Remembering an enduring friendship

By Renato Perdon
Sydney, Australia
November 12,  2015



Honorio Tuason is more than a friend, in fact, we were like brothers in our struggle for a better life, for me it was poverty and struggle to have a comfortable life in the future and for him, it was, aside from poverty, a struggle to provide everything for his family, his wife, and future for his five children. My other friend is now in America.

The friend I lost whose nickname is Yoyong or Yong for short, and I were born on the same year, 1944, the last year of the Second world War. My friend in America was born in March, I was born in June and Yong was born toward the end of the year, we all born on the same year.

Yong was born on 21 Novemer 1944 to a poor family of barrio San Vicente, San Tomas, Pampanga to Delfin Tuazon and Jorgina Pineda, both belonging to an underprivileged families in Pampanga. He was the eldest of the seven children of the struggling young family. Because of poverty and having a big family, he only reached the sixth grade in elementary school.
At a young age, he already experienced working as a fisherman, farmer, and carpenter to help his parents earn a living. But Yong was always on the look out for a better earning ways and he found one when he learned and acquired the skills of a tailor. This skill would change his life and his family would experienced a little improvement in their lifestyle.

In 1964, the same year I left Bicol to look for my future too in Manila, Yong left Pampanga and settled in the Sampaloc district and soon found employment with a popular tailor shop called the Almeda Tailors. Not far away from his worksite, I also started working at a garment factory in the same district. It was a glamorised garment factory and called Bib’s Tailors, a branch of the popular Bib’s Tailor of Naga City in Bicol. It was managed by the children of the owner and operator of the Bicol shop.

It was purposely opened to provide income to the three boys who were all studying college in the city. The eldest of the children acted as a master cutter which he learned from his father. He was taking up architecture and the other two were also enrolled studying other college courses. Completing his studies, the eldest son decided to move the garments factory outside of Sampaloc district and relocated to Sta. Mesa, the adjoining sector of the city but with less competitors. And it was also good for his own young family of two children.

Two of the workers in that sweat shop were Yong, an expert in making men’s suit and Cynthia, a demure and a lady of few words from Batangas. She worked as a finishers doing button holes, and other finishing works for every garment we made. Both of them were single, and soon they became closed and decided to get marry and start their family. They got married in 1969 and the following year, their eldest son, Eric, came to this world with a very protective and caring parents.

Our working relationship was cordial and we helped each other if one needed help in the shop. What I will not forget was as a working students, I had to work hard to save an amount for my tuition fees, otherwise, I would not be allowed to take the exam and as a consequence, would repeat the same subjects in the next semester.

Being a working student, I hated the idea of repeating subjects just because of failure to pay my tuition fees. It was this predicament that Yong would always help me by allowing me to share his work allocation so that I could get additional money for my tuition fees. And despite the fact that he had already supporting a growing family and also needed money for school and food of his children. Yong also had the habit of setting aside, particularly towards December when works was a plenty, a small amount, not for the rainy days of his family, but for his relatives back in Pampanga who needed financial help too.

Indeed, he was a kind person and hardworking man. In order to have additional income he was doing sewing jobs too at his rented home on Mariano de la Fuente Street in Sta. Mesa, where both husband and wife, had to work extra time. It was there that he found contact and attracted fashion designers and high fashion shop operators who gave him extra sewing jobs. One of them was the popular Rene Salud, a famous couturier in Manila who would regularly drop off sewing jobs at this place. Yong’s work doing expensive men’s suit for the Bib’s Tailors continued even when he spent more time in his house. The owner of the shop would bring materials to him for sewing. But since his rented house was just a walking distance to the shop, we would always see each other during those visits related to works assigned him. Yong was a very caring family man. His world was his children. He took care of them well, provided them food and education, even to the point of sacrificing little luxuries for himself and his wife, just to make sure that his children were studying, clean and do not get hungry.

His sistrer-in-law decided to petition the whole family to migrate to Australia. I know it was difficult for him who only completed elementary education to migrate and work in a country whose main language of communication is English, but he soldiered on and brave the challenge so that he could give his family a much better life, a bright future for the five children. It was Yong’s skill as a tailor, and recognised inAustralia as a skilled worker, that help the approval of the family to come to Australia. But there was a problem with his eldest son’s x-ray result. The Australian embassy would not grant the visa unless everyone was given health clearance. By then, I already knew some immigration regulations, I suggested to him to leave his eldest  son, who already had a family of his own, behind, and go ahead migrating toAustralia. I explained to him that as the only remaining son left in the Philippines it would be easy for him to get him later and join them inAustralia. The most important thing was that the family should proceed and already migrantas in Australia while his eldest son was undergoing medical treatment. It did not last long that his eldest son, with his own family joined Yong’s family in Sydney. I was right.

In Sydney, although not able to converse lengthily in the English language, Yong found a garment supplier in the city who needed a tailor. It became his steady income for the family. He worked, like he was in the Philippines, very hard, particularly he was just working at home and need not go out to go to the city. Although both of us living in Australia, we were separated by distance. I lived in Kensington where I have to travel by bus and train to reach them. In his case, he was not familiar yet with the city, much more beyond the city area where I live. Despite that situation, when I got sick in 1998 where my weight went down to 34 kilos and my GP already saying goodbye to me, I found Yong and Cynthia in front of my door and visited me and clean the flat for me. That again showed that we have established our bond, not only as brothers, but friends. They even brought some food knowing that I live alone and cooking would be very hard for me to do so, being just out of the hospital.

But his work regimen would eventually a toll on his health that deteriorated until the time he could no longer pedal the sewing machine. Fortunately, his five children were already stable enough to support him and his wife. I saw him last at the hospital before he passed away. At that time, I know deep inside me that he still wanted to live and enjoy his grandchildren, but it was not meant to be. His health turned to worse, and on 21 July 2011, he passed away. His remains were cremated and his ashes brought to the Philippines at the house he built while working hard in Australia. Many really miss him, particularly myself.