by shai sangco Tamayo

EXPRESS YOURSELF

Dial: 917-8888.

“Hello.  I am calling about your distasteful billboard at the South Expressway between Buendia and EDSA ….the one with two exhibitionist men atop a building …You think that’s a cute way of expressing yourself?”

“Yes, ma’am…”

 “Oh,  so you think that that obscene display to the world is a great way to express  yourself---“

“No, ma’am, not the world, only Manila…only Philippines…”

“Oh.  So you expose your genitals only to the Philippines?”

“No, ma’am… Hindi naman siguro gan’un…”

“Oh, so with their backs against us, their robes open like that in a kenkoy pose suggests that they’re fully clothed?”

(Laughs nervously)  “Oo nga no….” (Laughs again)

“Tell me, young lady, you think this is cute?  Would you do something like that?”

(Emphatically)  “Noooooo!….”

“You think that that’s a good way to EXPRESS YOURSELF?”

Another emphatic “No!”

“Please tell those concerned to please do something about it because it’s not doing anybody any good.”

(Sincerely confused) “Oh, yes, ma’am, yes, ma’am, thank you, good-bye…”  Click.

“HRMPH!  You won’t get me to support a company that endorses that sort of exposure—este, expression …..even if only in the Philippines.”

“Mama, naman, how myopic can you get!”  Says 16-year old Kira, bouncing to the beat of The Lifestyle Channel’s fitness instructor on SkyCable, the greatest show on air.

“Hah! I’d rather be blind, hija.  Call me a hard-nosed prude ….especially these days when talong is the order of the day, ‘sexaholic’ is a byword, and partners are recyclable.  But if you mean clinging to the conviction that self expression be ruled by principles built on values, well, I sure am.”

Clad in her skimpies, unmindful Kira leaps, hops, vibrates her flabs to the beat of “Staying Alive”. 

“Look at you, hija.  You think dressing—or, undressing--like that is ‘hip’…. Now even young girls in the barrios, the last frontier of modesty---they show as much as they can.”

“Tipid sa tela, Ma, mahirap ang pera ngayon….”

Unflustered, Ma goes on, “I don’t see why ads have to bare tits and bums, or fornicating couples for all the world to see, just to sell jeans, cellphones, and, ‘susmaryosep, even gas ranges!!!  And that Linea whatever—Italian decadence seems to be their selling point..…. Those starlet interviews in the papers---how proud they are to go ‘all the way’.  They actually believe it’s the only way to become into a ‘more mature actor/actress’.  Bare ALL… Leave nothing to the imagination!”

“Ma, this is ART in the 21^st century…..  Hell-ooo…”

“Tell that to Satan—he must be happy fanning the flames in hell.  Crass is where it’s at.”

The fitness session on TV winds down.  Kira is weary of Ma’s ranting.  “Ma, ever heard of ‘FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION’?” 

“Ahhh, yes, the liberation of man…. If it feels good, do it, animals do it, why not we?  Hija, promiscuity reaps bitter fruits…. Remember your cousin Joyce in the States…. always wore tube tops and panty-shorts everywhere.  Pretty, pretty girl.  The killer stalked her for months, longed to taste her, finally raped her.  But…she the fighter she always was… so he killed her.”  The tears glisten in Ma’s eyes….

“What’s that got to do with all this?”  Kira evinces the impatience of youth. 

“Hija, did you read the confession of that death row convict---what’s his name---he admitted that he went haywire from ogling the daily tabloids constantly.  His libido went on overdrive, so he grabbed the first girl he could---the nurse, was it?—raped, killed and then stuffed her in a drum.  Sex crimes and killings are now so kadiri, and get worse each passing day.  Almost all those recent executions were incest, rape, and murder-related.  And now even formerly decent broadsheets have followed the tabloid formula under the smelly banner of ‘FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION’, globalization….what next?”

A TV ad exhibits a budding teenager—not more than fourteen—in the latest Brand Z underwear.

“Oh, virtue, oh, modesty, where are you?”  Ma is all het up.  

“Relax, ma, it’s the age of liberation.”

“This decadence pretends normalcy, hija.  It breaks my heart seeing you a victim, too.  Only the corny think that free sex, more and more and younger and younger girls modeling almost nothing, the lewd ads everywhere, has anything to do with the epidemic of rape, incest, sodomy, teen-age pregnancies, drug abuse, without end.  At the rate we’re going, we may wake up one day and find that it’s hip to screw your child or mother.”

“Ma naman, how gross can you be?!”

“Hija, we used to go to mass in veils, no sleeveless dresses; sex out of marriage was a shame.  Now Magic Johnson boasts thousands of sex partners, and he’s a HERO!!! ….  So what, pray tell, do we want to be liberatED from?  Purity?  Innocence?  Honor?  Decency?”

“The straightjacket of MORAL IMPRISONMENT.”  Kira fights back with a line fresh from the Humanities class yesterday morning.

“Lust imprisons man, Kira.  Anyone serious about curbing crime ought to start by scrapping the fodder for libidos to go nuts.  Maybe we’ll have the peace Brother Mike always talks about, the fertile economy the President wants so much for us, and who know, maybe even a sane society.”

Kira tunes in.  “Yeah, a cool RAlly for decency, with Mama at the podium!”

Adrenaline-zapped, Ma ignores Kira’s sarcasm.  “Ya.  If I could mold how people think and act, I could probably do society a service…. Then again, responsibility isn’t somebody else’s business. (Sighs, eyes shut.)  If only money and self-serving interests would take a back seat to morality, honor and integrity.….” 

Say what?  Kira shrugs----“Poor mama….”             \