Because Manila Has The Moolah

In Espana, people in knee-deep water feel the cliche “When it rains, it pours” deeply enough.

Situated in one of the population-condensed streets of this arterial Manila road for temporary abode, I’ve always bore the brunt of waking up at least three hours ahead of my normal work schedule so as not to get caught in the mayhem traffic. After all, this is Manila and if one is to arrive right on the dot at the busy district of Makati, he must plan ahead of time and beat the last-minute rush. As predictable and boring as watching today’s “kilig”-induced movies churned out in cinemas this may sound, you have no choice but to reluctantly do it. Pretty much the same as dutifully accompanying your girlfriend to watch a cheesy romantic flick with the same, sickening recycled movie plot.To think about the rush hour is in itself a pain in the arse but what do you do under worst-case scenarios, when all of a sudden the Guy Up There fancies playing bowling and decides to pour down Olympus-sized buckets of water to a harried metropolis? Simple: you try to grin and bear with such an unfortunate event, hoping against hope that tomorrow dear beloved Espana is a bottomless pit no more.

The overpass at night, rumored to be a favorite hibernation of thugs and pugs and anyone with souls decaying in our place, has been an imperative route to get the perfect spot in hailing a Buendia FX during these times when cocooning in the thick blanket till you snooze is preferable than going outside like say, taking a walk in the park. I took the steps with nary the slightest trace of fear or hesitation, crossed the path whose stench befouls any signatured cologne one might be wearing, and trudged the lane going to a spot where bacteria-mooched waters don’t creep. The cars and jeeps and motorcycles passing, all in their honking glory, are like mad beasts in a jungle that have been disturbed by an unlikely phenomenon. It is a Sunday and the pious who have just gone to mass are mocked to test their reinvigorated faith by extending their patience and religious morales at vehicles ditching mud and dirt and dark waters to their immaculate Sunday dresses. The twenty-somethings, trying to push the weekend pass further, find themselves clinging to their significant others’ waists like malnourished tarsiers as they wait ’till kingdom come for the flood to run out dry. Here and there, a jeepney driver gets pissed off by the queue of unmoving engines and in a king-of-the-road braggadoccio, articulates a perfect 10 cuss in vernacular afterwhich honks his horn like it would make any difference in the world.

As I would like to point out, floods in Espana bring out the best and worst in its inhabitants (more so with the latter) and several cuss words, forehead creases, and 10 minutes later, I finally manage to squeeze in my behind (along with three other passengers) in a seat that could only accommodate three. The seating arrangement reminded me of the can of mackerel I had for lunch and while Dante might have closely encapsulated the essence of being in hell in his classic prose, I believe he might have had a different perspective, far worse than what he had already written, had he become a Filipino and experienced first-hand what it is to live in a city where perennial flood and angry fists and foul pollution interact like what my Grade 3 teacher talked about in an ecosystem cycle.

In the middle of my immature moans and ramblings and how I wished, oh Gawd, to be back in cool and comfy Baguio, just being there and savoring the crisp mountain air and watching the hanging fogs crown the mountainous terrains, the woman to my left asked the mumbling driver to stop right before the famed Quiapo church and have her drop off a spot where dirty, murky water do not abound (”Ma, dun po sa walang baha!”). This woman of 30 had her wish, I alighted to give way, and in her place, a lady who is, I surmise, in her late twenties stepped in the car. The four passengers became prisoners of the mackerel can again but I will not tell you that I’m dismayed. Quite the opposite, in fact, for to my right now sits a woman of utter sophistication whose perfume reminded me of the scent of morning dew in Baguio. She looked like Vicky Belo to me, much younger, and her eye lashes, oh how her eye lashes curled like a dozen vintas  sailing in the turbulent seas.

As much as I would like to veer away from her for fear of arousing that sleeping bestial part in me, her scent all the more makes me succumb like a weak prey. Such is the power of this bewitching woman that what I could only do is to heave sighs and hallucinate over lucid FHM moments, a Samson whose strength has been cut by Delilah’s beguilement. She rummaged over her flesh-colored hand bag, presumably of LV signature, and groped for her fliptop Motorola phone. And while I know it is impolite to glance over someone else’s text message, her long candle-like fingers with nails coated in shy pink nail polish lured me to doing otherwise. Over the luminous glow emitting from her phone’s LCD screen, I glanced at the short text about her dropping off MOA and congratulating her boyfriend about the basketball win and how his team was a shave off from winning it from UST and reminding him not to over-party with his teammates. It was curious how she called him “Bhiew”, making me contemplate whether the term of endearment was a rude localization of “Beau” or a sly alternation of the more popular “Bhie.”

To find a distraction, I reluctantly peered through the window and found a pack of five shirtless kids having the time of their life in the knee-deep flood without any slight trace of reservation, swimming like Michael Phelps racing through his historic eight-medal haul. There they were wading in the sea of used plastic cups, of water-soaked poopoo diapers, of drowning headless cockroaches, of sickeningly horrible who-knows-what, as if the rain quenched their thirst for that much-awaited and well-deserved siesta. It is a sharp contrast to how we in the mackerel can felt at that very moment. For the overjoyed kids in toothless grins, the torrential rain is a predilection that they would never have traded to anything else, except perhaps if you offered them some unfinished cheeseburger from a nearby fastfood resto. For the FX people, the sudden shower is an unwelcomed occurrence that meant being stuck in traffic and being late for work or maybe not meeting a commitment on time. Outside, the rain outpour is met with giggles and gleeful shouts jumps of joy. Inside the FX, much chagrin, and pouting, failed expectations and future petty excuses abound.  Such a sharp contrast to perfectly define the difference between kids and adults.

Last June, I decided to trade Baguio’s cool comfort to Manila’s idiosyncrasies. A lot would have pleaded to take my place and so much more would have thought I’m crazy for the geographical change but I have no choice. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I love Baguio, it was perfect, living there was surreal except when you put finance in the picture. Back up there, the salary that I get for speaking the American twang in order to assist someone on the other side of the globe connect to the Internet is barely enough to support the expenses of a family of three - me, my sister, and my mom. Manila, on the other hand, promises a well-compensating job with the widest opportunites for career advancement. It was actually a 50-50 dilemma until my sister tipped the gridlock. She graduated last May and confided that she wanted to review in Manila, meaning burgeoning expenses to be allocated for her apartment rent, food, tuition fee for the review school, and her monthly allowance,  meaning the need to get a better-paying job for me. The doting HF (read: Head of the Family) that I was, I said sure right there and then and said goodbye to the idyllic life in Baguio. Thus begins the saga of the Baguio lad who moved in Manila to get a better-paying job and in the process, had to endure being jammed in traffic and wading in knee-deep water to get to work during the slightest sign of rain.