Back To The 70's

[sonnyt111]

Where present day Landmark stands, there used to be a small quiet mall called Maranaw. First thing you saw as you entered were two escalators, one going up, the other down. It had just two floors. On the second floor there was a sporting goods store (can't remember the name) where my mom used to buy me air rifles for Christmas and my birthday. As I recall it was owned by some Chinese proprietor whom I saw many, many years later at Makati Cinema Square where she was working.

 

At the ground floor of Maranaw were a store that sold stereo equipment, a store selling textiles, and another one selling rugs (Tai Ping rugs???)

 

Whenever I entered the mall, I was usually the only customer inside. There were more store people than customers.

 

Opposite Maranaw was the old Makati Supermarket. BTW Maranaw even had its own open air parking which could accommodate only a dozen or so cars. And yet, I never had problems parking there.

 

I really miss the old Makati Commercial Center (now called Ayala Center) of the 1960's and 1970's.

 

 

 

[Bugatti Veyron]

Where present day Landmark stands, there used to be a small quiet mall called Maranaw. First thing you saw as you entered were two escalators, one going up, the other down. It had just two floors. On the second floor there was a sporting goods store (can't remember the name) where my mom used to buy me air rifles for Christmas and my birthday. As I recall it was owned by some Chinese proprietor whom I saw many, many years later at Makati Cinema Square where she was working.

 

At the ground floor of Maranaw were a store that sold stereo equipment, a store selling textiles, and another one selling rugs (Tai Ping rugs???)

 

Whenever I entered the mall, I was usually the only customer inside. There were more store people than customers.

 

Opposite Maranaw was the old Makati Supermarket. BTW Maranaw even had its own open air parking which could accommodate only a dozen or so cars. And yet, I never had problems parking there.

 

I really miss the old Makati Commercial Center (now called Ayala Center) of the 1960's and 1970's.

 

Whenever I visit the United States, particularly small towns in New Jersey, I'm reminded of what Makati used to be like in the 1970's. The parking layout in small towns is similar to that of Makati in the 1970's. Also there's no problem finding parking in establishments in these small towns. I get the feeling of space, something I don't feel here in Metro Manila because there are just too many people and too many buildings.

[oscartamaguchiblackface]

All correspondences (except those sent through telegrams) were personally handwritten and could take 2-3 weeks to reach the intended recipient overseas and another 2-3 weeks for the person who sent the original message to get a reply.

 

In the 70's, the closest thing to being "on line" was making a telephone call and talking to the other party in real time. This was limited to voice only.

[the_sentinel]

All correspondences (except those sent through telegrams) were personally handwritten and could take 2-3 weeks to reach the intended recipient overseas and another 2-3 weeks for the person who sent the original message to get a reply.

 

In the 70's, the closest thing to being "on line" was making a telephone call and talking to the other party in real time. This was limited to voice only.

 

Yup, I recall dialling "109" if you want a long-distance call to be made within the Philippines (Laguna and Bulacan were already considered "long-distance") and "108" for overseas calls. PLDT was the only telephone network back then and everything had to go through the operator.

 

The red pay phones where you're supposed to insert 3 pieces of 10-centavo coins (later increased to 4 and later on went up to 3 25-centavo coins) in the slot to allow a 5-minute call. What was fascinating was that when you exceed the allocated time limit, the call just simply got cut off. Otherwise, you had to drop a couple more coins to extend the call.

 

http://img.antiquesreporter.com.au/100817CLME/478.jpg

 

 

At home, the black rotary phones dominated the length of the 70's. Phones back then bore only 6 digits. We had two lines back then - one with a party line (611045) and one that was a single line (626131) but that was because the second was declared as a business phone because of our family business of selling Early Warning Devices (EWD's).

 

http://www.chicagonow.com/mars-venus-game/files/2013/11/rotary-phone.jpg

 

 

This was the EWD that we were selling at a price, if I recall it right, at P250 per pair.

 

http://cdn10.olx.ph/20140224174621-e1c7a5e17dd1adb9c9503e120d11c88f.jpg

 

[Bugatti Veyron]

Yup, I recall dialling "109" if you want a long-distance call to be made within the Philippines (Laguna and Bulacan were already considered "long-distance") and "108" for overseas calls. PLDT was the only telephone network back then and everything had to go through the operator.

 

The red pay phones where you're supposed to insert 3 pieces of 10-centavo coins (later increased to 4 and later on went up to 3 25-centavo coins) in the slot to allow a 5-minute call. What was fascinating was that when you exceed the allocated time limit, the call just simply got cut off. Otherwise, you had to drop a couple more coins to extend the call.

 

http://img.antiquesreporter.com.au/100817CLME/478.jpg

 

 

At home, the black rotary phones dominated the length of the 70's. Phones back then bore only 6 digits. We had two lines back then - one with a party line (611045) and one that was a single line (626131) but that was because the second was declared as a business phone because of our family business of selling Early Warning Devices (EWD's).

 

http://www.chicagonow.com/mars-venus-game/files/2013/11/rotary-phone.jpg

 

 

This was the EWD that we were selling at a price, if I recall it right, at P250 per pair.

 

http://cdn10.olx.ph/20140224174621-e1c7a5e17dd1adb9c9503e120d11c88f.jpg

 

The 108 and 109 numbers which used to pass through an operator was replaced by NDD/IDD (National Direct Distance Dialing/International Direct Distance Dialing). I don't know how PLDT makes money off these services given today's new technologies (Viber, Magic Jack, WeChat, Facetime, Hangouts, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, Skype, etc., which are all free of charge.) Not to mention competition coming from Sun Cellular and Globe Telecom.

