YOUNG Adrian Redinger seldom cries. As a 10-year-old Amerasian boy growing up in the red-light district of Angeles City near the former Clark Air Base north of Manila, he has learned to be tough.
He has had to fight Filipino boys at Angeles High School who think his skin too white, and European boys at the local hangouts who think it too brown - and he usually wins.
But last month Adrian cried like a baby speaking to his real father on the telephone for the first time. 'I love you, Dad. I would like to meet you one day,' he kept repeating.
Karl Redinger, a former staff sergeant at the air base who lived with Adrian's mother, Alice, in Angeles for 10 months in 1984, had just received the shock of his life.
He had been going out to work as a nine-to-five executive in Grand Rapids, Michigan, when the telephone rang and a voice said in broken English: 'Hello, Dad. I'm your son Adrian, calling from the Philippines.' The call was set up by the Philippine chapter of the Pearl Buck Foundation, which aims to promote the 'education and general welfare of the displaced children of the world'.
The organisation, which looks after the Philippines' 3,400 Amerasians, putting them in touch with their fathers if both parties want it, used Adrian to launch an experiment last Monday.
The foundation's private investigators had tracked down 20 ex-servicemen who fathered children in Angeles and Olongapo cities, the R & R centres for the former Clark and Subic Bay bases.
