By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo

 

I was not supposed to be in this meeting. My tooth ached and my gums were inflamed. My face was swollen, like I just ate a female crab with all the red roe, prawns and other seafood I was allergic to, but addicted to them just the same. But here was a friend, inviting me to discuss the next best thing to do, now that we truly desire change for this country. How can one say no to Calle Mannu, who was always present at my poetry and cultural events? He was always there.

I was at the venue five minutes before eleven o’clock in the morning.  When I arrived at MatTEAus, the staff were gathered in a meeting, and their heads were bowed as if in prayer. I say as if because, I am not really sure if they were praying or just gathering their thoughts to energize, because after a while, I heard them cheering and clapping. MatTEAus refers to Matthew, Direk Ojet’s adopted child with special needs who loves milk tea. It is for him that the teahouse was created offering an array of teas made from all-natural tea ingredients (not powdered) and an eclectic menu that includes Filipino classic cakes and desserts, Vietnamese noodles and some light main dishes.

No sign of Mannu, no sign of Connie Lopez-Madarang, the two people I was supposed to meet. After fifteen minutes, a lady in black smiled at me and we greeted with our knuckles. Before the pandemic, that should have been a cheek to cheek greeting, or a warm embrace. Connie sat beside me as I groped for the antibiotic in my bag, which I should have swallowed when I arrived. I emptied the bag, and the antibiotic was nowhere. I rushed back to the house, and found the medicines laid out on my bed. Immediately I gulped them down and heard my sister Emma’s car in the parking lot. She was supposed to have lunch with me, but I invited her instead to join us in the meeting.

It was almost twelve o’clock when Mannu arrived, apologizing for being late, smiling from ear to ear. After satisfying himself that he had given us a justifiable reason, he proceeded to order, in addition to what we have already ordered while waiting for him.

Mannu: “There is a need to move forward, find the unity, and engage each individual in the formation of this country. We need patriots developing patriots. The approach is via culture, story-telling, art, songs,,,,”

Connie: “What kind of culture?”

Mannu: “Filipino culture, what we were before we were layered with different foreign cultures.”

VJP: “But the layers are part of the evolution of our culture. Also we have to ask the citizens what they understand by culture to establish a common understanding and pursue this initiative further.

The discussion was substantive, lasting for six hours, and left us with a mixture of hope and doubt if this kind of initiative will not be stymied by others whose power and influence depends on a meek population, unquestioning, accepting, and tending to perpetrate the status quo.

It would be difficult for the public to understand the layers of culture, to revive/evoke dormant cultural handles without the cooperation of the major social institutions, government agencies and those whose powers and influence shall be threatened by this initiative.

But we have to move on. Move on to empower the citizens. To inspire, and get them to act on that inspiration. We ended the meeting realizing there is so much work to do, so many people to ask cooperation from, so many off-the-box approaches, before the initiative can create a critical mass to create an impact. My sister Emma, who was listening to a portion of the discussion but left to report back to work, came back to me and said, “Okay, let’s move on. Where to? How to?”

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