Yes, I know that every day has been uncomfortably so. But it’s definitely worse today. I tug at the mess I call my hair, slick with sweat, and decide to hijack every electric fan at the house.
By the time I had two electric fans, one in each hand, my mom calls my attention - she had a newspaper and a steaming cup of coffee in hers - and tells me to go head to the barbershop before it becomes too hot outside.
I check the clock: 12:02 pm. The sun has long pounded on the hard concrete, basically transforming them into burning charcoal. It wasn’t a pretty prospect.
But not unlike elementary school where the regulation haircut is part and parcel of the code of conduct, keeping one’s locks in check remains a prime directive. It is for that reason that I found myself pedaling my old, beat-up bike towards the nearby subdivision at 12 o clock in the afternoon.
Haircuts, Manny Pacquiao and Rocky Balboa
After 15 minutes of biking underneath the now-cancerous rays of the sun, I arrived at Roland’s barbershop. Set between a butcher’s shop and a burger joint, Roland’s has been my go-to for haircuts for almost a decade.
His shop looked nothing out of the ordinary for a barbershop: two barber’s chairs, a long, rectangular mirror and a desk containing enough scissors and blades to make Freddy Krueger giggle with delight. Lest I forget, there are the standard FHM posters and calendars plastered on walls featuring scantily clad women that everyone in the shop take turns looking at like an unspoken contract.
As I lay down my bike in front of the dingy shop, Roland calls me in and bids me to sit on one of the open chairs. It was a slow day, as the middle of the month isn’t peak season for barbers. I settled into my fugue state reserved for haircuts, boring class lectures and listening to Mike Enriquez over the radio at ten in the morning.
“Alam mo p’re, napanuod ko kanina yung Rocky. Ang lupit,” said one of the regulars, engrossed in a chess match with one of the other barbershop tambays. He was playing the white pieces, and his king was currently exposed with only a couple of pawns to keep it company. The end was nigh for thy royalty - probably what triggered this sudden verbal expression.
“Ayos diba? Idol ko yun. Lupit ng katawan ni Sylvester Stallone dun. Batak, parang si Pacquiao,” said Roland.
“Sino kaya mananalo dun,” said another fellow, smugly taking the white king off of play. “Checkmate, brad. Atsaka feeling ko si Rocky. Mas matangkad yun. Mas mahaba yung abot.”
“Pacquiao pa din. Madami nang nakalaban yun na mas matangkad sakanya, dinadaan lang sa bilis,” said Whitey, named for the chess pieces he played.
This particular debate went on for several more minutes. All the while my head resembling more and more a rather steamy siopao, for the shop only had one electric fan, and it was broken.
“Si Rocky mas mabilis gumalaw, p’re. Mas kaya niyang tumakbo. Puro yun ginawa niya sa pelikula. Hindi tulad ni Pacquiao, puro takbo sa pulitika nalang ang inaatupag,” said Roland, to everyone’s laughter.
As the last few snips chopped off what remained of my uneven hair, Whitey and Blacky chimed in on why Pacquiao have not won any of his recent matches: him losing himself completely in Duterte’s politics, his convoluted stances on religion and LGBT rights, and his race to build political capital.
In this manner, Pacquiao can learn a lot from what happened with Rocky. The first Rocky movie was good - it was an inspiring story of a boxer fighting for the underdog with his own sweat and blood. It stands today as one of the greatest boxing movies in history.
But the rest? The five sequels that had the misfortune of being produced? Utter crap. Convoluted plots, poorly written characters, ridiculous dialogue served as the perfect recipe to ruin a perfectly good movie.
From hometown hero to hated politician, the parallel runs deep in Pacquiao’s narrative. He should have learned to take the hint: quit while you’re ahead.
Shaving, Duterte and Marawi
With my hair all butchered, Roland eased my head backwards for the shave - the final part of this monthly ritual. He pulled from his cabinet a bottle of shaving cream and a box of blades that put the fear of god in me. See I’ve never been a fan of blades, blood and gore, especially during my high school days when having watched the movies Saw and Final Destination marked your journey into “manhood.”
Snapping out of that particular trip down memory lane, the shop’s old, dusty radio piped up, delivering a news report in that perennial radio voice we’ve all come to hate - most likely one of the numerous Mike Enriquez clones clogging the AM airwaves. The news report was on Marawi and its liberation from the Maute fighters.
“Alam mo, pasalamat talaga kay Duterte patay na yang mga terorista na yan,” exclaimed Roland, with that patriotic fervor you only see in war movies where the good guys kick Nazi butt. “At dun sa drug war, ngayon wala nang drug addict sa subdivision. Buti nalang talaga binoto ko siya.”
I had a dilemma on my hands. On one hand, there were some corrections to be made about Duterte’s so-called “success” in Marawi. On the other, Roland had something extremely sharp gliding across my neck. I was - quite literally - on a razor’s edge.
As my budding double chin quivered in fear and indecision, I blurted out: “Paano po ang mga taga-Marawi? Yung mga binomba ang tirahan at nadamay sa crossfire na tinatawag nating collateral damage?”
The silence was deafening. I felt blood on my throat as Roland’s razor slipped. It was a small scratch, but it was all I needed.
“Hindi po mesiyas si Duterte.”
Marawi is in such a state of destruction that who knows when they’ll ever get some semblance of normalcy. Yolanda happened years ago, and yet things are still far from normal, why would Marawi be any different? Years in the future we’ll most likely see the same stories, the same news reports: backlogs in delivering relief aid, corruption in the selection of private contractors.
History repeats itself, nothing is ever new.
This self-inflicted catastrophe brought by gunfire and fusilade, through constant bombing operations over civilian spaces has left nothing but destruction. I see no victory here.
“Hindi po mesiyas si Duterte”
Thousands lay six feet under following Duterte’s massive war against drugs - his words - with the drug cartels still in force. Three months turned into six. It’s well over a year, and despite several high-profile deaths and cases of abuse by our national police, there remains no justice to be gained for all the victims.
Roland stared at the me plastered on the glass panel. There was confusion in his eyes, but somehow also measured understanding. He flashed that smug grin, and did something that caught me by surprise: he laughed.
“Ang laki mo na, Allan. Hindi ka na yung dating pumipikit kapag ginugupitan. Inom nga tayo minsan tapos dun natin ‘to pagusapan,” Roland said, brushing off the hair from my neck. “Yan okay na. Wala ka namang bigote o balbas eh.”
I handed him P70 for the haircut and the shave. He waved it away. “Sa susunod na. Ikaw na bahala sa pulutan,” he said. I said thank you and waved goodbye, picking up my bike from the pavement
But it wasn’t because of my hair. It was because for the first time after starting to work at corporate, I felt alive. Who knew that Roland’s would be a one-stop shop for all my existential crisis needs?