Diary 30

FACELESS ADONIS



"The face behind the mask is mysterious," the radio commentator began. "Who is this new face? He is not the model Roberto Policarpio who is too slim. He is not Muslim Maranao who has been fired due to questionable background. I am telling you, this new mask, this new face, this new model is the latest wonder of Manila fashion. A face on top of a perfect face, he walks like a god, he possesses the skin of a warrior. He glides like a bird soaring in air. A reminder of Zorro. He is the son of an aristocratic family in Cebu, hiding from the wrath of his father; the shy heir too proud to work, the only reason he chose this is to fulfill his art."

"Buuull shit!" Thea Valenzuela cursed. "How can these people fool the city? That damn Faceless Adonis is the same guy recycled. Believe me, he will be exposed one day. People are not that gullible, you know."

She was right and wrong. The people knew deep inside that Faceless Adonis was the same as Muslim Maranao and Roberto Policarpio. I was a recycled personality. But who cared? The people loved the idea! They bought the spells and magic and mystery around me. They fell for my reincarnations and self-inventions.

That, afterall, is the spirit of Manila. Manila thrives on fantasies due to lack of anything worthwhile to do or to image-conscious nature of its citizens. Really, there is always a tendency to believe in magic in the city. Manila Magic means instant gratification, instant success, instant change, instant hocus-pocus, abracadabra, open sesame, super-super man or woman kind of magic. Magic and fantasy encourage forgetfulness of the reality. They encourage people to look for someone or something that would rescue them.

In this country where the individual is bereft of confidence and self-esteem, citizens tend to look for a messiah. Instead of looking deep into themselves, they search for an outsider Savior. Once they find the messiah, connection to him becomes the prize. Connection becomes the lotto number that will solve all their difficulties. A few Filipinos have taken advantage of this weakness in the country. They portrayed themselves as the Savior of the country, the new Hero, the King of solutions, the Only One, the Zorro, the Liberator and many other titles that meant the same. Look at me - I am the new Model. But the most fundamental problem is not solved. And that is - the Filipino must stop looking outside himself for a solution. The solution is from within him. It would be hard to explain this and I run the risk of oversimplifyng the nature of the Filipino. But let me try ---

There was a time the Filipino had no choice but to depend on a foreigner to rule him. There was a time he could not do a thing without the approval of the Spanish friar or the American soldier.There was a time the Filipino lost himself and to find and claim it back, he still asks someone to help him, usually, a foreigner. He takes the Colonial Master as his measure for success.

After the Colonial Master left, he started looking up to his compatriot who acts like a Colonizer. Someone who speaks foreign language well. Someone who exudes a certain degree of confidence. Someone who looks like a Colonial Master. And on and on and on and on.

The Filipino lost his capacity to become independent. In thinking. In action. And everything.

So politicians took advantage of Filipino weakness. They made sure they have magic spells and incantations to lure the Filipino. They made themselves look good and talk good. They portrayed themselves as idealists who alone have the power to solve the country's problems. Only in the Philippines are love for country and heroism sold and bought.

It is the same with me - I am suddenly the model of a country bereft of models. The exploitation of the country's weakness is a must to make money. And the real problem is, people thrive in this weakness that is so open to manipulation, some even defend this weakness. All the better for the ones in power. To the powerful, it is important that people keep dreaming and fantasizing and be comfortable in that, to prevent them from seeing the truth. The truth is not palatable considering how intense the discrepancy between the rich and poor in this country is.

Starlight magazine did an expose about me. It featured my three faces on its cover and asked: Who are you fooling? The readers angrily demanded the magazine to apologize to Facelss Adonis.

In a letter to the editor, one reader wrote:

Leave the man alone. A fashion model is not the same as the man on the street. He is a product of imagination transformed into Art. Art is beauty and beauty doesn't require realism at all times. Take a beautiful landscape seen through the eyes of Rembrandt, Rafael, Da Vinci, Monet, Van Gogh, or Picasso. Do you expect these great painters to draw the landsacape as realistic as Kodak, or similar to each other? When a man is able to transfigure himself in various angles, in various faces, in various styles, in various identities, praise him for that rare gift or talent - don't condemn him as dishonest.

