Dear Bob

Dear Bob,

First of all, I’d like to thank you for the amazingly lovely opportunity to write for Live in the Philippines. It’s been a blast. The one year went by frightfully quickly. To be able to share my voice to a community of expatriates, locals, foreign and domestic tourists, immigrants to and from the country, and backpacking travelers who would otherwise have never stumbled upon what I’d have to say: that was the first and foremost reason why I’d jumped in the pool of writers for your website, why I’d agreed to letting John Grant talk to you about me, after he’d gotten back last January from a Manila trip during which he and I first met.

Unfortunately, the New Year has heralded new career developments that are bound to keep me busier than ever. Friends and colleagues in Manila, all of a sudden, have expressed a need for freelance writers. Offshore clients are requiring me to work longer hours. Family and I are in the midst of discussions on whether or not I should go study again (abroad), while they contemplate and plan a possible move to Tagaytay, that cool, pleasant little city located at the highlands of Cavite. And, if only because I had listed it down as one of my New Year’s resolutions, I might actually try my hand at writing fiction. This barrage of new tasks and new possibilities leave me no choice but to come off of Live in the Philippines. I’d love to not quit, but it wouldn’t be fair to you and the LiP community if I stay on without having as much to offer anymore as before: that is, in terms of time, in terms of content, in terms of useful reading.

But before I sign off, I’d like to let you in on a little secret: did you know that Colm Toibin had written to me a few months back? I mentioned in passing the name of the Irish writer in one of the pieces I had published on LiP, and the next thing I knew Mr. Toibin and I were exchanging E-mails. I was shocked, and then when it sank in, I was honored. So yeah: to be able to share my voice, especially to one of my literary idols – I can never thank you enough for that.

Another little secret I should let you in on is starting to not become little anymore. Up Dharma Down. They’re growing. They’re getting bigger, even if they’re growing bigger only in the Philippine indie music scene. I know from our several-day, eye-opening road trip of Mindanao cities and provinces last May that you are a huge Jimmy Buffett fan; I know that John is a huge Stylistics and Elton John fan; from reading past articles I know that Klaus Doring is into classical music, and that one-time guest columnist Rick Bowden likes Keane and Rufus Wainwright. But I ought to encourage you all to give Up Dharma Down a try. It’s a Manila-based band, accomplished in the underground scene in which I as a witness occasionally take part. They just released their second album, called Bipolar; people say it’s fantastic, and lead singer Armi Millare has certainly got a most beautiful voice, but the auditory experience of this sophomore effort – like their debut album Fragmented – I still can’t bring myself to describe; I only sense the music – “feel” it, if you will. Which is why I love and recommend them, and always say to anyone who would listen to at least be mildly curious about the band. While certain cuts may remind you of Pink Martini or some other stylish European music that radio would deem too unfriendly, Up Dharma Down defies genres in ways that surprise listeners of OPM and international artists alike. It’s a shame that when I went to the Podium shopping mall a few weeks ago to attend one of their promotional gigs, half the audience chose instead to talk amongst themselves while smoking cigarettes and brandishing fat cups of Mocha Frappuccinos.

Because, really, Filipinos – myself not excluded – ought to pay closer attention to fellow countrymen. It’s horrifying to think that so many precious little gems cut and carved and polished here at home go unnoticed. Early in December, while in Davao City, I went to a book launch at the Museo Dabawenyo. I knew absolutely no one. The Davao Writers Guild – of which I automatically became a member after having published an essay in their literary magazine, called Dagmay – officially released Davao in Harvest, a nice glossy compilation of short stories, poems, creative non-fiction, and photographs from the city’s best young writers and artists. I had been sent an invite via E-mail but no one really knew who I was. Nevertheless, I gatecrashed the cocktail party and met people like Ricardo de Ungria, Mac Tiu, Dominique Cimafrance, and Tita Lacambra Ayala – the importance of all of whom I felt embarrassed to not know.

So this year, I will reach out as energetically as possible, and try to understand better what it means, what it really means, to live in the Philippines and acclimatize to a life here that’s outside the realms of familiarity. Of course I will chronicle every step of the way on my little spiral notebook – no matter that I might no longer know who else will be reading.

Thank you again for the chance to write on your site, and take good care always.

