Time to go Grave Digging

Most observations regarding Filipinas by foreign writers have been complimentary whether in the distant past or present-day accounts. Although her ego doesn’t appear to need any more affirming, in this age when we’re known as the atchays of the world it’s good to read one more paean. Here’s a 19th century compliment by Vicente Barrantes on Las Mujeres del Pais.

Barrantes writes that the Filipino male did not feel complete until he married or had a girlfriend by his side. It was possible he thought that true human liberty consisted of giving oneself to another, in sacrificing his personality on the altar of God or that of a woman. Or perhaps it was that Filipinos lived so close to paradise (once upon a time apparently) that he remembered and understood the sacred parable of Adam and Eve more than other men. (In this Eden, according to him, the Spaniard was the serpent).

Under an all-embracing sun, it was said that the Filipina was water and that the Spaniard was fire with the inevitable conclusion that water kills fire. No woman in the world had better commercial instincts or a more developed organ for acquisitiveness and speculation. Stated simply she was (and remains) an excellent businesswoman. There were of course exceptions but no doubt there were other compensatory factors.

Barrantes wonders whether the blind, absolute, servile submission that the Filipina demonstrated to her lover was born of astuteness or came from indifference or frailty. Was it tacit recognition of her debility, of her lack of arms for battle? The famous "vos, cuidado" as in "whatever you wish," "it is up to you, Sir" "I am clay in your hands" (bahala ka) was her response to the most serious questions in the most transcendental and decisive moments. Was this the synthesis of her character; a matter of diplomacy or abnegation, cajolery or frankness, indifference or self control? (Poor Barrantes; he must have had problems. I’m tempted to comment but I’m afraid I’m going to end up being fed to the sharks by my sisters). According to the poor man only God knew.

He gives the example of a Spaniard who had fallen for a Filipina but wanted to make sure it was the right choice and so had gone back to Europe. Before leaving he wanted to see her one last time. He found her impassive, serene, without a tear in her eyes or a wrinkle in her forehead:

"So you don’t care if I leave," he exclaims, desperately.

"No."

"But…what if I don’t return?"

"You will."

"But…if I don’t?"

"It’s up to you."

He had a year to decide and was in Spain for three or four months in a robotic state, constantly thinking of her despite finding her words cold as marble but remembering "the flash of fire like a volcano in her eyes." He returned in six months having written ahead of time to go ahead with the wedding preparations. She, without any show of emotion, told him:

"I was sure you’d come back."

"But what if I had married someone else in Spain?" he answered furiously.

"It was up to you."

Barrantes knew few marriages happier than between Spaniards and Filipinas even if she did not seem particularly affectionate and even if he had actually met husbands who had died without hearing their incomparably virtuous wives affirm their love even once. Without doubt, according to him, the Spaniard had grown accustomed to the marble-like love of a statue like Pygmalion. If he took her back to Spain she’d swear that Spain was her country that she found it perfect, that the apex of her happiness was spending the summer in Paris and the winter in Madrid and that she did not wish to die in the Philippines. Still, with one pretext or another whether illness or illusory conveniences but which are really nostalgia, she would drag her husband back to the Philippines and this time it was for keeps.

The Spaniard married to a woman from the Philippines was almost certain of being buried in Paco (the cemetery of the Spaniards). Everything conspired to that end from the day of the wedding. The sweetness and passivity of his wife made life here very agreeable accompanied by a languor of the spirit and the flesh.

He classified the Filipina into three types: the India (I take this to mean the native woman) who was the matrix, the mold from which the others - the mestiza and the Creole - were formed. The Filipina Sangley apparently was in a category all by herself. By the 19th century the India had been reduced to the status of a wild flower that developed with extraordinary precocity but withered in an obscure and unknown existence. At the bottom of that obscurity was her abnegation and suffering! (One is tempted to say that not much has changed.)

As soon as she could reason which was usually early the India was accustomed to follow her mother, clinging to her skirt in search of a father who spent his time in the cockpit after which he played panguingui with a friend and spent the afternoon with his rooster between his legs. In the meantime his family would eat a fistful of rice or fast as on Good Friday which was frequent.

When she entered puberty since the India slept on the same mat as the rest of the family, under a common mosquito net, she began to learn many things which were revelations for the western girls of the same age. If fortune gave her good parents who accompanied her to fiestas and parties and did not allow her to wander around alone then she retained some perfume of that natural purity of her soul.