Binondo: cornerstone of Filipino-Chinese friendship

FILIPINO AND CHINESE HISTORY fuse together at the district of Binondo in the City of Manila. Binondo is renowned as Manila’s Chinatown and is the oldest Chinatown in the world. It was founded in 1594 during Spain’s colonization of the Philippines.

Binondo, however, is neither the Philippines nor China.

A walk through Binondo's crowded and noisy streets; the conversations in Lan-nang mingled with Filipino and English words; Filipinos hawking Chinese charms and “Tsinoys” or Chinese Filipinos passionately discussing Philippine politics can leave a tourist confused as to the exact character of this place called Binondo.

Binondo looks Chinese. On second thought, it is Chinese. But it also looks more Filipino than Chinese. One sees more Filipinos on its streets than Chinese.

This "exotic differentness" is at the core of Binondo's enduring “otherworldly” charm. By not being really this or that, Binondo becomes whatever place a visitor decides it should be.

The Chinese Filipino Arch of Goodwill along Ronquillo St., the southern entrance to Binondo

For a tourist from Hong Kong, Binondo can become Kowloon. A Singaporean might feel transported back to Outram, site of the city-state's Chinatown.

A Mainlander will probably be reminded of Xiamen, Shenzhen or the coastal town where he grew up. A visitor from Taiwan will find virtually no difference between his native Hokkien and the Philippine Hokkien spoken in Binondo's streets, where it is called Lan-nang.

For this reason, Binondo is as familiar as home. But this isn’t exactly home. So, Binondo becomes an adventure to be explored.

And that's an important reason why thousands of tourists crowd its crowded streets every week. They want an adventure within an adventure in the Philippines’ most historic city.

This is Binondo.

A friendship across centuries

Binondo's location has ensured its status as a key player in Philippine history. In 1594, only 20 years after the Spaniards established Manila, the Spanish colonial government provided a parcel of land about a square kilometer in size outside the city’s walls and across the Pasig River to Chinese that had converted to Roman Catholicism.

This enclave was part of the mighty Kingdom of Tondo that was ruled by a Filipino “Lakan”or King. The Kingdom of Tondo began trading with the Ming Dynasty in China during the 1370s, some 150 years before the Spaniards invaded the Philippines in 1521.

Mention of the Kingdom of Tondo can be found in “The Ming Shi-lu Annals” that recorded the arrival of an envoy from Luzon to the Ming Dynasty. The annals state that Ming China considered Tondo’s rulers not as mere chieftains, but Kings.

Chinese goods were shipped to Tondo (dōngdū in Pinyin or Simplified Chinese), the most powerful kingdom in Luzon, from the port city of Fuzhou in Fujian Province. The Ming gave a monopoly over Philippine trade to Fuzhou, which it shared at times with the port city of Quanzhou, also in Fujian.

It was also during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) that the first Chinese settlers came to the Philippines. The Chinese were well-received by the peoples in the various Philippine kingdoms. They lived together in harmony with Filipinos, eventually intermarrying with them.

The Catholic Chinese that relocated in 1594 north of the Walled City of Manila (eventually called “Intramuros” by the Spaniards) were, therefore, among friends.

The land given them was called “Binundok,” a Tagalog word meaning hilly terrain. At the time, Binundok was a one-and-a-half kilometer long wedge shaped islet surrounded by streams. The Spaniards corrupted the word “Binundok” and named the islet, “Isla de Binondo,” or the Isle of Binundok.

Apart from being given tax-free land, Catholic Chinese were also granted self-government by the Spanish conquerors.

Non-Catholic Chinese in Manila, however, enjoyed no such privileges. They were herded together outside Intramuros (or “Extramuros”) and packed into a ghetto called the “Parian” that was within easy range of the many cannon lining the city’s huge defensive walls.

Those cannon would be used to murderous effect by the Spaniards under Governor General Pedro Bravo de Acuña against the Chinese, both Catholic and non-Catholic, during the “Chinese Revolt of 1603.”

This revolt is bitterly referred to as the “Luzon Tragedy” (Lǚsòngcǎnàn) by ancient Chinese historians because of the massacre of some 20,000 Chinese by the Spaniards, the Japanese and a few subjugated Philippine tribes allied with them. The Chinese would again rise in revolt in 1639 and would again be silenced.

These revolts, however, would be the only instances on Philippine soil in which Filipinos and Chinese fought each other in their shared 700-year history.

The Second World War saw Chinese Filipinos battle alongside Filipinos from 1942 to 1945 to defeat a brutal common foe: the Imperial Japanese Empire.

Which brings us to the present day.

With their past anchored in tolerance and friendship, Filipinos and Chinese have maintained a beneficial symbiotic relationship to this day. One sees many examples of this symbiosis in Binondo.

