A boy crouching to charge the base tree in a game of tigso while the bantay guards it, other children running in behind

Tigso: The Golden Hour of Our Lunch Breaks

October 20, 2026

Series: Game of Titos and Titas – Part 8 Key Takeaways Tigso is the Bisaya name for the game known in Tagalog areas as agawan base Two teams of five to eight, two bases — a pole, a tree, a rock, whatever the schoolyard offered — and a bantay who never leaves his The core rule: you may only tag someone who left their base before you did Get tagged and you stand prisoner in enemy ground until a teammate breaks in and touches you free The bantay could leave the base to make a tag — but the base stood unguarded while he did The losing team crawled through the stretched legs of every winner: “Kamang ang mga pildi!” In grades four and

Children playing tubig-tubig (patintero) at night on a grid drawn in water on a dirt road, lit by a full moon, with water jugs nearby

Tubig-Tubig: The Game We Drew With Water

October 13, 2026

Series: Game of Titos and Titas – Part 9 Key Takeaways Tubig-tubig is the Bisaya name for the game known in Tagalog areas as patintero The name comes from the water we used to draw the lines on a dusty road — the only game in this series whose name anybody could explain Attackers run the grid end to end and back; guards must keep both feet on their line Boys and girls played together, and the sides were whoever turned up There was no fixed forfeit — the losers’ punishment was agreed beforehand, like everything else The grid is drawn to fit the turnout — three cross-lines at minimum, more when more children come, so nobody is left out The captain liboter works the

Children scattering to grab their slippers after the tin can is knocked out of the circle in a game of tumba lata at dusk

Tumba Lata: What We Called Tumbang Preso Back Home

October 6, 2026

Series: Game of Titos and Titas – Part 6 Key Takeaways In Padada we called it tumba lata — knock the can. In Tagalog areas it’s tumbang preso It was the easiest game to get going, because nobody had to fetch anything — the equipment was already on our feet and in the rubbish The equipment was an empty tin can and the slippers off your own feet — or flat stones, for the bolder games Your slipper is the pamato, the same word we used for the shooter in holen The bantay cannot tag anybody until he has stood the can back up, so every hit resets him and buys everyone a window A bantay who could never escape was called baboy — the

Filipino children playing larong Pinoy in a barrio clearing at sunset, a slipper in mid-air and a tin can standing in the dust

Game of Titos and Titas: The Larong Pinoy We Grew Up On

September 29, 2026

Before video games, smartphones, and tablets, children played outside, engaging in Larong Pinoy—the traditional Filipino games that defined our childhood. We didn’t need anything expensive. For most games, all you needed were a few friends. If a game required equipment at all, you found it around the house or in the yard — sticks, stones, bottle caps, rubber bands. If you had to buy something, it cost centavos. From habulan and patintero to tumbang preso, there is a whole inventory of traditional Filipino games that children across the country once played without being taught. You learned them the way you learned to swim in the river: by being handed the sticks and told to figure it out. These days it seems only the titos and

Infographic of the leading from behind philosophy: coaching, saying we not I, giving credit, and developing people

Leading From Behind: A Management Philosophy That Wins

September 17, 2026

Key Takeaway I was always more comfortable making the campaign work than taking the bow — that became a management philosophy Coach, don’t command: people execute what they own, and they own what they helped figure out ‘We’, not I — the pronoun signals whether your team are instruments or partners Give credit publicly and genuinely; teams tha feel invisible do the minimum Leading from behind means being the steady hand nobody sees but everyone feels Early in my career, I noticed something about myself. I was more comfortable being the one who made the campaign work than the one who got up on stage to take the bow. Some people would call that a limitation. I call it a management philosophy: leading from

Infographic of the ABS-CBN ad boycott crisis: listening, rebuilding trust, and a revenue turnaround from ₱266M to ₱1B a month

Crisis Management Lessons From the ABS-CBN Advertiser Boycott

September 3, 2026

Key Takeaways: I was appointed Head of Sales and Marketing at ABS-CBN in February 1997–straight into an advertiser and ad agency boycott Lesson 1: understand what the aggrieved side actually needs before you defend or counter Lesson 2: trust is rebuilt through behavior, not statements — make moves that speak for themselves Lesson 3: a team that’s behind needs a clear goal, not a pep talk — we set the target and hoit it The turnaround grew into quadrupled revenues: from P266M to over P1B per month, without missing a target February 1997. I had just been appointed Head of Sales and Marketing at ABS-CBN. It was a role I didn’t ask for, by the way. Freddie Garcia called me into his office and

Winding timeline of Nic Gabunada's seven career stages from chemistry to advertising and reputation management

The Serendipitous Career: Why a Non-Linear Career Path Wins

August 27, 2026

Key Takeways: I enrolled in BS Chemistry; two professors talked me into Management Engineering — the first serendipitous turn of many From activist detention in Davao to economics at CRC to Media Pulse to ABS-CBN: none of it was planned When Freddie Garcia handed me Sales and Marketing with no sales background, mentorship made ‘yes’ posible Non-linear career are failure of planning — they’re evidence of adaptability The market rewards specialists, but it deeply needs sympathizers who transfer knowledge across fields I wanted to be a chemist. That’s the truth. When I enrolled at Ateneo de Davao University, I signed up for BS Chemistry. I had a plan. I had a direction. And then the plan changed — the first turn in what became

A cream-colored mare tethered on a grass hillside grazes beside her brown foal, with a row of coconut palms and distant mountains in the background. Photo taken by Nic Gabunada

More Than a Sport: How Horses Built Status, Settled Feuds, and Kept the Peace in Upland Mindanao

August 20, 2026

I still remember the first time someone told me, without a trace of irony, that horses had once settled a blood debt between two families in the uplands of Mindanao. Not a payment of cash. Not a formal apology delivered by elders. Horses — walked from one household to another, accepted as full and final restitution for a life lost. Growing up hearing stories like this, I assumed it was folklore, the kind of detail that gets embellished with every retelling. It wasn’t. Among the Lumad and upland farming communities of Mindanao, a horse has never just been an animal. It has been currency, dowry, peace offering, and proof of a man’s standing in his community — all at once. That’s the world I want

Research Is Not Optional: Every Media and Marketing Decision Needs Data

August 6, 2026

Key Takeaways: You cannot craft an effective message if you don’t know who you’re talking to — yet gut feel decisions remain rampant Helping set up the Philippines’ first TV people meter changed how the industry planned and bought media At ABS-CBN, research informed programming, expansion, and the groundworks for Studio 23, Sky Cable, Star Cinema and more Research done well is not a support function — it’s a strategic weapon But the best practitioners are data-informed, not data paralyzed: research reduces uncertainty, it doesn’t replace judgment I’m going to say something that might sound obvious. But I’ve seen enough campaigns crash and burn to know it’s not practiced nearly enough: you cannot craft an effective message if you don’t know who you’re talking

From Activist to Adman — How the Anti-Marcos Movement Made Me a Better Marketer

July 23, 2026

Key Takeaways: Some of the most valuable marketing training happens outside marketing –mine happened in the anti Marcos movement Every flyer and every rally had to land: that was audience segmentation before anyone called it that Distribution mattered as much as content — trusted networks were our channels The goal was never just to inform but to mobilize; that’s virality by another name Look behind history’s movements and you’ll find someone who understood audience, message and reach People are sometimes surprised when I tell them where I got my most valuable marketing lessons. It wasn’t a classroom. It wasn’t a boardroom. It was the Anti-Marcos movement — in the streets, in secret meetings, in the business of moving people when the stakes were life and

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