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[February, 1995] The travel time from San Francisco to Barangay* Maahas (snakes infested) in Los Baņos, Laguna was about 18 hours. Maahas is the place where Karen and Kathy Cruz grew up before emigrating to the United States when they were eighteen years old. In Tagalog the term for twins like Karen and Kathy is kambal. After their friends saw a movie about Siamese twins they began to call the twins kambal tuko (a gecko that sticks to windows in the province). American Filipinos sometimes refer to their home as P.I. (the Philippine Islands). This text was written by Karen and her husband, who saw the Philippines with American born and raised eyes though what he saw and learned was opened up to him by kambal and their friends' experiences. Kambal Tuko [* With the exception of this introductory section where I talk about the Philippines of kambal's memory, I have used the term barangay throughout the text, but it is interchangeable with barrio. Barangay was used specifically because it is a Tagalog word whereas barrio is a Spanish loan word. Barangay is supplanting barrio in the nomenclature of the government as a half-hearted move to "Tagalocize" the Filipino vocabulary.] Laguna is one of the 76 provinces in the Philippines and is located directly south and southeast of Manila. Its borders stretch along the southern portion of Laguna de Bay. There are three seasons here: the hot summer from March to May; the rainy season from June to December; and the cool season from December to March. Even during the cool season, the mercury is unlikely to drop below 70° Fahrenheit but you will see Filipinos change their shorts for long pants and tsinelas (thongs) for covered shoes. Unlike many places in Asia, where businessmen have donned the western business suit, In the Philippines the businessman and government official can still be seen wearing the comparatively practical barong tagalog which is adapted to the weather and commonly made from the pineapple plant. Laguna, as much of the Philippines, is covered with lush, tropical vegetation. The most common type of tree found there is the palm tree which the inhabitants have found numerous uses for: buko (young coconut) pie and buko juice; tuba and lambanog, homemade fermented and distilled liquors made from the palm tree; copra (made from mature coconuts); bunot (coconut husk) used as firewood and as an abrasive for bringing cement and wood floors to a waxy shine; palm leaves are used in building a shack store known as a tindahan; walis ting-ting, a broom used outdoors or on rough surfaces; and coco-lumber. Rural Maahas The most common food found on a table in the Philippines is rice. Whether it is the rice known as palay (rice before it is husked), bigas (husked, but uncooked rice), kanin (cooked rice), lugaw (rice soup), gotos (lugaw with pork), arroz caldo (soup with sauteed rice and chicken), or tsamporado (sweet rice porridge with chocolate), rice is the supreme crop and food that is found with almost any meal. When kambal left Laguna in 1986, the Hi-way which leads to the capital of the province was paved, but dirt roads were just beginning to be paved over. The ilog (river) which ran through Barangay Maahas was a place where women would gossip as they washed their families' clothes, where kalabaw (water buffalo) were washed, and where people would often relieve themselves since their were no public toilets, or comfort rooms. Barangay Maahas is located in the city of Los Baņos, a famous resort town as well as the location of the world renowned International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and the University of the Philippines (U.P) campuses. Kambal estimates that the barangay had grown by as much as four times between 1975, and when they left in 1986. The population totaled 3,200 in the 1990 census. Electrical workers could be seen fixing lines and broken street lamps on occasion, but their presence was infrequent. The street lamps were broken by children with sling shots and these lamps would remain broken for some time. There were no gas lines, and residents in the barrio had to purchase propane gas cans to hook up their stoves at home or cook with charcoal. Kambal never saw a fire while growing up in Maahas, and there was no standing fire department in the area. There were no public phones, phones in businesses, or even phones in the schools. In fact the only two phones in Barrio Maahas were owned by the two most prominent families who happened to live near Hi-way. Sasakyan Cars can be seen in Laguna as can people walking, but the most common forms of transportation are the tricycle and jeepney for short to medium distances, and busses for longer distances. Cars are too expensive for the average Filipino living in the Province, but the most available car is called an "owner." This is a car that is made with the same type of body as the jeepney, but has a design of a regular jeep. You can either have one custom assembled for you or assemble it on your own. One of Kambal's friends had assembled one himself with the cost of materials estimated at P25,000 (US$1000). Taksis You've just landed at Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila, and are a bit dazed by the sites, sounds and smells as you exit the terminal. Someone approaches you and politely asks if you need a taxi. You say, "yes," and follow the man with your wife as he leads you past several taxis. He finally waves to a taxi who drives up and then he decides to help you with your luggage. You enter the vehicle and you're on your way. Curiously you notice there is no meter in the taxi (taxis in Manila normally have used-Japanese meters which show the fare in Yen though the price really reflects Peso fare; they assess a surcharge for air conditioning) so you ask the driver how much the fare is to your destination. He opens up a small booklet with destinations and prices typed in U.S. dollars. Then he tells you that the price is US$30 per person. Fortunately your wife was raised in the Philippines and knows that you've been setup. She realizes that this journey which will be costing you about P750 per person would normally cost P50 for the two of you. She asks for the driver to stop so you both can get out before it is too late and offers to give him P5, but he refuses in mock anger. Having agreed beforehand not to enter another taxi until you know the fare, you hail a taxi and your wife asks the driver how much the fare will be to go to your destination. He says the fare will be P400, so she declines. Then he begins to reduce the price substantially once then several times, but she ignores him the entire time. You both see a bus and she hails it. The driver stops and she asks the conductor in Tagalog if the bus was going in your destination, a bus terminal. You find out it is indeed and you both get on board before learning that the price is P2 for the both of you! Jeepneys Within a provincial town, and between contiguous towns, jeepneys are the most common form of transportation. Tricycles compete with jeepneys for business within towns. A ride is inexpensive enough not to walk short distances (P1, 50 centimos for a short jeepney ride; P2 for a tricycle ride), and during the rain season and oppressive hot season there is additional incentive. The passengers bow their heads and women always place one hand over the opening of their blouse when entering the back of the jeepney where passengers sit in two long columns of seven (a comfortable ride) to nine passengers (a very crammed-in ride), facing each other. Everyone hands their fare to the driver with an "ito bayad," (here is the fare) "bayad ko;- dalawa;- tatlo;- apat," (my payment; payment for two; -three;- four), or a "bayad daw" (someone's payment) if the rider is not close enough to hand the money directly to the driver. In the last case, the money is passed up-and change returned-the same route. Remarkably, in two months I never saw a conflict arise over someone's fare being handled by so many people from passenger to driver and back, even given the fact that drivers often wait a few minutes to return change. The passengers are invariably polite when someone gets on board and they need to make room, which they automatically do so without being asked even if it means they will be slightly more