Chapter Text
Pride Month Conference
“Hi. I’m Marco Ricalde-Vergara. On paper.
But really, I’m just Macoy.
I was raised in a sari-sari store in Davao, by two women who fell in love at the wrong time, in the wrong place—and chose to love anyway.
I’m here to talk about them.
I’m here to talk about my mothers.
I’m a little nervous. But…here we go:
I don’t really remember how I got there. I just remember seeing the Boy Bawang.
That’s the first memory I have of my mothers. Not their faces. Not their voices. Just a crumpled pack of garlic corn snacks sitting in a blue plastic tray near the edge of a sari-sari store counter in Davao.
I was maybe eight? Maybe nine? No papers, no birthday, no idea where I’d been the day before. Just my feet, the street, and the smell of fried bangus wafting from someone’s backyard.
I don’t remember asking for food. I just remember staring. And then someone spoke.
“Gusto mo?”
That was Mama Maloi. She always said my eyes looked like a puppy’s that day—though I’m not sure if she meant it sweetly or as a subtle dig. She gave me that pack of Boy Bawang, and I swear, it tasted like gold. Like home, if I had ever known what that meant before.
What followed was quiet. Just more snacks. More gentle greetings. More time. I started showing up at the store like clockwork—at first to sweep the storefront or to help Lola carry stuff. Then eventually... I never left.
They never told me to go either. Sometimes they’d invite me in for lunch—just a plate of rice and whatever fish was left over. Other times, Mama Colet would hand me a pencil and a piece of scratch paper, and teach me how to write my name, over and over, until the letters stopped looking like noodles.
She had this way of teaching that didn’t make me feel small for not knowing. She’d say, “Sulat lang nang sulat, walang mali dito.” And even if I misspelled my own name for two weeks straight, she never made me feel like I was behind. Just... learning.
I remember afternoons when Mama Maloi would sit me down with a bowl of champorado and a folded rag to wipe my feet. She never made a big deal out of it, but she always made sure I was clean before letting me sit by the counter. I didn’t understand it then, but now I think—she was teaching me dignity, without ever saying the word.
They didn’t ask questions I couldn’t answer. Never made me tell stories I didn’t want to share. They let me keep my silence, and in exchange, they filled the spaces with kindness. With routine. With warmth.
Eventually, I started calling them “Mama” before anyone told me to.
Mama Colet wrote me a letter once. She said, one night, while they were closing the store, Mama Maloi looked at her and said, “Dito na lang kaya si Macoy?”
That was it. No legal words yet. No fanfare. Just that small sentence that changed my life.
It was difficult at first. People laughed. They said things I couldn’t understand—but somehow, I felt how much they hurt.
Some kids were told not to play with me. I didn’t know why at first. I just knew that suddenly, the games stopped when I showed up. That I was never picked for tumbang preso. That some parents whispered when they thought I couldn’t hear.
“Anak ng dalawang babae.”
“Wala daw tatay yan.”
“Baka kung ano pang matutunan ng mga bata.”
And I remember going home once, eyes stinging but not quite crying, asking Mama Colet why people looked at us that way.
She didn’t give me a speech. She didn’t try to fix it with false hope. She just sighed, pulled me close, and said—
“Hayaan mo sila, anak. Ang importante, kilala mo ang sarili mo. Ang importante, alam mong mahal na mahal ka namin ni Mama mo.”
Mama Maloi was different. She just muttered something about wanting to throw suka at the neighbor across the street and offered me a Choc Nut.
I think that’s when I realized—I didn’t have to be anyone else’s definition of “normal” to be okay.
I just had to be theirs. And that was more than enough.
I didn’t have a real birthday—not one anyone could prove, anyway. No birth certificate, no baby picture, no story about how loud I cried coming out into the world.
So Mama Maloi picked one.
She said, “Ito na lang. ‘Yung araw na unang tumambay ka sa harap ng tindahan at inubos ang Boy Bawang ko.”
It became official. We made spaghetti. Mama Colet drew me a card with cartoon versions of the three of us and a badly drawn cake. A few neighbors came over. One of the kids who used to avoid me even gave me a hand-me-down toy car. I still have it somewhere.
It wasn’t grand. It wasn’t loud.
But for the first time, I felt like the world had a day just for me.
Of course, that didn’t stop me from eventually growing into a hard-headed teenager. I wish I could say I was always grateful. I wasn’t. I had my questions, my tantrums, my stupid phases.
