Manila

THE EERINESS enveloped me as my mind struggled to sift through the surreal scene. It was some time ago when I returned to Manila for some urgent business but the images somehow remain captured in my memory, like old photographs that refused to fade.

It was around dusk when I walked through the boulevard fronting the Manila City Hall. Six men huddled closely in a circle as if hiding something from curious onlookers. They weren't talking; they just sat there, their eyes glassy with blank stares. Some would occasionally grab a white plastic bag and started sniffing what appeared to be glue.

I was walking towards them on my way to where jeepneys going to Roxas Boulevard would often stop. My attention wandered occasionally to the smoke-belching buses that blemished the air. But as I came nearer, one of them raised his arms, looked up to the dark sky and wailed as if in pain, his voice piercing through the cacophony of traffic passing by.

I was briefly stunned, not knowing how to react. I looked at the other men through the periphery of my eye but they didn't seem to mind him. They weren't even looking at each other. They were just staring blanking into space, as if the first man's moves were a prelude to an ancient ritual. Some were looking down pokerfaced, sniffing glue contentedly.

And as if choreographed, the other men also raised their arms towards the heavens and began to wail. A few passersby backtracked and walked hurriedly away. My footsteps quickened, not in fear but in trepidation. I shall probably never know the fate of those men, for I never looked back. Their melancholic cries ebbed as I walked farther. I had just exited Twilight Zone. Or did I?

Looking back, I realized that it wasn't my first time to witness such a scene. It was in Cubao many years ago when I had also passed by a group of drug-intoxicated kids who performed the same spooky pantomime that made your hair stand on end. Only this time, it was around 2 pm in one of those busy sidewalks where everybody was more concerned about watching their pockets than be jostled by these drunken dregs. It was the apathy that was more scary, and the apparent disregard of society for these souls.

In the meantime, the Arroyo administration is apparently more concerned with the 2004 polls than with reviving the economy, or so it seems to former President Fidel Ramos. In an Inquirer story, Ramos was said to have advised Ms. Macapagal: "We have to build, we have to restore, we have to reform, and we have to get on a sustainable growth path as you have promised, Madam President. To me it's still the economy that must be given priority and long-term focus."

Due to the economic slump last year, more than 60,000 workers lost their jobs with 500 companies closing shop. While burying the tourism industry, persistent rumors of coups and a rise in kidnappings have made the present administration's task of attracting foreign investments more difficult. Among others, these issues have pulled down Arroyo's approval rating to a dismal negative 8.27 percent nationwide, according to the Ibon Foundation Databank.

Respondents to the same survey were asked to rate the economy and 58.01 percent believed the situation has worsened, while only 4.58 percent thought it was doing better. A whopping 48.33 percent felt that their own economic situation had worsened while only 9.60 percent said it had improved. On the other hand, only 9.51 percent felt hopeful about the country's economic future.

In a separate news story, Ramos said that the Philippine economy must grow by at least six percent annually over the next decade to reduce widespread poverty. "The 6-8 percent GDP growth rate that we must achieve would take care of our very strong population growth rate of about 2.2 percent, thereby everybody will enjoy an increase in per capita income and a better quality of life," Ramos said. At present, more than 31 million Filipinos -- 40 percent of the population -- earn less than 75 US cents daily.

Amidst this widespread poverty, the government has reportedly hired a US-based public relations firm for a cool million dollars to boost Macapagal's image during her 8-day swing in Europe and the US. No PR firm can probably undo the damage the Abu Sayyaf and other notorious kidnap-for-ransom gangs have inflicted on the country's image abroad. To most foreign investors, the Philippines is a scary place.

It is even scary to its own nationals. There are probably only a few places in the world were authorities turn a blind eye towards the abuse of glue and solvent in the streets. It is not everywhere where intoxicated youths gyrate in a dance of death accompanied by their wails, and nobody seems to care. It is not often that a country's citizens living abroad are scared to come home lest they be robbed, starting at the airport by customs personnel.

But by some nasty quirk of fate, these places do exist. Welcome to Manila. *

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You may email the author at butch@philippinestoday.net