PINOY POP CULTURE BOOK

Identifying Pinoy lfop & Ra,tor the Pinoy s

PEOPLE POWER 60 PEOPLE POWER II: Hello, Billy!

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Vocabulary of Pinoy Pop go

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POP is short for popular culture (not pop art as in Andy Warhol and Peter Max, pop

music as in Boston Pops or popcorn). Pop is what is generally accepted by the majority of the people.

Pop is greatly influenced by technology and mass media like print, TV and movies and therefore easily recognizable. It's visual (gay santacruzan), it's auditory (the musical car horn), it's gustatory (spaghetti with sweet sauce). Its consumers-the general public, the masses, the bakya-comprise 95 percent of the population of the Philippines.

Pinoy pop is easily recognizable, except to those who practice it and therefore take it seriously. Like the way we practice religion or use the space in our malls.

Actually, in the end, you will realize that the whole of Philippine culture is really quite pop. But you may disagree. (Because we all live it in some way.)

The elite think popular culture is low brow and look down on it because pop is often stereotyped and sometimes quite kitsch.

Pop is an urban phenomenon. Hard edged and savvy. Pinoy pop is always a copy.

It's different from "folk," which is rural, traditional, communal and a lot more innocent.

From folk culture are the star lanterns, the pastillas wrappers, the papier mache horses of Paete. It's different from ethnic, which is also all the above but comes from the minority groups.

Folk and ethnic often become pop. Substitute pink plastic for the transparent papel de japan, and the folk star lantern becomes pop. The ethnic carving of a headhunter by a lone Ifugao becomes pop when reproduced five times life-size for tourists. Siopao, colored pink, yellow, green or violet, makes it classifiable as pop. The Holy Week reading of the pasyon becomes pop when the traditional tune is replaced by popular melodies to keep the young awake. Like the latest heard was the theme song from the movie "Titanic."

Some ethnic/pop things climb up the social ladder and become elite such as bayong bags, puto bumbong, herbal remedies, faith healing and fortune telling. Some PINOY POP CULTURE 006/007

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elite things get too popular, slide down and become pop like the Pierre Cardin barong, which every barrio groom likes to wear.

There's always a commercial element in pop. Like the Metropop Festival's purpose for being is to popularize new compositions and sell more records. T here's nothing at all wrong about not being high art. High or low, you've just got to be good.

Another earmark of Pinoy pop is imitation. Filipinos love to copy everything.

Singing stars copy the styles of pop idols. Movie makers pirate movie plots.

Restaurants, shops, fashion, architecture and interior design and glossy magazines copy all the latest foreign trends. Is it our colonial experience? Imitation can be a learning experience, or it can turn you into a xerox machine.

Imitations, when fully integrated into the culture, become our own like the Santo Nino. Otherwise, they remain indigestible like bumps on our culture.

Then there's pop that's original, truly homegrown arid forever good. Like Yoyoy Villame and Nora Aunor, sweet spaghetti, Sylvia La Torre, The People Power Revolution, Darna, Kenkoy, the jeepney and that once Philippine institution, Ma Mon Luk. What was high fashion yesterday is considered pop today. Remember the photos of fabulous couturier gowns and their wearers' pouffed hairdos of the '50s? So your most gorgeous in clothes today may be the pop of a future generation. Pop therefore also means out-of-date or not-quite-in-synch.

Pop offers an insight into society and has the power to criticize dominant or well­ to-do cultures. Like colorful TV characters such as Tessie Tomas' "Meldita" and Nanette Inventor's "Dona Buding. And all the comics characters of Pol Medina's "Pugad Baboy.

This book is written in whatever is convenient-Pilip.ino, straight English, carabao English, Filipino English, Engalog, slang and badaf, sorry about that. It's not a guidebook for foreigners but the Filipino's guide to himself.

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Rap for tiie Pinoy Pinoy is what

Filipinos call each other. It didn't come from outside. It's a term of endearment.

You're Pinoy (from Filipino) just like you're tisoy (from mestizo) or Chinoy (from chino).

It's a nickname just like Ikoy is from Federico, Minoy is from Maximina, Tinay is from Celestina, Pipay is from Epifania.

But now you're Fred and Max and Celeste and Pops.

You're Juan de la Cruz or Mang Pandey.

You're common tao, masa, urban poor but also Dona Buding and Nora Aunor, Rizal, Bonifacio and Nick Joaquin, galing galing.

Filipinos like to

yakap, akbay, hawak, kalong, kalabit. We go out sama-sama, we

sleep side by side,

siping-siping.

You've been called

indio, Negro, flip, noypits. Or Filipino, a

biscuit, brown outside and white inside, or a word stricken from the dictionary, meaning, domestic.

Who has a Lola Baby, a Tata Boyet, a basing called Sir Butch, his wife Ma'am Tereret and their daughter Ms. Cring Cring?

He's a citizen of the world, he's in all the villages and capitals, bringing his guitar and his bagoong, his walis na tingting, his taba, his Iola and Iola.

Look at that baggage, it's mostly

pasalubongkilik, sukbit, hawak, kaladkad, sunong­

from jacket to lipstick, from rosary to chocolate, from TV and CD to Spanish tiles for your gate.

Hey, Joe, don't envy me 'cause I'm brown, you'll get ultra violet under the sun and from that artificial lamp.

Just lucky, I guess.

God put us all in the oven, but some were uncooked and some were burned, but me, I came out golden brown!

Hey, Christoff! Hey, David and Ann! Your Pinoy yaya makes y our children gentler, more obedient, she teaches them how to pray.

The Pinoy is a linguist. As in. As if.

For a while. Paki

ganyan naman ang kuwan sa ano. Open

the light. Close the light. Don't be high blood. If you're ready na, I'll pass for you.

She's not so exact, not so chop-chop­ she just flows and flows, Filipino time­

I'm inviting you to my party, please RSVP. Oo means "yes" or "maybe," or "yes if you press me," or "maybe if it doesn't rain."

naku, huJi din naman ang Kano!

The Pinoy has more time to be nice, to be kind, to apologize, be there when you're depressed, to help you with your utang and your wedding dress.

The Filipino is a giver, never mind what it does to his liver, never mind what it takes. Hardships of the Third World don't dry up his blood. Just make him more compassionate, more feeling, of the other guy's lot.

The Filipino is fearless, bahaJa na, which actually means BathaJa na, "leave everything to God." Okay Jang if I die, okay · �•[".,....

Jang if I live, okay Jang if I suffer, okay Jang if I'm relieved.

BePinoy.

Enjoy!

Three Pinoy Elvises: RICO GUTIERREZ (above), CHITO BERTOL (inset, left) and EDGAR OPIDA (inset, right) / Photographs

by TOM EPPERSON

PINOY POP CULTURE 012/013

The main. character1st1c or.t-'1nov pop 1s lffiltatlQif. And so we have the

actor Eddie Mesa who made it big as the Elvis Presley of the Philippines at Clover Theater and Chito Bertel, perennial Elvis .Presley winner in TV shows (whose daughter is named Liza Marie). Other Elvises are Rico Gutierrez, Edgar Opida, Eddie Suiza and a female one (now retired) named Cora Adajar who was given a guitar by the pop idol.

There is a Spanish Elvis, a Japanese Elvis, a Chinese Elvis, an Iloilo Elvis­ every barangay has an Elvis, claims Chito.

Victor Wood was the Tom Jones of the Philippines, Bobby Gonzales the Johnny Ray, Bert Nievera the Johnny Mathis, Flor de Jesus the Joni James, Virgie Panganiban the Doris Day, Manding Evangelista the Frank Sinatra, Ric Fajardo the Harry Belafonte, Walter Perez the country singer Roy Orbison.(And many of them are second generation!)

There was a miscue in the plakang­ plaka, however, when the Hagibis patterned themselves after The Village People. The gay macho was not yet a recognizable entity in the '80s scene. The Hagibis took the motorcycle cop, the sailor, the American Indian and the electric lineman straight and unblinking.

Ignoring or misreading the gay statement of The Village People, the Hagibis also dressed in motorcycle leather but took the stance of Pinoy supermachos. "In the Navy" and "YMCA," which referred to gay hunting grounds, became the most utterly sexist songs like "Katawan" and FLOR DE JESUS the Pinoy Joni James, WALTER PEREZ the Pinoy Roy Orbison and VIRGIE PANGANIBAN the Pinoy Doris Day (inset, top) / Photograph by TOM EPPERSON

Legs, legs, legs mo)' nakakasilaw!

Legs, legs, legs mo)' nakakatunaw!

Sometime later, another singing group emerged parodying Hagibis. The group's name: Charing (their hit song was "Badaf Forever"). The option to take on the identity of a famous singer was either one's own or upon the advice of a promoter in order to make it more quickly with an audience that was more comfortable with labels.

The 1980s and later generations of singers still copied the styles of their favorite pop idols, but were less willing to acknowledge it. But they did some ad libbing, and the fans never tired of adoring Regine Velasquez, who is somewhat like Mariah Carey, and Maegan Aguilar, who sounds like Janis Joplin, Gary Valenciana, who was labelled early in his career as a Michael Jackson, and Nora Aunor as a Timi Yuro.

Some singers remained plakang­ plaka for reasons of their own-as a hobby, true admiration of an idol or nostalgia. Others broke loose or were never there and made it on their own names: Nievera, Gonzales, Maturan, Valenciana. And Nora, of course, is Nora, not Timi Yuro.

....

The drama scene's plakang-plaka, in turn, consisted of transplanting Broadway musicals, sometimes intact-sets, blocking, costumes, diction and all-to the Philippine stage. Filipinos were happy enough to have a slice of Broadway in the '50s and developed the first audience for theater.

Plakang-plaka proved nothing to scoff at, however, when a decade ago, Cameron Mackintosh, producer of "Les Miserables," came to the Philippines to open an audition for the first "Miss Saigon." The compact disc of "Les Miserables" had long been available locally, and the auditioners were pleasantly surprised to find a pretty girl with a beautiful voice singing the whole score of their very own musical perfectly. With only college plays and Repertory Philippines experience behind her, Lea Salonga went on to win the Olivier Award (London's equivalent of the Tony) and the Tony Award for "Miss Saigon."

On a level playing field a Filipino had bested the Westerners in their own turf.

Later, Lea came full circle when she was

TheContrarv Stream ell, you could also get stuck and end up in a xerox mode. Trumpets challenged the mold by creating their own English version of C.S. Lewis' "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" and the European fairy tale "The Little Mermaid," composing their own music and designing delightful props and costumes. But there was no hint at all of the cultural identity of its creators. Repertory Philippines, however, made one leap of faith when it replaced the contents of the Broadway musical form with their much loved Pinoy musical, "Miong."

Pop will be pop, and long hair will be long hair. In a bristling salvo against plakang-p/aka, ("The Shame of 'Miss Saigon,"' Sunday Inquirer Magazine, August 13, 2000), long hair Ricardo Abad writes: "The routes to a vigorous Philippine theater do not lie in mimickry and puppetry (which) constrains and inhibits Filipino creativity. It lies instead in three (other) paths. The first (is) the appropriation of

Philippine Broadway

Western drama, making it come to terms with the Filipino ethos. ( Wow!) This does not mean a rejection of Western theater but a recontextualization of it (like Shakespeare in Pilipino, set in Marawi).

"The second entails a more active mining of Philippine sources. Historical, anthropological and literary material may be used as••. themes or concepts (like the aswanlf? the creation stories? the women of Malolos?). The third route calls for a fusion, in subject matter and style, between our cultural heritage and the global culture." All three, Abad explains, are paths Filipino artists have already started to take.

Before his death, Rolando Tinio had been following all three paths longer than any playwright-director around. His major effort was to make serious writers like Ibsen, Chekhov, Moliere and especially Shakespeare Pinoyand pop. He believed that Pilipino could capture the lofty thoughts and ideas of Western works, and so began his exercise in pushing language. He translated arias from operas, art songs and German leiders and staged them. He even put an imported Italian soprano on a four-poster bed under a kulambo.

(The opera was sung in Italian, Tagalog and English.)

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given a chance to actually sing the role of Eponine in "Les Miserables" on Broadway. It was an international hit, and so was the girl who, like many Filipinos, learned to sing from a CD. "Rent" was similarly transplanted­ freezing basement, uncaring families, drug shoots and all. The local talents did everything themselves. At the end of it, "Rent's" Broadway producer went out of his way to congratulate Monique Wilson's New Voice cast for even being better than the original.

Sometimes artists have an initial need for a pattern-to develop self-confidence to fly on ventures truer to one's culture. But it is now 2001, and we're still borrowing foreign plays without alteration. In spite of all the debates on language, the nationalism issue, the departure of the US bases, the countless national awards in local playwriting, etc., Broadway is still the upper middle class' preferred staple, always outnumbering productions based on Filipino life.

Another path in direct opposition to the Broadway mold was that taken by Nicanor Tiongson's Babaylan group. They believed that to create original Filipino theater one must go back to one's roots and the greater tradition.

Hence, Babaylan's concentration was the revival and revitalization of traditional popular drama forms such as the moro-moro or komedya and the zarzuela. With Dez Bautista and Doreen Fernandez, Babaylan staged rituals like the panunu/uyan, the pasyon and the sinakulo.

The Philippine Educational Theater association (PETA), founded by Cecille Guidote with Lino Brocka as its shining light, is essentially educational and cause-oriented. It tackles subjects like feminism, employer­ employee relations, gender issues. PETA is prominent in demonstrations and for its espousal of political causes.

It extends original Filipino theater to the grassroots. The community is gathered after the performance for a discussion of the issue at hand, for instance, wife battering, reproductive rights, child abuse, gay acceptance or environmental preservation• Interaction with PETA has been sought by theater groups from Japan, Australia, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, India, Africa •

Under Rody Vera and its members, PETA also tries to develop playwriting, acting and other theater skills, especially with their summer workshops.

The Cultural Center of the Philippines' (CCP) Tanghalang Pilipino under Nonon Padilla does all of the above-revivals, classics, translations, originals and historicals. They have an outreach program as well that encourages the development of regional theater in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. It is an attempt at a model for a national theater.

Celeste Legaspi's Musical Theater Philippines pursues another tangent. It is not oriental theater, but it is not Broadway either.

