Manila Fortuna: Tsismis

Contents

FOREWARD

TSISMIS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

INTERLUDE

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

FOREWARD

For the hundreds,or maybe even thousands of Filipino nurses who complement the National Health Service and Care Homes for the Elderly, Britain is a bleak place of glum pale-faced discontents. But to the few remaining inhabitants of the Philippines who have never yet set foot beyond their own exotic shore-lines the opposite is true, for they believe there is a mythological place they call `Londonside`where the pavements are made of gold, and the inhabitants randomly send remittances of money to anyone, including even complete strangers, just for the fun of it. These trusting souls imagine it is somewhere between America and Russia because it is cold there at Christmas time, and the people all speak `Slang`. Despite this drawback, it is a land of opportunity and hope, a land of employment possibilities and `big money`, of greener pastures; a destination of biblical promise! It is also a land of tsismis.

I have been forced to admit citizenship to this woeful place on many occasions whilst in their land of paradise from whence they wish to escape, mostly on the occasions when it is demanded that I explain to them that my name is not Joe.

I will briefly explain this identity confusion; their ubiquitous greeting to any fair skinned visitor, is Hoy Joe!

No, no, I would say, Not Joe! Definitely not Joe,.. Ken actually. Then their replies, apologies and complaints, droned in a quasi-American drawl that my words are not clear, that my language is `slang`, delivered in their most tortured Yankee argot.

Their native confusion about foreigners and foreign lands is part of this mythology, which includes anything, even if only faintly associated, with the America dollar sign, which to them is the ultimate symbol of God’s Grace. Everything from base-ball caps and coca-cola to well cobbled shoes, designer hand-bags, French perfume, English chocolate, in a word, all the outward and visible signs of Western commercialised materialism, for which, strangely they are prepared to sacrifice their young lives and their souls! But I should add that when my story begins, I was equally unknowing in matters Pilipino!

TSISMIS

The closest we Flaneures can get to the meaning of the Filipino word tsismis is roughly somewhere between gossip and rumour; but it is more than this, it is more like a combination of; small-talk, conjecture, sabi-sabi, fabrication, aspersion, calumny, chitchat, blather, account, hearsay, defamation, prattle, scandal, slander, insinuation, intimation, muttering, burbling, tattling,yakkety-yak, cattiness, spite, whisper, ibulong, obloquy, vituperation, jesting, twaddle, confabulation, disclosure, revelation, innuendo, intelligence, supposition, sibilating, rambling, snitching, maligning, spite, and perhaps-spoof. And it sits in the corner of Filipino culture, a mestiso-child of Spanish and Pinoy origins, and is the energy of ordinary social relations, the keeper of the nation’s values, and is everywhere and between everyone; friends and enemies, young and old, rich and poor; and its purpose is to inform, enchant, warn, chastise, frighten, punish and destroy. It can come in the form of a pat- on- the- back or as the kiss of death; tsismis is sheer naked human power, always engaging, and usually more destructive than benign.

Considering the power of tsismis in human affairs, it should be no surprise to learn that it entered Filipino culture from the very start of the country’s existence, for it initiated and sustained Magellan’s enterprise which led to the discovery of the Philippines. Of course the islands of that region had existed from the dawn of time, but the Spanish incarnation began as a consequence of tsismis, first as murmurings between a few merchants and adventurers, and then as a letter from a sixteenth-century Portuguese gentleman, a certain Francisco Servao to his cousin Ferdinand Magellan.

The main rumour was that all of the seas and oceans of the world are connected, and that there existed a route from Spain to the Spice Islands where unbelievable riches awaited anyone bold enough to claim them. But, there were other more intimate confabulations which were essentially private small-talk between men; and which were not part of any scheme to wrestle the spice trade monopoly from the Arabs and the Venetians. These lesser concerns were about `cunno`, or `papaya`or `quim`or `pie`, as adventurers and seafarers of those times were apt to call their favourite topic of conversation, and these mutterings circulated among the Spanish Court and the wealthy Spices- Merchants in Venice, who received the revelations with a mixture of delight and dismay. It was these titivating bits of chitchat that excited a certain young Venetian gentleman; Francisco Antonio Pigafetta, whose family’s wealth depended on the vast profits of the spice trade. At that time, at the start of the sixteenth century, spices such as cloves, nutmeg and mace were valued as medicines and were believed to cure everything from the plague to venereal diseases, and were quite literally worth their weight in gold.

As far as the very few wealthy customers who were able to afford these desirable luxuries knew, these wonderful spices came from an unknown island known simply as `Spice Islands`. Beyond that their origin was also a matter of tsismis, and only a very few of the Venetian Spice merchant knew that they came from the tropical Moluccas island, and that they travelled along the spices- trade route passing through India, Arabia and then to Venice, to be sold and distributed to the elite customers throughout Europe. So Pigafetta`s curiosity made him an avid participant of the tsismis circuit, and from this he learned of the King of Portugal’s`refusal to finance Magellan’s expedition, and the Spanish King’s interest in the Spice Islands enterprise, and the need for other investors in this enterprise, and the fabulous stories of naked giants, beautiful virgins whose sole desire was to satisfy the slightest whims of their masters. And having heard that a fleet of five ships were being fitted out in the city of Siviglia for the purpose of going to discover the Spicery Islands of Muluco, under the command of Ferdinando de Magaglianes, he hurried to Madrid to volunteer as a `sobrasaliente`, a supernumery- a gentleman- voyager who eventually became the `Diarist`for the journey from Spain to what were to become the Philippines, and all the way back to Cadiz, one of only eighteen survivors who completed the first circumnavigation of the world. Pigafetta saw himself as a different kind of adventurer, as one seeking a different kind of route; a royal route to women’s hearts.

