believe you me. Remember when they blew up their asbestos plant? Acquittal! The judge even ordered the insurance company to pay.”
“But how can there be no consequences
now
? There was a front-page story in the Asian edition of
Time
magazine. And those World Warden environmentalists are stirring trouble.”
“Nothing will come of it. Remember ’91? PhilFirst Timber’s illegal logging and the landslide in Ormoc? More than two thousand dead. What happened then? Scot-free! Changco even
made
money. As he said at the last Elite Club meeting—”
“I wasn’t there. I had business in Hong Kong. You should have seen her. Almost six feet tall, Russian blondie. Pink nipples, Jake! Pink. No bigger than a peso coin—”
“At the Elite Club, Dingdong tells the audience: the Chinese character for crisis is the same one for opportunity.”
“I don’t read Chinese.”
“Well, it’s true. I told him after, ‘D.D., that may be so, but in Filipino there’s only one word for success: cashmoney.’ We had a good laugh at that one. I mean, come on: two thousand–plus washed into the sea. What happened to D.D.? PhilFirst Funerals made a killing—”
“Haha!”
“PhilFirst Construction developed those pastel houses. PhilFirst Homes sold them. PhilFirst Holdings posted record profits that quarter. Now there’s a PhilFirst SuperMall, where the bodies were piled.”
“You know the company slogan. ‘There’s no stopping progress.’”
“Go ahead. Sell your stock. To me! D.D. has Estregan’s ear.”
“More like his balls. But what about when Bansamoro has Estregan’s head? I’ll bet PhilFirst will slump.”
“Game! A weekend at Tagaytay Highlands. We’ll stay in my chalet and play two rounds. Then have a Kobe steak dinner. We’ll even open the Petrus.”
“And if you win?”
“We take your chopper to your beach house. You bring the girls. But not that one with the bleached hair. I prefer the charming student from AMA. We’ll help pay her tuition.”
*
I had lunch at La Perle d’Bacolod City. Spent time at a lonely Internet cafe. Still no response from [email protected]. I even went through my spam in box, but found only the typical crap. Then I went and sat under a tree in the Public Plaza while studying my
Lonely Planet
guidebook.
I didn’t have to look hard to recognize the city of Crispin’s early stories: the groves of ancient acacias with wide branches, the grand old bishop’s palace and San Sebastian Cathedral, the stone gazebo with spires and beveled dedications to Mozart, Beethoven, and Haydn—crumbling landmarks standing valiantly among belching vehicles, spitting pedestrians in Fubu sleeveless shirts, signs hawking cell-phone credits, saccharine radio hits remixed to techno beats, the flashy lights of Lupas Landcorp’s Bacolod Plaza Mall. The neoclassical Provincial Capitol building—now the Sugar Museum—waswhere Crispin used to play on the steps while waiting for his father, under the watchful eyes of Gorio, the equestrian-booted and capped chauffeur. It now houses an array of sugar plantation artifacts and a bequeathed toy collection.
Awaiting the hour of my appointment with Lena, I walked among the exhibits, endeared and saddened the way one is sometimes by the museums of our country: the typewritten display notes often misspelled and fastened with by-now brittle and peeling cellophane tape; old photographs and paintings succumbing to the slow but constant assault of moisture; dioramas and taxidermy specimens well on their way to manginess; the Plexiglas donation box thinly lined with the lowest denomination of coins and plastic straws and Juicy Fruit wrappers. I overheard the ancient curator giving a tour to a pair of odorous blond backpackers; his English was proper and colonial, with such a fresh earnestness it was as if he were presenting memories entirely his own. The backpackers seemed to be having a hard time following him.
Now, on the way to Swanee, the
“But how can there be no consequences
now
? There was a front-page story in the Asian edition of
Time
magazine. And those World Warden environmentalists are stirring trouble.”
“Nothing will come of it. Remember ’91? PhilFirst Timber’s illegal logging and the landslide in Ormoc? More than two thousand dead. What happened then? Scot-free! Changco even
made
money. As he said at the last Elite Club meeting—”
“I wasn’t there. I had business in Hong Kong. You should have seen her. Almost six feet tall, Russian blondie. Pink nipples, Jake! Pink. No bigger than a peso coin—”
“At the Elite Club, Dingdong tells the audience: the Chinese character for crisis is the same one for opportunity.”
“I don’t read Chinese.”
“Well, it’s true. I told him after, ‘D.D., that may be so, but in Filipino there’s only one word for success: cashmoney.’ We had a good laugh at that one. I mean, come on: two thousand–plus washed into the sea. What happened to D.D.? PhilFirst Funerals made a killing—”
“Haha!”
“PhilFirst Construction developed those pastel houses. PhilFirst Homes sold them. PhilFirst Holdings posted record profits that quarter. Now there’s a PhilFirst SuperMall, where the bodies were piled.”
“You know the company slogan. ‘There’s no stopping progress.’”
“Go ahead. Sell your stock. To me! D.D. has Estregan’s ear.”
“More like his balls. But what about when Bansamoro has Estregan’s head? I’ll bet PhilFirst will slump.”
“Game! A weekend at Tagaytay Highlands. We’ll stay in my chalet and play two rounds. Then have a Kobe steak dinner. We’ll even open the Petrus.”
“And if you win?”
“We take your chopper to your beach house. You bring the girls. But not that one with the bleached hair. I prefer the charming student from AMA. We’ll help pay her tuition.”
*
I had lunch at La Perle d’Bacolod City. Spent time at a lonely Internet cafe. Still no response from [email protected]. I even went through my spam in box, but found only the typical crap. Then I went and sat under a tree in the Public Plaza while studying my
Lonely Planet
guidebook.
I didn’t have to look hard to recognize the city of Crispin’s early stories: the groves of ancient acacias with wide branches, the grand old bishop’s palace and San Sebastian Cathedral, the stone gazebo with spires and beveled dedications to Mozart, Beethoven, and Haydn—crumbling landmarks standing valiantly among belching vehicles, spitting pedestrians in Fubu sleeveless shirts, signs hawking cell-phone credits, saccharine radio hits remixed to techno beats, the flashy lights of Lupas Landcorp’s Bacolod Plaza Mall. The neoclassical Provincial Capitol building—now the Sugar Museum—waswhere Crispin used to play on the steps while waiting for his father, under the watchful eyes of Gorio, the equestrian-booted and capped chauffeur. It now houses an array of sugar plantation artifacts and a bequeathed toy collection.
Awaiting the hour of my appointment with Lena, I walked among the exhibits, endeared and saddened the way one is sometimes by the museums of our country: the typewritten display notes often misspelled and fastened with by-now brittle and peeling cellophane tape; old photographs and paintings succumbing to the slow but constant assault of moisture; dioramas and taxidermy specimens well on their way to manginess; the Plexiglas donation box thinly lined with the lowest denomination of coins and plastic straws and Juicy Fruit wrappers. I overheard the ancient curator giving a tour to a pair of odorous blond backpackers; his English was proper and colonial, with such a fresh earnestness it was as if he were presenting memories entirely his own. The backpackers seemed to be having a hard time following him.
Now, on the way to Swanee, the
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