The historic Minor Basilica of San Lorenzo Ruiz along Ongpin St

The business of Binondo is business

Many of the businesses in Binondo are owned by Chinese Filipinos but many of their employees are Filipinos.

One can see this dichotomy in the many shops along Ongpin Street, Binondo’s main road. In practically all of them, there are one or two Chinese or Chinese Filipinos (more likely the owners) surrounded by Filipino employees.

The 2007 census counted just 1.1 million Chinese Filipinos in a population of more than 85 million Filipinos. Binondo has a population of some 12,000 persons, most of whom are Filipinos and not Chinese Filipinos.

The influence of Chinese Filipinos on the national economy, however,has been enormous: from the start of the 20^th century until the 1970s when the exodus to Makati City began in earnest, they made Binondo the Philippines’ de facto financial and business capital.

From the 1930s to the 1950s, Juan Luna Street was famous as the location of the headquarters of most large Philippine corporations.

The country’s most important banking and financial firms and institutions also made Binondo their base. Until the 1970s, most of the big foreign banks including HSBC, Standard Chartered and Bank of America had their head offices in Binondo.

Among the leading Filipino banks with headquarters in Binondo, or more specifically Escolta Street, were the Philippine National Bank and China Banking Corporation.

Binondo was also the site of the Manila Stock Exchange, the Philippines’ first stock exchange, from its founding in 1927 until 1992 when it merged with the Makati Stock Exchange to form the Philippine Stock Exchange with twin headquarters in Makati City and Pasig City.

It was also Binondo that gave birth to the department store as we know it today. Escolta Street became the most famous address in Manila, and perhaps the entire country until the 1970s because of the presence of “haute” shopping havens for the elite such as Aguinaldo’s Department Store, Berg’s, Syvels and Oceanic Commercial.

The lack of land, however, killed Binondo’s future as the center of Philippine business and finance.

Makati, a neglected small town to the southeast of Binondo infamous for its seedy nightlife, began replacing Binondo in this role in the 1960s thanks largely to real estate developers (many of whom were Chinese Filipinos) with an abundance of cheap Makati land in their portfolios.

What Binondo was left with after the business diaspora to Makati was some of the priciest real estate in the Philippines. Ironically, this was another factor that made business firms flee to other cities and towns in Metro Manila.

Too many people at Juan Luna St. in Binondo

Tourism, nationalism and religion

Binondo today remains a center for business—but mostly those classified as SMEs or small to medium enterprises. These are the businesses one sees aplenty along Binondo’s many crowded streets and alleys.

Binondo’s close proximity to the Port of Manila, the Philippines’ largest, is fueling the growth of Binondo’s SMEs by allowing them to sell an inexhaustible array of imported goods (mostly from China) at cheap prices.

The Big Boys, however, have fled to Ayala Avenue, Bonifacio Global City, Eastwood City and Ortigas Avenue.

Along with an overabundance of SMEs, which are your basic “mom and pop stores,” what strikes one about Binondo is a deep nostalgia for a glory that fled this district a scant five decades ago.

That nostalgia, however, has been translated by Chinese Filipinos and other imaginative Filipinos into a thriving tourist industry. Binondo has become one of the most popular tourist destinations in Manila, especially among overseas Chinese, of course.

Tourists have become a growing source of business revenues in Binondo. Today, Binondo is famous for its tourism offerings that include bargain shopping; exotic “Binondo cuisine;”places and Chinese Filipinos linked to the Philippine Revolution of 1896; religious sites and historic buildings that harken to its past greatness.

“Food tourism” is now a staple of a growing number of tourism packages in Binondo. The presence of dozens of mom and pop Chinese restaurants concocting hundreds of dishes and variations on these dishes has created a lively and popular tourism sector called “Food Tourism.”

Adventurous “foodies” (or gastronomes, in more formal conversation) take a group of fellow foodies or tourists on a walking tour of select Binondo restaurants. Here, they savor the Chinese menu while the foodie tour guide spews titillating facts about the cuisine, the restaurant or Binondo Cuisine, in general.

The tour starts at about US$30 per person.  You can find video of some of these Food Tours or Food Trips on YouTube.

Chinese good luck charms and tikoy for sale at Ongpin St in Binondo

Binondo: a center for Catholicism

There’s also historical and cultural tourism focusing on the role of Chinese Filipinos in the Philippines’ revolution for independence against Spain in 1896, and the saga of Roman Catholicism in the Philippines.

Surprisingly, the centerpiece of both these tourism forms is a Roman Catholic Church: the Minor Basilica of San Lorenzo Ruiz located at Plaza Lorenzo Ruiz along Ongpin St.

This church is a holy shrine to both revolutionary nationalism and pious religiosity. It is named after St. Lorenzo Ruiz, a Chinese Filipino martyred defending Roman Catholicism in 1637. He was tortured then murdered by the Japanese in Nagasaki after refusing to recant his Catholic faith.

