It was neither Estas, nor Dimas, nor Jesus
nailed on the cross that captured my imagination, these statuettes surrounding
a coffin were normal in a Philippine wake. ‘Twas neither the flowers, nor the
cigars hanging from the lips of men, nor men playing poker, nor boys
serenading girls, nor old women gossiping, nor farmers drinking coffee and
Ginebra put me under spell, for these, again, were normal in a Philippine
wake. It was not the rented lights against the black mantle hanging in front
of the house that took my delight, I may sound redundant now, but this was normal in a Philippine wake. Neither did the black dress nor the black veil
covering the salt and pepper hair of Aling Rosita stole my breath away,
everybody wore the same, in a Philippine wake. The wake for Isidro, the most
honest and reliable gay in the barrio was not one that I’d describe
ordinary. The statuettes around his corpse were fashioned out of pure gold.
The flowers displayed around his lifeless body mimicked a garden in Italy.
Aling Rosita appeared and talked in a way that could teach Imelda Marcos a
lesson or two. Tandang Sepa, the septuagenarian gossiper, after extolling the
virtues of Isidro took a sip of Ginebra gin, spat it out of the window and
exclaimed, "I wish I’d die today so I could join the splendor of Isidro’s
wake." Then, her eyes traveled to the bowl of rolled peso bills,
contributed by gays for Isidro’s burial.
His gay friends were the ones who demanded
that statuettes were not enough, they should be the finest in the archipelago.
Flowers were not enough, these must be arranged by the best floral decorator
of Guagua. Who happened to be gay. That the black candles be designed with red
and silver dragons coiled around them, hand sculpted in the famous Chinatown
of Manila. Aling Rosita, Isidro’s sister, must not wear any black dress, it
must bear the name of Cordero. The mantle should be a quilt detailing the life
of Isidro, with roses and sunflower buntings. It should be made out of cotton
for Isidro was the ultimate Maid of Cotton.
The wake was to last three days, his gay
friends, scattered all over, demanded that his burial waited for their
returns. And when the casket maker brought in its glass lid, one of the local
gays broke it, saying he would never let Isidro be displayed like Barbie doll
for sale. Indeed Isidro never looked so beautiful in his entire life, thanks
to the expertise of the nationally famous make-up artist in the local
mortuary. Who happened to be gay. The old women shook their heads, saying,
"He looks as beautiful as his mother." Which saddened many a hustler
saying, "If he were this beautiful then, he could have been my boyfriend
...for half my regular price!" The two days passed and his friends
arrived with their local, French, British, Japanese, Australian and American
lovers. On the day of his burial, you’d think an international gathering was
sending Isidro to his grave. On the first two days, Aling Rosita did not leave
the side of Isidro’s corpse. She wept unstoppably. On the second day, all
her children, ten of them, her grand children, thirty nine of them, her great
grandchildren, two of them all came. Her eldest, Satur, wailed the loudest, he
was after all, the most cruel to Isidro.
On the third day, Aling Rosita, as was
customary in a Philippine wake, pulled up the transparent veil over her face
and began to speak. This was the eulogy that began all the other eulogies,
people hailed these speeches as the best ever spoken in the entire history of
the barrio. The drama surrounding the death of Isidro, so they said, was
worthy of Famas nomination.
Aling Rosita's Eulogy
"Isidro... Isidro," she whispered,
"Flesh of my flesh... blood of my blood." She stared at nothing in
particular through the window... and I thought rice stalks stood still. Water
buffalos stopped wadding their tails. Cats and dogs rested on their hinds. Why,
even the insects and birds withheld their daily business among the river lilies.
Even the runny noses of children seemed to have ran dry. Aling Rosita continued:
"In 1944, Isidro and I became survivors
in a war that killed both our parents. Our town was devastated and we had no
place to keep. Deprived, we roamed among our relatives all the way from San
Simon to
Sesmoan, I made sure Isidro tagged along. When I reached sixteen, Constancio
Poblete proposed marriage to me. I accepted only with one condition - that
Isidro, my little brother, live with us. Constancio hated Isidro for being a
bakla, a malas to any livelihood. I demanded that Isidro stayed we us
without ifs and buts. Constancio relented.
"The three of us pioneered this barrio...
