Bong at Hayden: Isang liham

Pinakamamahal kong Bong,

Panalo ka talaga, Idol! Halos nakalimutan ko na na nakaupo ka nga pala sa Senado.

Sa wakas, tumayo ka din upang ipakita sa mga kapwa mo senador kung p’ano talaga makatulong sa ating Inang Bayan, partikular na sa mga kababaihan.

Mabuhay ka, Idol! Sana dumami ang lahi mo. (Ay teka, madami na nga pala ang lahi mo — at ng tatay mo.)

Tama ka. Isa talagang ‘pervert of the highest degree’ iyang si Hayden Kho. Hindi gaya mo. Sobrang manyak pa at mapagsamantala iyang si Hayden. Hindi gaya mo. At ‘buang’ at ‘wala sa tamang pag-iisip’ talaga iyang tao na iyan — doktor pa naman. Hindi gaya ni Miriam.

Isa kang tunay na maginoo, Idol. Hindi gaya ni Hayden na isang manlilinlang, isang babaero, isang tao na ginagamit ang pusisyon niya upang mapagsamantalahan ang mga nangangailangan at walang laban.

Talaga namang nakakagigil at nakakainit ng dugo panuorin iyang sex videos na iyan ni Hayden. Ikaw nga mismo, Idol, inamin mo na n’ung makita mo ‘yung isang sex video na pinagkakaguluhan ng staff mo, ‘nanginig’ ang laman mo, ‘nanggigil’ ka at ‘di ka makapaniwala’. Ganung-ganun din ang naramdaman ko n’ung makita ko ang mga videos na iyan. Halos maduwal ako. Promise.

Sa lahat ng ating mga senador, ikaw talaga ang inaasahan kong tumayo at magsalita tungkol sa isyu na ito. Ikaw at, marahil, si Jinggoy. Ikaw, dahil marami kang karanasan sa mga bagay-bagay na ito. Hindi naman natin maikakaila na minsa’y naging ‘matulis’ ka din, ‘di ba?

Mabuti naman at nilinaw mo, Idol, na ‘di ka nagmamalinis sa ginagawa mong pagtatanggol sa mga naging biktima ni Hayden. Tao ka din. Marupok. May mga kahinaan. Ang mahirap pa sa katayuan mo, bukod pa sa mayaman at makapangyarihan ka — gwapo ka. Kasalanan ba iyun? Kasalanan ba ang maging gwapo? Kasalanan ba ang magmahal?

Naniniwala ako na sumpa talaga ang maging isang gwapo, Idol. Kaya, huwag mong isipin na kasalanan na ipinanganak kang gwapo. Maraming tukso ang lumalapit sa mga kagaya natin. Kaliwa’t kanan. Lahat ng kasarian. Pati halaman.

Pero dapat lamang siguro na ilagay natin sa ayos ang ating pagiging gwapo, ‘di ba?

Magkahawig man kayo ni Hayden — pareho kayong gwapo, maganda ang pangangatawan, matambok ang pwet, kaakit-akit ang mga mata — marahil ‘di mo gagawin ang mga ginagawa niyang kahalayan.

Kung may lumapit sa iyo na isang napakaganda at napakabatang dilag na nagaalok ng panandaliang aliw, itutuwid mo ang kanyang landas. Kapag may lumapit sa iyo na nangangailangan ng tulong pinansyal at handang ibigay ang kanyang pagkababae bilang kapalit, kakausapin mo lamang siya at magbibigay ng tulong, subalit ‘di mo siya dadalhin sa isang maliit na kwarto na may TV na nakabitin sa dingding (plasma TV na pala ngayon ang ginagamit sa mga ganitong lugar) at may see-through na shower room.

Hindi! Hinding-hindi mo gagawin ‘yun! Isa ‘yung malaking kaululan!

Iyan ang tunay na lalake! Umiinom na lang ng Ginebra kaysa magbigay-daan sa tukso. Saludo talaga ako sa iyo, Idol!

May mga nagsasabi din na baka naman naiinggit ka lang daw kay Hayden, na tila pinaglalaruan niya itong mga batang-bata at naggagandahan na mga kababaihan na n’ung kasikatan mo’y lumuluhod sa harapan mo. Ngayon daw kasi, baka kay Dra Bello ka na lang pumasa.

