Pissing in public: On choppers, on each other, and on our country

Beware the candid camera!

Since our editors published that "action" photo on the front page of yesterday’s STAR, this publisher (yeah, yours truly) has been the butt of unsolicited comment, ranging from enthusiastic congrats to grumbles of "kayo naman, why are you publishing embarrassing things like that?" and so forth.

From my neighborhood McDo, to my kaffee klatsch at the Club Filipino verandah, to my associates in the Tuesday Club in the EDSA Plaza Shangri-La (not to mention an early-morning caller), that snapshot of a Philippine Air Force "airman" taking a leak behind his helicopter after it landed at Camp Hernandez in Dingle, Iloilo, has been the subject of jokes, sociological debate, "nationalistic" reprimand, and caustic commentary.

Sus, I was forced to reply: "Our naughty editors were right to have exposed our continuing tendency to expose ourselves in public – namely, by urinating on the public domain." Of course, it’s an embarrassing trait. But that’s, alas, what we Pinoys do, probably (at least, it’s a credible and convenient excuse) for lack of public toilets. I instantly deny that we at The STAR are persecuting the PAF, even if you recall that earlier photograph, also on page one, of an Air Force general being carried ashore from a motorized banca on the tired-looking shoulders of a boatman, lest he get his boots wet, while an American master sergeant splashed through the water behind him.

It’s not our fault that a cameraman with a sharp eye and fast reflexes recorded the piggy-back scene, and still another lensman, later, the peeing incident, for posterity. (The next time one of our soldiers or officers does one or the other or those two things he’d better cautiously look around. The one lying in ambush may not be just an Abu Sayyaf or Moro Islamic Liberation Front sniper, or a New People’s Army rebel, but, much worse, a sneaky news photographer!)

I’ll have to say, alas, that almost everywhere one goes, there’s bound to be some guy taking a pee.

Only last Sunday, while we were driving along the roadway that borders the Country Club golf course in Baguio, we noticed a man doing the tell-tale things – he was furtively looking to right and left, obviously checking how many vehicles were coming by. My companion exclaimed: "Look at that fellow. He’s going to take a pee!" As our van passed by, we curiously swiveled our heads about to see what he was going to do. Sure enough, as soon as he thought no one was observing him, the guy turned to the fence, unzipped, and merrily started shooting away. At least he tried to do his thing . . . well, semi-discreetly. Remember the bus driver on EDSA who stopped his vehicle in the middle of traffic (near the Ayala avenue intersection in Makati), cheekily got down in full view of blocked motorists and affronted passengers, and started pissing on the right front tire of his own vehicle? Was that a case of "emergency" or exhibitionism?

Sad to say, we Filipinos not only believe in "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". And, in our macho-land, the happiness of pursuit. There’s a fifth freedom: The right to piss everywhere one pleases. On helicopters, at the side of the wall, on each other – and, too frequently, on our own country.

* * *

The necessity to take a pee, I’ll have to remark in our defense (although I fervently hope we’ll someday have enough public toilets in places to curb the practice) is universal. Some years ago, there was a bestselling and practical handbook for tourists which I picked up in the Le Drugstore, one of the popular chemists and retail outlets along the Champs Elysées, which proved invaluable. If I recall right, it was entitled: The Porcelain Guide to the Most Convenient Loos in Paris and London. Whenever one suddenly felt the urge particularly on a very cold day, all he had to do was flip through the pages to locate the nearest available toilet, even the one halfway up the Eiffel Tower. (Or, when in London, in the Elephant and Castle district, or not far from Tower Bridge, or in the vicinity of Big Ben and Westminster Cathedral.)

What was great about the "Porcelain Guide" was that the last six pages were blank. On the corner of each of the blank pages were bi-lingual instructions in English and French: "For Emergency Use" or "Pour les circonstances critiques."

Do you critics think pissing in public is a uniquely deplorable Pinoy trait? I’m no voyeur, but I’ve seen it being done in Jakarta, on Broadway, in New York (before Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s "clean-up" frenzy, you could still enjoy the aroma of a generation of bar-flies who relieved themselves along Times Square), in Moscow, in Budapest, in Milan, and in Rio de Janeiro. Why, even in Ballarat, the old mining town in Australia, there was some Ocker helping moisten the desert environment.

When this writer first arrived in Paris in the 1960s, there were still warning signs posted around the National Assembly building growling: "Defense d’uriner." (That’s specific enough not to require translation.) The French, however, were pragmatic. Everywhere there used to be sidewalk toilets, which Parisians wryly dubbed "Vespasians", in "honor" of the Roman Emperor Vespasian (Imperator Caesar Vespasianus Augustus), 69-79, the ruler who had imposed a tax on toilets. The story goes that when Vespasian’s son and successor, Titus, complained that it was going too far to tax even something as rudimentary as toilets, the Emperor, his dad, had replied: "Money has no smell!"

Vespasian, by the way, had been the Emperor who "captured" Jerusalem and whose legion had crushed the last fortress of the Jewish zealots, "Masada" (in the year 74), to end what had been called the "Jewish War."

Indeed, I miss those old Vespasians on the Parisian sidewalks. They were, of course, a bit of an eyesore, but you could nip into them on a winter day without having to deal with the haughty toilet wardens, male or female, whose palms you had to cross with silver before you were permitted to use a hotel or high-class restaurant "facility." Nowadays, there are streamlined booths along some sidewalks in Paris, where you can put a coin in and while doing it, enjoy classical music. Nonetheless, I still miss those Vespasians.

