FILIPINO mestizos maintain their presence monthly at Blacktown Workers Club in Sydney’s west. They have gathered for all-you-can-eat lunch religiously, in fact, every last Monday of the month for more than four years.
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 in this particular group are mainly Filipinos of Spanish descent.
The most well-known regular [attendee] 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.” “Putang-ina! (Son-of-a-bitch) Why can’t you keep your mouth like your arse,” Jamito.
And so it goes until the Bungarribee Room waiters have to force the lot out of the premises way past closing time at 2:30pm.
The Mestizos de Manila number more than 25 regulars. Does the group have a president? ”No one dares,” says Paco.