Sincerely,

Migs

The Persistence of Hello

Somewhere in America, a fifty-something mother of three is trying to figure out the service features of her new mobile phone, a glittering gold Motorola, about which everyone under her terracotta-roofed house is very excited. Phone Company says there’d be no more paper bills. There’d be a single bill, in fact, and paperless, too: surely a convenient bundle for this loyal customer, who’ll be able to access online all the information she needs when looking up the reflected charges for Phone Company’s Internet support, for home phone, and now, too, for wireless services.

But she can’t find the right data and details in her current billing period. Every time she accesses her account, the message always reads like this: “Data usage has not yet been posted for your account. It may take up to five days for your unbilled usage to be available.” And so on and so forth. The mother thinks, “What on earth is this ‘111-048-xxyy’ I keep seeing?” She can make nothing of the words and figures that appear.

The mother calls customer technical support.

Three hours later, somewhere in Manila, an ex-hacker is now being called a son of a female canine by a woman’s voice on the other end of the phone. She insists, as a point of order, that “my call is not going to be transferred, yet again, to another helpless script-reader from the other side of the world – that would make a total of seven phone operators in a span of less than three hours!” Okay, thinks the sixth. He is looking at a photograph of his parents thumb-tacked on a certificate-decorated corkboard.

Just awhile ago, during a smoking break with colleagues downstairs of their office building, he was mulling over two options on a second-hand motorbike for which he was saving: the black Honda Wave 100 or the blue Suzuki Shogun-R? From the photos he’d seen on eBay Philippines, both looked to be in fairly good condition, and he had, very happily, appraised these to be ‘very hot’ indeed.

But it’s cold as Christmas now. He is sitting wordlessly at his workstation, listening to a barrage of questions and rants, all spoken in an unaccented way. He wonders why they never taught this “un-accent” during on-board training; he wonders that maybe they should begin to. How can you charm this middle-aged woman who subsists on single motherhood and mobile phones? She already knows anyway that he is not her countryman, and he knows that she will always be right. And so the story goes.

Ah, the call center. The PR firm for which I work has got one for a client. I believe that I’m past merely having been left to imagine what it’s like to be a call center employee. You see, I’ve spent innumerable hours on client calls, industry congresses, trainings and demos, conferences, and campaign planning sessions (and parties, too); these hours have convinced me that it really isn’t very wise to philosophize about the nature of the customer support outsourcing business, though many have doubtless made –be it on the record or off, in print or through debate shows on TV– the fairly widespread mistake of doing so. But I won’t. I’ll try not to, even though I’ve got the time.

After all, when one comes to think of it, voices are very strange. And telephones are very dangerous. They cut everything down to a sound. While there’s nothing wrong with the sound, it’s misleading. (And so is the written word, but the difference is that one can neither edit nor erase what has been said.) It doesn’t tell the whole story; not ever, and this is especially true when the sound of the voice is transmitted through the lamentably oft-abused technology of telephony.

Take call centers. It’s not just about two people on two ends of the world talking about how they can solve a technical problem; it’s not just about the mastery of slang and the pretense of sounding American; it’s not just about the business-making persistence of hello, how are you and how’s the weather in California, how can I help you, do call us if you encounter any more problems, goodbye and have a good day; it’s not just about the labels we know are given, and too unfairly, to those in the industry. Like sellouts. Phone operators, or live voice responders, working graveyard shifts. 21st century slaves to the Western world.

I am not sure if I myself know what it’s about, less so than what it’s not about. As a native proverb would have it, it takes a thousand voices to tell a single story. Really? Maybe it takes more than that.

Look Closer

I was riding a jeepney through Taft Avenue one recent weekday afternoon when I noticed a laminated poster hanging from the back of the driver’s seat. I didn’t pay much attention to it until a female college student, who was observing me as I looked at the poster, approached me and asked, “Good afternoon, sir. Would you mind answering a survey?”

“I don’t mind at all. A survey about what?”

“That advertisement for the National Museum,” she said, pointing to the poster. I looked closer and saw that the ad had a picture of Juan Luna’s famous oil painting, the Spolarium. There was also some colorful text (in both English and Tagalog) that provided information on the masterpiece as well as the hours one could visit the National Museum, which is located on Padre Burgos Street. According to the ad, visits – with the exception of group tours – are free of charge.

After examining the poster I began answering the survey, which the student had printed on two sheets of bond paper, clipped on a board. I realized that she was a student of the University of the Philippines, Manila campus, and that her project was to determine the most effective communication tool to promote the country’s repository of natural and cultural heritage. Riding the jeep all day, she was coordinating with a group of Dapitan Street-Taft Avenue route drivers.

