Diary 26

Professor Asuncion's death affected me in a way I could not comprehend. If I were still a struggling student, I guess his death would only be a passing news to me, not even worthy of a prayer. If there was anything I learned in Manila, it was the impact of poverty in one's soul. Poverty simply consumes you with acquisition of basic necessities - food, clothing, house. These were the only things you think about everyday. Academics, health, looks, romance, friendships, everything else become secondary. And that would explain the ugliness in the city, it would appear to an observer that its population have no sense of art, civilization, and sanitation. It would seem that the people have no sense of style in clothing, in poise, kinetics. They seem to have no self-respect and are contented with "barely passing" things. That is true, and, unfortunately, that could not be attributed to character but to economics. Manila was a city occupied by a majority of poor people. No matter how much the leaders would like to create a city of beauty and taste and culture, the reality would not allow that. Everything was ugly because the concern of the people was basic. It was the milk to feed a crying infant. It was the roof to replace the old roof full of holes. It was the blanket, any blanket, or the mat, any mat, to sleep with. A poor people would not get worried about the image of the city. Only the rich worry about those.

That's why I was affected by Professor Asuncion's death. I was not affected merely by his death but I was affected by the fact I was affected by his death. I would not get interested in the old Professor were I still a poor student. But because I was well-provided for, well-fed, sufficiently supplied with all my daily needs, my concern went beyond the basic. Suddenly I mourned the loss of one of the most intelligent professors in the Philippines. Suddenly, I was sensing something different about the city. I was discovering that there were still Filipinos full of sense in this city of corruption and poverty and stupid politics. Trouble was, they were so full of sense that they found it fruitless to even participate in the daily life of the city. It was futile. But in my brief stint with rich life, I realized that Manila is not a hopeless city. It just did not know how to go about doing its business right, did not know to use the right people. These thoughts drove me into depression.

To avoid depression, I joined Mikael in his house at Dasmarinas where we experimented with liquor. His family was in Switzerland so we had complete freedom. We treated ourselves in his father's bar, mixing Chivas and chocolate, beer and Coca cola, whisky and scotch, orange juice and rum. As night deepened, we could no longer tell the differences among our concoctions. Mikael's character was further unraveled in his drunkenness. "So the Catholic is drunk," I teased.



THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MIKAEL



"Catholicism is my wall from this society," he said. "Religion can be a very good shield, like a weapon, like fire to keep those lurking animals at bay. With it they could not touch me."

"Why do you keep people away?" I asked. I was sitting on one of the bar stools, leafing through Agriculture Today, the magazine which his father, the pioneer of rubber cultivation in the Philippines, edited.

He sighed deeply. "I don't keep people away. I choose those who'd become my friends. And I chose you becasue when I compare myself with you and the others who barely survive in this city, you seem to remind me of my life's excesses, and guilt overcomes my heart. My family was very poor before, to tell you the truth. My father had to work hard to acquire a scholarship at UP until the Marcoses offered him to study in Malaysia. When he returned, he was the star consultant of all agribusiness people who were shifting to rubber as main crop. You know, he never enjoyed his popularity or his hard earned knowledge. Every time I see him, sitting in his study room, declining all social invitations because he cannot cope up with the lifestyles of the rich, I pity him. When I was still a young boy, while we were fishing down at Banqueruan in the banks of Pampanga, he always reminded me to stand by my true heritage. I asked him what he meant by that . . . He said our heritage belongs to a poor farming family in the backwoods of Santo Domingo. And I should never forget that.

"My father is so used to poverty he did not know what to do when blessed with sudden wealth. He could not forsake his poverty. He is one of those who keeps one leg in a mansion, the other in a beggar's house.

"In this country, our destinies are predestined, resigned to a future that was exclusively allotted to us. Once born poor, expect to die poor. Once born rich, expect to die rich. If in our lives we switch, from either side of the coin, just like my father, we don't know what to do."

"And you my friend, you. You keep me on my toes. You are what my father would love me to have for a friend. You will remind me of my true heritage. That thing called poverty."

So there, to Mikael, I was the poster boy of poverty, a reminder of low-life. But that was Mikael, someone who created ideals in his own mind and subjecting the world into those ideals. He could be an honest man but could also became a dictator if needed.

That was why he was so different from the other rich people I've met before. Everything he did served a purpose. A purpose in studying, a purpose in Catholic movement, a purpose in choosing me. To achieve each purpose, he followed a rigid procedure based on organization, order, and black or white principles. A control freak, he detested mystery and marvelous. What was unexplained must be explained. His life's conclusions carried finality.

"You are a perfectionist." I reminded him.

"A perfectionist does not believe in perfection. Perfection is an unachievable ideal, everyone should be striving for it until he dies. It is infinite."

