Recto Reflections

Our forth year high school batch (batch 2011) seems to be very happy and fortunate, for (still) an understandable reason why on earth did the Department of Education allowed us pass high school without taking the National Career Assessment Examination or NCAE. (muhahahaha xD). By this reason, other high school students enjoyed to have their mere holiday vacation, especially here in the Metro, which recently suffered from Typhoon Pedring’s wrath. Well, for me and two of my classmates, we took this golden opportunity to travel and seek investments for any collegiate school. I was actually accompanying them to UST (University of Santo Tomas), but eventually I asked them to accompany me (to inquire, as if) to Recto, Manila-the home of the Philippine’s University Belt, merely to seek their delight in enlightening through the crossroad path of Recto, through reflections. I believe that I failed, sarcasm aside.

Walking through the ever odorous paths of U-Belt, I saw a sudden reality-reality that for others may be an epic. U-Belt is the living symbol of what my favourite writer, Nick Joaquin once quoted that the true identity of the Filipino is the Filipino seeking his identity. How will I then prove this reflection? Deforming my euphemistic sense, amidst all the fake stuff: those fake electronic cigarettes, sex toys, reggae for sale fashion get-up, and P250 worth of motel accommodation, people still, I mean, Filipino, no, no, metropolitan Filipino people still adore or let’s say, patronize these shits.

Well, proudly, this is the Filipino pride.

And I’m not insulting those people who make tangkilik of these things, because for Pilate’s sake, I am one of those avid buyers of Recto-made products. I’m even proud of those ‘criminal’-rooted vendors, who are trying to earn for a living, than those beggars who unconscientiously use their young kids as mere mascots to make other people feel pity for their corrupted poverty.

Concluding, I realized therefore that Recto, Manila-the pugad of colleges and universities; of low-paid motel rooms; of scholastic putas; of smoking students; of vendor-syndicates; of tambays; of cheap and kalye bookstores; and of pilyong pilosopos- is the main status symbol, or frankly speaking, THE PERFECT SUMMARY OF PINOY POP CULTURE.

(SALAMAT SA MGA NAKASAMA KO )