The provincianos celebrated my new identity. "At last," they said to one another, "one of us has penetrated the world of high society." They didn't care if I shed off my color and re-shaped my face. Michael Jackson did it. Madonna did it.

What surprised me the most were the elites of Manila. They welcomed me in their exclusive world. "This native is too good to be true. Look, he abandoned his color and face just to fit with us. How noble! If only all the provincianos are like him..."

My popularity as Facelss Adonis increased. I became the topic of conversation in radio talks, TV chats, Investigative reports.

However, the magazine Marangal saw me differently, which bothered me. They made my triumvirate personas into something political and ideological.

"When a proletariat Filipino abandons his true self to please the bourgeois, this, my comrades, is indicative of a social psychosis. The question is, what drives him to commit it? Who leads him to do it? Faceless Adonis and his other names is a perfect illustration of our social inequality, the social cancer that colonized and thrived in our body through centuries. It is encouraged by the oligarchs who control government and army, the businessmen who are in the helm of our economy, the intellectual snobs who worship the capitalist West and the few aristocrats who flaunt their wealth to the hopeless majority of citizens. It is a conspiracy hatched by the CIA, the West, and multinationals whose interest is to promote the western culture and debase the local. This must be a day of mourning for all the disempowered Filipinos. Faceless Adonis had all the chance of proving the worth of the Filipino against the West; he had the chance to represent the voiceless and invisible poor, and give them hope by unshackling the social ills that shackled them. It did not require much - by being himself, he could have disproven a lot of myths and saved the Filipino from malaise and death. His cowardice chose the easy path - he partook in the games of the powerful, succumbed to their demands, and covered his face to hide his shame. Listen Faceless Adonis/Roberto Policarpio/Muslim Maranao, you will always be brown and provincial and poor. Stop pretending as an elite. The Communist Party of the Philippines categorically condemn you and Frank David Jr. Especially Frank David Jr - the propagator of elitism cloaked in the name of his own brand of Art; the destroyer of young men, the recruiter of innocent men to the House of Devil. You are no friend of the Filipino people. And to our Countrymen, boycott all the products of Isla Fashion House."



None of Thea's predictions and Leftist radicals' threats came true. More people bought Isla's designs, especially Ready To Wear, which, modesty aside, my faceless posters had advertised. All the hoopla surrounding me in fact set a trend. All Filipino young males copied me. Suddenly, there were too many models wearing masks around the city. No one could tell anymore who the real Faceless Adonis was.

One day, while I was eating in the university canteen, Thea paused beside my table with her tray and whispered, "One day Roberto Policarpio, I'm gonna get you."

"Won't you ever stop? Why can't you just leave me alone?"

I was only twenty-one years old. My only desire at this age was to be part of the crowd, especially of the high social crowd, despite their aura of rejection towards me. I did not have any political or social consciousness at age twenty-one. My life was exclusively directed towards achieving a medical career, become a fashion setter and a respectable citizen, so I could be called one of the elites. I was ready to do anything for that purpose. The first I needed to do was to destroy those who wanted to destroy me.

Call me decadent and unprincipled, but I reasoned that every capitalist city in the world had its manure, Manila was not exempted. I made my moves, promising myself that Thea and the rest of her kind would kneel before me one day. To successfully contain the Devil, his evil tricks should be matched by more evil tricks.

I stopped being defensive. When Thea passed my way and pouted and looked at me with disdain and derision, I flashed her my devilish smile, my white teeth bared, my bedroom eyes inviting. When no one was looking, I stroked my groin. Was she scandalized? No. Since she saw me naked, she was smitten. When she was contemptuous, I heard angst of romance in her voice. The daughter of the Valenzuela clan, the darling of Manila, was not as angelic as everybody thought.