Their preferred source of subject matter is Filipino popular culture such as "Kenkoy" (from the comics) and "Katy" from vodavil. Original Filipino plays, especially Nick Joaquin's, are also welcome, whether in English or Pilipino.

The production of original works that won in the annual CCP playwriting contest was the thrust of Tony Espejo's Bulwagang Gantimpala.

It became the venue for young, unproduced Filipino playwrights to finally see their plays in informal laboratory theater style. It introduced the notion that good productions need not be lavish nor expensive.

Campus theater groups at the University of the Philippines (with directors Tony Mabesa, Behn Cervantes, Anton Juan) and Ateneo (Onofre Pagsanghan, Ricky Abad) have the same aim-to answer academic needs.

Literature is served by classical plays of the masters, translated and localized in imaginative ways, and also by original plays.

University theater serves other disciplines as well like psychology with "Oedipus Rex" and "Macbeth," health (venereal disease) with "Ghosts" by Ibsen, etc.

All truly Filipino theater groups abhor "globalization" since the dominant culture-the West's-swallows the smaller one and becomes the accepted standard.

To be truly global, one must first know and identify with one's culture, love it and protect it. "You don't end up world class by being second best Broadway or Walt Disney," says Behn Cervantes• "The root word of international, after all, is national."

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music, as in drama, there was a contrary stream that attempted to break out of the Western pop song mode.

Lyricists wrote songs using "street language" (slang, conversational or red­ blooded Tagalog) which became titles of movies of the late '60s like Nida and Nestor's "Bahala Na" and "Waray­ JUAN DE LA CRUZ BAND, Waray" and the Lita Gutierrez starrer, "NO TOUCH" "Alembong." People had instant rapport with the lingo, and so the songs (and the movies) made it big.

Bobby Gonzales, who sang rock 'n' roll during the '60s Elvis era, also composed "Hahabol-habol" which pop music analyst Eric Caruncho identifies as the seminal Pinoy rock. T he recognized pop landmark, however, is "Ako'y may kaibigan "Ang Himig Natin" by a band Siya ay nahihirapan called Juan de la Cruz.

Handa ba kayong lahat Na siya ay tulungan" ~JUAN DE LA CRUZ BAND, "ANG HIMIG NATIN"

PINOY POP CULTURE 016/017

Tuwing kita'y nakikita/ Ako y natutunaw / Paranq I Lahat ay nagulat ic::e cream na bilad7 nanQbuksan ang �a ilalim ng araw pinto/�,aYia.w ng mga tao y b1alang nahinto; Bunok mo'y Budji, ,talampak9'y Gucci/ Suot mo y N oong nilili_oawan gawa ni Pitoy, d1 ka namin/ �ami'y � nanggalinQ kay Eloy/ 1yong h1nd1 Bongaa Ka, d9-y, pinapansin/ Porke't bongga Ka 'day; �ige kami'y hindi taga­ lang, s1ge lang, 1taas La Salre/ Wala }(ang ang k1lay type sa am1n HOT DOG, "PERS LAB"

HOT DOG, "BONGGA KA, 'DAY"

Not so memorable, but after all that Western rocking the public was ready for something Pinoy. The Juan de la Cruz Band, after all, was composed of Pepe Smith, Mike Hanopol and Edmund Fortuna, the cream of previous rock bands. Such a coming together of big names had come about in the States so of course, the Pinoy had to have one, too.

The song was Tagalog, the band named Juan de la Cruz-how could anyone reject nationalism like that? "Himig" became a kind of rock anthem.

At the same time, a new group was a-barning. Hot Dog was wholesome, appealing, cute. Its songwriter, Dennis Garcia, as others in the group, worked as advertising copy writers. They were experienced jingle writers, they knew their Pinoy psychology and applied all their expertise to Hot Dog. Their first song, the squeaky clean "Pers Lab" hit the right chord. Hot Dog defined its impressive place in the sun-and in the market.

HOT DOG, "BEH, BUTI NGA"

The monumental success of Hot Dog vitalized the music scene. Everyone wanted to write their own songs; it seemed so easy. The government launched a Metropop contest and encouraged song writers to produce more. They did, although as an older radio personality remarked, "There was a time in the '50s when even in English, Filipino songs sounded Pinoy. But somehow the OPM, even when written in Tagalog, quite often does not sound Pinoy."

Mike Hanopol used "street language" in "Jeprox," Sampaguita parodied colegiala talk with "Ayokong magpa-cry-cry... ," Apo Hiking Society was big brother conversational in "Pumapatak ang Ulan." They had a tremendous cult following.

When activist songs became the rage in the States, Pinoys were soon enough echoing the grievances of the US. Some singers were xeroxes of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Peter, Paul and Mary. The

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loose-clothed folk singer sitting on a high stool with a guitar, hair half covering the face, became a standard of bars and cafes. Giving them an assist was the Jingle chordbook section on folk songs.

Eventually, however, we had our own legitimate political complaints and so finally composed our own protest songs.

The '60s period gave rise to Heber Bartolome ("Tayo'y mga Pinoy"), Inang Laya, composed of Becky Abraham and Karina David ("Pag-ibig sa Tinubuang Lupa"), Jess Santiago, Paul Galang, Susan Fernandez. And the audience really listened when Joey Ayala went onstage. They waved candles or lighters when his popular "Walang Hanggang Paalam" was sung. It became the wedding song of the Left. Thanks to activism Pinoy had become in.

But becoming really mainstream, explained record producer Robin Rivera, is not a crossing over from AB audience to CDE, which is the usual perception.

The economic grouping may just be all in Metro Manila, and therefore it is still the same market. The real crossover to mainstream is from Manila to the rest of the Philippines.

The Eraserheads did just that: cross over. They not only had a big urban concert audience but were known even �in barrio dances in the bulubundukan.

They were adored both by rockers and the sing-along crowd. Theirs was a synthesis of great lyrics (Eli Buendia's) and tunog Pinoy, the sound that made jukebox hits, ("medyo tunog pasion, binabatak ang nota, parang koro sa baryo"). Something that could only be imbibed from a provincial environment, from growing up Pinoy.

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Pare ko ) meron akong problema/ Wag mo sabihino ) "Na naman / / In la1J ako sa isang kolehiyal9/ Hinpi ko ma1nt1nd1han/ Wag na nat1ng 1daan sa ma-botena usapan/ Lalo Tang madaragdagan/ Ana sakit ng ulo at biibil sa tiyan/, 0 Diyos ko, ano ba naman ito/ Di ba 'tang ina/ Nagrnukha akong tanga 1

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ERASER HEADS, "PARE KO"

Tayo'y mga Pinoy/ H1nd1 tayo Kano/ Huw-arrtang rnahihiya;-Kung ang 1long mo ay pango HEBER BARTOLOME, "TAYO'Y MGA PINOY"

Siguro ay may kotse ka na ngayon/ Rumararnua sa entablado/ Uamit ay ga�a ni Sotto/ �1guro y malap1t ka na ring sumali/ Sa Supermodel of the whole w-ide universe ERASER HEADS, "MAGASIN"

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ou can tell a jukebox hit-it's the one you hear from Quiapo to Cubao, from Avenida to Divisoria, in all sorts of bus stops and beer gardens up to the bulubundukan of Bohol. w•s the song that riddles one's ears in the jeepneys (before radios were banned from them) from home to the University Belt. Jukebox hits are the most pirated tapes peddled on the sidewalks of Raon (three for P100), pirated ceaselessly because they are deathless. Lovers play the same song over and over on the jukebox, driving the accidental listener bonkers.

Eddie Peregrina. Basil Valdes. Victor Wood. Imelda Papin.

Yoyoy Villame. Freddie Aguilar. Jessa Zaragosa. Eva Eugenio.

Claire. April Boy Regino. Aegis Band. What is the link that connects them to their mass following?

Don't they sound a bit like the koro in Malabon? Or your metown? With very much of the mesmerizing tone of a pasyon re ding during Holy Week? Listen to Eddie Peregrina stretch his wor s and melody to kingdom come. The words are strung toge her, they are not individual, the ends of them connecting, blen ing with each succeeding one. Which is a characteristic, the iden fiable quality, they say, of Pinoysinging. It is much like a Filip no day which unfolds by itself from bukang liwaywayto ukebo , pa ikat ng arawto tanghaling tapatto dapit hapon. It is a feeling of ime--not so much what time it is by your watch.

• The quality of Pinoy pop singing harks back to chanting, to the tribes of Mindanao, or if you wish to be sophisticated about it, the oriental singing style (somewhat like caterwauling) of the Indonesian and the Chinese, reminiscent of the Indians 'lith their hypnotic sitars. The quality connects to a magic trance.

Truly popular Pinoy singers touch base with the subconscious.

They stir up a tribal memory. April Boy Regino is the latest reincarnation, but even Zsa Zsa Padilla, Joey Albert and Lani Misalucha have that tribal twang too.

That's how we sang the kundiman in our day, says /o/a­ "Anak Dalita," "Harana," "Doon Po Sa Amin." And the style hasn't changed. It's a long, unbroken tradition. The young singers follow the latest trends, ride on the new forms, but no matter how schooled, even when they sing in English, they sound Pinoy. OPM couldn't change them, couldn't erase the "province" from the voice, couldn't make them sound completely Western. What is there to correct when it's what makes a hit? Even the OPMs that veer toward this folk tradition were the ones that became popular in the boondocks, not the ones approved by California standards.

Maybe it's the angle to pursue, to develop-the way to be Pinoyl What else has remained the same? But of course, the taghoy, the long pained breath complaining about love! The Pinoy's unchanging subject is unrequited love, its pain, its anguish (why did he leave, why hasn't he come?), the tears that fall, the heart that will love to the grave.

The Filipino love song is a hyperbole. Hanggang sa hukay I will love you. Hanggang sa dulo ng walang hanggan. A cold corpse you will find if you don't answer me in time. Should we really believe the obsessed lover will kill himself? Nah! It's just a way to dramatize the situation, to make one feel as deeply as possible the other's plight.

The whole thing's just too baduy, low brow? Well, that's pop!

You're no jukebox king if no bakya ever listened to you.

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n Asia, the Pinoy is probably the most avid follower of things Western. He does, in fact, such a good job at copying that � he can compete even with the originals.

Many restaurants, cafes, tea and coffee places, bread, cake and creperie stations are inspired, in whole or in part, by establishments tried by their owners abroad.

When the copies click, they are followed by all the neighborhood. It is then called a "trend." At the Fort, at Alabang Center, on Nakpil and Orosa Streets, it is either European cafe or Southern California with sidewalk tables, umbrellas, balconies or glassed in, softly lit rooms visible from the street. We enjoy a piece of America or Europe-it makes us feel we're "dining abroad."

The menus differ, but most trendy restaurants (year 2000) copy the following pop items from each other: ice tea, garden salad, spaghetti carbonara, black cod, salmon, Angus beef, tiramisu,

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Of course, there are deviants, and that is when you have a Pepe and Pilar serving inverse-snob comfort food like lugaw, champurado at tuyo, and pan de sal with sugared margarine in a post-modern setting.

Then there are the restaurants that make a point of looking like franchises but have no foreign mothers. They serve food of the American South (Burgoa), Mexican (Tequila Joe, Mexicali), fancy coffees (Figaro), crepes (Cafe Breton), all kinds of tea (Struan and Tang). And they 're cheered on as they slug it out with the big guys.

All the trending began with the acceptance of the American salad by the Filipinos who, as late as the 1950s, could not stand a raw leaf. Tossed green salad with Thousand Island dressing was the first brave frontliner. Always treated as a side dish, it was seldom touched. Then came the classic Caesar salad (formerly PINOY POP CULTURE 024/025

.

prepared tableside), which has stayed and stayed and is still staying.

The sandwich, being more handy, gained acceptance, too. The pan de sal and the hot dog retreated in the face of gargantuan club sandwiches and boat­ size bread. No longer could the Pinoy complain that he was hungry because there was no rice.

The Pinoy has a sweet tooth and welcomed the dessert trolley rolling in with a mouthwatering array. The perennial favorite is the cheesecake.

The acceptance of the Japanese sashimi (no more screams of hilaw) indicated that the market was ready for Asian food and not necessarily Chinese.

Aside from Japanese food, there was Thai (very popular), Singaporean (with only feeble cries for "Tubig! ") and, of course, Vietnamese.

Continental food calls for wine, but of course! In that, the' upper-class Pinoy would not be left behind. Pizza's partner,

however, was always San Miguel beer.

Types of presentation changed, too.

The serve-yourself buffet style was introduced by The Round Table (Muni Golf Links) in 1965. It had an enthusiastic revival many years later as the smorgasbord. A big feast and more­ it was a license to "eat all you can."

"Eat all you can" becam_e a catchword of many. restaurants, including Japanese, in the '70s, reaching its peak with one masochist finishing 36 baskets of tempura. (He may be dead.)

Triple V put a stop to it by charging double anyone whose plate was not clean.

New words have come into the restaurant scene-"bottomless" (drink all you can, it takes 12 glasses of tea for us to break even) and "consumable" (subtract from the price of the admission ticket the concert, ballroom dancing or whatever affair inside).

Salads bloomed from the American campaign for healthy meals (meaning, light, leaning on fish and vegetables), which we copied, of course. The salad bar was adopted. It was so popular at Wendy's that it became an art to pile salad like a tower on the small dish. The -Pinoy's healthy salad lunch consisted of lettuce, macaroni salad, fruit salad, Russian salad, potato salad, beans, beets, carrots, cheese, bacon bits and dollops of dressing. Later, we learned to plant imported romaine, lolo rosso, arugula, butter lettuce and turned truly European.

Pinoys enjoy performance. The attention-getting sizzling steak was the "in" order of the '60s. The Pinoy loved it and was soon sizzling everything-pig's ears, bangus, hamburgers, chicken, tahong.

The pizza was a plakang plaka from the Italian American. The Pinoy loved it and called it "pizza pie" (a redundancy since pizza means pie). He played around with the toppings, adding native chorizo, tuyo, kesong puti, even Spam.