St. Lorenzo Ruiz is the first Filipino saint; he was canonized or declared a saint in 1987. The Chinese Filipino saint was born in Binondo to a Chinese father and a Filipina, both of whom were Catholics. St. Lorenzo Ruiz learned Chinese (most probably Hokkien) from his father and the Tagalog dialect from his mother.

He was educated by friars of the Order of Preachers, popularly known at the Dominicans, who were in charge of the Binondo Church during that time. The saint served as an altar boy in this church that is today named after him.

Another Filipino who will become a Roman Catholic Saint is also Chinese Filipino. She is Venerable Ignacia del Espíritu Santo, also known as Mother Ignacia.

She was born in 1663 to a Chinese father (he was from Xiamen) and a Filipina. She is cherished for founding the Congregation of the Sisters of the Religious of the Virgin Mary, the first convent with approved pontifical status in the Philippines. This order runs the network of Saint Mary’s colleges and academies throughout the Philippines.

She was declared Venerable, two stages before sainthood, in 2007. Her eventual canonization is widely expected.

The three major forms of transportation in Binondo (from the left): the horse drawn calesa, a pedicab and the jeepney

Binondo and the Philippine Revolution

The Binondo Church’s link to the Philippine Revolution of 1896 is by way of Andres Bonifacio and his wife, Gregoria de Jesus. They were married at the Binondo Church in March 1893, eight months after Bonifacio and other patriots founded the Katipunan.

The Katipunan (or The Association) was the secret Philippine revolutionary society that ignited the Philippine Revolution against Spain on August 26, 1896. Bonifacio led the Katipunan as its “Supremo” (Supreme Leader) from 1895 until his death in 1897.

Katipunan is the short form of the Tagalog phrase, “Kataas-taasan, Kagalang-galangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan,” or the Highest and Most Honorable Society of the Children of the Nation. The Katipunan defeated the Spaniards in 1898 and declared Philippine independence that same year.

Ongpin Street, Binondo’s two kilometer long main road, is named after a Chinese Filipino hero who helped the Katipunan win the war for independence against Spain in 1898.

Roman Ongpin, like St. Lorenzo Ruiz, was born in Binondo. Ongpin’s father came from Fujian while his mother was a Filipina.

Ongpin became a merchant and established an art supplies store called El 82. His store, however, was not an ordinary art supplies dealer.

With Ongpin’s consent, Filipino revolutionaries of the “Katipunan” met at his store to plan their attacks on the Spaniards. During the Revolution of 1896, he used the store’s revenues to buy guns and ammunition for the “Katipuneros ”(or Filipino rebels belonging to the Katipunan). When his store burned down in 1898, Ongpin donated the insurance money to the Katipunan.

Ongpin, however, was eventually caught and imprisoned by the Spaniards but not executed.  He was also jailed by the Americans for supporting Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo, who led the Katipuneros (following Bonifacio’s death) in the Philippine War for Independence against the Americans from 1899 to 1902.

Ongpin died in 1912 and was buried wearing a “Barong Tagalog,” the formal wear of male Filipinos. It was a stirring affirmation of what Ongpin, a Chinese Filipino, thought of himself: he was, heart and soul, a Filipino.

His imposing bronze statue is located beside the Minor Basilica of San Lorenzo Ruiz.

Photos by Art Villasanta

(Published in Zest Air Inflight Magazine, 2012)

Confessions of a “Rewriter”

REWRITING IS THE new writing.

In an internet universe where content is allegedly king, writing has transmogrified into a product—a cheap commodity—to be mass produced, sold and re-sold for profit.

Quantity and unique views are what matter. And quality? Someone will have to re-define what this concept means in the website factories that mass produce stories.

My beloved profession, known and revered in the analog world of past centuries as “writing,” has been grotesquely twisted and co-opted into this thing called “Rewriting.”

Rewriters like me are the Minions of that “internet space” called “content aggregation.” We tirelessly rewrite stories picked-up off the internet so these stories still make sense and, most important, bypass that bane of all rewriters, CopyScape.

We mass produce stories by the thousands. I’ve rewritten over 5,000 news stories for over half a dozen content aggregation websites.

I’ve rewritten science, technology, business and entertainment stories. I’m the proud owner of so much mundane information my short-term memory is in dangerous overload.

But 5,000 stories is nothing. One Filipina rewriter I wrote with said she’d rewritten over 20,000 stories.

When I was a newbie rewriter, I did five stories a day. I peaked at 15 stories a day, five days a week when I got the hang of this job.

It takes anywhere from four to five hours of searching, selecting, reading, understanding and rewriting to manufacture 15 stories. The price you pay for mass producing stories is everlasting neck and shoulder pain.

Rewriting stories by the dozen greatly offends my sensibilities as a classically trained writer who cut his teeth on typewriters.  You know, typewriters.

