ROADKILL! (Or Confessions of a Window Cleaner)

I

Six months ago, I was asked to write a summing-up of a program now 17 years on the run. Compared to other NGOs that I know and have served at one time or another, this one is relatively cleaner in that they don’t duplicate receipts or buy them at the BIR or bribe gasoline stations and hotel desks into issuing bloated counterfeit bills. At report presentation, I was told, you don’t write political history; you focus on the program implementation, leave the social movements alone, use the evaluation reports. Or at least that’s one attorney-at-law who sits on Board said, to which most of the other board members agreed. Among other fears was, that the FA might think this NGO has some dubious association with groups out to destabilize government in its past or present or that whatever program it is pursuing might still be directly or indirectly supporting militants by virtue of this program’s early origins and still nurture agenda that are beyond project parameters. I almost packed up never to be seen again, had the Program Director, herself on her way out, took time to see me and made a confession.

But like it or not, that’s how we survive nowadays. Of course we have been co-opted, Shei. Even these projects we are running now, at the top of the heap of these little funding agencies is the World Bank.

I almost felt sorry I turned down a WB menial’s job a couple of months back so that I could go to Jolo and write their program report in between. I also felt envious: they have good governance and good funding on their side; I don’t.

Why am I suddenly filing this complaint?

On June 20, 2012 in Jolo, a lesbian was shot by a live-in partner's nephew. The partner's family is Tausug and religious and the father had early on asked this tomboy to keep away from the daughter for a little while because she is now a hajji (went on a pilgrimage to Mecca) as he is a hajji himself. The tomboy refused to budge. Then one day in July that a nephew had an emergency (a son or daughter taken to the hospital) he tried to borrow money from the couple and was refused, and so he went home to get a gun and came back to shoot her. She was taken to the hospital and was pronounced dead on arrival.

On July 18, 2012, another lesbian was shot dead while queuing to register with the Comelec.  The information that got to me was that 1) she eloped with a girl reported missing by the parents; but later, there was another version, that 2) she had been mistaken as the tomboy who pimped for a bunch of soldiers who raped and killed the woman she brought to them. The latest version (as of August 02, 2012) is that she was mistaken for the lesbian who eloped with the missing girl.

Soon after this series of incidents the guys in Jolo have been texting me. They are afraid, they are afraid to go out, they might get shot at next, because at one time or another, and to some not just once but seasonally, they got into a live-in arrangement or had eloped with a girlfriend. Some went back home in time; some of the girlfriends were fetched by their parents; and some were mauled by brothers or relatives; but none so far had been shot. This is the first time that they kill lesbians for the crime of our sex. (Note: I don’t use the word sexual orientation; I say their sex, our sex.)

I am therefore impressed.

The first casualty was an aunt to Susan, a Tumba Lata officer. It appears that her real crime was for being pagood-good, which in Pinoy slang means scoring pogi points. The first time I heard about this dead tomboy, she was still living. I was showing the guys pictures of New York gay marriages and Susan mentioned this tomboy to me. I told Susan and the few other guys sitting around that I myself is not really keen on gay marriage; but it serves well those who have properties to leave behind to their partners who might automatically forfeit such right to inheritance just because their union is not legal. Susan said, right. There’s this lesbian in the neighborhood, and she was pointing right at the window, like she was just nearby (she was), and if she dies the surviving partners will surely quarrel over her property. At the time she didn’t say the lesbian was an aunt; I only got to know that after the accident, when Mhang told me. I imagined then that she was some generic tomboy with a penis hanging on her forehead to have the nerve to take on two “wives” with whom she was not legally married. But that was Takut-Takut, slum enclave where anything goes; nothing that spells survival is not allowed, including drug pushing, theft and prostitution.

Now Mhang tells me that no quarrel over property happened. In the first place, much of the property belonged to the Tausug partner; the other partner, a Sama woman, did not bother to make any claims; she just went back home to her family, also just in the neighborhood. The Sama partner had been telling the tomboy lover to keep away from the other woman; they are Sama, not Tausug, meaning, to love above one’s class invites punishment and so on, but the dyke wanted to keep them both and especially the more well-off Tausug partner. So there. She was shot down, as promised.

A couple of months back, boarding at our modest headquarters at Takut-Takut, girls would be by. They wanted to join Tumba Lata, they said. Why so? we asked. They just want to; can’t we call them Tumba Lata Girls, they said? Then gradeschool gays would join a spelling test and ask can’t we organize them as well? They will call their group Batu Lakit (hard rock) and they were bright and talented, too. We were pleased, of course. I say, how nice. If that happens I would be able to bring my seven-year old nephew here and he can join your group, where he is now no gay life thrives. It turned out that was not a good thing to say and they asked, Is he talented?   

One girl said that his own father asked her to join Tumba Lata, because he wants for her to be a tomboy while she is still finishing high school. He didn’t want me to be a girl, because girls mix with boys and get pregnant before they could do anything good in life.

Smart dad she’s got, I wanted to commend her for her luck. What does he take us for, a freezer?