December 19, 2008

They flocked to us like starved city pigeons, fighting over dropped bread crumbs on the ground.

"Tawad po, para may paskohan rin kami."*

We, the so-called "rich", reacted in ways unimaginable: laughing, shooing, running, judging their way of life. We dropped pesos on the ground amused by how they fought over each shiny piece of metal.

"Not even a dollar," we laughed, "nothing but change!"

But when our pesos ran out, when our bread was no more, they flocked still grabbing hands, clothes, purses and legs.

"Tawad po, para may paskohan rin kami."

They were just children with small hands and small feet. They had runny noses but no one to clean the mess on their little faces. They had small teeth, some missing in action, but they did not smile.

We acted like children, ignoring the warnings of not giving money to those who ask on the streets. We feigned innocence but it was nothing more than ignorance. We should have hardened our hearts and acted more like adults. Because when they became more aggressive and we had nothing more to give, our amusement became fear; fear of getting robbed, fear of becoming like them, fear of this land's society as we realized that we did not belong.

The hard street's children became the island natives under Lapu-Lapu's chiefdom, and we became the Spanish conquistadors. A war was brewing between the savage and the civilized and we, the civilized, were losing the battle. Imperialist nostalgia.

But we were not the conquistadors and they were not the island natives, and we were not more civilized than them because we entertained and encouraged that frightful encounter. Our error forever engraved in the archives of our memories.

We were saved by the white van before anything went missing from our pockets. We were swooped up by that blur of white and whisked away from the shores of poverty where we did not belong.

How ironic that this is how we will remember our first contact with Magellan's cross. The original, erected by Ferdinand Magellan himself, now became our cross as well. Both Magellan's cross and our encounter, planted side by side, are landmarks in time. Landmarks to remind us of what happens when two cultures collide.

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*"Give us change please, so that we too can have a Christmas."