Coming back to yesterday’s helicopter peeing incident, my advice to our PAF men is: The next time, go over to the rice field nearby, not misuse government property. And be wary of ambush – by photographers.

Even the US Green Berets in Basilan and the US servicemen in Zamboanga have fallen prey to our merciless cameramen. One would think that, instead of training our soldiers or hunting the Abus, the Yanks were only playing basketball, taking a bath, being ogled by local lasses, etc. Such photos might give "war" a bad name, and trivialize Commander-in-Chief George W. Bush’s confrontation of "global terrorism" into just a photo opportunity. Or perhaps the Americans are simply trying to lull the Abus, or the MILF, or the MNLF, into a false sense of security. Then (at least we hope so) they’ll pounce.

What about the "slay plot" against the US servicemen? If the rebels didn’t have such an intent, I must say, they’d be a disappointing bunch of wimps, indeed.

* * *

Don’t tell me that Director Robert Mueller of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) came all the way here on his government "Gulfstream" jet just to remind President GMA last Monday that the FBI and the US government want "fugitive" (now congressman, so what’s the difference?) Mark Jimenez "extradited" to the USA.

For the rest of his message is mystifying. Did Mueller come to assure our National Security Adviser Roilo "Roy" Golez that there are no al-Qaeda cells operating in the Philippines? What have we been doing then? Arresting "innocent" suspects? FBI directors must be careful about what they say, and not tiptoe around using ambivalent language. Everybody knows that old Osama, "bomber" Ramzi Yousef, Khalifa, and now al-Ghoza and company have been cavorting around here, even trying to blow up a Tokyo-bound PAL jet years ago (unsuccessfully), but successfully blasting an LRT train, a passenger bus, a mall, etc., with 22 people dead and dozens wounded.

No wonder the FBI and the US security agencies were caught napping when those terrorists hijacked four American passenger jets, and smashed three of them into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon on 9-11 six months ago. The fourth, thankfully, was apparently wrestled out of the control of the hijack-suicide attackers by heroic passengers – and crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, not into the White House, or FBI headquarters, possibly, in Washington, DC.

I can't fathom at least from what was placed on public record, how the FBI director’s day-and-a-half stopover could have been useful.

But, again, they don’t tell us busybodies in the media everything. So, I trust, there was a great deal more substantial the travelling FBI chief shared with our President and Golez.

* * *

There’s nothing much that was accomplished, in my estimation, by the barnstorming of 10 Arab countries by US Vice President Dick Cheney, unless it was to hear directly from Arab leaders that they wouldn’t support or even countenance any American "strike" against Iraq. Mr. Cheney might just as well have stayed home, because a recent Gallup poll in those very countries (Saudi Arabia and Jordan had said, "no comment") had already established that.

What happened to Cheney is that he got barraged, instead, by Arab leaders, who virtually insisted that the US pressure Israel to cease and desist in its retaliatory attacks on Palestinians, recognize a Palestinian state, and "give back" the territories the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) captured and kept in the 1967 "six-day" war.

In short, Cheney’s pilgrimage could be described either as timely or ill-timed, depending on one’s perspective. He was forced to put the arm on Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to withdraw his IDF and strive to negotiate some kind of "peace" with the Palestinians.

* * *

In truth, Sharon’s bellicose blundering has outraged world opinion, and brought the embattled Israelis to this sad impasse. What they did in battering the Palestinians, and in humiliating the Palestinian Authority’s leader, Yasser Arafat, was wrong. Yet, with so many suicide-bombings, mortar assaults, and incessant sniper attacks by mujahideen and al-Aqsa brigade gunmen, one can also see why the Israelis were angered and stung into desperate retaliation.

I have, in my writings, always sympathized with the harassed and downtrodden Palestinians, but there’s another side to the coin. The five million Israelis know, deep down, that the Palestinians and other Arabs won’t be appeased even if they somehow "get back" the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and every single inch of territory taken by the Jews in 1967. They won’t rest, I kid thee not, until they’ve pushed the Israeli "invaders" and "occupiers" into the sea, and eradicated the State of Israel. In eight reportorial trips to the Middle East, between the mid-60s and 1996, including the "Black September" war in 1970. That’s the only conclusion I can draw. Arab promises and pledges, even among themselves, are too often written in the shifting sand.

As for the United States, the Americans will always be considered "the enemy" in the Muslim world. There’s no way that attitude can be changed. It’s simply the way it is. And this is not just because the Arabs and other Muslims regard the US as a major sponsor and backer of Israel (which is a fact), but because the USA stands for everything "devout" Muslims detest, but, at the same time, covet.

Just look at the terrible grenade attack last Sunday on a Protestant "Christian" church in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. The church was believed "safely" inside the well-guarded diplomatic enclave of the Pakistani capital, yet Islamic terrorists barged into it and hurled in five or more grenades, killing five people, including the wife of a US diplomat, her teen-age daughter, an Afghan and a Pakistani, both Christians. It’s not a Christian "war" against Muslim, sad to say, but a Muslim war against Christians – and, of course, Jews.

Osama bin Laden used to call it, a battle versus "Jews and Crusaders." How quaintly put, but how deadly!