[Bugatti Veyron]

What I remember most vividly about the 1970s was my first crush (my neighbor) and the jealously I felt (for the first time in my life) when she was entertaining other suitors. Guess everyone has experienced this at one point in his/her life.

[Clown_2]

mid to late70s, jai alai was very prominent

[the_sentinel]

mid to late70s, jai alai was very prominent

 

True...I remember in the late 70's there was a one-on-one competition between two of the most celebrated jai-alai stars in the country - Manu versus Oyazabal - two players of Spanish descent. Betting was also being conducted featuring three-digit numbers that won four-digit figures (which was big at that time). The results came out daily in the major broadsheets back then.

 

Question: does anyone here remember the soda brands Fress Gusto and Teem? http://chezkie.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/fress-gusto-ad-78-sf1.jpg

 

http://galleryplus.ebayimg.com/ws/web/171028621572_1_0_1/1000x1000.jpg

 

[maxiev]

True...I remember in the late 70's there was a one-on-one competition between two of the most celebrated jai-alai stars in the country - Manu versus Oyazabal - two players of Spanish descent. Betting was also being conducted featuring three-digit numbers that won four-digit figures (which was big at that time). The results came out daily in the major broadsheets back then.

 

Question: does anyone here remember the soda brands Fress Gusto and Teem? http://chezkie.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/fress-gusto-ad-78-sf1.jpg

 

http://galleryplus.ebayimg.com/ws/web/171028621572_1_0_1/1000x1000.jpg

I don't remember Teem. But I remember Fress Gusto. Gary Valenciano was still a young child when he endorsed this on tv.

 

[Bugatti Veyron]

How about Blenda butter? Francis Arnaiz, former PBA star of Toyota Tamaraws, was the main endorser in the commercial.

[muttley]

True...I remember in the late 70's there was a one-on-one competition between two of the most celebrated jai-alai stars in the country - Manu versus Oyazabal - two players of Spanish descent. Betting was also being conducted featuring three-digit numbers that won four-digit figures (which was big at that time). The results came out daily in the major broadsheets back then.

 

Question: does anyone here remember the soda brands Fress Gusto and Teem?

 

I remember Fress Gusto and Teem.

 

Here's the 1975 Fress Gusto commercial featuring a very young Gary Valenciano:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTVmDxJxC90

 

 

How about Blenda butter? Francis Arnaiz, former PBA star of Toyota Tamaraws, was the main endorser in the commercial.

 

"Sa Blenda ang sarap. Sa Blenda ang ligaya. Sa bawat kagat, ligaya ang sarap!"

[the_sentinel]

Fress Gusto, a Coke product distributed by SMC, became my favorite softdrink back then, supplanting Royal Tru Orange and Royal Lem-O-Lime. I used to buy an 8oz bottle in school at 25 centavos, but you get back the 10 centavos if you return the bottle. That means it's only 15 centavos back then. Thereafter, sometime in the early 80's, soda was dispensed in plastic bags with straw so that the bottle would stay with the retailer.

 

Teem was a Pepsi product that competed with Lem-O-Lime. Since our school was locked into Coke products, I only got to taste this at home when the family would try different types of soda from the nearby sari-sari store. It was good, but lacked the spirit that Lem-O-Lime had or, later on, Mello Yello.

 

Speaking of the nearby sari-sari store, I used to buy 3 pcs of Choc-Nut for 10 centavos. A perfect comfort food, especially in the afternoon coming home from school. My penchant though was to grind the Choc-Nut in a small cup with a spoon, making it powdery, and then scooped it up with the spoon and into my mouth. Simple joys...

 

Robert Jaworski endorsed Cerveza Negra back then, a great choice as the dark beer brand built a macho image that suited the Big J. Jaworski also endorsed the Toyota Macho for the same reason. The leading beer brand remained to be the Pale Pilsen but SMC released Gold Eagle Beer to cater to the provincial workers (farmers and fishermen) in the early 80's to counteract the entry of Beer Hausen, produced by Lucio Tan's Asia Brewery, Inc. Since Beer Hausen was sold at a peso lower (introductory price IIRC, was P2.50 compared to Pale's P3.50) than Pale Pilsen so SMC counteracted by launching the Gold Eagle brand and put Pale Pilsen in a pedestal where it didn't have to compete with any other brand. Later on, in 1987, Asia Brewery released "Carlsberg" - advertised as "probably the best beer in the world."

 

Cigarette brands were also abundant back then. PX stores made a killing selling imported brands like Kent, Pall Mall, Salem, Dunhill, Peter Stuyvesant (later to be released locally for a year), among others. Foreign brands produced locally were Marlboro, Philip Morris and Winston. Hope and More were local brands manufactured by Lucio Tan's Fortune Tobacco.

[Chelin2014]

The Beatles were making waves during this period and it was the best of times in the music world! Yesterday! Something in the way she moves...oh Lucy in the sky!

[muttley]

The Beatles were making waves during this period and it was the best of times in the music world! Yesterday! Something in the way she moves...oh Lucy in the sky!

 

Are you sure you're in the right decade? The Beatles broke up in 1970.

[KayaK]

it was probably The Beatles Hair Pomade. it was, indeed, making waves of slimy, shiny hair among men, older men in particular.