by John Muir
CHAPTER 12
BANCA TO APUAO GRANDE
MERCEDES, CAMARINES NORTE.
Perhaps he had dozed, maybe not, it had not felt restful. Malou, as usual, fell asleep easily as she always managed to do, anywhere at anytime. T.A. felt envious, though he did enjoy looking at her sleeping.
The increased level of noise downstairs had woken him. It was probably the wiser passengers who had flown down. He hoped so. His watch showed near enough to 10:00A.M. He wanted to get to the island, have a shower and get into a proper bed.
He listened to the voices for a few minutes. He distinguished some English speaking voices from among the babble. Gently, he stroked Malou's forehead and high cheekbones. Her eyelids started to flicker in reaction, then kept opening and closing as though fighting for every last second of sleep. Minutes later she was more awake than asleep. Her sleepy eyes looked at him and her mouth gave a forced fleeting smile. Even when she was able to get to her feet she still sleepily staggered like a drunk. He would hate to have to wake her quickly in an emergency.
He watched and waited while she tidied her hair with her hands until she felt sufficiently presentable, then led her down the stairs. Twenty or so faces turned toward them with quizzical looks. T.A. imagined their dishevelled appearance would contrast with their aeroplane journeyed freshness. He was too tired to care.
Bags had already been loaded onto the official Swagman banca over a plank that linked it to the concrete ramp. The plank did not look secure. T.A. wondered if they would have remembered to fetch them from upstairs if they had not woken and gone downstairs. The banca could have left without them a second time and made him wonder what else could go wrong on this trip.
He was beginning to feel either he or Malou was jinxed this time. Maybe God was giving him a message. He grinned at the thought of that. How could an atheist think he was getting a message from God? There were recorded cases of people's intuition stopping them getting on to aeroplanes. Some of those aeroplanes had subsequently crashed with no survivors, their intuition apparently having saved their lives. Those of course were the ones you heard about. You never heard about the tens of thousands of others whose intuition told them not to fly, so they had not, and the flight they were supposed to be taking getting to the destination quite safely. That was not news or a newspaper headline. T.A. pictured the headline.
"PASSENGER INTUITION PREVENTS HIM JOINING A SAFE FLIGHT."
What then was his intuition telling him? The hell with intuition he just wanted lots of sun, clear sea to swim in and lots of love-making with Malou. Just in case he was being warned about something, he strengthened his grip on the carry-on bag containing his cameras.
He watched the other guests take their unsteady walks up the plank. Then they took their turn. They quickly settled in. He thought of bancas as the jeepneys of the sea. Most were simple fishing vessels, though some contained powerful motors which booted speeds along a calm sea at speeds at over 60 kph. Length varied depending on the intended use. Most were less than seven metres but some were approached thirty metres. All had outriggers, many on both sides.
Mercedes slowly reduced its profile behind them and faces turned forward to where they were heading. Being closest to the bow he was able to look back at the faces of his co-adventurers and wondered what history each had. As in his previous jaunt to the island, it was a mixed bag.
He studied the nearest couple. The man was a fair haired European wearing glasses and of a similar age to T.A. His woman was attractive, slim, and tall for a Filipino. Her long bared legs showed she had very dark skin. She was very sensual, probably in her mid to late thirties. He found it difficult to judge the age of Filipino women. He could not overhear what they were talking about because of the boat engine. A young boy about 11 years old clambered over some loose ropes and cuddled into the woman to shelter from the sea breeze. He too was dark skinned like the woman and looked like her. T.A. decided the man in her company was not the boy's father, but somehow suspected the man was still the woman's husband. Their familiarity was enough to suggest the closeness of spouses as compared to the nervous familiarity of some "paid for" woman, or the shyness or unfamiliarity of others.
T.A. disliked thinking of any of the girls on the banca as being prostitutes even though they were returning sexual favours for money. Perhaps they thought they were only exchanging time for money as paid escorts, with the sex as a side event.
Many Filipina have never seen outside the area they were born. This was a way of achieving that. Many were hoping to find a long term relationship with an "Americano". Not just any man, but a good man, kind to them, not cruel. Judgement and appeal of the opposite sex for these women was not necessarily based on whether the man was handsome, but whether he was kind. All thought that all ‘Americanos’ were rich.
