I am always asked where my hometown is. "Bataan". I'd say. "Oh so, are you carrying any of those lethal flipknives?" or worse " Bataan is in Mindanao, right?". There is a limit to my masochism and oftentimes when stupidity becomes visible from the outer space, I see myself snapping "Bataan is somewhere off the coast of Kiribati just a speedboat away from Tuvalu, It's a no-fly zone, and chances are, extraterrestials may suck you down deep into the abyss". It is often mistaken from Batangas (thus, the flipknives) and with regard to the allusion to Mindanao, its either they have been frozen for 2000 years or they are just plain dumbos. So, in order to avoid any more body counts, I just say "I am from somewhere up north." If they start pressing for specifics, I twist my head 180 degrees,stick my tongue out,barf inordinate amount of green thingy , and if there's a staircase in sight, I do the 'spider-walk" belly up. That never fails to discourage.When I am abroad, people, as if the mere mention of "Bataan" kicks a dormant synapses, allude to the Death March that happened when the likes of Barney were still roaming the earth singing in unison "I love you, You love me, We're a happy family.." while snacking on each other. I am often put in the spot of narrating a dissertations about the horrible event of 1942, but my knowledge is smidgen and pitiful. I always feel the impulse to grab a bayonet and just impale it upon my ribcage to end my moment of agony.
Bataan, is just a tiny, least-heard-about speck on the Philippine map. It is full of rice fields that never fail to switch on the "magtanim ay di biro, maghapong nakayuko" in your head. It is the soundtrack of Bataan. Once a friend from Manila visited, he asked if we could pull over and take a better view of the vast expanse of the rice paddies. I swear if I hadn't known him that well, I would have thought he was doing an impression of Judie Garland aka Maria, half expecting for the Von Trapp kids to materialize. He was enthusing about communing with nature like a maniac when he unwittingly stepped on a puddle of fresh carabao manure, the memory of Bataan wouldn't leave him that easily, it was literally stuck on his sole (soul? excuse the pun) , we continued traveling, windows rolled down to ventilate the car. I was busy talking my head off, he was busy snorting the car freshener, I was waiting for the thing to shoot up his nose but to my great disappointment, it never happened. I then told him that when I was younger, instead of snow (for very apparent reason, if the reason is still not apparent, come closer, I'll karate kick you senseless. ) , We would play around pelting horse and carabao manure at each other. It was pure, unadulterated fun until someone aimed that excrement at you mouth, the result was always atrocious. I was always the weakling and the 'pampered one' among the group of rowdy, rambunctious kids and I would always come home with a green organic mud pack smeared all over my face with an occasional string of undigested hay. I told my friend stepping on the dropping wont cause him to foam at the mouth and drop dead. Its just grass after all . He wouldnt buy it. Oh this pampered, pompous ass.