With the pizza came pasta. First, only the straight spaghettis, followed by ridged and curly ones, fat and thin ones, shell-shaped and bow tie ones. Since pasta could not be eaten with rice, bread and bread houses came to be. Another Filipino product was supplanted as the croissant, the baguette anci the multigrain took over the upper class' fantasy.

Restaurants ceased to be restaurants and became cafes, bistros and trattorias. They served smaller, less formal meals. Abroad bistros and trattorias are generally mom-and-pop operations, the owner's presence being the main attraction. Here they are · indistinguishable from one anot�er. Then came the chef-owned restaurants that revolved around the personality of the cook. Among these are Gene Gonzalez' Cafe Ysabel, Mari Relucio's Uno, the many Cibos of Gaita Fores, Clinton Palanca's Prospero's, Claude Tayag's Pampanga home. There were celebrity restaurants, too, but the celebrities came and went.

The next Caucasian (or is it Japanese franchise/idea?) we adopted is the coffee bar. We learned to sip all the blends from the Amazons to Africa. The barako lost out as the locals always do when globalization takes over.

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beauty contest-crown, scepter and bathing suit. Aside from the international beauty contests that we sponsor, there are now a (local) Miss Philippines, a Mrs. Philippines, a Miss Gay Philippines, a Little Miss Philippines. There is a Miss everything! The ultimate irony is that the Miss America 2001 is a Filipina from Hawaii.

An interesting study by Cambridge scholar Fenella Cannell points out a similarity in the facial expressions of beauty contestants, film stars and other Filipinos engaged in performance. Even the fellow being photographed while being nailed to the cross in Pampanga takes on this Western expression a la estampita. The uniform attempt is to reproduce some image of beauty and glamor (or religiosity) portrayed by the West.

Note the way a beauty contestant poses: stand at an angle, one foot slightly in front of the other, smile radiantly. Walk confidently-keep

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smiling, please. Be socially relevant in the interview. Look surprised and burst into tears like Miss America if declared the winner.

The fashion model's expression also mimics its Western counterpart's. Some years ago, it was the haughty and disdainful expression, the irap, the gliding walk. Today it is a deadpan look, whether the model has a crown of lll:t. flowers, a windmill on her head or a madwoman's hairdo. The current walk is a kind of duck step, each foot put directly in front of the other in a very straight line.

Mimi�king the expression on the faces of the Western models, says Cannell, is gaining access to the admired country's (mostly) "unattainable power, wealth, cleanliness, beauty, glamor and enjoyment. It is symbolic capital (which) in the Philippines is clearly tied up with command over the goods, gestures and language of America." To attain the look is to access the dream, even if it is fool's .2 "Cl :I gold.

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When it comes to sports, it was basketball, the tall white man's game, that the Filipinos adopted so passionately and to the letter. From campus games, basketball, too, as in the US, became professional (necessitating some imports). From MICAA, the association became PBA (as in NBA). It then became a TV game.

A regular sport, as in America, was developed for a pop medium-television.

Michael Jordan endorsed products as did our outstanding players-Robert Jaworski and Freddie Webb, who became senators (what could be more pop?), and the younger players-Alvin Patrimonio, Johnny Abarrientos, Jojo Lastimosa et al. Teams endorsed everything from canned meat to cell :phones. An even more pop wrinkle was added when players wore shirts named after their sponsors' products like Milkmen (Alaska), Hot Dogs (Purefoods), earlier known as the Tender Juicy, Carne Norte (also Purefoods), Phone Pals (Mobiline), Beermen (San Miguel). Now, who but Pinoys could think that up!

Ballroom dancing was already a craze in the Philippines when dance was recognized internationally as a sport.

From Europe dancesport came cha-cha­ ing in, complete with arresting costumes, organized contests and TV coverage. T he Philippine winners compete abroad.

Whether we realize it or not, we do more imitating of the West than any other Asian country. We have subdivisions like Bel Air, White Plains, Southwoods, Beverly Hills. Would the Indonesians or Thais or Japanese happen to have a Hillsboro, a Cottonwoods, an Arbortowne, a Westgrove, a Windgate or a Barrington (named after the Forbes Park of Chicago)?

Missouri (Mandaluyong), Buchanan (San Juan), Dunwoody (Caloocan), Boston (Quezon City), Rockefeller (Makati), Park Avenue (Pasay) and New York (Cubao) are some of the streets we live in. We also reside in high style or not-so-high style in Trafalgar, Acropolis, Eisenhower, Leighton, Cleveland, Eastwood Excelsior which are towers, mansions, plazas, places or at least villas and condos. We send our dead to Arlington (Funeral Homes). (PS. "The Ritz" sells used clothing, shoes, bags, belts, magazines, CD components and sewing machines).

Our glossy magazines and the lifestyle pages of our newspapers are patterned after Vogue, Elle, Marie Claire, Living, Harper's Bazaar, Esquire, GO, as are our articles: "Ten Best Dressed," "Ten Richest," "Ten Sure-Fire Diets," "Ten Things You Can't Do Without," etc., etc. And the gauge of their (material) success is that most reading matter has become a catalogue of things for sale.

So keen are our Westernized taste buds that, on the upside, we have been entrusted with franchises to such important US magazines as Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Seventeen, Teen, FHM. Vernon Go's Pulp, the local version of Tower Records' Pulse,

outshines its original.

We go for clothes labels like Prada, Gucci, Guess, Levi's, Versace, Benetton, Chanel, Nina Ricci, Ralph Lauren, Giordano. When we can't afford the real thing, we go after the imitations, too. We buy nonijuice at exhorbitant prices because the self-same apatotgrown on our shores does not sound class. Our hair has lately turned vari-colored­ everything from auburn to purple streaks to the bleached blonde of rock bands and street boys.

Our current, Western-inspired costume is black, black from morning till night, even if the sun is blazing and even if no one died. We have a steady market for skin whiteners and noselifts, too.

Unlike the Polynesians, we long to be thin as twiggies, and so we huff and puff in the latest American-style gyms, in state-of-the-art leotards. We sweat in dance clubs and saunas, get body-wrapped, lipo-suctioned, electrolized, Swedish massaged. Depending on what we read we either eat all fat or all carbohydrates (and end up just as plump as our American and European idols).

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What can be more pop than the Filipino rich copying other rich? Thelma S. San Juan writes: "They go to the same architect­ designers; the same retailers of Italian fixtures and Philip Starck; the same damask curtain makers; the same colorists; the same art dealers (and art fakers}; the same importers of stainless kitchen equipment; even the same flower stylists. And they borrow from the same collectors of antique china and crystals when they have to host power dinners without notice."

We plant no wheat, but bread (and fast­ food pancakes} have greatly supplanted the Filipino's breakfast rice. Too late we've realized that vanda sanderina, the local butterfly orchid, has become a rarity, as have cadena de amor, Yellow Bell and Morning Glory. (We love tulips.)

We've long ago appropriated "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" as our own Christmas carol and we yearly dash through the snow with "Jingle Bells." (Thank God for "Ang Pasko ay

PINOY POP CULTURE 030/031

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for TV, the latest derivative is the talk show with its relaxed conversational style. The host sits behind a big desk with two visitors' chairs in front a la David Letterman or Jay Leno. Or it could be a cozy living room with two oversize easy chairs.

As in the orig, the local talk show invites interesting personalities to guest.

There is an air of intimacy to the interviews even if they take place before a live audience. In the end the guests are allowed to plug their forthcoming movies, albums, books or current causes.

For the girls the in thing is to be an Oprah. Like a Pinoy ate, Oprah tackles with great concern her many interests (the book club, the angels' network, cancer patients, etc.). Her Philippine versions are Dina Bonnevie ("D-Day"), Rossana Races ("Startalk"), Sharon Cuneta ("Sharon") and the most successful Oprah wannabe-Kris Aquino. "Today With Kris" has a talk show portion a la Oprah, but combined with it are Pinoy elements: chismisan, the latest in beauty and fashion, housekeeping tips, cooking demo, food tasting. Aquino is so charming that even her bungling and her tactlessness become virtues. Then it's afternoon and time for Kris Aquino with Boy Abunda ("The Buzz"). And then the evening talk show hosts-Boy Abunda ("Private Conversations") at his incisive best, Martin Nievera ("Martin Late@Nite"), and their famous interviewees, all sitting on those deep, deep armchairs.

hen the Catholic religion came to the Philippines with the Spanish conquistadors, it suppressed the babaylan and their animist company.

Destroyed the wooded shrines, burned idols. Forbade the Filipinos to worship the stars, the moon, the rivers, the trees.

Forbade chanting and healing and dancing as forms of worship. Henceforth the Pinoy would worship only in a decorous manner, fully clothed, and observe all the laws of the Church.

A few indigenous rituals survived such as the subli, a healing dance of Batangas, the paganistic sinulog ritual of Ibajay and the fertility dance of Obando, which even gained official church acceptance after it had insinuated itself into the feast of San Pascual Baylon. The millenarian movements reacted by making Pinoy saints out of Jose Rizal, Andres Bonifacio, Apolinario Mabini and other heroes.

What entranced the Pinoy about Catholicism, however, was not its essence but its stupendous trappings:

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the huge silver altars, the High Mass, the lighted carrozas with quivering, costumed saints on top. And the gore, yes, the gore of the suffering Christ and the Santo Entierro resplendent in candlelight and flowers.

In 1965 Vatican II reversed the dictum that only in the folds of the Catholic Church could one be saved. It was proclaimed that if you were sincere in your faith, whatever it was, you, too, could attain heaven. Vatican II as well put an end to Catholic ritual as introduced by Spain. Henceforth, the local culture and art would shape the expression of the religion. No more pomp and circumstance and tantum ergos rising amid tinkling bells and clouds of incense. No more priest in an ecclesiastically approved fashion statement of satin and gold. No more mumbo-jumbo. Henceforth, the priest would say the mass in Filipino, facing the congregation.

On the road to demystification, however, things just became too PINOY POP CULTURE 032/033

commonplace for the borloloy-loving · Pinoy. The spectacle that had so entranced him was gone. Mass wasn't fun anymore, not since the songs became Tagalog, pop and jazz, accompanied by guitars, just like next door. Only the authoritarianism and the don'ts remained.

The Catholic flock turned their eyes to the joyful singing and swaying of the fundamentalist Protestants next door.

They seemed so much more fun, so much more relaxed (or so, the Catholics thought). The miracle cures were particularly attractive. And the church watched, with helplessness and alarm, the depletion of its ranks.

Like Catholics the world over, many Filipino Catholics could no longer be satisfied with institutionalized religion.

They longed for something freer, more personal, more authentic. Healing flowered among Catholic charismatics, sometimes inside, sometimes outside the church fold.

It was at about this time that a gifted preacher took to the stage in a technicolor coat. Just like show biz.

What he offered was much like what the Protestants had, but it was more attractive because one didn't have to leave the faith of one's birth. Brother Mike Velarde could quote the Bible just · as expertly as any Protestant minister.

He believed in the abundance of the universe and had the same mythico­ magical relationship that the folk had with the spirit world.

In his prayer rallies there were singing, praying, dancing, jumping, clapping and testimonials. The people waved handkerchiefs with anting-anting markings, upturned their umbrellas ("to catch grace from above"), held up bottles of healing oil, flower pots, packets of pepper and salt, inihaw, eggs, wallets, passports. Brother Mike taught them to be positive-your miracle is on the way!-and people believed they were blessed even if they were as poor as rats.

One Christmas Eve, Brother Mike decided to treat the poor to a noche buena at Luneta that they would never forget. He asked them to bring rice, kettles, water and kerosene stoves and cook the rice on the spot. More than 500 roasted calves, thousands of lechons and barbecued chickens made their appearance. The party began at noon and lasted until dawn of Christmas Day. Brother Mike was more than the teacher of his flock. He was its father. He understood the culture of the Pinoy that loves a family, believes in God the Father, Mama Mary and Baby Jesus, and goes hysterical over the Pope who is the papa of the church.

Velarde loved his people. He made them laugh. He gave them hope. They were composed of Catholics, lapsed Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Iglesia ni Kristo, Aglipayans, espiritistas­ people of every stripe and walk of life.

From a handful, El Shaddai following grew to a regular 300,000 weekly and four million on special days. And they came rain, shine, Signal No. 3, earthquake, volcanic eruption, political upheaval. Brother Mike was like a magnet. The Catholic Church was pleased as punch.

Brother Mike Velarde is a contemporary evolution of folk religion.

With this difference. He does not have to hide his activities from the church. Not only does Brother Mike preach folk Catholicism openly, on the CCP grounds and at the Luneta grandstand, it is televised and broadcast nationally and internationally (by communications networks he owns himself).

In using the latest technologies for mass communication, the Catholic religion has become as pop as pop can be. But maybe ecumenical, too, in the truer sense of Vatican II, as institutional church has never been able to apply it.

Because with El Shaddai Brother Mike has broken down all boundaries and allowed in everything and everyone.

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Photographs by RONNIE SALVACION

PINOY POP CULTURE 036/037

he's ordering lasagna, and I'm ordering salmon pizza-half-and-half kami," or "one extra plate, please," is a familiar order to a Pinoy waiter. So is "one blueberry crepe and three forks."

A not-too-familiar entree of duck or stew will have to go around the table because everyone "just wants to taste a little." Later, another dish has to go counterclockwise just to reciprocate the gesture. It's like no one wants to eat his order alone or let you eat your order alone. The Filipino is all about sharing.

THE VARIOUS PIECES of glutinous native kakanin that go into the composite cake called sapin-sapin used to be individual cakes. The white sapin-sapin ("layered") was only one of them-it was composed of seven to eight gelatinous, thin layers cooked in coconut milk.

Originally cakes on their own, too, were the slices of yellow gold majang mais, the dark violet kalamay and the sticky kutsinta with the brownish red topping. One fine day, an enterprising kakanin maker, knowing the Pinoy predisposition for "pa-tikim," put them all together in one bilao, a slice each of this and this and that.

Now generically called sapin-sapin, it was an instant hit! Eventually, sapin-sapin metamorphosed into today's colorful wheel of concentric circles still composed of maja mais, kalamay na ube, kutsinta and, of course, the simplified, layerless sapin-sapin.