It was on an evidently low budget that the poster was produced. It was too small to be noticed by passengers in the rear of the jeep. And the printing would surely fade out in time. Still, the presence of – and rationale behind – the poster made me appreciate the student’s noble efforts to bring light to one of the country’s finest – and, regrettably, overlooked – tourist attractions. Having been to the museum only once, I was suddenly terribly interested to go again. And I was made to think of other places close to me which others will fly hundreds of miles over just to see. Intramuros? Rizal Park? Casa Manila? Quiapo? My mind raced with these thoughts.

There are to be no unanswered questions now on which place to visit next, how much it would cost, and what else there is to see in Manila. Oh, how true it is, that sometimes all we need is a simple nudge – or a young idea – to make us look closer.

Psalms

The full moon shone palely, thin clouds covering its diffused glow, but the faces of the people looked peaceful and solemn in the kind, subdued light of many-colored lanterns lining the sides of Lourdes Church in Quezon City. The priest’s voice echoed from hidden speakers and was thunderous, like a foreboding voice of God, but I did not see the priest’s face because I was standing outside at the adjacent car park, where children wearing grey shirts begged for alms and where teenage girls strutted about in outfits so skimpy as to pose the most unchaste temptations to those holy and hypocritical. Inside, there were several empty pews, but more parishioners than what I thought was usual had gathered to listen, to pray.

The evening was chilly; one could almost imagine that the church, the streets, the rows of shabby souvenir shops and donut chains outside, and all the rest of Manila were air-conditioned. The leaves of the fruitless trees beside the adoration chapel created a gentle rustling sound, and the seven o’clock sky was pink. Indeed, the weather is best come December. It doesn’t rain, it is never too hot, and the choirs are in shape after months of practice and preparation for the birth of Jesus Christ. When the priest called on everyone to open their hands to heaven for the singing of Our Father, they did not hesitate, and immediately a great chorus was heard, unrestrained, drifting through the open air like a strong memory – of seasons past, of songs sung, masses attended and prayers whispered.

It used to be that on the several nights leading up to Christmas Day, I’d join my parents and siblings at the Banahaw Cultural Center, located on the outskirts of affluent New Manila, to hear a quietly lengthy Latin mass with associates and numeraries and supernumeraries and their families. There was always a closed-circuit video camera set up inside the golden chapel, at the back of the pews, such that those who had arrived after the meditation and were thus forced to sit outside can still see the priest’s face as he delivered his homily and went about the rituals, the lapel microphone hidden underneath his garments.

Since I seldom received the Eucharist, I was usually relegated to watching the monitor from a wooden chair, shiny from polishing; it was amusing to observe the self-conscious movements of those who were abashed at being focused on by the camera; they were usually young people. After the mass an assigned person blew the tall wax candles and there’d be cocktails and sweet pastries waiting outside, by a humble sort of garden decorated with constellations of yellow lights. It was where one engaged in chats either polite or apostolic, sometimes both, always ephemeral, since families always left early for more intimate celebrations at home.

The next few years I did not see any priest’s face; I did not go to church or the center in New Manila to mark the holiday season, even though a Filipino Christmas is as much a religious idea as it is commercial. How much was missed? One cannot tell. Only now, as then, rebellion in any form is inappropriate.

I stayed at the car park for a few more minutes after the final hymn, content to hold my view without analysis. The previously pink sky had slowly become deep clear lavender. And there was no way one can disagree with the scene. I did not, however, see the celebrant walk towards the parish office; there were simply too many people. Family by family, they filed out, while the song faded into the darkness.

Big Sky Mind

For everything indie, or beatnik, or rock, there’s Big Sky Mind. Hiding in a corner along E. Rodriguez Avenue, New Manila (right across McDonald’s), this music bar is the perfect place for rockers and rollers, for artists and dilettantes, for drinkers and dabblers.

Oozing with the atmospheric feel of Pinoy underground art culture, the joint isn’t for everyone. And it’s certainly not for non-cowboys. When at its liveliest, Big Sky Mind is where you’d find visual artists, rock musicians, and independent filmmakers moonlighting and mingling with each other. The bar-cum-art gallery, without any pretense to art deco, is bathed in saturated orange glow, and its walls are plastered with promotional posters of circuit gigs and concerts.

