Wednesday, January 24, 2007 Carvajal: Sto. Niño and the esteros of Cebu By Orlando P. Carvajal Break Point
BECAUSE this time my wife and I did not join any particular group in the procession, I thought we would be spared the unpleasant experience last year when our group was asked to assemble next to an estero and we had to suffer its suffocating foul smell. It turned out I was wrong and the city’s foul-smelling open drainage canals still obtruded.
I was walking along in a meditative mood when all of a sudden that vaguely familiar foul smell jarred me out of whatever I was meditating on. The procession was crossing the estero where last year I had waited for an hour for our group’s turn to join the procession. It took all of ten seconds to get past it but the stench was so insufferably foul that it seemed longer by a minute or two, maybe more.
I looked at the estero and could not help noticing the houses built on its banks. They had parts overhanging the estero. I could not help but wonder how the people who live in those houses could stand the stench. How, for instance, could they possibly eat a hearty meal in the midst of that filth.
My thoughts wandered towards City Hall and I asked myself, “Have the mayor, the vice-mayor, the councilors, and the city health officer experienced the stench of these open drainage canals? It seems not. It does not seem like they join the procession at all. Otherwise, they would have smelt its obtrusively foul stench if only for a moment.
So what does Sto. Niño mean to the poor people who live by the banks of these canals? Do they feel neglected by Sto. Niño for not delivering them from the stinky place they live in contrast to those in the procession who are there to thank Sto. Niño for blessing them, among other things, with a nice house in a clean neighborhood?
Some politicians came to the feast of Sto. Niño to organize or otherwise start their campaign for election. I wonder if they experienced the stench and promised Sto. Niño that if elected they are going to clean the esteros. Fat chance I would say. They were probably completely oblivious of Sto. Niño, hence totally insensitive to the conditions of life in the banks of the city’s dirty and smelly open drainage canals.
Yet, we just spent millions of pesos to make the city comfortably and luxuriously livable for our foreign guests for a few days. I have heard that some officials are now focusing their attention on how to maintain the beautiful front of the city. I wish they would also look at how many Cebuanos live in the city’s ugly, dirty and foul-smelling underbelly. After all it was their hard earned money that was spent to make Cebu beautiful for a few days to our foreign guests. I believe Sto. Niño, more than the rituals, would appreciate this concern for others.