Paninirang puri na naman ito! Hindi ko lubos maisip kung paano nila naiisip ang mga ito tungkol sa iyo. Ikaw pa na wala nang kahilig-hilig sa babae, na walang ibang pinagtatangi kundi ang iyong kabiyak, na hinulma sa kung paano maging isang ulirang asawa ng iyong ama, na isa pa ring huwaran ng isang ulirang asawa.

Sinususugan ko ang mga labis na pinagisipan mong mga panukala. Dapat talagang ipagbawal iyang pamboboso. Kung bakit naman kasi sobrang taas na ng antas ng medisina natin at ‘di na tinutubuan ng kuliti ang mga bastos na iyan.

Marahil, dapat ding isara na sa Pilpinas iyang mga malalaswa at karumal-dumal na pornographic sites na iyan, gaya ng ginagawa nila sa China at Middle East. Kung magagawa natin ito, bakit ‘di pa natin palawigin? Isara na din natin, gaya ng ginagawa nila sa China at Middle East, iyang mga websites na iyan na walang magawa kundi ipagtanggol ang kalayaan sa pamamahayag at iba pang mga karapatang pantao, na tumutuligsa sa ating mahal na Pangulo at sa mga kagaya mo, Idol, na iilan lamang sa ating mga mambabatas na nanatiling nasa tuwid pa ang pag-iisip.

Sa mga naninira sa iyo at nagsasabing isa kang hipokrito dahil sa mga pinagsasabi at ginagawa mo ngayon, ito lang ang masasabi ko: Birds of the same feather, flock!

.

Labis na nagmamahal at naghihintay na makita ka sa www.holybang.com,
Roborat

Dear Mrs Arroyo: An open letter on our wacko maids

Thank you very much, Mrs Arroyo, for the heads up on all those loco maids the Philippines has been sending out all these years and for your newfound zeal to rid the world of them and your assurance that as long as presidential blood runs in your veins, you will never again let any luka-luka and baliw work for a God-fearing household in the First World.

Thank you, indeed, for making the world a safer place. Now, everyone can sleep soundly knowing that when they have a Filipino maid in their employ, they can work her to death without paying her a whiff, beat her to a pulp, molest her and basically strip her of her humanity and treat her worse than they would a stray dog, and she’d still come through the day singing, smiling and shouting, “Mabuhay, y’all!”

I mean, aren’t you, Mrs Arroyo, setting up a Committee for the Systematic Weeding Out of Wacko Maids? Man, you guys do not disappoint.

Can I just make one suggestion here? Why not take it to the next level? Maybe you can work out some kind of certification or classification of our maids and get this approved by the International Organisation of Standardisation. Then you’ll have something like – Super Inday: ISO 9000-certified.

Now, that’s quality assurance for you. I can almost hear it: Oh, look, hon, a Filipino maid. Let’s get one. This one has a seal of sanity on her.

Or, maybe we in the media are just not getting it right – as you and your spritely spokescreatures like to say, we’re probably just missing the context and blowing this thing out of proportion.

But I swear this guy from the foreign office, Esteban Conejos, has been clear in saying there is a need to make psychiatric testing mandatory for all domestic helpers leaving for jobs abroad. And he has some numbers to back him up. He says seven out of 10 Filipino maids on death row in the Middle East have had a history of mental illness. Man, seven wackos out of 10! Seventy freaking per cent!

I get it where Mr Conjeos is coming from. He believes he can get the numbers down by screening those thousands of maids leaving the Philippines each month and taking out the loonies before they get a chance to board a plane and things get really out of hand and they snap at the wrong place at the wrong time. He believes only the strong in mind and body gets to leave, so we’d stop getting all that shit about a Filipino maid slitting the throat of dirty ol’ Grampa who’s been raping her repeatedly for months.

Mr Conejos gets it. He feels our pain.

Here’s a guy, with the mental fortitude he thinks all maids must possess, who probably won’t mind being hit with a rolling pin on his head, back and calf every day and being kicked senseless while he sleeps on a dog bed.

Here’s a guy who’ll be perfectly all right feeding on three-day-old food, while the family dog gets chicken nuggets and fresh fruits. Heck, chain him to a kitchen sink or hit him with a water bottle on the mouth. Just mind over matter, right, Mr Conejos?

What’ll he do if he gets fed up? Why, the sane thing to do – and he is a sane man – is to just run off to the embassy and get a free ticket back home. Forget about filing a criminal or civil complaint. Forget about suing the motherfuckers. Forget about everything and just move on. Mind over matter.