There’s a second floor, too, decorated with nothing except for glass tables, low sofas and framed photographs of the musicians who’ve played there (Ely Buendia, Cynthia Alexander, Sammy Asuncion, Louie Talan, Up Dharma Down, and so on). The bartenders move as swiftly as you please; they serve as soon as you order your liquid drop of choice. Occasionally, and if you’re lucky, you’ll catch enthralling live performances of today’s most original bands or the debut of a new music video. If you’re not, well, there’s still plenty of San Mig and Red Horse to pass the night by. And contrary to what might be a possible misconception, it’s not noisy or excessively loud at all. The sound booming as you sip your amazingly-priced liquor is at once beautiful to the ears and conducive to conversations.

While not an intensely professed rocker myself, I find Big Sky Mind’s quirky simplicity suitable and fine. It represents one of the many faces of the young, talented and dynamic Manilenyo, and if you’ve been there (and are one of them), you can’t really argue with that, eh?

Dangwa

A rainy day isn’t the best time to visit the place (nor is the day before All Saints Day), but if you’ve never heard of Dangwa – the flower market in Sampaloc district, Manila - you cannot yet consider yourself a real “Manilenyo”. It is home to over fifty flower vendors and a haven to the diverse daily crowd of visitors looking for the cheapest blooms that’ll fit the occasion.

I’m not at all a connoisseur in floral affairs, but when the former organizer of the always extravagant Philippine Ad Congress declares that the weekday night wouldn’t be complete without a trip to the brightest spot in Dos Castillas, I’d be happy to oblige. I’d be happy to come along and learn. And you should, too.

Bring a camera if you wish (the colors will simply astound you), and take the liberty of posing beside those remarkably cheap chrysanthemums, the price of which you may still haggle with the vendor. To my knowledge, all the shops are open 24-7. Accessible, eh? (Especially to me, since I live about ten minutes away from the place.) If you’re running on a really tight budget for those imported tulips, a trip to Dangwa just might be your best bet. Dangwa’s flowers are, by nature, completely the opposite of today’s gasoline: there’s always a great supply; it’s affordable even in high demand; and the pricing won’t make you think twice.

For a guy like me, Dangwa comes in handy during the most sudden of dates. For the rest of the pack, Dangwa represents what Manila is all about: creativity, color, cut-price commodities, and cherished traditions. Oh, and of course, the familiar chatter of Pinoy customers asking for “tawad, tawad po, wala bang tawad?”

Uno

Yesterday I walked to the barbershop for a clean head shave. Apart from other considerations, I fancied that such a hairstyle would help me perform better in my semifinals basketball game. So I went to Hombre’s, just five blocks away, where, beside the barber’s pole, the front plate glass windows announced in maroon lettering that haircuts cost only fifty pesos each. It seemed so like of blood.

“Dos?” my barber asked, as soon as he saw me come in. Wearing his usual thin, bronze-dyed hair, small steel-framed spectacles, and a perpetual blush in the face, he began to button up the white polo shirt which all the other employees also wore.

“No,” I muttered, shaking my head politely. “Uno…and don’t shave the sideburns; just cut ‘em clean.”

But with or without the reminder, I was sure he would’ve known that autonomously. The man has been shaving my head for years, and though I never remembered his name, the familiarity – far from breeding contempt – always inspired confidence.

It was a sweltering afternoon. The unoccupied barbers were either watching Superman on TV or writing their bets for the horse race, while a couple of familiar strangers read the tabloids. Few discussed the elections, for apparently the people at the barbershop were more excited about the NBA and Ding Dong Dantes’ breakup with Karylle. It was a sweltering afternoon, but I was consoled by the sight of white towels, the scent of isopropyl alcohol, the cheerful commonplace. Mornings will be spent answering crossword puzzles; afternoons, smoking cigars and drinking or reading; evenings, in reminiscence of youth, of “the good old days”, and on a rocking chair that rocked the ticks and tocks of time and which creaked against the wooden floor. The buzzing razor did nothing to break me out of the stupor, and all I could hope for was to always be bald by choice. My shaved head feeling cool in the climate of the city, I gave a twenty-peso tip to the barber whose name I didn’t remember.

My barber brought out his razor and started shaving the mid-frontal part of my head. Armed with a pink plastic comb, he was very meticulous. Instead of sleeping, I watched the progression and saw that we were, as always, reflected into infinity by the two facing mirrors. And because the patches of hair on both the lateral sides of my forehead were yet untouched, when I saw the rear of my head I looked to be suffering from a case of premature baldness.