uncomfortable. Passengers can exit anytime before the final stop with the impolite "pssst, pssst" and a knock on the roof of the jeepney (which is often ignored so usually followed up with a "...para!"), or the more polite "para" (stop), "sa tabi" (the side), or "sa kanto (the corner). Tricycles Tricycles are small motorcycles with customized side-cars. The motorcycle seat which fits two behind the driver as well as the side-car are always covered. The side-car normally fits two, but tricycles can carry as many people as really want to ride one. I saw one tricycle with ten children, some where standing on the back fender and holding onto the roof of the side-car. If you hire a tricycle at the end or beginning of their route, they will often wait until their vehicle is filled before beginning the journey. Pedicabs Pedicabs, bicycles with sidecars, are infrequently seen in Manila and even a rarer sight in Laguna. Trolies Some enterprising boys build trolies (taken from the English word "trolley") which they use to carry passengers along a stretch of railroad track. In some places this is a more convenient form of transportation than a jeepney or tricycle because the track may be a more direct route than taking a road. The trolie ride in Barangay San Antonio was only a few hundred yards long, but the operators were able to charge P1, 50 centimos per passenger. The trolies seat about four passengers and are operated by a boy pushing off the ground with one foot while the other foot is planted on the back of the trolie, similar to how a skateboard is operated except the boy holds onto the back of the trolie seat as he goes. One boy, nicknamed Luga (luga means "earwax," because he was usually seen with luga pushing out from the opening of his ears), operated his trolie on the weekends and like the other operators his earnings were not spent on candy or toys but on food. Filipino Roman-Catholicism & Pre-Hispanic Religion It is often said that the Philippines is the most Western of all Asian countries. Having adopted many outwardly visible aspects of Spain and the United States which had profound affects on the Philippines during centuries of imperialist hegemony this is not too surprising. Having visited the Philippines, Thailand, Korea, and Japan in rapid succession I would say that such a designation of the Philippines is superficial and inaccurate. Having said this there is no denying that English and Christianity are heard (indeed the radio station D.J.'s sound as if they are American) and seen here more than any place else in Asia with the exception of Australia. Western culture has deeply permeated the Philippines, but in a way not too unlike many other countries. There is the ubiquitous fast-food chain store, the American clothes (not surprisingly since they are often made in Asian countries like the Philippines), American music, and American television shows. T-shirts with American brand-names or sports teams are found everywhere as well. This "popular culture" influence and the consumer-oriented development can be seen in any "developing" Asian country. The influence of the West through the United States has decreased since the fall of Ferdinand Marcos, but remains significant principally because so many Filipino ex-patriots live in the United States and maintain ties with their families in the Philippines. These ties are what sets the Philippines apart from other Asian countries, but the impact of these influences are easily overstated for a country that has a population of 66.89 million (1994 projected) and 1.5 million workers and naturalized citizens in the United States. By comparison there are 1.3 million Filipino workers in Saudi Arabia. Filipino Roman-Catholicism In the Philippines there is one thing that stands out more than most, Catholicism. Census figures for Los Baņos in 1990 showed that nearly 91% of the people claim Catholicism as their religion. Catholic religious symbolism is everywhere. Shrines with the Santo Niņo can be seen on busses, in bowling alleys, restaurants, boats, and homes. Everywhere where there isn't room for a shrine, like a tricycle, as well as the places where there is such room you can also see small stickers asking for God's protection. Every Friday of the year a table with numerous candles is setup outside a simple, two story home in Bay, a town next to Los Baņos, where people can be seen going to and fro. On the second floor of this house there is an effigy of the reclining, crucified Jesus Christ in a glass case set out before several rows of chairs where local worshippers sit and pray. This effigy is also paraded through Bay on Flores de Mayo (Flowers of May) during the religious celebration known as Santa Cruzan. Anti-Abortion, Atimonan We attended a special wedding anniversary ceremony and had the privilege of listening to a sermon delivered by a bishop. He applauded the couple who the celebration was in honor of and specified the fact that they had several children. He proclaimed his disagreement with family planning explaining that marriage was for making children. This sort of moral rational might be taken too lightly by a foreigner who considers birth control the norm rather than an exception. In the Philippines, birth control is practiced through the "pull out just in time" method. Which often means that young couples are often getting married to save face because the girl got pregnant. In at least one case, a young man was challenged by his girlfriend not show his love for her by not pulling out, "I bet you wouldn't marry me if I got pregnant." He took the challenge, "bahala na" She got pregnant and they got married, perhaps they remain so unhappily, but they remain married. Baka Ma Balis To the Westerner, the Philippines is a land of superstitions sometimes these superstitions incorporate Catholicism in some way. The first time a friend meets someone's baby, either the friend or the mother of the child should say "pwera usog" (meaning literally "barring fart," but here it's an entreaty for the visitor not to give the baby flatulence) or "pwera balis" (here "balis" is probably derived from "balisa" meaning "restless, uneasy, anxious or worried") before the stranger comments on the baby. If the "stranger" comments about the baby without this invocation, the mother might say "baka ma balis mo!" meaning: "you might have placed a balis on the baby." It is believed that once a "balis" or "usog" is placed on a baby, whether or not such is revealed in tantrums or some such other affliction, it can only be removed with the "stranger" applying spittle with their finger in a sign of the cross on either the baby's stomach, feet, or forehead. Maria Makiling, a Diwata Maria Makiling is a diwata (fairy) that lives on Mount Makiling. She is the spirit of Mount Makiling, an inactive volcano in Los Baņos, and represents pre-Spanish Filipino animist belief. Jose Rizal has written down some of the folk tales that were handed down orally through the ages (translated below by Karen). One representation of Maria Makiling is that of an ideal filipina: a charming, tall maiden with small and thin hands and feet; long, thick black hair; black eyes; and a fierce, yet quiet, facial expression.
Maria Makiling is not always kind and giving to the hunters as revealed in the next story:
