Monday, March 03, 2008 Mercado: Asthma is also an ailment By Ram Mercado First Person
DOCTORS RANK pneumonia, TB and cardiovascular diseases, including heart attack and stroke as the top ranking killer diseases in the country today, but asthma or its Filipino derivative "Asma" is the most debilitating.
Asma, of course, is the contraction of "Ask my wife," an affliction peculiar only to Filipino married males who, like the tribe of Abou Ben Adhem, have been increasing in unprecedented number and ferocity.
Generally, the Filipino husband entrusts his salary or earnings to the wife from whom he gets his regular allowance. This practice is one of the silent but major causes of graft and corruption because the husband in times of indiscretion, or to maintain a vice, resorts to making money outside his lawful due. It is to his wife, too, that he refers even minor decisions for approval, so that making a transaction with him carries the hidden risk of getting another imprimatur to finalize a deal.
Behind every failed transaction, therefore, is usually the wife working sub rosa who could put the court of appeals to shame with her finality and inappealable pronouncement. I know a successful professional in town who nearly lost his voice due to extreme fear of his dearly beloved.
It started when the aging Lothario, dancing cha-cha with a pretty girl in a downtown club was caught in flagrante by the wife, so that when she shouted "Hoy!" to the husband, the poor man, though the band has stopped playing the music, was still quaking all over and people thought he was still dancing in pantomime.
I suspect that the general lack of patriotism by Filipinos is due to their henpecked culture. Attempting a heroic demand not a wife's approval but strong, nerveless, and singular commitment.
This explains why the Japanese males under whose unequivocal dominion the wives are placed in subservient and obedient role, are better warriors and conquerors than Filipinos whose battle cry, "Sugod, mga kapatid!" requires another head-turning to find out if the wife is there in approval. Compare this to the Nippongo's "Banzi!" and you can see the difference.
A fool or a henpecked husband is wiser in his self-deception than a dozen men that can render a reason. Naturally, he justifies his state of affliction as the consequence of too much love for the wife.
This partly explains why most husbands here call their wives "Mama" or "Mommy" in many cases, thus engendering a culture that breeds young kids known as Mama's boys. With a nation populated by an overwhelming majority of Mama's boys, see where that will bring the country.
The man who never asks his wife what to do under any and all circumstances runs the risk of her displeasure, in which case she often gets back by refusing him his pleasure. This blackmail triggers a severe asthmatic attack.
When things come to a head in any domestic conflict, the husband is always on the losing end. To play it safe, therefore, the wise husband must resort to saying "Yes" all the time to avoid a scene. The ultimate in one woman's exhaustible arsenal, is where she disrobes and runs out of the house in full view of half-shocked onlookers.
This is one technique, which can always win an argument for any wife, anytime. I can only prescribe it to spouses whose husbands may be considered notoriously undesirable and heinously incorrigible.
I know a number of "asmatic" husbands in the community who are perfectly all right in the physical sense, most of them undergoing annual executive check-ups and passing them in flying color, except that the electrocardiogram or even the ultrasound device, as well as the endoscope and the X-ray machine fail to detect their hopelessly "asmatic" condition.
You can ask an exceptionally masculine and strongly authoritative businessman to finalize a deal. He would reply thus: "I'll ask my wife first, then I will tell you."
Now, what are the typical signs of one afflicted with asma? The external manifestations are: 1) hard of hearing arising usually from constant yelling by a woman; 2) constant glances at his wristwatch for fear of failing to come home on time; 3) old or new fingernail scratches sustained while in the act of confrontation; 4) bloodshot eyes due to lack of sleep resulting from incessant chatter and nagging; and 5) difficulty in breathing as if in suffocation secondary to strangulation.
The asthmatic may not manifest all of the above symptoms, but you cannot be wrong if you find a man whose head bobs like a robot while you speak to him. It is a conditioned reflex to his certain domestication.
These are only personal but honest observations but I hope the Philippine Asthma Association will come up with a foolproof diagnostic procedure that can positively identify any husband with this deadly affliction.
(This piece is one of the personal essays in the author's book "First Person" to be available at HAU Kapampangan Center and Sun Star Pampanga office this week.)