And so it was that I imagined that ugly reflection turning around to show its face – older by many decades and wrinkled by many more days. What if indeed the time came when I have aged into a man with a positively receding hairline? I thought of myself as a quinquagenarian, maybe older – a few strands of white hair here and there (but none where it should actually grow) and scruffy whiskers sufficient to make a real beard. There will be warts. There will be furrows by the forehead. There will be hallmark memory loss. I’d have, by then, cute little grandchildren who’d be outnumbered by monstrous in-laws, as well as real assets, real liabilities, and real worries.

But gasp! Will I grow finally to be well-versed in politics? Will I then have my own opinions? As the barber scraped once and again at my scalp, wary of razor bumps and shaving against the grain, my head throbbed with the mysteries of aging, mysteries that left too much to the imagination. Of course I’d never be younger, for no one ever is, but still I became frightfully afraid of the prospect of being corroded by cynicism and corrupted by self-righteousness. I’d have a jaded grin, too, just like what experienced people have, and surely the belly was to bulge catastrophically.

When my barber had finished, he allowed me a moment to rise from my seat, rub my scalp and glide my hand through the very thin stubble left. The reflection in the mirror was no longer terribly thought-provoking. I felt reborn – again.

Gone Fishing

Somewhere near, a family is praying for a happy home; it’s a new one actually, the foundation of which has been laid on the swampy grounds of Dagupan, from where former House Speaker Joe De Venecia can dig up memories of his youth. It’s true, yes; the public official with caricatured ears had spent many years in this place, though now gone are the last ripples of sixteenth century Spanish merchant ships. There are also fewer palm trees, fewer foreigners, fewer communities of the indigenous, and fewer mangroves.

But the provincial city is still the milkfish capital of the Philippines. This is why I am spending a good, slow hour by the fish pond of Uncle Fred (mother’s brother-in-law) with a rickety rod, bags of feeds, and a hard, fly-infested slice of spoilt bread. My cousin FJ claims that the fish love the scum; it’s what they feed on, this film of green dead, not very different –if I will now care to take note– from that which has condensed on the surface of the water, and on the water’s floor, and which looks hardly as though it is this very ingredient that makes the catch –when fried or grilled– so divinely delicious. But according to the locals, the scum “does make your bangus delicious.“

How strange it is that we’re taking the time hooking and waiting and pulling and hooking again, given that several guests have already arrived at the new house, which is the first one constructed along this rocky stretch of pebbles and gravel and dust, rarely trampled on by modern vehicles. Auntie Josie also says the pink candles are ready to be lit for the blessing; they’re only waiting for the Catholic priest – as should we, but from under the roof, for the pond after all may require too long a walk.

The sun, however, is therapeutic. The sweat I give off of its heat is rejuvenating and the light that it glints off of the water is blinding. It’s not even the season yet for harvest. The wind of this Sunday noon is oppressive and humid and the San Miguel beers aren’t yet cold but I still think that if there is life elsewhere it won’t be nearly as tranquil and tender and seemingly infinite as this. This. Below, those creatures are swimming, not wary of our hooks. For them, it’s never well worth the pain when it ends. But it ends.

When Old Walls Become New

Show me how to make old walls new. I know that that happens, but not how.

Last week, Davao City correspondent John Grant and I decided to take a walk in Intramuros, to tour the walled district and to step on Spanish-era cobblestone. “To waste a Tuesday,” I thought to myself, before we were able to hail a cab. You know, I had almost protested –Intramuros sounds a corny idea to young urbanites like me, because the site hardly has any romantic appeal, and if it does, it’s for the ancient, and for the granny-glass-wearing scholarly, and unlike us they would never risk sunburn by going at midday– but I kept quiet. I chugged on my bottle of C2 Green Tea Apple and furiously fantasised about air-conditioned spaces.

When the handlebar-moustached cab driver decided to take, unnecessarily, a longer route, with Love Radio and its either proletariat or unintentional humour at full volume, I still kept quiet. Some crimes are better left uncaught. He wants to go round in circles, fine; I’m not the one who’s paying for the bloody fare. So instead of travelling straight through Roxas Boulevard from Vito Cruz Avenue, then turning right on T.M. Kalaw Street, then left to Maria Orosa Street and into Calle Real del Palacio, we zigzagged through grey and strange thoroughfares, past nightclubs, karaoke bars, pool bars, bad restaurants, fly-infested eateries, dentist clinics, gloomy Internet cafes, Muslim-owned jewellery shops, Chinese- and Korean-owned pawnshops, money exchangers, twenty-dollars-a-night hotels, abandoned office buildings, and other holes in the wall in whose haphazardness, I thought, not even the enchanted city surgeons of Metro Manila Development Authority would be able to find hope – until, half an hour into the journey, we were welcomed at the gates of Intramuros by a security guard who was uniformed in a Spanish, sixteenth-century sort of way. A prim and proper Guardia Civil of Malaysian descent, with no trace of mestizo in him.

