Caustic Thoughts

It’s been two weeks and my writing job order is still stuck on reproductive health or should I say the total lack of it. Now it seems my prolonged encounter with descriptions and images of disease-infested reproductive organs has successfully squashed my appetite for—EVERYTHING. More importantly though, it has also finally convinced me to visit my gynecologist three years after she told me I was due for a pap smear.

The images that have turned my stomach inside out have finally convinced me that reproductive cancer is not the way to go, at least not in the Philippines where instant deaths (like instant noodles, instant juice and instant white skin) are infinitely preferred over expensive languishing. Yep, a quick heart attack or getting swatted on the highway is a whole lot better.

The doctor’s visit was hardly pleasant. My undignified position on the clinic bed made me feel like a cockroach on its back about to be stuck with needles and torched dead by a 4 year old sadist. Nonetheless, the seemingly endless swabs and poking were far better than the pitter patter of cancer cells. My doctor says I’d have to bear the indignity over and over again for as long as I live. Married women, she says, are at great risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases and the HP virus that could cause cervical cancer.

I don’t think though that married women are the only ones at particular risk anymore. If the figures are right, 25% of sexually active teenagers in the U.S. have STD. One in four get STD infections every year. Among women in America, gonorrhea is most common among teenagers 15 years old and up.

That kinda ruins the seemingly pure young adolescent love that we so often read about or see on the Disney Channel. Imagine a boy with just a hint of his first facial hair about to lean over to kiss his first girlfriend when the car stereo suddenly spits out a tune that eerily fits “gonorrhea” when you say it in singsong.

Should my third world sensibilities be shocked, alarmed, agitated? Does this prove beyond a reasonable doubt that man isn’t a better philosopher than beasts under the sway of the pleasure principle? That’s as far as I dare go about what I think lest I be pelted with sticks and stones by both the prudish and the liberal alike. Besides I’ve already strayed too far from my musings on feeling like a cockroach.

*Image credit: Powerbacks

What is the Filipino dream?

There is no simple way to answer that. But I suppose for millions of Filipinos, the Filipino dream is nowhere near the American dream. The Filipino dream is not about getting fine slices of success, achievement, self-actualization and doing exactly what you want in life.

For countless Filipinos the dream is simple. Most of our countrymen just want to have the right pieces of the food pyramid on the table for a change instead of just rice and instant noodles. Most Filipinos just want a small, tidy bungalow in a nice community that isn’t under a bridge, over a canal or within mounds of trash that in the Philippines are homes to both mice and men. For people who may never have tasted a candy-coated spoon, much less a silver one, the dream is simply to wake up from the nightmare of poverty.

That was probably the idea when Marilou Ranario and thousands of other Filipinos left the country. Now Marilou might just hang for that dream. Before that, she has to endure more days in a country that’s warmer than the Philippines but colder than Iceland.

I suppose though that the solution to our chronic problem doesn’t just lie in waving placards in front of embassies and thick-faced politicians. We are part of the problem that has driven Marilou to Kuwait. If we don’t set our own marbles straight, many more will hang for the Filipino dream. The rest of us will probably suffer worse fates than dangling from a noose.

Some decades ago, people wondered why the French did not suffer as much from heart ailments as other people from other countries do. This is despite the fact that the people of France consume legendary palatable delights oozing with cream and fat—the main ingredients to heart disease. They called this the French paradox.

Experts believe they have solved the mystery behind the French paradox. The French do not suffer as much from heart problems as other people do because they customarily consume red wine together with their rich food.

I wonder if some experts can solve the Filipino paradox too.

My mother-in-law has been a staunch carnivore all her life. Since the time she sprouted her first set of milk teeth until today, the major, if not the only significant component of her diet has been pork meat with generous fat margins on the side. She consumes tremendous amounts of these everyday usually with a bottle of cola. She is so in love with pork fat that if she had limited funds she would move heaven and earth for a taste of pork. She is a few years shy of sixty and she has never had a stroke. Every year, she is given a clean bill of health.

We also have male neighbors aged 30-60 who also eat loads of pork. On top of that, they also frequently siphon the beer supply of the local store until it’s as dry as the Sahara. They will stop drinking only when pigs start to fly.

I believe my in-law and neighbors aren’t the only ones who regularly feast on pork and alcohol. Every weekend, our city holds what is known as the night café where stalls that stretch through a couple of blocks all sell beer and grilled pork in abundance. That doesn’t include the numerous bars, restaurants and cafes that all serve death in dishes and mugs.

I wonder why my beer and pork loving friends haven’t had heart attacks and liver diseases yet. Maybe there really is such as thing as a Filipino paradox.

About a week ago I was invited to a a former student’s 18th birthday party. In the Philippines, that is uniformly called a debut. That invitation was probably one of my biggest problems of the year. I was thinking of not attending for two reasons. First, I have a legendary dislike for formal stuff and second, my feet are shaped like Wolverine’s claws and don’t fit well in those expensive straps of leather they call formal sandals. I either end up walking like a constipated duck or destroying the footwear before I can take a single step.

I still ended up attending but I defiantly wore jeans, a black top and heavily fortified sandals that looked more like those worn by Leonidas’ 300. Fortunately, a bunch of my former students, who didn’t give a damn if I grew a beard to boot, invited me to their table. That practically made me the only adult at the “kid’s” table.

Naturally, like every adult in quarter life crisis (a.k.a. trying hard teenager), I enjoyed my night with the kids. The food was great and the birthday girl was perfectly engaging. Enjoyment aside however, the event has yet again sparked a long dormant question in my mind. I wonder if Filipinos know why we celebrate debuts or why debuts were originally celebrated in the first place. If parents knew what they were for, would we still have debuts?

In the past, debuts for female French and English aristocrats were a sign that the debutantes were ready for marriage. It was also an indirect way of “selling” the ladies to the eligible bachelors present. This was done to secure favorable and strategic marriages since women of noble birth at that time were mere pawns used to secure alliances, power and money for families and countries.

Whenever I tell people this story, they invariably say that debuts in the Philippines are different. They are meant to signal a woman’s maturity and independence. This is coming from people who support married children with kids staying under their roofs.

Of course, my former student is quite intelligent. I have no doubt she knew exactly why she wanted a debut.

I, however, also know exactly why I fervently hope my daughter will not want to have a debut. No, its not about the sandals this time.

My family and I were at the mall yesterday. We had no choice but to be there. The mall has everything we need including a much needed respite from the oppressive heat. Lately though I’m beginning to think that suffering from prickly heat is a much better ordeal than being haunted by thoughts of explosives.

The story about the bomb that tore through three stories of Glorietta 2 is still on every news program and broadsheet. Yesterday the news said that nine had died. Today, the morning news said the number had risen to 11 with close to a hundred still suffering from injuries.

While the government is busy discreetly defending itself against allegations that the explosives were taken from military supplies, some of us mourn. I may not know the people who died but somehow, their imagined personal stories fill me with misery. It is the touch of personal tragedy that has become more poignant in this story. Somewhere out there is a family without a father, mother, son or daughter. It could have been my family.

To be honest, I am selfish. I would love to die quickly any time soon so I can stop trying to live better and failing at every attempt. It’s a different story though if someone I love has to leave ahead of me. That would make life unbearable. Yesterday at the mall, I made sure I was always beside my husband and baby. In a horrible, twisted kind of way, I was thinking that if a bomb exploded, we would hopefully die together.

This is sadder than anything I’ve ever known—the feeling that you can’t live life. In the Philippines it’s not just poverty that’s stopping us anymore. These days it is also well-founded fear. Somehow, our people have become both materially and internally impoverished.