The faking game

The other day I was reading the script of Minî, the original Cebuano zarzuela by the late Buenaventura Rodriguez. This was about my tenth time reading it and, still, there were new insights that occurred to me about the play. The story is marvelous, undoubtedly the work of a genius.

The Arts Council of Cebu is staging the musical at the SM City-Cebu Cinema 1, on October 1 and 2, and I’ve been asked to help. I continually scrutinize the script, ever so careful that nothing is overlooked. It would be such a disappointment to not fully capture the entire breadth of the masterpiece.

Halfway through my reading, there was knocking on my door. A neighbor wanted to sell me a pair of rubber shoes. Name brand, not yet been taken out of its box, very cheap price – really tempting.

The price was only about one-third or one-fourth of how much those shoes would cost at the local stores. My neighbor had just returned from Hong Kong, with a lot of attractive yet inexpensive merchandise for sale. Fakes, of course.

As we know, fake items sell quickly. Those with stringent budgets grab them at the first chance. And why not? These products are much cheaper and are often as good as the real ones. Best deal for anyone with outward image that needs glossing up and a tight pocket to squeeze.

Fakes have become a casual reality of life. They’re one of the many perversions we’ve come to embrace. We know that fake merchandise is not what it claims to be but we go for it anyway.

Our natural tendency, however, is to shun fakes. We look down on people we catch wearing fake signature apparel or fake jewelry. We ourselves would go only for genuine items, if only we could afford them.

This innate repulsion to fakes extends further in the way we view people. We dislike people who smile at us but curse us behind our backs. We hate anyone who pretends to be somebody he is not.

The ironic thing is, this behavior we hate in others we also find in ourselves. We intentionally fake ourselves sometimes. Especially when it’s either the easiest or the only way to get what we want. We kiss and hug people we abhor when we think it’s to our disadvantage to openly antagonize them.

And yet there are those among us who are fakes without intending to be or without even knowing it. There are those that are made fake by their life conditions. Some people become phonies out of great need and difficulty, others amid utmost ease and comfort.

This brings us back to the play Minî. The story is about a young man who inherits a fortune from his deceased parents. From the very start his life is devoid of any hardship, and yet this very advantage soon tends to ruin him.

Don Felix Gomez, the play’s lead character, is drowning in wealth and luxury. His life is like a dream; nothing seems real. He sees no value in everything, and feels worthless himself. The great favors that fill his life have rendered him empty.

Hence, the title Minî, which is Cebuano for “fake” or “counterfeit”.

The story ends happily. But only after Don Felix has managed to make the difficult shift from a selfish existence to a selfless life. His quest brings him self-worth, true love, and, thus, real joy.

Rodriguez wrote the play in the early part of the last century. And yet the situations depicted in it are quite familiar in this present day and age. Several characters in the play deliberately fake themselves in trying to woo certain favors. The faking game, it seems, is an age-old human tradition. 

It’s interesting how illumination sometimes strikes so unexpectedly, prompted by the most ordinary day-to-day happenings. The fake rubber shoes and the fake man in Minî connect perfectly in my mind that day, making me see the many possible ways by which I myself may be participating in the faking game of life. To tell the truth, had I not bought a new pair the week before, I would have taken those shoes offered by my neighbor.

Think of the many words we say to one another and how only very few of those we really mean. The popular penchant for being nice and polite that has made us experts in camouflaging our true feelings. The way society honors crooks and criminals simply because they have money or power.

We are all fakes, in our own different ways, at one time or another, for our own reasons. But while this may be our present reality, it is our challenge too. We must constantly think of the circumstances that egg us do it and know that, nevertheless, all this faking has got to end one day, starting with ourselves individually.

One day we may finally have the right conditions for taking the stand to clear our lives of all the fakes there are — the fakes we welcome, the fakes we tolerate, the fakes we are forced to take, the fakes we ourselves create, and the fakes we have become.

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