I’m Marcia Gokongwei. My entire adult life has been dedicated to hawking junk food—a career path heavily influenced by my own inability to resist Presto Creams Peanut Butter and VCut Spicy BBQ. I studied media at La Salle, which mainly qualified me to be the unpaid, invisible photographer for everyone I know. I take thousands of pictures on every trip, mostly to ensure there is zero visual proof I was actually present.

I used to think being the youngest of six siblings was peak character-building, but then I raised two daughters who moved as far away as New York, leaving me behind to serve as the full-time butler to two opinionated dachshunds named Larry and Tommy.