Such a development was not lost on cake shops. Today Goldilocks offers samplers of eight of their cakes-Black Forest, Chocolate Mousse, Ube Cake, Chocolate Cherry, Cookies 'n' Cream, Rainbow Cake, Tippy Chaco and Chocolate Symphony, the wedges arranged in the round. It is called Cake Galore.

FORMER SECRETARY OF Tourism Mina Gabor's attraction in the restaurant she opened was to

pair off different varieties of regional rice with the ulam the guests ordered. Most guests, however, could not make up their minds and opted for small scoops of each kind to go with viands of all kinds.

In the menu of another eating place, Mama Rosa, is an otder of different kinds of small longganiza from Vigan, Lukban, Alaminos, Pampanga, all in one plate.

LOOK IN ANY grocery today, and you will find an infinite number of flavors of everything. (The manufacturers have found us out!) There is hardly a plain cracker-it is bacon flavor, chicken flavor, cheese, ham, adobo, pizza or what not. It is the same with potato and other chips, with cracker nuts, with popcorn. Even milk is flavored melon, strawberry, orange, ube, chocolate or pandan. The "fruit" flavors are mostly produced in laboratories. Times have changed. "Ang sarap!" exclaimed a hip teener. "Lasang cutex."

One can buy in one box a dozen assorted doughnuts of various flavors and colors. Available at bus terminals is the large balde of MY San or La Pacita biscuits that maids love to take home. It is called "assorted" or "mixed up" biscuits because every shape and flavor of cookie produced in the shop is there.

Nor is the love of assortment confined to food. Since when did one notebook or pad paper become pink, yellow and blue? What about four hair gels of different colors in one pack? Or five fingers of a hand each with nail polish of a different color?

In the late '80s jeepneys blared tapes containing "medleys," a halo-halo of songs by the Beatles, the Carpenters, Abba, etc., put together in utter disregard of the concept of an album.

"Medleys" were practically the only tapes ever played. You heard the whole repertoire on the trip from Ouiapo to Cubao-and back.

Photographs by EDDIEBOY ESCUDERO

Makulav ang ifai1g"d._

It has been said by art critics that the Philippine sunlight defines Filipino colors.

These are best exemplified in Fernando Amorsolo's paintings with their glowing reds and yellows and oranges. In his landscapes of the Central Plains, our skies are even bluer, our palay stalks greener, our sunsets more fiery. None for us the dreary grays, somber blues and blacks of countries with sleet and snow.

Behold the dazzling colors of a roadside fruit stand with rows of ripe mangoes, watermelons, bunches of hanging bananas, pineapples, purple rambutan, occasionally bright pink macopas and yellow gold cashew fruits. Behold the riot of colors of our native cooking-pansit Malahan, pansit palabok, fish cooked in dilaw or yellow ginger, pink-purple burong dalag, tomatoes and red eggs, golden papaya pickles, shiny brown kutchinta, violet puto bumbong, halo-halo. Behold the jeepney.

The colors of handwoven cloths came from barks, roots, flowers, seeds, husks, mud, clay. Food colors came from rice, fruits, vegetables, tubers, spices (like achuete).

Because they were natural there were many subtle shades even of the brightest colors.

But they had no native names. Even today the n true country folk describe as pula anything t3: m that's red, maroon, brown, reddish brown, rblonde, golden brown (like the hair of maize), 0 pink, pale pink (like the flushed cheeks of a � m child), red orange (like a big fire or the z C1 sunset). ;:a Impressario Dez Bautista makes this m "racist" observation of color: Ilocanos like earth colors ranging from the clay palayok to mz the red of the nganga or betelnut chew. The Kapampangan prefers striking, bongga colors-aqua, fuchsia, magenta-always with a bit of shine. From their patadyongs one � can see the Bisayan fondness for folk colors m like brilliant yellows, oranges and reds. ril The introduction of synthetic dyes and � 0 z paints fixed the colors once and for all. The

folk colors became as intense as the pigments available-bright green and red for Paete taka (papier mache horses and Nenengs in salakot), green and bright pink for Samar mats, yellow and maroon for the malong_.

With demand, one couldn't spend too much time on one object anymore.

Short cuts became possible with ready­ made paper, plastic, commercial dyes and paints, food extenders and food colors. The delicate papel de japan cut­ outs layered one upon another in the San Fernando star lantern was substituted with opaque plastic or capiz shells, easier to handle but hardly conveying fragile transparency. Many things that were embossed became etched, things that were embroidered became painted and became pop.

As for seasonal crops, how to supply the demand, for instance, for ube when it is scarce? Of course, with camote extenders and violet coloring. Most halo­ halo ingredients had to be cooked by the vat-ful, colored and preserved to be available to hungry mall goers at any time. (Often, the coloring of food gets overboard, and we see yellow puto with no butter in it, ube puto with no ube, puto with traces of what look like orange yolk but with nary a red egg on it.)

The introduction of the drug culture into the scene has affected the Filipino color sense. It has pushed the boundaries to include psychedelic and neon colors-hot pink, blinding fuchsia, chartreuse, tru-orange, blazing red. They are in our makeup, our hair, our bags, our clothes, our food. (There is now colored fruit salad, colored siopao, colored taho andpichi-pichi, colored barquillos and technicolor popcorn.) z

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The balikbayan box is the length and breadth and depth of the Filipino's love Some of the for his family. It is a pasalubong box. contents of a Everyone must be remembered. You had balikbayan box regardless of a nice experience, and you must share social status (from it-in desperation, even with one hotel OCW to family returning from pencil or shower cap! There is nothing Disneyland) more hurting than to be told by a relative, "Bumalik ka na, ni hindi mo aka naalala ng kahit isang chocolate!"

The Filipino, according to Patricia Licuanan, has an average of 300 relatives, counting fourth cousins (which we do), in-laws, and relatives of in-laws. The pasalubong has been institutionalized even locally with the addition of pasalubong counters in regional eateries.

It has been institutionalized internationally with the airport Duty-Free shop and the balikbayan carton box.

A whole barangay of friends took you to the airport when you left for that

> »Guys, have you heard the story of the mag-ina in the USA? > »Anyway, dalawa lang sila dito sa Los Angeles.

Hinihintay nga nila ang pagdating ng pamilya nila.

Unfortunately, while waiting the mother died. > »Their family in the Philippines wanted their mom to be buried back home pero it was so expensive. Pero dahil majority of the family wanted it that way, walang choice ang anak dito sa States. > »Dahil nga very expensive, the daughter decided to ship the coffin unaccompanied. She just remained in the States. > »Nang dumating sa Pilipinas ang kanilang ina, may napansin ang pamilya. Ang mukha at katawan ng kanilang ina ay dikit na dikit na sa salamin ng kabaong.

Sabi tuloy ng isa, "Ay, tingnan mo yan, hindi sila marunong mag-asikaso ng patay sa America." > »To cut the story short, they prepared the coffin for viewing. Pag bukas ng takip (salamin) ng coffin, may napansin silang sulat sa dibdib ng kanilang ina.

Dahan-dahang kinuha at nanginginig na binuksan ni Kuya ang sulat!

OCW job. These were people who had helped you out, people who saw you grow up, people who depend on you­ who lent you your airfare, your suitcase and your overcoat. That is the main reason the Filipino abroad is always on the lookout for bargains and comes home ridiculously loaded with bursting handcarries. Little of it is for himself.

Well-off people have been known to take home a suitcase full of frozen steaks for the family. One honeymooning couple brought home from Australia 25 kilos of lamb chops. One loving Filipino president of a Tokyo university used to take home to his in-laws a backpack full of sushi cushioned in cracked ice. The balikbayan box of one Filipino mother contains Christmas lights and decor collected from her expatriate children's homes when she leaves for Manila after the season. Next Christmas, when she hangs them up, naku, talbog ang buong Lucena!

WHAT DOES THE Filipino leaving, in turn, bring home to the family living abroad as pasalubong? If it is accompanied by the passenger, the alisbayan box may contain boiled alimasag, shrimps, fried talakitok, sinaing na tambakol or tulingan, and home-made bagoong for an instant bienvenida party.

Also, pastillas de leche, ube, nangka, turrones de casuy, polvoron, dried mangoes, sampaloc, champuy, Chocnut, cracker nuts, titina, Chippy, a canned family recipe, and would you believe, local Kraft cheddar cheese in the blue can? All Mama Sita and other instant mixes are also musts so they can cook everything they're homesick for.

Not that there are no crabs or shrimps in America or cracker nuts or Kraft cheese, but they're just iba'ng lasa, not like the ones back home. Not to forget the walis tingting and walis tambo because "iba ang linis Pinoy sa linis Kano."

THIS FICTITIOUS E-MAIL LETTER APPEARED ON THE INTERNET SOME MONTHS AGO AND BECAME THE TALK WHEREVER ONE WENT. ITS BLACK HUMOR SENT PINOYS ROLLING ALL OVER THE FLOOR, LAUGHING AS WELL AS CRYING. > »Mahal kong mga kapatid: > »Hayan na si /nay. Pasensya na kayo't hindi ko nasamahan ang /nay sa pag-uwi diyan sa Pilipinas sa dahi/an na pagkamahal-mahal ng pamasahe. Ang gastos ko nga fang sa kanya ay kulang-kulang sa /abin­ limang libo (kabaong at shipment). Ayoko nang isipin ang eksaktong halaga.

Anyway, pinada/a ko, kasama ni /nay ang: > »dalawampu't apat na karne norte na nasa likod ni /nay. Maghati-hati na kayo. > »anim na bagong /abas na Reebok sneakers... isa suot-suot ni /nay ... ang lima nasa ulunan... isa-isa na kayo riyan. > »iba't-ibang klaseng tsokolate, nasa puwit ni /nay... maghati-hati na kayong lahat. > »anim na Ralph Lauren na t-shirts suot-suot ni /nay... para sa iyo, Kuya, at isa-isa sa mga pamangkin ko. > »isang dosenang Wonderbra na gustong-gusto ninyo, mga kapatid ko, suot lahat ni /nay. Maghati-hati na kayo riyan.

> »da/awang dosenang Victoria's Secret na panties na inaasam-asam ninyo, suot-suot din ni /nay. Maghati­ hati na rin kayo, Ate. > »walong Dockers na pantalon suot din ni /nay...

Kuya, Diko, isa-isa na kayo pati mga pamangkin ko. > »ang Ro/ex na hinahabi/in mo, Kuya, nasa braso ni /nay. Kunin mo na. > »ang hikaw, singsing at kuwintas na gustong-gusto mo, Ate, suot-suot din ni /nay. > »mga Chanel na medyas, suot din ni /nay. Tigi-tigisa kayo at mga pamangkin ko. > »Bahala na kayo kay /nay. Pamimisahan ko na fang siya dito. Balitaan nyo na fang ako pagkatapos ng libing. > »Nagmamahal na kapatid, NENE > »P.S. Pakibihisan na fang si /nay...

Ang kapwa. mo ay sarili din.

-VIRGILIO ENRIQUEZ

PINOY POP CULTURE 046/047

Artwork by ROBERTO B. FELEO

048 049

I

The jeepney

is probably the best example of a foreign object, the Willys Jeep, being so completely digested that it has become our very own. It is the expression of the folk mind and soul and the transportation of its body. But it is pop as well in that it is urban in concept, commercial in intent, three-fourth mass produced and a visual mass­ media product. Originally a four seater, the surplus American war vehicle was enlarged to accommodate six passengers facing another six (equals 15, including driver and two in front).

Later, it became eight on each length (equals 19), then 10, (equals 23 or 25). The longer the trip, the longer the jeep. There are now occasional 12-on-each-side seaters (equals 27) that block pedestrians' path when parked crosswise.

Eric Torres, author of the book Jeepney, calls the "exuberant color sense, emotionalism and abundant ornamentation" of the jeepney "pop baroque". The mid '60s was its height of "showboat splendor" when it had, Torres writes, the following: • An altar on the dashboard

with plastic saints or picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, garlanded with sampaguitas or plastic flowers; • Crocheted frills over the windshield (done by misis, sweetheart or No. 2); PINOY POP CULTURE 050/051

> >>Napakasakit, Ate Charo > »Dear Ate Charo, > »Thank you for considering this letter of mine. I'm writing about Ben. > »We're in our 20s and we both work in Makati. We used to be > »officemates. I've known him for almost two years, and all the time > »l'vebeen in love with him although we are just friends. He has a > »girlfriend he intends to marry. > »Ate Charo, I can't help but fall in love with him. He's responsible, > »intelligent, resourceful, thoughtful, loving, sweet, caring, upright, kind, > »family-oriented and a God-fearing individual. His good looks are just > »an added bonus. I can't believe such a man still exists today, > »and I will forever be thankful for his friendship. > »It is a pain to be so in love with him because he and his girlfriend are > »so happy together. I don't know if he's aware of my feelings for him, > »but winning his heart, I think, is out of the question. I know, however, > »that a part of me wishes he would reciprocate my love. > »God knows how much I'm suffering. Writing this letter alone is > »already a torture. I've been trying very hard to forget him. Pero ang > »kulit talaga ng puso ko, ayaw sumunod. > »Ate Charo, I haven't seen or talked with him for a long time. I > »thought his absence would somehow cool the feeling, but it hasn't. > »I don't want to miss him, but I do miss him terribly. How can I forget > »him? Attached is my picture to show my sincerity and let you decide > »if I am really not meant for his love. > »Please, Ate Charo, help me. > »Sincerely, Berta

• One to 12 sculptures of silver horses on the hood; • Round mirrors, also on the hood, four to 12 in number, all facing the windshield; • Plastic tapes wound around the hand rails like a barber's pole; • Paintings all over the body, no breathing space; • Not only is the jeepney visual, it has to be read: Basta driver, great lover; Mahilig sa chicks; Miss? huwag mag-a/ala? ako naman ay binata pa. Bos? puera TY, this is hanap buhay.

The heart-rending classic Katas ng Saudi has been replaced with Sa ate ko ito; • Long whiplashes of thin plastic tape on tall metal stick ups on the front section and the windshield; • An antenna soaring 10 ft. in the air or fastened to the roof.

