Sightings July 13, 2006
THE celebrations that erupted, or were whipped up, in the wake of Manny Pacquiao’s victory over Oscar Larios last week suddenly made me think of “aswang” (a kind of ghoul). Indeed, the whole phenomenon of Pacquiao becoming the quintessential Filipino hero, knocking off (pun intended, teeth flying and all) the self-effacing Efren “Bata” Reyes for the honor, made me think of aswang. That is not as facetious as it sounds.
Aswang sightings have a sanguine (pun intended as well, “komiks”-type blood-curdling gore and all) history in this country, appearing -- if sociologists are to be believed -- in dire times, when people are hungry and desperate. The “manananggal,” an underworld creature that leaves the lower half of its female body in some secret nook while its upper half forages for prey, drawn in particular by the smell of the unborn fetus, is the usual MFO, or much-identified flying object, there. On dark, rainy and moonless nights, or sometimes even in light, dry and moonlit ones, it can be seen in a haze swooping jaggedly across the skyline, or be heard flapping its wings as it alights on a roof.
The sightings normally take place in the countryside, but to go by reports on tabloids and (crime) TV, they have also been known on occasion to happen in the dark alleys of shantytowns. They galvanize the community to action, the local leaders organizing night vigils. I do not know if they hold torches aloft, like in the movies, or croak in imitation Transylvanian accents. I do know they scour secluded places in hopes of discovering the manananggal’s lair. The belief being that if the lower half of its body is laden with salt, the upper half would no longer be able to reconnect to it and perish in the sunlight.
I don’t know if any community has actually destroyed an aswang. The stories about the sightings disappear from the newspaper readers’ sight or the TV viewers’ view far more suddenly than the aswang themselves from the eyes of their spine-tingled beholders. But not after giving the community the satisfaction of having done something about a most monstrous threat to their lives, notably to that of their newborns or about-to-be-borns.
Sociologists explain it thus: It has nothing to do with people having hallucinations from hunger pangs. It has everything to do with people projecting their fears into something tangible that they can do something about. Life’s problems are far too complex and people are at their wits’ end trying to make sense of them, let alone solve them. Easier to fight aswang. For all their horrific aspects, the aswang can be vanquished with garlic, crucifix and (drunken) machismo. You defeat aswang -- the sign of victory being simply that they are no longer sighted after the vigil and vigilance -- you gain a token or vicarious victory over life’s problems.
Pacquiao’s feats, or fists, are not unlike that. Of course, there’s the aspect as well of his having become the ideal Filipino Everyman because he embodies the hopes of the bedraggled poor about how to escape their lot. Or quite literally how to fight their way out of their plight. It’s nothing new. Every impoverished Brazilian too -- and they are legion -- dreams of becoming another Ronaldo, a poor kid who used to play football barefoot in an obscure street in Rio and who went on to become one of the greatest players of the “beautiful game.” Which meant being fabulously rich apart from being fabulously famous. Not everyone can become a Ronaldo, or a Pacquiao, but as the song goes, “I can dream, can’t I?”
More than that -- which is the reason the current regime has capitalized on Pacquiao’s fortunes -- Pacquaio has also become, or been turned, into the token, vicarious, substitute way of dealing with the country’s problems. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s congratulatory words to Pacquiao after he beat Larios to a pulp were explicit in that thought. She wished, she said, that Filipinos would emulate Pacquiao and conquer their enemies, or their nation’s problems, with heart and fist. Of course, she did not compare herself to Larios when she exhorted her countrymen to do that.
Pacquaio’s enemies are not unlike aswang, however they take on rock-like solidity in the ring rather than flit about like phantoms in the night. For all their horrific aspects, particularly in the form of Marco Antonio Barrera, Juan Manuel Marquez and Erik Morales -- Larios was just cannon fodder -- they can be vanquished with blood and guts, heart and fist, muscle and machismo. Unlike grinding poverty whose solution is unknown and unknowable, the enemy is right there waiting to be pummeled. Unlike powerlessness whose solution is elusive and unclear, the enemy is right there waiting to be tackled. Unlike life’s problems, which are far too complex (people are at their wits’ end trying to make sense of them, let alone solve them), the enemy is identifiable, understandable, beatable.
I’m not knocking aswang and boxing as people’s ways of dealing with crushing reality. They are coping mechanisms, and heaven knows we all can do with ways to cope with the nightmarish pass we find ourselves in today. But the danger is when the projection becomes the injection, when the invention becomes the intervention, when the temporary illusion becomes the permanent reality. The danger is when the escape substitutes for the living. Aswang sightings have not been very plentiful these days but Pacquiao sightings, particularly in the form of ads, are so. That’s fine, so long as we do not forget that there are far more real aswang right there who have been sinking their fangs into our necks all this time; and far more vicious enemies who have been bludgeoning us to a bloody pulp all this time. We forget that, we’ll end up bled dry among the bushes of history.
