The heat in Plaza Miranda is not just a temperature—it is a living thing. It rises from the cracked pavement worn smooth by decades of footsteps, crawls into the soles of tourists’ shoes, and in my case, burns directly into the tough skin of my bare feet. At eleven years old, you learn how to bargain with pain. You memorize which stones trap the noon sun and which ones, under the shadows of the old arcades, offer a brief mercy. My world is no bigger than this square of history and dust, the smell of fried banana cue drifting from street vendors, and above all, the sixty-four squares of my universe.
“Luis, anak… have you eaten today?”
Mang Ernesto’s voice pulled me back. I looked up from my cardboard chessboard. Mang Ernesto, hunched like a question mark and always smelling of ink and old newspapers, was my guardian angel on earth. His small green newsstand—stuffed with tabloids, lotto slips, and folded broadsheets—was my headquarters.
“I’m not hungry,” I lied. My stomach betrayed me immediately, growling loud enough to echo between the church walls. “Well… maybe a little.”
He sighed and pulled out half a pan de sal stuffed with egg and tomato, wrapped in wax paper.
“Take it. Eggs are too heavy for me in the afternoon. Don’t let it go to waste.”
We both knew it was a lie. Mang Ernesto always bought that extra sandwich for me. My lolo had taught me that accepting kindness with dignity was also a skill. I took it with trembling hands. The first bite tasted like home—salt, warmth, something we rarely had lately in our windowless basement room where dampness climbed the walls like moldy vines.
My chess pieces were not ordinary. They were my inheritance. My grandfather, a woodcarver from Quezon Province, had carved them during the final months of his life when cancer no longer let him stand.
“Life is chess, Luis,” he used to say softly. “Lose your queen, don’t surrender. Get cornered, look for another path. And remember—the pawn never moves backward. It only moves forward. And if it reaches the end, it can become anything.”
I was moving my black knight—my favorite, carved with a proud curve—when a shadow crashed into my world.
“Move it, kid! You’re blocking the way!”
A polished leather shoe kicked the edge of my board. The cardboard flew. My pieces exploded into the air like wooden shrapnel.
Time slowed. I watched my king roll toward a storm drain. The queen shattered against a lamppost. And my knight—my knight—landed under the man’s heel.
“Wait—!” I cried…
He didn’t even turn around. Tall, immaculate in a designer suit despite the heat, speaking into a wireless earpiece.
“This plaza is full of pests,” he said casually. “Why doesn’t the city clean this up? There are shelters for people like that.”
He walked toward the waiting SUVs near Quiapo Church.
I dropped to my knees, gathering fragments. Mang Ernesto rushed out.
“That devil… that animal!”
The queen was split in two. Pawns were chipped. But when I picked up the knight, my chest cracked open. The head was cleanly snapped from the body.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, wiping my tears with dirty fingers. “I should’ve moved.”
“You’re not responsible for monsters in suits,” Mang Ernesto said fiercely. “That man… that’s Ramon Velasco. Real estate tycoon. Owns half of Manila. Thinks the city is his chessboard.”
I glued the knight back together with the last drops of my father’s shoe cement. The scar showed—a pale line across the dark wood.
That evening, the same black SUV returned.
Ramon Velasco stepped out again, this time noticing me.
“You. Do you play chess?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you good?”
“I manage.”
He laughed. “Fine. Let’s make this interesting. If you win, I give you five million pesos.”
The crowd gasped.
“If I win,” he continued, “you disappear from this plaza.”
I looked at my bare feet. At my knight.
“I accept.”
The game began.
He played fast. Arrogant. Crushing. He sacrificed, attacked, mocked. On move twenty, he declared check with a grin.
“Resign.”
I moved my knight.
The trap closed.
Silence fell.
“Checkmate,” I said.
Phones erupted. Shouts followed.
Velasco’s face drained of color.
He stood, furious. “This was symbolic. Here—buy ice cream.”
He tossed a thousand-peso bill at my feet and walked away.
That night, the video exploded online.
“Billionaire Cheats Street Kid at Plaza Miranda.”
By morning, #PayLuis was trending nationwide.
By noon, thousands stood outside Velasco Tower in Makati.
I stood barefoot at the front.
“I came to finish the game,” I said.
Hours later, Ramon Velasco knelt in front of me.
He paid.
Not just money.
My mother received a scholarship within his company.
My father got surgery.
Our neighborhood got a chess park.
A year later, the Jorge Alvarez Chess Foundation opened in Quiapo.
I still use my old knight.
It is stitched with black thread.
Not perfect.
Unbreakable.