Proximate Identity

The distance of about 470 kilometers separated city-dwellers like me from the province of Iloilo. Emptying my bowl of La Paz batchoy – a hot noodle soup made with meat stock and crushed pork rinds – I realize that my unfamiliarity of this place and its people could impair what little sense of nationalism I have. Amid all the raucous laughter made with my friends, all of us on summer vacation mode, it was easy to overlook the people who prepared and served the meal we were about to eat. Not in this place, I thought to myself. I remember these moments:

Under the shade of our cabana, the generous serving of garlic shrimps and oysters came, followed by the grilled milkfish stuffed with chopped onions and tomatoes – a favorite even back home. Minutes later, the fresh mango shake I ordered was handed to me in a plastic cup, sans the bendable straw and cocktail umbrella that upgrades almost any drink from retail to fancy. The waitress only smiled at our exaggerated and loud expressions of gratitude and appreciation for what she had just served for us to “enjoy,” she said, almost in a whisper.

While shopping for native delicacies, I asked the shopkeeper what the “butong-butong” was and all I found out about it was that it was sweet. So was everything I had already added in my basket. Nevertheless, I bought a pack of this sugar-loaded stick to ease the confusion in my mind caused by the modest responses from the locals, both in delivery and quantity of words.

Just from these encounters, one could get the impression that the people in this place are either shy or snobbish.

I let my last spoonful of soup decide for me. Even if the people here have something great to say about their food, they hold back and let this speak for itself. In general, this is a rare characteristic in my country; so although I am not an Ilonggo, I am grateful to the gods of citizenship that all this is still Filipino. I feel warm inside, and I bet it is the soup's doing.