Society

A couple of females I know have gotten married just because they got pregnant. That’s why nearly everybody believed I was pregnant when I decided to marry a guy I knew for only a little over a year.

When our parents found out I wasn’t pregnant, they were aghast. Why would anyone in her right mind want to marry for no reason at all? They told us then that we were making problems where none existed. They said having a family would mean so much financial strife we’d one day be unable to even buy new underwear.

Six years later, my husband and I thankfully still have nice undergarments but the old ones weren’t entirely wrong. The bills just keep rolling in and in a few months we have to worry over expensive pre-school education, family health care, baby’s milk and hired help. Maybe then, we’d have to tie old undergarments in knots to make sure they still fit.

Believe me when I say, that the old ones may not always know how to communicate with younger generations but they sure know what they’re talking about.

I once had the misfortune of having had to open a Friendster account for work purposes. If you think, “Well that was fun,” the nonconformist in me was not so amused. Now that the main reason for the account is no longer pressuring me to be falsely amiable and to have a pleasing personality implant, the account has retained the appeal of spit on a wad of tissue. Now I am thankfully back to brooding and plotting the sabotage of primetime telenovelas.

Then I saw him once while I was surfing the net in pathetically continuous waves of boredom and disillusionment. That smooth, pale skin; the outdated glasses and the half a coconut husk haircut diplomatically parted at the side as a compromise were unmistakably his. The air of friendly geekiness gave him away even more.

I would never admit to having a crush because I am a candidate for the yet to be established nonconformist award but he was probably the closest I could get to having one. Strangely, I married someone who is the exact opposite, one who seems more like an over grilled minion of Hades on rehabilitation than ideal husband material.

It’s been more than five years of fantastic culturally rebellious living with my buff, gruff, brown husband. Seeing the geek however has made me think for a fraction of a second of connecting with the other side. After all, they say Facebook is to basil and thyme as Friendster is to Maggi Magic Sarap. The supposedly sophisticated, some of whom have varying sizes of artificial implants, are all in Facebook. Of course, there are also genuine gems I might have the pleasure of meeting there.

I’m not sure. I’ve been getting invitations to open a Facebook account for months and every time I get one, an internal switch makes me blurt, “Facebook yourself.” The geek may not be worth the aggravation.

Former president and Philippine icon of democracy Corazon “Cory” C. Aquino passed away today at 3:18 a.m. at the age of 76. She died of colon cancer.

May the nation’s mother rest in peace and may democracy live forever.

Before money transfer services and courier companies, there was only the government owned post office. I remember the days when relatives abroad used to write on folded and glued papers or greeting cards in between which were a few pieces of green paper with the faces of American presidents on them. After the “how are yous” and “happy birthdays” they’d write in convoluted, cryptic codes detailing the whereabouts of the hidden stash. Somehow, SOMEONE always found it first and we’d get mail with lots of scotch tape as if SOMEONE fed it accidentally to a pet Chihuahua with issues.

The post office always got blamed. I wonder if they really were to blame or the relatives never really sent Franklins and McKinleys.

Fellow CDO Blogger Gabby was telling me during the dinner break from Toral’s presentation (see previous post) that I should get a second serving for the baby in my belly that had been gleefully squirming after having ingested a prohibitive dose of carbohydrates and sugar. I told him I couldn’t because a second serving of sugary goodness would push my already high sugar levels into orbit, earning for my endocrinologist an extra Php250.

Gabby’s seatmate, Mike, quipped that he met a guy from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) once. Mike opined that it seems that the Philippines is in the middle of a diabetes epidemic and proceeded to ask Mr. CDC what will be done about it. Mr. CDC answered (perhaps jokingly?) that they were going to let Filipino diabetics just die. Anyway, the country does have a population problem.

Gasp!?

The truth is that Mr. CDC’s revelation wasn’t really that shocking. It was amusing to say the least. My mother-in-law died of the complications of diabetes and it wasn’t because the CDC diabolically plotted to push her to her grave. She honestly went the way she wanted to, with a liter of coke in one hand and a platter of steaming pork and rice on the other.