So, hats off to you, Mr Conejos. You’re the dawg, man!

One thing I don’t get, though, is if we begin certifying our maids as 100 per cent sane, then what’ll happen to that uber-effective defence our embassies always use to get pardons for those on death row: that, oops, they just “lost it” when they did the deed?

But then, maybe it’s for the best.

So, come on guys, stop badgering the government with these things and advocacies that just get in the way of the little soirees and tete-a-tetes of its diplomatic missions. Setting up support services that will empower maids to fight for their rights? Now, that’s just asking too much.

Yours until Obama becomes president,

Pininggapura

PS –

Oh, our hats off to you, Mrs Arroyo and Mr Conejos, for the image boost you’ve given OFWs like me, Ares, Muloy and The Talented Mr ManF. Now, maybe my toxic boss will start going easy on me if I stop bathing and start murmuring something like “Crispin? Basilio?” while in the office. She may start thinking: Wait a minute, this may be a loco Filipino I have here. I’d better stay out of his way and leave him be. This guy may be capable of nasty things that’ll make Hannibal Lecter look like Bambie.

Tanjong Pagar

It began as an after-work romp, a nightout to cap a long, hard day at the office. There was Geylang, of course, but it was too far from the office, and it was sort of cliché already to be going there. We weren’t tourists anymore, and we were just looking for a place to unwind without getting too bummed out we wouldn’t know how we got home the morning after and where our hard-earned money went. So, heeding the advice of a Pinoy mate who, for 10 years, had explored every nook and cranny of Singapore, we wound up in this district called Tanjong Pagar.

I can bore you here right now with the many things and trivias the place is known for – like how it used to bridge the docks with the old town, or its historic Jinkricksha station (the old main rickshaw depot that now houses one of Jackie Chan’s restaurants), or that it used to be the district represented in Parliament by the man himself, Lee Kuan Yew – but you can already Google these things up.

What makes Tanjong Pagar unique, I think, is this little, quaint restaurant known as Kamayan, its name a reference to the way we Filipinos like to eat our tuyo, with a small plate of kamatis, itlog na pula and sibuyas as sawsawan – with our hands.

The place is open for about 18 hours a day, and it serves dishes that will give Nanay’s adobo and sinigang na baboy a run for their money. The price is a steal – S$4 for a bowl of rice and two ulams, plus a Coke! – and the place’s pretty much the same in layout and feel as those carinderias taxi and jeepney drivers love to troop to in Quiapo and Timog for some things to warm their stomach and feed their tsismoso and usisero minds. But that’s not what makes Kamayan a special place.

As in many places that strike us and leave more than just a good impression, it’s the people who go to Kamayan that makes it one of those special corners of this vast, complicated and suffering world where we feel like we leave a tiny part of ourselves each time we go there.

During most of the day, Kamayan plays host to the regulars: office-weary Pinoys working in the district’s tall, gleaming towers, or Singaporeans egged by their Pinoy mates to try out some Filipino delicacies. It pretty much looks like any regular kopitian – Singapore’s version of our carinderia – through most of the day.

When it hits 3am, however, they start coming, first in trickles – in pairs or in small groups. Then by 4am, the taps open and they pour in – a horde of exhausted, hungry, young women coming out of those glitzy bars tucked inside Tanjong Pagar’s and Duxton Hill’s rows of shophouses, exploding into a cacophony of boisterous banter in a language all their own and transforming Kamayan into a noisy family reunion, a mini barrio fiesta.

Uy, Be, naka-quota ka ba?

Ay, naku, puro buraog!

Kailan ka naman e-exit sa JB?

Di ko nga alam, eh. Kulang pa nga pambayad ko sa Dragon kay kuya Robin. Hay, naku, Be…

There, they are stripped of all that’s superficial that goes with their “trabaho” – make-up rinsed, their micro-minis, tank tops, halters, high-heel shoes and faux jewellerey tucked neatly inside plastic bags. They are a noisy, raucuous bunch, making tsismis about who went out with who or made a scene at the club, laughing, checking out the competition, spying warily at the crowd for trouble.

There, reality catches up with them. They are no longer these pretty young things providing company to testosterone-laden young men, manic depressive middle-aged men and senility-fighting old men. At Kamayan, they are someone’s mother, wife, sister or daughter.

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