"She's a nympho," the rumors continued. "But she knows how to pick." This was followed by peals of chauvinistic laughter.

Everyday, I built her image in my mind as a whore. I began to degrade her silently; I ignored her. Mistaking my silence for acquiescence, she became more aggressive in scoffing at me. Oh how I loved to strangle her tiny, narrow neck or cut her throat. Many nights I found consolation in dreaming of a voodoo witch piercing a needle to the mouth of a doll fashioned in her image. I studied her personality very meticulously.

I found her a child wanting attention. She ridiculed me to counter the ridicules hurled against herself.

The rumor mill of Manila was endless. My fellow models were my most reliable sources. "She's hooked on drugs. God, you should have seen her when she attempted Milan. Since she did not stand out among the likes of Iman and McPherson, she took off her clothes, pushed a props man on the floor and believe it or not, sat on top of him, fucked the poor soul in front of everybody. She is a genuine tart. The puk-puk ambassadress."

Drugs, the monosyllabic wonder gem of the eighties was as permanent company of the elite as their connection to the Marcoses who protected them. At age eighteen, Tia Valenzuela was already hooked, her access to it was as easy as her way to the catwalk. When she was really high, she would wobble on the runway and the society people applauded her for what they presumed her playfulness. Playfulness? Yeah sure. It should be more like stoned. She tumbled many times, picked up her high heeled shoes and twirled them like an electric fan. Not realizing she was already in dreamworld.

Sometimes I stared at her, marveled at her while her head stooped down toward the floor, her soft hair covering her entire face. You may find this sickening, but at a few times we modeled together, I furtively invaded her dressing room many times, enveloped myself with the essence and perfume of her quiet privacy. I looked at myself in her mirror and imagined my face juxtaposing with hers and was delighted at our beautiful combination. I moved about and held her under-wears one by one, her stockings and panty hoses, her shoes, until I desired her.

Her scorn with its hidden meaning did not diminish. I responded with equually bitter answer thinking that somewhere, we would meet - her eyes and my body, a lust and consummation.

My initial goal was to get her trust. I found it one night when she, in the middle of a stressful and fast paced changing of clothes, screamed at the top of her voice and ran round and round the backstage with her gown left unstrapped revealing the flesh of her erect breasts until she fell on the steps. She dropped faced down like a nun being initiated to an Order, trembling and crying. I came near her. "What is wrong Thea?" I asked her in a most gentle voice. She turned and embraced me. Tightly.



MADNESS



During these times, trying times indeed, misfortune after misfortune befell the people of Manila. The symptoms of disasters loomed in the sky, taking the form of gray clouds about to be ripped apart. And then a heavy rainfall.

Aquino was assassinated and the conglomeration that gathered around his corpse sent a reverberating warning to all those who thought they were secured in their high palaces. It was an explosion heard in all four corners of the world.

I felt its effects soon after.

"Dammit," cussed Frank. "The hell they vandalized the fashion house." I saw graffiti sprayed on the brick walls of Isla Fashion House. DOWN WITH CRONIES.

"They are after you," I joked.

"Oh shut up!" he retorted. "As if you weren't included here. In fact, the people know you better than me with all your posters scattered all over the place."

"How can they recognize me with my mask?"

"What about your old commercials? Robert Policarpio, you once had a face, remember? When the final tally is revealed in this city, you'll be in the list of the elite."

I sort of liked what he said. Me, in the elite's list? Imagine I'd die with the likes of the Makarisogs, the Potencianos, and the Brillianteses. That is what I call class.