“Good afternoon, sir!” he greeted, not really addressing me.

I hadn’t been to this part of the city for such a long time. My uncle’s golden wedding anniversary, held in Sofia Garden at Patio Victoria and for which I had written the program script, was two years ago. And I had stopped visiting the third-floor Tradewind bookstore at Silahis Arts and Crafts Centre ever since I discovered the F. Sionil Jose-owned La Solidaridad in Ermita. Understandable, then, that Intramuros suddenly seemed strange in the October sunlight, with the stones looking so brittle, and the statues charmless, and the shadows oppressed. The clatter of horse-driven kalesas jolted me, as did the buzzing population of college students who loitered away the hours in and out and around the medieval halls of their schools. John mingled with and took snapshots of them while I stood veritably transfixed. Everything seemed unfamiliar, awfully unfamiliar, as though I was observing with a new set of eyes. I even mistook San Agustin Church for Manila Cathedral. And I consider my roots Catholic!

Actually, I could have gone to any part of the city and felt a similar feeling, that which might be described as the inverse of déjà vu: what I thought I had previously known would strike me as unusual. My job, after all, this writing gig for offshore clients in America, requires me to stay at home, face the computer all day, and write and behave according to pay-per-click doctrines.

This quiet, almost unreal existence must have estranged me from the world. Which is kind of sad, if you come to think about it. I now don’t even know where I belong! I went to old Manila, the old walls became new, and Manila became just another city in the Philippines.

McDonald's and Jollibee

Show me a McDonald’s that’s more than a few hundred metres away from a Jollibee. I’d be very shocked if you can. These two fast-food chains, they are so ferociously in love with each other. And here in Manila their inseparability stands as the marriage between American-style junk food and the Philippine taste for the happy and the sweet. As in any marriage, it’s not without a tinge of jealousy and competition.

But there they are anyway, as close as close can get, always within walking distance from each other, and their store fronts always alive and bright and arresting our attention with the antidepressant colours of red, yellow, white, orange, and purple, turning sandwich stores into pop art and opening their doors to serve us on Jupiter Street and Makati Avenue in Makati, on Retiro in Quezon City, on Quezon Avenue, on Greenmeadows and C5 in Libis, on Tomas Morato Avenue, Banawe Street, Katipunan, Commonwealth Avenue (in front of PhilCoA), E. Rodriguez, Kamias Extension, at the basement of EDSA Shangri-La mall, or of every shopping mall in Manila for that matter, strategically in front of high schools, colleges, and universities, and along major highways both north and south of the city.

And they are firmly fixed, too, in our lingo of merienda. Or lunch break. Breakfast. Dinner. How many times have Filipinos been caught in this swirling debate of where to eat? McDonald’s or Jollibee? You’d think that, given their omnipresence, making a choice would be convenient. The slightest hunger pang is enough to set us off on another one of those eternal gastronomic dilemmas, bulleted by neon text on backlit menus. “I like the Cheeseburger Deluxe better than the Regular Yumburger with Cheese, so let’s go to McDo.” “I need my Chickenjoy fix, and besides I’ve got a Double Go Large coupon for the meal.” “The taste of pickles in the Quarterpounder is revolting.” “Why does the Amazing Aloha’s sauce remind me of Caladryl?” “No one beats Jollibee’s fries.” “No one beats McDo’s fries.” Ratata-tata we go, and sometimes over the generosity of staff members with sachets of ketchup.

I’m not even going to begin talking about the mascots and the TV commercials. Let’s leave the discussion of a lipsticked clown’s semiotics and the social cognitive powers of an egg-eyed bee to the scholars and gurus of consumer marketing. Me, when I fancy a Jolly Hotdog, I just go and look for a McDonald’s. And when I can’t find a McDonald’s, I just look for a Jollibee. One can’t go without the other, they are partners intertwined, they make love and war, our city is their battlefield, and in our tummies is where a honeymoon happens.