BY JAIME K. PIMENTEL – FILIPINO mestizos maintain their presence monthly at Workers Blacktown Club in Sydney’s west. They have gathered for all-you-can-eat lunch religiously, in fact, every first Monday of the month for more than four years.
( Those who were in the photo with this article are Rafael Larrarte,Paco Sierra, Maro Gonzalez, Ramon Crame,and Joaquin de Ubago. Seated are Tony Andia, Tony Sierra, Clem Serra, Juan Arriaga, Meca Trapagga-Arriaga, Alfonso Sierra, Jess Sequerra, and Isabel Crame Pimentel – Editor)
Although the term mestizos can be attributed to any Filipino of Spanish, Portuguese, Irish, German, Swiss, Italian, Japanese, Chinese or American, the Mestizos de Manila is this particular group are mainly Spanish-Filipino.
The most well known regular is Meca Trapagga (married surname Arriaga), once Manila’s most popular singing star of stage, radio and the nightclub circuit.
”Almost all of us are pensioners with one foot on the grave,” said Paco Sierra. “That’s why we talk mostly about our senior ailments and, in my case, my female conquests ~ the end of the table where my wife can’t hear me.”
There is nothing serious with this group, which calls itself Los Mestizos de Manila. Insults fly across the tables and no one takes offence.
“You look fatter today than the last time we met, Kinet!”
“Well, you’re practically blind anyway, Paco, so what the hell!”
“Hey, that’s not the wife I saw you with yesterday, Antonio.”
“Putangina! Why can’t you keep your mouth like you arse,” Jamito.
And so it goes until the Bangarribi Room waiters have to force the lot out of the premises way past closing time at 2:30pm.
The Mestizoes de Manila number more than 25 regulars. Does the group have a president?
”No one dares,” says Paco.