We forget that, we’ll end up TKOed by life.
http://opinion.inq7.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=9503
Aswang sightings have a sanguine (pun intended as well, “komiks”-type blood-curdling gore and all) history in this country, appearing -- if sociologists are to be believed -- in dire times, when people are hungry and desperate. The “manananggal,” an underworld creature that leaves the lower half of its female body in some secret nook while its upper half forages for prey, drawn in particular by the smell of the unborn fetus, is the usual MFO, or much-identified flying object, there. On dark, rainy and moonless nights, or sometimes even in light, dry and moonlit ones, it can be seen in a haze swooping jaggedly across the skyline, or be heard flapping its wings as it alights on a roof.
The sightings normally take place in the countryside, but to go by reports on tabloids and (crime) TV, they have also been known on occasion to happen in the dark alleys of shantytowns. They galvanize the community to action, the local leaders organizing night vigils. I do not know if they hold torches aloft, like in the movies, or croak in imitation Transylvanian accents. I do know they scour secluded places in hopes of discovering the manananggal’s lair. The belief being that if the lower half of its body is laden with salt, the upper half would no longer be able to reconnect to it and perish in the sunlight.
I don’t know if any community has actually destroyed an aswang. The stories about the sightings disappear from the newspaper readers’ sight or the TV viewers’ view far more suddenly than the aswang themselves from the eyes of their spine-tingled beholders. But not after giving the community the satisfaction of having done something about a most monstrous threat to their lives, notably to that of their newborns or about-to-be-borns.
Sociologists explain it thus: It has nothing to do with people having hallucinations from hunger pangs. It has everything to do with people projecting their fears into something tangible that they can do something about. Life’s problems are far too complex and people are at their wits’ end trying to make sense of them, let alone solve them. Easier to fight aswang. For all their horrific aspects, the aswang can be vanquished with garlic, crucifix and (drunken) machismo. You defeat aswang -- the sign of victory being simply that they are no longer sighted after the vigil and vigilance -- you gain a token or vicarious victory over life’s problems.
Pacquiao’s feats, or fists, are not unlike that. Of course, there’s the aspect as well of his having become the ideal Filipino Everyman because he embodies the hopes of the bedraggled poor about how to escape their lot. Or quite literally how to fight their way out of their plight. It’s nothing new. Every impoverished Brazilian too -- and they are legion -- dreams of becoming another Ronaldo, a poor kid who used to play football barefoot in an obscure street in Rio and who went on to become one of the greatest players of the “beautiful game.” Which meant being fabulously rich apart from being fabulously famous. Not everyone can become a Ronaldo, or a Pacquiao, but as the song goes, “I can dream, can’t I?”
More than that -- which is the reason the current regime has capitalized on Pacquiao’s fortunes -- Pacquaio has also become, or been turned, into the token, vicarious, substitute way of dealing with the country’s problems. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s congratulatory words to Pacquiao after he beat Larios to a pulp were explicit in that thought. She wished, she said, that Filipinos would emulate Pacquiao and conquer their enemies, or their nation’s problems, with heart and fist. Of course, she did not compare herself to Larios when she exhorted her countrymen to do that.
Pacquaio’s enemies are not unlike aswang, however they take on rock-like solidity in the ring rather than flit about like phantoms in the night. For all their horrific aspects, particularly in the form of Marco Antonio Barrera, Juan Manuel Marquez and Erik Morales -- Larios was just cannon fodder -- they can be vanquished with blood and guts, heart and fist, muscle and machismo. Unlike grinding poverty whose solution is unknown and unknowable, the enemy is right there waiting to be pummeled. Unlike powerlessness whose solution is elusive and unclear, the enemy is right there waiting to be tackled. Unlike life’s problems, which are far too complex (people are at their wits’ end trying to make sense of them, let alone solve them), the enemy is identifiable, understandable, beatable.
I’m not knocking aswang and boxing as people’s ways of dealing with crushing reality. They are coping mechanisms, and heaven knows we all can do with ways to cope with the nightmarish pass we find ourselves in today. But the danger is when the projection becomes the injection, when the invention becomes the intervention, when the temporary illusion becomes the permanent reality. The danger is when the escape substitutes for the living. Aswang sightings have not been very plentiful these days but Pacquiao sightings, particularly in the form of ads, are so. That’s fine, so long as we do not forget that there are far more real aswang right there who have been sinking their fangs into our necks all this time; and far more vicious enemies who have been bludgeoning us to a bloody pulp all this time. We forget that, we’ll end up bled dry among the bushes of history.
We forget that, we’ll end up TKOed by life.
http://opinion.inq7.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=9503
posted by dqfan06 @ 5:48 PM
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