But no radio. If there was a radio blaring loudly, it was not connected to the antenna; • Multicolor Christmas lights gleaming and blinking from

OJeq:) aJY<< < "UOS!d es eJ!>I ese6eseded! U!>1e es ed e>1 ie1nwns eu pounsns es •eJ{1u pua1JJ1J!6<< < 6u J{e61q1 6ueJ{e>1 6ue uaa J{e>I J{e61q1 6ueJ{e>1 ow !PU!H ·ow uoAsnn<< < 6ueA eu ow ue116!.L iOW Jana1 6u eseq6ed es O11e ed ow po6eU!d<< < ·;ieJ{nd 6uo66uosi 6ue 0A1 es ed epue6ew il!>I e1>1eq 6ue>1 e;iaAund<< < 'eJJag Jeaa<< <

crest to bumper.

Fearing the wayward, unbriddled creation that this moving assemblage is, the city dads legislated the jeepney into the safe, dull and commercial transport that it is today. But, it is rumored, in the side streets and unfashionable suburbs, the truer Pinoy version is alive and crying out loud.

Spaghetti P

swee

ansit is the festive, long-life noodle

inherited by the Filipino from his Chinese ancestor. "Magpansit tayo, birthday ni lolo," was the battlecry. And a wok-ful of pansit gisado was stirred up for family and neighbors. Somewhere along the way, however, the pansit was overtaken by the spaghetti as party staple. Somehow spaghetti seemed more "class," being originally imported, being newer.

The kids complain when the spaghetti in their party is pesto or putanesca. Why can't moms cook spaghetti that they like, that's bright red, that's sweet. They don't want Italian or American, they want Pinoy spaghetti, just like Jollibee's. With grated processed cheese, no Parmesan, please!

What was an imitation became our very own.

The sweetened spaghetti, darling of the young crowd and the masa, became a bestseller to rival the ruling US franchise.

Eventually, the US hamburger chain had to sweeten their own spaghetti to keep up. An overseas wire service photographer even took a photo of the sweet red wonder to show back home.

Actually, Filipino taste buds tend to sweetness. Most Pinoys put sugar in their milk and a load of it in their coffee. Our breakfast breads, like pan de sal, taste like muffins to a foreigner. There's no dish that does not have just a dash of sugar-lumpiang ubod, macaroni salad, even adobo. The Filipino Coke is supposed to be sweeter than those of other countries.

It was as well the "sweet" taste buds of the Pinoy that created the banana ketchup that made the Jollibee's hamburger so popular. As before, the chief rival US chain had to bow to demand and create their own sweet ketchup. (Plus they 're now serving tapsilog!) That's Jollibee, the little Pinoy that has successfully challenged a giant that invaded its shows.

PINOY POP CULTURE 052/053

Tambavan ngbayan

The shopping mall is an imported (American) concept. But it took the place of the Filipino plaza that was once in our lives, and so it has everything. Whole families go there on Sundays because it is air­ conditioned. It is the ultimate pasyalan.

There is a proliferation of fast food places because when you pasyal, you're not really out for a serious meal. Only in the Philippines are moviehouses a central attraction of a mall (in most countries they are separately located).

It's a big sari-sari store. Papa can buy some briefs from the department store, mama can get buy-one-take-one lamb chops from the supermarket. Lola wants to hear mass? There's one in the mall just before Lani Misalucha's concert. There could be a cooking demo, taebo power boxing, a Japanese architecture exhibit or a puppet show. On Halloween, there's Trick-or-Treat and on Chinese New Year a Dragon Dance.

There's a joggers' breakfast, bingo, bowling, rock climbing, ice skating and on pay days there's tiangge and bangketa sale. The kids are fretting? There are rides, a watch-your­ baby nursery and, at one time, a petting zoo on one third level.

You have the option to use an extra clean bathroom for pay or a crowded one for free. You can have yourself massaged, baptized, photographed, tattooed, de-moled, hypnotized. You can sit by the fountain, buy real estate, have a perfume refill, rent a wheelchair, win a car, get a haircut, jazz dance in a gym, have your blood pressure checked, place an ad, see a grand piano playing all by itself.

A popular Philippine bookstore (National Bookstore) sells everything under the sun (plus some books). And it's in the mall too.

elf:.,:y

FROM ELITE TO POP'

When Ramon Valera, with his new '50s terno creations, once and for all decreed the paiiuelo out, maybe that was, for the terno, the beginning of pop.

For weeks in the '50s there were passionate debates over the removal of that yoke-like shoulder appendage. The old guard felt it was a desecration of tradition. The young, however, took the paiiuelo-less innovation as somewhat of a liberation.

Avant-garde designers, before and after Valera, were removing all the excuses not to use the terno-the paiiuelo (itchy), the long train (madadapa), shortening the sleeve from below elbow to above (so that you could bend your arm), and joining skirt to top (no more hitching up or pulling down).

As the terno became truly comfortable, however, it began to look more and more like a European evening dress. The great, gossamer sleeves were less ready to fly, burdened as they soon were with cloth cut-outs, embroidery and sequins. They had also shrunk considerably in size, some na'ive versions looking almost like puffed sleeves.

The stiff, net-like material of the bodice (which was the same as the sleeves) was replaced with cloth­ brocade and alaskin for the wealthy, printed cotton or rayon when the terno trickled down to the middle class. Except for the sleeves, the now one-piece terno was easy to copy.

In the '60s the terno became then First Lady Imelda Marcos' signature costume, regally worn to all official functions. The perfumed set embraced it.

Brides walked the aisle in exquisite ternos with kilometer-long trains. It became de rigueur wear for every other ninang sa kasal. In time any bride, or Santa Elena or beauty contestant, rural PINOY POP CULTURE 056/057

or urban, could have access to a rented saya.

The barong tagalog followed a similar route. It was never the same after Pierre Cardin slashed open the front (heretofore it had always to go over the head), removed the cuffs that required cuff links, flared the sleeves and minimalized the embroidery.

Popularity is the greatest leveler. The barong tagalog and the saya, however, both began as ilustrado wear. They became so well publicized and so simple to make that even a barrio groom could boast of a "Pierre Carding" barong in chiffonelle and his bride a tetoron wedding saya.

On the other hand, truly peasant wear like the kimona, once worn only by elderly labanderas and considered unspeakably bakya, climbed the social ladder. A calado version was made and looked so good on Imelda. Other rural wear were resurrected, like the less formal balintawak and the camisa chino.

The minorities were rediscovered and their clothes coveted-the tubular Maranao malong in gold and maroon, the beaded Bagobo blouse, ethnic pants like sawwal and kantyu, the tubao headcloth (which became fashionable hanging on one shoulder). Native weaves like the pinokpok of the Tagalogs, the Ilocano abel, the Ifugao blanket and the tie dye of the T'bolis found their way into corporate blazers, cocktail and graduation dresses and also throw pillows.

Today the democratized saya and the barong are worn by the President, society matrons, the wedding entourage, corporate executives, government functionaries, schoolteachers, hotel receptionists, bodyguards and drivers, each class to its own freewheeling version. The natives have reclaimed their

Photograph by SONNY YABAO

PINOY POP CULTURE 058/059

PINOY POP CULTURE 060/061

0) makes a countdown of ormidable array of mestizas that Nora Aunor had to hurdle.

Carmen Rosales Norma Blancaflor Mila del Sol Susan Roces Amalia Fuentes Rosa del Rosario Charito Solis Nida Blanca Myrna Delgado Mary Walter Barbara Perez Divina Valencia Lolita Rodriguez Paraluman Daisy Romualdez Marita Zobel Gina Pareiio Hilda Koronel Tessie Quint�na Josephine Estrada Gloria Romero Pilar Pilapil Rita Gomez Alma Moreno Elizabeth Oropesa Cherie Gil Lotis Key Jackie Lou Blanco Maritess Revilla Mestizas continue to be in Philipine movies, claims Cervantes, but not in the same class as Nora Aunor, Vilma Santos, Maricel Soriano and Sharon Cuneta (the latter only one-fourth Spanish).

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If fantasy is the great escape of the masa, then Mars Ravelo, creator of Darna, must be the greatest Filipino escapist of all. He created Darna (Bulaklak Magasin) in 1947 when there was still no women's lib or feminism. Darna had all the sex appeal of a Venus, the handsomeness of an Apollo, the strength of a Samson.

Originally named Varga (after the "Varga Girl" weekly pin-up drawing of post-liberation Esquire), the Darna then already looked like the hot-selling 1951 Darna of Filipino Komiks. In place were the wings emblem on her forehead, the black bra with red stars, fitted boots and signature narrow cloth hanging down the front of her belt-clearly a modesty­ dictated Pinoy tapis! Darna is believed to antedate the US comics' Wonder Woman.

Filipino superheroes spring from traditional literature, which believes that superpowers in the form of an amulet or magic stone are bestowed upon people chosen to be healers or protectors. So it is not unexpected that Darna's immense powers derive from a shooting star that drops at her feet while she plays hide-and­ seek. Fearing her playmates might grab the anting-anting from her, Darna-Narda keeps the stone in her mouth, accidentally swallows it and falls into a swoon. She remembers the word written on the stone she has swallowed, and pronounces it­ DARNA! She immediately transforms into a magical creature.

As her fans know, Darna's alterego is Narda, an orphaned 10-year-old barrio kid who, with brother Ding, lives with their grandmother. The children beg for a living.

The inversion of Narda's name invokes a life force from beyond that inverts the existing order-and the poor, weak child transforms into a mighty defender of the law and symbol of justice. From Aparri to Jolo, the weak, the poor, the oppressed, the luckless in love fully identified with 67

Darna, the Filipino masa's coping mechanism.

Darna' s antagonists are similarly strong women but belong to the dark forces. The memorable Valentina is a Medusa with a head sprouting vipers. She has all the snakes of the earth at her command because she wills the return of the rule of animals. And she's deadset on stamping out cruel humanity. Several times Valentina had tried to integrate into the community but was stoned out of town. From then on she periodically invaded the town with her grisly, silent, creeping army.

The villains represent society's enemies-the treacherous snakes in Valentina, the predators in Darna at ang Babaeng Lawin, the deadwood in Darna at ang Babaeng Tuod, the leeches in Darna at ang Babaeng Linta. Even the religious fanatics are represented in their defense of a fake angel. The framework is always a narrow-minded community delighting in gossip and rejecting anything different.

Darna has been made into a movie at least 15 times, once into a ballet, often incorporated into pop fashion and even paintings. Roberto B. Feleo of the UP College of Fine Arts claims that Ravelo's Darna is the first social realist art in the Philippines. In his paintings Feleo updates Darna to a strong, fighting symbol of Filipinas, replacing the demure, baro 't saya-clad Mother Philippines.

Darna is now 50 years old and just as alluring as ever. PeDli��n'i:�� ften sought from

DARNA,1951, ANG BABAENG LAWIN, 1952, DARNA AT ANG IMPAKTA, 1961, !SPUTNIKVS. DARNA, 1963, DARNA AT ANG BABAENG TU0D, 1965, SI DARNA AT ANG PLANETMAN, 1969, DARNA, (undated), LIPAD, DARNA, LIPAD, 1973, DARNA AND THE GIANTS, 1974, RNAVS. THE PLANETWOMAN, 1975, BIRA, DARNA, BIRA, 1979, DARNA KUNO, 1979, DARNA AT DING, 1980, DARNA, (undated), DARNA, 1993, DA A: ANG PAGBABALIK, 1994, DARNA ATV ENTINA, 2001,

Say the word "comedian" to any Pinoy, and one name automatically comes to mind and pops out of his lips: Dolphy.

Dolphy is to C, D, and E what Nick Joaquin is to the literati. And why not? In the last half century, the king of comedy has tickled the Pinoy funny bone on stage, television and film, drawing raucous laughter from fans of all generations (from teeners to octogenarians) and practically every social class (from corporate lawyers to squatters in Tondo).

What is it about Dolphy that has kept the Filipino giggling and the box-office tills ringing for decades? What are the ingredients of his humor that have made him an icon of pop, acknowledged as top by his predecessors, contemporaries and successors?

In 1954, Dolphy jumpstarted his career when he portrayed a character made famous by the komiks-Gorio or "Glory of the Morning Sunshine" in "Jack and Jill." When the movie clicked,

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n a wall it hangs, the framed, life-size picture of the institution himself, Ma Mon Luk. He is dressed in americana, gold watch chain and tango shoes, a far cry from the loose, cuffless trousers and sandals with rubber tire soles that he was wearing in 1918 when he first introduced his mami to Filipinos.

Mami is not a generic term. Ma Mon Luk claimed it was his family name combined with the Chinese word for noodle, mi. But just like Colgate and Kodak, mami is now every noodle soup, including instant noodle packages of any brand. Ma Mon Luk was its "first inventor," the recipe was orig, he even made his own noodles.

An impecunious schoolteacher in Canton, Ma Mon Luk migrated to the Philippines for a better life. He was a hard worker and could cook a mean noodle, and he worked from the crack of dawn to midnight. He marketed and cooked all morning and peddled at set of sun, carrying the soup container with its heater of live coals and the basket of bowls on a pole slung on one shoulder.

People loved his mami. When Ma Mon Luk saved enough money, he opened a restaurant on the second floor of a building on Salazar Street, then he fetched his wife and five nephews from China to help him.

The outgoing Ma Mon Luk was easily the most popular character of the '50s. He was a one­ man p.r. outfit. He knocked on strangers' doors to give samples of his strange new product. He gave out calling cards entitling the bearer to a free bowl of mami. He donated siopao to flood and fire victims, blood donors, orphans and Muntinlupa prisoners. He gave siomai to congressmen, senators, doctors, actors, teachers, reporters, boxers, policemen, students. He was on the stage of every district fiesta doing a juggling act and promoting mami. With gifts of his product, he visited Malacafi.ang on the birthday of every President from Quezon to Magsaysay.

Someone gave Ma Mon Luk a bright red necktie with Mami King embroidered on it. He wore it when he opened his first branch in Azcarraga. In the '50s the Ouiapo outlet averaged 1,000 mami and thousands more of siomai and siopao a day. Ma Mon Luk had made it big. He was the symbol of success through perseverance, and he always declared, "My blood is Chinese, but my heart is Filipino!"

074 075

" Mother, look at the moon.