I remember those days... we carried rocks on wheelbarrows and stripped bamboos
to build our home. With our small beginning, the barrio grew as the rest of you
followed and built homes as well. I produced ten children. How I could have
raised those children without Isidro, God only knew. He was my companion
everyday while Constancio was out in the fields. When my love for Constancio
faltered, Isidro bombarded me with love stories from Liwayway Comics
until I fell in love with my husband all over again. When I was too tired of my
children, he huddled them away and played with them until I recovered my
bearing. He retold all the stories of Lola Basyang to them until they became
knowledgeable so that they all graduated at Lubao Highschool with honors and
went on to acquire college degrees in Manila. Isidro did more than create
intelligent children, oh he did more than that! With the fifty centavos I gave
him once a week, he spent his Sundays in the capitol town San Femando to read
all the available newspapers there, and secretly collected disposed magazines
from the tenements of the marketplace. Occasionally, he bought bargain dressmaking
books and studied these day in and day out. You see, he cherished the only
property left to us after the war - our mother’s Singer sewing machine - you
see it now, all black and rusty, occupying a special spot in his shop. He
started cutting dress-patterns from cement paper bags and created paper clothes before me while I giggled. Life went on like this until the worst
catastrophe happened. Satur, my eldest child, broke the heart of Isidro forever.
"You Satur, who have sired children
yourself, probably understand better than anyone the cruelty you subjected your
uncle Isidro to. During one fiesta, you brought home your college fiends from
Manila. When the time to introduce your family came, your finger pointed at us
one by one, beginning with your youngest sister up to me and your father. But
when your finger pointed at Isidro, you blushed and called him the maid of the
house. You, my son, introduced the uncle who brought you up as your Maid! How
dare you!"
Satur's Eulogy
Satur was weeping while listening to his
mother’s eulogy. When she was done, he stood up and stared at the dead face of
Isidro. Satur, an engineer from the Department of Public Works was no longer
young. Wrinkles on his face were deep, the muscles in his temples and jaws
pulsated. He was sweating profusely in the midst of hot rented lights. He began
to speak:
"Forgive me
Tiyo Isidro, I may be too late to say this but please, forgive me. What
my reason for introducing you as the maid to my college friends was
explainable only by my youth. I was ashamed of you - that’s the truth. If only
the society in which I lived in then, if the generation I belonged to could have
been more accepting to persons like you then, I may not have done what I have
done to you. In my eyes, you were so weak, you stayed by my mother’s side
while everybody else was marrying and having children. And when I peeked into
your room and found dressmaking magazines and kits and the old Singer sewing
machine, I concluded you were useless. Because you were gay. How old were you
then, twenty five years old? Thirty years old? As a child you made me dream of
becoming an engineer, building roads and bridges. What did
you dream of when you were a child? Did you dream of nothing, contented in
scraping the left-overs of my parents? You had muscles - you had brains - you had
legs - you had arms - at least, you could have picked up the plow, like Father,
and farmed a piece of land. I wish you were something then, perhaps a custodian,
a mason, a carpenter, a peon somewhere, yeah, I could have proudly presented
you. But to see you in an old hand-me-down t-shirt and old, gray pants smelling
of onions, the only thing I could think of was you being a Maid. Forgive me Tiyo
Isidro if I hurt you. Let me announce this now to all those who hear, to all my
friends and to my wife and children - the dead man lying here beside me is
Isidro Samaniego he spent the best years of his life taking care of me and my
brothers and sisters. He lived with nothing because he was dedicated to us, his
only family. Despite the pains I inflicted upon him, he went on loving us - in
the years that followed, most of our college allowances and tuitions came from
him. For that, I am shamefully grateful. Tiyo Isidro was the greatest uncle in
the whole world. I wish I’ve said this to him before he died. Forgive
me."
Indang Sayong's Eulogy
"For many years I envied Rosita for
having a dedicated and industrious brother. Isidro was very handsome, though his
complexion was pale due to his lack of outdoor life. He was always inside the
house taking care of his sister’s children, cooking, cleaning. He rarely
talked in my sari-sari store until one solemn night, after the monsoon rains had
just stopped. Isidro sat in front of my store carrying a blanket containing his
clothes. He was also dragging a Singer sewing machine. He was crying and begging me to provide
him a place to stay, albeit temporarily. He said his nephews and nieces were
ashamed of him and he didn’t want to come back to them anymore. He said he
would work for me, do my laundry, clean my house and take care of the store (as
you all know, Pedro and I are not blessed with children) in return for a place
to stay and food to eat. Oh how pitiful this young man was, all alone, rejected,
no place to go. But I could not take him home. I told him to return to his
sister’s house, his pain would pass away, he was needed there more than here.
