Video Night in Kathmandu (29 page)

BOOK: Video Night in Kathmandu
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“An election?”

“Sure. If there’s an election, she’ll do a few spots for the government.”

“She likes the government?”

“Nah. But the opposition doesn’t have enough money to pay her well. Anyway, she won’t campaign for the government; she’ll just do ads for them. No way you can afford to pass up job opportunities around here.”

VI

A few days later, just before I left Manila, I finally had my chance to see all the pieces fit together—the people in the streets and the revelers far above, the constant smiles and the famous protests: the anti-Marcos opposition had scheduled a full day of demonstrations to mark the second anniversary of the killing of Ninoy Aquino.

The program began early in the morning, in the stately aisles of Santo Domingo Church in Quezon City, where Cardinal Sin delivered a fierce sermon decrying the systematic devastation of his country. Then Cory Aquino, whom the people were still trying to persuade to enter politics, walked shyly up to the stage. In a soft, quavering voice, she gave the people her heartfelt thanks. Her husband, she said, would have been proud, deeply proud of them. Then, fists raised silently in the air, the entire congregation joined together in a slow and stirring rendition of “The Impossible Dream.” When it was over, a silence filled the church. Then, very slowly, the crowd went into a strong, subdued rendering of the banned national anthem, “Bayan Ko.” As I listened to the brave, solemn voices of the two little girls next to me, and as I heard them singing of redemption with all their hearts, I felt strange tears coming to my eyes. Theirs sounded to me like the voice of a nation struggling to find a dignity adequate to its sorrow.

As soon as the song was over, however, everyone streamed out into the bright sunlight, and the requiem turned into a fiesta. The scene that greeted us outside the church looked like nothing so much as a rock festival. Vendors were hawking soft drinks and chewing gum. Other peddlers were doing a brisk business in T-shirts that said “I
Ninoy,” “Ninoy forever,” “Ninoy lives in my
” and “Who Killed My Hero?” Yellow Ninoy balloons bumped together in the blue sky, and yellow Ninoy streamers fluttered in the breeze. Everyone was dressed in Ninoy yellow—
no matter that some of the yellow T-shirts had “David Bowie” on them, and one of them said “I Feel Terrific.”

As the march began, and everyone surged forward, laughing and singing with their friends, waving their yellow signs in the sunlight, it felt more than ever like a happy picnic. The girls in their bright yellow shirts giggled among themselves, the boys proudly threw their fists into the air. Toddlers looked on from the sidewalk under sun hats that said “My Hero.” Nuns, feminists, ragtag groups of students and other minority factions streamed smiling into the press of chanting yellow bodies. “I was a Breast-fed Baby,” read one of the revolutionaries’ T-shirts.

And so, waving placards against the “U.S.-Marcos Dictatorship” and chanting slogans, the whole bright mob flocked through the streets of Quezon City, past “24-Hour Go-Go Girls” signs, past billboards advertising the latest California high school comedy. When the rain began to fall, thousands of umbrellas came out, and not one of them was black.

In the early afternoon, the rain started to gather momentum, and as the yellow faction went off in one direction, I followed a more militant group, dressed all in red, in the other. For a few minutes, as we sang the “Internationale” and then started running, I felt a surge of adrenaline, the rising excitement of racing amidst a crowd of bright banners through the streets, hurled along by the mob, stumbling and tripping and speeding around corners as families sent confetti streaming down from their windows. And as we turned a corner and came into an open space where thousands of bodies had assembled from every direction, waving banners and laughing in the rain, I felt a dawning sense of wonder. But then the rally stopped for a few windy denunciations of the U.S.-Marcos Dictatorship, and a boy next to me went back to reading
Nicaragua for Beginners
, while a few college girls clustered around the latest issue of
Newsweek.

A few minutes later, we were off again, charging through the downpour without a care in the world, excited children in the rain, running our hearts out for thirty minutes or more until we careened around an intersection and up to the Mendiola Bridge, right in front of Malacañang Palace. Ahead of us stood a huge barricade. On the far side of the barbed-wire fence, rows of
stony-faced riot policemen stood stock-still, fingering their guns; behind them, men in masks silently brandished shields.

Just in case things didn’t go on schedule, the policemen had brought reinforcements and brown bags filled with food. But it had already been decided that the demonstrators should shout and wave banners for no more than an hour and then disperse. So the foreign correspondents at the front lines started making plans for dinner and asking around for rides. And the masked revolutionaries cried out their rage for an hour. And then, as dusk began to fall, all of them quietly filed home for dinner. A little later, the riot policemen also packed their picnic bags and followed their enemies home. Marcos, I thought, had nothing to worry about; his enemies were blowing kisses in the wind.

AT THE RALLY
, as so often in Manila, it was the happiness of the Filipinos that left me saddest.

Carefree and irrepressible to the end, they reminded me finally of one of those beautiful tennis players—Yannick Noah, say, or Vijay Armitraj—who delight their audiences with the sweet fluency of their shots, and light up the court with their grace and daring, and dazzle even themselves with their élan, yet, in the end, are always undone by their own lovely insouciance. It was sad that the Filipinos had been left with nothing to steady themselves except four hundred years of colonialism and the leftover knickknacks of a rock-’n’-roll culture. But sadder by far was the fact that they still had the openness and hopefulness—the happy innocence—to believe that rock ’n’ roll was all they needed to change the world. “We Are the World” was especially popular, I suspected, because it was the ultimate anthem of pop idealism. It suggested that bright tunes could redeem politics; that high spirits and good intentions alone could bring food to the starving; that where there was music, there could not be misery.

