The last "Limpya-botas"

"I always get my shoes shined in the Manila Airport before I leave," Dr. Ta Lin Hsu told the Makati Business Club recently, "and the one who shines my shoes has a bachelor’s degree."

Mr. Hsu, the Taiwanese chairman and founder of venture capital firm H&Q Asia Pacific, told his hosts that this "is sort of the saddest story that he has such a high-level of education, and yet the country cannot afford to give him a good job." - Boo Chanco, "College-Educated shoe-shine boy Saddens Investor"

Photograph Originally Uploaded by Dennis Villegas

They used to shine-shoes for a living

"Chief Justice Panganiban graduated with honors from Juan Luna Elementary School and Mapa High School, which are both public schools. To support his studies, he hawked newspapers, peddled cigarettes and shined shoes in the streets of Sampaloc in Manila. During his college days, he sold textbooks to his classmates and bibles to his professors and university officials. The youngest of four children, he was born from impoverished parents who died while he was still in school." - http://www.supremecourt.gov.ph/


Chief Justice Panganiban is one of the few prominent personalities who have similar humble beginnings - working as a "shoe-shine boy". The list include Victorio Soliven who owns the big real estate firm V.V.Soliven, Senator Richard Gordon and business Tycoon, Ambassador Antonio L. Cabangon Chua.

The Bakya

bakya mo neneng
Originally uploaded by laz'andre

"Fashioned from light wood initially with the use of the bandsaw, bakya was afterwards smoothly shaved, and carved with floral, geometric or landscape design, then painted or varnished to a high sheen in the distinctive Paete style. Uppers made of clear plastic or thin rubber were then fastened to the sides with tiny nails ("clavitos") and the bakya was ready for export.

In its heyday (1930s to 1950s), American tourists and soldiers bought bakya as souvenirs for their girlfriends and mothers. But for Filipinos, bakya was the footwear for all seasons. You wore them in water or on land. Bakya was easy to get in and out of, which made it convenient for use by people who wore them on the ground but took them off when climbing upstairs into their houses. My mother, Laureana Cajipe, used to say that you could tell how well-mannered a person was by the way he left behind his bakya before entering the house, "Kabastusan yung iiwanan mo ang bakya mo na nakahakbang!"

When I was growing up in the early 50s, bakya shops were veritable channels of Paete culture where apprentices were trained, families worked closely together, traditional songs and poems were passed on to the young, friendships were forged and romances blossomed. Bakya was Paete's rice-and-fish. The industry that fed, clothed, and sheltered us also taught us responsibility and gave us wisdom. It nurtured our dreams and led us to believe that we would grow up to become good people, just like our parents. And Paete prospered.

- from Marie Cagahastian Pruden's "Romancing the Bakya"