He tended to make sure he had the final word on all things, enough to make him such a bore in conversations.

I stopped as the silence of the night made us sleepy. I could hear nothing the ticking of the clock. And my mind wandered through our short-lived friendship, the thoughts we shared, the mountains we climbed . . . We occasionally left the city and climbed the mountains of Southern Manila, mountaineering was an addiction to him. He found ultimate ecstasy in reaching peaks and once there, looked down to survey the landscape below.

"I love to see the world in its entirety. Look at Manila - see its shape and flatness. I just want to hold it in my arms, and chisel it to perfection."

Our opinions differed. I saw Manila from the top as marvelous, awesome, breathtaking city. I added depth to what was shallow; beauty to what was ordinary; purity in imperfection. I was, after all, an open - ended person. I was open to all possibilities.

Just in time we were about to fall asleep, Mikael jumped and whispered excitedly: "Lets see Manila tonight."

We roamed Manila streets that I was so used to by now. I heard him sigh at the pitiful sights - in the night, the forsaken people were visible. Homeless kids slet side by side, like sardines in cans. Prostitutes had spread their wings like little girls. Mothers moaned and groaned in hunger. Their infants were too hungry to cry. "These are the views that pull me closer to God," he murmured. "I believe there is a God who will bring order to this. The problem with us Filipinos is our reliance on fate; we miss direction; we simply exist in a jumble, like moths creeping around a corpse until we metamorphose into some flies. In maturing, we discover to our surprise, that we've wasted too much time in creeping round and round. But too late, we've ran out of time; so we shrug our shoulders and say, to hell with life . . . lets enjoy our few remaining years and die. If I were to be given a chance . . . "

And we walked while I listened to his monologue on how to overhaul the entire country. Not realizing he was all dreaming and punching air.

I did not counter him. For me, beauty rises out of chaos. You don't correct chaos, you let it go on and on until it achieves its own sense of order.



THE INITIATION



"No!" Mig screamed at me.

"Don't yell at me," I retorted. "I'm trying my best."

"I told you, walk slower." I slowed my pace, ready to give up the goddamn catwalk practice. "Imagine yourself as a landowner surveying his land - leisurely." I did. But it wasn't enough.

"How slow do you want it to be?"

"As slow as greeting every tenant along your way. For goodness sake take that smirk off your face."

"That's not slow walking, it's stopping every now and then."

"Don't philosophize with me."

I've had enough! It's been four hours since I began working on my model's walk and posture. I was not making any progress. How does a landowner greet his tenants leisurely? I bet he'd be careful.

Mig orders me again. "Okay, think you're Clint Eastwood who just killed a bunch of losers. Walk like you needed a shot in the saloon."

Imagine that. I gave up.

I wasn't ready for this. I was not meant for this. I've been brought up in a village and farm. Where I came from, walking was a way of getting from here to there, who cared about style?

In the past four hours, I did not grasp what Mig was trying to tell me. How could a different style of walk make money God only knew. I felt dizzy turning over and over. All over the place, sweating and now my knees wanted to buckle. I didn't really understand what Mig wanted me to do.

In the following days, this was all I did - Proceed to Mig's saloon, drop all my stuff and start walking, walking, walking, like a lunatic. Sometimes, I broke down to laugher. "You mean to tell me this walk will lead me to a job?"

"Of course." He mentioned foreign names that made millions by simply walking. In dollars. Hell, if it's all true, it must still be a hard job. I figured that by this time, I could have reached China by foot. And I haven't made a cent!

By the second week, Mig was getting less demanding. I was improving. "You learn fast," he said. It was arduous, but even when I raised my hands in exasperation, I walked on. I was desperate.

So desperate I practiced alone without Mig knowing it. When everyone in the apartment complex was quiet, I'd rise up from my bed and start pacing inside the room, until my legs hurt. I'd stretch my legs, tiptoe for hours, turn until dizzy, walk on heels, walk flat footed, anything; even when my groins hurt. I got better when alone. It was my nature.

I began to see the good intentions of Mig the longer we worked. He did not take me as a toy, or a slave. This was a mission for him, to push me up. He said he was the gay Mother Theresa. Instead of the rosary, he carried a dryer and a pair of scissors. He did not ask me to bed again. Thank God.



So far so good. I was making progress. My two connections were not bad at all. Mig and Mikael were becoming my best friends. This morning, I told Mikael about my intentions of joining the Male Model Search. Far from getting excited, he warned me.

"What? Are you crazy? That's a fag business."

For the first time, he hinted his homophobic attitude. I could understand and respect him for that. I played innocent and uncaring. I knew better. I was running out of options. My poverty was driving me to anything, including the "fag business". Mikael at one point tried to help me out. He recommended some Construction jobs through his father but these required me to drop my scholarship and college. Besides, working in Construction under the scorching sun would tickle Thea to death.