Creatures of the Unknown & Manghihilots When young kambal were growing up in Maahas, their backyard had many coconut trees broken up by high grassy areas. The girls were told not to venture into the forest for there were snakes, kapre, tikbalang, manananggal, and nuno (or duwende) there. A tikbalang is a half-man and half-horse creature. A manananggal is a female monster that sucks your blood, eats your heart out, and eats unborn n children. During a full moon her body splits in half at the midsection, and the top half flies off in search of victims. It is said that you can protect yourself against this creature by hanging garlic up around your house, particularly on the window sill. Nunos, dwarfs, are said to live in dirt mounds. They pinch and bruise you when you accidentally step on their mound. Whenever you step on their mound, it is important to ask for their forgiveness by saying "tabi-tabi po nuno" ("excuse me, excuse me Mr. Dwarf) so he will leave you alone. When Kathy was fourteen-years old, and her mother had already left the Philippines for America, she suffered from a fever for several days. A neighbor, whose profession was that of a nurse, tried different conventional Western remedies to break Kathy's fever but to no avail. Finally, this nurse sought a traditional Pilipino remedy and asked for Aling Babing (aling is a respectful term for females who are much older than you), a local albulario, to perform a loop. Seashells were burned in a coconut shell during the loop (pronounced "loe-ope") and the albulario waved her hands through the smoke to dispel whatever was causing the fever. After the shells were all burned, the albulario then interpreted the charred remnants as an exorcised object that had caused the illness. In Kathy's case it was found to be a nuno. Kathy's fever was gone shortly afterwards. Karen had a similar experience sometime later. Insecto & Hayop Sabong Growing up in the Philippines, Karen and Kathy experienced a variety of insect and small animal life surpassed only by the variety of the fruits that grew around them. Some of these life forms were scary or painful, like the small red ants whose bite was like a sting, and others were to be played with, like the fireflies they would catch in their hands at night. Ipis Ipis are flying cockroaches about an inch long with rounded bodies (longer and fatter than most American cockroaches). They fly and crawl throughout the households and are often not afraid of humans. The bravery of an ipis was shown to be stronger than a human's time and again when the person in the path of an ipis's flight would duck before the ipis would veer from its course. Tutubis Tutubis are dragonflies, and are often made into play things for the children of the provinces. These children will tie a string around the tutubi and have them fly like a dog on a leash. Sometimes the children cut off the tutubi's wings and put them in a jar or on a spider's web so they can watch them before they die. The tutubing karayom (needle dragonfly) is a baby tutubi which looks similar to a needle with wings. The biggest adults are called tutubing kalabaw (water buffalo dragonfly) and are the most difficult to catch. Butiki Butiki are small, brownish-white lizards. The can be seen at night, sometimes during the day, usually on porch ceilings. They often congregate near a light so they can eat the mosquitoes attracted to the brightness. Sometimes they walk in such a way that their body makes a "C" and then an inverted "C" with every step with their front and back pairs of legs extending perpendicularly from either end of the "C." Kambal would be frightened by the cold touch of the butiki when the occasional one would fall from the ceiling onto them. Sometimes they would be accidentally smashed in a door jam but Kambal would not realize it until a smell started to emanate from the door some days later. Tuko Tuko is an onomatopoetic term for the gecko which was found in Maahas when Kambal was living there. Like the butiki, tuko are usually seen at night. There is a game played by children based on the number of "tukos" the gecko makes: if the sound is heard an odd number, it is said that it will rain the following day; and if it is even it is believed it won't rain. Tukos could not be found in 1995 when the twins returned probably due to the collateral effects of the development which had occurred during the intervening years bringing with it a higher concentration of people, cars, noise, and building. Bayawak Also suspiciously absent from Maahas were the bayawak, lizards that grow about three feet long. Kambal had two bayawak living on the roof of their house and above the ceiling in their kitchen. These bayawak could occasionally be seen where the ceiling buckled down and there was an open from which their tails would hang out. One of the girls would grab an ipil-ipil stick or bamboo stick and hit the ceiling to scare the lizards back into hiding. They suspected that the bayawak ate the mice that were found in the kitchen and sometimes on the patio outside the kitchen. Itik Itik are ducks that are raised exclusively for their eggs. The eggs of the itik are sold primarily for balot, developed embryonic eggs. One itik farm in Maahas has three itik buildings (maybe 900-square feet) where 2,000 eggs are produced daily. Balot that goe unsold are then sold as "day old" eggs. Baboy Ever popular and culturally important baboy (pigs) can mate at seven months old. When in heat, the pig's vaginal area becomes swollen and red and a barako (a male pig) can be hired for P300. Gestation is 114 days, and a 45 day old piglet can sell for P1200. Kambing Kambing (goats) are domesticated and are seen on the sides of roads, on the roads, and in fields eating anything. Kambing are eaten only on special occasions, like weddings, birthdays, and fiesta. Pusa & Aso I saw only a few pusa (cats) while in the Philippines, but numerous aso (dogs). Cats aren't very popular as pets because their so agile and can easily get food from atop a refrigerator and other places. Dogs in the province eat unwanted scraps of food rather than "dog food" because people are poor. It is probably because of this, that dogs aren't pets in same sense of a pet in the comparatively fat, ostentatious America, and it is unusual to see one being petted. It is also a rare sight to see a dog whose breed is identifiable in a place that is home to the universally thin, and some of the mangiest, dogs in the world. When they were growing up in Maahas, kambal would avoid walking in unfamiliar places out of fear that they might happen across hostile dogs. Prior to visiting the Philippines, our Filipino friends who had recently visited themselves warned us about the dogs and told us how to react to a charging dog. They said, "bend over as if to pickup a stone with which to throw at the dog and the dog will leave you alone." As it turned out, we didn't walk in the path of any dogs that did more than give a mean bark to us. Pulutan On occasion men will get together for informal, Friday-night drinking parties where pulutan is served. Pulutan is merely a snack, but the particular pulutan served at these drinking parties is sometimes dog meat. One of kambal's friends lives in a compound of sorts where one of the many dogs is reputed to have bitten several visitors. It is a wonder that one of the visitors haven't yet returned the favor and offered the transgressor to friends on a Friday night. Nature's Pets Ibon Young boys in Laguna can be seen walking through the streets with birds (often doves) which they have captured. These birds they throw into the air after a short time and then clap their hands to see if the bird will come back. Sabong In the Philippines, roosters can be seen, and heard everywhere attesting to the popularity of sabong (cockfighting and gambling on cockfighting). Cocks can fight at nine months old, but it is said to be best to wait until they mature to eighteen months-two years, the older the better. Men can be seen throughout the Philippines holding, stroking ther cocks. I saw one sabongero practicing with his cocks in this way: one cock was tied to the ground (as they often are to keep them from going astray) while he held another by the tail and let the second cock get close enough to the tied up one for both of their neck feathers to stand up (signifying aggression), but far enough away so they could not peck each other. Boxing, or practice sabong, is held on the street. The cocks have littel boxing gloves wherey they will someday have a tari, a razor-sharp blade, tied to the back of their talon. Bigger cocks always win so when the sabongeros match up their cocks before a fight, determining relative size is crucial. Cockfighting is held at a sabongan. The sabongan in Los Baņos is Lapiz Coliseum. Sabongeros are admitted free with their roosters. We were told by one of the spectators/gamblers that the American roosters, called Texas, are good at fighting on the ground, but the wild Tagalog roosters are better at fighting in the air so some say it is best to cross-breed the two to obtain the best fighting cock. Kristos take bets for big betters so the common better bets against each other and against the kristos. Betting usually begins at P50. In a fight, the cocks are taken apart up to two times when they have stopped fighting before the cock who stops pecking is declared the looser, but just as often the