Pigafetta`s family were wealthy Merchants and Bankers and owned a palace in one of the wealthiest districts in Venice. He was scholarly and adventurous but was regarded by his family as a dilettante, who saw him as a stylish man about town, with a reputation of a `cicisbeo`- a playboy of sorts; but he was useful to the family business as `an earpiece`, for his socialising provided access to tsismis about supply and demands of commodities and the movement of cargoes. But his own interests were of the more `fantastic`tsismis; the fantastic stories told by sailors about other lands, and other peoples, especially of `pie`, the current term in his times for `pussy`, and it’s wild exotic variations.

When eventually, the one remaining ship of the Magellan’s armada returned to Cadiz in September 1522, three years after their departure, with only eighteen survivors from the original two hundred and fifty- one crew ; and Pigafetta returned to his home in Venice to write his Reazione del primo viaggio inforno al mondo ( Report of the First Voyage Around the World ) he had reached an important conclusion about the nature of Tsismis; that it is impossible to distinguish between ordinary `commercial`tsismiz and the more interesting `fantastic`variety - tsismis which has no commercial value at all, but which is never-the -less fascinating and amazing and all consuming of man’s imagination, and his desires. During the voyage of discovery he recorded his own observations, and also stories he had been told by the `Indios`; stories which he claims that he understood, for he was quick to pick up the meanings of other languages. In his Journal he even included a short dictionary of words he had learned in Zzubu (Cebu), and which allowed him to satisfy his own curiosity about secret esoteric and erotic practices among the natives. Unfortunately most of this ribald content disappeared soon after he was inducted into the Knights of Rhodes; perhaps censored by the Grand Masters of the Knights!

He had collected some of the stories directly from the natives, and some were told to him by other crew members, but whatever their source, they all amounted to tsismis.

On the islands both young and old males pierce their penises with gold or tin rods the size of a goose quill. In both ends of the same bolt, some have what resembles a spur, with points upon the ends. They say that the women enjoy intercourse more. The woman takes his penis and inserts first one spur, and then the other into her cuni, and once inside it cannot be removed until it is limp.

And although the rod and its spurs lacerated the inside of the vagina, the women insisted on it. Each male had five women, and the women were `vicious and sensuous`, and virginity was seen as a disadvantage, the girls were `sagra`and perverse. Pigafetta admired the sexual freedom and the customary concubinage, and he was fascinated by the practice of `genital manipulation`, stretching and piercing the penis in males, and `anointing`the vulva and labia with `oils`to increase the size of the cuni.

He reported observations of mermaids and other unusual sea creatures and diabolic and sacred interventions; especially one occasion when his ship was heavily lashed by a tropical storm which threatened the ship and the whole crew prayed for succour, and after praying earnestly for a long time there was a `bright light`which appeared on the prow of the ship, and the storm abated. On another occasion, sailings down the coast in South America, …we suddenly saw a naked man of giant stature on the shore of the port, dancing and singing and throwing dust on his head. When the giant was in the captain-general`s and our presence, he marvelled greatly, and made a sign with one finger raised upwards, believing we had come from the sky. He was so tall that we reached only to his waist, and he was well proportioned. His face was large and painted red all over, while about his eyes he was painted yellow; and he had hearts painted on the middle of his cheeks. He was dressed in animal skins. When one of these people die, ten or twelve demons all pained appears to them and dance very joyfully about the corpse.

We don’t know the full extent of Pigafetta`s curiosity or his discoveries because of the mysterious loss of his journal, but that leaves the fields of discoveries open to present-day adventurers; some who will pursue the scatological and others who will prefer the eschatological! But he will need a fine ear and highly tuned cultural antennae to appreciate the distinctions between the typologies of tsismis. The commonest tsismis, and therefore the most pervasive is that which passes between neighbours, usually about other neighbours; ditto bed-spacers, workmates, jeepney-drivers, politicians, etc.etc. But the `message`does not stop here, for in this time of electronic communications, of texting and internet chat rooms, it fans out to the provinces, and further afield to wherever there are Pinoy, in fact to the entire eleven million or more of the Filipino diasporas scattered around the world, and usually within minutes. This surely means that the Filipino world community is the supreme example of Durkheim’s theory of`a collective conscience.

But at the local level, between bed-spacers, boarders, and neighbours, tsismis can be corrosive and destructive, driving friends apart, being much more potent than mere gossip because of the nature of social relationships, which in Filipino culture are fundamental to survival, so when tsismis becomes spiteful it also becomes dynamite, blasting whole social groups apart. But it can also reinforce social solidarity, especially when it is one group against another.

In its more mundane guise, as title-tattle in the `Celeb-Magazines`and the scurrilous local newspapers, tsismis is the main content, reporting on who is screwing who. Some of it is mild and some is scandalous, but all intending to amuse and titivate readers, and apparently ditching the dirt on; film stars, television personalities, politicians, sportsmen, and anyone with a public profile. Such disclosures are part of the celebrity business and usually contrived as part of the `celebs`publicity needs for being kept in the public-eye, it also helps to sell the `trashy`newspapers, which abound especially in Manila.

The wierdest kind of tsismis is found only in these cheap newspapers, which publish tsismis on the obscene, remarkable or the incredible, even magical. My favourite ran the headline in bold red capitals.

MOM`S LOVER THREATENS TO KILL BABY JEZEBEL ! The story concerned;

"THE LOVER of the 42 –year-old woman who professed to have given birth to a