‘It is a fact though that sometimes you need to totally obliterate some things — structures and organizations usually, societies sometimes, if you are to build back better.’
A FEW days ago, I had my antique “butaka” (that is what they call those lounge chairs with long arms and solihiya or rattan cane weaving) picked up from my place in BGC for much needed repairs.
The lounge chair had survived the execution of Rizal, the killing of Gen. Antonio Luna, the American and then the Japanese invasion, EDSA 1, 2 and 3 and all that — but it suffered from the jaws, first of Cleopatra (or Cleo, my first ever Maltese) who chewed the armrest, and then more seriously Goya’s and Aqua’s, who seemed to enjoy jointly feasting on the two support beams that connected the left feet of the chair to the right ones. I don’t know what a century-old piece of wood tastes like (and have no intention of finding out) but the two younger dogs seemed to think the chair was a chew toy. And every day that passed meant more and more of a century of wood disappeared down their throats.
These two must have been bred with some genes of termites.
So, before things could get worse and a piece of family history disappear forever, I had Henry, my favorite contractor, pick up the lounge chair and repair it. When he is done it will be sent home to Laguna where it will sit in my library, a room inaccessible to my termite-dogs.
While shaking my head when taking stock of the damage the two had done I recalled a term that my family coined for me: Siraniko, a play on the words “sira” or destroy and “mekaniko.” I was so dubbed because I had the habit of taking my toys apart – and not being able to put them back together. And so, I had a trail of unusable toys and a realization that engineering was not for me.
It is a fact though that sometimes you need to totally obliterate some things — structures and organizations usually, societies sometimes, if you are to build back better.
(Of course, if you are totally incapable of building back and better — as in my case — then don’t even think of the destruction part in the first place!)
Thank God that even though Goya and Aqua — my in-house siranikos — have no idea what they’ve done nor the capacity to build back better. I have Henry to fall back on.
Now, how does this apply to Philippine society, I wonder?