looser is the one who falls to the ground. The losing cock is boiled, dead or alive, and given to the winning sabongero to eat. The winning, injured cocks are sewn up in stalls behind the bleachers. (Sabong is the refuge of men, but hweteng, a lottery where two numbers are chosen, is played by both women and men). Barangay Society & Values A balangay is a row boat that is said to have brought many of the Malay people who populate the Philippines centuries ago. The word has been changed slightly over time to barangay which means "a community of people." The center of public administration in Los Baņos is at the bayan (town), but Los Baņos also consists of fourteen barangay. The largest barangay is Batong Malake (big stone). Its population is more than twice as large as any other single barangay. The University of the Philippines at Los Baņos is located in Batong Malake as is the principle market for the area. Because of its geographical importance, the junction of the Hi-way and the road leading to U.P. is referred to locally as "Johnson" (junction) and in Manila as "College." A barangay is simply a community, but this unit of a community is also the principal level on which social control rests. The barangay tanod manage barangay affairs, and conflicts, unless there are "casualties." The bayan police and municipal court of Los Baņos only get involved in extreme, rare cases. Barangay konsehals (male) or konsehalas (female) are elected officials responsible for forming policy. The konsehals in turn elect a barangay captain. The barangay tanod, or security force, are appointed by the captain and enforce the laws around-the-clock. Tsismis Two neighbors were spreading tsismis (gossip) about the pregnancy of a local woman. They were saying that the father of the unborn child was not the husband's, but the mother's lover. The husband and rumored lover retaliated with a bolo (machete) blow to the head of one sister removing part of her skull and a blow to the other sister's shoulder which partially maimed her arm. Both the women otherwise survived and the two men went into hiding. Hiya The PNP (Philippine National Police) I saw were generally much fatter than most people, seemed to have a haughty attitude, and looked more like glorified traffic managers than respected officials concerned with protecting society. It should be noted that the nature of the barangay as a community lends itself to a form of social control that relies on a concept known as hiya as much as it does on enforcement through the tanod or PNP. Hiya is what someone would feel if they violated the community standards and were discovered. It is shame. Similarly, someone who violates the community standards is said to be "walang hiya" (without shame). It is difficult to overemphasize the importance of the barangay. For Karen, who grew up in Maahas, the places of importance for her were first the home; then the barangay; followed by the school which may be outside the barangay, but through high school was always in Los Baņos; and finally Manila where goods can be purchased that are unavailable in the province, where relatives are, and where most of the colleges are. The importance of the barangay can also be illustrated in these other ways. A few of the young, entrepreneurial spirited men I spoke with said they planned on spending the rest of their lives in their barangay. Many of the people in Barangay Maahas are distantly related. When Karen and Kathy Cruz left Maahas at the age of eighteen they had thought it was a long distance from their house to the Hi-way which took them to locations outside of Maahas. The distance is probably less than two hundred yards. Instead of taking the Hi-way to a friend's house they would take a circuitous path that went behind their house (there are as many or more of these paths as there are roads and the barangay officials were preparing to cement them when we were about to leave with cement provided by the bayan). Karen and Kathy had two sets of barkada, or group of friends, there was the barangay barkada and the school barkada because they often attended school outside of Maahas. A river that runs through Maahas is known by no other name than ilog (river) though there are five rivers in Los Baņos. Family and community pressures may also help in strengthening the bonds of the barangay. Take, for instance, the warnings given to kambal not to stray into the "forest." There was a belief taught to the young girls that the villagers from a neighboring barrio named Bayog could turn you into stone if you looked into their eyes when walking on a certain foot-bridge that connects the two barrios. Sexuality, The Conservative Female and a Sexist Society Filipino joke: What is the softest part of a woman? The part that the bayag hits because it's an egg and it doesn't break. If Catholicism is seen everywhere in the Philippines (with the exception of the far south, especially Mindanao), then conservative sexual morays and sexism are also highly noticeable, usually. It is not uncommon to walk up to a sari-sari store or a karinderia, and see posters of half-naked women within several feet of a shrine. Ironically, magazines depicting women in the nude are illegal. School girls are typically seen in uniform dresses that extend to their knees. Other women, until recently, were rarely seen in Los Baņos wearing shorts. Now they may wear shorts, but the shorts are rarely short enough to hint at a woman's sexuality. Women's tops are equally conservative. When a Filipino friend of ours saw a puti, or white, woman at a beach wearing a bathing suit he commented seriously, "she's looking to get raped." Seeing a woman in a movie wearing a bathing suit is akin to seeing a naked woman in a movie in America. Filipino women swimming at the same beach as the puti that was commented on all wore t-shirts over their bathing suit tops. At a swimming pool resort, the local women all wore t-shirts and shorts. On the other hand, the conservatism is one-sided as is illustrated by the fact that it is not uncommon for men to frequent beer houses. There is also a term that is fairly unique to the Philippines, babaeros, which may be loosely translated as "playboy," but connotes something much stronger than the latter term when used in the U.S. A man may be a babaero merely because he has lots of girl friends, but no distinction is made between a married man with several girlfriends and a single man. Take the uncles of one woman: the eldest had three children with a woman other than his wife while he was married and several years separated the birth of the eldest from the youngest; the second uncle had a "second family" with at least one child; a third uncle had a child with a girlfriend while he was married as well. Their father was a father of one illegitimate child, then had seven children with his wife, followed by five additional children with his mistress. This family is not highly unusual for its philandering and Filipino Christian cultural traditions unwittingly foster such complicated family relations as these. Courtship The conservative side of Filipino society reveals itself in the pre-marriage years when a man courts a woman. This is the time when a woman is most valued in private relations and in the business sector where her employment is overtly solicited, "WANTED: single woman with a high school diploma." The boy is suppose to befriend the family of the girl he is interested in and seek their support in his goal to take out their daughter or sister. The suitor, with his friends, often performs a harana (serenades through song accompanied with a guitar) for the object of his affection. If the girl returns his sentiments she may agree to go out with him. It is considered improper for the couple to go out together alone at first, nor is it proper for the boy to touch the girl, even slightly, except when dancing or after they have both agreed to go "steady" as boyfriend-girlfriend. This belief of not touching the girl was so strict that a term, "chancing," was created for the act of trying to hold a girl's hand as the relationship grew. Polite Behavior The Philippines is a land where respect is shown to beggars as well as the elderly. When a beggar asks for money, they may be ignored but it is unusual for someone addressing them not to use the terms "po" and "ho" which are terms of