There are days when I hear an old song and I am transported in time — no longer as an adult worrying about bills, deadlines, and responsibilities. I am a child again back in the Philippines during the 80s, sitting by the window waiting for my father to arrive from work, counting the nummber of jeepneys before he finally arrives.
I find myself listening to the sound of RMN radio dramas in the background while doing the laundry or preparing feeds for our pigs. I can almost smell my lola’s hot champorado waiting on the table after coming home soaked in my raincoats from school.
Sometimes I wonder why memories like these stay with us so deeply.
Maybe it is because life felt simpler back then.
The past was a time photos helps us remember good memories
Growing up in the that era felt different from the world children grow up in today. We did not have mobile phones, social media, or endless entertainment available with one tap. Our world was smaller, slower, and somehow more personal.
We spent afternoons outdoors instead of staring at screens inside the comforts of home — partly because options on television shows are few and far between. Exceptions are when we watch Scooby Doo on Tuesdays or an extended cartoon show on Saturday mornings.
We played Super Trump cards or learn to play chess indoors. When the season is ripe to pick up lut-hang—a traditional Filipino bamboo pop gun that uses air pressure to fire balls of wet paper as ammunition — we remain bystanders between the rivals “Parke” and “Power” battalions, and instead marbles outdoors with next door neighbors Yong Yong, his brother Yang Yang (may both rest in peace), Mary Jane, and Arman.
Back then, boredom was normal. But instead of escaping it through phones or tablets (a term exclusively then referred to oral medicine), we improvise. A card board could become a baseball glove and tennis ball as baseball. An empty backyard became an entire universe as our imaginative role-playing skills are set in motion.
Looking back now, during one of my vacations, I realise those childhood playgrounds have been replaced by a carinderia devoid of customers or a tricycle terminal whose drivers spend idle time on their phones.
I also miss how families spent time together without distractions. There was usually only one television in the house, and everyone gathered around it. When our television’s picture tube broke, rendering it useless until a reliable technician named William fixes it. In the meantime, we’ll sneak into our neighbor’s jalousie window to watch World Wrestling Federation on TV featuring Bob Backlund and Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka, before someone inside waves us in for a better viewing experience.
We waited for shows like Okay ka Fairy Ko, T.O.D.A.S. or He-Man for television entertainment one episode at a time instead of binge-watching entire seasons in one night. Televisions signed off before midnight, signalling everyone to go to bed.
We listened to the radio and patiently waited for songs we loved to play again. By the time our family obtained a Hitachi casette player from an OFW in Kuwait, I started to obtain blank tapes to record songs, hoping that the DJ’s voice won’t interrupt the performance. That’s a stark contrast to today’s on-demand and accessible list of songs.
Even today, certain songs immediately transport me back to those years. Hearing music from the past feels like opening a time capsule. Celine Dion’s Where Does My Heart Beat Now was played in a jeepney when I was on my way from a Japanese language class at Our Lady of Fatima Academy or Lilet’s Kay Palad Mo while on parish service vehicle to an All Souls Day blessing at Mintal Cemetery, and so on.
Filipino komiks was a staple source of recurring entertainment like DXDC dramas from Cebu. My fondest memories are wrapped around lunch breaks, when my father would take a quick pause from his work nearby to bring me to Magsaysay Park.
There, the latest issues weren’t stacked on shelves but were proudly displayed for rent, clipped with clothespins and hung to dry like colorful laundry on a long clothesline. For a small fee, he’ll induldge in series he’s been tracking. Soon, my grade school classmate Jergen would be the master storyteller from Biboy’s tales he read from Bata Batuta komiks.
If you agree with me, maybe what we truly miss is not just the decade itself. Maybe we miss how we felt during those years.
As children, we were protected from many of life’s burdens. Of course we worry about being called out for uncut fingernails or failing to conform with the prescribed “2×3” haircut requirement in school, but those where child’s play compared to what adults had to contend with.
We did not worry about stretching budget against inflation, losing our day jobs, or how to avoid writing promisory note to delay tuition fee payments. The grown ups carried those responsibilities for us. Childhood gave us a sense of safety and innocence that becomes harder to find as we grow older.
I think that is why nostalgia feels so comforting, especially when life becomes stressful. When the world changes too quickly or adulthood becomes exhausting, our minds naturally return to places where we once felt secure.
Still, as much as I love remembering those years, I also know the past was far from perfect.
The past was also a time of struggle and full of challenges
Sometimes we romanticise the “good old days” and forget the struggles that came with them.
Communication was difficult. There were no mobile phones and not even SMS in the earlier years. If someone was late coming home, families simply waited anxiously and hoped everything was fine. Long-distance calls were expensive.
Messages inside RCPI telegrams were often the harbinger of bad news. Their blunt, straightforward messaging can cause sudden shift in emotional state of the recipient: LOLA TACIA PASSED AWAY. BURIAL SUNDAY. It costs less than a longer, elaborate explanation that still bears the same message.
News travelled slowly. The day’s news are not available until you watch at RPN-9’s Newswatch anchored by Harry Gasser and Loren Legarda at 7pm or local news served by Cris Sapaula or Jimmy Torres. If you needed information, you had to search through books using card catalog at the library or pore over pages of encyclopedia volumes instead of typing a question into Google.
There were also real fears during that time. Many parts of the Philippines lived with concerns over communist insurgency, political instability, and safety issues following the Martial Law era. I remember a few incidents in my neighborhood involving a CHDF, the predecessor of CAFGU, who was murdered in cold blood, and a jeepney driver shot by suspected NPA rebel based in a nearby sitio.
Financial hardship was common for many families. My parents had no fixed income and often relied from my grandmas US veteran pension. They worked incredibly hard just to provide basic necessities, and eventually succumbed to heave debt to support our education.
Life was simpler in some ways, but it was also harder in many others.
And perhaps that is the important lesson nostalgia teaches us.
The past deserves to be remembered, but not worshipped. We can appreciate the warmth of those memories without pretending everything back then was better. Every generation has its own blessings and struggles.
Today’s world may feel faster and more complicated, but it also gives us conveniences and opportunities people in the 80s could only imagine. We can instantly contact anyone anywhere in the world with an Internet connection, which has become more ubiquitious.
We learn almost anything online, and access opportunities beyond what previous generations had.
What matters most is learning from the past without getting trapped in it.
When I think about those rainy afternoon walk from school, radio dramas, backyard games, and bowls of champorado, I realise what I truly miss isn’t just a period in history. I miss the simplicity, connection, and presence that came with it. Those memories remind me that happiness was often found in ordinary moments.
And maybe that is what we should carry into the present.
Because tomorrow will not be shaped by how much we long for yesterday. It will be shaped by the choices we make today. The memories we cherish now will one day become someone else’s “good old days.”
So yes, I smile when an old song plays on the radio or when the rain reminds me of childhood afternoons back home. But I also want to live fully in the present, creating meaningful moments instead of only looking backward.
Maybe the good old days were never truly perfect. But they remind us of what truly matters, and give us a chance to bring those values into the life we live today. After all, the past has served its purpose as our teacher, and the future remains an unwritten draft. All we truly have is this exact moment, and it is the only place where we can choose to actively build the tomorrow we want.