The King's Decree (Utos ng Hari)

“See you in my cubicle after lunch.” Mrs. Moral Character tossed it at me as a parting shot when class ended this morning. Mrs. Moral Character is our Social Science teacher. She’s also our adviser.

I felt like such a fool, thinking and thinking about what she’d say to me this time. I lost my appetite for lunch. I was almost sure it was going to be another fiery sermon. The day before yesterday,¹ she nearly pulled out her calculator to show me how “stupid” I was and how accurate her addition of my “5s” was. Then she moved on to my absences, then my lates. It wasn’t reasonable to argue, “How can I not get a 5 when you give quizzes whenever I’m absent? When I’m too lazy to recite, that’s when you force me. And when I say what I really want to say, you reach for the red ballpen.”

But her mood in class earlier seemed good. In fact, we talked about her favorite topic: her “dazzling Malaysian”² and her favorite perfume. She also gossiped (as usual). About how Mr. Espejo grew old a bachelor because she turned him down twice when she was still single. About how Miss Whatshername wasn’t in school not because of study leave, but because she went to America for an abortion. The bell was about to ring when she remembered our lesson on the normalization process in government.

She said earlier, “For us to become fully democratic, we need a high literacy rate.” (Rizal already said that.) “The government must have an adequate communication system and the citizens must have high morality. And above all, our standards must not become westernized. By so doing, we won’t become uncivilized by western standards.”

When she called on me, I said we should take a more basic approach to the problem. For example, why not start with the country’s economic condition? If people are content, the government runs normally. But if many are dissatisfied, naturally the system becomes abnormal. It’s not just about an effective communication process or a high literacy rate. These are only manifestations of the real problem. She was taken aback. That’s when the bell cut us off.

Ay, the vexations of life, they make me want to run a fever. How far apart yesterday and today are. When I’m at home, I’m the star. When my townmates tell stories, I’m the famous one. But here in school, there’s no iskolar ng bayan³ to be found.

I really want to quit, but Tatay⁴ won’t let me. Of course. What father would be happy to have a dropout for a child? I’m sick of being tied to my teachers’ shoelaces, dragged along with their every step. Turn whatever corner they want, go left even if you want to go right, get dragged along even if you want to rest. And get kicked even when you’re the one who’s hurt.⁵

Ay, student life. Just to get a “1,” you’d swallow your own tongue. Go against them and it’s a clear-cut 5. Nod along to get a “1,” and it’s yourself you have to fool. It’s all about getting along. A little compromise, a little nodding and “yes ma’am.” That’s worth a “2” or a “3.” Why did diplomas ever become a fad in this world? Without a diploma, who would believe I have a future? If grades hadn’t come into fashion, I wouldn’t be ashamed to work even as a Metro Manila Aide, sweeping the streets. But even if I graduate and they ask for experience when I apply, I’m still done for. And if I do graduate, it would be shameful to have to put up with even jobs meant for the poor.

It’s just grades. Is that really a problem? “1” if it’s “1,” “5” if it’s “5,” end of discussion. Why drag it out? Fail if you fail. Kick-out if kick-out. But I shouldn’t really be failing. Okay, they say I’m hard-headed, rugged, and a bit rude, but why bring conduct and grooming into the discussion? This isn’t a military school, and it isn’t a seminary. Why is it always “Your conduct” and “your appearance” that they use to scare us?

What’s so bad about failing? Recto was a bar flunker, but he’s one of the most respected constitutionalists today. Einstein failed Physics and grammar school, but he became a big-time scientist. Even his teacher back then didn’t know about his theory of relativity. Of course, I’m neither Recto nor Einstein. I’m just Jojo, who counts for nothing if you ask my teachers. At home, they say I’m bright, especially if you ask Tatay. To our neighbors, I’m one of a kind. Imagine, in our province, I’m the only one who made it to Manila to study for free. If only they knew.

Study, study, study. Study in the morning, study at noon, and study again at night. I don’t even understand what all this studying is for. They never run out of things to make us research. All they know how to ask is “what is our lesson today?” They’re like gods with a monopoly on being right. So you can’t question them, and you certainly can’t tell them they’re wrong.

Ay, teachers of the world, why were you ever made by some brute? Like Mrs. Moral Character: before starting a lesson, she’ll first give a sermon on the virtue of honesty, about how cheating is bad, how it’s a mortal sin to give a classmate the answer when he forgot it in a panic, how using secret signals⁶ is a crime, and so on. It seems she knows everything bad and forbidden in the world. But we’ve found out her secret. During the last referendum, our morally upright teacher suddenly went blind and stupid. When she served as a watcher at the precinct, she only knew how to read three letters.⁷ Her reasoning was, “What’s wrong with that? Even if we lose, we still win. Why, what can you do about it?” That’s why she’s no longer Mrs. Moral Character to us, just Mrs. Eraser.