respect usually reserved for those older than you. Another sign of respect is a "mano" where a person places the back of their respected family elder's hand to their slightly bowed head. In this very polite society it is at first confusing to hear the car-horn blowing which occurs with an annoying frequency. After observing the drivers though, you will notice that the act of honking in the Philippines is used more as a sign of warning and politeness on roads where slow tricycles ride along with very fast busses and the expressway where speeds range from a legal minimum of about 45 kpm to a maximum of about 90 kpm, rather than as a voice of anger, spite, or retribution as is often the case in the United States. Politeness in Filipino society is also present in the phrases they use which are never direct and are characteristically infused with humor. The Tagalog term for someone who is mayabang, or boastful, is often replaced with a more polite way of saying the same thing: "malakas ang dating," meaning "his/her arrival is strong." Then there is the softer way of saying "shut up," which is "tumigil ka," or "you stop" or "desist." A polite way to call someone a liar is: "Sa sampung sinabi niya labing-isa ang mali" which may be translated as: "Of the ten things he said, he made a mistake on eleven." Finally, if someone is trying hard to be noticed, you may hear someone else refer to that person as "k.s.p." (kulang sa pansin) which means that the person "lacks attention." Violence and Crime Security guards carrying shortened shotguns (that would do as much harm to innocent passers-by as to villains) and handguns seem out of place in a Filipino society that seems to be very tolerant and free of much of the crime that plagues the U.S. These guards and their weapons are seen inside and out of banks, restaurants (even the fast-food variety), and stores. It is normally a non-confrontational society, but the proverbial lid does blow off at times as was noted above in the tsismis story. Watch a typical television show in the Philippines and you will see one that is either extremely violent or illudes to violence just out of site of the viewer. The violence depicted in the movies are not limited to a few scenes, but are continuous throughout the movie. Conversely pornography is strictly restricted. A Day in Barangay Maahas Morning in Maahas At 3 a.m. the sound of the roosters, dogs and traffic announces a warning that the day will soon begin. A couple of hours later the sound is amplified and the inhabitants awaken to the smell of tinapay (freshly baked bread rolls) fill the air. Often the smell of basura burning in the air is added to it and within an hour or so it may be all you can smell. Small fires can be seen frequently in the early morning or late afternoon usually unattended, sometimes with kids playing with them. Never did I see a fire get out of control and catch the nearby brush. At one time this smoke was probably benign, but eventually plastic wrappings and containers have been added to this traditional and most common form of refuse disposal in the Philippines. Sometimes trash is burned near a tree in the hope that it will aid it in its growth. The unburned trash is afterward buried. In the dry season it is common to see trash in the stream beds of rivers with the trash trail leading up the bank to the location where it was dropped from up above. I saw one woman dumping her trash into the large lake of Laguna de Bay and wondered where she thought it might go. With the sole trash compactor and two dump trucks (provided by Japan) for an area of more than 66,000 people (according to a census taken five years previously in this rapidly growing area) it is no wonder that people have not stopped burning and burying their own trash. We did happen across a couple of community trash areas in two distinct provinces: one was on the side of the road outside of a principle residential area and another was a river just below a bridge. Filipinos seems to generate far less trash than their counterparts in the United States. My rough guesstimate would be that a Filipino household might take as long as a week to generate as much as an American household does in one day. The reason is probably more incidental than that Filipinos have to deal more directly with their own trash. I believe it has more to do with their consumption habits which are relatively minimal as well as a keen sense of value illustrated by the fact that coffee jars are commonly cleaned and recycled as drinking glasses in the provinces. Walang Tubig By 5:30 a.m. a small boy's voice can be heard as the child walks through the streets carrying a cardboard box full of the freshly baked rolls yelling "tinapoy! (tinapay). About an hour later, a man carrying two covered tin buckets, one at each end of a pull carried over his shoulder, walks through the barangay calling out "taho!...taho!" Taho is a warm, soupy drink made from caramel, tapioca, and soybean curd which is prepared while you wait and costs a mere P8 or two cups for P15. Mag Tataho Before you can enjoy your breakfast, you have to take a shower less it be too late. You turn on the shower and before you know it the steady stream turns into a trickle. The water pressure is all but gone on the second floor where the shower is because every one else in the area is up and showering as they prepare for school and work even though it is only 6:30 a.m. (walang tubig-no water). Many have already gone off to work. You use a tabo (a small cup often with a handle), dipping it into the basin that was filled with water just for such occasions and wet yourself before soaping , repeatedly dipping the tabo into the basin to rinse. You're upset at yourself for not getting out of bed earlier, not because it is easier to use the shower than the tabo which it it is, but because the water that comes from the faucet is warmer. There is only one faucet handle though, like many places in the Philippines, but this is Los Baņos where the tap water is naturally heated by volcanic aquifers. Because the water pressure has dropped you can only flush the toilet one more time in this house before the water pressure builds up. Bahay The construction on this house is still incomplete, but it is more modern than most because the owners are successful entrepreneurs. Most of the homes in the province are simple, open-air, made partly of cement (the more expensive homes at least), use wood extensively, have very nice tile work, and some even have impressively carved front doors. the owners of this home have used decorative wrought iron around the windows and the stair banister. They have a cellular phone for their business which is located on the first floor, but no other phones. It is still unusual for people living in the province to own phones, but their are many more than there had been a short nine years earlier. Now there are phones in many businesses and some homes (we only saw telephones in the homes of the wealthier families we visited, and in a couple of homes where japayuki [see section below] lived). The toilets in many homes consist only of a toilet bowl-some without seats which isn't a problem because Filipinos squat naturally-with a faucet next to it and a basin beneath the faucet. This basin is filled for kaw-kaw, washing your puwit after you defecate and for refilling the toilet bowl using a tabo. Often times there is no sink. In the poorer home there may be a sink in the kitchen but none in the bathroom nor a shower, only a faucet for filling the basin with several tabo nearby. In these households there is usually a water pump outside either for that one particular house or for several households where water is used to shower or gathered for the individual households. In Barangay Bucal, Calamba people can be seen on the side of the road washing themselves and their clothes, and swimming in the bucal (a small, natural spring). The bucal is bordered by the Hi-way on one side and railroad tracks on the other. Homes fill in the foreground of the landscape and rice fields extend into the background as you look towards the bucal from Hi-way. The houses on either side of the train tracks encroach to within five meters designating them as squatter housing on public land. These are simple houses. Almost all are entirely wooden homes, and you will even see a water pump