He said he would rather go to San Femando, beg in the Cathedral rather than go
back. He stood up and started to leave. Guilt overpowered me so I ran after him.
I was aware that by letting him stay in my house, I'd run the risk of putting
Rosita in a bad light. What would people say? In letting him in my house, I
would appear better-caring than Rosita. And I would offend her. Besides,
my husband Pedro was not exactly accommodating to people like Isidro... this barrio
never accepted the likes of him. Yet, if I’d let this young man
Isidro leave, and God forbid, something happens to him up there in San Femando,
I may not live in peace for the rest of my life. I was suddenly facing a very
difficult decision - I would be jeopardizing my friendship with Rosita,
offending my husband, losing my customers in having Isidro in my house, but...
Come what may, if Rosita and my husband got mad at me, their anger would pass
away, but if this young man got murdered in a place strange to him, that I
couldn’t undo... To my surprise, I made the right decision. Rosita came to me
the following day thanking me for keeping her brother. She said, "Take care
of him, someday his pain will fade and he will come back to me. Just don’t let
him leave the barrio, keep him close to me." It was however a
different story with my husband. He wanted Isidro thrown out of the house
immediately. I pleaded, saying that Isidro would stay only for a short while.
Isidro was actually the one who convinced my husband. Pedro found him not only
resourceful, he was intelligent. I could not have been blessed by a better
company. During his tenure in my house, Isidro delivered more than what he had
promised. The house never had been more sparkling, the food never had been more
delicious. He bought a piece of cloth in San Femando and whenever he had free
time, he stooped over this cloth and carefully cut many patterns for a dress he’d
been dreaming to create. I’d never seen a more perfect dress when he finished
it. I tried it, the other women in the barrio tried it, and it fit all of us
alright. All the women in the barrio coveted the dress. Being kind, Isidro
offered it to me as a gift. I wouldn’t take it. I told him he had a talent and
that talent should not be given out as a gift. Being a businesswoman myself, I
put the dress up in my store for sale. And to the highest bidder it was sold.
The implication of that sale went beyond my wildest imagination. Suddenly, every
woman wanted Isidro to cut a dress for her. In just one week, fourteen dresses
were measured and made. Money and work came pouring into Isidro, confining him
in his sewing machine day and night. He never complained, sewing a dress for him
was like a mission, like an addiction. When he could no longer do his house
duties, he begged for my understanding. Who was I to stop him? I
said, "Isidro, do what you want to do and be happy for it." After two
weeks, many ladies began visiting my house. Pedro and I decided to build Isidro
a shop, just adjacent to my store. Isidro and I discussed what name we would
give to this shop. At first we thought that since his first dress was made of
cotton, the shop should be named Made of Cotton. Isidro thought about that but
after a few minutes, his voice broke, he said, "You are right, my first
dress was made of cotton, but that dress came into being after I was hurt by my
nephew Satur and I never stop hurting because my heart is made of cotton. Why
not Heart of Cotton?" I told him it was too sentimental, not good for
business. He suddenly beamed and said, "Let the people be reminded of what
I am in the eyes of my family, I am their Maid. Their Maid of Cotton."
Jose’s aka Josie’s Eulogy for Isidro
When Jose arrived from Paris, people were
shocked. He came home a She, with boobs and lined eyebrows. Well, Josie
had metamorphosed from an ugly cocoon to a flamboyant butterfly -former titlist
Miss Gay Paris International - she was the total reincarnate of Rita Gomez,
voice and all. She made Isidro appear like Mohave Desert. Josie was the
initiator of all the splendor for Isidro’s burial. Leaving her French husband
-a hunk in leather called Pierre or something- she spoke in behalf of all the
other gays in this wake, their good looks and lovers and all.
("Is this Jose?" whispered the
septuagenarian Indang Sepa. "Dios por santo the world is nearing
its end!")
These were Josie’s words:
"The Maid of Cotton shop was my hiding
place, my refuge, the place where all my hopes began. In my youth, I heard my
father comment about Isidro all the time, comparing him to a plague, he often
said, "Don’t get near that homosexual. Look, he is the joke of the entire
barrio." It just so happened that my father and his drinking buddies were
the only ones who made it so. I tried to heed my father’s rules. I tended to
manly duties, plowed the farms, tended the carabao... But it is not easy to
change one’s inborn preference. I am gay through and through since the day
I was born. Switching orientation is not as simple as changing one’s clothes. The more I tried
to hide my true self, the more awkward I became. I felt like a woman trapped in
a man’s body. One day my father caught me wearing my mother’s wedding dress
in the bathroom! He beat me so hard I had to run out out of the house, and no
other place was open for me but the shop of Isidro. Inside the shop, I probably
shed three glasses of tears. After that, Isidro became my closest ally.