There was a time I stopped calling them Mama. I started saying “Si Maloi” and “Si Colet” like I was a guest in their house and not their son. I’d slam doors. Skip chores. Pretend I didn’t care.
It wasn’t even about them. It was about the space in my chest I couldn’t name yet—the one that wondered who left me. Why they didn’t come back. If something was wrong with me to begin with.
I started blaming them for a pain they didn’t cause.
“Hindi niyo naman talaga ako anak eh,” I once shouted at Mama Colet during a fight about curfew. Her face didn’t flinch. She just said, “You can say what you want, anak, but this is still your home.”
And it was. Even when I didn’t deserve it. Even when I pushed and pushed, they stayed.
One night, after a really bad argument, I left. Slept at a friend’s place, came home the next morning expecting silence, or worse, anger.
Instead, Mama Maloi handed me breakfast.
Cold rice. Fried egg. Longganisa. No lecture.
She just said, “Wag mo nang uulitin. Kain na.”
That’s the thing about being loved without condition. It humbles you. Breaks you open. Shows you the difference between being tolerated and being chosen.
I was never a burden to them.
I was a choice they made every single day.
I’m 45 now.
Both my moms are gone.
Mama Colet passed first—quickly, and in her sleep, just as she always wanted. Mama Maloi followed five years later, slower, like she couldn’t bear to leave until she’d finished labeling every last jar in the kitchen and giving final instructions for the laundry.
Sometimes I still reach for my phone to tell them something. Sometimes I still catch myself saving a joke, a recipe, a photo of my daughter doing something ridiculous—only to remember there's no number to dial anymore. Just that quiet ache that never really goes away, only softens at the edges.
But I see them in the way I live. In the way I love.
I used to watch them, you know.
Not in the big, dramatic moments—but in the quiet ones.
Like how Mama Colet would debone Mama Maloi’s bangus even when Mama Maloi told her to stop babying her. Or how Mama Maloi would rub Mama Colet’s back whenever her migraines kicked in, no words, just slow circles with her hand until the worst passed.
They never made a show of it. It was just built into the rhythm of their days. One picked up where the other got tired. One stayed calm when the other lost patience. One brewed salabat, the other reminded them to drink it.
And now that I’m older, I think about those things more often than I expected—especially on the hard days.
My wife, Beth, and I have had our share of them. Fights about bills. About how to raise our daughter Yves. About nothing and everything, like all couples do. But in those moments, I try to remember the way Mama Colet used to say, “Tulog ka muna. Ako na bahala,” when Mama Maloi was too overwhelmed to function. Or how Mama Maloi once wrote a list of things Mama Colet needed but wouldn’t ask for and taped it to the fridge like it was the gospel.
I remember that love isn’t always soft words and grand gestures.
Sometimes, love is just knowing the other person gets cold easily, and putting the blanket on their side of the bed first.
I like to believe I always had paternal instincts. But the truth is—their love, their example, their softness, their quiet, steady choosing, made me the father I am today.
My wife even says I parent like I’m running a sari-sari store—always taking stock, always checking if there's enough salt, enough patience, enough time. She's not wrong.
We have one daughter. Her name’s Yves—I think I mentioned her earlier.
She’s 17. Brave, sarcastic, and so full of herself in the best way.
And yeah—she’s a lesbian.
She didn’t have to come out. She didn’t have to sit us down. There was no awkward conversation, no drama. One day, she just brought home a girl, said, “This is Nicole,” and that was that.
Because that’s what legacy looks like.
It’s not just surviving.
It’s building something soft enough that the next generation never has to wonder if they’ll be safe.
My moms didn’t get that. They had to fight for it—every day. For each other. For me.
But because they did, my daughter walks lighter.
She never had to explain her love. She just lived it.
And that... that’s how I know they’re still here.
In her laughter. In the way she stands up straighter when someone questions her. In the way she gently places her girlfriend’s hand in hers in the middle of the street, unafraid. Unapologetic.
That’s the life my mothers built.
And that’s the love I get to pass on.
You know, sometimes when I miss them a little more than usual, I find myself standing in front of the snack aisle at a sari-sari store.
I’ll buy a pack of Boy Bawang.
And I’ll sit in the car, open it, and eat a few pieces in silence.
It still tastes the same—salty, crunchy, a little too strong. Like laughter you weren’t ready for. Like home.
And for a few minutes, I’m that boy again. Sunburnt, barefoot, and found.
Because the truth is... I don’t remember how I got there.
I just remember the Boy Bawang.
And everything that came after.”