Mga Batang Riles

Mga Batang Riles
A blog series of games, grit, and childhood by the riles.

I grew up living beside the old railway. I never saw any trains run on it — not even the tracks. They were long gone by the time I was a kid. But the stories from our elders told us what used to be there. They said trains once passed through, and that’s how our place got its name: Riles.

Riles meant home. It meant scraped knees and dusty feet, afternoons filled with shouting and laughter, games that didn’t need screens or controllers — just empty cans, bare feet, and a whole lot of imagination.

I’m starting this blog series to remember the games we played: bato-lata, buwan-buwan, taguan, and many more. I want to write them down not just so I don’t forget, but so I can relive that kind of fun — the kind that came without gadgets, without TVs (we didn’t have one), and without malls or cafes. Just us, the neighborhood, the riles, and sometimes the rice fields too.

This is for the batang kalye, the batang riles, the kids who made the most out of so little. This is for us.