PSS halo-halo

The “a” pronounced as “a” in ‘father,’ halo-halo is an all-purpose snack or dessert in the Filipino plate of culinary offerings. The word itself means “mix-mix” and the blending of ingredients is in the tradition of the French bouillabaisse soup, or the Iberian rice-based dish of paella. The comparison is only in the word and process, not in the nature of the dish. Halo-halo is a bit more fruity, flighty, and frothy than the other two. The latter two involve a more serious admixture of nutritional and olfactory considerations.

For our purpose, we use the word here to designate a mindset, one that world-wise, street-savvy Pinoys excel in, to drive a point, or even to conceal a point until the opportune time when a message is delivered at the least expected and most unguarded moment. In this setting, one listens carefully to the delivery of message(s), in public and private discourses, lest one gets lost in the prelude, or pasakalye, and fails to notice the main thrust of a message when it finally comes.

This art form used widely by many communication practices around the world is a dismay of many Anglo-Saxon pedagogues who require that messages be delivered efficiently, with an economy of words and directly to the point. Such style has its place, but in the general conduct of nuanced gestures, status deference, and social posturing, the matter of “keeping face,” or maintaining “relational equilibrium” often precedes the need for literal clarity and singularity of message. Thus, the need to pay attention closely for shades of meaning, and in eye-to-eye contacts, the body language. This consciousness is not unlike being wary of the used car salesman who knows very well that the quality of the pitch generally determines the outcome of the sale!

The ice-coned milk-and-syrup concoction of many Fiesta Filipina memories of early childhood flowered into the halo-halo offering of the corner kiosk. In many corners of the Philippine archipelago, variations of the central ingredient varies, from the chewy nata de coco to the gummy slivers of fresh barely ripened jackfruit, scoops of carabao mango in Iloilo and whiffs of durian in Cotobato. Had myself been served bing cherries in Winnepeg and strawberries in Seattle. For the uninitiated, a trip to Susupe’s Island Delight, or Garapan’s D’Elegance, with some ¥en and a smile, will get you a frosty glass of halo-halo.

The mother of my two oldest children once asked me to explain why Filipinos delight in mixing vegetables like red beans and corn to root crops like ube, casava, taro, and sweet potatoes, along with various fruits like mango and jackfruit, and assortments of gelatins, jellies and jams into one unblended heap capped by ice shavings, ladled over with a thick layer of milk cream and syrup, topped by a scoop of coconut ice cream. She of Scot-Irish-Welsh-German descent very well knew that my late father-in-law, each time we visited him, prided himself in serving his favorite rice pudding sprinkled with cinnamon for dessert as his way of being ethnically sensitive to his son-in-law’s need for rice with his meal! Which is to say, there is no accounting for taste. Halo-halo might just have evolved, like the chop suey of the railway-building years of the N. American continental West, out of necessity. Perhaps, a mother found a way to get her children to eat their veggies without complaining about it!

This brings me to my crushed lychee in my PSS halo-halo. The payroll glitch the other week when salary checks were deducted a few pennies off due to a computer entry miscalculation was first admitted and explained away by Central Office (according to a published account) as a mistake. It was reported that having teachers apply for it in their tax rebates can rectify it. I impetuously suggested that teachers might go on strike the following Monday, or at best, go on a slowdown workday. PSS’ Mr. Waldo corrected the “rebate” suggestion and declared that teachers would get their money, adding, “It may just take some time.”

To Mr. Waldo’s credit, the situation was corrected quickly with the issuance of a hard copy of the familiar Bank of Guam PSS check. Experiencing post-holiday cash flow contradictions, my wife quickly brought the rectifying document to the closest ATM to deposit the money instrument. A few days later, the bank called to inform her that the deposit was declined because the document was not duly signed. She was told to expect receipt of the check in the mail. OK. Second glitch. My Shanghai born-and-bred spouse immediately saw retribution for my impatient outburst about teachers going on protest. Not generally the complaining type, I brought the instrument to my school’s front office so that it could be taken to Central office for the necessary signature. My envelope was returned with the notation that Central office personnel require that I personally take the document up the hill and personally present the instrument to a particular person at the finance office.

On a sunny day, I would be royally PSSed, and I do not mean by that to simply suggest a drift! This being the season of flu when I had to send home midweek a student with watery eyes, runny nose, coughs and sagging shoulders, caution another not to come to school to avoid spreading the virus from his coughs, and when on Thursday, I had the embarrassing moment when a quarter hour before dispersing time, while my class were perusing their books, I nodded almost to sleep at the front of the room; and further, when I showed up Friday morning in class with body aches, post-nasal drips and general weary disposition (happily, without the coughs!), while colleagues and students agreed I should have stayed in bed but for the difficulty of finding a substitute teacher and the funds to afford one, I was not really in the best of mood to dance the rigmarole that my colleagues up the hill were requiring of me to amend a mistake of their own making. Fifth grade teacher Mr. Welch revealed that he, too, got a check without a signature, and had to trek personally up the hill to secure the proper encashing authorization. At least, that disproved my wife’s theory of being singled out for retribution. But this was glitch number three and in baseball, three failures at bat definitely means “OUT”!

Maybe, I will hold out on this one. No offence to Messrs. Roman Benavente and Herman Guerrero of BoE who are both respected SVS parents, nor to friendly colleagues Marjorie Lee and Dino, and my sparring partner Ambrose, but perhaps, I will hold on to the check (which, by the way, was a few pennies to make a dollar short!), get it framed, and let Central find a creative way to balance its books. This might just get the whole PSS to heed the numerous write-ups of Rik and Janel Villegas in this space each Thursday about “customer service,” and apply it to teacher-administrator relationships. A satisfied customer will return; a satisfied teacher will produce beyond expectations. Might even come to school on Fridays even if one had legitimate reasons to stay in bed.

Want to hear about my eRate/eSchool halo-halo? OK, another serving some other time. Here, have a wiggly-wriggly-jiggly jello from my halo-halo!

(Strictly a personal view. Vergara writes a weekly column for the Saipan Tribune.)