"Under Isidro’s wings, I slowly
regained my confidence, he was, in the first place, a role model. He dedicated
the best years of his life to the uplifting of the family he loved and
successfully recouped himself after being rejected. For that alone, I found a
reason to go on living. It was Isidro too, who told me about the world beyond
this barrio - other countries teeming with people, with sophisticated cultures,
with philosophies far more liberal and even accepting than the constrictions of
this barrio. With that hope I dreamt of going to those lands.
"I am not saying that I never had any
disagreement with Isidro - I found him a hypocrite sometimes. He’d say I
should not be too flamboyant when all the world sees him flamboyant himself. And
when I’d start talking about men, he’d shut me up like the nuns in Lubao
High School when we both knew gays think of men no matter what their stations in
life are, I guess he thought less of men, especially with the bulk of work he
did but nevertheless... Isidro never had a sex life, his only consolation was
his morning biking to Concepcion, his only form of exercise. That’s why gays
called him Mohave Desert.
"My youth belonged to ‘Marcos babies’
generation which was blessed with nothing but misery. Marcos was the only leader
we knew under repression and poverty. Before his dictatorship’s meltdown, as
we all know, we found our incomes shrink while the prices of commodities expand.
In order to forget our misfortunes, we did all funny things. Fathers became
drunkards in order to forget their impotence in providing food to their
children. Children roamed the streets in Manila to sell their bodies so they
could help feed their families. And people like us, yes, homosexuals like us
provided escapist entertainments by parading as women into the streets for a
laugh, and how you laughed. Isidro loathed us - especially when all the
cross-dressers gathered in his shop - and would lecture us about the bad
impression we were promoting. I defended my drag. I said, "How can you deny
this simple diversion, it’s the cheapest form of entertainment for people who
can’t even buy a TV. Understand this: not all gays can resort to high caliber
entertainments. A drag show is a poor man’s show; it is the language of gays
who can barely express themselves through sophisticated means which well off
gays can afford. Coming out for us means being flamboyant in our mothers’
clothing."
"Isidro was full of contradictions.
Despite his loathing, he would finance these drag parades. He would condemn us
for bringing men in his shop yet would provide us room to make love. We tempted
him countless times, but once he closed his bedroom, not even the handsomest man
would make him open up.
"His loathing about our drags eventually
faded. In one of our shows, a talent scout from Manila saw us, invited us,
signed us contracts to dance in the city. From Manila we flew to Tokyo, Hongkong,
Singapore, Amsterdam, New York and now, Paris. Isidro provided the extra money we
needed in going to these far off places, giving us means to pay him back and
later on, support our families. Look at us now!
"Isidro look at me now. I am as brilliant
as a star! Oh if only you’ve seen me win the title Miss Gay Paris, with tears
in my eyes I was shouting your name. To Isidro! To Isidro! "
Mang Teban’s Eulogy for Isidro
"I am the proud father of Josie. I admit
my own misgiving at first. The first time I saw Isidro set up Maid of Cotton
shop beside the store of Indang Sayong, I got mad - we Filipinos have had a
masculine culture since the time of our Muslim beginnings, we’ve been
masculine through the three hundred fifty years of Spanish colonization, we’ve
been masculine through the US Commonwealth, we’ve been masculine through wars
even through Marcos dictatorship - why would someone like him destroy all that
masculinity? I feared he would demoralize our children and worse, turn them like
himself. My fears became real the first time I saw my own son wear his mother’s
clothing. I said - This is it! - I beat up my son until only his eyes were free
of whip mark. I talked with the other men in this barrio and we all agreed,
either we killed this fag Isidro or we turn him into a butt of jokes. The goal
was to warn each child of even daring to be like him. This was how we punished
Isidro: every time he passed our way, we whistled and addressed him, "Oh
sexy fox, why don’t you suck all of us." We intimidated him, I broke an
empty San Miguel beer bottle one night and threatened him - "Be a man like
us or else..." I brandished the broken bottle in front of his eyes. Far
from getting frightened, he pushed my weapon away and said, "Sleep this off
Mang Teban, you must worry more about feeding your children than paying
attention to my unmanliness." I was so embittered since my son became close
to him. I called them all faggots.
