Island Scum

I sit in red silk shorts dreaming of another land, kingdom of the bums and rogues who ride the filthy sea dropping dynamite bombs on luckless fishes, riding the national highway in perverted US Army jeeps, killing and consuming shitty dogs.

The Flips are always in the way. Can you imagine having to assure a nation that they are worth fighting for? --Kill all the men, said the Swede skinhead (McSherry Hotel, Cebu City 1997), and he meant business. Rather an extreme solution---who then will tend the bars, drive the jeepneys, dynamite the fish? --Let the ugly women do that, he replied.

I arrived in Ermita, redlight Manila just as the whole scene was folding up due to puritan Chinese mayor galled that his town had become a global magnet for pervs and punters. Mabini Street turned into a ghost avenue of deserted hot sheet hotels, padlocked bars, random derelict street hustlers along United Nations Avenue. The hot spectral boulevards of Night Town. The wise moved on, to Pasay, Quezon, Angeles City, even roaming far to Shanghai and Hong Kong.

The Filipino is a tortured individual, torn between undeniable fact that his country is a vile cauldron of ultimate nastiness, theft, daughter-rape, and only the rich white tourists and the minuscule upper crust can escape. With a few bucks one can insulate oneself from the hideous hungry grunge that permeates the life of the average Pinoy.

Like everywhere in South East Asia, the province is a haven. Nobody starves, nobody prospers, just the ancient rice-glom travail where the buffalos groan. Fifty people living off one paltry check sent home by a dutiful son driving a truck in Saudi, a daughter singing and fucking in a Macao cabaret, a cousin shaping shoes in Seoul. Long line of thin persons dressed in faded polyester at the Tarlac branch of the Island National Bank, awaiting dutiful familial bailout. A balikbayan in the family means survival; the Overseas Contract Worker as clan savior and hero. The fear of ugly rumors (walang hiyas: no family feeling, no shame, no heart!) keeps those monthly remittances rolling in. Nobody in this world more chismoso (gossipy) than the Filipino poor.

There is a powerful reliance on blaming history for present untenable life. The vicious thieving Spaniards, the vile racist Amerikanos, the hated murderous Nipponese. Get caught between continents addled with greed and warrior dementia and sooner or later your number comes up. It has made them a nation of whiners and sneaks and bare-faced liars. Of whores and geeks and morons. Servile groveling flotsam for whom no one can find any use beyond hot friction of bought-sex mannequins and low-paid industrial drones. Hopeless.

And yet.

In the culture of poverty, spontaneity flowers. Filipinos are happy-go-lucky because they have absolutely no other option than acceptance of dire cliffhanging existence. In this spirit lies the charm and redemption of the Philippines.

I return like a dog to his vomit, like General MacArthur to his mango-skinned harlot.

ganesh