NAMING nudges the named to come into being. And we have been
too careless, too indifferent in naming names.
When God said ‘Let there be light,’ He had named the thing
before it came to be—the naming, indeed, stands out as sure step to creation.
Language will not be in accordance with the truth of things, as Confucius
wrote, ‘if names are not correct.’
Islas de los ladrones was the not-too-savory name the
nation was lashed with after natives of yore, likely the ancestors of the
unscrupulous whether or not in government, filched provisions from Magellan’s
fleet. It took a few more ages before the Spanish conquerors settled for a name
that ascribes affinity to and dominion of their king over inhabitants of the
archipelago.
After King Felipe II de Habsburg who once ruled Spain,
Naples, Sicily, Portugal, England and Ireland, Philippines thus came to be.
Felipe literally translates to “love of horses.” Pump irony:
the nation isn’t exactly enamored with nags, ponies, foals, stallions, studs
and such—maybe mares, more likely, nightmares.
A likeness in bronze of Felipe II stands in a fringe park of
Intramuros that has become an intransigent holdout for the horse-drawn
carriage. Horses can still take tourists on a ride through the remnants of a
fortified city. In the nearby precincts of Binondo and Sta. Cruz, only elderly
Chinese and a smattering of comely Chinese mestizas have taken a liking
to short commutes on such a carriage, guaranteed one horse power— spare stark
nostalgias for the carretela on a fade away or pretty soon we’ll be
beating dead workhorses to life.
Maybe, it has dawned on the elderly and the comely that work
horses are a lot earth-friendlier than, say, tricycles that spew noxious noise
and lethal fumes. Maybe, tricycles are an option to be tied down to imported
fossil fuels and spare parts—yeah, we have ample foreign reserves to fritter
away for such show of yoked subservience.
Horses come dirt-cheap. They run on homegrown grassoline—malit,
barit, zacate, kugon, talahib, mutha, kumpay. Even ipil-ipil or akasya
foliage, banana peels, palm fronds, hay, and darak or rice bran are fair
fodder for the equine ruminant. Most of these all-organic fuels can be had for
free at a pasture or grazing land.
For ages, equine exhaust has been compliant with Clean Air
Act and solid waste management statutes. Fact is, horse dung is an excellent
soil conditioner for organic crops.
For sure, the metal parts of any imported motorcycle are
rich in iron but aren’t exactly edible. Horse beef, on the other hand, has been
the mainstay in the now famous breakfast fare, tapsilog—horse beef
jerky, fried rice, sunny-side up fried egg—which originated in food stalls near
the now-defunct San Lazaro Hippodrome. Even workhorses that have outlived their
usefulness or suffered fractured limbs, they had to be put out of their
suffering. Even in death, they serve and are, thus, served.
When the Messiah plied the Third Beatitude, “Blessed are the
meek for they shall inherit the earth,” the equine trait for meekness was lost
in translation. He was referring to a quaint quality of war steeds—praus,
or reined power that can be unleashed. The character quality that Greeks called
praus points up a taking charge of one's life-- the choices to be made
are grasped fully and made with integrity.
The Year of the Horse is now on a full gallop, but 2014
remains anno domini.
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