The Great Wall of China for many centuries helped secure the Great Eastern Empire from the nomadic hordes such as those led by gentlemen like Attila the Hun (who instead turned westward and laid waste to the northern frontiers of the Roman Empire and hastened its eventual disintegration). The city of Constantinople fared almost as well, surviving well into the 15th Century (I think) behind walls also built originally to secure it against Attila’s barbarian armies.
It seems that we Filipinos — true to our renowned ability to churn out mediocre facsimiles of humanity’s achievements and failures — have managed to turn out our own modern-day microcosms of ancient Europe. While by no means the powerful military forces that men like Barbarossa, Attila, and Charlemagne so effectively wielded against the “civilised” world, the jologs now surrounding the Philippines’ bastions of “Civil Society” are becoming restless. Well, at least that assertion is an interpretation of events related by Rom in a series of three recent articles.
In Bar the Door, she talks about the ominous reality that the Diliman campus of the University of the Philippines — one of the remaining unfenced infrastructural marvels of the land — is now all but besieged by jolog communities encamped at its borders. That simmering reality came down fast and hard in the recent U.P. Fair held at the Sunken Garden on Valentine’s Day where an unruly mob of “outsiders” breached the perimeter fence of the fair grounds and stormed the festivities. This Valentine’s Day Invasion now raises the question of whether this last bastion of universal public access needs to jump on the bandwagon of the Philippines’ illustrious tradition of fortified enclavement.
Maybe it is high time, specially now as the ranks of the restless natives swell and their communities creak under the weight of the hordes of returning OFWs and and the unemployed.
Practically everyone of us who are able to read blogs like Rom’s not to mention this very one I inhabit grew up in some form of fortified enclave. Indeed, the “village” I grew up in was secured like a medieval castle. One side of its perimeter is bordered by a steep crevice upon which residents of properties along its edge enjoy a magnificent view (though one increasingly hazed by brownish diesel smoke) of the Markikina Valley, and the other side fenced, walled, gated in various sections with key road access manned by security guards armed initially with pistols, eventually with shotguns. To say the least this is typical of any facility that sticks out like a jewel in the morass of corrugated iron sheets weighed down by used tires topping an assortment of those quaint Filipino architectural wonders called lean-ons that have spread like a smelly fungus all over most major Philippine cities.
This reminds me of one morning as an elementary student at my excellent Catholic school spent looking through a wire fence topped by barbed wire where the campus shared a border with Marikina Cemetery. A crowd had gathered to gawk at the handywork of graverobbers after the previous night’s work. A dug up grave and a glimpse of the side of a brownish skull was the best my frantic tiptoeing could afford me. It’s the same fence where a thriving blackmarket for ‘tex’ (lowlife playing cards), fighting spiders, and trumpo (wooden spinning tops) beckoned at our lunch money everyday. It’s therefore a funny coincidence that Rom also cited Marck postulating how “the UP [for that matter my own school] is a microcosm of the Philippines”.
As the joke goes:
U.S. Infantryman: No guts, no glory!
U.S. Marine: No pain, no gain!
Filipino security guard: No ID, no entry. :D
Enclaves are like soveriegn nations. “Outsiders” need a “visa” to get in while residents enjoy full-access to the facilities. Entire bureaucracies operate within these “subdivisions” that govern the way these visas are issued out. There are even classes of visas for non-stay-in household employees (the equivalent of those working visas grudgingly issued by host nations to Pinoy migrant workers). Rom for her part laments in the case of the plight of the UP Diliman:
Ah well. This sense of disconnection with the people called [Jumping Jologs] makes me wonder if these “future leaders of the country” [i.e., future graduates UP Diliman] will be able to ever look at the ‘masa’ with anything other than condescencion.
…and that maybe…
[...] these people who have gotten them to thinking about building walls are not the enemy.
True. Maybe stepping up to such a lofty ideal is something that the ‘best and brightest’ of the land should be held to (in exchange for the excellent tax-funded education they’ve received). But there is that little, often glossed-over, element that we need to consider:
Reality.
I mean, hey, do we really want to share our streets with people who spit on sidewalks and piss on public walls? If the constant crooning of the latest Jolina hit by a jolog teenager on a karaoke machine repatriated by her OFW mom deosn’t drive you up the wall, maybe the nightly 3 a.m. crowing of fighting cocks kept as “pets” by your next door neighbour will. Or maybe it could be the 24-seater jeepney parked next to your driveway that continuously leaks oil into your neighbourhood stormdrains that eventually pushes your civilised sensibilities over the edge.
