u/Amazing-Ant3869

I remember nung nawalan ng work yung tatay ko — he used to be a VP of a multi-campus school pero he got fired due to company politics, or rather sabay yung pagsisante sa kaniya at resignation niya. Wala siyang work for two years dahil overqualified siya sa mga ina-apply-an niyang director level at lower managerial level na works. Buti na lang nakapagpundar siya ng jeep na inilalabas noon ng pinsan niya although not regularly. My dad decided to be a jeepney driver for two years at ako ang naging kundoktor niya.

Nung una mahirap magsisisigaw para tumawag ng pasahero, parati akong paos nung unang weeks ko. Then as time went by nasanay na rin ako sa pagsigaw-sigaw.

Within a day kumikita kami ng around 2k-3k, tapos hindi kami kumakain sa mga karinderya. May baon kami palagi para tipid. Sa isang linggo kumikita kami ng around 10k to 15k. Pero syempre bawas pa yung sa gas. Pero since dati rin nung kabataan ng tatay ko truck driver siya sa isang beer company sanay siya kung paano "ma-tipid" yung gas kaya kahit papaano nakakatipid kami sa gas nun.

Sabay pa na nag-aaral pa ako sa college nun sa SUC, kaya nakakatipid talaga kami dahil libre tuition ko nun, ang gastos ko lang yung mga pamproject sa school.

Kaya ito bilang teacher na ako, nagagamit ko sa classroom yung skill ko sa pagiging kundoktor—yung pagsigaw-sigaw ko.

https://preview.redd.it/if0frlg2vl2h1.png?width=903&format=png&auto=webp&s=64bdcafc9c9f6d7e01b7147ac1705b992bf1cd4c

TIL that what casually called “Cogeo” in Lower Antipolo is actually a textbook example of something called toponymic drift -- a phenomenon in geography where a place name gradually expands beyond its original official boundaries through everyday language use.

In strict terms, COGEO Village refers to a specific residential village located in Barangay Bagong Nayon, Antipolo City which is an acronym of Confederation of Government Employees Organisation (Village), it was a housing project by the Marcos regime back in the early 70s alongside the Cluster Village which is designated for higher military officials.

The village has defined entry points commonly known as Gate 1 and Gate 2.

However, due to long-term commuter behavior especially jeepney routes from Cubao with barkers calling destinations like “COGEO GATE 1-Loob” and “COGEO GATE 2 (Labas)”—the name “Cogeo” gradually became a mental shortcut for a wider surrounding area, including parts of Lower Antipolo and nearby barangays.

Over time, the label stopped functioning purely as an official village name and instead became a folk geographic region, shaped by transport systems, daily commuting patterns, and collective usage.

In geography, this is closely related to toponymy, the study of place names and how they evolve over time, and more specifically to toponymic drift and folk geography, where local language use reshapes how people mentally map space beyond administrative boundaries.

P.S.: Dito kasi ako nakatira since ang granparents ko ay diyan na tumira since 1970 nung pinasimulan yung village.

References:

Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. (2024). Toponymy. Encyclopaedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/science/toponymy

Sage Reference. (2023). Toponymy. In Encyclopedia of Geography. SAGE Publications. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412939591.n1147

University of California, Santa Barbara Geography Department. (n.d.). Toponymy: What’s in a name? https://legacy.geog.ucsb.edu/toponymy-whats-in-a-name/