It is to the din of bombs dropping during the liberation of the Pacific from Japanese occupation where our story starts. Boy, called in endearing terms by his parents and siblings "Pamboy", is being carried across a river like a basket of fruit on his mother's head, fleeing the onslaught of the American aerial and artillery bombardment of Bataan. New to the world, Pamboy's stub of an umbilical cord is still attached, lovingly recounts Nanay, his mother and my grandmother. She survives him to this very day. They cross the river to seek out the safety of a cave, without the necessities of life, save for a goat to provide milk and its familiar bleeting companionship. The elder siblings, no older than nine or ten, make do with the reality of the war which was about to end. But this they did not know, and it was impossible to know or care if the occupation and the world war were all they were born into. All they have to do is survive and wait and hope and continue to hope that the brunt of the war will move on. It is February 1945. The Battle for Manila has only begun.