Sunday, February 11, 2007
Estremera: Eaga, black egrets and Borneo Books
By Stella A. Estremera
Spider's Web
SITTING in this conference room with those cute little microphones either standing or bowing like black small-headed egrets watching over us seated around tables forming a rectangle with a hollow middle, I listened while waiting for my turn to share what I know about this growth quadrangle that goes by a name that's too long to handle, Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East Asean Growth Area (Bimp-Eaga).
The Brunei participants, three of them, were the first ones to share their experiences and knowledge. They were candid about it, and the few minutes used up can be summed up as, "D-uh?"
We took turns turning on the black egret beside us, leaning over to speak through the small head, rarely realizing that we simply have to put the whole thing nearer our mouth no need to lean, thank you, to say our piece.
Except for the three Mindanao delegates and the members of the organizing group, the other delegates' knowledge can be summed up in the same number of letters, D-U-H, and yes, the dash and the question mark for emphasis. And we were supposed to be chief editors, or our equivalent (or representatives of our equivalent).
And then came Suj...
"I'm Suj Ronquillo, I've been working with BIMP-Eaga council since it started, and that was like a lifetime ago," she said. It was only then when I realized why Suj looked familiar, she's not Malaysian after all. She's Socorro Ronquillo, proudly Filipino complete with the humor and the smile and the loud laugh, and yes, she has been with Bimp-Eaga since a lifetime ago.
I felt all my white hair tickling my scalp. I've been there since a lifetime ago too and the "d-uh-ness" is still there... toned down, yes, but still there. And yet this toned down "d-uh" is more substantial than their "D-uh?" I just never thought about tackling the topic since it died down after the Asian financial crisis in 1998.
My hotel room French window opens to the sea and the scene below: A seawall with several park benches, small islands, houses on stilts, and a huge single-story building that houses small stores that's a cross between Aldevinco and Bangkerohan public market.
I walked around, seeing a lot of faces, very much like the faces you meet in Bangkerohan, but speaking a different language.
I sniffed the breeze and discern not a trace of what has come to be expected from seawalls in my part of the planet earth -- that musky sewery tang. Even the crossbreed of Aldevinco and Bangkerohan took on a surreal life as I saw dried fishes packed in plastic and yet not smelling the dried fish.
Around me were passenger vans with malefolk shouting unfamiliar destinations, very much like our "dispatsers" do, and yet not smelling the diesel fumes I associate with these barkers.
I am not home...
Not home was in Kota Kinabalu where I saw a very Philippine setting (complete with huge malls where nativecraft trinkets and dried fish are sold) without the Philippine odor.
Inside this Greenhills-looking mall, where pirated DVDs and boutiques abound, I sought out a bookstore highly recommended by ADB consultant and once-upon-a-time Davao resident Tina Cuyugan, to behold what she was so overwhelmed about.
It was one whole bookstore full of books about Sabah, Borneo, Sumatra, Kalimantan, and Malaysia in full colors. The Nepenthes of Sumatra, The Nepenthes of Borneo, Pitcher Plants of Sabah, Slipper Orchids of Borneo, Traditional Costumes of Sabah, Traditonal Medicine Among the Ngadju Dayak in Central Kalimantan, Fishing, Hunting and Headhunting, Female and Male in Borneo, the Toothpick Preference of the Males in Kalimantan (joke!). Just about anything is there, it seems they have documented and made a book out of every creature, plant, and every moment of life in their islands, and then I wonder... if a bookstore specializes in this and seems to be doing well (there are two branches in the same mall, Borneo Books on the ground floor and Borneo Books 2 on the second floor (which actually is the third floor since they have ground, first and second floor), then the books must be being bought.
I explored another bookstore, a smaller, more mainstream one, which carries novels and stuff, but still with a considerable display of Borneo, Sabah, Kalimantan, and Malaysia books, and can only conclude that in this very much like Philippine city, there are writers and readers who know the value of writing and reading about themselves, their environment, their history, their commonalities, their lives.
Fourteen pesos to a ringgit, thus the book that tempted me enough to buy at 195 ringgits ate up almost half of my incidental expenses allowance, plus one more book at a much cheaper 28 ringgits, I was ready to hike my way to a poorhouse. I'm glad our trip was sponsored lest I would have been paddling my way home and still be somewhere between Bongao and Sabah by this time... writing about the sunburn from Celebes Sea should occupy my time.
I excitedly looked through the small but thick full-color book that almost drove me to the soupline entitled "Underwater Malaysia Macrolife" and found the same underwater creatures my dive buddy and I have been taking in our forays of the Davao Gulf. Something is wrong here...
Back in Manila, with but a few hundreds to spare, my college buddy accompanied me to a humongous bookstore where I found one shelf of books about the (generic) Philippines, a number of them way above my physical reach (maybe because nobody expects them to be sold), a bigger number of them I have already in my library, bought with hard-earned money for more than three decades (it sure sounds like a long time to stay in print). Something is definitely wrong in my part of the world.
At home, I turned on my laptop, the same laptop I lugged around in that trip out there, and tapped in two chapters each into my two unfinished books. There is work to be done. I hope others will follow. After all in that darn 195-ringgit book, I've already spotted a considerable number of grammatical errors but they have a published book, I don't, so who am I to criticize?
Walking under the scorching heat of the unpredictable Davao weather, I caught a whiff of that oh-so-familiar musky sewery smell and wonder: Do the books or their absence have something to do with this?
saestremera@yahoo.com.For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star General Santos. For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (February 11, 2007 issue)
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