The magic mountain

Why climb Mt. Everest, ask the couch potatoes who prefer a quiet read at home. Because ‘it’s there’ answer those who prefer the challenge of climbing a mountain. Wherever you stand, the point is it has been done and to all our credit by a Filipino, aptly called Oracion, which means prayer. Everyone should be happy at the symbolism of a Filipino making it to the top. In making a name for himself he brings up the country with him.

I have a more romantic notion of Oracion’s triumph. I admire the sheer grit which enabled this intrepid Filipino to climb the Everest but it offers many lessons and interpretations. It reminds me about another mountain: Thomas Mann’s ‘The Magic Mountain’. Mann conceived it as a magic place where the main character, Hans Castrop leaves the daily cares of life to spend time in a sanatorium which was located atop a mountain. Castrop went there to see his tubercular cousin, Joachim Ziemssen. Interestingly, the sanatorium Mann writes about is located in the mountain town of Davos , Switzerland which ironically has become a place to be, a resort where the rich, famous and powerful of the world meet every year.

Oracion, like Hans Castrop, temporarily broke away from ordinary life in his quest to reach the top of the Everest which he said he would dedicate to his country so others will look up to Filipinos – they can climb mountains even the highest of them. It must have been a lonely struggle and the cost of failure personally incalculable. Like Castrop he was out of touch with life as he knew it down below. He was on his own, doing the best he can. While Hans was in the sanatorium, life becomes more and more real to him, forgetting the life he left behind. That was the source of magic in the mountain. He was transported to this magical place where he soon becomes embroiled in intellectual discourse with the other patients. Thomas Mann used the rarified atmosphere of a mountain sanatorium to enable him to wrestle with the problems afflicting Europe of the day.

So we find Hans and the other patients discussing topics like human nature, European history and politics, and significantly questions on life and death. To Mann "what Hans came to understand in a sanatorium in the magic mountain is that one must go through the deep experience of sickness and death to arrive at a higher sanity and health." Mann uses the mountain sanatorium and its patients to confront his own spiritual quest on how he fitted in the complex web of philosophical, political and metaphysical contradictions and conflicts. These were what led to the wars of the 20th century. So he closes the novel with the outbreak of the war which to Mann symbolized the end of the past and the beginning of modern times.

The same metaphor can be made of Oracion’s climb and his wish to succeed on behalf of his people. Filipinos attempt the climb just as the nation goes through a wrenching debate on whether it should shift its political path through Charter change. It is a momentous period for us. Leo Oracion and his team can be said to be doing the same thing – going through hardship, facing risks to life to put Filipinos on the world map as hardy survivors. Mann’s Magic Mountain is a good allegory for the Filipinos who climbed Mount Everest, sometimes described as the roof of the world.

"This is a big accomplishment for a country at sea level," one of Oracion’s companions said. Filipinos are not used to mountain climbing, not especially one with harsh weather conditions. "It’s like putting a Filipino on the moon," he adds. I agree with him. The symbolism of Filipinos trying their best, their very best to ‘show the world’ what they are made of, is a quest in the spirit of Mann. The first successful climbers of Mount Everest were New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa.

But there is another twist to this story of a grand adventure. We learn or at least I was surprised to know there is a Filipino community living at its foot. It shows just how far and wide Filipinos have traveled around the world. How did they come to reach Nepal? Just as Filipinos live in an environment that is not conducive to developing the skills of mountain climbing in alpine conditions, so too, about Filipinos migrating and living in Nepal.

Both the climbers and the Filipino community who sheltered them were out of the ordinary. According to Alice who is one of them, about 100 Filipinos, mostly scholars and missionaries, currently live in Nepal. She said those permanently staying there and those who had married locals numbered only 20 – "and we all decided to be the extended family of our climbers." Filipinos are now among what lovers of the Everest call the magic people. To them the real magic of the Everest are the people who live around it. Today three ethnic types constitute the Himalayan population: Negroids, Mongoloids and Aryans. As for the small community of Filipinos it just shows how they have thrived anywhere and why they deserve to be called "world people". In a way they are at home in Nepal because it has always embraced migrants responding to the call of the highest mountains in the world. Adobo and mongo in Nepal after an arduous climb of the magic Mr. Everest? That completes the metaphor.

* * *

Not a few were saddened by Sen. Aquilino Pimentel’s carping against Speaker JDV’s award for the visiting Equatorial Guinea President. Has Pimentel become so bitter and trivial? I hope not. There was a time when the good senator was a model figure to be looked up to especially his role in the struggle against Marcos. Has he descended in his old age that he is willing to throw away all that he has earned as a freedom fighter?

No matter what it is called, the fact is the Congressional Awards of Achievement have won for the country many friends. Their visits to the Philippines have become memorable because of these awards. It is good to recall that even France’s highest award the Legion of Honor instituted by Napoleon Bonaparte was also once criticized and described as mere ‘trinkets’ by his critics. Napoleon struck back and said, "they may be trinkets but it is how I rule this country." He understood human nature and how it brought self-esteem to its recipients. The medal of honor promotes good deeds.

So what if the resolution creating the medals came only from the House and referred to as Congressional Medal of Merit. Congress has been used idiomatically as the Lower House anyway. But to go back to the award for President Obiang, here’s what he was awarded for: "On coming to power, he released all political prisoners, reopened all the churches, ordered the immediate restitution of private property the regime had confiscated, and had the democratic constitution written. The World Bank had praised his administration of his country’s resources, as well as his re-investment in the country of the proceeds of its natural wealth. Pimentel missed a golden opportunity to add his voice in praise of Obiang who promised substantial oil, a refinery, trade opportunities between the two countries and jobs for thousands of Filipinos. That should not need a ‘permit’ from the Senate. Maybe, the Senate can create its own awards to stop Pimentel from carping.

* * *

My e-mail is [email protected]