And as I sat in the departure lounge of Manila International Airport, waiting to fly away, I heard for the last time, issuing from the sound system, the strains of the country’s favorite anthem, affirming the limitless powers of faith. And I could not help thinking that even as the unguarded, sweet-tempered, friendly Filipinos kept on singing that they were the world, and
they were the children, their own world was falling apart and they were too much the world, too much the children to resist.

VII

Thus I left the Philippines. But the Philippines did not so easily leave me. For months, I could not get the country out of my head: it haunted me like some pretty, plaintive melody.

In part, no doubt, this was explained by the world’s sudden interest in the collapsing country. Just as I was beginning to write this chapter, President Marcos, in deference to U.S. pressure, held an election. As I continued writing, I heard snatches of news about the campaign: as usual, the voting was preceded by crazy rumors and as usual, the politicking was almost comic in its crudity (Imelda boasted that she had control of the bar-girl and “billyboy” vote because she used makeup better than Cory, while her husband’s bullhorns boomed: “In these times of crisis, what this country needs is a man! A bull! A stud!”). As usual too, the balloting, though closely watched by a team of U.S. observers and more than seven hundred foreign journalists, was a free-for-all farce. Soldiers smilingly posed for pictures while tearing up ballots; voters happily admitted to accepting bribes; as many as three-million voter names were simply struck off the lists. But then, just as I was finishing this chapter, something happened: a friend raced in to announce that Marcos was gone. All my fears, it seemed, had been proven wrong. In the “smiling revolution,” the very optimism, gentleness and tolerance that had long come to seem the country’s greatest liabilities had proved to be its greatest blessing. With nothing more substantial than hope, faith and courage, the people had heroically brought off a nonviolent revolution and recovered, as if by a miracle, their sense of possibility and pride.

Yet as the euphoria began to subside, I could not help wondering how much anything in the Philippines would really change. Cory Aquino was the purest and sincerest politician I had ever seen, yet even her fairy-tale ascent seemed only the flip side of the Marcoses’ fabulous wickedness, a radiant and inspiring turn to be sure, but a turn that seemed still to belong to the world of a children’s fantasy. I wondered too if Philippine politics would
ever develop a real sense of gravitas or order, for even under Cory, it returned soon enough to show-business-as-usual, a made-for-TV drama filled with coffeehouse rumors, bungled coups and flashy gestures. Most of all, I wondered how soon the rainy streets of Ermita would change, and what would become of a people whose very buoyancy and hospitality lay at the heart of their vulnerability.

Once home, I made great efforts to keep in touch with the friends I had made in the Philippines. I never heard from Mark, though, and Minnie never replied to my letters—by now, I assumed, she must have gone off to Stockholm, or found herself another husband, or else just disappeared into some dark corner of the bar world. But Sarah, whom I had never met outside her restaurant, wrote to me as often as she had promised. Her letters were full of the sweet earnestness and solicitude I remembered. Most of her news, however, was sad.

Pico,

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. How’s your parents. I know your so happy it’s because your close to your papa and mama. For me it’s so sad because I’m too far from my beloved parents. I’m lonely. Sorry, ha, if I’m telling you my problem. It is sad. I don’t have job any more. That’s why my Christmas and New Year’s Eve is saddest.

Pico, my friend, how can I finish my studies if my situation is like this? Who’s the one to support my studies? Nobody, except me. You know me. I belong in a poor and uneducated family. It’s better as you are. You are rich if you want to be, because of having permanent job.

Well, Pico, do you remember the tickets? Well, here we are. We have more tickets to come. And that’s when there begins a problem. Last Dec. 12, 1985, I go home to my boarding house. I’m crying because of no job. That date my 3 tickets were not sold. My salary in that month they will not give to me. Then I got mad. I hate them, all the employers in Calle Cinquo. I resigned. So here I am, no job, always crying, as if the world is to end. I pray to God that somebody offers to help my studies. As of now,
I’m looking for a job. Pico, I love my studies. I don’t want to stop.

Please answer me wherever you are. May the Lord Jesus Christ Remember You Always.

Friendlove,
Sarah    

On the day after Christmas, she was admitted to the hospital with a lung disease, Sarah wrote in her next letter, and two months later, she was still in bed. She had no job and no money for her medicine. But still she sent me a card and a prayer on my birthday. And at the end of her letters, Sarah always closed by sending my parents all her best. “How about more photos of your beloved papa and mama?” she usually signed off. “Please send me. Okey?”

BURMA
The Raj Is Dead! Long Live the Raj!

S
ETTING FOOT
at last in Burma, I looked around. A weathered little building, with monsoon stains smeared across its whiteness: “Rangoon Airport.” A broken door: “VIP Lounge.” A few girls under peacocky parasols, a few men in wraparound skirts, desultory in the steady drizzle. Across the length and breadth of the rainswept tarmac, not a single other plane was to be seen. This, I suppose, was hardly surprising: Mingaladon, Burma’s only international airport, was not equipped to accommodate 747s, or even DC-10s. On a typical Friday, it received exactly one incoming flight.

BOOK: Video Night in Kathmandu
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