On the night of vandalism, Frank disappeared from sight, just like the other elites that hid from the surging wrath of the people. I searched all over the city but failed to find him. When I went to his condominium the only marks left by his presence were the unfinished illustrations he was proposing to Isla, his unkempt laboratory of imagination. All these did not give me a clue. Two nights later, I found him standing by the Manila Bay. He was alone. I did not approach him at first and remained a distance away. I watched his moves. He was talking to himself, unmindful of the passers-by who were amused in seeing him. Minutes later, he walked away, not toward his condominium but on the back streets of Luneta, under complete darkness. I was free from school during those days, boycotts and demonstrations virtually emptied all classrooms in Manila. So Frank occupied all my waking hours. I pretty much spied on him. Stalked, more likely. I would see him go to the National Library and after awhile, would walk toward Rizal Park, buy a popsicle or popcorn and eat it in one of the park's benches. He never approached anyone; he was never approached by anyone. This went on for days, he always ended his walks alone in the bay. On the fifth night, I tapped him on the shoulder. He jumped and turned to me with a pale and agitated face. It was the face of madness.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Don't come near me. I'm a target." he said, squeamishly.

"Target for what?'

"Haven't you heard? We are being targeted by the guerilla sparrow units! I received the death ribbon!"

The black ribbon, the warning from the Boncayao Brigade of NPA ...

"What the hell... for God's sake why would you be their target?"

"I don't know, I don't know anything anymore."

"Did you call for help?"

"Who will help me? My family had disowned me long time ago. All the Isla people have vanished. They can't protect me, those sons of bitches hated me because of you. "

"Me? What have I done?"

"They said you are a big part of this revolution."

"How?"

"You are the ego of the poor, the native, the indio."

"I don't understand."

"Can't you see? Everyone is saying I prostituted you to the elites. Damn me and my foolish ideas of Filipino Art! They say I used you. My God, is this what I deserve? Roberto, I defied the world to bring out the confidence of the ordinary Filipino. The people of Isla blamed me for doing that. I should have listened to them. That confidence has now unleashed a power ready to devour me."

"Frank, this is not about you and me. This is about Aquino and Marcos."

He burst into tears. "You are wrong. It is about the rich and the poor."

"But why you? I was poor and you made me rich. I was ugly and you made me look great."

"Ah, I wish all the Sparrow units think the way you do. Have you read what's written all over the walls of Isla and my condominium? I am a USER! They claim I used you for the wealthy. How can I defend my self?

"I will Frank."

"Listen to me. Don't even get near them if you want to live. You'll be the next after me." Saying this, he run away from me, hysterically. I ran after him and upon reaching him, I grabbed him by the arm. I couldn't let this poor man die. He poured out all his energy and talent for me. He fought for his convictions and values and art. Why do the good people have to suffer? I pleaded with him; he was pushing me away. It was all madness. For the first time, I discovered the demise of his reason. "Frank calm down. They will not touch you at all. They have more sense than that."

"Don't you touch me," he said. "You are nothing but disaster. Since you came into my life, I've been so miserable. I am a stupid idealist. I was fucking completely wrong."

He tilted his head in a dramatic way, his eyes moved from side to side, he appeared to convulse, and like a sage in ecstasy he continued speaking. " Just remember this Roberto - Fashion makes or breaks - we are no exemptions. It made Rudolph Valentino in nineteen twenties and Boy George in nineteen eighties. Not one lasted forever. It is a defiance against norm, against conventions, against class segregationists. It tries to link the up and down, the bourgeois and proletariat. It sets a trend, a fad. In its ruthless course, glorified seamstresses like me, the so-called designers, protect and nurture it, transform it endlessly, and wrap it around someone like you - an ideal, a saint, a Michelangelo's Basilica. When the mass of people see you, they see themselves and buy it, thinking that in doing so they become you. In becoming you, they release your hidden thoughts. Look at them - accusing, scheming, murdering. That is you, exactly you, Roberto. You are a frightening beast."

"Frank, please, calm down. You don't know what your'e saying. You are tired."

He relaxed, hysteria dissipated. I really did not like hearing what he said. I wanted everything to return the way it used to be. I was worried. Where shall we go from here? If he gets mad, who



Alex Maskara