See, oh, my!"

Ma Mon Luk. Si-o-mai.

rre

She has been called the original pop diva, the pioneer of Philippine pop music who made a wonderful impression on stage, radio, TV and movie audiences for a good 30 years, accordng to Julien Mendoza. With a Conservatory of Music scholarship behind her, Sylvia La Torre

was queen as well of the classical kundiman which she introduced to the masses.

Like all good comediennes, Sylvia has a cheery disposition and an easy charm that instantly creates rapport. Her lilting vocal style can effortlessly shift from kundiman to ballad to funny song.

Unforgettable are Sylvia's hits like "Waray-Waray" (her voice doubled for Nida Blanca's in the film), the "Hahabol­ Habol" series with Bobby Gonzales, "Kataka-taka," "Pandangguhan," "Kalesa."

Along with "Sa Kabukiran," they are Sylvia's most requested songs.

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A true child star, she had a doting mother in soprano Leonor Reyes ( Queen of Kundiman in her own time) and a movie director father, Olive La Torre. Like most Filipino performers, her career was launched in an amateur singing contest at Savoy T heater in Sampaloc. She was five years old. "If you were out of tune, a gong sounded, and a big hook dragged you ignominiously off the stage," she explains.

"With my high voice I won over all the adults."

During the Japanese Occupation, Sylvia was performing, at nine, at the popular Life Theater with luminaries like Katy de la Cruz, Rogelio de la Rosa, Norma Blancaflor, Togo and Pugo. She was a little older when she joined the stage show "Bayani's Merry-Go-Round" in the Manila Grand Opera House.

After Liberation, Mendoza writes, Sylvia joined the USO (Officers' Club) and recalled singing on mess hall tables for the US soldiers. Every night she went home with food for her mom and a helmet-ful of dollars.

From 1946 to 1947, she was singing on radio in the show of Luz Mat. Castro, the first female announcer. Sylvia did commercials for Coca Cola and Royal Tm Orange. Her talent for comedy was discovered, and she created voice characters like "Espanola, istrikta, mahinhin, baby at matanda, probinsyanang Bisaya o Ilokano."

Subsequently, she became the popular and famous Ibyang, clueless wife of Eddie San Jose, in the radio comedy series "Edong Mapangarap."

"Tang-Tarang-Tang" was Sylvia's next radio series. In it Rosa Aguirre was her mother, and they were the destitute neighbors of rich and kuripot Pugo, who had a ref where the telephone was kept.

His sons were Leroy Salvador and Bentot.

Squeaky clean Sylvia was known for her Lucille Ball-type roles and her "no touch" rule. "'Tang-Tarang-Tang' started on radio where one could just imagine the love scenes," Sylvia explained, "but it PINOY POP CULTURE 076/077

ended up a TV show. I already had a kid then. Ayako ng yakap-yakap. I got away with it because the show was a comedy.

My 'no touch'even became a running gag on the show 'Oras ng Ligaya."' "Tang­ Tarang-Tang" ran for 10 years. It was made into a series of five movies by LVN pictures.

In her teens Sylvia made 16 movies as well for Sampaguita Pictures. T he first one teamed her with Ramon Revilla.

"The Big Show" on Channel 11 was the first musical variety show. It starred the threesome of Sylvia La Torre, Oscar Obligacion and Cris de Vera and was the show in which Bert Nievera was discovered. "T he Big Show" then became "The Best Show," still with Sylvia and Oscar, but also with Chichay, Eddie San Jose and Vic Pacia.

"The Best Show" morphed into "Oras ng Ligaya" which lasted 14 years. By then Sylvia was the acknowledged First Lady of Television. She was also having box-office concerts with well-known soprano, Conching Rosal ("May Rosal at May Torre").

Sylvia has recorded more than 300 songs. Her long-playing albums of kundimans and balitaws are alltime favorites. She received the Top Selling Record Award of the Year in 1971, the Reyna ng Awiting Filipino in 1973, the Citizens' Award for TV in 1967 as Most Versatile Actress and Outstanding TV Actress in 1970. And a whole slew more.

As devoted wife to Dr. Celso Perez de Tagle and mother to Artie, Bernie and Cheche, she was conferred the Tandang Sora Award for people in the arts. In the same year she was elevated by the Aliw Awards to its Hall of Fame.

In the 1980s the Perez de Tagles moved to California "to take care of our apos." Finally back in the Philippines this year, Sylvia La Torre remains youthful, with peaches-and-cream complexion. "Siguro ganon ang music lovers," she laughs .

"Masayahin at malusog dahil ang musika ay kanilang bitamina."

absorption the melodies bond with the lyrics and become some of the most original and Pinoy of songs. Who would say that "Granada" (Yoyoy's song of grenades and other explosives during martial law) is at all like the Western "Granada" it started with?

Rib-tickling but never raunchy, Yoyoy is his own best interpreter, Bisayan accent, public school English, bakya twang and all. His narrative songs are pleasant and wholesome. There is always something to learn from them ("Mag­ Exercise Tayo," "Pangako ng Boy Scout," "The Bible," "Philippine Geography," "Ang Mabait na Bata").

In the tradition of the Filipino radio commentator, the Filipino barber and the oldtime kutsero, Yoyoy has something to say about all aspects of Filipino life, for instance, the biyenan, the Playboy, the kapitbahay. He came into the entertainment scene at the same time as Nora and Vilma, Victor Wood and Eddie Peregrina. "-They sang love songs," says Yoyoy. "I tackled history and Filipiniana."

He had a comment on "Magellan," on "MacArthur" and "Dagohoy," on the Visiting Forces and the war in Mindanao.

His first song made an inventory of fishes, crustaceans and other creatures of Philippine waters, another ("Welcome, Balikbayan") enumerated the tourist attractions of the land. His delivery makes even the silliest of the songs hilarious, as in "Felimon," "O My Sweet," "Sabi ni Barak Love Ko Dabiana."

"The Bisayans learned a lot from the Spaniards," says Yoyoy. "We play the guitar well, we drink, we sing our hearts o out." He was the first singer who could w .J w spoof Filipino culture in a marketable way.

II. ai Pinoys never take anything too seriously, 0 and Yoyoy personified the culture to a T. ...� w He appealed to at least 90 percent of the = 0 Filipinos and has recorded 26 albums. >, "I was not able to go to college. From .a .ii: 1955 to 1965, I was a jeepney and then a i bus driver in Bohol. The owner of the bus c:i: was crazy about music. He constructed a

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PINOY POP CULTURE 078/079

studio and told me to record my songs. The first one was 'Magellan.' It became a hit all over the Philippines. In 1972 I was in Manila, no longer a driver. I signed a contract with Villar Records in 1977 and eventually became a TV and movie personality."

"Butchikik" was one of Yoyoy's most popular songs. It sounds Chinese but is not. "My jeepney was stalled, and I copied all the Chinese store signs-hardwares, panciterias, sari-sari stores. A song was forming in my head. On my way home I came upon a wake in our neighborhood.

Wakes then had guitarists and even a combo. I was immediately able to test and complete 'Butchikik.'

"But I never imagined it would anger the Chinese community. They felt it was an ethnic slur and ordered all jukeboxes to remove the tape. I told my lawyer, tell them to write down even one derogatory line in 'Butchikik.' They couldn't find any.

How could they when even I don't understand the words of 'Butchikik' ! All the eateries were happy to have 'Butchikik' back in their jukeboxes because it was making them a lot of money.

"Another time, my friends introduced me to an American singer who was singing all my Tagalog songs in a bar in Ermita. The Kano said he liked them because they had a universal quality.

"I always help beginning song writers who come to me," says Yoyoy. "I teach them how to put in a chorus-that always makes the song more marketable." Roman Villame was a councilor of Parafi.aque for three terms but did not run for a fourth "because I'm very tired." Yoyoy is in great demand during election campaigns and town fiestas. "I gather the crowd. I have no problem about getting an audience.

Even today I get invited by Filipino communities abroad so I travel to Europe, to America, to the Middle East. And, of course, I have been singing all over Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao."

,--•· I

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Omade theffiOOil buggy?

SOME FILIPINO INVENTIONS ACCORDING TO DELFIN ADVINCULA, PRESIDENT OF THE PHILIPPINE INVENTORS ASSOCIATION

\

he Pinoy technology of maskipaps is really just one little toe in the water.

The rest is mysterious deep blue sea. A Filipino, faced with a new gadget like a power saw or an electric sewing machine or the latest TV model, will rarely read the manual first. He will try to figure it out. When it won't work, he'll call the shop for oral instructions. Or return it to the dealer with his complaint so that the dealer can explain the manual to him. How many microwave ovens have exploded because some unbeliever put a metal pie plate in it?

When a clock or the TV or the radio stops working (even a car, for that matter), the Pinoy's first impulse is to hit it or shake it or rattle it. Oh yes, sometimes it works.

If the Western mind is mechanical, the oriental mind, the Pinoy's in particular, is still, well, agricultural. His understanding of the function of tools is vague. When he needs to nail something, he will not look for the hammer if it's not within reach. He will use instead the pliers he has in his hand or a stone or a piece of wood.

Who needs a can opener? Macho teeth can uncap a soft drink. So can a rifle, as shown by an Abu Sayyaf bandit opening a Coke for his kidnap victim on TV To punch a hole on a milk can, the tip of the nearest knife will do. Also to pry open the lid of a biscuit can. And maids

just use scissors for everything.

An electrical tool is even more challenging. The Pinoy realizes that it's not an animal. Bakal 'yan, it doesn't have to be fed, it will never get tired. So he uses the drill, the pump, the electric fan or the floor polisher full blast till it's dead. Why indeed do you have to cool it?

Why indeed do you have to overhaul it, clean and maintain it when a motor does not breathe?

On the other hand, the tractor, which replaced the farmer's carabao, is treated like a beloved animal. All over the Central Plains small kubota tractors are used as family transportation to go to . church. Some tractor or another always gets included in the blessing of the animals in the yearly carabao festival of Pulilan. (Indeed, if a car can be blessed, why not a tractor?)

There's an impending typhoon and the roof is leaking! No tinsmith around!

What about the mason who's cementing the driveway? Or the carpenter fixing the leg of the dining table? Ikaw! He doesn't know a thing about roofs? "Basta, gawan mo ng paraan," ma'am will insist. So the carpenter, the mason or the driver will try to fix the roof. And maybe it will do until the next typhoon.

The Pinoy can't imagine any contraption being so boring as to have only one function. When confronted with technology, the Pinoy's impulse is to

• set of wood-working tools that can make anything from furniture to coffins to carvings of "The Last Supper" • a high grade motor oil made from okra and sa/uyot • "green charcoal": ulingmade from grass • a charcoal stove that segregates the ash while cooking so that it does not fly around • a machine that cuts metal with water (pressurized, of course) • a bulb changer for high ceilings (actually a long pole with a four-pronged clamp at end) • a rubbish converter that can reduce 10 trucks of waste to 20 sacks that can be sold as fertilizer • carbon-activated charcoal to absorb refrigerator odors

• a gas leakage safety device that shuts gas off automatically • a rice grinUer that removes 75 percent of the bran from the grain (no broken binlidJ • a device that processes tuba into a sweetener that is only 40 percent sugar but high in amino acids (safe for diabetics) • a flat iron that automatically turns off when at rest • a dust pan which when pushed on ground automatically takes in rubbish on its path • stackable schoolroom desks (chair with writing arm) • a car that runs on water • the fluorescent bulb • the moon buggy that the astronauts rode on the moon when Apollo II landed

PINOY POP CULTURE 080/081

subvert it. If there's a fence to prevent people from crossing an expressway, you can be sure some guy will try to jump over it or make a hole big enough for him to cross to the other side. The best place to dry palay is still the shoulders of the busiest highway.

After all, what's danger? Lahar covered almost the whole of Pampanga-didn't life go on?

Volcanic ash spewed over several towns in Bicol-a little dust never hurt anybody and besides, it's good for the crops. Several districts underwater? Not to worry, it will stop raining before the flood gets to the third step. Oblivious to danger, a welder will wear only dark glasses instead of the regulation eye gear or simply look away from the blinding light of the torch. A painter is not afraid to hang from the 10th floor of the tallest building, having had lots of practice on the swaying coconut trees.

It's not too long ago that a provinciano (even a literate one), newly arrived in the city, would have trouble with street signs and street numbers. He'd find an address sooner if trees like santol or tamarind were pointed out as landmarks.

The urban dweller is just as confused. She has no idea of the logic behind a mall's topography. The shop she's looking for, her friend said, is somewhere near the escalator in front of the cross-stitch shop, if you turn left. Or is it past the mami shops before you get to the bingo place? Better yet ask the guard. The framed mall directory is probably the least updated, most neglected directional aid because no one ever consults it.

Wonder how water is transported up a mountain in Bukidnon or Cagayan? Kids wait for a bus or a trailer to come by and quickly hook on their load of water to the back fender. This free hitch is tolerated by all the drivers of the locality.

On the other hand, water delivery from the pump to the homes along da riles is a cart whose wheels are grooved to fit on the rails. The cart is man-pushed and quickly removed before a train comes by.

EVER BEEN SURPRISED that some moviehouses don't start the first show of a Filipino film from the beginning? That's because two moviehouses may be sharing just one copy of the film. Reel 1 is still

"kolgate"

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on its way. Or there may be a gap in between because Reel 2 is still in Glorietta. The system is called bisikleta because the reel is delivered by bicycle. Sometimes the guy rides a jeepney, and lately he may have acquired a scooter or a motorbike.

Any attempt to automate or streamline a service ends up the Pinoy way. The ATMs have a friendly sikyu ready to help bewildered souls fill up the form. Cashiers of supermarkets, department stores or moviehouses may demand "exact change" (which defeats the purpose of cashiers). In "quick pay" systems of big services like electricity or phones, one still cannot go direct to the pay machines. You see, one of the machines is for checks, the other is for cash. A table with a clerk is needed to clarify these things.

One security guard in a big cell phone service center accosts any visitor with Saan ho kayo pupunta? or Ano ho ang kailangan nila? which seems like a downright rude question. But in a few minutes one sees its usefulness. The sikyu directs everyone where to go. A complaint about calls one did not make?-over here. Your cell phone won't work-get a number from that girl, sit down and wait to be called. Your unit can call all numbers, except one? Go to the white-haired woman behind those grilles..