Then they have the nerve to wonder who we take after.

Who among them could we possibly make our idol?

My English teacher doesn’t care about the world. As long as she can use what she knows about voice and diction, she’s happy in life. As for us, our only role is to be listeners to her asides. We’re like her therapy. And her favorite topic is her ancestor who was supposedly pure Spanish and built a church in their town. Antique, of course, that church (like her and her grandfather). She just wants to show off that she has blue blood. I’d love to blurt out that the Spaniards who came here back then were hooligans and criminals in Spain. Rather than be a problem for their own government, they let the Philippines suffer the burden. That’s the system she inherited from her grandfather: to burden the long-suffering. Our Math teacher has a different gimmick. If he catches you unprepared for our lesson, you’re in for it. He’ll say, “What? You still don’t know that until now? OK. That’s your assignment for tomorrow.” Then he punctuates it by erasing whatever is wrong on the blackboard.

Hassle a person every day and then wonder why he turns into a fool. You can’t even blow off steam, and you can’t even have fun. If, while enduring all the hassle, you pick cigarettes and beer to vent your bad feelings, there they are, quick to rationalize, “Didn’t I tell you vices are bad for studying?”

As for vices, they say alcohol and nicotine are bad for the human body. As if to say that once you’re a teacher, it’s fine. Because you’re still a student, endure it. Ask Mr. Discipline and he knows the answer perfectly. Don’t even ask whether he went through childhood too, whether he was also a fool back then, because he’ll answer, “That’s exactly why I don’t want you to pick up vices. I’ve been through that.”

In our barkada,⁸ two of us will be saying goodbye-my-school goodbye. I’m being kicked out for my so-called foolishness. Minyong is being kicked out for his so-called stupidity.

How they determined that we should indeed be driven out of our beloved school went like this, according to the conversation among Mrs. Moral Character (Eraser), Mrs. Gles-ing, Mr. Mathematician, Miss Spermatozoa, Mr. Discipline, and others.

“It’s not ‘korum,’ say quorum, ‘kwow,’ quo-rum.⁹ I feel though he is brilliant, only my reservations is that….”

“Only he is stubborn. He’ll come to my class after drinking, as if to provoke you, getting up close. He’ll make you smell his breath.”

“How true, how true, I swear to God that’s true.”

“Not only that, sometimes he even likes to pester me in class, as if he’ll catch me unprepared for my lesson. So I pile him with research work, and he backs off.”

“And he is always absent. Sometimes I don’t want to give him an excuse slip anymore.”

“So what is the verdict of the group?”

“I cannot pass him.”

“Me too.”

“I second the motion.”

“God will punish his naughtiness.”

“I will report the matter to his parents immediately.”

What’s worse is the accusation against Minyong. They say he’s going crazy. They love gossiping about him, that is, unless they’re the ones being hit by what Minyong says. When a co-teacher they find annoying gets hit, all they say is “Hi-hi-hi-hi.” When Minyong hits the bull’s-eye, “My God, he’s really crazy, he doesn’t know what he’s saying,” is their excuse.

Minyong is a “cultural minority.” The guy never volunteered to study here in Manila. They fetched him from the mountains, then talked him into believing that here he’d learn how to lift his tribe out of poverty, and now they’ll just kick him out. They call him stupid. They gave him one chance. They made him speak, supposedly to sharpen his skills so his inferiority complex would disappear. Well, once the guy learned to speak, they were shocked to hear the truth.

The king’s faction said:

“I find him kinda weird lately.”

“Definitely I cannot pass him.”

“That’s right. We’d be setting a bad precedent. Stupidity would become fashionable in school. Remember, this is the Philippine School for Science and Technology, and we’re going to pass a stupid student? Impossible.”

“But he’s a cultural minority.”

“And so?”

“We should lower our standards for him.”

“Excuse me? There’s only one standard of excellence and no exceptions.”

“What now?”

“What else? Fail him.”

Then they chorused, “Fail him!”

Then again, by the time Minyong’s case was reported in school, they had more or less already settled on how the story would end. It went like this:

“Have you considered his case lately?”

“What shall we do with him? Do we have a policy for such cases?”

“It might be better to send him back to his tribe.”

“We should. He might hurt someone and drag many others in.”

“Oh, how I abhor violence.”

“He might even start fires, you know. Fires are all the rage in Manila these days.”

“What if we have him confined in a mental hospital?”

