Barrio Stories and Other Tales

Barrio

The Rat



My name is Basilio Jose, Bajo for short. I'm a ghost who enters the spirit of Alex Maskara to tell my story - you've probably seen me after the recent catastrophe in Tayabas if you've been following the news, I'm that dead boy being pulled out from that pile of garbage. Don't worry, I will not take much of your time with my story. I believe I'm entitled to a fifteen minute fame and this is it, er, it was there on newspapers - yeah sure - I'm telling you this: whoever took picture of my dead body without my permission, may hell be with him. Who in the world gives anyone possessing a camera to picture my death in a most undignified way? Who gave him the right to flash my corpse in that rubble of shit across the nation? Tell me, if you were struck by lightning and your body was ripped into two parts, would you like the world to see you that way? Him photographer did that to me. He never respected my privacy! This is what he is: a rat! He goes to where human corpses lie and take pictures of them to sell to newspapers. And those newspapers who glorify in my indignity, who use my death to make money - them too are all rats! The country that does not guarantee my right to privacy is a rat!

I know this because I lived as a rat. But I am at least honest in what I did. I picked up your trash, imagine that, I picked up your trash, some of you are the poorest people in the world. What does that make me? I am the lowest class in the ranks of rats.

You - who never lived in my environment would not know how I viewed my world...you are the one who, in my catastrophe, was more worried about the bad news I'd generate for this country in CNN and BBC. To you, news agencies' perception about this country is more important than me. Who am I to you anyway? I am the one you wish were never born in this country. I am the one you blame for the poor image of this country. I am the one, like a microbe, you wish to pour lysol on...or sulphuric acid since it is stronger. To you, I am an infection.

Do you think if this catastrophe has befallen the people of Forbes Park CNN or BBC would look at us differently? No shit! They don't care as much as we never cared if a cyclone hit Bangladesh or a bomb was dropped in Chechnya. No one will care about us except us. No one will talk about us except us. No one will prevent these calamities from re-occurring every year except us. I want you to accept this - No one in this whole damn world will empathize with what happens to us except us.

Time and time again I wish we'd all be together and agreeing in this. But noooo sir! When an issue like this occurs, politicians and commentators start pointing fingers at one another, then they get bored, then they pick some other calamity to use as platform to point fingers at each others again. I mean, it was not my fault to be born beside this dump you know. You insist on producing more people in this country to vote for you so here I am. I just hope to God that those who insist on letting me be born NO MATTER WHAT are the first to be there on that heap of garbage to rescue me. But nooooo, they'd stay in their palaces of good and sterile and secured life while pontificating about morals in this nation. Where are they now? Where is the food from morals? Where is the manna from sinless life? I wonder if anyone said a prayer for my departed soul.

Their god probably don't think much about rats. Still, I was happy. I never knew anything in this world except this garbage that's a background of my so-called life. I thrive on thrash. Everyday I wake up not worried about getting cleaned up, I pick up my crane and carry it as I climb the heap, I use my sharp eyes in finding a metal scrap here and there, an empty bottle here and there, pieces of paper that have the potential of being recycled, sardine cans, anything I think is salvageable. I get excited when I see a coin or a jewelry. The prospect of finding anything worth more than twenty pesos keeps me going.

At the end of the day I do an inventory of all the things I picked. I deliver my inventory to the house of this middleman who pays me by the kilo, by the rim, by the height, by the weight, by the...you get the picture. And the money paid me is what I spend to buy food. And the next day the cycle is repeated.

I don't worry about my dignity here, I was born without it and never expect to have it. I don't worry about what people around the world say about me - they never wanna get close to a dirty, amoeba-looking, infection-carrying person like me anyway. And I don't even know they exist. And I'd never worry about what these countries' news agencies report about me because I can't read, I can't write, I'd never seen a television, I don't know a single thing. No one even suggested giving me education. No one even suggested a way out of this hole. I would never know.

Being poor is our way of life from cradle to tomb. My dead parents knew nothing else except pick things from this garbage heap. They were used to it. This way of life has been their way for generations - and for generations every politician planned doing something about it - well, these politicians' ultimate goal is to completely eradicate this dumpsite - without giving its residents a viable alternative. What's told to us is to leave the area so it can become beautiful again as we die somewhere. What's told us to go to places where there are no jobs, no nothing.

The result? They may move this site somewhere but we follow, oh boy, we follow in droves.

It's the only thing we know. It's the only source of income we can rely on. It's where we thrive and live. This is where we create families and friends - familiarities that bring out the spirit of community. You think after generations you can all just tell us to disband and leave?

To where? Oh you expect too much! You expect us to read your minds, you expect us to think the way you think. It will take at least a generation to reverse the lifestyle created beside this dumpsite. It will take a lot of resources, will-power, and consistent work to re-educate us about what you think is the superior lifestyle. I'd never know how dirty this place is if I can't see anything clean. I'd never see how infection can spread among us unless someone comes here to prove that.......Do not assume people like me think like people like you.

But oh I am just a ghost now, someone that will pass by like a whiff of air. Someone will take my place beside this dump as soon as I explode into this big circle of light.

Let me tell you...I love this country but it sucks. It has the worst crisis management I can imagine. Just listen to its reasoning when asked why this catastrophe happened to us hundreds of Tayabas people: "Well, we told them not to go there but they insisted." That was the same line used about those preachers and journalists who were recently abducted in the South. "We told them not to go but they insisted."

I'm telling you, that's the lamest excuse I'd ever heard of in dealing with life and death situations. It's like your friend is about to hang himself, you stood there and told him not to do it. He did it anyway and when the reporters found it out and asked you about it you told them, "I told him not to hang himself but he insisted." What if your friend was temporarily insane or drunk or...in my case, uneducated without any concept of what is safe or unsafe?

Alex Maskara told me last night that when a sewage pipeline broke in Miami Beach and started pouring Miami dirt on its beach, the whole Miami Beach (miles and miles of it) was cordoned off, off limits to anybody. Those who insisted to get into the beach were either escorted out by the police or put to jail if they insisted. Because you see, it's not an issue of freedom - it's an issue of health. It took the city at least a week to clean the beach. No one was hurt and everyone was back to happy beach life afterwards. And Miami was definitely proud of what it did.

I wish I was born Elian Gonzales.

Alex Maskara

Barrio Tales