The Aftermath of "Dalaw."

It's my first Holiday Season in the Philippines not as a balikbayan on vacation, but as a regular Pinoy citizen. Although dubbed as "still an outsider" by those close to me, I've tried my damn best to fit in after being away for twenty five years.

What's to fit in again?  

My "testy" co-navigator fumes every time I curse in the privacy of the car when "kuligligs, motorbikes, buses and jeepneys cut in front of me.  But a curse like "hangal?"  In the so so months I've been in Manila, I could count in my one hand the number of times I honked my horns; these are the very irritating moments when a bus suddenly swerved into my lane, when a motorcycle squeezed into my right as I was turning, once when a Fortuner just whizzed in front of me as I was entering the gate of the subdivision. Three times.

"That's how drivers drive in Manila, you've got to fit in if you want to live longer" my co-navigator would always lecture me.

Yesterday, we watched Kris Aquino's "Dalaw."  Unlike the more proper moviegoers in Trinoma, Megamall's crowd was a little rowdy. Perhaps because the movie house's policy was "open." Meaning, anybody can walk in in the middle of the show. 

It was the climax of the movie - Kris Aquino's character was about to be killed and subsumed by the ghost who was haunting her family.  People including the porter with her pesky flashlight kept on coming.  At my back, there was this guy who kept murmuring to his wife, and wife murmuring back. " Oh, Rosario is such a calm movie, and this one is...," said the burly husband. " I think it's the ghost of .........," replied the wife co-analyst.

I said, "hush." My seat/mate said to me "enough, don't create a fight."

The husband murmured loudly again. The wife answered back.  I kept quiet. The seat/mate got fidgety. New people were rushing up the steps. The porter had her flashlight to my face. Others, as they were coming down the stairs kept mumbling, "dalaw."

When the word "The End" finally rolled down the screen, I stood up, faced the burly man and uttered some words (not invectives) but just the fact that he was a jerk.

The mate got mad at me, rushed down the steps and kept on muttering, "You are in the Philippines now, you have to adjust and fit in. These guys are killers."

I was just asserting my right as a ticket-paying patron, for God's sake.  I was there to watch and not to listen to this couple's analysis of the movie. In hindsight, I should have just called in security.  But it was supposed to be the climax of the movie.

If  this occurred in Canada, people would have been more considerate of other patrons. But yes, there are also jerks in Toronto who whisper....er talk inside the theatre.  But in hushing them, one doesn't feel guilty or threatened. It's just done matter of fact. "Hey, no offense to you, but you're an asshole."  Something like that.

So I was hugely surprised that the mate turned her ire towards me and not towards the "bastos" inside the movie house.

Lesson learned:  Avoid MMFF in the first few days; better watch when the crowd has thinned.