My family moved from the country to seek better fortune in the city back in 1985. I was 5 years old then. And until now, it is still customary for my family to watch the Pintados Festival Parade during the city fiesta come end of June. Though in my growing up years, I have chosen a rather boisterous and free – spirited company to watch the parade with now that I am old enough to verbalize my choices with friends, issues to argue about and even acting out my very personal endeavors. Just like my fancied adolescent years in the city, the Pintados Festival would always showcase the best that the region could offer championing the historic and colorful culture and its humble beginnings. It keeps getting grandiose and much more festive every year, thus, tourists both foreign and local alike would grace the festival with beautiful words of review to bring home.
Indelible sights and sounds had been documented to my memory as to how the slow but precise paces of development had changed the city by the bay through the years. Tacloban does not tail behind the queue of national candidates for urban progress. And the leaders who sat the local government seats could only profess to have done so much good for the city and for its people caught in the limbo called urban poor.
There used to be a slum community surrounding DYVL radio station called Rimas Colon. I had elementary grade classmates who used to live there. And following the layman’s definition of a slum area as a place of none- permanent settlers with no valid address, let alone a sane system of human waste disposal then at least I will not be vindicated of being unpragmatic about my choices of words. I could very well describe a slum area coz I used to live in one too. And there was also a Muslim mosque amidst the small houses and humbled shanties where our Muslim brothers, who have settled to Tacloban City, worship their own divinity. Perhaps, just like my family, they also sought for a better life in the city.
Exactly two years ago, that area was cleared out to make way for an amusement venue for the local folks. And as far as the comprehensive plans of the city is concerned, a baywalk park will be built along the serene Cancabato bay line in such a way that a walk from Balyuan Tower, now towerless, to the recently opened Tacloban Convention Center will become a leisurely saunter. Only the radio station remained when the families were moved to a resettlement area at the city outskirts.
The erstwhile mayoral administration of Bejo Romualdez was bombarded with repercussions from the local media men and self-confessed political analysts (READ: mga paragsuson) alike before there was a clean and spacious bus terminal along Maharlika Highway and an efficient shuttle service from the terminal to the heart of the city courtesy of these neon green multicabs ; a two- storey public market reviewed as less – unhygienic, at least, compared to the former; a beautified Rizal Park and the proud Tacloban Convention Center, a first of its kind in the city and will soon become a landmark in the region. In its effect, new establishments and commercial buildings started to mushroom. The thrive of the student populace from all over the region to the city colleges and universities became evident. The same administration saw the realization of a privatized solid waste management and the more systematic electric cooperative thus resulted to well- lit streets, highways and main thoroughfares secured from unwanted menace. The community folks also became up and about with the community- based medical, dental and social services in a mobile operation called barangayan and still many other city ordinances that aimed to promote the welfare of the happy Taclobanons.
During this year’s festival parade, floats of private establishments and some government offices also joined the busy streets merrymaking. The FM Romualdez convoy of high-end cars and buses, while the infamous former campaign jingle was playing in the air, were donned in colorful tarpaulins bearing the Congressman’s wide-smiled face greeting “Happy Fiesta Taclobanon… from the apple of your eyes, Cong. FM Romualdez and Family.” The convoy drew more attention as the hired men threw away Fuji apples to the parade spectators. But of course, who would not be delighted to such unique freebies. It was a rather much favored gimmick from the usual flyers and leaflets and or candies thrown away from the float as goodies during the parade. Well, sardines are also a treat in the previous years.
Far from the maddening crowd, I couldn’t help but notice the group of people busily and frantically following the solon’s float for the closer chance of catching the apples it almost resembled that of the zealots during the Feast of the Black Nazarene. Among them was this forty-something man whom I particularly kept my fancy with. His worn-out slippers revealed his cracked and calloused heels that might have told me his meager job requires rigorous walking every single day. He wore a stained white sando and a pair of faded corduroy pants and a knap-sack in his back bulging with apples he had literally won in the catching match over the others. His wrists were adorned with colored rubber bracelets, another fad freebies given during the previous election campaign. Etched in the rubber bracelets were names of now elected senators and a certain partylist. He kept a perfect proximity from the float like a hungry hound, toungue- out panting, waiting for a tender piece of meat.
Such sarcasm. It tore my idealistic heart to see the common tao, whose mandate to elect his leaders to the highest form of government is as sacred as the Constitution, begged for apples like alms and cursed the man atop the float every time an apple failed the grip of his soiled sweaty hands. Such irony knowing the fact that the sanctity of one man’s vote was peddled for 200 Php one fateful night before the election day. Likened to a cautious thief through the night, he waited for midnight to fall and thus received the cold cash discreetly from the disclosed precinct leaders of the Apple Man and other characters of Ninja Turtles and even from members of the uncanny X-men. Rates are varied depending on the source. But I was inclined to believe then that rates were pre-determined to equate the amount of his basic human right. I cried in silence.
I abhorred the idea as to how the men atop the float played sarcastically with the crowds’ taking chances with the imported fruit. Taclobanons do not grow apple trees in their backyards, and the fact that money is hard to come by these days, why would they not just grab their chances right there and then.
To many, it was part of the merrymaking because it was the city fiesta after all. To some idealistic few, it was a mockery full of taunting to the preceding floats of the Department of Tourism promoting the rich and unique culture of the region, including the ways of its diversified people, whether they had apples on their hands or none. To that man of my fancy, whose unwavering gusto was remarkable, his story was one I knew of so well.
Perhaps, he had 12 children and the apples in his swollen bag would not suffice just yet so that he was following the mob faithfully for more. Perhaps, it was his self-proclaimed day-off from his blue collared job and took full advantage of the idea of selling the catch for his family’s meal for the day. Perhaps, it was his own understanding of the Romualdezes gratefulness for having been elected to the office again, because he was one of those who voted for them. Or perhaps, there were unfathomed reasons I for one may never fully understand.
If that picture depicted a thousand of stories, then here is one: that man who sold his vote obliviously is the same man who owned the knapsack full of apples. Such a preposterous fate for a man who had the power to select his leaders he could have hoped for to bring him to a productive society.
If the government would only be truly sincere about eradicating poverty and carrying out instead the people’s best interest, then perhaps no ethnic minorities would settle from city to city to seek for a pasture that rightfully belongs to them. Perhaps no families would leave the countryside to seek opportunities in the densely populated sub-urban. Perhaps no man will swallow his pride and mock his own self with an apple without actually knowing it.
02 july 2007
* This article was written following the Pintados-Kasadyaan Parade of 2007, the first city fiesta after the 2007 National Election.