“And who will shoulder the bill?”

And that was the end of Minyong’s case, even before deliberation began.

They’re not always that quick to hand down verdicts. Sometimes they’re “humane,” so to speak. Like in the cases of Osias and Armando, also schoolmates of ours.

“Let’s pass Osias.”

“But he’s low in Physics.”

“Come on, your class is really difficult.”

“That boy is thoughtful. Wherever you see him, it’s always ‘good morning.’”

“True. And he offers to help right away when he sees you carrying a lot of things.”

“True.”

“How about Armando? Another cultural minority?”

“Excuse me. He is not a thoroughbred minority. It is only the mother. The father is an Ilocano who migrated to Mountain Province.”

“That kid is so sweet. Takes after his father.”

“Pogi,¹⁰ really.”

“You bet. His father turns out to be a doctor.”

“I’ll pass him. The only reason his grades are low is that he was absent for so long. He got sick, after all.”

“So, are these two passing?”

“Approve.”

It’s really hard in this world when you don’t have a pogi father or a doctor for a dad.

“Come on in. Sit down,” said Mrs. Moral Character after I knocked and was let into her cubicle. I found her stacking books.

“I called you for two reasons. Regarding our lesson and your attitude.”

Here we go again, I thought to myself. Why didn’t I just get sick? If only my fever had pushed through, I wouldn’t have had to show up, and I’d have avoided the sermon lying in wait.

“Jojo, people are not just stomachs, like you want to make it seem,” she said, one eyebrow raised.

Don’t make a sound, I told myself. Bear with it a little. It’s hard to argue with a teacher. Just smile. She’ll stop when she tires out. But it looked like she had no plan to shorten her sermon.

“What you said earlier has no essence. That is an example of an a priori statement. Do you get me?”

I nodded.

“Good. Now you probably know that you have no data to back you up, which I happen to have. All you do is spout speculations that have no meaning in the scientific world. Our lesson is more complicated than you thought. What you probably mean is the role of economic determinism in contemporary Philosophy, which is altogether wrong. Why don’t you use the power or elite approach? Behaviorism is the trend now in the west. Why don’t you follow suit?”

Don’t pay attention, just smile, I reminded myself again. Let her talk and talk. Sooner or later, she’ll run out of things to say. In one ear, out the other. She’s the teacher, so she feels like she’s the only one who can be right.

“Do you get me?”

I nodded again. And now, part II of her sermon.

“To be honest with you, I don’t like your attitude in class. Smart aleck!”

I just bowed my head. Then I mumbled, “I’m sorry, ma’am.”

Even without looking at her, I knew she was nodding with delight. Her ears were secretly clapping with joy. She had tamed the school’s resident rebel. If only I were as “honest” as she is, I could have said, “The feeling is mutual. I also don’t like you, ma’am.” Instead, all I said was, “Can I go now, ma’am?”

“I’m not yet through.” Meaning there was still a part III to this conversation.

“They saw you in the chapel last night.”

Diyos ko,¹¹ so now they’re meddling even in my personal life, I thought. I could feel the heat of her stare on my face.

“How young are you, Jojo? Speak up.”

I don’t owe her any explanation. I won’t answer.

“Speak up, I said.”

“Seventeen.”

“Seventeen and already you are…”

Like it or not, I’d heard enough. I stood up to leave. Before I could take a step, she tacked on more to her sermon.

“I’ll let your mother know about this.”

I really wanted to go berserk. I wanted to turn back on her. I wanted to fling all my resentment at the world in her face. I wish I were as brave as I wanted to be. What was wrong with what I did in the chapel? Tess and I only held hands. Is that wrong? Maybe what was wrong was why Mrs. Glesing suddenly decided to take a stroll in the chapel at that hour of the night. Poor Tess. I’m almost certain Mrs. Moral Character will make her an example again of what a female student should not become. And Mrs. Glesing, for sure, almost had her tongue go up her nose from barking out her scoop.¹²

What else can I do but punch the air again and whisper “someday.” If I go crazy like Minyong, they probably won’t enjoy it, but I’m sure they’ll wonder why.

My barkada of teasers was in the lobby.

“Jo, we heard you’re the bida¹³ again.”

“Leave those brutes alone, they’ll get tired of it eventually,” I said.

“If you two had gone to a motel, then they wouldn’t know anything.”

“Stop it,” I said.

“What did you two really do that got Mrs. Glesing spitting fire¹⁴ in our class this morning?”

“What else could I do in a chapel? Even if you had magic, no miracle would happen there,” I said.

“Why don’t you court Mrs. Glesing?”

“You jerk, you’re another one.” Damn this life, I’m being teased again.