Knowing the Pinoy, one can't really expect him to regard the cell phone as a plain time­ saving device. It is decorated with stick-ens, backlighted and has its own individualized ringing tone. Watch two teenagers sitting across each other over lunch, texting each other, jamming air channels. Texting fulfills the Filipino adult's need, too, to connect, keeping always in touch, sharing jokes and chismis, even when distance and traffic keep friends apart.

With 28 million text messages being sent daily just within the country, National Telecommunications Commission's Joseph Santiago declares that the Philippines could well be the world's text capital. Based on statistics, the Philippines has surpassed the whole of Europe where only around 20 million text messages are received daily. Texting is a compulsion and a pastime to the Pinoy, the cell phone a toy and a fashion statement. It makes its owner feel high tech and in touch with·the whole world.

Sino'na lumikhcl_

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ORIG PINOY CONCOCTION A) Yoyo B) Sarao Jeepney C) Water-Fueled Engine D) nverted Umbrella E) Fluorescent Bulb F) Love Bug Virus I) People Power l'reno SECTION 2: BONUS PASSES

FOR HANDOG NG PILIPINO

SA MUNDO CONCERT J) Balanghai Fleets K) Inverted Suspension Bridge of Tococan L) Bamboo Bellows M) lfugao Rice Terraces N) l'inugo Watersheds 0) Nose Flute P) Anti-Rat Guard Q) Gourmet Dog Cuisine R) Embroidered Bahag

BONUS TRIVIA QUESTIONS

(For Tie Breaking Only) J) Who was the First Man to circumnavigate the planet?

K) Who was the First Man to play the yoyo on the moon?

L) Who was the First Jeepney Driver making balik-balik pasada on the Sarao moon buggy?

1) A 14th-century jungle weapon whose two-dimensional rotational centrifugal principle is the basis for the 3-D Rotating Gyroscope Guidance of Apollo Spaceship (a.k.a. a kid-friendly toy) 2) School-age ride of l'inoy scientist whose design for the lkot/Balik­ Balik became the basis for the Lunar Rover (a.k.a. Moon Buggy) 3) H2..0 guzzling combustion engine­ pmoy answer to the fuel crisis (also ecology friendly)

4) Radar-cum-rain-catcher (for H20 fuel tank). Inspired by biyaya catchers of El Shaddai 5) Counterforce to Dark Forces.

Cylindrical beams used as light sabers in Star Wars 6) Galactic bomb of l'inoy cyber­ geniuses reminding Internet monopolies to serve the global village for free 7) Unique brake-system of l'inoy politics to bring prenoless dictators/ superstars to a screeching halt

8) Low-cost mass transport of liberty-loving people (to flee repression). Can cross seas to form free-spirited communities (a.k.a. barangays)

9) Lock-horned branches that cross the Chico River (like a low-cost inverted suspension bridge).

Dispenses with expensive bridge­ fundament suspension towers 10) Cordillera gold-melting tool using feathers for air-tight piston head rings

11) Ingenious, indigenous irrigation system wherein a small mountain spring can irrigate hectares of steep-sloped rice fields 12 Ancient forestry management practices of the lhapo tribe (lfugao) whereby communal/ private watersheds guaranteed the flow of water. This kept the Rice Terraces a living heritage for 3,000 years.

13) The only musical instrument on the planet powered by nostrils and gentle breath of life,

PINOY POP CULTURE 084/085

14) Disks fixed under lfugao huts to deflect rodents from palay harvest (like hand guards on swords) 15) No comment really. This delicacy enraged Margaret Thatcher into trashing Ferdinand Marcos long before the Mad Cow disease panicked the beefeaters in her own British Empire.

16) The most comfortable tropical wear suppressed by the imperialistic winter couture pantalon of MBA (McKinley's Benevolent ASSimilation),

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Nothing can beat the folk technology of the Pinoy. It's incredible, it's ingenious, it's funny! A sewing machine treadle with attachments here and there whips up cotton candy. A bicycle runs a grinder for professional knife and scissors sharpening. A hand drill attached to an eggbeater churns up a luscious pink crushed ice concoction called a "scramble". A gasera or kerosene stove and a covered kettle are a popcorn machine.

Only a Pinoy converts the diesel engine of a car into that of a motorboat.

Or has enough guts to transfer the right hand drive of a truck to the left. Or saws the top off a Pontiac to make -it a bread delivery wagon. Or puts a Mercedes Benz grille on a Volkswagen.

Nothing is irreparable, nothing too old for the Pinoy to fix, not a TV or a microwave oven or an air conditioner, not even a car that had been running on prayers for 20 years. Puede pa yang paandarin, he says, going around and around the object. Even pocket batteries that have run out are placed under the sun, and they do work again-for a while. Thus, he is constantly on the lookout for cast-offs of other people-the just-removed, non-working doorknob, the stained ceiling plywood, the rotor blades

•

•

• • ••

Bonus!

A-1; B-2; C-3; D-4; E-5; F-6; G-T; H-8; 1-9; J-10; K-11; L-12; M-13; N-14; 0-15; P-16; Bonus Questions: Siyempre Pinoy!

Photographs by TOM EPPERSON Digital composition by ROMMEL FRANCIA/The Studio Models: ARIANNA EPPERSON and CHIN-CHIN FERNANDO

PINOY POP CULTURE 088/089

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Everyone (and everything) has a nickname-celebrities, stars, politicos, government offices, cultural institutions-even words have nicknames. We treat them all as if they were most intimate friends or close relatives: Cory, Ate Vi, Pitoy, Ninoy, FVR, Erap, Macoy and Imelda, Ka Roger, Joma, Gama, Kris, Pops, Patis and Maurice, Manoling and Tita Midz, Tita King, Commander Robot and The Balato Twins.

If everyone refers to you by your nickname, you're truly famous or truly notorious.

Filipino acronyms have become words in themselves and also nicknames. The undersecretary is USEC, the illegal alien is a TNT (tago ng tago), a maid sent abroad is a DH, the grassroots worker is an NGO. Taxes have nicknames too-TIN, TAN and VAT, as have areas: Agrifina Circle, Calabarzon, Socsargen.

TY is thank you. OT is old timer. PX is imported goods. TP is toilet paper. KKB is kanya kanyang bayad. FL is First Lady, OM is old maid. KSP is kulang sa pansin, and NPA is nice people around.

Most acronym nicknames can even be conjugated (meaning, they've really become a part of the language). As in: "Mahilig siyang sumayaw kaya nag-DI," "Freshman Jang aka noong nag-FOS," "Pinag Metro Star ko sila dahil color coded aka," "Nag FX na sana aka mas mabilis," "Na-NPA ang farm namin," "Ipa-DHL mo ang cheke ko, ha?".

To glamorize an object or to add some humor to a coping device, certain terms are reinvented. Like: Adidas (for chicken feet), IUD (for chicken intestines), dugo-cue (for chicken blood), helmet (for chicken head), Betamax (for bituka ng manok), Walkman (for pigs' PINOY POP CULTURE 090/091

ears), PAL (for chicken wings) -all names of soul food grilling on roadside stands. (The appropriation of words like Adidas or Walkman or Betamax makes the masa feel that they also share in motorcycle helmets, airplane rides, athletic shoes and other rich men's toys.)

Perla, as in the soap, stands for the boiled cubes of pork fat served during caiiaos in Sagada. Pito-Pito is as well the name of the herbal tea composed of seven kinds of leaves, as Mother Lily's amazing tight budget, seven-day productions.

Filipinos like to contract two words into one, and so you have trapo (traditional politician), askal (asong kalye), balikbayan (return of the native); kapalmuks (shameless), promdi (from the province) brenda (brain damage), uzisero (so curious they even braved Uzi machine gun fire during the EDSA Revolution) and Bench (for Ben Chan), a store.

The most popular, of course, are the Filipino meal (originally breakfast) combinations begun by some harried restaurant owner to facilitate order­ taking. Here is a sample from Marikina's Tapsi ni Vivian the eighth branch of Bulaluhan or Bulaluhan, Part 8: Tapsilog (tapa, sinangag, itlog), tosilog (tocino, sinangag, itlog), longsilog (longanisa, etc.), bansilog (tinapang bangus, etc.), cosilog (corned beef, etc.), basilog (bacon, etc.), mensi (menudo at sinangag), mensilog, litsilog (litson, etc.), bulsilog (bulalo, etc), chisi (chicharon at sinangag), chisilog, ribsi (ribs at sinangag), nilsi (nilagang baka at sinangag), dinsilog (dinuguan, etc), adsi (adobo at sinangag), adsilog.

Altanghap is the generic name for all of the above-almusal, tanghalian, hapunan.

"iud"

bituka ng mano

,''betamax''

ar ecue- u ary

PINOY POP CULTURE --

/ --

-

-

''wallanan'' tenga ng baboy-�

"dugo-cue" dugo ng manok

"chocolate" ''helmet'' ulo ng manok

"bato" bato ng manok

Colegialaspeak

sosi (from sosyal) high class. coiio a Spanish mestizo with superior airs.

squatter or "squatting"

someone untidy or

uncouth.

sosyal high class; may refer to a person, a place, a dress, a cake, a car, an event.

okay Jang passable; good; don't want to give you my opinion; guess; useless to discuss it with you; don't want to relate to you right now. kaka (prefix) kakaiba-, kakainlab; kakakili/f, kakaiyak; kakaasar. kadiri to death abominable beyond words.

make tusok tusok the fishballs; kilig to the bones; how baboy naman the pig

how co/egialas speak, according to non­ co/egialas. over over the top. Ex: "Was the food good?"

"Over." (sobrang sarap) make tampo distemper, temporary in nature. make wala let go; make a scene. gimik party; happening. Ex: "I'm free this weekend. Saan ba may gimik?' super superyabang, supergalin/f, superbaduy; superguapu. the nth degree of anything.

Servicespeak basing boss.

Ma'am Odette or Sir Jojo term of respect.

for a while just a moment. tsip; bas; pare; brad; bok security guard,

waiter, clerk, etc. whose attention one needs to ask for directions, forms, favor, napkin. ate democratic version of senora or ma'am.

Iola originally, one's grandma; in theater or show biz, address for an older (40s and above) female or gay. otosan (Jap.) maid.

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Expressions only Pinoys can understand

Ayos ka! You're dead!

Ayos! Oh my God! LagotI:, That's it.

Ayos ba? Is it okay?

Ayos na! It's over! Done deed. Fixed.

Masaya ka! No way! Ex.: "Sasama ka ba sa

akin?" "Masaya ka!"; or sarcastically, "Masaya ka na?" (Happy you got your way?

Have you hurt me enough? Have you had your revenge?)

"0, di ba!"

Slang

astig (from tigas) tough. waswas or waswit (from asawa) wife or husband.

lafang, hatchet, bangaw; tsibug to eat. jeprox (from "projects") how some long-haired drug-using artists and musicians coming from Project 4 were referred to in the '70s; hippie. nakakabato turns one into stone, like drugs; certain boring tasks are nakakabato. durugista drug taker. atik; atikabum (from kita, earnings); datunlf. money. lapad Japanese yen (Japayukispeak); formerly referred to Tanduay rum bottle. gin bulag pure gin. beer gin drink combining the two; (pronounced "virgin"). maapog boastful. pasiklab show off. dad a talk; Ex: "Dada pa siya ng dada, nakikinabang din naman pa/a siya." kumanta (literally to sing) to tell on; to betray.

Swardspeak , byutams beauty.

cuticle cute.

sisterette, badinglet little gay sister.

tupperware plastic; not real self. thundercats old. award martyr.

takeshi (from takof) afraid. majuba (from mataba) fat. ngenge bells drunk.

Queen of Peace brutal dame.

Oprah (from "Oh, promise me.") someone who

never makes good his/her promises.

Winona Ryder (from win) winner; Ex: "Winona Ryder ang kandidato namin!'

Luz Valdez (from lose) lost; Ex: "Luz Valdez kami sa bingo."

Tom Jones (sounds like gutom/tomguts) hungry; Ex: "Matagal ka pa ba? Tom Jones na kami."

Julie Yap Daza (from huli) caught; Ex:."Na Julie Yap Daza siya ngmister niya."

Gelli de Belen jealous; Ex: "Gelli de Belen siya sa secretary nibos."

Purita Kalaw (from poor, broke; Ex: "Purita Kalaw ako ngayon. Kokonti angcustomer." ma at pa (from malay ko at pakialam ko) couldn't care less. trulili? truly?

wizno. plangyes. planggana, garapon, garapata! yes ·na yes! Approved! plakatu! second the motion. kamustaza how are you?

Philippine Refining Company I'm fine.

Tagalog Ylang-Ylang Productions (from tagal) it's taking so long.

ALL OF THE ABOVE FROM FE ARRIOLA, ODETTE ALCANTARA, ISAGANI CRUZ, R. DAVID ZORC, RACHEL SAN MIGUEL, RAUL CASANTUSAN NAVARRO, RAJO LAUREL and MARIBEL G. ONGPIN

'

The major part of this book has dealt with the main characteristic of Pinoy pop which is the imitation of foreign models.

Open the Filipino's head, and you will find: a quarter pounder hamburger, a beauty contest, a Hallmark card, an apple pie, a ticket to Disneyland, a surgically lifted nose, an English­ speaking yaya.

When we spray our Christmas tree white and decorate it with cotton snow, we are making a statement. When we never see a Filipino movie, we are making a statement. When we instruct the yaya to speak to our child in English, we are making a statement. We believe that the Western way of life is superior to ours. Along with that we buy a First World lifestyle with a Third World economy.

The Spaniards won the Filipino's heart when they gave us the Catholic religion. But by educating him with textbooks in English it was the Americans who won the Filipino's mind.

And it became a mental colony. For the Americans, of course, there was no such concept as a better Filipino. A better Filipino could only be a good American.

The only trouble is, by becoming a good American, one could only be a lousy Filipino. If the ideal is to become Western, then everything Filipino becomes second class. Our goods are not good enough, our national language is not good enough, our literature is not good enough, even our peso is not good enough. That is why it is stuck forever to the dollar. And we copy and copy and copy. We are the only Westerners in an Asian land.

