eye of the fish, a personal archipelago

Luis Francia,  the author, received  a PEN Open Book Award and Asian American Literary Award for the book. PEN which is short for poets, essayist and novelist is a literary award that started in 1963 honoring  outstanding voices in literature. The book which is a memoir is, to me, more of a sociological account of a participant observer. 

The title of the book which sounds like a line from one the author’s poems reminds of that cringey feeling I get every time someone refers to my country of origin as PI. 

“Kailan ka uuwi sa PI?”

“PI?”

“Philippine Islands, didn’t you know that?”

I am always reminded of my conversation with Nida Halud, my room mate at Muhayl in Abha, Assir Region of KSA.  Some years earlier I heard about the PI acronym from Romy Panisales, a classmate at Asian Social Institute or ASI for short. 

“PI nila!”

“PI?”

“Puta’ng ina.”

“Ahh...”

Nowadays, I remember both Nida Halud and Romy Panisales every time somebody mentions about PI. Most of the Pinoys I work with or I know refer to the motherland as PI. Most of them are annoyed every time I get the chance and tell them that we come from an archipelago. An island is defined as a strip of land sorrounded by water.  Philippines and all of its  more than 7,100 islands is an archipelago. The PI misnomer must have come from  BPI which is short for Bank of Philippine Islands. The bank was established in 1851 and originally known as El Banco Español Filipino de Isabel II. 

I somehow think that the PI misnomer was further reinforced or popularized by US servicemen who were stationed in the country  and considered the country as a pit stop and a shit hole. During my first year in the US, I came upon an article in the New York Magazine that listed Philippine Indepence Day as July 4, 1946. Later, when Richard and I moved to San Diego, this then Navy Seal neighbor gave me a the “true” historical account of my country of origin which he referred to as “PI”.  He talked about Aetas and the “cannibalistic head-hunting Igorots” while proudly spewing nasal Tagalog words. I flinched some more and bit my tongue as I thought of Romy Panisales: PI!

Luis Francia’s book sounds like a timeless rejoinder to age-old myths and misconceptions about the Philippines, his personal archipelago.  The popular fill-in-the blank saying that goes like “ you may be able to take the blank out the the blank but you can never take the blank out of the blank”. I know this doesn’t make sense to you so let me say get it straight: “ You can take the Pinoy out of the Philippines but you can never take the Philippines  out of the Pinoy”.  

Got it? 

Corny?

Bakya?

Not to me. For me, Luis H. Francia has MTE. 

(MTE is my thoughts exactly, Evangelista!) 

But I don’t mean to devalue anyone’s thoughts. This is why I never use MTE for Facebook comment. IKR? Lol ka rin!

The author likened himself to an awkward fish swimming simultaneously in different oceans: upstream to home, his personal archipelago,  from another sea called NYC. Practically covering the whole archipelago from Batanes to Jolo, the author presented characters and images ranging from tragic to nostalgic amidst a  mostly rustic landscape.  Dead or alive, there was this  body in a bag fished from the Pasig River, a retired schoolteacher in Vigan who sat perfectly stil  by her window every morning reading pulp fiction by Danielle Steele or Judith Krantz, a woman shaman at Mount Banahaw, the magicians of Siquijor and so on and so forth.  

There are characters I recognize. Sr Myrna, ICM, the author’s sister who had since passed according to Google, may well have been my religion teacher at my ICM-run high school in Bauang, La Union. Elieza Dadap in Hnunangan Southern  Leyte who went to ASI sounds  like a community organizer I knew. Joey Ayala, the son of one of the author’s contacts in Davao City is still a favorite Original Pilipinong Mang-aawit and of course then Davao Mayor Rodrigo Duterte who is the current Philippine president is someone I would never compare to President Donald Trump.  Duterte  was a lawyer known for his vigilante style  of local government. He is not a dictator and is a lot smarter than the Donald. 

I enjoyed the book for all its worth. Had it been a foreign author describing  the absurdities of my culture, I would have taken offense.  Francia’s subtle humor or sense of irony are to me LOL moments.  I am quoting some of these in this blog so I can always read them in the future to entertain myself. 

“Right outside Quiapo church was another, smaller open air market, a talipapa, offering products for the soul, for the future, as well as for your health. Here notions of the sacred outdated and often contradicted Catholic ones. Plaster images of the saints, of the Virgin Mary and rhe Santo Niño, were displayed alongside anting anting, bronze amulets with inscriptions of  pig Latin that could, for instance, make you bullet-proof  or irresistible to a beloved, as was the case with one that  depicted the Christ Child with an erect penis, his left hand holding the globe, his right hand in greeting. The charm worked by rubbing the divine penis while chanting the beloved’s name.”

Somehow I see myself in the book. 

“During mass,  one of the sisters asks me to do the first gospel reading. Nervous, I begin reading;  it has been a long time since I have done this. And it shows, for I inadvertently start reading even the instructions to the congregation before I catch myself. The Catholic schoolboy in me wants those nuns to think well of me, so I am tempted to receive Holy Communion. When was it I lost my faith exactly? What is it I have lost? Is it faith in the institution, in a heirarchal church that is just as feudal as any other power-wielding group? Should it matter then whether I consume the sacred host or not? The wafers and the wine-filled chalice are passed to me. I pass them on. Let the nuns judge me, though I doubt it they will.”