“Who knows, maybe she’s got some Mrs. Robinson in her.” Then they burst out laughing. I ended up laughing too, even though I was sick of everything.

“Let’s just go to Cubao,” I told them.

ONE ROUND of beer was followed by another and another. Then topped off with one-for-the-road. As fast as the bottles emptied, so did the time.

“What did you really do in the chapel?”

“What else, holding hands, of course. Is that wrong? We just swore before the altar that we wouldn’t part even if I got kicked out. Is that obscene? Why are their minds so dirty? As if they never held hands when they were young.”

“Then how did they become human?”

“Just by looking at each other, they got pregnant.”

Then they burst out laughing. Good for them, they’re happy somehow. Me, even when I’m having fun, my teachers are still what I see. This is too much. Why won’t they let anyone see truths different from the ones they grew up with? Why do they want everyone in the world to look just like them? Is it because they think they discovered the mine of intelligence and correctness, so there’s nothing left for us to discover? But isn’t what they call expertise, twenty years in service, just one year of experience stretched over twenty?

I just thought of this now. If Beethoven were alive and took an exam in school, whether as a student or a teacher, he certainly wouldn’t be accepted. This is the Philippine School for Science and Technology, the school of future scientists, and they’d treat as a person, and take seriously, someone who is not only too lazy to dress properly but rarely bathes?

Einstein? He was a genius, but he didn’t comb his hair. He’d be kicked out too. Long hair is forbidden in school. Mr. Discipline would surely tell him, “Comply with school requirements. Maximum tolerable haircut please.” Meaning shave the nape. Shape the top like a teaspoon.¹⁵

How about Hemingway? He wouldn’t work either, a man of vices. Drunkards are not allowed in class. And Maxim Gorky, the great Russian writer according to Chekhov and Tolstoy, could he teach comparative literature here? I don’t think so either. Besides having no units in English, he has no diploma in Education.

What about Christ, if he came back to life and went to Science? They say he was a Teacher even without an M.A. or Ph.D. Would they even let him through the gate? Impossible. If Mrs. Moral Character or Mrs. Glesing ran into him there, they might get shocked. I think they’d say something like this: “Imagine, such nerve, and such crude appearance. Long hair, doesn’t shave, and wearing sandals. So what if he’s the son of God, he has no sense of de-quo-rum.” And if Christ preached here, he’d probably just be exposed with, “Who is your authority, where is your data, behavioralism is the trend now in the West, why don’t you follow suit?” Maybe that’s why he picked a manger as his birthplace, because if he’d been born in Science, the history of Christianity in the world would have changed.

Ay, sense of propriety and de-quo-rum, truly dizzying. Clean cut (make Einstein comb his hair). White polo and black pants (make Christ look decent). I wonder if propriety is also what teachers call it when they wear civilian clothes on Wednesdays. As if they’re attending a party. The kind where the type of fabric is noticed right away and people say, “Ay, so beautiful, where did you buy it? It must be expensive, right?” And the other answers, “It’s cheap, just a hundred pesos a yard (eight dollars is now the equivalent of a peso).¹⁶ Christian Dior, that’s original, not Rustan’s-made.” And to really get noticed, they have to be fragrant with perfume. Like a painting (surreal style). Then they load their ears, neck, chest, arms, and fingers with diamonds. In their “beauty” and “sparkle,” you’d think you were looking at a Christmas tree on a Mahal na Araw¹⁷ (Holy Week, though mahal also means “expensive”). That’s what’s proper to them.

Then again, they can no longer make that out. The night Mrs. English caught Tess and me, that’s when I first really noticed how Christ is made to look. They say he was insulted by the Jews, so they nailed him naked to the cross. But the Mrs. Moral Characters, Mrs. Englishes, Mr. Mathematicians, and Mr. Disciplines and their whole tribe are insulted by nakedness. That’s probably why they covered Christ’s nakedness with velvet glittering with baubles.¹⁸ The Virgin Mary was supposedly the wife of a lowly carpenter, but in her present appearance she looks like a peacock and a Christmas tree too. Even her tears were turned into pearls.

What they can’t be like, they pick on right away. It’s the person who believes in himself whom they want to desecrate. Who is Jojo to them anyway, just “a nobody.” When they were students, did they pass Science? Were they scholars too? But why did they just end up as teachers for so long? Is that all they know in life, teaching? It’s as if they were never children. As if when they were born they already knew everything. Maybe they think being a student is a joke. Was their conduct in class back then all “1s”? If they really never make mistakes, this should be reported right away to the Holy Pope in Rome. Turns out the living saints are all here in the Philippines.

