The Bionic Boy and the Ten Billion Dollar Man

“I first met The Bionic Boy in the early 1980s. It was soon after I had graduated from college and had just joined the staff of Panorama Magazine, a Sunday insert tucked inside the hefty mass of cheap newsprint that was the Bulletin Today, then the largest newspaper in the Philippines. Being the staff’s newest and youngest member, I was assigned a desk no one else wanted. It was on the second floor, near the end of an impressive, winding staircase with lacquered mahogany banisters, and it was there that visitors often landed, lost and needing directions.”

NYSEAN Member Sheila S. Coronel reflects on Ferdinand Marcos Sr. authoritative rule in the Philippines. Her essay is part of Against Forgetting, a collective of essays, poems, narratives, short stories, and excerpts by Filipino and Filipino American writers that tell stories about the nightmare that was the martial law. The collection is published by NYSEAN Partner the Asian American Writers’ Workshop.