You must forgive him for writing this drunk. A rather long week precedes so many shots of Jack Daniels offered by a friend in friendship; which he could not refuse, because he is Filipino. There are certain things Filipinos should never refuse.
But after the “inom,” he recalls a walk through Pasil, back in the old days when it was such a place no “proper boy” would ever go into armed only with a camera. He comes to document the landscape. He has prior instructions from someone familiar with this culture and locale: “Don’t ever refuse the first drink. Find a way to get out of the drinking session as soon as possible. But be polite.”
And so it came to pass; him, walking down Pasil, Ermita, with his camera to document the squalid poverty of the place as if no one else had ever done it before. And he thought he was succeeding.
The aesthetics of poverty. The charming look of latent suffering in the eyes of beautiful little children without bottoms, a slight drip of green liquid falling from nostrils even as they look at him with limpid eyes. Flies flying everywhere. Has he ever seen anything so beautiful?
Never. Until he sees it, as if for the first time: Half-expectant eyes, looking blood-shot into his soul. The outstretched hand calling for spare change. A Peso, perhaps. Perhaps even five.
And he has his camera to freeze for posterity micro-moments from all these. Not the whole picture: For how can a picture ever express this particular hunger stilled into sleep by snorts from a plastic bag of rubber glue? How can it ever express the hopelessness? The camera only records the doleful eyes, the cute countenance of youthful poverty.
And yet, the picture leads him to apprehend the whole big lie of it. Poverty is not cute. It is ugly.
As ugly as the bits of crap on the walkway that he must see immediately. Or his wayward foot might step into it. And then he would have to carry the smell of it for the rest of the day.
There is the bridge in front of him. It is a hanging bridge stretched over a creek covered full with plastic detritus, colorful bags from department stores, the plastic remains of junk food, each competing for attention. Do real potatoes lord it over reconstituted ones? Over the creek they float until he could barely see the ink-black water. How poor can a picture get?
But zoom into the water a little closer and then he sees it. His own reflection against the detritus.
Behind him, the bright blue sky dancing amidst the dark shadows. Where else can he see again this contrast of light and shade, this high-key contest of random color?
And so he feels he is taking the masterpieces of these times. He thinks: Surely people will be interested in seeing these, the true picture of who we are: The true state of the poor, their squalid poverty, their hopelessness.
Only to find out people are so used to pictures like these. They had been done many times before. Once, by American photographers commissioned by their own government to compose with pictures the overall landscape of how truly poor poor people were. And so it was hardly an “inspiring” and “original” idea. But he said this to himself. It was not the whole world conspiring to tell him this exactly. It was a voice in his head. And do not forget that he is drunk as he remembers this, the voice echoing: This picture is too sacred to sell!
And then the man seated in a drunken party beckons him with a shot-glass. He is calling him. He does not want to acknowledge him at first. But he is persistent. He looks at him. He has no other recourse but to look back. One look at the drinking party seated around the low table of a sari-sari store told him to bring out his most meek and docile self.
But not so meek and docile as to lose respect. The man smiles at him. He offers the drink. He takes it down. No questions asked. Thankfully, the man is standing, not offering him a seat. The man asks who he is seeing in this neighborhood. He says: Fredo. Fredo is a friend. Departed now.
He was the community organizer here. He hopes they know him. They do. After three shots they send him on his way with an assurance he will be safe here for the rest of time.
He says this as if he is a man to be believed. He is. He is, after all, more drunk than him.
To this day, when he is drunk, he still considers himself safe in Pasil.
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