No chorizos in Bilbao

BILBAO, Euskadi (The Basque Country) – Some years ago, this writer made a profound discovery on an earlier trip to Spain. I told friends in Madrid and Barcelona that it was my ambition to go to Bilbao, because I had been brought up on chorizos de Bilbao. They laughed merrily at my ignorance, and ribbed me endlessly on my stupidity. Chorizos (sausages) in Bilbao? They chortled. What a joke.

It has been a tradition among Filipino middle-class families to expect two Christmas treats with unfailing regularity. Aside from puto bungbong, bibingka and other native goodies, we always had chorizos, those sweet-salty sausages reputed to come from Bilbao, plus queso de bola, that round ball of Dutch edam cheese. The queso was an expected dish, since the Netherlands or Pays-Bas had long ago been a Spanish colony.

All for Bilbao, I’ve no idea how that tag got pinned on those wonderful chorizos. For the Basques eat fish. For generations, the Basques have been among the best deep-sea fishermen and fish is their main dish, along with the usual calamares and other "fruits" of the sea.

Determined to dispel my doubts once and for all, with my wife Precious (who had flown from Paris and her UNESCO duties to join me), and escorted by Ms. Elena Lorenzo of Spain’s Fundacion Carolina, I flew down here yesterday to establish the awful truth.

Bilbao, with its population of one million (300,000 in the inner city) is not the most beautiful of cities. Its charm lies in its people, who are perhaps Europe’s oldest race. No, as they boisterously declare, they are not Spanish, but only stuck inside Spain. Anthropologists agree, theorizing they could be descended from Cro-Magnon people who inhabited the Pyrenees mountains 40,000 years ago.

Isolated in their mountain valleys, the Basques or Vascos managed to preserve their unique, almost unpronounceable language (full of x’s and almost Aztec consonants), their myths and arts.

The Basques hated the late El Caudillo Generalissimo Francisco Franco for, in his lifetime, suppressing their fueros or ancient Basque laws and rights, not to mention their language and culture. Yet, since the arrival of freedom and "autonomy" in 1975, have the Basques become peaceful and happy? Although a Basque "nationalist" Alcalde is mayor in Bilbao, there is still a strong, incredibly cruel Basque terrorist movement, ETA, which blows up people and buildings, with even more efficiency and determination than the Jemaah Islamiyah, and – with the exception of the Twin Towers-Pentagon 9/11 outrage – more dispatch and efficiency than al-Qaeda.

Decades ago, ETA even blew up a Spanish Prime Minister. The ill-fated leader, a retired Admiral, had been doomed by his piety. He would regularly go to Mass, and his bullet-proof armored limousine would park in the same reserved spot. The ETA "experts" secretly planted a ton of explosives underneath that parking space – and when the poor victim’s vehicle and his convoy of escorts arrived, they detonated the lot. The unfortunate Carrera-Blanco (hope I spelled his name right, for I’m dredging it up from my faulty memory bank) was blown, mangled car and all, to the top of an adjoining building, with his bodyguards in bloody pieces as well.

Indeed, when I got to Bilbao yesterday – a one-hour flight from Madrid – it looked completely normal, with everyone going about his workaday tasks, and, in the late afternoon, as they say la tarde, the bars, pubs, and coffee shops are full of relatively cheerful people. Yet there is a wariness about. Every journalist, politician, or official I met on this short visit seemed to have one or more bodyguards. They were well-suited, cleancut "heavies", but being an Ilocano from the old warlord era, I could sniff out their profession in a minute. Each time one of them politely opened my car door, I was careful to express an appreciative "thank you".

* * *

After visiting the offices of El Correo and the ABC group for a no-holds-barred session, I had lunch in a delicious restaurant (Basque cuisine is legendary), where I opted for bacalao (they cook it in a creamy sauce).

My hosts were a former candidate for mayor from the Partido Popular who had lost by a scant 60,000 votes since the ETA terrorists had allegedly backed his "nationalist" party rival – that bunch wants full, complete and cut-away independence from Spain. (Sounds like our own Moro radicals.)

The luncheon – in Spain this takes place between 2:30 and 3 p.m. – had been set in order to give me the opportunity to discuss the Basque problem with one of the most courageous and witty journalists I’ve met in my travels. Iñaki Ezkerra – poet, novelist and newspaper columnist – lives constantly under threat. He received the Premio Pio Baroja in 1983 for his novel El Zumbibo and the Premio de Periodismo El Correo 2000 for his Carta a una victima de ETA (Story of a Victim of the ETA), which had been published in the newspaper La Razon.

Iñaki noticed that at an adjoining table was a man he had attacked in his column only the previous day as being in league with the terrorists. That’s the downside of being an outspoken journalist, he shrugged. "Never fear," I quipped. "It happens to me, too." At Malacañang dinners – which this writer less frequently attends these days – I said, I would find myself seated beside a Cabinet member I had raked over the coals only that morning.

