only neighbor on the block, the Church of St. Bartholomew. Certain Fridays it delivered our hymn class, under the eminent soprano Remedios Bosch-Jimenez, herself a town citizen, into Bartholomew’s south aisle so that our collected voices might be contained from disturbing the rest of St. James, whose own class work at the moment required some quiet. Within an easy walk from the block lay the municipal hall, the town square, the public market, the better shops and restaurants, and the only theater that played American movies exclusively. I began to develop not only an ear for English prose, but also, in time, a critical appreciation of it and the confidence to try my own hand at stringing English words together with any serious purpose. Although a mere half-hour jeepney ride from Manila in those sparser days, Malabon felt provincial, except to its families who could afford the fancies of modern living (as my father never failed to point out—“as an established fact”—whenever the issue of wealth and privation arose: “We have more million- aires per square kilometer here in Malabon than in any other town”). And for these families a St. James education was one of the biggest bargains: it gave their children a head start not only for college but possibly for life. Indeed, a high plurality of St. James graduates went to two of the country’s highest-rated private colleges—Maryknoll itself for the girls, the Jesuit-run Ateneo for the boys.
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