sa pusod ng binondo: isang pagbabalik

Paghinto ng sasakyan ko sa dulo ng Tulay Jones na inaanuran sa ilalim ng Ilog Pasig, kapansin-pansin ang monumentong bumabati sa bawat dyip, kotse at iba pang motoristang tumutuloy sa tila isang dayuhang lupain dahil sa maraming karatulang nasusulat sa Intsik, mga establismentong oryental ang kayarian, at dominanteng kaanyuang singkit ang mga mata at manilaw-nilaw ang balat paris ng sa akin. Binondo at Manila Chinatown ang taguri sa lugar na ito, at sa pagtigil ng sasakyan ko sa tapat ng arko, siya namang simula ng paglalakbay ko.
Kulang isang kilometro lamang ang Quintin Paredes, ngunit higit dalawampu’t limang sangay ng iba’t-ibang bangko ang nakatayo rito. Dalawa sa mga ito ang pag-aari ng mga mestisuhing Ayala, ang Bank of the Philippine Islands na kakatwa sa prominenteng karatulang Tsino. May siyam na sangay dito ang RCBC samantalang kulang tatlumpu ang sa pinakamalaganap na bangko, ang Metrobank. Napag-isip-isip ko habang lulan ng kalesa na marahil, pinakamalaking konsentrasyon ng mga bangko ang Chinatown sa bilang na higit isandaan at limampu, kasama ang mga dayuhang bangkong Citibank, Chinatrust, Hongkong Shanghai at iba pa. Kinunan ko ng litrato ang mga nakita ko para patunayang bago pa naghari ang Makati, sentrong pangkalakalan na ang dating Binundok na itinakdang tahanan ng lahing Tsino noong panahong kolonyal. Sa katunayan, bago pa dumating ang mga Kastila, nakikipagbarter na rito sa dating kilalang parian ang mga ninuno ko mula sa bansang Tsina. \
Makikitid ang mga lansangan sa Chinatown, ngunit natuklasan kong bawat isa ay may ipinagmamalaking produkto. Pamoso ang Ongpin sa mga tindahan ng alahas. Hindi pa man matindi ang sikat ng araw, tila mumunting araw na ang ginintuang singsing, relos, kuwintas, pulseras at relikaryo dahil sa kakinangan nila. Kaakit-akit hindi lamang ang iba’t-ibang kulay ng mga batong nakabaon kundi ang bawat disenyo ng mga ito mula sa dragon, hugis-puso, eksotikong bulaklak, at iba pa. Bagay sa balat-Tsino ang ginto; sa tingin ko, salamin din ito ng gintong kalooban ng liping nakipagsapalaran sa ibayong lupain at binuhay ang ekonomiya nito.
Sing-ingay naman ng piyesta ang Kalye Raon dahil sa mga produktong de-kuryente, panteknolohiya at elektroniko. Matatagpuan dito ang mga videoke, bilihan ng compact disc, antenna ng telebisyon, mga salangan ng digital, audio at video cd, sound system, kompyuter, printer at iba pa. Madidiskubre namang nasa Kalye Evangelista ang tindahan ng mga kagamitang pang-industriya samantalang nasa Masangkay at Benavidez ang mga kagamitang pang-automotibo. Sentro ng kagamitang hardware ang Kalye Alonzo. Nasa Kalye Nueva ang mga naglilingkod sa industriya ng sapatusan para sa mga balat, de-gomang suwelas, at bakal. Nasa Kalye Gandara naman ang mga tagasuplay ng tolda at gamit sa giikan ng butil. Nakapagitan sa mga ito ang iba’t-ibang sanlaan at palitan ng pera. Iba’t-iba ang mga produkto, patunay ng kapangahasang nagbubunga ng kasaganaan dahil sa kasabay na sipag at tiyaga.
