciana’s Kitchen. Anyway, Manuel Sr. would drop by her family’s eatery and order pesang dalag with his posse of card shufflers.

“My parents didn’t like his work but he was just so kind and nice that he won me and them over,” she says in Tagalog. “Jueteng and other forms of gambling were very common back in the ‘50s. Many families lived on jueteng, including the dad of my cousin Joe Taruc, the broadcaster (their grandparents were siblings). I never considered it malas that my husband and his friends would set up sugalan at wakes. It was just what they did for a living.”

But she also never actually revealed to their six children what his job was. “I only found out what he really did when he passed away,” says the youngest of the children, Mikey Macainag. “There was a table where they would play monte and my brother told me that that was what Tatay did for a living. I was surprised! I never thought that this put food on our table. Since he was never open to me about his work when I was young I never learned any card games from him; the only lesson I learned from him was how he loved and respected our Nanay.”

In the province, a wake wasn’t just a celebration of the dead person’s life, it was also an indication of how many friends he had when he was alive and how well he was loved. It was a practice in Gapan that neighbors would be the ones to cook food to be served during wake so as not to add strain to the bereaved.

“Damayan was a big thing back then,” Cecilia says, a little wistfully. “These days ang mga probinsiya parang Maynila na rin, lumaki na. The bigger the population becomes, the less you know of the people around you. The town criers are gone, most wakes are no longer held at home, but when they are sometimes there is still gambling sa baba ng bahay or in the silong.” 

Cecilia relates that after they got married, they moved to Manila. Manuel was a friend of former Congressman Junior de Guzman and they set up montehan in hotel clubs on Roxas Boulevard. The dealers were actually sons of rich families and often they would travel to as far as Bacolod and Iloilo to set up the casinos.  

“When martial law was declared in1972, the gambling clubs were closed,” Cecilia says. “Patago na lahat yon but people would still come and play. These clubs were funded by the rich and powerful, and most of the bangkas were family members. How did they earn? They would get a percentage of the house winnings.”

By this time, the elder kids were growing up. Youngest child Mikey would be born years later in Manila and the Gapan days of his parents were but stories for him. “I didn’t grow up in the province and one time we went there and I was surprised when this old man approached me and asked if I was my Tatay’s son. My Tatay was a very friendly person and had a lot of friends that loved him.”

The family’s restaurant business — which Cecilia named after her mother Ponciana —would also begin to flourish, starting on Tacio St. in Quezon City, and today has four branches in Metro Manila. Their six children would go into different fields: in business, accounting, exporting, stock trading, and two would be helping her manage the operations of Ponciana’s Kitchen. 

“I am proud of my Tatay,” says Mikey. “He raised us well, he loved and respected us, he watched over all of us.”

When Manuel Sr. died n April 1994, his wake was held at the Lourdes Church in Quezon City.

This time around, there was no gambling.