Ah, speaking of Thea . . . she was very quiet recently. Her family connections could have successfully deported the foreign scout who did not pick her as the Filipina International Model but the chosen model, Margarita Dizon, was smarter than what Thea thought. Miss Dizon hooked up with another Marcos crony, offered her body, and off she went to New York. Margarita Dizon, the ethnic beauty from Visayas was adored by foreign designers. She made headways in the fashion world. Last week, Margarita Dizon became the toast of Milan and Paris. Poor Thea's neurosis intensified out of anger. Now more than ever, she was suspicious of every Provincial person in the city. She was more determined in persecuting them. That included me.

"What kind of models do we showcase to the world?" her quacking voice rose above the crowd one day. "All this ethnicity and Provincial looks take away the looks of Spain and the US from Manila. The mestiza should remain the face of the city. What happened to heritage?"

She was overheard by another student who did not hesitate to mince words. "Because your mestiza look is found every day in the US and Spain washing dishes, sweeping roads, and changing diapers in Nursing Homes."

"By the way, when will you ever accept that you are a midget?"

That made her livid.

The days of white, pointed nose, blonde hairs were over. Valentino and Ungaro were after the different, the unique.

Jokes about her spread in the campus everyday. The new one was that she went to Hongkong to "service" a Chinese billionaire. The disappointed billionaire paid her a meager five thousand Hongkong dollars for being so lousy. One time she went to Paris to try international modeling. Refused by all the designers, she got mad, took off all her clothes and sat on one of the props men. She was designated the Ambasadress of Puk-puk of the Philippines. She paid a hefty sum to get her considered by Ford Modelling Agency - Eileen said: I've been to the Philippines, I could not imagine a short Filipina like you could appear so petite on top and so expansive below.

These rumors did not fail to reach the ears of the elites in social circles. They pressured the Valenzuelas to immediately clean up the dirt. Behind closed doors, the amused donas, their faces hidden behind abanicos, whispered more horrible stories about Thea, while their husbands, in nasal tones, discussed their horny desires of "hiring her services" for a night. Panicking, the Valenzuelas tried cleaning up her image to regain her position as the baby darling of Manila, but to no avail.



I've probably mentioned this before, but it was worth repeating - there was nothing ethnic about me, even so, nothing was wrong with ethnic Filipino. I was a mixed breed of Caucasian-ethnic ancestry, ergo, mestizo, like Thea. The heat of the sun in my father's farm had given me a nice tan, which made me look more colored. Some said my skin was cafe-au-lait. In fact, this was Frank's comment the first time he saw me. Frank was the force behind the Male Model Contest. This was at the time of my first interview.

What in the world was cafe-au-lait?

I gave a charming smile, a knowing smile.

Mig gave me these last pointers: A few words, be polite, be sexy, use the bedroom stare, and walk like a prince. Nervous, I completely forgot all of these. But I was taken in anyway.

Becasue I slept with Frank.

"Oh God. My God. I'm so desperate!" I said to myself afterwards.

It was devastating to follow the norms of this city. Mig told me not to worry if I failed, there were other options in store for me. Show business, hotel modeling, print models . . . just don't sell cheap. But there I was, ready and willing. I reasoned that sleeping with another man was nothing. How did I hit my luck in the first place? Didn't I sleep with Mig? Frank was so careful, so tactful, so . . . detached during our sex. Like he was doing me a big favor. I was so embarrassed. I was scared to fail. I thought that by sleeping with him, I would be assured of a place in the competition. I lacked the connection needed to win . . . there was no clean winner in this country everything was done under the table . . . I didn't have money . . . I wanted to get even with Thea . . . I wanted to belong . . . but why was I so depressed?

On the night of the competition, I nearly stumbled on the steps, the fitter forgot to zip my pants, I've forgotten the catwalk. My heart sank. But my spirit forbid me to surrender. I bowed my head and concentrated, reminding myself that I've been through so much humiliation and shame already; I've been in bed with two men, what more would I lose?

Be brave, I told myself . . . when the spotlights beamed and the cameras flashed, the place turned into complete whiteness . . . I stopped and posed to look for anything familiar. I saw nothing recognizable; the heads that looked at me turned into blobs. I knew I was alone. It all came back . . .

The images of my youth, when my father stripped me naked in front of the barrio people came rushing in my memory. The pain of this memory struck me like a knife. My imagination came pouring in. My imagination was my dependable savior . . . my imagination turned the blobs in front of me into flowers, the lights into candles, the music into a canticle of Dios Te Salve. Tonight, I would kill my past.







Alex Maskara