Ours has been a history of struggle against colonizers and for survival.

That's how we got our inferiority complex. The Indonesian is an Indonesian, the Thai is a Thai, the Malaysian is a Malaysian. (And the PINOY POP CULTURE 102/103

Japanese are Japanese even when their teenagers dye their hair a gooky Western punk pink and yellow. No apologies, and look ma! They land again and again on the cover of Time magazine.)

For years we were told how incorrect and inconsequential we were. Some Filipinos even think nationalism is a bad word. We have such a broken spirit that we can swallow insults some passing foreigner or brown American can dish out.

"Teach us how to be Filipino," pleaded a young editor to us one day. He had forgotten how. In a meeting of Filipino designers tasked to decide what Philippine products to send to a European expo, the top banana commented, "But what native product can we send, a tabo?" And she laughed deprecatingly, "Maybe I can decorate it with fur and rhinestones!"

But the tabo is a utility item used by every Filipino! Because it is her pride always to be clean. Even the wife of a bank president slips one into her Louis Vuitton suitcase when she travels because she dislikes the bidette-less Western toilets. As one Frenchman

commented, "You can kiss a Filipino anywhere!" But we are ashamed of such a praiseworthy Pinoy virtue. And miss opportunities to make Pinoy objects world class.

But what a resilient people we are!

The barrio is waist deep in flood water, and the people are looking up joyfully, arms open for the nutribuns dropping from a helicopter as if these were manna from heaven! What else do we do during a flood? Make a business out of it. Put stepping stones and planks so that the better off can get to the other side without getting wet. To earn an extra buck one enterprising strong man even resorted to physically carrying customers.

We stand agape at the technology that progressive countries have mastered, like projecting a giant photographic image on the side of a whole building. But we do not see that one lone Pinoy can paint, by hand, a cinema billboard almost the same size.

In the war in Mindanao, when it was time for the soap opera "Rosalinda," there would be a temporary ceasefire.

And then the war would continue. The Mexican TV soaps have so captivated the imagination of the Filipino because they deal with family and relationships, the Pinoy's predominant value. Why is it so hard to catch TNTs abroad? Because Pinoys love their relatives and will hide them even if everyone has to subsist on lugaw.

What do foreigners like most about the Philippines? The sunset? The beaches? The hotel accommodations?

The traffic? Certainly not. It's the quality of the deathless friendships they make with Filipinos. The Filipino cares. We are our own best asset. And we don't believe it!

Anyone who watched the impeachment trial (December 2000) can't help but admire the Pinoy. The sharpness and eloquence of both prosecution and

.

-

defense were more riveting than any courtroom scene in the movies. All of Asia watches us. For in the things we're good at, we're really good. We had the first bloodless People Power Revolution to overthrow a tyrant. This has become some sort of an Asian model. And now a second. Although Asian countries with leaders that they perceived corrupt have long desired their impeachment, it was the Filipinos who first succeeded in impeaching theirs.

One Hongkong resident commented that if a political and economic crisis of the magnitude that we were in had taken place in another country, there would be so many suicides. People jump from subways and kill themselves just because they got divorced. In the Philippines the underground economy goes to work and tides the populace over the crisis. Bombs rain on Mindanao and the populace comes out of the smoke smiling.

The Filipino smile? It's a coping mechanism. Like his sense of humor.

"Ang Pinoy ay matiisin," Dolphy explains.

"Kahit naghihirap na 'yan hindi 'yan lugmok na lugmok. Natatawanan niya ang buhay, kahit kung minsan hindi talaga nakakatawa."

Sociologist Jose Miranda expresses special admiration for the persistent optimism of the rural poor. The overseas worker is the highest risk taker. All her life she has yearned to improve her family's lot with no capital, except optimism. She grows up in a small barrio without any exposure to another culture.

She figuratively rides the carabao to town, then sells it to buy a boat ticket to the city. In Manila she sells all the jewelry she has gathered from her relatives to buy a plane ticket to a foreign land.

She goes with no thought, except that she will earn dollars. She works very hard in a strange house for people with strange ways, who speak a strange language. The food she has to cook is a mystery, and yet she has to do it well so that she can be paid for it. All this without the moral support of her relatives.

PINOY POP CULTURE 104/105

Doesn't that say a lot about Filipino spirituality, no matter what denomination? Even without religion, we were spiritual before the Spaniards came. It may or may not have been helped by the introduction of a controlled religion. Today we are blessed with a unique church whose many branches (from Almeda to Velarde to Sin) have something to say about everything and everyone. And yet we can link arms to fight for a common cause.

There are persistent rumors that the Philippines was the old Lemuria, an ancient civilization with a very high spirituality. The island sank into the sea when the inhabitants abused their psychic powers. And we are the descendants of its survivors.

Maybe it's a fairy tale. What is becoming clear, however, is that the Pinoy will have a role in the coming world scenarios. The diaspora has put Pinoys in every country on earth. It connects somehow to the mission of the race.

The Filipino cannot enter the sala.

But as the world's best atsay, she wound up in the bedroom. She has the ear of the mistress who may be a queen. She may be the yaya of princes and princesses or a president's children.

Somehow her multinational wards will imbibe some Filipino values. She rocks them to sleep with Pinoy lullabies, she tweaks their ears, teaches them cleanliness and how to be obedient.

Once in a while, they taste her rice and tuyo or hear an aswang story. And they, too, learn to trust in God. Somehow it will be a different world because the Pinoy was there.

Photographs by WIG TYSMANS

o be sure, most Pinoy things are copies of US stuff (from clothes lines to food to music). Why then do some stores or singers or restaurants capture the market and some do not? After all, weren't they copying the same thing? Is it because the fallouts were not Western enough? Or, if one were to re-examine the premises, not Pinoy enough?

Why is Martin Nievera so popular whether he is singing in English or Tagalog? Maybe because he sounds Pinoy. Or he sings sentimental, true-to­ his-life love songs, milking drama out of his break-up with Pops. (Heartbreak is a favorite Filipino topic.) Just as Pinoy sounding are Aegis and Regine and all the stars of the jukebox firmament. Time to accept that under all that snow, it's the Pinoy element that resonates. It's what the market is looking for!

Pinoylaste Because we are a colonized race the balance is delicate. It is sometimes hit quite by accident. From competing with multinational giants Pinoys have learned a lot. Jollibee didn't try to be American and won the burger wars. It's not the hamburger that the Pinoy was rebelling against, it was the "flat American taste."

So Jollibee Filipinized the hamburger.

Being Filipino was interesting to observe during People Power II. Patient to the extreme, the Pinoy knew exactly when the borderline had been reached. It was the unopened envelope. The finely tuned Pinoy sensibility shifted, in a lightning flash, from sufferance to active resistance.

Texting, whose use had heretofore been to transmit silly conversations, became the tool for a call to people

power. With a singleness of purpose and without any defined leader, people just poured and poured into the protest spot.

The Pinoy may seem carefree and flightly, but s(he) certainly knows the parameters of what s(he) accepts or rejects. And this applies not just to civil liberties but to what s(he) will or will not wear, eat, listen to or use.

Sino Ka Nga Ba? What makes defining the Pinoy so difficult? First of all, where does one look? We have no consciousness of the preciousness of our past. There is no such thing as an everyday practice of culture, least of all visiting our beautiful National Museum. The mall and the movies are our culture. To see a classical concert you have to wait for the next one of The Madrigals or of Ballet Philippines.

The Manila Met's exquisite exhibit of pin.a and gold is a special one, and the next special exhibit is next year. The bululs won't be exhibited either because they've gone home to Germany.

As for the preservation of our pop heritage, try asking any local movie studio for stills of their old films, not to mention the films themselves. Would you

PINOY POP CULTURE 106/107

believe there is no photo file of :)o__ .:::= s "Facifica Falayfay" (hiniram at na- a.a . .

Who has a complete, non-xerox co ectio of Kenkoy and Darna comics? A library of Pinoy pop songs, a visual documentation of dance forms, a complete saya collection? If there are, they are private, under lock and double key, not available to anyone who's not a friend.

How does one, for instance, promote a bahay kubo-inspired house to a client when we have no infrastructure for this once native object? Not enough bamboo to harvest, not enough technology to keep it bug free plus the carpenters have forgotten how to handle bamboo! Result: it's more expensive to make than a concrete house.

Once Upon a Time

Not only do we have to struggle to promote our roots, we have to dig for them! In the '30s Pinoy culture wasn't so elusive, you could still define it. There were anahaw leaf and santan flower decorations at the Luneta Grandstand and Malacafi.ang. People took to Filipino folk songs arranged for ballroom dancing just as readily as to the foxtrot. No one equated local with baduy. For culture vultures there were the Metropolitan Theater and the original Manila Grand Opera House.

Could it be because there were people in power who believed in things Pinoy? Manuel L. Quezon advocated NEPA, all things native. During the Japanese time, when everything American was banned, being Filipino was deeply appreciated because we were forced to make the things we use.

The bakya became the art piece of the carver. We created stage shows that were so popular that people queued up for every showing. (After liberation we reverted to the old stateside mentality.)

One may criticize Imelda Marcos for skewed priorities but not for her artistic vision for the Filipino. She wore the saya beautifully and promoted it. She supported prodigies who ended up

international caliber. She established the OPM awards, the National Artist Awards, and of course, the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Attempts to be Pinoy were also in designer Wili Fernandez's infusion of Muslim elements in interiors and furniture. And Palayan Lamps created the first truly elegant kapis chandelier for the CCP Datu Puti

But somehow we lost it. Today people who could make a difference are stuck in showing off the Pinoy as "just as good as the puti." If furniture is to be exhibited in an embassy, for instance, it must be acceptable to, and viable in, a temperate home, even if none of it is for sale. As ever, the foreign framework is the criterion for Filipino excellence.

And the framework has been there for ages. Even the accolades for our patriot painter Juan Luna were for being "just as good as the Spaniard." (Of course, Luna's art eventually went beyond all that.) In counterstream Botong Francisco learned the rudiments of the Western medium, painted like a Pinoy, and was lauded for being Pinoy.

If you talked to your leftist friend lately, then you know that the other framework that Filipinos have begun to accept is that a country can succeed only if it is technologically advanced.

According to whom? Will the Philippines really fade away if we didn't have the latest computer? And your friend will add that globalization is the ultimate form of cultural imperialism.

Not Like You and Me

A columnist once wrote that the worst torture he can think of is to be tied to a chair and made to listen to April Boy Regino. And one might add, eating spaghetti that's sweet, with slices of red hot dog, or gazing at a display of Jolina Magdangal dolls. For alas, much of the popular taste is not yours and mine.

One can hardly find any common ground between a neighborhood with sari-sari stores and smoky ihaw-ihaw

stands on every corner and a suburban village on Halloween decorated with grinning Jack o' Lanterns. Nor can one see any connection between the waitress vigorously brushing her teeth in the mall lavatory and the socialite in eternal black sipping a cappuccino at Starbucks. Do they belong to the same tribe? The same race? The same planet?

It's only in the poorer neighborhoods that we still encounter things Pinoy. A bamboo fiesta arch, a faith healer, a movie star's fan club, a sinakulo, a fishball cart, cotton candy, ampaw. That is how "Pinoy" got identified with the CDE classes. (Upper class is dressing imported, eating imported salmon, listening to imported Limp Bizkit and going to a rave party.) So, is being Pinoy bad taste? How can one dispute the beauty of the bamboo arch, a wet-market display of smoked fish or a well-made "dirty" ice cream cart? Poor or rich, one can only use native material badly or well.

Call to Business

As we have shown, the Pinoy heart beats in the depths of all classes. The businessmen, most of all, know their

Kenkoy and Cross-stitch What about the addition to the popular cross-stitch line of the stores ethnic patterns drawn from T'Boli and Bontok motifs? For the vast comics market, a re­ issue of Kenkoy and Darna? What about a good selection of upbeat Pinoy songs played for one whole shopping day to a young crowd buying cargo pants? Or more ambitiously, a compulsory week set aside by the government to play only Filipino music everywhere. (This complements the on-going Manila F ilm Festival and the one-day-a-week "Filipiniana wear only" of government offices.)

Imagination can include a Luneta concert with a known �inging group (Madz?) teaching small children to sing "Bahay Kubo." A rock band, a native 0 <t ID

market. After many adjustments, they

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exactly the Pinoy taste of imported and

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local. What it needs now is for them to

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have streamlined their goods to fit

give back to their market by identifying it as Pinoy.

Being Pinoy, after all, is largely uncharted territory-the only area where there's still lots of room to grow. For truly, how many times can hundreds of stores/ companies rehash the same American­ derived concept?

And that's where the secret lies. To identify what's Pinoy and lift it to the level of sophistication and art of the upper-budget consumer.

It may be as simple as the US­ franchised Dunkin' Donuts advertising itself as "Pasalubong ng Bayan" or as grand as the trail-blazing use of essentially bahay kubo structures for the much-awaited Bantay Bata complex of ABS-CBN. It may be as banal as drafting questions for a quiz show drawn from purely Filipiniana sources. (Is the Manunggul jar something (a) to get buried in, (b) to ferment rice wine in, (c) to sell to Chinese merchants in the 16th century?)

PINOY POP CULTURE 108/109

band and a classical orchestra playing different versions of the same "Bahay Kubo." It can be a special day in which heirloom sayas that one doesn't wish to be burdened with can be publicly donated to the National Museum by their owners. All of these are targeted to middle and upper classes, not the masa who need no refresher courses on being Pinoy.

When we note housewives of all walks of life following the TV series "Tabing Ilog," which is closely patterned after "Dawson's Creek," maybe all they're craving for is more polish or better photography, a Pinoy story with the technical niceties of a US soap. How explain the hotel cocktail lounges featuring Pinoy songs hitting it off with the yuppie crowd? Or the hip magazine editor confessing that she just loves those TV re-runs of local movies?

What is needed is for the Pinoy to look beyond his European education, his travels abroad and his connections with the Internet to know his Pinoy essence.

For only in knowing our kapinoyan can we see the root of all our problems. But also that their solution can only spring from the same creative source.

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