ROMANCING THE BAYABAS

JANUAL E. YAP

My activist friend claims he survived EDSA because of bayabas. How, while pulped pale between the
vestments of nuns, he managed to chew fractions of the fruit. So filled was he with it that Sister beside
him wondered in which language was he saying Hail Mary.

Although, my friend claims now, it was not by bayabas alone that he was able to live through the
experience. They were the votive hours so spent for his God and Country. My friend now manages a
guava jam factory.

There is one great and noble use of the bayabas, the most under-rated fruit in our neighborhood.
But that's going to be in the later part of this short thesis.

Since the Thomasites beached on our shores, we have ceased to respect the fruit. We began
adoring the ones that sounds good with a twang. Apple dethroned Atis from its rightful seat as the
vanguard of the Alphabet. English was rammed down our throats so that we've mutated into the
linguistic sissies that we are now. Indeed, it has been an awful distance from Maria Clara to Mariah
Carey, so measured by our prejudice over people who can't say an English word without a killing. We
stupidly think misplacing an accent means misplacing the brain. Little do we know it is us who can't
locate ours. That's what is called "rootlessness." We are such English-speaking igorots who would
rather say g-string than bahag.

To add insult to injury, we declared mango over guava in the highly contested prestige of being
the National Fruit. Guava should have taken the chairpersonship, the worthy leader before mango.
Somehow, when we were young, we rebelled against the idea of having mango for a Pambansang
Prutas. Instead of reporting to class, we succumbed to a diversion, in an ill-judged act our parents
called "namayabas." Such an overwhelming kind of loyalty to a fruit during childhood that so determined
the fate of over a million undergrads in this country!

Somehow, going "pamayabas," is an entire statement by itself. That there's a far better learning
place than the classroom. That we can't take the fact of having to see our teachers sweating it out,
selling suman or siopao, all because they're not receiving a respectable pay. That it was by far our
strongest statement of liberation from conformity, from the strictures of an "educational system" that
favors apple over bayabas. That it was our methodical walk-out from a government whose vision is
only as high as the roofs of public schools that say: Philippines 2000.

Because, Caesar, it is not in the stars, er, diploma that one's gray matter is determined. It is how
far you know the kind of soil you're standing on, and what kind of vegetation best grows in it. It is not in
the degree that you hold. It is the degree of holding, of grasping the truth amidst a fleet of lies. The
Commission on Higher Education should better take their lesson from the bayabas. They should eat
more of it.

Immortals in our midst have their respective intimacies with the bayabas. Lino Brocka cut classes,
and made the great film Ora Pro Nobis amongst a legion of other classics. Screenwright Ricardo Lee
dozed off in English 101 only to breathe life to Himala. Writer Conrado de Quiros dropped out in college
only to deliver a speech before a batch of graduates years after. My friend, Myke, never made it with a
toga, but he's this close to a Palanca. And all these, yes, all these, such geniuses in mufti are doing in
the name of bayabas.

And so, it is actually needless anymore to make the claim on the fruit's behalf. It just so happens
that it is the subject of this thesis. Bayabas has its crown so snugly placed on its scalp even long before
the Code of Kalantiaw was enacted. Some kindergarten riddle has a better way of saying it. "Hindi hari,
pero may korona…"

And back to the contention against the national fruit. Imagine the dental ordeal with getting rid of the
stuck fibers after a bout with the mangga. Imagine the tedious routine at disposing the immense seed
of the fruit, its peelings, ad nauseaum. And then take the essential and convenient case with the guava.
The American Dental Association should have recommended guava for oral hygiene. How it rubs and
dissolves the seemingly indelible jaundiced gloss of your grimace. How, to use poet Ricardo de Ungria's
phrase, "it will rub to a shine." I'll wait for the day when there'll be guava-flavored toothpaste. And then
finally, in its walang-ka-challenge-challenge rivalry with the mangga, think how utterly consumable the
fruit is, hook-line and sinker, down to the grandiose belch.
 Bayabas is for the young, by the young, and of the young---an exclusively democratic fruit that
favors the young and dentally able. It is the ultimate test of how strong are your incisors, how calcium-
enriched you are. Calcium is the essential component of a strong backbone. Which means, therefore,
that bayabas may be diagnostic to one's principles. How vertebrate you are when you make a stand.
When you have a teeth that go with the guava after your first bite, then you better gobble tons of
seafoods now. I recommend oysters.