with a small group of children playing as they wash can be seen here. Here the sabong is an impromptu gathering, the coliseum is too far and besides it has an admission price for those without fighting cocks. You might happen across two boys carrying a rooster in the direction you came from. The say they are going to have them fight. Tindahans & Sari-Sari Stores Early in the morning, people can be seen sweeping in front of their homes or business with a walis ting-ting, or watering down the dirt to keep the dust from traffic down to a minimum. Most of these businesses outside of the town proper are sari-sari stores or some other kind of tindahan. Tindahan is a generic term for a market or store. A sari-sari store is a tindahan, but tindahan refers to stores other than sari-sari stores as well. Pan de sal tinapay is sold for 50 centimos each at a tindahan. Other goods often found at a tindahan include a small bag of yelo (ice for roughly eight glasses) for P1, a small bag of charcoal good for cooking at one mealtime for P2, and a 500 ml Coke for P9 the deposit for which is P2. Prutas In addition to the well known guava, papaya, pineapple, and banana, the Philippines is home to a variety of fruit that is an important part of the Filipino diet and are available at numerous tindahans. Duhat is a purple-colored fruit, very similar to a grape, but it doesn't grow in bunches, and has a large seed. Guyabano is a large spiky-skinned fruit with sweet white meat. Jackfruit is large (it's about the size of a watermelon) with a hard, spiky shell. Kalamansi is a small green citrus similar to lemon, but milder. Filipinos often use kalamansi with soy sauce to dip Tilapia, or some other fish, into before eating. Kamias is a yellow-green fruit that grows in clumps, is sour and tastes similar to a pickle, aand is used to whiten and remove stains from clothes and dishes. Lanzones tastes similar to grapes though they have a bit more citrusy taste to them. Rambutan is a deep red colored fruit with thick, hairy looking growth covering it. It is larger than a duhat and its white meat is very sweet. Santol is a sour, orange-colored fruit with fuzz on its thick skin similar to a peach, and it is rounder than an apple. Tsico tastes something like spiced wine, and the meat has a texture similar to that of bruised meat of an apple. Karinderia A karinderia is an eatery that is simpler than a restaurant, and may or may not have seating for customers. The food sold at a karinderia is usually kept in covered pots and is poured into plastic bags for take-out. Food at a karinderia is the basic food of all Filipinos: ulam and kanin. Kanin is simply rice and ulam is the food eaten with rice. At one, average karinderia, the price for vegetable ulam was P10, ulam was P10, ulam with meat was P15, and kanin was P5. By contrast, a meal for two at Jollibee Restaurant, the largest fast-food chain in the Philippines, was a little more than P100. A similar meal at McDonalds would be more than twice that much. Many street-side table vendors sell snacks such as fish-balls; barbecued chicken intestines, chicken feet, chicken and pork; empanadas; and drinks. Paaralan Maahas Elementary School Whereas in an urban center in America you might see throngs of women in dresses and men in alike suits rushing to their offices, in the barangay, early in the morning, there are groups of children more than any other kind of person walking, waiting for a jeepney or tricycle on their way to paaralan(school). Once at school they will do their morning exercises, at some schools they will say their prayers, and then perform their morning exercises before beginning classes. Here is the Panatang Makabayan or Oath of a Nationalist that is recited during the flag ceremony:
When Karen and Kathy were in grade school, the students were expected to return early from lunch about once a month to clean their wooden school desks with an as-is leaf. As-is is a very coarse, wide leaf of a common bush, and functions similarly to a man-made pot scrubber. Classes are all taught in English except for Pilipino class which is taught in Tagalog. We were told that there was a goal in place to replace English with Pilipino (Tagalog) as the language of instruction by the end of the decade. Students graduate from high school when they are sixteen-years of age and then go on to college, often away from home. Because of this it is often considered the age when children become adults. Trabaho Sa Araw The official minimum wage is less than Peso 200 for an 8-hour-day (we were told P180=US$7.20 by one individual and P147=US$6.16 by another), but it is questionable how strictly this law is adhered to. I saw two young boys, probably about eight-years old, sitting with their shirts off at the edge of a pile of charcoal. They were filling small plastic bags with the charcoal for sale. I asked Karen to ask them if I could video tape them, but they said "no." As we walked on they put their t-shirts on and tried to clean themselves up a little bit without anyone telling them. Walking along the beach in Atimonan we came across a group of people taking in a lambat (fishnet). The man who owns the pond rights hires the community to help pull in boliunao fish. The helpers are given the smaller fish that are brought in first and the owner is given the later, larger fish found in the belly of the lambat (fishnet). A labandera can be hired to wash your laundry at a rate of about P150 for a day's work, soap included. A private driver for one of their friends earns P300-a-day (US$12) or P800-a-day when he has to rent a jeepney for hauling products. A carpenter, hired by this same businessman, earns P120 (US$4.80)-a-day for his labor. Having grown up in America and seeing men using hammers and chisels instead of jackhammers to break up cement, or man using a hand-saw while doing some pier work in place of an electric saw was indicative of work in the Philippines. But so was seeing men at a jeepney repair shop taking a lunch break well beyond two hours so they could have a nap after eating their lunch. Being aware of these work situations it is obvious that labor laws in the Philippines are secondary to the necessity to have enough to eat and a place to sleep, and that the values-for better and worse-of the western work ethic and consumerism have not yet completely caught on. It will probably be much, much longer before signs soliciting bading (slang for a gay male) and single women, below a certain age with high school diplomas, become a less common sight. A small list of the professions of Karen and Kathy's neighbors, classmates and barkada who all work in the Laguna Province provides as sampling of job opportunities there: an agricultural machines manufacturer, owner of a retail muffler supplies and installation shop, and agricultural machinery and car spare parts retailer; an agricultural technician who tests for the affects of radiation on plants and soil; bank tellers; a supervisor at a Honda Motors factory in Laguna Province; a computer data input clerk; a dental supplies wholesaler; a female dentist; a fish farmer; a fruits retailer; sometime entertainers in Japan (japayuki-see below); an operator of a jeepney service (he drives children to and from school); a jeepney repair mechanic; an owner of a jeepney repair shop, sometime piggery owner, and landlord; a quilt wholesaler who employs about a dozen seamstresses; a street-side restaurant owner; and a grade school teacher. Nighttime in Maahas As the sun sets on Maahas, the Hi-way in the direction leading to bayan and Manila thickens and the birds in the sky are replaced with a solitary bat flying here and there. A man walks through town crying out , "balot," (see above) which he sells for P6. Dinner is served by a maid or the mother, who eat last, and always includes kanin (rice). Afterwards, men gather together with their barkada and drink San Miguel beer while they talk while the women tsismis (gossip) and watch television. Afterwards, they may go together to a beer house for more beer and casual sex. Trabaho Sa Gabi Beer Houses It's dark now and the tricycle or jeepney passes by several street vendors whose stands are made more visible with gaas-(kerosene) lighted bottles or cans. The vehicle stops in front of "85" a beer house. In the Philippines bars are distinct from beer houses. A bar is where