IGME Files

It’s true what people say that what you do on the first day of the year sets everything for the whole year. I spent the first day of year 2006 outside of the house for the first time if I recall, with few of my friends at a bar at Libis, partying and looking forward for the year ahead. And now, reaching the quarter mark of the year, more people have enriched my life than ever before in my becoming unsheltered existence.

My writing another blog entry would not have been possible if I had not been prodded by a good friend. Or, was I just waiting for an excuse to write again? I had my selfish reasons. I thought that what I was “not” doing, that is not writing, and instead replaced by meeting people alone, would be good in itself. I thought that by keeping all the observation and learnings about people to myself, I would have gained more well-grounded.

But writing is altogether a different realm. And I tell you one thing. Writing makes me feel good. And it’s a lot better when I share it to people.

With that, I’ve chosen to write about some of the people I’ve met over the course of the last three months, of the people that entered my life during this time, I’ve learned a great deal about the world and myself.

Being a late-bloomer that I am (was), I’ve seen the worst and the best of the lot during these times. Like when I got to mingle and dined in with “high class” big-bosomed prostituted women (high-class because of how much beauty and care products they have to keep up for their image) at a pricey restaurant at Greenbelt about two months ago. Not to confuse you, I was unknowingly part of the entourage that observed on a first-hand basis how flesh trade works, Filipino-style. Ironic of sorts, even in these negotiations, one can still get subtle. My new friend, a foreigner who has a company here and was on “vacation,” picked the not-so popular pea-brained (sorry, but she couldn’t speak an English word or two) kolehiyala morena over the mestiza starlet (who, weeks later was among the starlets apprehended by police operation for prostitution, how sad…) because of preference. In this case, skin color makes a lot of difference. Anyway, the news was broken to the starlet when she went to the restroom. When she went back to our table, she said her forced nice-to-meet-you’s to us. She tried to be very sport about it, but to us, she wore a pained disappointing look. On her way out, she held her head up high, hoping for the next predator, or prey, however she looks at it.

If that’s not sad enough, what saddens me more is the fact that their pimp is a woman, an old woman at that who could pass for as anyone’s adorable lola. This pimp was asking for more charge, for the (wasted) time that the woman who wasn’t picked had spent, or could she be asking for more commission for herself? Having come from a strong-willed matriarchal family, most especially my mother and my sister, I feel more saddened by the fact that a lot of women are bonded in their chains, willing to sacrifice their dignity. Reality bites.

Like straight from a novel or movies, these people have let their guard down, however casually and briefly they may be to me. Consider these: a rich corporate man married to an equally influential woman, who takes pictures of his “women” (he’s into photography), and something happens right after, you-know-what-that-is. Aside from that, this womanizer has different children from the same all-girls exclusive school. These girls do not know they have the same paternal genes. I’m just wondering scenarios on how this truth will come out. Are these girls barkadas, or rivals in varsity, and the same father picks them up at the same time? But that’s not my problem anymore. I don’t care how the truth spills to them, but the guy will definitely enjoy more time with his philandering because, magaling siyang magtago. He has portfolio of his nude “models-women” in a website only he can open, a personal password only he knows.

This character and more colorful people have entered my life. I don’t know why God made me meet them. It’s not my name, I’ve got none (however dignified and respected my family has earned them). It’s not in the money or status, I don’t have one either. Or is it by association, I suppose so. I’ve worked through with them because there’s a link, a middle-person, a friend (could be you?) who has made me and characters I’ve met seal our acquaintances into something much more personal. When I talk to these people, it’s not so much as the quantity as it is on the weight of the conversation in question. Maybe it’s because I’ve suspended my judgment unto them, the way I hope a person does so when I share a chunk of my life. Ultimately, I admire people who truly know themselves better than anyone else’s, because it is better than, to quote Charlotte Bronte’s “Villette,” “what contradictory attributes of character we sometimes find ascribed to us, according to the eye with which we are viewed!”