Chapter 19
Marble County
(Exquisite Marble handiworks on display just anywhere in Marble municipalities Display Centers and makeshifts. Source: Microsoft Bing. Retrieved 07-13-2022)
'Welcome to Marble County!' emblazoned in the arc across the street greeted the eyes of Taklin stepping out from the local airport. Boarding a service van, he proceeded to the seaport nearby. Immediately he stepped down after getting his fare ticket through the improvised miniature bamboo gangplank into a motorized pump boat with an outrigger that would ferry him to San Agustin and from there home after two hours of travel from a van waiting.
"At long last, here I come back to my island home dear," he uttered both hands outstretched. This while momentarily savoring the cold breeze kissing his face.
Before long after an hour of travel, Romblon noted for its exquisite rich marble deposits was on his sight. Taking a deep bated breath, he relished his eyes to the familiar view to any newcomer of the province as he disembarked from the pump boat: huge marble slabs piled up like mountains ready for shipment abroad and for delivery to supply domestic demand of the country from Cebu, the industrial zone in the Visayas; Cagayan de Oro and Davao of Mindanao to Manila of Luzon. What another good material this part of the country Ernest Hemingway might have to find an interesting sequel to his Movable Feast, the thought playing on Taklin's mind as he started walking around stopping in many makeshift shanties displaying marble appliances and souvenirs on display for sale. Various marble figurines from dancing swans, galloping horses, exquisite ashtrays, colorful small bird wings outspread, imposing table bars to the finely shaped pestle and mortar carved beautifully as souvenirs by residents abound mostly by the sea- sides displayed for sale in rows of the table.
Unlike Baguio's equally celebrated wood carvings specifically, that unique item where man's organ comes out into full attention as its wooden round cover is lifted, that of Marble artist's artwork is even bolder. Example catch that ashtray with an erect phallus in different sizes and colors proudly springing from the base catching everybody's eyes as you inventory various marble products on display. Art for art's sake but with eroticism. Well, it depends on how one exploits his creativity.
Marble artists are not giving a damn or second thought about how buyers value such erotic entrepreneurial artistry they too eking a living each day and eat rice like any ordinary people, Taklin learned to appreciate all the more the unique artwork of the province and the authentic beautiful stories behind each masterpiece.
The marble industry has been the major source of income among the people and a steady source of revenue for the provincial government. The province happens to sit literally on top of the marble. This the young newcomer discovered when the table where he puts on his ordered cup of coffee was carved out and crafted right from the bosom of the hill along the seacoast!
It's unfortunate though that business is dominated by big businessmen and in cahoots with Chinese whose lineage were from mainland China yet. What could the local people do, they remained hapless ever under their mercy and control given insufficient capital selling marble crafts. Not even minimum wage is implemented by these marble moguls for their workers. That is the irony of them all. For while Chinese in Taiwan are not allowed for instance to travel without paying their taxes or their travel is frozen while enjoying their short vacation in jail or are held in airports; here in the country, they are not only moving freely but also, got the big bargain of their lives as corrupt officials in Bureau of Internal Revenue do the dirty work for them renewing or approving their business permit after getting grease money depending on the amount agreed.
"That graphic video footage by major TV Network GMA-7 showing the appalling reality of various workers later documented majority are sitio residents in the area contacting tuberculosis because of daily contact with marble dust without wearing face masks and other safety nets probably tells the real issue of the exploitation of marble industry at the expense of its helpless workers," Taklin would later realize.
Whatever happened the Chinese despite owning one of the largest continents, are found just anywhere else doing business.
"For as long as you can see the sun, you could always find Chinese underneath," Taklin recalls with glee a joke from a Chinese friend back in Kaohsiung.
"They fill every nook and corner of the earth and in due time I bet as you would precisely guess, they would add more numbers maintaining their lofty status as
the world's biggest population in the world," he was told.
No wonder mandarin has remained the most widely spoken language in the world relegating English to the background, Taklin learned.
"It pays you to know heeding the bible's pronouncement 'go out and multiply.' It doesn't only encourage us to work harder but also, enable us to help our economy grow."
"Control, he probably meant and implied," the thought continues playing in his mind.
"You see, family planning is erroneous. A big family is all that we want. Look at us in China we successfully chased away Chiang Kai- Shek and his men as well. But that was many decades ago before the communist adopted a one-child policy for every couple under the pain of killing the excess. We don't need to geometrically increase our population; Mao Tse-tung had already driven away the nationalist forces in 1948 installing the Communist Regime in the end."
Taklin wonders in the dark groping for an answer to whatever his good friend Chang Lein implied.