you would go to drink alak (alcohol, the favorite being San Miguel beer which sells for a mere P9 a bottle), whereas a beer house is where men go to drink alak but primarily for companionship with the other sex. Beer houses aren't allowed in Barangay Maahas, but they are allowed in Barangay San Antonio. There are two such beer-houses just at the border of Maahas and San Antonio. At "85" the interior is sparse. There is a jukebox and booths and a dance floor. The women are not very attractive, but it is dark and after a few beers most men that come to this place don't care. No strip shows are put on here, but for P600-650 ($24-$30) a man can have an intimate time with one of the women. Beer Houses Catering to Tourists We learned that most of the international tourists to Calamba and Los Baņos, where numerous swimming resorts are located, are from Korea, though at Pagsanjan Falls there were said to be many tourists from Taiwan and Japan. We saw less than twenty puti (white people) in Manila, Laguna, or Quezon Province, but we did see more puti tourists (primarily German and Australian men) than any others at Puerto Galera where the two principle attractions seemed to be scuba diving and procuring young filipina prostitutes. I first began feeling uneasy on the boat ride from Batangas to Mindoro when I noticed two European men in their late 50's to 60's with a filipina who was at least fifteen years younger than either of them. Dressed in tank tops or t-shirts and shorts the pot-bellied men were obvious tourists. We had been persuaded to take a trip to a beach resort area on the northern end of Mindoro by a friend of friends instead of taking a lengthier and more expensive trip to the Visayas. One night we got dinner at a simple, more local oriented restaurant and we noticed that the young woman (18 years-old or younger) was talking to another young woman about the same age. The woman sitting down began talking to us, and shortly told us that she used to be a companion (prostitute) for European men that came to a nearby bar, but was now planning on marrying a German man whom she communicated with in English. She explained that the women usually would get a male patron after 10:00 p.m. She then pointed out her friend who was working at the restaurant we were at and proclaimed that she would could not work at the bar because the European men only liked ugly filipinas like herself. I, who was coincidentally the only puti in our group, thought she was more attractive than the one she called her better though everyone else in our group agreed with her judgment that she was ugly when we discussed the matter later. She was darker and more "ethnic" looking than the restaurant employee who looked more mestizo. The following night, a group of us, male and female, went to one of the bars at our beach town where there was a strip show. It seemed as if we could see all the puti we had seen during the day in one place that night, but this was only one of about three or four bar-strip clubs. The woman (some were quite young) would dance on a stage with a pole at either end of a long rectangular center stage and strip down to their underwear, sometimes pulling their panties down halfway to reveal a g-string. A short while after we had been there, we noticed that one of the dancers looked particularly familiar and soon realized it was the restaurant worker we had spoken to the previous night. She danced fairly well, but the signals she kept giving another dancer with her eyes and hands, and the way she laughed before she made a special move, it appeared that it was her first time stripping in public. Karen and I saw her again the next morning with a small boy. Work Overseas In addition to the professions listed above, Karen and Kathy had friends working overseas where incomes were higher than in the Philippines even after paying for the travel expenses, agents in some cases, and accounting for the higher costs of living. They had friends and family working in Saudi Arabia, Japan, and Hong Kong. Some working in office environments and some as domestic helpers, while those working in Japan had been entertainers at one time though a couple had been married and later worked in factories there. At the time of a visit in 1995, Taiwan had become a new place of opportunity in place of Hong Kong for people seeking jobs overseas. Japayuki
The last song was sung to me by two pre-pubescent girls in Laguna. They had learned it from their half-sister upon her return from work in Japan. Japayuki is a derogatory term for Filipinas working as "entertainers" in Japan. The common belief in the Philippines is that filipinas who worked in Japan do so as prostitutes. This view may seem simplistic for people who define prostitution as sexual intercourse for hire because employment for filipinas in Japan is often very sexual without requiring them to have sexual intercourse with a customer. I've met two japayuki in the Philippines (both of which said they worked as hostesses in Japan) and some at a hostess club in Japan who describe their job similarly to the way this woman, an American anthropologist (Nightwork, Anne Allison) who worked as a hostess in Japan as part of her research, describes some aspects of the profession: Not only does the hostess attend to the oral desires of the men as individuals-keeping their cigarettes lit and their drinks replenished-but she attends to the oral desires of the men as a group-keeping them involved as a unit through speech and song. Besides supplying functional lubrication to a group, the hostess flatters the men in a more personal, individualized way. During my observations it often took the form of constant, exaggerated compliments: "You sing so well"; "You're very handsome"; "I bet you could make love all night long"; "You're the best joke teller I've ever met"; "What a gorgeous tie you have on!" Anne Allison explains that it is the "notion of service that persuades men to pay three, four, or five times as much for a drink in a club as the drink would cost if they bought a bottle at a store" (the patron pays for the hostess's drinks as well and an exorbitant fee for the time spent at his table as well). What Allison goes onto explain is that the service includes sexual banter where the male ego is always cultivated and, from her Freudian (nominally Marxist-Feminist) analytical viewpoint, the hostesses are demeaned as women by the Japanese men who feel psychologically inferior to woman based on the overpowering influence their mothers have had in their lives. She supports her analysis with these observations of hostess life: Three men who had been drinking at that club approached her. They did not know the hostess, but as they passed, one reached out and patted her breast, without a murmur or even a glance. The men kept moving, but they laughed together loudly. The woman had no visible reaction; no words, no facial response, no protest. The encounter had lasted only a few second. While touching can include other parts and involve a more prolonged feeling or pawing, these short, ritualized pats to the breast were by far the most pervasive form of male touching at [the club]. Although some of the things customers say about the hostess's body can be overtly crude as well as rude-"Your vagina looks wide"; "Do you wear underpants? Are they made of paper?" or "Maybe you're not even a woman-your breasts are so small"-such remarks are made into a tone that doesn't appear intended to insult and doesn't appear to be taken as insulting by the hostess. Allison believes that what transpires in the hostess club is a uniquely Japanese thing. Men go there and pay exorbitant fees from the company expense account. Her estimation that the goal of a man at the club is to relax from the constraints imposed upon him at the office and in Japanese society. One of these constraints is that put upon men sexually. A hostess club is not primarily sexual though, there are many alternatives for sexual fulfillment in Japan that are more direct and less expensive than the hostess club. In his book, Underground in Japan, a Filipino named Rey Ventura who himself worked in Japan as a dock worker and experienced the community of Filipinos in Japan that he wrote about, relates a strip-sex show he witnessed in Japan where the strippers were Japanese, Korean, and Filipino. Part of the