One of the things
that amazes me about the Philippines is the ingenuity of the maintenance men
around here. I say men because I have never seen a Filipina mechanic. I did see
a woman pedaling one of those for-hire tricycles the other day. One among a thousand
or so.
Some of the
coconut trucks on Mindanao are older
than Yamashita's grandfather. They are little more than an iron body, some bald
tires, and six cylinders pounding forever up and down roads I can't drive on
with my Honda Civic. The truck ride matches the road exactly, for there are no
springs and the steering wheel is wobblier than grannies knees. Somehow the
driver always manages to have a cigarette dangling from his lips as he wrestles
the beast up and down rutted mountain roads. The coconut pickers in back are
joking on the way up and sleeping on the way back even though their ride bucks
wilder than a wild bronco at the Calgary Stampede.
Who are the geniuses
who keep those monsters rolling? The windshields are cracked and the body is
mostly weld. The machine creaks like my arthritic knees on a rainy day and the
gears can only be shifted by heavy muscle with a greasy grind. Man, put those
mechanics in charge of government. We'd at least have some problem solvers in
place instead of the do-nothings there now, hired because they were someone's
nephew and having the job skills of an amoeba.
Every now and then,
I take the kid down to the dock to watch the ocean and the boats. It is a
totally invigorating experience for you can see the ring of mountains to the
right, Leyte off in the distance across the Biliran Strait, and a variety of
boats rolling with the waves, from the scheduled Super Ferry to freighters that
keep our remote metropolis stocked with goods, to inter-island craft that have
10 to 30 seats, a patch of shade for the passengers, and a diesel engine that
was probably taken from a coconut truck.
The inter-island
passenger boats are cool. They get people around our island and to Tacloban
quicker than that rutted national highway winding through the hills. Plus they
don't have to go through Limon, Leyte, the armpit of Spanish Asia. There is a
great canvas awning in the middle covering the rows of seats. I wonder if they
serve mint juleps, with little pink umbrellas sticking up and lots of clinking
ice? Possibly not.
When we transferred
from Zambales to the Visayas, we drove down in the Honda and wedged it into the
dark cavernous belly of a great iron ferry to get from Luzon to Samar. There
were three inches to spare between my polished black mirror finish and a dilapidated
rusty tour bus on one side and a hulking rusty dump truck on the other.
The national color
of the Philippines ought to be Rust.
The boat ride across
was slow and easy, but it sent about 10 people dashing to the CR to upchuck. I
always thought a boat should feel light. Rather like a balsa wood cork, bopping
easily, a ballerina atop the waves. But my God, this thing was a big chunk of
massive steel plates and rivets the size of Uncle Pete's oft-broken nose.
Torpedoes couldn't sink that thick mass of metal . . . but a stiff breeze
might. It was like riding in a huge steel coffin, truly. And the goliath had
not been painted since Aquinaldo commissioned it, I'd guess. Or when Marcos
bought it off the Japanese scrap piles. I'm not sure about the history.
Fresh is not an
adjective you'd use anywhere on a ferry boat.
One of the big
arguments I have with my wife now and then is what we are going to buy as our
second car. She wants one of those cute multicabs that look like one of Junior
America's toy cars on steroids. They are spiffy, for sure; we like the van or
half-van. But I want a Jeepney. I want one loaded with chrome and lights and
flashy purple and green, a big one. It can be old, but I'd remodel it. Put in a
big engine and air conditioning for the back, where I'd have my bar and lounge
chair, and a bed to the side. Jose the driver would have to crank that rig over
the mountains on our monthly trek to Tacloban and I'd snooze most of the way.
If I were single I bet I could pick up chicks in a beautiful beast like that.
Sorta like the "Woodies" of the 60's that you'd see at Redondo Beach,
those station wagons with wood panel sides that the surfers would drive. They
always had blondes in bikinis bopping out of them.
Somehow I think we
are getting a multicab.
I dunno. I read
BongV and benigno bitching about the Jeepney as proof of the backwardness of
the Philippines and I tend to think they would not make very good poets. They
have no sense of the beauty to be found in the ruts and roots of real life, no
appreciation of the valor to be found in an old diesel that is still cranking
its pistons up and down after all the years, all the work. No sense that the
real heroes in the Philippines are the mechanics who keep this beautiful junk
rolling.
The place may not
hum and certainly not purr, but it chugs along quite nicely, thanks.
I much prefer it to
the mass of polished metal and plastic sitting on a Los Angeles Freeway every
day, going nowhere.
A tip of the San Mig
to all the mechanics of the Philippines! Salud!!