Makikita sa Tomas Pinpin ang mga modernong kasangkapan, sofa, at kandelabrang kristal. Nakakalat naman sa Divisoria at Condensa ang mga tindahan ng papel at gamit pampaaralan, datapwat para sa kumpletong suplay ng gamit pang-opisina batay sa mga napagtanungan, dinarayo ng publiko ang nadaanan kong Times Trading sa Quintin Paredes. Ganunpaman, nasa Divisoria pa rin ang pinakamaraming mapagpipilian ng mga produktong wet-and-dry, mula oryental na mga gamot, Buddha at gamit sa feng shui. Kilala ang Kalye Ylaya sa mga tela at nahabi nang kasuotan samantalang ang Abad Santos malapit sa kanto ng Tayuman sa mga makinang pantahi at mga gamit panulsi. Nakita ko naman sa Kalye Dagupan ang mga nagbebenta ng palay maging ang kanilang mga trak. Sa pagbili ko ng sobreng pang-ang pao, kinausap ako ng matandang may-ari sa mga wikang Fookien at Mandarin, at sa pagsagot ko sa mas gamay na wika, ang ngiti niya’y nagdala sa amin sa mas pamilyar na daigdig ng mga Tsino.
Maliban sa kalakalan, may dalawang dosenang kainan sa Binondo mula panaderyang nag-aalok ng hopya hanggang restorang naghahain ng lauriat. Kahit masikip at maalinsangan, masasarap at mura ang pagkain. Kabilang sa mga dinarayong kainan ang Lido sa Kalye Alonzo kung saan nakararahuyo ang kape, ang Lingnam na gumagawa ng sariwang pansit araw-araw, ang President sa Ongpin na may lauriat fine dining kung saan dalubhasa sila sa lamang-dagat. Lamang-dagat din ang puhunan ng Royal Garden at Green Lake, samantalang pamoso ang five treasure soup ng Chuan Kee. Maipagmamalaki naman ng Quintin Paredes ang Golden Palace, Dragon Seed at ang Ocean Dragon, na katitikmanan ng Buddha soup. Para sa panghapong tsaa at siopao o siomai, dinarayo ang Wah Yuen sa Escolta ngunit para sa mabilisang kainan ang Mey Lin sa Carvajal, Shin Tong Yon sa Benavidez at Ha Yuan at Country Chicken House sa Masangkay. Isa sa pinakamatandang kainan ang Delicious na ibinangon noon pang Dekada ’30. Sa bago nitong tahanan sa F. Torres, hinainan ako ng nakabubusog na pansit at lugaw.
Dumaan ako sa simbahan ng Binondo, pero naisip kong sa isang templong Budista magbulay bago umuwi. Sa pakikisalamuha ko sa kapwa-Tsino, natuklasan ko nang personal ang aking sarili. Hindi nga pala ako uuwi, dahil kababalik ko lamang sa kasaysayan ng aking lahi.

the early bird: the case of premature electioneering by muntinlupa congressional bet dong puno

The 2007 Philippine election race is on…for some. For others, not just yet, but that does not stop these early birds from gaining advantage of supposedly disguised electioneering. The campaign for congressional candidates has yet to begin, but Atty. Dong Puno, among other fielders, effectively thrusts himself to the limelight of Muntinlupa politics through sponsoring activities and advertisements.
If only for the legislative qualifications that embody a true House solon, Atty. Puno is an easy shoo-in. He graduated with honors from the Ateneo de Manila University College of Law in 1969 and only two years hence, earned his Master of Laws degree from the Harvard Law School. As an author, he has written many legal articles published in several periodicals and journals. As a lawyer meanwhile, he practiced aviation and corporate law when he worked as Philippine Airlines’ Legal Officer and Personnel Director before assuming the national flagcarrier’s Vice-President and, eventually, General Counsel. As an academician, he became a professor of Corporation Law and of Wills and Succession at his Philippine alma mater. He now works as a senior partner of Puno & Puno Law Offices while enjoying popularity through the giant media network ABS-CBN, where he assumed various executive posts.
The former Press Secretary and Presidential Spokesperson of the Estrada government now wants to make a comeback in Philippine politics which he has started by sponsoring activities in his area of concern, Muntinlupa City in southern Metro Manila. The brand of Puno politics is nothing new to traditional politicians come election time: he does a house-to-house round in order to know the residents personally. Also, he has staged beneficiary concerts for residents such as free medical check-ups. He likewise spearheaded medical missions to show that he really cares (for the people or for the votes or for both depends on the view one holds toward the candidate). Finally, to boost what may be taken as a semblance of his media popularity, he goes around the city with artistas like sexy starlet Angelica Jones, in an obvious enticement of the celebrity-crazed electorate.
