Death and Loathing in Sugarlandia
/Book Review: Tiempo Muerto by Caroline Sy Hau
Ateneo de Manila Press. 2019
Tiempo Muerto by Caroline Hau
Memories return as Racel and Lia make their way to Banwa. Along the way, we meet Lia’s mother, Angela, who does not want to get old (which reminds me of politicians and failed poets obsessed with Botox) and her warlord-father-womanizer-serial rapist, Bobby. We meet Racel’s family friend Digna, the childhood friend Gil, and the sullen and cryptic Susana, the last helper of the Agalon mansion. The novel then explores an admixture of themes. There is the tug-and-pull between the class prejudices and the yearning to renew their sisterhood, as well as the surprising discoveries about their mothers -- Alma most likely joined the NPA and was not killed by the typhoon, while Angela turns out to be an astute historian of the family’s hideous past.
As all these unfold amid poverty, exploitation and oppression in the estate of the Agalons (Visayan word for lord or master). Lia’s ancestors used knowledge of property rights, the rule of law and political connections to dispossess peasants of their lands, turning these into one large sugar hacienda. And when the people of the islands protest or welcome outsiders to help them defend their rights, the Agalons unleash their armed militia whose brutality bears the mark of the CIA officer Edward Lansdale’s psychological operations against the Huks. You also witness poor families sacrifice their lives and dreams just so the children – through education – can get out of poverty.
These are the defining themes of the novel, although my attention was also drawn to two ancillary ones. The first is how author Hau has become our foremost authority on Jose Rizal. Inspired by and in constant conversation with her late mentor, Benedict Anderson, Hau has produced some of the most insightful essays on the works of the national hero. Her sense of irony, for example, approximates that of Lolo Jose. Consider, for example, this description of the grotesque altar in the Agalon residence in one of Manila’s Golden Ghettoes.
“This is what delights me most about the book – its ability to capture everyday Filipino lives at home and elsewhere.”
“A raft of santos with a crucifix mast is anchored to a wall, where hangs an oil portrait of Don Anselmo Agalon, the ancestor who founded the family fortune. Blackened, peeling, some of the saints are missing their wigs, others their arms and hands, still others their robes. One, Santa Ana, is missing most of her face…Santa Lucia, throat pierced by a dagger, holds out a silver tray…bearing two glass eyeballs crowned with spiky lashes. I avoid staring at the crucified Christ at the center of the altar table…the seething thorns on His forehead, the gash on His left breast, the latticework of lashes on his stomach, thighs, and legs, globs, and trickles of blood everywhere…Above the suffering God looms Don Anselmo, as if to show who is the real boss.” (p. 43)
Vintage Noli Me Tangere.
The other sub-theme is about those of us who work abroad. Here is how Hau describes the OFW’s barbarous life.
“We foreign workers are like ghosts. We are visible and invisible, inside and outside, there and not there…We live with families without being a part of them. We work at home without being at home, we are homebound and homeless. We fade into furniture and walls, vanish around corners, hover on the edges of people’s eyes and minds…The sweat of our men binds concrete to steel and wood to create a city; that of our women offers something intangible, the gift of time to other women so that they can work, play, dream and move and shape things…
“Our speech and skin color mark us out as aliens. When we try to speak, we are not always heard or understood…In times when we make ourselves visible and appear in public spaces, we are seen as poltergeists who scatter objects, make loud noises, foul the air with spices we use in our cooking, and the smell of long hours’ work on our clothes and bodies.”
Caroline Hau (Source: Rappler)
Hau has been a faculty at Kyoto University’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies for twenty-years now and most likely will go home only after another decade or two. Only one who has stayed away from home for so long could come out with this poignant description of an OFW’s life.
This is what delights me most about the book – its ability to capture everyday Filipino lives at home and elsewhere. TM does not have the pretentious artifices of many expatriate writers who bandy themselves – especially to their American readers -- as the literary authorities on Filipino exploiters, oppressors and rebels. And this is mainly because Caroline Hau has always kept herself grounded by her primary audience – us Filipinos.
She knows we know what she is describing to us – the store on the street corner, the silent signals, the off-the-cuff remark, and the hints of class hatred. It is as if she calls out, “Pssst…hoy” and we immediately turn around and acknowledge her by raising our eyebrows and smiling.
To buy the book: http://ateneo.edu/ateneopress/product/tiempo-muerto
Patricio Abinales
Patricio N. Abinales’ research is on the social history of the two-legged and the four-legged rats in the Philippines.
More articles by Patricio N. Abinales