Bayabas may yet be the fruit to make the SMEs (Small-Medium Enterprises) bloat themselves
into Large-Scale Industries. Next to carrageenan, there has to be a Benson Dakay of Bayabas, The
Guava Tycoon. The fruit may as well be our next cue ball towards a globally-competitive economy.

And speaking of balls, the fruit, too, makes perfect golf balls. In the name of national patrimony,
President Ramos should better use bayabas in his favorite sport. Take this equation: the cost of ten
dozens of guavas is equal to that of one golf ball. Call it what you may, but that's the wisest strategy at
cost-efficiency. It may be the best way to avoid budget deficits in government. Besides, this will do a
lot of help to keep the energy of your Man-Friday-on-field as you putt through the holes. Mr. President,
this is the best way to be assured of the loyalty of an assistant in the most boring game in the world,
the civilized Jolin-pinis, the childhood game Tiger Woods managed to outgrow. And, p.s., for the most
environmentally unfriendly sport, it will have its redemption in the use of the bayabas.

Let's reinvent divine-like goodness. Each time someone throws a stone at you, don't throw back
bread. Use guava. Yeast is far too expensive compared to merely checking your own backyard. And
besides, bread is but symbolic. Take the Biblical message in a context that is local. Guava is of our
race's color, something much closer to our heart. And because you're twice as good and kind, throw
the guava twice as hard as the stone. Guava is the ultimate gift to an enemy. The fruit satiates the
hunger of our enemies. It is the inviolable august tribunal to decide upon the fate of Juan Tamad's oh-
so insufferable hunger.

And finally, as I've promised, here's the final and greatest use of the guava. It will have its rightful time
in the coming May elections. Politicians will go island hopping bringing the good news which is "The
saviour is born". And we know that they mean themselves as the savior.

The Taumbayan, upon this occasion, will have the chance at exercising the true meaning of the right
of suffrage--which is the sovereign right to choose the worthy candidate. And because all of them are
just too damn worthy, then by all means, we will rather cast our vote in a different manner. We shall
hurl guavas at them. This is entirely a highly sovereign act. And because we're too sovereign, we shall
hurl them even more strongly with overwhelming sovereignty.

We shall launch one guava each at Manoling and Miriam with a wish that it lands on their biggest
assets as snugly as possible. This way, it will rid the nation half of a polluted airwave. Then we will have
guavas with resident creatures each for Joe, Juan, and Imelda. When these get to them, the creatures
will have their epiphany. They will realize a far greener pasture than the guava. And there will be
overripe guavas for de Villa and Lim. It will be guavas splintering into bits as they get to them. They
shall have their warfare theories confuted. Guava is more powerful than the grenade. And then there
will be a farmer who shall step out and hurl for himself a guava to Lito. This way he shall have a crash
course on economic dislocation. And, finally, we will have the largest guava for Erap. Appetite they say
is inversely proportional to brain use.

To local politicians we shall hurl most of the guavas. Charity begins at home. Because local
politicians are so reputed to bring their whole tropa to the seat of government, they deserve the bulk of
the guavas. I will have bayabas in pairs for those politicians lobbying either for their wives or sons for
government post.

First and foremost, Taumbayan, study your guava. Know its weight. Put in mind that the soul of
the guava is a hundred times more loaded than the body itself. For the moment you clutch the fruit, it
will take your soul for itself. So, know how far and strongly can you execute the greatest "hataw" of your
lives. Learn the sport of Shotput or Javelin Throw. Exercise your arms. It may surprise them if you're
walhunon also. Like the way southpaws are better boxers. Ah, basta, hit them where it's least expected.
Enlist yourself to the new ABB, the "Ang Bayabas Brigade."

Anyway, so goes this votive ode to the bayabas. We shall have the time of our lives, Taumbayan.