While the time for congressional candidacy advertisements has yet arrived, the road to the ultimate political momentum is already paved with colored intentions. First, he gives away T-shirts to residents. Next, his political machinery has mass-produced stickers and banners. One such banner reads “Congratulations from Atty. Dong Puno” with no one in particular to congratulate, except perhaps the graduating students and their parents who hopefully remember him like they did remember other politicians whenever the latter make similar greetings per election year. As March 30, 2007 sees light, ads saying “Dong Puno sa Kongreso…Muntinlupa” will have to see light too, come hell or high water. Capitalizing on the popularity of the rather nonsense song “Boom Tarat Tarat,” Puno will have a pun-intended campaign jingle entitled “Dong Tarat Tarat.” A little more time and the political ad campaigns shall unfurl, as the T-shirts, stickers and banners have initiated.
To gain more political visibility, Aty. Puno attends important ceremonies in Muntinlupa. For one, in particular schools’ graduation ceremonies wherein a multitude of voters may be highly probably present, he was present too. During the awarding of the Ten Most Outstanding Students of Muntinlupa, he was there possibly more than to reminisce and inspire the students with his own scholarly merits of old; he was present to share the outstanding students’ limelight and become visible in the process.
His speeches and platforms were more pronounced about his political blueprint. He has publicized a relocation plan benefiting 10,000 residents with homes along the “riles.” The site of Puno’s plan, however, can house only 70% of these people; no plan nor new site as yet has been drafted for the remaining 3,000. Using his legal expertise, he intends to abolish a bill proposed by other congressmen about doctors’ malpractice. Upon reviewing the bill, he threatens to file cases against the proponents, finding the bill useless. To whomever the bill was useless was not made clear.
Assessing Atty. Puno’s campaign in the light of most other politicians’ own election time stints, I can see that fate favors this candidate because he uses a formulaic campaign that is found to be effective in translating votes. Given that Filipinos are sociologically found to have a short memory span, it helps to remind them recurrently that this candidate is running for a post, with more care for the repetitive campaigning than for the bombardment the invasive promotion characterizes. It is deemed better to start the campaign early than be forgotten in the middle of the action, in which case election rivals of Puno might just steal the thunder from him. By election time, his chances are higher since he has a name-recall to the electorate, he having been a daily fare to them while they having been practically conditioned into remembering him via the give-aways, the ads, the concerts and the like. Since a cursory overview of the political landscape shows an unripe conclusion to the theory that the Filipino electorate vote wisely during elections, his method of campaigning—basking in popularity like most politicians, that is—more than his qualifications may bag him a seat in congress. While his previous brush with legal theories and practice have yet to benefit the public at-large, he promises to be a formidable legislator. But the more urgent question is: will his campaign charm enough votes to seat him in the House of Representatives?

crabbed destiny: a reading of f. l. espino’s “manila”

Federico Licsi Espino’s “Manila”[1] presents an interesting, hurting metaphor of the country’s premier city as a hermit crab. Written in 1965 when the sixth Philippine president just inherited a twenty-year-old independent but relatively impoverished nation, “Manila” uses the crustacean comparison to show how certain inevitable factors bring disastrous effects to an otherwise pitiable creature.
First, the speaker locates the crab “beside the tides of times” (1), not moving with the tides which means it moves along with or is carried along by the tides of progress, or moving against the tides which means it defies the current mainstream if only to secure its identity. There is no movement whatsoever—just the preposition “beside”—and the suggested stagnation means the crab is helplessly assigned to the margins whereas the tides of change are raging according to the requirements of the times. In the same vein, Manila is immobile and is set aside because at the time of the poem’s writing, two decades have passed but no real development was brought about by the colonial independence.
The “traces” of the crab’s “former homes” (2) refer to the old animals’ shells which the crab uses to protect its rather soft body and which render on the growing crab enduring marks that not even a larger home-shell can erase. The additional description of these shells as ones “of foreign cultures” (3) completes the reason for the lasting marks: the colonial experiences are still recognizable long after one colonial master after another has been dispensed with for a safer home—a stronger mother country—to depend on. The “slime” (3) is but another description of the colonial experiences: it is thick, sticky and disgusting, as befits colonial experiences that are relatively great in extent, painful and offensive to the colony.
The crab’s inability to find food (6) is a regular happening in the crab’s daily existence: there is no unlimited source for both shelter and food so crabs often resort to rioting for what scarce resources are available if only to survive. In Manila, the same thing occurs: with the limited resources after having experienced depleting colonization, people have to struggle for a living, with struggles against each other being highly probable.
