(Part 2)
Our administration, God bless them and forsake them, has invested millions of our taxes to arm the pre-marriage counselors of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) with the latest in counseling methodologies and torture techniques to preserve the institution of Philippine marriage.
What!? You think that your hard-earned money being funneled into pre-marriage counseling is money frivolously spent? Why, is it like our administration to frivolously spend the people’s money? (Don’t worry, you do not have to answer this question. The Supreme Court can protect you.) I’m sure that each of these counselors were meticulously screened, poked and orifice-probed to assist soon-to-be-wedded couples in the screening, poking and orifice-probing of each other towards conjugal bliss. In fact, each of these counselors undergo mandatory eight-hour training every year on topics like Human Maturity, Value Clarification, Authentic Love, Responsible Parenting and Defending the Administration. The counselors also have optional training in Honesty and Integrity in Government Service.
So, what is the result of years of intensive multimillion-peso training sessions in pre-wedding counseling? Allow me to offer you a recreation of a conversation during our pre-marriage counseling that was intended to help my wife and I make informed and responsible decisions about our marriage — at the expense of taxpayers, naturally.
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“Do you know the reason why Pauleen Luna broke up with Marvin Agustin? Do any of you know!? Any of you?” He rapped his fingers on the table. “Do you not all follow the news!?” he frowned, scrunching up his unibrow.
“Because Pauleen Luna made biyak (split open) Marvin Agustin’s fruit before buying it?” I asked in earnest.
“Yooooouuuu shut your mouth, haaaa!!” he ululated. “Did I say you could talk?”
“But you were asking a question—”
“You do not butt here, ha! Are you trying to be smart-aleck, ha!? God does not like smart-alecks! God will smite down smart-alecks and leave them shriveled and impotent! I should know.”
“You know because you are shri—”
“Because I have been a lay minister for the past 13 years! And I know the truth dahil galit ako sa mga sinungaling! (I am angry at liars!)”
I dipped my head, “Forgive me, Father.”
“Thaaaatt’s better!” he lifted his chin and diddled with the three strands of unusually long hair that grew from his Adam’s apple. “You see, eeeeeven if Marvin has won a best actor award. Eeeeven if Marvin was once the love team of my favorite actress and fashion icon Jolina Magdangal. And eeeeeven if Marvin is the owner of a chain of successful Japanese restaurants, Pauleen Luna was not fooled by Marvin Agustin!” He stomped his foot and twirled his index finger around his Adam’s apple hair. “She broke up with Marvin because he has two kids out of wedlock and his father was a convict!”
“But what does that have to —”
“I said to yoooouuu do not butt here, ha!? You look like a butt already! You just listen to me because I have been a lay minister for 13 years.” He groomed his unibrow. “Yooouuu listen to me because I only speak the truth and dahil galit ako sa mga sinungaling at galit rin ako sa mga tsismoso! (I am angry at liars and I am also angry at gossip-hounds!) Now, let me move on. Let me move on to the story of Willie Revillame and Liz Almoro.”
Oh, God, no more, I pleaded silently. Please no more. First, the CBCP stand on the Arroyo administration and now this. Take us now if you want.
I prayed that in the next few minutes, Michael V. would barge into the seminar room and cackle maniacally, “Yari ka! (I gotcha, sucker!),” then would give all of us pre-wedded couples some free detergent products and send us home. I thought we were either on a reality TV gag show or that we were guinea pigs for a government experiment in mass hysteria. But, alas, Michael V never materialized. So I just shut my eyes, bit down on my lip, and tried to undo the shackles that held me down to my seat. With trained professionals like these at the forefront of our pre-marriage counseling, the state of future marriages in our country will be as stable as our rice supply.
