I have never credited the current sitting president for being fashionable given his preference for checkered shirts and “no ironing” crumpled barong. Or even that much-hyped “sleeping under the kulambo,” which speaks of a nearly masochistic lifestyle, when in fact in a Malacanang Palace bedroom you can easily install a pair of four-poster beds and can still lay claim to a gargantuan sleeping space.
But, grudgingly, and from the outside looking in (as an expat living in Europe) I must admit that the Duterte regime has done the fashionistas in this side of the world a big favor. We, Pinoys, are very much “in.” We’re trendy, we’re ahead of the pack, and, as millennials would say, “We are supah cool.” But that’s getting ahead of the story.
How I came to this conclusion is when a college friend (let’s call her Sabine) came back this month from Chicago to Los Baños in Laguna for much-needed R&R plus the usual family reunion. Sabine has been a sweet dear friend from college. She was a true-blue social activist, and the type who is imbued with sterling spiritual fervor. Charity work and empathy run in her blood. Her report to me was pained, being a lily-hearted soul. She says, and I am quoting her almost verbatim:
“I ride aircon buses from Los Baños to Manila. Gutay-gutay ang damit at maraming payat na tao. Ang ibang silya, sira sa vandalism. I went to check the market. Ang mahal ng bilihin! Rice served with a chicken leg and a glass of pineapple juice is 85 pesos. Pineapple juice is diluted with sugar and water! One day people will get ill with this diet.”
My jaw dropped. Not that I agree with Sabine. In fact I say that Pinoys are fashion-forward or early adaptors of the avant-garde. Gutay-gutay? I was in a high-end clothing store in Amsterdam a few weeks ago—the type of store where the sales lady will ignore you while she fiddles with her immaculately manicured fingernails— and I picked up the cheapest shirt that would set me back by 200 euro. An army-greenish shirt dotted with cigarette holes of varying sizes with the stitching near the armpits strategically threadbare. 200 euro! That’s about P10,000 at current exchange rates. I inquired from Miss Saleslady and she replied with a bemused smile: “New collection.”
Walk randomly on any street in the Netherlands and you’d see the teens and the youth sporting that threadbare look as in “gutay-gutay” that Sabine dutifully described: Ripped jeans, faded as in ukay-ukay faded. I dare say Filipinos, as the French would exclaim in their fou-fou language, Filipinos are so avant la lettre. Just look at the recent season collection of Balmain or Christophe Dicarnin, or even the ‘pang-masa’ H&M and they would have the same threadbare look.
And the malnourished look, Sabine complained about. The Dutch girls that I know, being plump and big-boned by nature, would skip meals in pure spartan fashion so they can wriggle themselves into pricey skinny jeans and wear that Yayoi Kusama-inspired bikini for that next-top-beach-look this summer.
And the much-watered down pineapple juice? Well, you can take that as a form of molecular gastronomy which is the rage in top kitchens in recent years. Ask any avant-garde cook in Tokyo, Paris or Copenhagen and they would vote, hands-up, that culinary deconstruction is the next best thing since water, with zero calories, helps in efficient digestion. That is if you have eaten enough after a molecular meal with molecular portions.
Whether it’s our version of ukay-ukay fashion or that much-derided pag-pag food salvaging resorted to by so-called ‘low-radar citizens’, we can safely surmise that, hey, it’s not that bad in our dear Islands of the Philippines.
You see, dear Sabine—and to spare you all that needless heartaches of deeply lamenting for our country and countrymen—all of these are a matter of perspective. Flip the way your brain works and everything will be just supah cool.
Joel Vega lives and works in Arnhem, The Netherlands, as publications editor for an international medical association.