The mocking cry of the seagull (7, 9) is a ridiculous reference to the recurring fate of the crab being unable to find food. However hard the crab tries to find food and however hungry it gets, the fact that there is a scarcity of resources will never be changed. As a result of colonization, Manila’s resources are depleted and its independence becomes dysfunctional, and much like the crab, no amount of persistence or hunger can alter the fact that resources will always remain lacking.
The allusion to Filipino poet Nick Joaquin (epigraph) means the crab, being foodless, can literally and figuratively bite the dust: literally because all that is left for the crab to eat is dust, and figuratively because its debility in both movement and foodhunting has left it biting the dust of, say, the mocking seagull. This experience is not unfamiliar in Manila: all that is left to eat is no more than the value of dust, and Manila’s stagnation has left it biting the dust of the colonial masters that made off with Manila’s wealth. Meanwhile, the allusion to Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (11) means the “sidewise movement of the hermit crab” (10) is neither advancing nor retreating, hence undeveloped in terms of mobility. By comparison, Manila moves sideways, too; its failure to move forward is fatal to the much-needed realization of progress, while its failure to move backward is fatal to the retracing of history that is crucial in preventing the past mistakes from being committed in the future.
The crab’s "creeping, crabbing" movement along with "all its tragic flaws" (14) is a mockery of the sideways (thus, unprogressive) mobility of the crab that is the very tragedy of its inherent characteristic. It is nature’s doing that the crab should crawl sidewise but the crab suffers this natural fault. In the same way, Manila is criticized for its slow progress that is not wholly its own doing but mostly due to its colonial experience. Colonization rendered Manila’s creeping way to progress, but now that it is independent, this predicament seems to be Manila’s own fault.
Owing to the lamentable condition of the poem’s central image, “Manila’s” tone is sympathetic. Details suggesting the compassion being invoked in the poem include the crab “bear[ing] the traces” (2) of its past, “look[ing] for food” yet “finds nothing” (4, 6), hearing the mocking shriek of the seagull (7-9), and “crabbing with all its tragic flaws” (14). All these details show instances in the crab’s existence; they arouse pity because despite the hardships the crab puts up with, difficulties do not let up, to think that the crab’s persistence does not deserve being repaid with mockery.
Regarding the poem’s structure, Espino chose the conventional sonnet form to depict a modern subject to go with the poem’s point that the attempt to live out of context—just as the crab moves sidewise when it merits to move forward or backward and as the crab bears its natural flaws—results in tension. This tension between tradition and modernity mirrors the contrast of abiding the old ways in the face of modernity and of tolerating natural flaws in the face of capitalizing on these disguised opportunities, i.e. learning from colonial experience to achieve a semblance of progress.
Regarding the poem’s substance, the hermit crab’s central image invokes ideas such as crab mentality, a flaw said to be characteristic of Filipinos, and crabbing, which is synonymous to criticizing, complaining and ill temper. Crab mentality is a metaphorical reference to a crab trying to spill out of a container full of other crabs that, wishing to follow suit, drag the climbing crab back into the container, in such a way that no crab gets to escape because of the eternal pulling down. This rather short-sighted notion that is made an alibi for the lingering poverty in the country (instead of helping one another toward moving ahead, Filipinos allegedly pull down each other) appeals to the emotion for the much-needed positive change. Instead of opportunism, the crabs that we are must work as a team in order to facilitate development. On the other hand, crabbing, with apologies to the crab, is an image-bashing. Just because the crab has a pair of claws that it uses to protect itself from danger and to help break down its food, it is already unfairly associated to the crab’s capacity to pinch and hurt. Pain, of course, finds familiar domain in criticism, complaints and bad temper. This unjust portrayal of the crab appeals to the emotion that humans project to animals their own faults. With the divisiveness that generates poverty and related issues like starvation, unemployment and illiteracy, the right crab mentality should be to pull one another over the container’s side in order to escape the crisis. The difficulty of fending for oneself only to emerge empty-handed is an everyday reality for Filipinos; “Manila” should remind the well-heeled among us to help and support the needy. Anyway, the crabs that we are inhabit a commonly shared shore.
[1] Espino, Federico Licsi. “Manila,” A Native Clearing, ed. Gemino H. Abad (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1993).