Daughters went on a pamamanhikan (asking for hand in marriage)

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A young friend called me up, she's home for a brief vacation and would like to catch up with me. My lady friend is 28 years old, based in Singapore, and extremely delighted to tell me that she has made down payment for a condo unit for her and her two younger sisters. I admire this girl very much because she saw to it that her sisters earn their college degrees, one of whom has also earned her masters. Then in between scoops of pochero bulalo and karekare, she narrated that the whole family went up North for a pamamanhikan. Their father, 60 years of age, seemingly fell in love again, to a fellow overseas Filipino worker, twenty years her junior. My friend frowned, how could a single woman fall in love with her father who already had a stoke three years ago? Such is love, I said. But what happened in the pamamanhikan? Oh, she answered, my grandma was very nervous because the famiily might ask for a cow or a pig? We three sisters were very quiet because the brother of their mother-to-be is so macho, or masculine, with a bolo strapped round his hips. And? I asked. "The family just wanted my father to take care of their sister." And added, "Tita, I think she will be the one to take care of my dad." Yes, I answered. And we had a good laugh.