Skip to main content

The Fat Man


Hi. My name is Martin Cruz. I'm a writer by trade, and a fictionist at heart. For those of you who aren't aware, I am the fat man. I live in Manila with piles among piles of unread books. I read quite a bit, but I buy quite a bit more.

What I Do

I currently work as a freelance writer, under the trade name MGC Marketing, a self-owned web marketing outfit based in the Philippines. I provide article and link marketing, as well as broad spectrum Internet marketing, services for my clients. It's a work in progress, but it's happy work, for the most part. I’ve worked with plenty of clients:
  • eHow, one of the biggest how-to sites in the world today
  • Mango Salute, an online magazine focusing on the art of greeting
  • Geolocal, an online lead generator for businesses targeting local audiences
  • Wikipilipinas, the free and hip Philippine encyclopedia
  • The Bit Bag, a tech and gaming website
  • Micky AU, a tech and business-oriented news website 
  • Busy Zebu, a website dedicated to assisting female digital nomads (articles archived here)
  • I wrote and led the transcription team for Vice President Leni Robredo's 2022 Presidential campaign. A sample press release I wrote can be found here.
  • Maxicare, one of the Philippines' best HMOs. Articles from their website, social media from their Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and their mailing newsletters between August 2023 and December 2024 were prepared by me.
  • IB Times, an international business website providing UK and US news to its readers
I've also worked on book editing projects, and have also written scripts for YouTube. I also have done short form copy, mostly for Maxicare, but also for my previous band Mahasa, as well as social media captions for some of the articles I have written.

Sometimes, I am also tasked with creating branding concepts, such as the one I wrote for this law firm. 
 
I am currently working on writing a longform book of my own in my spare time. 

If you would like to discuss a business proposition with me, please get in touch with me through my online contact form.

The Fat Man Today

The Fat Man Today is also a work in progress. It started out as my personal blog, and is now a space I use to post my thoughts about current events, technology, life and leisure, and work. It will also serve as the home of some of my works of fiction, as well as my essays on hacking Manila, and the modern office.

The site’s pretty simple in terms of design. The odds are that most of what you’ll be seeing per page is just one post, the ads on the sidebar, and the Disqus comments section. If you want to browse through my blog, you may do so via the archives

If you would like to get in touch with me in order to advertise in my site; to guest-post; to discuss a business proposition; or to make an inquiry, you may do so via my contact form. Don’t be scared. I’m friendly.

Why Kilawinguwak?

I've been known online as Kilawinguwak for as long as I can remember, and if you've read some of the stories I’ve published offline, you may have seen that name around as well. If you've been one of the bloggers I associated with back when I was in Tabulas, then you probably know me by that name as well. The name correctly translates to “Vinegared Crow” in English, which doesn’t sound very tasty. But the original dish, kinilaw, is raw fish marinated (or cooked, some would say) in vinegar, and it is very tasty. You should try it whenever you’re in the Philippine Islands.

Popular posts from this blog

Maynilad Water Chronicles: The Clusterf$%#, Part 2

This is the third post in our Maynilad Water chronicles. This time, we will talk about just how inept their record keeping skills are in the face of a massive overhaul in a given area. This involves a technique used by Meralco in high-risk areas called clustering, and is efficient – if utilized correctly. Needless to say, Maynilad has yet to be able to do this.
Post a Comment
Read more

Maynilad Water Chronicles: The Curious Case of the Disappearing Meter

One of the biggest problems I’ve encountered these past few weeks is the inexplicable inefficiency of Maynilad Water. I don’t even know where to begin; this is how impossible the situation is. So I’ll go and separate things into multiple stories. This is the first case in this series.
Post a Comment
Read more

The Parables of Juan Flavier

I remember my grade 4 Language professor fondly, because of many things. Firstly, because his first name—Henry—was such an oddity for a ten-year old Pinoy who mostly read American books but was surrounded with names like Jose Luis, Robertino, and other such remnants of our Spanish forefathers. Secondly because he was such a strict man who liked reading a lot. In hindsight, perhaps he wasn’t really as strict as I made him out to be. I was, quite possibly, just a child who had too much respect for authority back then, and would quail from the sight of a teacher who raised his voice even by just a bit. But the most memorable thing about Mr. Avecilla (that was his last name) was that one of his weekly projects for the class was the collection of Senator Juan Flavier’s—then DOH secretary— weekly parables. I forget which paper it was his stories appeared in, but Mr. Avecilla’s demands had us children scrambling for clippings of Senator Flavier’s stories around every Friday, I think it was....
Post a Comment
Read more