Grandpa’s version of the desktop PC that goes tack-tack when you hammer at the keys and prints words using this prehistoric printer-thing called a ribbon.

But writers write for two Muses: Clio and Melpomene.

Clio because classical writers have this innate hubris their stories will be deified by history. Melpomene because writing is always a tragedy, especially if she becomes your mistress.

You won’t get rich writing but Minions like me hack away at their keyboards for P100 a story. That’s a tragedy of Homeric proportions.

Don’t laugh, ye barefaced whelps. This pittance helps pay the bills. It does for me and hundreds of other Filipino rewriters.

Just who are these faceless Minions that sprout from this mutant branch in the Tree of Writing called Rewriting?

Right now, I lead a team of seven science and technology writers. We rewrite for a content aggregation company based in New York, USA. All my rewriters are Filipinos.

They’re young, mostly women in their 20s. They’re romantic, far too respectful of authority and single.  They’re well-educated, all of them.

Most of them majored in courses identified with writing such as journalism and communication arts. I’ve got a writer with a degree in computer engineering while another’s a veterinarian, or a veterinarian geek, as he describes himself.

My rewriters are from University of the Philippines, Miriam College Foundation, Inc., Ateneo de Manila University, University of Southeastern Philippines in Davao City, University of Santo Tomas and University of the Philippines, Los Baños.

Most of them have done this kind of work before. Some of them have done SEO (search engine optimization) writing, which is the evil twin of rewriting.

They’re all in the process of attaining their full potential as writers. Their writing reflects their uncertainty and fear of making mistakes. They write cautiously.

But these kids work hard, understand science and tech and take pride in being part of a successful team.

They’re all idealistic—as a rewriter must be. Without this basic quality, a rewriter won’t endure the daily grind she inflicts on herself. That makes them heroic in my eyes.

Rewriting science and technology stories is never easy.  You have to read, understand, understand, understand and then rewrite.

Rewriting’s still journalism in its structure and its emphasis on accurate information. It might not look that way to classical writers but it is.

My people rewrite five to seven stories five days a week. On Saturdays, they do three stories. Sunday is a day-off. You can write on Sundays if you want to. Every peso helps.

And why do I claim rewriting’s the new writing?

Because in this country that still speaks and writes the best English in Southeast Asia, rewriting is the only financially and professionally rewarding offshoot of writing available to Filipinos that write in English.

Media is closed to most Filipino writers in English. There are only three English broadsheets and the chances of a kid landing a job as a reporter in any of these papers is probably the equivalent of winning the Lotto.

TV and radio are out. Filipino is the language of the masses these media pander to.

My official job is to edit my team’s stories. My personal commitment is to help these kids become better writers by combining their experience with osmosis.

Rewriting that’s been well edited has a tendency to seep into a rewriter’s consciousness by osmosis. The rewriter sees his original, reads the edited version, says to herself, “This looks better” and rewrites better stories the next time around.

I’ve seen this happen. Writers and rewriters that want to be better writers will motivate themselves to be better writers. Quotas won’t get them to improve.

Rewriting is the only discipline that’s keeping alive the art of English writing in this country.

The thousands of young Filipinas and the smattering of young Filipino men that persist in writing in English deserve recognition for their ardor.

Sure, rewriting’s a job but as these kids get better at it, the job will become a vocation for many and an obsession for the zealous few.

Writing in English will remain alive in this country, thanks to the Filipino rewriter.

Melpomene be praised.

(Published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, September 19, 2014)

Medical tourism: where the jobs are

MEDICAL TOURISM, the country’s youngest growth industry, has a long way to go—and a lot of employees to recruit—to attain its goal of earning some P135 billion by 2015.

Optimistic government projections say this massive amount of money will come from the one million medical tourists expected to arrive in the next five years. There were some 60,000 medical tourists in 2007 and 100,000 in 2008. Our medical tourism industry has earned about P16 billion since 2004 when the government took its first steps in making medical tourism an industry.

Much of that money went to doctors, nurses, physical therapists, spa personnel, reflexologists, masseuses and tourism personnel who populate the medical tourism industry, which also goes by the name health and wellness tourism industry and the medical travel industry.

Worldwide, medical tourism today is worth from P1.8 to P2.7 trillion and is growing annually at a rate of 20%, so it could be a P8.5 trillion global business by 2013.

Jobs in medical tourism

Medical tourism is widely defined as a health holiday that includes cost effective private medical care and tour packages (sightseeing, golf and shopping, for example). It also includes leisure and relaxation activities such as spa therapies to re-invigorate patients.

The government said employment in medical tourism rose 13% from 2003 to 2005 to around 239,000 employees (or about one percent of total employment in the Philippines). Clearly, medical tourism is the place to be for medical, tourism and hotel and restaurant management students who could earn big without leaving the Philippines to work abroad.