Five years of living with a real Filipino family has taught me that Filipinos love booze and grub more than our impoverished existence. If you have to be in the muck and mire of a difficult reality, why not enjoy it the best way you can? Try to deprive us of simple sugars and all hell will break loose.

Some of you think of them as banana-toting shells in government uniforms who take insanely long hours eating their bananas at the expense of taxpayers while verbally demolishing the reputation of some unknowing unfortunate soul on the second floor. When they trudge back to their stations to face the people who have multiplied exponentially, the only greeting they breathe is the sour smell of digested bananas.

Admit it. You’ve nurtured the stereotype too. Chances are there was a point in time when you also thought government employees are lucky bastards who get paid to stare vapidly into outer space on the rare times that they are on duty. I know I did once.

I couldn’t help it. I got accepted for a government position once where all I was required to do was to receive mail. After stamping the day’s mail, I was to pass it over to the lady at the back whose job was to deliver it to the recipient. In between the interminable hours when there was no mail, I was to do nothing. That could have made an ill bred monkey out of me too.

Last year and more recently, I was pleasantly surprised. When I paid my community tax a year ago, the clerk in charge of the counter I was in front of took a whole 30 minutes to, I imagine, eat her bananas. When she got back, she was bringing along another stick of bananas and a story for the clerk on the other cubicle. To my utter surprise, another lady approached the clerk with bananas, told her to keep her bananas and start working. Gasp! Government people now apparently care about the time and taxes that we pay.

This year, I had an even better experience paying my community tax. The woman who stole… erm… received my payment had a beautiful smile and said please and thank you. Double gasp!

My best experience of all was at a government agency. I had a problem with my health benefits and was prepared to argue myself hoarse with an uncomprehending clerk when, to the sound of my internal triple gasps, the lady in charge calmly took note of my problem and solved it for me in ten minutes. Best of all, there were no bananas in sight.

I have therefore come to the logical conclusion that not all government employees are useless banana-toting shells. Wow!

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To my utter shame, yesterday’s Independence Day commemoration nearly slipped past me unnoticed. I was too busy luring in the day’s catch to put on the table to remember. I suspect though that even if I were forced to sit still and remember, the recollection would weigh like a heavy burden upon me. Freedom from Spanish occupation seemed such a distant memory, so distant that even history textbooks have made a sorry mess of the details, making us suspect someone started a trail of lies along the way.

The recollection is a burden for me not because my skin has been bleached white and my consciousness injected with western sensibilities. It is a burden because even as we celebrate a distant freedom, we remain enslaved. My hair has turned white and my eyes have dried with the bondage of a mentality that breeds corruption, a hand to mouth existence and an inner poverty that characterizes the common Filipino man. Sadly, the common Filipino is no longer even the average middle class worker but the man in the gutter.

But at the last minute, I chose to remember and I hope others have chosen to do so too. By remembering the freedom of the past, we realize that we are once again enslaved and that we owe it to our children’s children to not allow this again. It doesn’t start on the streets when we tell those thick-faced, high class thieves to return our taxes. It starts in and with us when we tell our children that lying, stealing and cheating are inexcusable even if it means passing a test, obtaining popular approval or getting an extra loaf of bread.

The fight for real Philippine independence has just begun.

To say that the events surrounding the Failon incident last week were alarming is an understatement. For those whose neurons are still on extended leave or buried under reality-displacing office work, one of last week’s biggest news was the death of Trinidad Etong, the wife of veteran broadcaster Ted Failon. Failon himself allegedly found his wife with a gunshot wound on her temple in a comfort room in their home. Etong died the following day, April 16, in the ICU of New Era General Hospital.

