Last week was probably the most meaningful and spiritually enriching Lent for me so far. As I toured the towns for the Visita Iglesia (which consisted of me stopping in front of churches and proceeding to the nearest sari-sari store for beer), I discovered that our public comfort rooms had become so user-friendly as to have signs that read: “IHI = P3.00, LIBANG = P5.00.”

And for the benefit of tourists who might forget they are in the Philippines, a translation was added below: “Urinate = Php 3.00, Deficit = Php 5.00.”

If it were not Holy Week, I would have questioned why a member of the public had to pay for the use of a public CR. But it was Holy Week, so I decided to be extra considerate. I just approached the “CR attendant” and gently asked him: “WHYTHEF>CK@*&^#!!!GRRR!++#%!!!??”

I mean, should I also pay for my favorite spot in the town plaza? Really? Then here’s a suggestion for the service and corresponding rates: “LINGKOD-LINGKOD = P50.00, BARUG-BARUG = P30.00, IHI = P3.00, LIBANG P5.00.”

“For maintenance, sir,” the CR attendant told me, and, as if reading my thoughts, added, “Yes sir, ‘CR attendant’ is a regular position in government. Plantilla sir, with payroll.”

It was Holy Week. A CR attendant was proud of his job. And Gilbert “I Am Jesus” Bargayo was being nailed to the cross for the 173th time even if he had chicken pox. And there I was complaining about things related to comfort rooms. How inconsequential my worries were compared to the woes of the world!

So I decided to make a personal sacrifice by researching on man’s act of discharging bodily wastes. My extensive research required typing the words “excreta + comfort rooms + Php3.00 + Php5.00” and clicking “search.”

According to my research, there is actually a Presidential Decree enforcing fees for the use of public CRs called “Presidential Decree Enforcing Fees For The Use Of Public CRs.” The decree used as basis an independent international survey that says human activities like urination and defecation are extremely private acts that should require fees when done in public. This is the same survey used by many mega cities to support ordinances penalizing spitting in public.

The survey, simply called “The Survey,” also reveals what each of these private acts costs a particular economy when done in public for free. In a Third World country for example, every minute a person spent urinating in public free of charge cost the government P1.00 in lost income. Add a few centavos to the amount if one stayed longer in the CR to defecate. The Survey explains that every minute a man spent in any given public area should translate into government income if democracy as we know it is to survive.

I have to use my imagination to understand this. Let’s see. A trisikad driver earns at least P3.00 for the first three minutes he spends pedaling a passenger to his destination. It’s a forced one, but it makes sense.

This explains the fixed fees at public CRs; because my research also showed that an average person with average bladder strength stays in the CR for an average of three minutes. This excludes allowance for the obligatory makeup retouch for women, which makes me wonder why public CRs are not charging women more.

But can we talk about women next Lent? Thanks.

(sun.star, march 25, 2008)

One good thing about surfing the net is that every now and then you come across articles that confirm some of your strong beliefs about life and stuff, especially stuff. Me, I always believe fecal matters mutate into some kind of aliens the moment they leave our bodies and that they’re just waiting for the right time to start an invasion.

I once brought this up with my editors, who promptly dismissed me as nuts. When septic tank cleaners dropped dead one after another a couple of years ago, septic tank experts came up with a stupid theory that said accumulated fart caused the deaths. Nothing was farter, I mean farther, from the truth. It was weapon-slinging poo-poos giving earthlings a taste of a much greater destruction soon to come. If you think I’m joking, read this article about splashing poo-poos: http://alive-alive-my-poopoo-is-alive

SEAT OF WISDOM

ALL this news about people dying inside septic tanks has got me reflecting on man’s relationship with the toilet. If you see me down the street lost in thought while waiting for a ride home, it’s toilet that I’m thinking. If I bump into you in the mall and don’t as much as notice your smile, it’s that fatal septic smell that has robbed my mind of memories of our long forgotten friendship.

Deaths inside a septic tank just don’t make sense.

Septic tanks by their job description are supposed to help us go on with our lives, not poison us with gas fumes that, come to think of it, our bodies themselves produced.

Why “clean” septic tanks in the first place? Things that feed on wastes naturally react violently against outside forces that want to impose on others their idea of cleanliness. Now we are caught in a fierce battle with the laws of nature.