Medical tourism will also enhance complementary industries such as travel, airlines and hospitality. And, equally important, medical tourism could reduce and reverse the brain drain of Filipino medical professionals (especially doctors and nurses) who continue to go abroad to work.

And where are these medical tourism jobs located? They’re mostly in two places: Metro Manila for the medical aspect of medical tourism and Cebu for both the medical and wellness side of the equation.

Without doubt, Metro Manila is this country’s center for the medical arts and medical education. Two of the country’s three hospitals accredited as medical tourism hospitals are in Metro Manila: St. Luke’s Medical Center in Quezon City and Medical City in Pasig City. The other accredited hospital is the Chong Hua Hospital in Cebu City. Private hospitals in Metro Manila offer the best in medical facilities equal to western hospitals, with some providing accommodations similar to that of five-star hotels.

The opening of St. Luke’s Medical Center at the Global City in Taguig City in January 2010 was a landmark in the medical tourism industry. St. Luke’s Taguig is the country’s first hospital designed from the ground up for medical tourism.

St. Luke's Medical Center, Global City

St. Luke’s Taguig, sister hospital of St. Luke’s Quezon City, houses 374 doctors’ clinics, 18 operating rooms, 5 caesarian section and delivery rooms, imaging suites, critical care units, a cardiac catheriterization laboratory, ob-gynecology, a post-anesthetic care unit and 10 institutes (Heart, Cancer, Neurosciences, Digestive and Liver Diseases, Eye, Orthopedics and Sports Medicine, Pathology, Pulmonary Medicine, Radiology, and Pediatrics and Child Health).

St. Luke’s Taguig is regarded as the best hospital in the Philippines today and one of the best in the world. It is better-equipped than 95% of hospitals in the USA. The hospital caters to two main markets— medical tourism and patients from the Makati Central Business District. The government said the opening of St. Luke’s Taguig should strengthen the Philippines’ medical tourism industry, and boost the Philippines as an excellent retirement location.

Accreditation enhances the quality of medical care by providing quality standards and measuring hospital performance against internationally accepted benchmarks. Having more accredited hospitals could help convince more medical tourists to choose the Philippines instead of other countries. All three of our accredited hospitals were accredited by Joint Commission International (JCI), an international agency that certifies hospitals and other healthcare facilities worldwide.

“The Philippines will only succeed if more medical institutions will get international accreditation and improve medical services,” said Dr. Anthony Calibo, Program Manager of the Philippine Medical Tourism Program under the Department of Health (DOH).

Cebu medical tourism

The heart of the Philippines’ tourism industry lies in the Visayas and the jewels of the region’s tourism industry are Cebu and Boracay. The accreditation of Chong Hua Hospital in Cebu City as one of only three medical tourism accredited hospitals indicates the Visayas realizes the potential of medical tourism and is doing something about it.

The ongoing tourism boom is also expected to further benefit medical tourism in Cebu. Cebu is visited every year by a third of all tourists to the Philippines and is also the most popular tourist destination among foreigners, followed by Boracay. Of the top five tourist destinations in the Philippines, four are in the Visayas. Some 8,000 more hotel and resort rooms are expected to open in the next five years, mostly in Cebu and Metro Manila, bringing a massive number of jobs.

Chong Hua Hospital in Cebu City

 In 2009, those jobs were at Cebu’s P3.2 billion Imperial Palace Water Park, Resort and Spa (800 jobs), the Radisson Hotel in Cebu City and the P8.5 million San Remigio Beach Club in northern Cebu. New hotels at Boracay are the Shangri-La Boracay Resort and Spa, Crowne Regency, Phonex Hotel, Boracay Regency Lagoon, Seven Stones and Grand Water.

Its combined medical and wellness aspects make medical tourism in Cebu unique. A medical tourist can have a medical, cosmetic or surgical procedure performed in Cebu City, relax at a spa then tour any of the world class tourism sites in the province, in the Visayas or in Mindanao.

“The Wellness Island of Cebu” is how the province promotes itself to medical tourists. Officials in charge of this effort say Cebu has many advantages as a medical tourist destination: low cost medical procedures (from 50% to 90% cheaper than those in the USA); competent and experienced doctors and medical personnel; the wide use of English and the natural tendency of Cebuanos (and Filipinos, in general) towards compassionate caregiving. There are also a large number of spas that help facilitate recovery.

Good years ahead

Good years lie ahead for medical tourism. This October will see the holding of the 2010 International Summit on Medical Travel, Wellness and Retirement (IMWELL) Summit where experts from the hospitality, healthcare, travel and wellness industries around the world will discuss how to make the Philippines the next preferred medical travel destination in Asia.

The ongoing crisis in U.S. healthcare is also expected to boost our medical tourism. The U.S. accounts for P77 trillion of the P149 trillion spent annually for healthcare worldwide. Although Americans spend more for healthcare than any country in the world, the quality of the healthcare they receive is abysmal: the World Health Organization ranks the U.S. 37^th when it comes to quality of healthcare. The top healthcare nations are in Europe.