However, while waiting for the earth to swallow me whole, I thought that perhaps I should be more open-minded as to what our pre-counselor had to say. After all, we were quite privileged to be in the presence of a man who had been a lay minister for the past 13 years. And, aside from his esteemed position in the Catholic hierarchy, he was a much-pedigreed individual — and he didn’t fail to remind us of this every five minutes. Not only is he the president of his Parish’s Eucharistic ministry, but he is also concurrently the chairman emeritus of Barangay Kagitingan (Heroism), Kagandahan (Beauty) at Walang Kinikilingan (Unbiased) where he also goes by the nickname “Tigre ng Barangay”; the president of the Knights of Columbus Kinikiligan sub-chapter; vice president of the Association of Divine Heavenly Word of the United Nations Association; and founder and president for life of the Senior Citizens Pre-Marriage Counseling League of the Philippines. (And none of these positions are made up, dahil galit siya sa sinungaling.) Wow. With all these titles, we were quite privileged indeed that he was able to pry himself away from an impossibly tight schedule to educate us in the ways of Willie Revillame’s love life.
This man does not deserve the mere title of pre-marriage counselor. It barely reflects his years of service to the community. And although I may not reveal his real name until Executive Order 464 is formally revoked, igalang nalang natin siya sa titulong Presidente Chairman Bise Presidente Kapitan “Tigre” or Manong Tigre (let us respect him under the title President Chairman Vice President Captain Tiger or Old Man Tiger).
“Pero hindi ko ‘to ipinagyayabang (But I am not showing off),” Presidente Chairman Bise Presidente Kapitan “Tigre” reminded us while stroking the hair on his Adam’s apple. “Dahil galit ako sa mga mayabang! At sa mga sinungaling! At sa mga tsismoso (I am angry at showoffs! And liars! And gossip-hounds!)!” he reiterated while passing around copies of his résumé.
And aside from memorizing Presidente Chairman Bise, er, Manong Tigre’s credentials as a prerequisite to acquiring our marriage license, we also had to commit his life’s story — a cross between Maalala Mo Kaya and Fear Factor — to long-term memory. Manong had burned into my nervous system the fact that he has five children he had all sent to college and who were all now professionals living in Canada, the United States and France (or, as “Manong Tigre” emphatically declared, “Franssshh”). He has one son na di hamak masgwapo pa kay Richard Gomez (Bar none, my son is more handsome than Richard Gomez, “pero hindi ako nagyayabang”), he was sent by the Philippine government twice to the US for military training and he has five yayas whom he incidentally pays more than any of those rich socialites in Forbes Park. (Sigh. “Pero hindi ako nagyayabang.”)
But the secret to Manong’s self-proclaimed success as a pre-marriage counselor lies in a biblical phrase that he paraphrased from Matthew 19:5-6 (he knew this phrase from memory because he has been a lay minister for 13 years): “And that he said: That is why a man leaves his father and mother and becomes attached to his wife, he becomes attached to his wife, and the two become one flesh. And if the man does not leave his father and mother, pasasagasaan ko siya sa pison (I am going to have him run over by a steamroller).” And this piece of advice that he passed on to his children is what qualifies him to be an expert on marriage. “My children are happy. They may be paraplegic, but they are very happy.”
Manong Tigre had all the answers about getting married to questions that we never even wanted to ask. The answers shot out of his mouth faster than water from a leaky NAWASA pipe. Only Eli Soriano could be more enlightened.
In the spirit of generosity, I did not want to keep the wealth of his wisdom to myself for fear of permanent brain damage. Allow me to infect you with his bacteria of advice for our mutually assured hysteria. There are still other things that I would like to reveal from the counseling session, but I am afraid that I will have to invoke executive privilege.
1. Do not marry evil DNA. Apparently, true love requires an NBI clearance. According to Manong Tigre, if the father of your boyfriend is a convicted killer, then your boyfriend might become a killer in the future as well. And this is true, of course. Why would he lie to us? After all, galit siya sa sinungaling. Sa tsismoso. At sa mayabang. So remember, my three female readers: Do not marry the father of your boyfriend.
2. Love should not be the result of mere kindatan (wink of an eye). “Mga dalaga (For the single ladies), if your love amounts to this much” — he almost shoved his index finger into his eye while blinking excessively — “then you are cheaper than the fake Louis Vuitton bags in Divisoria!” he stood up quickly and scanned the females’ handbags. “Yoooouuuuu do not make kindat if you cannot afford it! Because when you make kindat, that means you can no longer live the carefree life of a dalaga!” I saw my fiancée’s nose bleed as she tried to comprehend the depth of that remark.