show involved allowing members of the audience to have sex with one of the strippers on stage, "the cheapest available intercourse in Japan." This is how he explains the attitude of Filipinos towards japayuki (using himself) as well the japayuki's shame for her own actions: ...it would be shameful, for myself and for my country, to see her publicly fucked...it was obvious that the Filipina didn't like being seen at work by her compatriots. The sense of shame that japayuki shows that hiya is not only confined to the barangay. The women I met at a hostess club in Japan were all very nervous around me after they knew that my wife was a filipina. They immediately told each other and expressed their shame over what they were doing for me being there, at their club, merely because I was married to a filipina. When asked the extent to which their job requirements required them to perform sex with customers (why else feel shame?), the japayuki I have spoken with universally denied they had sex with customers, though they equally universally said that others did. Anne Allison, in her work, as well as some japayuki I have spoken with say that a hostess can get fired for having sex with a customer, but one japayuki told me that the club owner disliked her because she wouldn't have sex with customers, implying that she was bad for business. It seems that in most cases, hostesses are not expected to have sex with customers but that the line they crossed in coming to Japan for work and the money they earn makes it more and more plausible with every new night during their six-month contract. Here is more about what Rey Ventura had to say about filipinas in Japan: If the Japanese see a Filipina in their country, they automatically assume that she's on the job [working as a prostitute]. In fact not all of them are. Some are maids for foreigners. Some have married farmers [ usually after meeting their future husband while working in Japan]. Many are legitimate entertainers, waiting in bars, singing to the karaoke when requested. A few are students. Nevertheless, many of the girls who go out as entertainers end up as prostitutes, and many others know exactly what the deal is from the start. Most prostitution in Manila caters for [sic] Filipinos rather than foreigners. Girls working in this area would naturally be attracted by the thought that they can earn in one day in Japan what would take them a month in Manila. So they go to the so-called "Dance Studios" and "Promotion Agencies" which operate throughout the main cities of the Philippines. There they get fixed up with jobs as "cultural dancers" or "artistes", for a "budget" of between $300 and $800 a month, according to their beauty and abilities. Naturally this is an exploitation wage. The rest is made up by prostitution. Maynila After seeing Intramuros, Malacaņang Palace, Recto, Edsa, Ermita, Pasay City, Las Piņas, and Mutinlupa I was left with these few, direct comments: dirty, overcrowded, smelly, smoggy, and showing a general lack of concern for tourism as well as an apparent lack of cultural pride. Busses Buses are the typical form of transportation from the provinces of Luzon to Manila. The comfort of these busses varies widely and some come equipped with a television for the showing of a current video movie. The cost of one company's air-conditioned bus for a 63 kilometer ride from the province to Manila is P35 (Peso25-30 for no "air-con"). Busses have both a driver and a conductor, who collects money and hands out tickets. The conductor is also responsible for packing the bus with as many people as is humanly possible. The seats are often designed for an average Filipino (to sit but not necessarily comfortably) so where there are three seats across, three Filipinos are expected to sit whether or not they are average size. In addition to the filling of these seats the aisles are to be filled to capacity with standing riders who pay full fare. Poverty At a pier where a boat was preparing to launch there were about a dozen young children swimming in the water waiting for the non-Filipino tourists to throw small change and small bags of junk food to them. Entering Manila by car or bus, one of the first things you may notice is the squatter housing. The houses are made of wood that that seems, in some cases, to be put together haphazardly because the wood is not uniform. Many of them have the look of buildings that were made with whatever wood materials could be found over a length of time. Unlike poor homes in the provinces, squatter homes in Manila are crammed together in abandoned land, overhanging Pasig River, or encroaching dangerously close to the railroad tracks. Coming from the United States, I was surprised even after being forewarned, that the beggars in the Philippines are not your average bum seen in urban America. It is a rarity to see amongst the beggars an abled body man or woman. Instead you see old people begging for anything, a peso or even less will do (a P25=$1.00). Dirty, barefoot boys and girls walk up to cars at traffic stops and place their face and open hand against the car windows. They don't ask for money and then move on if rejected, instead they wait until empathy for their plight sinks in, the window is rolled down, and some change is placed in the boy or girl's hand. You walk past a site where a building was demolished and playing in the rubble is a group of young children. This is their playground. One day in Manila, I saw two young boys. The younger one was maybe five-years old and completely naked. They were walking around on the center divider which separated traffic going in opposite directions, and was planted with grass, bushes and trees. I watched them long enough to see the older one seemed to be trying to get a piece of fruit from a tree with a stick but it was out of reach. Adoption Tita Ofe adopted a young girl, informally. The girl was getting old enough that it would have been difficult for her to be adopted, but informal adoptions are not unusual in the Philippines where unwanted pregnancies are high and the financial burden is often severe. This girl began stealing money from a "change" jar that Ofe's daughter had and was given a warning not to do it. Despite subsequent warnings she continued to steal the money to buy things for her friends. Tita Ofe also owned a tricycle that she rented out for income. She kept the money in a box and soon that money was disappearing too so the little young girl was asked to return to her family. Rosemarie is eleven-years old. She is the sixth of Nejellia and Canuto's ten children. Canuto had eight additional children with his previous wife. Rosemarie's father lost part of one of his legs apparently from some medical condition. Her mother does what she can, but it isn't enough. Rosemarie was informally adopted by a couple who own a karinderia (eatery) in the same barangay, and have four children of their own. Rosemarie is not treated exactly as a member of the family, and it would be difficult for her to accept her adopted family as family because her natural family is nearby. She visites the, and sometimes two of her sisters even visit her at her adopted family's home above the karinderia. The important thing is that Rosemarie is one less person that needs to be housed, fed, clothed and provided for in other such ways. Rosemarie is pretty fortunate because she doesn't even have to do chores though her adoptive mother could probably use her help at the karinderia. In a country as poor as the Philippines, these sort of adoptions seem to be fairly common. They are a necessity. Rosemarie is clearly better off than her two sisters that I saw her with. They were hungrier, their general hypiene appeared poorer, and their clothing was clearly inferior. What was difficult to understand was why she wanted to be adopted by another family. She mentioned that a white couple had once met her and considered adopting her, but that she couldn't speak English well enough to articulate her desire to be adopted so nothing happened. When she met me, it was clear that she thought I might be able to take her to America. Is it her desire to have a more secure life that makes her yearn for an adoption by a foreign family or is it just a desire for more "material comforts" that many Filipinos are in search of in what is labeled a "developing society?" |