Through a scholarship from Manila Times granted by the publisher Ramón Roces, he obtained a degree of Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting at the University of the Philippines (UP) in 1950.

[1][2][3] Alcala died at the age of 75 on June 24, 2002, due to heart failure at the Riverside Medical Centre, Bacolod City, central Philippines.

Through Mang Ambo and the other characters of a fictional place called Barrio Bulabog, Alcala exposed the follies and foibles of Philippine society in general and of cosmopolitan life in particular.

In this cartoon strip's characters, he also affirmed the Filipino's peculiar coping mechanism of laughing at himself in the face of adversity but still absorbing life's vicissitudes with resilience.

[1][2][3] Decades before Slice of Life, Alcala was already doing cameo roles in his Kalabog en Bosyo comic strips, but instead of portraying himself with a moustach, spectacles and side burns, he rendered himself in a crew-cut, younger and about 100-pounds thinner profile.

[1][2][3] An onomatopoeic Tagalog word, the name of the character, Kalabog, refers to the thud sound produced after the impact of a falling object finally reaching solid ground.

The comic misadventures of the two bungling detectives namely Kalabog and Bosyo had been transposed into films by Sampaguita Pictures in 1957, starring the Filipino actors-comedians, Dolphy and Panchito Alba.