Consequently, Americans are increasingly turning overseas to address their healthcare needs as their healthcare insurance costs skyrocket at a higher rate than overall inflation. The market for our medical tourism: uninsured Americans and a large number of underinsured since the procedures they mostly undergo (such as cosmetic surgery) are elective and not covered by health insurance. The U.S. also faces a sharp cut in new physicians entering its healthcare system.

Medical tourism today, however, isn’t common enough to play a role in U.S. healthcare reform—not yet, at least. One estimate said medical travel spending accounted for no more 1% (P10.8 billion) of the P108 trillion spent on healthcare in the U.S. in 2007.

Medical travel in the U.S. is gaining ground, however. The four largest commercial U.S. health insurers have either launched pilot programs offering medical tourism or are exploring it. The influential American Medical Association has released new guidelines on medical tourism intended to inform and advise patients, employers, insurers and those coordinating international healthcare about how to ensure the quality and safety of patient care internationally.

(Published in Enrich magazine, 2010)

The Slave

LUCIUS read the letter carefully. 

It was so typical of his cynical old uncle—a humorous Roman—but a rogue if ever one lived. Sometimes one's better instincts resented his uncle's heartless cynicism and his frank, unblushing extravagance. 

But his witty apologies made one forget one's resentment in the roar of laughter that acknowledged his cleverness.

"Lucius, my son," he wrote, using, the young man noticed, the best parchment and not common wax slates, "the slaves I send you are a bit of Roman civilization to console you in the midst of your Jewish exile. They cost me a great deal so use them well. 

“The Gothic barbarian is strong enough to serve as porter or bully. The Greek is a skilled secretary who will write your letters or heal your aches. 

"And the girl . . . Oh, Lucius, my generous heart alone makes me send her to you when my artistic nature bids me not to do so. Think of your old uncle affectionately. Hail and farewell." 

Lucius looked up at the messenger who had delivered the parchment.

"Where are the slaves?" he asked.

"At the exchange of Synesius the Persian,” replied the messenger with bowed head. 

“He awaits your acceptance. We brought them carefully from Rome to Jerusalem by the best boats and the smoothest wheels. Your uncle bade us commit them to you in perfect condition."

"We shall see them," said Lucius sternly, using the pronoun uttered by the rich elite to emphasize their exceptionalism.

It was like his rascally old uncle to remember him in his diplomatic posting to the Province of Judea. The Goth he could use for a bodyguard. Romans needed bodyguards when mad Messiahs ran berserk on Jerusalem’s dirty streets. The educated Greek could be commanded to do many things for Greeks were both clever and useful. 

But the girl . . . ?

A disturbing gift

How like his uncle to send him a girl slave. Lucius frowned. Was his uncle a true friend or a clever enemy out to sabotage his ascent into the higher realm of Roman politics?

A girl was either trouble or a source of trouble. But a girl slave could be more trouble than she was worth. He had seen it before with debauched slave owners. 

He needed to focus all his energy on his goal of returning to Rome cloaked in glory. This slave girl, or any woman, would complicate his great, personal mission immensely.

Lucius boarded the “lectica” borne by four slaves. Four Roman legionaries clad in armored tunics accompanied the procession through Jerusalem’s crowded streets: past bales and boxes, animal cages, bunches of fruit, and through the thousand smells of spices, sandalwood and human sweat.

Lucius alighted from the sedan at the exchange of Synesius the Persian, who welcomed him fearfully. The Persian led him to a small room, rough yet fitted for human occupancy. 

Here sat the dirty, hairy Goth; the Greek, who had somehow remained spotlessly clean despite the long journey from Rome, and the girl, hidden by the shadow of a column.

Lucius appraised the Goth and the Greek quickly and with a satisfied glance. Synesius dragged the girl from within the shadow and Lucius now understood why his uncle hesitated giving her away. 

She was young and truly beautiful, her lean figure unable to detract from a charm that was magnified by her shimmering blonde hair.

“Why is she clothed in rags?” Lucius demanded.

"She would not dress in the fine garments we brought her," apologized the messenger. "I am sorry."

Lucius stared at his beautiful slave and understood why she refused the rich garments; they would have made her irresistible. He lifted-up her chin so his eyes could feast more on her lovely face. Instead, Lucius saw terror in her brilliant blue eyes. 

"Come," Lucius commanded the messenger. "'We shall take them to my house."

A brave Jewess

The burly Goth lumbered onward followed by the Greek who walked in mincing steps. The girl had to be prodded forward by the irritated messenger. The slaves were all in chains. 

This motley assemblage paused at the street entrance to Synesius’ compound while Lucius and the Persian discussed the business at hand. 

The slave girl slumps against a pillar, resigned to an evil fate at the hands of her Roman master. She begins to sob.