In the Basque country, though, it seems reactions tend to be more lethal, so it’s no joke.

One of Mr. Ezkerra’s themes is why the Catholic bi-shops and Church are supporting the ETA terrorists. Would you believe? To bolster this idea, Iñaki sent a copy of his book ETA pro Nobis, a play on Ora pro nobis, to my hotel. It was subtitled, El pecado original de la Iglesia Vasca (The Original Sin of the Basque Church).

In my country, I told Iñaki, the Church often does the same thing, too. Look at our Catholic bishops! Susmariosep. It’s enough, sometimes, to drive a man to apostasy, or, worse, Protestantism and the "Born Again" movement. That Pro Nobis book, when I scanned it, was both incendiary and written in a quiet rage – and rang so true. He also gifted me with two other books, exposing the totalitarian nature – a curious blend of Fascism and Marxism – of ETA. Already in its second printing was his bestseller, Sabino Arana o la Sentimentalidad Totalitaria. A third volume was slugged: Estado de Excepcion. Subtitle: Vivir con Miedo en Euskadi. They require no translation.

There are, indeed, no chorizos in Bilbao. Guess they got that tag because during the old Spanish times, chorizos were shipped from the huge port of that city to Manila. The only chorizos they have, my Basque acquaintances laughed, were of a different nature. In Bilbao, a nickname for a thief is chorizo. That, one of my luncheon hosts chuckled, "we have plenty of." Not to be outdone, I replied that there are a lot of chorizos in Manila, too – including plenty in government.

* * *

I’m booked in a very comfortable, modern hotel with an unpronounceable name, "Hotel IndautxU", which, I’m informed, is situated in a very upmarket neighborhood of that name.

Basque names, however, should not be unfamiliar to us. Many of the "old families" of Spanish lineage in Manila and the rest of our archipelago are Basque. Thus we are replete with Echuteguis, Eizmendis, Echevarrias, Aboitizes –you name it. The Basques went with so many expeditions of the Conquistadores that they became ubiquitous in the colonies, in tandem with the Galicians or Gallegos. To seek fortune, if not fame, overseas was the Vasco pastime among young men and erstwhile ruffians. They were with Cortes in Mexico, Pizarro in Peru, and Legaspi in Manila.

They are also pelotaris. Yep, how could Jai Alai in Manila have become so popular without "imported" Basque pelotaris? Here, they even have clubs featuring pelotaris a mano who play the ball with their bare hands, without a wicket.

And, aha! Not chorizos but the Jesuits came from Bilbao – or nearby. There is an interesting "Pedro Arrupe Footbridge" spanning the river to link the Abandoibarra district to the right bank where the historic University of Deusto is located. You’re correct, it is a Jesuit university. The footbridge is fashioned of duplex steel, a material used for the first time in the world for such a structure. (140 million euros of investment have been poured in to create new industrial and business estates – but terrorism still keeps investors away.) Does the name of the man honored by the footbridge ring a bell? The late Father Pedro Arrupe was for many years the Father-General of the worldwide Jesuit Order, which used to characterize itself as the "light cavalry of the Church" (a name invented by the late, revered, Father Horacio de la Costa, S.J.) Arrupe was so close to the Popes in the Vatican that he – in keeping with the black sotana or cassock he always wore – was named "The Black Pope". Were there other implications more sinister?

In any event, the present Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, abhors the Jesuits, and always favors the Opus Dei and hence, the canonization of its founder, the now St. Josemaria Escriba. Arrupe is honored only with a footbridge in his home country.

Euskadi, the Basque country and Bizkaia ought to be dear to us, in a land where many of our greats like Jose Rizal, Antonio Luna, M. H. del Pilar, Gregorio del Pilar, etc. were inspired by Jesuit training in the old Ateneo de Manila. The Jesuits have, in their way, always been troublemakers. How typically Basque! (The Jesuits promoted Liberation Theology, and a Jesuit was one of the first Cabinet ministers of Nicaragua’s leftist Sandinistas.)

Not far from Bilbao is the Sanctuario de Loila (Loyola). St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, was born in the 1490s in the Santa Casa (holy house), a stone house near Aspeitia. In Rome, the former soldier, famed in combat, founded the Society of Jesus. Since that day in 1539, the Order has grown to more than 24,000 Jesuits working mostly in education in 110 countries.

"Give us your child before he is seven," said one old Jesuit centuries ago, "and he will be ours forever."

One of their proud products is Fidel Castro of Cuba. When he learned I had gone to the Ateneo, a Jesuit school, he had exclaimed: "Hermano, soy Jesuita tambien!" It turns out that he had grown up in Jesuit schools, the Colegio Dolores and the Colegio Belen in Santiago de Cuba! As the twig is bent, so is the tree inclined, our Jesuit professors used to teach us.

Sus, here we are at the conclusion of this column on Bilbao – and I haven’t even mentioned the Guggenheim Museum. Why did they build it in Bilbao? We must leave a few queries for another day.