Mar Roxas is in town. Remember Mr. Palengke? That’s correct; now he wants to be Mr. President. I happened to be roadside when his entourage passed by yesterday. Although I did not see him — he was on the other side of the van — I did not hear cheering either. Make that at all.
A lot of people around here don’t seem to like Mar Roxas. Or seem to have any opinion of him. On Facebook, they’re rooting for Duterte (he was born here, so there’s that), Poe, or Binay. “How about Roxas?” I ask Eva. ”Nah,” she says. “I don’t like Korina.”
“He’s so, I dunno… dull?” another friend says. When someone has to pause to think of something unflattering to say about you, especially something as generically polite as “dull,” you know your candidacy is in trouble. That was the case with a local candidate years back. He was capitalizing on his being an international lawyer, but all people wanted to know was whether that was a wig on his head. Then he got lucky. His opponent got rattled and fired on his helicopter: it exploded, even as our candidate managed to run to safety, scale a nearby fence, and in the process lost his hairpiece. Or so the story went. In any case, the incident appalled and fascinated the locals, the latter owing to the apocryphal fate of that wig, and they voted out the incumbent. On the other hand, that was the same incumbent at Mr. Roxas’ side yesterday.
“Did you see him?” Jenny said.
” Well, I saw his hand — I think.”
The military escorts were at least cute, but that is neither here nor there. We proceeded to the weekend market. Entering the main building, I did a double-take: there were labels everywhere! “Bangus.” “Bodloy.” “Yelopin.” “Mangkô.”
“Look who’s got a visitor tomorrow!” I said to a vendor. I also wondered if the labels were to be switched around, would Mar Roxas even know (much less notice) the fish were mistagged?
“Big deal,” said one of my fellow customers. “Can you believe the price on that tanguigue? ‘Sir, only ₱340!’ ‘Only,’ hah!”
He was right, of course. Unless Roxas makes like Jesus and miraculously multiplies the fish at the market, I doubt he’ll make much of an impression, or maybe change that which some people already have of him.
“Hey!” said another customer. “Check it out; this fish only has one eye!”
“Pikas,” the vendor said, matter-of-factly.
And just like that, we forgot all about Mar Roxas, awed as we were by that strange specimen. It was only later when I looked it up that I learned such fish were not so strange or uncommon after all, but probably some sort of flounder or other flatfish; born with an eye on either side of its head, when it turns juvenile, one eye migrates to the other side (the side not lying on the ocean floor, which a flatfish does to protect itself from predators). You may know it as palad or dapa.
A flounder! Sounds like an apt description of Mar Roxas’ presidential bid. Aflounder. Like my friend said, he’s just not that interesting. Rudy Duterte baited him with a cheap jig — his diploma — and he swallowed it, daring the mayor to a fistfight (upgraded from mere slapfest). Instead of firing up the public’s imagination, snickers all around. I will be at the market later today, hopefully after he leaves. Knowing how people are from around here, they will say nothing until then. I hope I don’t see anyone’s eyes have drifted to the back of his head, but that would be something, wouldn’t it?
UPDATE: Now that I have had more time to look it up, I think the flatfish here is more like turbot. I have not bothered to reflect this development in the article so as not to undermine my already strained attempts at humor, but you ought to know.
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