A gentle hand on her shoulder makes the slave girl look up and stop crying. A smiling woman embraces her, saying soothing words she did not understand but took to be words of pity. 

The slave girl raises her chained arms. The woman takes off her blue cloak and uses it to cover the slave girl’s badly torn garments.

“You! Move away from that slave!” shouts the messenger in Hebrew. 

One of their Roman soldier escorts, hearing the shout, moves towards the women, his right hand on the hilt of his sheathed sword.

Lucius looks up to see a commotion and growing crowd of onlookers. Hurrying forward, he sees his slave girl clinging to the shoulder of this woman he assumes to be a Jew. 

The messenger and the soldier wait for Lucius to speak.

“Tell the Jewess to leave,” commands Lucius to the messenger, who does so in Hebrew.

In reply, the Jewess lifts the slave girl and embraces her. 

“Tell the Jewess she will die if she does not leave.” 

And having said that, Lucius commands the Roman soldier to unsheathe his short sword. This, the soldier does and moves closer to the Jewess.

The messenger translates Lucius’ command. 

The milling crowd of Jews gasps collectively upon hearing the threat. More Jews gather. The remaining three Roman soldiers form a wall between the growing mob and their Roman master. 

The Jewess and the slave girl embrace each other more tightly than before. It tells Lucius they are ready to die together. The Jewess speaks loudly so all can hear.

“What did she say?” Lucius asks the messenger.

She begs you to set this slave girl free. The Jewess says she will pay for your slave girl with all the money she has, the messenger replies.

Lucius scoffs. How much money can a poverty stricken Jewess carry on her person?

He approaches the two women. 

“Tell the Jewess to show me what money she carries,” he commands the messenger.

The Jewess takes a purse from beneath her robe. She pours all the contents into the palm of her left hand: three Herodean coins.

The messenger breaks into loud, mocking laughter. Lucius sneers. 

“Not even enough for a pigeon,” he gloats. 

Lucius nods at the Roman soldier who moves to within a sword’s length of the women. The slave girl wails in panic, begging for her life, but the Jewess stands bravely in the face of imminent death.

An overwhelming kindness

Lucius’ eyes fasten onto those of the Jewess. Her iron gaze stares back at him. 

She is unafraid, this Lucius can see. He admires strength, which is all too often absent in women.

But as she stares at this doomed Jewess, Lucius realizes it is not hatred he sees in her eyes. It is an overwhelming kindness. 

Only now does Lucius really see her face. Unclouded by prejudice, Lucius becomes aware of an elderly woman whose great suffering has not diminished her love of God or her respect for others. 

He becomes aware he stands in the presence of a mother who has undergone the incredible pain of great personal loss, but who does not hate. He becomes aware of a woman who bore into the world The Son of God.

This epiphany stuns Lucius. It is as if someone were talking to him and telling him the story of this Jewess.

Lucius is abruptly awakened from this vision by angry shouts. He looks farther afield to see his three Roman guards pressed backwards by an ever larger mass of bystanders. He looks at the Jewess.

“Tell her I accept her payment,” says Lucius to the messenger.

“What?” the messenger replies incredulously.

 “Tell her now and shout it out! Do it . . . now!” Lucius commands.

The messenger yells Lucius’ reply. The shouting and pushing from the crowd ceases. 

“Take her money,” he tells the messenger. 

He turns to Synesius.

“Free the Goth and the Greek. Unchain the girl.”

The messenger shouts to the crowd what Lucius has done. Synesius complies with Lucius’ order and the two freed men hurry towards the two women.

“Tell them they are all free to go.”

The freed slaves thank Lucius profusely in their own languages. They shout with joy. The crowd roars with them.

The Jewess approaches Lucius and speaks.

She says she knew you would set them all free, translates the messenger. 

“We thank you,” she added.

“We?” asked Lucius, who is shocked to suddenly understand what the Jewess is saying in Hebrew. The messenger is dumbfounded to hear the Jewess speak in Latin and the Roman in Hebrew.

“My Son and I,” she replied. 

“Your son?”

“His name is Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God.”

“Your name is . . . Mary,” says the astonished Roman. “Why do I know your name and understand your language?”

The Jewess smiles faintly. “My Son has touched you.”

So saying, Mary the mother of Jesus of Nazareth, departs the Roman’s presence, taking with her the three persons freed from bondage by a miracle.

Make your car healthier and safer

NOTICE HOW WADS of crisp, newly printed P1,000 bills or the interior of a brand new car emit certain odors that make you giddy with delight?

The scent of clean, new money is a wonderful “pick-me-up” caused by chemicals in the special inks used in printing these bills. You could literally call the effect produced by these inks “a million peso high.”

The odor emitted by the interior of a brand new car, on the other hand, comes from the many chemical compounds used to make practically everything inside the passenger compartment.