For the many of us who do not personally know Failon, it is not the incident itself that is the most disturbing. What made the hair on the back of my neck stand up more than the Exorcism of Emily Rose was the spectacular enthusiasm of the Quezon City police (QCPD). To quote Darth Raul (Gonzalez, a.k.a. the Justice Secretary) the police were only “doing their jobs” and were perhaps only a little “over-enthusiastic.” If the QCPD truly did define police enthusiasm last week, then I live in dread of living in the Philippines and we’re not even under martial law anymore.

Consider these facts:

• Four house employees of Failon and two siblings of Etong were arrested for obstruction of justice without warrants. According to the QCPD warrantless arrests can be conducted for the offense. Some lawyers argue though that a legitimate warrantless arrest can only be performed when the individuals to be arrested are caught in the act. Ateneo Human Rights Center Executive Director Atty. Carlos Medina also says that the general rule for arrests calls for warrants but that in the Philippines, 90% of arrests are without warrants.

• I may be watching CSI too much but isn’t the standard TV script for arresting American policemen the standard in the Philippines too? Aren’t suspects supposed to be told that they have the right to remain silent, blah, blah? Aren’t suspects allowed to raise eyebrows and declare that they want a lawyer when they are questioned? All of the individuals arrested were not informed of the Miranda rights. Pamela, the sister of Etong also revealed on national television that a policeman told her that she killed her sister for refusing to say anything when questioned.

• Failon was also charged for obstruction of justice but was not immediately put behind bars. Obviously, Failon had a lawyer beside him most of the time. The household employees, a driver and housekeepers, were immediately put behind bars after being picked up by the police. That was despite the fact that a lawyer chattered shrilly around arresting police in behalf of the employees. That kind of makes you wonder how other poorer, less informed folks are handled.

• Police complained about not being immediately informed of the shooting incident. Common sense will tell you that if you find a loved one bathing in a pool of her blood, your senses, common or other will promptly go down the drain. Any humane person’s first reaction will be to rush the wounded to the hospital. Telling the victim not to die yet because you have to call the police and inform the members of the household not to disturb evidence first will probably not occur to you.

• Etong’s siblings were taken away by police while watching over their sister inside the hospital. Relatives begged the police not to do so yet because they wanted to be together with their sister who could die at anytime. Of course, you guessed it, police snubbed the request and went on ahead and arrested the siblings who were later released for lack of evidence. Their sister died while they were away.

• The members of Failon’s household were subjected to paraffin tests. According to Raquel Fortun who is one of the top forensic experts in the country, this is already an outmoded test. Only the Philippines and some third world countries continue to use it. The rest of the world knows it is highly inaccurate. According to Fortun, a UP experiment, in which 40+ participants who had fired guns were given paraffin tests, only two tested positive. Paraffin tests, she says, only add to the confusion.

I am not a legal expert so I am not qualified to make judgments on police actions. For the benefit of the doubt, I might even say that perhaps there really was a legal basis for some of what they did. But really, I still wonder if these are how things should really be done. If they could treat the family of a national figure that way, how much more us common folk? If Darth Raul says police did okay, then that’s just plain scary.

News Flash: According to the DILG the Etong case will be taken out of the hands of the QCPD and will be transferred to the NBI. What does that tell you?

It’s been two years since I resigned from my hybrid office/school job. In these two years however my former boss has continued to ask for my help on every single issue of the school paper. Actually, what she really needed was a club bouncer who would have made sure that the heads of the editorial staff rolled. I fit the job description closest.

I’ve been praying for an end to this hemorrhage-inducing publication work since five years ago. I do hope that this March issue will be my last. It’s not that I don’t enjoy working with concentrated capsules of hormones. Oh yes, I do relish forcing eager young Friendster citizens to write about socially relevant issues that they just can’t relate to or are not interested in. But I honestly think I’m losing my touch.

I made a major slip last issue. It was probably because I wanted to finally stop harassing the weepy, distraught printing press artist that I decided to release an issue that had not passed my rigid obsessive compulsiveness. Also, for a change, I wanted to be home before the clock struck late and before my taxi turned into a pumpkin. One thousand printed copies later I discovered to my horror that one of the feature pages contained a picture of a teen with his middle finger sticking out. I nearly fainted. The paper is the official publication of a CATHOLIC school!

