by Alecks P. Pabico

	MISSING MOMMY. Macoy Leyba has learned to cook, take care of the children, and balance the family budget, but he still misses his wife everyday. [photos by Alecks P. Pabico]

AS THE youngest of the three Leyba children, McLauren gets pampered in the manner all bunso are in a Filipino family, including being able to share bedspace with his parents. And up until three years ago, bedtime meant going through a peculiar ritual to help induce him to sleep: snuggling against his mother and rubbing one of her ears, a soporific massage that she would also give him.

McLauren — or Butchoy as he is fondly called — didn't exactly outgrow the ritual. It's just that his mother has been working abroad for the last three years, and the nine-year-old has since been cuddling up to his father at bedtime instead. And while Maximino 'Macoy' Leyba loves hugging his young son back — he has balked at performing the ear-caressing routine the boy and his mother liked doing.

But everything else that wife Florence would be doing around the house Macoy has taken on without complaint, from looking after the children to cooking the meals, to doing the laundry and figuring out the household budget. It's a setup that may be hard to imagine in a country of swaggering macho men, but in this era of large-scale transnational female labor migration, even certified barakos (toughies) are being forced to play nanay (mothers), albeit in varying degrees.

There are towns upon towns across the Philippines like Mabini in Batangas, where 12 percent of the population are OFWs, most of whom are women employed as domestic workers in Italy. In 2002, seven in 10 of all newly hired OFWs were female, according to the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA). The result: many more households where the man of the house wears an apron and wields a broom.

Trust the Filipino's practicality that allows such reversal of gender roles without necessarily resulting in the emasculation of the Pinoy macho. In her book Remaking Masculinities, sociologist Alicia Pingol studies the gender dynamics in Ilocano families with migrant wives and stay-at-home husbands. She points to the shifting definitions of masculinity that somehow lessen the threat to Pinoy manhood when husbands are forced to assume the role of caregiver for the sake of the family's finances.

The new masculine image, says Pingol, now comes in a variety of forms, from efficiently managing their wives' remittances to remaining loyal spouses, to attending to their children's needs. Interestingly, another new mark of masculinity, according to Pingol, is the dogged determination of many of the men to find ways to contribute economically to the family income so as not to become too dependent on their wives' earnings.

Danilo 'Tatay Danny' Guce, for example, did not stop being a port worker when wife Fidela went to Italy in 1987 to become a domestic helper, even though his earnings were nothing compared to what she was getting. "We had huge debts that we couldn't pay fast enough with my wife's salary," he explains. "I kept working so that at least she wouldn't have to worry about where we were going to find the money to feed ourselves."

Now retired at 60, Tatay Danny tends a small backyard vegetable garden in Mabini. He intends to sell the produce to earn as additional income, or if not, for his family's own consumption. He has in his care three grandchildren whose parents are also working in Italy.

IN BACOOR, Macoy is thinking of reopening the small store he used to run beside their house so he can contribute to the family coffers. As ifhe didn't already have his hands full managing the household. Actually, the reason. why he closed his shop was because his household tasks kept getting in the way. But Macoy now says he has gotten the hang of it after doing the same routine day after day for the last three years.

At least now he no longer worries too much about the eldest child Reiner, who is 20 and a recent computer engineering graduate. "He eats by himself and then goes off," says Macoy. But there's still Butchoy and Jam, the middle child and only daughter. Largely because of them, Macoy's daily schedule still begins early in the morning. He wakes up at around five o'clock to prepare breakfast for Jam, who has to leave for school at seven. By 9:30, he is back in front of the stove cooking for Butchoy. Then he bathes and dresses up the boy in time for classes that start at 10.

Macoy learned to cook in Saudi Arabia, when he was assigned to oversee his company's operations in Tabuk near the Jordan border. At the time he was a supervisor at a transport firm. Florence and the children were also in Saudi, but whenever Macoy was in Tabuk, he was pretty much left to his own devices. Sometimes he had to bring Butchoy, then a toddler, with him to Tabuk, and he would call Florence long-distance to get specific instructions on how to cook dishes like tinola. He hasn't dispensed with the practice, though it is now his mother-in-law whom he often consults about recipes.

After the children have left for school, Macoy does the marketing. He says it's more convenient to do that late in the morning, as there are fewer buyers and haggling for lower prices becomes a breeze.

Work slackens a bit in the early afternoon until two o'clock, when Jam returns from school. That's the time Macoy washes and iron clothes, taking care to do the children's uniforms first.

But it's budgeting Florence's remittances that often leaves the lanky Macoy exhausted. In the past, they used to allocate P20,000 for their monthly expenses — mainly food, payment of utilities, and the children's daily school allowances. Now that amount is no longer sufficient. Confides Macoy: "It's so hard to budget. There are so many school projects. Whenever the two younger children ask for money, my budget is ruined. My daughter says she needs shoes, but she ends up also buying a pair of pants. It's difficult to say no."

Actually, he says, life hasn't been easy for him since he became Mr. Mom. "I admit it," he says. "It's hard for the man to become the mother. If you think about it, it's a very heavy burden. Of course fathers can take care of their children. But I can't do everything a mother does."

So far, though, the kids aren't complaining — even Butchoy, who is quite attached to Florence. Says the 45-year-old Macoy: "He's my bedtime companion. Whenever he hugs me, I remember his mother. Because he should be hugging her. I ask him sometimes, 'So Butchoy, is it okay that your mommy's not here, and you've had to hug just me?' And he says it's okay."

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