TV exposé dips into patis making

Is there anything left that’s clean to eat in this country?

A little more than a month ago, I wrote in this column about how dirty ice cream lived up to its name – dirty – as reported by a GMA 7 public affairs program and, a week earlier, by one of the Tulfo brothers in a Channel 13 show.

Then, last Tuesday, Cesar Apolinario came out with an exposé on the unsanitary conditions of patis making and this is so alarming because this dipping sauce is a staple on the Pinoy table and is a mainstay in all Filipino kitchens.

When I was still working as a magazine editor, I remember how our senior editor – a direct niece of the late Ramon Mitra – would soak her rice in patis. She always had this ceremony before meals: At 12 noon, she’d open her lunch box, reach out for the patis container and pour a generous amount of fish sauce into her rice. It didn’t matter what her viand was. It could be pork chop, fried chicken or beef steak. What was important to her was that every single grain of rice was bathing in patis.

What was odd was that this Mitra niece was raised in the United States and even spoke with a twang (not the annoying one though). But no, she didn’t like ketchup, mustard or horseradish. It was good old patis for her.

I myself have my own patis story. As a child, whenever I didn’t like the viand, I would just eat rice with patis and I was happy. There was even a time in the middle of the night when I had a craving for rice and patis and when I found out that we had run out of it, my mother had to holler over to the next-door neighbor to borrow a cup of the fish sauce.

But I’ve long given up that habit. I don’t even take patis now – not for sinigang and not even for nilaga, which actually tastes bland without the patis.

Oh, but I still crave for patis, except that I know that too much salt is bad for the health. My blood pressure is normal as a result of that and I intend to keep it that way.

Even bagoong, I’ve given up – not for dipping green mangoes and not even for kare-kare (which I can eat even without rice).

I don’t take bagoong for the same reason I don’t take patis: too salty. And then, there’s this other reason that a lot of you probably already know. I hope I’m wrong, but I keep hearing how unsanitary they manufacture bagoong – worse than patis, I was told.

Many years ago, I kept hearing old folks talk about how the chemicals used in curling hair are supposedly mixed into the bagoong to give it an appetizing purplish appearance. I don’t think that was ever proven.

With regard to patis, I already had suspicions about how it can’t be all that sanitary when they manufacture it. That Reporter’s Notebook exposé confirmed it all. Most of our patis factories look like public toilets (actually, worse, because public toilets at least have tiles) and are cockroach-infested.

To be fair about it, GMA 7 reporter Cesar Apolinario also featured patis factories that are supposedly hygienic – although after seeing these on TV, you still can’t tempt me to dip my beef sinigang into the patis those little establishments make because the equipment I saw that they use still don’t look all that clean to me. Maybe they should have featured the factory of a patis brand that is really popular and is top of the line. Or did they already? (The labels on the bottles were all blurred when they showed it on TV.)

With all these exposés on the unsanitary handling of food sold to the public, the Bureau of Food and Drugs (BFAD) should really swoop down on these little backyard factories that sell dirty ice cream, patis, bagoong, etc.

But what am I talking about? Those little industries aren’t the only problem. A friend who used to work for a popular bakeshop already ranted on how dirty the kitchens are in all the branches.

And so now more than ever, it is important to say grace before every meal, not only to thank the good Lord for the blessing, but also to pray that the food we are about to eat is clean and safe. Amen.