Kadiri to death! (Or whatever the hell the current kolehyala-ism in vogue at the moment is).
But there is hope for the jologs! For many centuries, the people that were to eventually coalesce into what is now the mighty German Nation lived an austere tribal existence, fighting among themselves and occassionally pillaging the frontier towns of the Roman Empire while remaining true to their warrior heritage, ready to load up family and belongings onto ox carts to follow their armies to their next looting campaign.
Maybe the jologs should look for the Charlemagnes and Attilas amongst them rather than keep their necks craned listening for the quaint and undifferentiated endorsements and “analyses” of established political “experts” that is dished out over the inbred Philippine Media.
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I mean, hey, do we really want to share our streets with people who spit on sidewalks and piss on public walls?
‘Want’ has nothing to do with it. I dont want to sit in a bus next to someone who hasnt taken a shower for days. It’s the price we pay for living in a free society. People also have a right to associate with whomever they want so they have a right to live in enclaves. But they have to deal with the rest of us when they come out. Tough. Is that why you migrated to Oz, benny?
Ben,
I detest most your ‘Max Soliven Syndrome’.
But in this essay of yours truisms of the Filipino psyche resonate.
Good work.
That must have happened the day before 14 February.
We incidentally bought fake tickets due to the very long queue of people at the entrance that a couple of ladies started selling them.
Good thing, one of the organizers permitted us to get in. The next UP Fair ought to be for UP students and faculty only to avoid infiltration of so-called jumping jologs.
Benigs forgets about Intramuros. We don’t have to imitate anyone, it’s our culture to up walls to keep the indios out.
LOL at Jolina reference. Well if there’s one thing I could fault you Benigs, it’s that sometimes your writing seems dated which makes some people like me doubt if they are indeed relevant now.
@Ding, what’s a “Max Soliven Syndrome”?
Erap and Gloria meet at a crowded cocktail party. Ever the gallant, he steps up to her with a plate of peanuts and a gracious smile as he offers her some, but she demurs, lisping cutely, “No, thanks, tinitigyawat ako sa mani, eh!”
To which Erap mutters aloud, “O! Talaga? Mabuti na lang ako sa ilong lang ang tagyawat.”
djb,
Was that a jologs funny or a pa-class corny?
Its good you didn’t rap that sex joke over at the other thread, where you are in serious talk about rape.
But really, burgis talk (as Kadiri to death cited by benign0) is passe. It’s now bakla talk I hear from Kris Aquino, Imee Marcos, etc. (as in Gusto ko siyaaa!)
Talk of women imitating the she-men.
Just noticed that for Benigno’s bad repute, commenters actually prefer his more trollsome writings. This one right here is pretty sober-minded and I like how it ends… but, alas, so few reactions.
Did you not know that the Medieval Enclaves or
so called Walled Fortresses became vulnerable
to the Cannons of Suleiman the Magnificient, the
Ottoman Turk Conqueror? Artillery was the new
technology of warfare then…
“The next UP Fair ought to be for UP students and faculty only to avoid infiltration of so-called jumping jologs.”
This is a jologs remark coming from someone who doesn’t want jologs in his midst.
They should raise the price of admissions for next UP-fair to P125 or even P200 with most of the increased revenue used for better security.
20%-discount for buying at least 2 weeks early; additional 20% to UPians (faculty, students, alumni) (maximum 4 tickets per UP id-holder to accomodate the minority UPians with FEU-, Mapua-, even Arrrneowww-friends).
“Better security” means hiring Oxo-sigue-sigue types to prevent future “surge-the-gates” events.
And as they have at the Louvre Museum/Paris or at LA’s Staples Center, Madison Square Garden, Washington DC’s Verizon Center, there are special gates to facilitate entrance for those who bought tickets earlier.
jumping jologs who can afford the price of admission are allowed — anyone who can afford the admission-ticket, interested in a UP-degree AND can throw a brick with accuracy can apply for a baseball scholarship.
“U.S. Infantryman: No guts, no glory!
U.S. Marine: No pain, no gain!
Filipino security guard: No ID, no entry.”
________________
Enclavement: No salt, no pain, not much reaction.
heheh.
Not to condone bad behavior, but the jologs were having fun. For lack of better outlet for these young people’s energies. This I say is the fault of the State.
Who is the bigger menace in our society? The jumping jologs or the pampered Pinoys, e.g Alabang Boys. The former wants to survive with the little means they have. The latter have corrupted the society with their wealth.
Rousseau mentioned of the ‘noble savage’ being better than civilized man.
who led the “jumping jologs” surge at the u.p. fair? erap or binay?