Mano Po, Lola: A Field Guide to the Most Powerful Woman You Know

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PASO Blog • September 2026 • National Grandparents Day, September 13. Filed on Filipino time.

The Doorway

You knock. You don't have to. The door is unlocked, it has always been unlocked, the concept of a locked door has never once been discussed. But you knock anyway, out of respect.

Lola opens it. She looks at you. She takes the full inventory in under two seconds: your face, your weight, your hair, your posture, whether you are eating, whether you are sleeping, whether you are happy, whether you are lying about being happy.

You reach for her hand. You bow. You press the back of her hand to your forehead.

"Mano po."

She says, "Bless." And then, without so much as a breath in between:

"Ay, ang payat mo naman." You got skinny.

Note that this is the exact opposite of what Tita said to you in the parking lot eleven minutes ago. Both women are correct. Both statements are final. Do not attempt to reconcile them. This is not that kind of system.

Then, before you have taken one full step into the house: "Kumain ka na ba?" Have you eaten?

The answer is yes. The answer has always been yes. The answer does not matter. Rice is already being scooped.

Welcome to Lola's house. Please remove your shoes. Grandparents Day was on Sunday, September 13, and we are going on a tour.

The Purse

The purse is the command center. It sits beside her at all times like a small, patient animal. It is not large. This is what makes it terrifying.

Here is a partial inventory:

Tissues, some used, some in a resealed packet from a different decade. A small bottle of alcohol, dispensed onto your hands whether or not you asked, whether or not you are currently touching anything. Candy of genuinely unknown origin and indeterminate age, individually wrapped, faintly fused to its neighbors. A rosary. A coin purse. Inside the coin purse, a second, smaller coin purse. Nobody has ever seen what is in the second one.

Folded bills, held closed with a rubber band, which will at some point in the visit be pressed into your palm while she says "shhh" and looks meaningfully at the door. You are thirty-eight years old. You have a 401(k). You will take the money. You will say salamat po. You will not win this.

And somewhere in there, always, a small blue jar.

The Medicine Cabinet

Let's talk about the jar.

Filipino medicine operates on a single unifying theory, and that theory is Vicks. Headache: Vicks. Cough: Vicks. Stomachache: Vicks, applied to the stomach, confidently. Fever: Vicks on the feet, socks on top, do not ask questions. Bad grade on a test: Vicks, and also a conversation. Heartbreak: Vicks, and uminom ka ng tubig, drink water, which is the second pillar of the entire medical framework.

The third pillar is hilot, the massage, which Lola will perform on your shoulders unannounced while you are eating, applying a grip strength that should not be physically available to a woman of her size. You will yelp. She will ask "masakit ba?" Does it hurt. She asks this with what can only be described as delight, and then she presses harder.

There is also the strategic deployment of salabat, ginger tea, brewed strong enough to be legally classified as a warning. And Efficascent Oil, whose smell will follow you into a business meeting nine hours later and cause a coworker to ask if you're okay.

(PASO's legal department, which is a group chat, would like to note that Lola is not a licensed physician and that Vicks is not a treatment plan. Please see an actual doctor. Then also use the Vicks.)

The Freezer

Open it. We'll wait.

Every container in Lola's freezer is a lie. The Country Crock tub does not contain butter. It contains adobo from an unspecified point in the past. The Cool Whip container holds sinigang broth. The Danish butter cookie tin, if it has migrated in here, holds anything except cookies, and we will get to the tin.

There are gallon bags of hand-rolled lumpia, stacked flat like currency, because in this house they functionally are. There is rice in the freezer. There is rice in the fridge. There is rice in the rice cooker, which is currently on, which it always is, which it has been since roughly 1987.

You will be sent home with food. This is not an offer. A plate will be covered in foil, then placed in a plastic bag, then placed in a second plastic bag, which was retrieved from the bag of bags under the sink, a bag containing hundreds of other bags, a renewable resource, a family inheritance.

You will say you have food at home. She will look at you like you have said something sad.

The Living Room

The couch is covered in plastic. Has been for as long as anyone can remember. It is protecting the upholstery for a special occasion that will never be formally declared.