The feature page in question contained an article about the emo culture. The article already raised a few of my internal eyebrows. That was mainly because I have a deep respect for emo musicians who take offense at their genre being taken for a cultural fad. But because I had lost the drive to punish myself, the staff and the printing press with my exacting tyranny, I let the feature pass and did not even notice the presence of the offending finger.

The solution to the finger problem? I was told that the publication moderator I was assisting told the other teachers to sit straight, pull their tummies in and start coloring over the finger in nearly all of the one thousand printed copies. They had no choice. How could you explain a finger in that position to a grade 1 pupil? I should at least have sent 3 in 1 coffee sachets to those dedicated educators.

I know I may be losing my touch not so much because I could no longer stand staring at every minute detail but because the whole emo issue really proved that I could barely relate with the kids of today. My former students and staff members used to say that they liked me because I understood their generation. Five years later, I can hardly understand the literal definition of emo culture.

For most of my life I was probably a good example of a member of today’s emo culture. I often thought of deep, dark, depressing thoughts and dressed daily in black which is probably why I once often wished aliens would just abduct me and put an end to my miserable perspective of life. During my time though, I was said to have had a condition that required the assistance of experts in bright, academic offices or of double servings of the latest self-help phenomenon. Now, a lot of kids actually enjoy being or at least seeming emotionally skewed. I must have been partially asleep these past few years and missed something.

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A recent post by Pinksoda, a fellow CDO Blogger reminded me of what my friends used to say, “Forget to take care of yourself and your husband will leave you someday.” I wonder if this is just a uniquely Pinoy sentiment or if others from around the world believe it too. Here, that roughly translates to, “Allowing yourself to get a waistline larger than your husband’s, six pack eye bags and arm flab only a mother could love will ensure that your husband will leave you for Bb Gandanghari.”

I guess my friends were worried for me. Although my bones tend to stick out more than my fat, I’m not exactly the kind of lady men would lay down their jackets on puddles for. You see, I used to look like a man. I looked masculine on purpose because I wanted to rebel against the conventions of femininity and the prevailing damsel in distress mentality that seemed so popular when I was young. Clearly, I preferred to be the distressing damsel.

I knew that my male look was a success because people called me dong, the local generic term for young boys and once, just for the heck of proving that I did not look feminine, I entered a mall’s male comfort room. There was no mass exodus of scandalized males. (No. I did not look at what they were doing in those urinals.)

I found out later though that even if I wanted to look feminine, I would still have looked masculine simply because I had no idea that there is a difference between male and female casual clothing. That’s what happens to teens whose heads are so far buried in the intoxicating clouds of literature. There is an absolute lack of awareness that outside, the world turns. My husband was the first to break the news to me that men’s jeans and women’s jeans don’t come in the same cut. He was also the first to teach me that I don’t have to dress like a man to seem strong.

My first office job temporarily put an end to my cross dressing days because I was required to wear clothing that no self-respecting man would’ve worm. I was also told to paint my face because the enemy (the boss or the client?) isn’t pacified by a naturally pale face filled with the battle scars of corporate stress.

Unfortunately, a recent salon mishap has forced me to return to my less engaging alter ego. I knew that I was once again lacking a feminine exterior because of an unfortunate run in with a KFC service crew. In KFC here, the counter crew no longer issue numbers to waiting customers. Instead, they write descriptions of the customers on receipts that are then passed on to the service crew assigned to deliver the delayed orders and the receipts to the waiting customers.

My description said that I was a girl in a blue shirt. The service crew passed my table several times and it never occurred to him that I was the girl in blue. Unless he was color blind, he must have missed me because he didn’t know that I was a girl.

I’ve asked my husband for his opinion. He says he prefers my androgynous, unpainted, unpolished look. It’s either he’s lying or he’s got weird taste in women. So tell me, can Pinoy men really love a woman who looks like half of a man?