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Thursday, February 26, 2004
Yap: Filipino
By Januar E.Yap
Meanwhile
I won’t tell you exactly where, but this one is quintessential convergence point. A chokepoint, if you want. This might as well be the poblacion, but it isn’t. Every now and then, you see a bunch of students swarming around one nervous vendor, feeding a tape recorder and throwing all sorts of questions. “How much do you earn?” or “Who will you vote for in the coming elections?” The old manang, bucktooth and all, would grin and say she hadn’t thought of it yet. Of course, there’d be one or two who’d be glad to speak for her.
Time peels away here like onions. Two weeks ago, a presidential aspirant held his campaign rally here, and just this week, a senatoriable went on a beso-beso with a throng of chopping-knife wielding manangs in bloody aprons. Cory Aquino was here a few days before Edsa transpired, recalls a friend of mine. When she spoke, she suddenly became everyone’s mother. At once, her voice brought hope, comfort to the thousands of sweat-drenched denizens who’d suspend a day’s vending to listen to what she had to say.
I pick the prettiest vegetables here, robustly fresh from a generous layer of loam possibly from breezy Mantalungon. In polluted times in an age of thoughtless binges, you need to humor the body sometimes with a dose of the pure and organic.
But hereon, I’ll be buying my daily paper from this one stall at the foot of the flyover.
Three days ago, I handed a hundred-peso bill to this one diminutive figure behind the spread of broadsheets on mounted plywood. Wait, she said, and went to the stall at the other end of the flyover. In a minute or two, she returned, held my wrist and placed a roll of P20 bills on my palm, which she pressed to close. She muttered something I couldn’t comprehend. But she went on to explain something. This broadsheet, she apologized, had become very expensive. It’s okay, I said. No, she insisted, you keep it.
She charged me P2 less for the paper. I wanted to insist on the right price, but I looked at her and changed my mind. Stooped by age but tall in spirit, the woman threw a proud smirk. She delighted in her own generosity.
I found a Filipino.
(February 26, 2004 issue)
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