On the wall: every graduation photo of every descendant, arranged in no order and never removed, including the cousin who has not called in four years, including your worst haircut, enshrined at eye level, permanent. A framed image of the Santo Niño. Capiz shell somewhere. A doily on every horizontal surface, including surfaces where a doily accomplishes nothing.

In the corner: a balikbayan box, half full, accepting donations. It has been open since roughly last September. It will ship in October. It will arrive in the Philippines sometime around Christmas, or February, and nobody will complain, because the box has its own relationship with time.

And on the shelf, the Magic Sing microphone. Do not touch it unless you are prepared. Somebody's Tito is going to sing "My Way" tonight, and he is going to mean it.

The Long Goodbye

You announce that you're leaving at 4:00.

At 4:05, you are standing. At 4:20, you are near the door, still standing, discussing your cousin's job situation. At 4:35, shoes are on, and Lola remembers something she needs to give you: a container, a clipping from a newspaper, a photo, a check she has already tried to give you twice.

At 4:50 you are in the driveway. The conversation continues through the open car window.

At 5:05 she is still on the porch, waving, and will remain there until your car is fully out of sight, because that is the rule, because you do not leave someone by turning around first.

You wave back the whole way down the street. You always do.

Mano Po

National Grandparents Day was Sunday, September 13. Yes. We know. We are late.

We are also Filipino, which means we are not late, we are arriving. Nothing we do has ever started at the time printed on the invitation and nothing has ever ended when the hall said it would, and a holiday about grandparents was never going to be the thing that broke that record.

The younger generation is trying to break the cycle. They put the real start time on the invitation. They send a calendar invite with a reminder. They arrive at the hour actually printed on the card, which is how they discover the flaw in the plan, because nobody else did. You are standing in an empty hall at 2:00 while your Tita, holding a vacuum, looks you up and down and says "ang aga mo naman." You are so early. You were on time. In this culture there has never been a difference.

So they stop trying. And roughly ten years later they are the ones writing 5:00 on a card that means 6:30, and that is how a cycle survives: not by being defended, but by being inherited.

Besides, if the only day you honored her was the one somebody else assigned, that is the actual problem. She is still there this week. The rice is still on.

Here is what we suggest, in ascending order of difficulty:

Call her. Not text. She wants to hear the voice.

Go see her. Bring nothing. She has food.

Ask her one question about the Philippines and then be quiet for twenty minutes. Record it on your phone if she'll let you. You will want it later. Everyone who has it says the same thing: I wish I'd started sooner.

And bring her to us. Line Dancing is every Thursday at 6:30 PM and Mahjong Club is every Thursday at 6 PM at the Philippine American Cultural & Civic Center in Parma. We would like to be clear about something: the lolas are not attending these programs. The lolas are running these programs. Register and see for yourself.

And the PASO Charity Golf Outing is Saturday, September 26 at Pine Brook Golf Links, where, we should warn you, someone's Lolo who is eighty-one years old is going to out-drive you and then say nothing about it, which is worse.

Mano po. Bless.

BONUS

The Lola House Audit

Score one point each. Be honest.

☐ Plastic on at least one piece of furniture

☐ Bag of bags under the sink

☐ Rice cooker currently on, with no meal planned

☐ Food stored in a container that does not match its label☐ A jar of Vicks within eight feet of where you're standing

☐ Every grandchild's graduation photo on one wall

☐ A balikbayan box accepting contributions

☐ Magic Sing microphone, present and charged

☐ A drawer containing take-out utensils from restaurants that have closed

☐ Someone's blood pressure medication next to a plate of lechon

0 to 3: Are you sure this is a Lola?

4 to 6: Solid. Respectable. Second-generation drift, but the fundamentals are intact.

7 to 8: Certified. This house has fed a hundred people at once and will do it again.

9 to 10: This is not a house. This is a cultural institution. Please donate it to PASO.

And Finally: The Tin

Every Filipino household has one. The round blue Danish butter cookie tin. You are a child. You are hungry. You have located the tin. You lift the lid.

Now settle this once and for all:

[ POLL EMBED HERE ]