Many Filipina were tired of the macho image that many Filipino men tried to portray to other men. Their record of infidelity was legendary and publicly boasted about. The most celebrated, Pablo Cuneta, was Mayor of Pasay for thirty-four years. Pablo Cuneta, idolised by the whole population, publically acknowledged fathering at least nineteen children to three different women, all of whom were effectively his lovers at the same time. All this was happening in a good Catholic country? Cuneta was admired and worshipped by men and women alike. Men tried to imitate his prowess which seemed to standardise acceptable behaviour. Though not condoned by the Church it was ignored as if it did not happen. The Church still needed funds to finance its holy works.
The famous Filipina singer Sharon Cuneta was an illegitimate product of those celebrated loins.
Divorce had only recently been legalised in the Philippines after six years separation. Many women had been deserted by their husbands. The women still had families to support. One easy way was to find some foreigner who they could keep company with for two or three weeks. Charging around U.S. $50.00 per day, they would be earning enough in one day to keep them for a month. With an average monthly salary of around U.S. $50.00, the women knew that being with a foreigner for two or three weeks could keep their family fed for nearly a year. If they were lucky to be with a nice man at the same time, a genuine love might develop. Many were hoping for more out of these meetings than the foreign men were offering. Hope still did spring eternal for most of the women. Many would just use the men to get out of the Philippines, but a few would end up in a genuine love-match.
For many of the men it would be their first taste of a caring relationship, even if paid for. Femininity still remained in many Filipino women. It had not been diluted by the westernised culture.
As with most of the Asian races, the Filipino woman was the ruler in the house. The man was the breadwinner who gave his salary over to the wife when he returned home. She controlled where the finances went. T.A. knew from his Filipino male friends, in N.Z., Australia and the Philippines, that it was a matriarchal society. He had yet to meet a male Filipino who would say, in front of his wife, that he was the boss of the house. He had seen these same macho men outside of their homes, drinking and boasting of their strength, prowess and manliness, returning home to become quite subservient to their wives.
The common fallacy T.A. often came across in western culture was the comment about Filipino women being "doormats" and subservient slaves. That stemmed from Europeans rarely seeing Filipino or Asians women of any race disagreeing with their partners in public. There was no airing of dirty laundry with public arguments. Disagreements were kept within the confines of the home, then, privately talked about, sometimes hours later.
T.A. knew most marriages to Filipina had not worked. Some where violence had occurred because the wife had not turned out not to be the pre-conceived subservient woman the European husband had believed. But he also knew of some previously heavy drinking and smoking men who had given up both vices with the help of their Filipino wives. Not from nagging, but subtle help and encouragement.
Other men, previously real wasters of money, had even bought their own homes; an unthinkable e
vent before their marriage to a Filipina. Those were the success stories. A far greater number had failed. Some women left husbands as soon as they got citizenship. Others had found the bright lights of a foreign city attractive and had got into loose morals, many while still married to their sponsor husbands. Others Filipina discovered their petiteness and dark skin attracted many European admirers and they willingly succumbed to the sexual attentions of others beside their husband. Some had been lured by men with greater riches and enjoyed living a high life they had only dreamed of before leaving the Philippines. Then they went from man to man until their beauty passed them by. While some had left their husbands to get away from violent situations, a few remained trapped and suffered silently.
T.A. had seen many sides over the years. The one thing that he had seen in real life was that the image of the loyal, loving, honest Filipino woman was a myth. The generalisation of such praise on all Filipino women was highly inaccurate. They were no better than any other race. Many were the greatest liars and rumour-mongers of any people he had ever met. Locally they called it "chismosa". Despite that he had met some lovely Filipino women.
A tall, chubby, tough looking character sat on top of what passed for a cabin. He leaned forward into the sea breeze and seemed to be enjoying its cooling effect on his reddish face. His hair too was fair to reddish and thinning; about right for what T.A. thought would be someone in his mid fifties. His eyes were blood-shot, probably from too much alcohol over the years. That would also explain his larger than normal stomach. His looks suggested suffering a tough time in his youth. Sitting beside him was a very plain, almost matronly Filipino woman in her early forties. They seemed to be a good match. T.A. felt he would not like to cross this guy if he was in a drunken temper, the type that might get violent if provoked. Yet his lady looked as if she would remain calm in any situation.
T.A. wondered where and in what situations his co-passengers would be in twelve months from now. If he had been a professional behavioural science researcher, he would follow up on each of them in one year. Some scientists produced documentaries. But he was not there for that. Just for the pleasure of sea, sand and Malou.