Years of immersion in remote barangays and the city’s slums exposed me to toilets that suck in not just human wastes but humans as well. These are places where lavatories and septic pits are separated only by a thin slab of concrete that is in constant risk of collapsing at the weight of someone rushing in with a diarrhea.

One toilet in a mountain barangay in a southern town had me hoisting a rope to a beam and tying one end around my waist in case the floor gave way.

This method of tethering oneself while dropping anchor had actually saved a farmer in a neighboring barangay. When the dark, bottomless pit sucked in the lavatory, the rope held the farmer swinging like a pendulum until help arrived. This method caught on around the neighborhood. A rope is cheaper than building a safer toilet, you know.

While here we continue to wage war against septic tanks, toilets in other parts of the world have been producing great minds that spew out world-altering ideas.

Take Martin Luther for example. German archaeologists are reported to have recently discovered the lavatory on which the 16th century religious leader wrote the 95 Theses that launched the Protestant Reformation.

Experts have been certain for years that Luther wrote his revolutionary ideas while on the das klo, as the Germans call it. But they didn’t know where the object was until they stumbled upon it in the remains of an annex of Luther’s house.

It makes sense if one learns that Luther frequently alluded to the fact that he suffered from chronic constipation and spent much of his time in contemplation on the lavatory.

It makes even more sense when we realized how many of us find in the toilet a perfect place to read, smoke or think. When I was a kid, I wrote my love letters inside the toilet, and cried rivers into the toilet bowl when none of those strawberry-scented stationeries produced favorable response.

In a world where few friends can be trusted with life’s intimate details, the CR can really be one comforting room.

(sun.star weekend magazine)

Last Thursday in Seoul, the World Toilet Association held its first major gathering to voice out its disappointment that governments are not giving “the matter of defecation as much attention” as hair care and halitosis.

The Seoul conference followed the one in India where delegates from dozens of nations gathered for the World Toilet Summit to put an end to “open air defecation” as a favorite third world pastime. “Against Canines and Filipino Men,” the World Toilet Summit formed a sub-committee on urinals, “For the Protection of Defenseless Walls and Car Tires.”

The New Delhi summit was organized by the WTO. If there wasn’t any anti-globalization protester making noise there, it’s because WTO stands for World Toilet Organization. No activist wants to carry a placard that says, “No To Toilet Globalization.”

The World Toilet Summit brought together 170 toilet experts from more than 40 toilet-loving countries to exchange toilet notes on the future of toilets. Their concern was that there are not enough toilets for all six billion of us in this planet. And if this problem is not addressed immediately, only the 170 of them will be left to have toilets by 2015 while the rest of us will come knocking at their doors at the first sign of indigestion.

And just yesterday, dozens of toilet-loving NGOs marked “World Toilet Day” by launching international campaigns for “more hygiene awareness and investments in toilet facilities.” Yes, yesterday was “World Toilet Day,” and you never even cared to say good morning to your broken toilet seat.

Your toilet has the attention of our global leaders. The United Nations has declared 2008 as the “Year of Sanitation,” which I suspect is actually a sanitized version of the originally proposed “Year of the Toilet.” We can forgive the UN for the euphemism. After all, they give us the figures: 2.6 billion of the six billion people on earth today do not have access to safe and hygienic toilets. That’s more than 40 percent of the global population.

What is 40 percent of the global population? I’m poor in math, but just imagine walking down the street in your neighborhood. Count 40 steps, stop, look to either side, there’s a 40 percent chance the house that stands there has no toilet. If it’s a vacant lot with lots of grass, that’s the toilet itself. The UN target is that toilets are provided to half of these 40 percent by 2015 and to all of us by 2025. Which means, by the time we will have individual toilets, they no longer have any use to us because we are already wearing adult diapers.

Here’s more. About 1.8 million people, mostly children, die every year from diarrhea-related diseases that are mainly blamed on poor hygiene and the use of tabloids as toilet paper, the World Health Organization said.

If you’re a politician and you say there are no votes in the toilet so this article is not for you, listen to Australia’s number one toilet plumber Kenny Smyth, who attended the World Toilet Summit as the inventor of the “Gravity-producing Toilet for Australian Astronauts.” He said “unequal access to toilets is a human rights violation — worse than not being able to vote.” Now, you know where to focus your next campaign.

OK, I’m done. Where’s the toilet?

(Sun.Star, Nov. 27, 2007, Opinion Page)