What’s left for us to meddle in? Where can I ever be the bida in this world? At least in the referendum, we were included. Imagine, the fate of the Philippines can be gambled on, but who’s sexier, Alma Moreno or Elizabeth Oropesa, we’re not allowed to decide. That’s “for adults” only.

Oops. Thinking this hard is making me need to take a leak.¹⁹ My barkada has moved on to another topic.

“Why don’t we put thumbtacks on Mrs. English’s chair?”

“She’ll go ‘Aray!’ but when she remembers her poise, she’ll say, ‘Oh, I mean outch!’”²⁰

“Hi hi hi hi.”

Good for them, they can still manage a snicker. But me, who can I complain to? Should I write to Valencia, the “Over a Cup of Coffee” columnist?²¹ Maybe he’d just answer me with, “Have a cup of coffee.” How about Marcos? He has a mountain of problems. Imagine, he has to worry about the fate of the Philippines, and someday he’ll have to answer for it in history. How would he ever notice me? Should I report to Carter? This is a human rights issue too, the plight of students tormented by sadists, but it’s hard to speak English. Besides, he’s only interested in wars they’re losing.

Should I just write to God? But he’s supposedly in every place and corner, so he surely already knows my problem. By the way, why wasn’t there a “Blessed are the poor students for they shall inherit…” in the Sermon on the Mount? Maybe because he had no heaven or earth left to bequeath to anyone else.

I don’t want to become Minyong. I have to speak up or I might go crazy. I don’t want to become a robot, I don’t want to become a stone. I don’t mind being a dropout, as long as I stay human. The comfort room is too small to write my complaints in. Many have come before me. “What you’re holding now is the future of the Fatherland.” “If you can reach this high, you shall be great.” “Down with fascism.” “LABAN.”²² “Damn you all.” “Alpha Phi Omega.” “Wanted pen pal.”

I’ll complain to the wall too if I have to, until someone reads and hears my complaint. But for now, I’ll just take a leak and let my resentment flow out.

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Footnotes

1. Kamakalawa is the Tagalog word for “the day before yesterday.” ↩

2. The original is ’Yung kanyang dazzling Malaysian, and the noun is left out. It sits beside “her favorite perfume” in a list of the teacher’s pet topics. It can be interpreted as either as a Malaysian suitor or as something Malaysian she owns or wears, such as a fabric, jewel, or fragrance. No authoritative gloss was found, so the phrase is kept as written. ↩

3. Iskolar ng bayan (“scholar of the people”) is the Filipino term for a state-subsidized student, and Jojo is playing on it. ↩

4. Tatay is the Filipino word for “Father” or “Dad.” ↩

5. The original word, isinipa, means “kicked,” so the line is not “trampled.” ↩

6. Magkodigo means using secret codes or signals to cheat. ↩

7. Probably “Y-E-S,” the answer the teacher read out from the referendum ballot regardless of what it said. ↩

8. Barkada means a close group of friends or peers. ↩

9. The teacher’s earlier fumbling over “quorum” (korum / kwow) is echoed later when she mangles “decorum” into “de-quo-rum,” so the joke is kept in both places. ↩

10. Pogi means “handsome,” used for a good-looking man. ↩

11. Diyos ko means “My God.” ↩

12. A “scoop” is a piece of juicy gossip. The original phrasing is “commanding her scoop,” rendered here as “barking out.” ↩

13. Bida means the star or hero of the story. Here it means the one at the center of attention, usually for trouble. ↩

14. The original is pumuputok ang butsi (literally “the gizzard bursts”), a Filipino idiom for being furious. “Spitting fire” carries the same meaning. Alternatives are “blow her top,” or the literal “gizzard” with a translator’s note. ↩

15. A teaspoon-shaped top is the closest rendering of the original image, rather than a “bowl cut.” ↩

16. The line follows the source literally. The actual rate at the time was roughly eight pesos to the dollar, so the figures may need to be flipped. ↩

17. Mahal na Araw is Holy Week. Mahal also means “expensive,” which is the pun. ↩

18. The original words are pelus (velvet) and borloloy (baubles or gaudy trinkets), rather than “cloth with sequins.” ↩

19. Idi-jingle is slang for urinating. It sets up the comfort-room scene and the ending. ↩

20. The joke is that the teacher’s reflex “Aray!” (Tagalog for “ouch”) gets swapped for an overly proper “outch” once she remembers her poise. ↩

21. Teodoro Valencia wrote a newspaper column titled “Over a Cup of Coffee.” The coffee joke makes sense only with this context. ↩

22. Laban means “fight,” and it was a popular rallying cry in the Marcos-era opposition. ↩