"Isidro had a way of fighting back, and
when he did, he shredded me to pieces. He hit me hard when I learned from my
wife that he lent her money regularly to supplement the meals of my children,
No wonder we were debt free in Indang Sayong’s store while I was out of job.
Oh how I cried . First I demanded that she return all the money to him because I
couldn’t stomach a fag feeding my children. But when my wife asked me for the
money to return to him I could not produce it. And the most painful truth was
this: his charity was going on while I was abusing him on the street. What other
man could do that? Though I am a proud man all my life, I confess all the
cruelties I bore upon Isidro - in his heyday, I never gave him peace of mind. This
man who built this barrio, who fed other people’s children, who supported my
gay son until he could provide for us - is now here dead. He died being a friend
without expecting a return. Oh Isidro forgive me."
The Priest's Sermon
Isidro’s casket was brought out from his
sister’s house. All the windows and doors were closed as is customary in a
Philippine funeral so the Spirit of the Dead would not strike for the time
being. Ave Maria beamed from loudspeakers. As the limousine carrying his casket
passed by, people along the road bowed their heads and threw coins to its
direction - a bribe to the Devil - so it won’t attack them. The funeral
proceeded to the chapel for its final rite. The priest spoke to honor Isidro:
"It is time for us to take a last look at
the man who changed the face of our barrio. Isidro was a beautiful man. At age
45, as years had taken their toll on him, he slowed down his work in his shop
and became a religious man. He daily swept the chapel at nights and provided the
altar flowers every Sunday. I heard him weep many times, when he learned some of
our precious children had gone to Manila to work to help feed their families. He
released his own savings and lent it to many of you to make your ends meet. He
helped pay the exuberant recruitment flees for our men and women who opted to
work overseas, without interests , and when paid he used the same amount for
another and another and another.
"Now we are witnesses to the outcome of
his kindness. Many of us have crossed world boundaries, worked lowly but
decently, adopted other cultures and languages and were able to fight
starvation.
"I am a priest and my vows condemn any
form of sexuality outside of marriage. Isidro, contrary to the accusations of
some of you, had lived and died clean. He lived like a monk, a saint, and for
that, I exhort you to bless him. Pray may he rest in peace."
From the chapel, the casket was laid at the
center of the cemetery. People began passing by his coffin for viewing the
last time. Children were lifted over his corpse, as was customary, so he could
take a glimpse of new lives before departing. When the casket was sealed,
hysteria and wailing took over. Aling Rosita fainted and was immediately revived
with ammonia. Tandang Sepa, the septuagenarian gossiper tried to steal the scene
by screaming and pounding on the casket with one eye closed the other opened.
She yelled, "Take me with you Isidro!" which pissed a lot of the
mourners. "Go ahead", they said, pushing her toward the open tomb.
Realizing her show wasn’t taking its desired effect, she pretended to faint.
For five minutes no one picked her up. She rose up by herself and walked away.
The foreigners couldn’t figure out what to make of this spectacle. Some were
solemn, some were laughing
The Greatest Eulogy
I’ve seen all these because I lived close
to the cemetery. I was with the cemetery caretaker who placed the last brick
to cover his tomb. I helped the caretaker put back his tools in his jeepney
before going home.
All said and done, I decided to go home. But
then, just before darkness enveloped the cemetery, a solitary figure emerged
from a bicycle and went toward Isidro’s tomb. I hid behind one acacia tree
and watched the man. He was the age of Isidro, tall and muscular. I recognized
him, he was the bachelor in barrio Concepcion. I heard him speak:
"Isidro, my love, it’s over now. I
cannot live another day without seeing you in our hiding place. For thirty
years you made my mornings beautiful." (I sighed, I had this intuition
before: Isidro would not be biking to Concepcion everyday for nothin’!) The
man knelt and kissed Isidro’s tomb so tenderly, picked a flower from the
mountain of wreaths and sat beside the tomb until darkness.
You see my friends, Isidro revealed his most
beautiful secret to me only in his death - his love and passion, not the
customs and traditions. These were the ones that took my breath away.
After death, his name continues to spawn
many stories circulating in the barrio. A mother sees his ghost sitting beside
her hungry children; the ladies invoke his opinion before buying clothes; men
are more accepting of gays. These stories turn into myths- Isidro is still
found sweeping the chapel every night; flowers bloom in May because he will
come down to pick them for the fiesta; people lend money easily because Isidro
did so; and so on and so forth... the Maid of Cotton is now a legend.
Bataan Road
Alex
Maskara is Pinoy
