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| Manila Diary by Rahul Singh |
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Was I the last Indian to have dined in Manila's Presidential Palace with the recently booted-out president of the Philippines, Joseph Estrada, while he was still president of his country? I believe so. And I will claim that dubious distinction, unless somebody else can come up with irrefutable evidence to the contrary. No, I was not served the famed $1,000 (close to Rs 50,000) a bottle "Chateau Petrus" wine, Estrada's favourite, of which, according to the International Herald Tribune, he imbibed six to 10 bottles in the course of a typical evening (that works out to a mind-boggling Rs 3 to 5 lakh of wine an evening). I was given what tasted very much like Vin Ordinaire, or French table wine, the cheapest that you can get, even cheaper than our own Indian Grover or Riviera wine. But who's complaining? It's not everyday that one gets to dine at one of the grandest presidential palaces in the world.
This was less than two months ago. I was part of a study tour of the Philippines, conducted by the Washington-based Population Institute (PI), an ngo that annually gives prizes to the media for excellence in reporting on population-related issues. I happen to be the chairperson of the PI's global media awards committee. The award-winners are given an all-expenses-paid study tour of a developing country that has done well in its family planning programme.
This time, the Philippines had been chosen and Estrada was honouring us journalists from various parts of the world by hosting a dinner and giving away the awards, one of whom, incidentally, was the International Herald Tribune, which had only a short while earlier published two devastating articles, highlighting the Philippine president's alleged corruption, wheeling and dealing and unbelievably flamboyant lifestyle. That lifestyle included the keeping of five mistresses in the grandest of opulence and the fathering of 11 children, all of them having names that begin with the letter "J". The beauty of it all was that Estrada was not in the least bit ashamed of his mistresses and illegitimate children. At first, his people loved him for his candour. But mistresses and having bastards is one thing, looting the exchequer and being drunk morning and evening, quite another.
Be that as it may, though we were only too pleased to have him as our chief guest, a lot of Filipinos must have been wondering why the president of a nation which is 85 per cent Roman Catholic and whose chief Cardinal—with the thunderously forbidding name of cardinal Jaime Sin—is virulently opposed to any kind of contraception, was gracing a ceremony celebrating the cause of family planning?
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I was seated on the same table as Estrada, along with three of his cabinet colleagues and Werner Fornos, president of PI. I exchanged small talk with Estrada. Though curious about his famed libido, I did not ask him whether, along with copious quantities of wine, he regularly imbibed a delicacy popularly called the Filippino Viagra—balut. This is a duck's egg that is incubated for 14 to 18 days. The embryo, which has formed by then, is then sucked out with a straw. Yuck!
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The Filipinos may have a great sense of humour, but one thing they do not laugh about is drugs. There are signs all over the place, warning the public that, not just trafficking in, but even possession of drugs, is a serious offence, punishable by the extreme penalty. "Death sentence for possession of 40 grams or more of opium, morphine, heroin and cocaine and for possession of 50 grams or more of marijuana resin," read one such sign. The Indian authorities, one of the most casual in the world concerning the drug menace, should take note. Execution used to be by the electric chair in the Philippines, following the practice in some American states, but has now been replaced by lethal injection. Rape, too, carries the death penalty, as does a crime loosely titled "plunder". Estrada is being charged with plundering millions of dollars while in office. So, technically, if he is found guilty of the charge, he could face execution by lethal injection. How about a law in India, providing the death penalty for politicians and officials found guilty of "plunder"?
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The official language of the Philippines is Filipino (though English is the language of government and higher education). It is, like the national language of Indonesia, written in the Roman script. But didn't you ever have a script of your own? I asked a Filipino professor. "Yes, it was Sanskrit," was his answer, which came as a surprise—at least for me. I was to see plenty of evidence of the Sanskrit impact. "Christo Hari" was emblazoned on many churches, meaning Christ is King (Hari being transformed into king). All-purpose stores are called "sari-sari", which, I would surmise, is a variation of "saarey", meaning "all" (as in "saarey jahan sey achcha"). And the Filipino word for soap? Sabon! Which, come to think of it, is roughly the same word used in Turkish, Spanish and French (savon). Talking of names and their origins, unlike us, the Filipinos have no silly colonial hang-ups. The name of the country itself is taken straight from their first colonisers, the Spaniards who ruled over them for over three centuries, before being replaced by the US. The Spanish ruler when the islands were conquered in the 16th century was King Philip. Hence, the Philippines.
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Sadly, Estrada's departure means an end to the countless Estrada jokes that were doing the rounds in the Philippines. They mostly centred around his somewhat limited powers of intelligence (he was a college dropout, before becoming a successful movie star). But, to his credit, Estrada, Sardarji-style, often retold the same jokes on himself to his friends. At least he could laugh at himself, even in the worst of times.
He goes up one notch for that, in my reckoning. A sampling. Why do Estrada's sneakers have 'tgif' written on them. The initials are to remind him that "toes go in first". At a cabinet meeting, Estrada was busy looking intently at a tin of orange juice. "What are you doing?" one of his curious ministers asked. In reply, Estrada pointed to the label on the tin, which read, "concentrate".
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