“Did you know that piniritong itlog (fried egg) can be a source of marital discord?” Manong Tigre added. Then my nose started to bleed as well. I did not know how piniritong itlog could be a cause for marital discord unless that piniritong itlog was mine. “If all you know what to cook is piniritong itlog then you already make kindat a man to marry you, then he will eventually get tired of eating your piniritong itlog. Before you know it, your husband will come home late at night reeking of beer and cheap perfume because of your limited domestic skills!” When those words spewed from his mouth, I was glad that my fiancée was restrained to her seat. We could not afford charges of physical assault days before the wedding. “So do not kindat a man unless you can cook something other than piniritong itlog. Or the man looks more gwapo than Richard Gomez.”
3. Mag-ingat sa diabetes (Watch out for diabetes, Or, as our counselor emphatically declared, “djabetees”). According to Mang Tigre, diabetes is a prevalent illness that we should avoid at all costs. My soon-to-be-wife and I had absolutely no clue what this had to do with our pre-marriage counseling session, but of course Manong Tigre had our utmost consent because we desperately needed our marriage license. And remember, you know that Manong Tigre would never lie and can never be wrong. Alam niyo na kung bakit (You know why by now).
4. Celebrating your wedding is kalokohan (nonsense). “In my 13 years as a Eucharistic Minster, I have not encountered any Bible readings that say a wedding should be magarbo and full of capricchio (caprices)!” Manong Tigre crossed himself. “Yooouuu try to spend as little money as possible on the wedding and use it for something more productive, like running for the chairmanship of your barangay.” He half-smiled. “Look at the very first wedding, the wedding of Adam and Eve. Adam did not have to wear a barong made of piña! Eve did not wear a P100,000 dress that she could only wear once in your life! That is madness, I tell you! Madnessss!!!” Manong Tigre clutched his chest and breathed deeply. “You know what they wore!? They just wore twigs and leaves! And because they didn’t have nice clothes to wear, they did not need to hire a photographer. You just believe me, dahil galit ako sa sinungaling.”
5. Celebrating a baptism is an even bigger kalokohan. “Yoooouuuu do not ask a jeepney-load of ninongs and ninangs to take part in your first child’s binyag (baptism). Just so that you can make yabang to your neighbors! Remember, galit ako sa mga mayayabang!” Manong Tigre shrilled. “Especially since all you will probably invite to be godparents will be the ‘lords’ — like the drug lords and jueteng lords! And I do not say this just because those lords did not make payag (agree) to become the godparents of my children. Hmph!” he tilted his head to the side and snorted. “Those people do not appreciate the value of morality. Why don’t you get more God-fearing people? Like our congressmen or our government executives?”
And before I could even make hirit (retort), Manong Tigre turned to me and flashed his incisors: “Yooouuuu shut your mouth, ha!! Or else you will be escorted out of here by the same PNP officers who escorted J-Lo from the airport.”
6. And birth control is the biggest kalokohan. “I do not give a damn what that Department of Health representative will tell you later this afternoon!” Manong Tigre was so furious he plucked at his unibrow. “Yooouuu break those IUDs, you turn those condoms into balloons, and you tell your yaya not to sleep between you at night when your wife is ovulating! You should have as many children as you want!! Masarap ang maraming anak! (It’s great to have a lot of kids!)” I turned to my wife and grinned. She turned to me and chewed off the tip off my nose. “It is not true that our country will suffer because the economy will not be able to support an exploding population. That is a lie being propagated by Western imperialist nations! I know that is a lie dahil galit ako sa sinungaling!!” he pumped his fist defiantly in the air. “Because in 20 years, the Filipino people will rule the world!! Hwehwehwehwehwe!” he laughed in his best Jessica Zafra impersonation.
Manong Tigre, the Catholic Church applauds you, the Western imperialist nations fear you and the Population Commission wants you. Silenced. Permanently.
And what is the most important lesson I learned that morning, aside from needing counseling from counseling? It is to take mildly hallucinogenic substances before entering the pre-marriage orientation session. You will thank me for it. At ‘di ako nagyayabang.
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