"But no," he rectified himself recalling relevant studies showing no correlation between population growth and poverty. On the contrary, the population is an asset to the government if their energy is harnessed and redirected for the common good.
"Witness Chairman Mao's celebrated stance in a picture. Close fisted left arm raised and right hand similarly palm closed poking on the ground at his back. Know what he is saying?"
Without waiting for an answer, he went on exclaiming: "One million men attack, five million follow, ten million prepare, and so forth. Now tell me how could then Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek not withdraw to then Formosa."
"No thanks for the Americans for the necessary lift, seeing them overwhelmed by millions and millions of Mao's forces." Taklin grinned recalling the story.
Seeing different sizes of marble around reminded him of one friend who debunked the country's struggle of achieving better economic gains.
"With all kinds of mineral deposits, scattered throughout the country waiting to be tapped and exploited, how could the country not chase and probably scared to death already established economic giants like Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea who twenty years ago many economists would say were thirty years behind the Philippines."
"Consider the mineral resources entered in the new lexicon Webster's dictionary: gold, copper, chromites, silver, lead, zinc, manganese, iron ore, mercury, coal, salt, nickel, uranium, not to mention the rich oil deposits in Palawan which could supply the country's need for twenty-five straight years. Exclude vital industries thriving everywhere from textiles, tobacco, hydroelectricity, footwear, cement, wood products, plastics, coconut oil refining, rubber goods, embroidery, pottery, hats, mats, and all that."
"Look at the country's capacity in exporting sugar, lumber, copra, minerals and metals, abaca, coconut oil; the list is long. With tuna, blue marlin, moonfish, mackerel, and anchovies inhabiting our seas, who has the gut feeling to say that the country is poor. Must be nuts," the thoughts coming out from his reading the promise the country's natural resources have.
"Even Golda Mier of Israel doubted that theirs' is the Promised Land spelled out in the bible."
"It's the Philippines, not Israel was chosen by God as the Promised Land! It's an island flowing with milk and honey. Look at the fertility of your soil. It's one of the best in the world unsurpassed by any countries," he recalled the feisty iron lady telling the Filipinos on her last visit to the country.
"No wonder why many people from Marble have been bragging that they are taking marble eggs for breakfast, marble chips and sandwiches for snacks, toasted marble bread for lunch, and exquisite tombstone for dinner when asked about the dominant industry in the province, Taklin beamed remembering the anecdote his gaze caught the dominant historical landmark atop the mountain nearby.
Overlooking the beautiful port rests St. Peter Observatory used for monitoring unpredictable weather. Incidentally, Romblon is safely tacked in the typhoon belt area. Typhoon entering the country either through the Pacific Ocean or China Sea routes always affects the province tearing down thousands of coconut trees, uprooting several houses, and destroying asphalted roads and concrete pavements sending galvanized irons flying in the air like Aladdin's magic carpet. Frenzied and furious, the typhoon could transform an embankment into an extension of the sea overnight drowning several persons in the process caught in between as giant big waves tearing down several portions of road networks. Taklin recalled how people armed with nails and hammers would fix windows and doors each time angry winds would destroy and ripped them open.
The observatory was once used as a watch tower by the Spaniards against marauding Muslim pirates during their colonization of the country after Magellan Christianized the country in 1521 until Spain ceded the country to the Americans for a measly $20 million, a fact many historians and writers repudiated. Edilberto Tiempo for instance in his well-written fiction To Be Free dramatizes the lack of consensus from the masses when the deal was sealed in Paris the lion's share going to the pocket of the negotiator of course claimed by one respected columnist of a national daily. Thus, ending the Spaniard's four decades or roughly 377 settlements passing on the torch to Uncle Sam continuing the tradition of exploiting its right natural resources notwithstanding political, cultural, and economic changes they introduced to the country. Walking towards the façade of the cathedral, he wondered what would happen to the province with the relentless exploitation of marble goes on unabated.
"I think it's not a farfetched idea that the province would soon be submerged under the sea, the time to scratch itself out from the world's map!" he amused himself. Reminding of too many forests denuded in other provinces, giving an impending sign of the destruction of the ozone layer, vanishing of endangered species, and flash floods, he looked up and momentarily strike the air with his chin thrice and uttered: "When would Filipinos ever learn from their folly? Whatever happened to Juan de la Cruz that his memory is so short-lived?" he submitted his thoughts
with resignation.
Reflection ended his thoughts restored as he was nearing his residence. For the first time, it's as if the whole world stopped revolving and galaxies stood still, he imagining looking into the disfigured face of his father dead.
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