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Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Mercado: Amoy lupa
By Ram Mercado
First Person
THERE is a new organization of elderly citizens called Philippine United Senior Citizens Association, an informal umbrella of senior citizens (60 above) groups in Metro Manila.
I wish to organize a local chapter in Pampanga, but do not have the means and organization to start it. My first choice to head the senior citizens is Angeles City Mayor Tarzan Lazatin who has all the resources and credentials for the job. My only drawback is the name labeled him by the spokesman of his arch enemy which seems to be catching attention.
I will not repeat the pejorative alias here for fear of being slapped a libel suit which is the vogue today in government circles.
The head of the Metro Manila seniors group, also known as the “Goldies Club”, has this cardinal rule: remember, being old should never be an excuse to stop looking good.
Goldies Club members are urged to “take a bath everyday and dab drops of moisturizer on your arms and legs; comb your hair neatly into place; and don’t forget to apply powder on your face.”
This advice is not new to us at all, or to the previous generation of senior citizens whose own version of the now ballroom dancing fad was the “cabaret.”
Pampanga’s young once can hark back to the days of the popular downtown dancehalls in Angeles and in San Fernando, favorite leisure places of the small spenders. At the posh niteclubs the entertainers were known as hostesses while those in the modest cabarets were called “baylarinas”.
There is a difference of a price between names, the hostess charges more as the baylarina is paid by the ticket(s) she gets after every “tanda” (dance piece).
Taking a bath daily is an obstacle course to some people who are averse to water. I had been neighbour to a couple whose head is a cargador in the San Fernando public market, the wife of a labandera. I can swear the couple relished or tolerated their special smell of each other, producing ten children in successive years.
“We should erase the stereotype that old people are amoy lupa,” the Goldies’ president reminded the members. It appears the more educated or the richer one gets, the more important is the sense of smell to one’s wellbeing.
We can all agree, however, to one odor: dirty money smells sweet to those who hold it. I guess it is all a matter of conditioning or habituation. To us commuters riding rickety public passenger jeeps the smell of human sweat and toxic armpits would assail our noses but we can endure it to the next stop.
It is the women who love fragrance and sweet smelling objects. I discovered this in the cabaret – the most popular old man exuded an overwhelming indecent fragrance, the smell of cheap perfume that one can smell during a town fiesta when the patroness’ feet were wiped by old women with their handkerchiefs soaked in various perfume brands.
The elderly folk who caroused in the San Fernando cabaret virtually poured “kananga” (perfume) all over themselves before boarding the flight of steps to the Hi-Way dancehall in the capital town. The most popular of the perfume, available at the local bazaars and even sidewalk stands during Sundays were “Night in Shanghai”; the poorer senior citizens contented with Tonix which they splashed free from their friends’ barber shop. Definitely, the cabaret smelled like a factory of Verbena hair pomade which then was sold in tiny one-application sachet.
Today, the older generation is using their wives’ imported perfumes. There was a time when a whole dance floor during the Vietnam war when post-exchange goods were smuggled out of Clark, reeked of Brute – a US-made brand that one felt transported to the home of the brave.
Amoy lupa, that’s how the elderly normally smells of. Philosophically, that’s where our ultimate destination is – the ground.
But the Goldies Club – it can prolong the trip by smelling good.
The alternative is to use money, chances are great you can keep your friends – and young women, too that way.
I know for a fact that no amount of perfume can attract a lady in need, and no deadly odor will prevent her from running after the guy with the bad breath.
I hope our local organizers of senior citizens will duplicate what the Goldies Club had launched for their members. Free haircuts, facial treatments at a discount, as well as life-enhancing projects like beauty pageants, dancing sessions, and skills training to the active.
It is true that as we join the seniors league we feel some loss of self-esteem and usefulness. Not to Imelda Marcos who at 77 wants to be Manila mayor.
At 74, Tarzan Lazatin will not be the oldest lawmaker in Congress unless Francis Nepomuceno’s spokesman, Mang Mark, calls him by another name. Why not simply “Mang Tarzan”, to avoid complications, Mr. Sison?
(September 6, 2006 issue)
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