Those chemicals, baked by the heat inside the closed compartment, produce that distinctive “new car smell” that assaults your senses once you open the car door. You could also describe the effect as a “million peso high” since many new cars in this country cost over a million pesos.

Unlike the harmless giddiness produced by money, however, that “new car smell” comes from toxic gases—and could be dangerous to your health.

PBDEs and phthalates

In 2006, a groundbreaking study released by The Ecology Center showed that interiors of cars and other motor vehicles contain dangerous levels of toxic chemicals. The Ecology Center is a membership-based, nonprofit environmental organization based in Ann Arbor, Michigan that keeps tabs on toxic car chemicals.

Its 2006 report entitled, "Toxic At Any Speed: Chemicals in Cars and the Need for Safe Alternatives," reveals that many materials producing that “new car smell” are made from toxic chemicals known to pose major public health risks.

Car interiors are made from different kinds of plastics or “plasticized” leather. According to health experts, these plastics constantly emit toxins vaporized from the different plastic components in the car’s interior.

New cars carry 250 pounds of plastic on average. Most of these plastics are used in arm rests, door panels, steering wheels, dashboards, interior seat cushions and switches.

This toxic chemical climate in automobile interiors is normally caused by “PBDEs,” (chemicals used as fire retardants) and “phthalates,” (or phthalic acid esters, which are chemicals used to soften PVC plastics). The study found PBDEs and phthalates in dangerous amounts in dust and windshield film samples.

PBDEs or Polybrominated diphenyl ethers are organobromine compounds used as flame retardants. The European Union has banned the use of PBDEs and polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs) in electric and electronic devices out of health concerns.

PBDEs and phthalates are considered volatile organic compounds (VOCs). These are carbon-based chemicals that can evaporate into the air under the right conditions such as high temperatures caused by sunlight.

The most prevalent VOCs found in new cars are benzene (a human carcinogen); ethylbenzene (a systemic toxic agent) and acetone (a mucosal irritant).

“Off-gassing”

The Ecology Center described cars as “chemical reactors” that release toxins in a process called “off-gassing.” It said PBDE, phthalates and other chemicals are inhaled or ingested by drivers and passengers through dust and air, potentially causing allergic or other acute reactions, and long-term health problems such as birth defects, impaired learning, liver toxicity and cancer.

Off-gassing is triggered by high interior temperatures caused by sunlight, a process that accelerates in cars parked under the sun. The combination of higher temperatures caused by windshields and windows, and UV exposure from sunlight can cause PBDEs in cars to become up to five times more dangerous than in homes and offices.

The study also showed significantly higher levels of PBDEs in vehicles studied compared to levels in homes and offices measured in previous studies, making “in-car pollution” a major source of indoor air pollution.

The study said toxic chemical exposure inside vehicles is a major source of potential indoor air pollution since the average American spends about 1.5 hours in a car everyday. Children are the most vulnerable to off-gassing.

U.S. automakers, however, believe that chemicals such as the PBDE flame retardants are needed to protect people in crashes. They claim these chemicals have been shown not to pose a risk to occupants.

“Safe” plastics

The Ecology Center’s website at www.healthycar.org provides a wealth of information about the dangers of off-gassing. HealthyCar.org tested some 450 of the most popular vehicle models in the U.S. from 2006-2009.

It noted that two car makers had made significant improvements since the original findings and had joined another company as the three leaders in using “safe” plastics for indoor auto parts. The trio also widely uses bio-based materials; is improving interior air quality and reducing PVC use.

One maker developed an eco-plastic made from sugar cane or corn and is building a pilot plant to produce it. Another is developing a soy-based foam and a bio-fabric for its car seats.

Japanese car makers, however, became the first to set an industry-wide goal of reducing VOCs in passenger compartments. They agreed to cut levels of 13 VOCs (including styrene and formaldehyde) to match Japanese requirements for homes.

A separate study on VOCs, PBDEs and phthalates conducted by Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) discovered extremely high levels of these substances in new cars.

It found that total VOC levels were very high in two locally made cars that reached the market one to two months after manufacture. These levels decreased some seven-fold in the first month, but still exceeded Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council indoor air standard.

While there is no comparable study in the Philippines, it is probably safe to assume that Filipino drivers and passengers face the same dangers from off-gassing as do their American and Australian counterparts.

One must remember, however, that exposure to VOCs, PBDEs and phthalates does not automatically mean one will get sick.

Among the many factors that determine if new car owners and their passengers may become ill from off-gassing include exposure to one or more individual VOCs or VOC combinations that create another compound; length of time of exposure and personal characteristics such as age and general health status.

Tips for a healthier car

Filipino car owners will also benefit from these tips on how to minimize the dangers from off-gassing and make their cars healthier:

• Vacuum often;
• Use solar reflectors often;
• Ventilate the car interior often;
• Park in the shade or away from sunlight as much as possible