SOUND AND FURY
A Diary of the New Year's Eve Hullaballoo by a Crushed Commuter
by Lionel Zivan S. Valdellon

published in LOCALVIBE.com : Jan 2000

In the Philippines, New Year's Eve (NYE) is noisy. A whole lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. Scare off the ghosts by banging pots and pans through every room in the house. Scare off the evils by popping firecrackers, popping your hands off, then popping antibiotics. Beat every superstition in the book by jumping at midnight (to increase height), carrying coins in pockets (to increase wealth), eating round fruits (to increase wealth again). And don't you dare sweep at night.

KRAKA-KRAKA-KRAKA-BANG! New year. Back to work. This year though, it's more like: put on a fantabulous show first, then kraka-kraka-bang, new year! Happy new century (even if it's technically end of the millennium). And all because of a calendar that didn't even get Jesus' birth right. The fully-booked hotels, street parties, undreamable rivers of humanity pressing into small spaces, lavish concert production numbers, amazing fireworks displays, the pageantry, the glamor, the expected traffic snarls... it's a bit much. Especially for someone who's never needed a big reason to party.

December 31, 7:00 PM: Quiapo Church Is A Pedestrian Walkway
For a change, I decide to separate from my family, ready to spend NYE alone, amidst the nameless throng gathered at the Quirino Grandstand in Luneta Park-all for the spirit of journalism. Already the fireworks are exploding everywhere.

I take a Quiapo jeep and disembark at Quiapo Church-to find a New Year Mass underway at the humongous sanctuary. Except it's hardly quiet and holy. People swing in and out of the structure, using the church as a pedestrian shortcut. The growl of jeepney engines is everpresent. The sound system increases rather than eliminates the awful reverb-the priest's words melting into indecipherable babble the farther away one is from the altar. His homily begins with a shallow joke about expecting so much at the beginning of the year, only to have the eggs you hold crack in your hand at the end of the year. It is more noise than substance. I can't imagine going to mass regularly here.

7:30 PM : Traversing The Great Luneta Workplace
I disembark from the Taft-Herran jeep at the other end of Rizal Park and traverse the distance to the grandstand. It appears every vendor and every beggar in the city is at work here. There are blind guitarists (one whom I recognize from the Boni-Pioneer pedestrian overpass), an armless man blowing on a plastic pipe, a band of paraplegics banging out the cha-cha. There are pizzas of every brand, maggi cup noodles, softdrinks, sandwiches, snack foods, sacks to lie on, plastic chairs to sit on. This is like the "Visa Vigils" in front of the U.S. Embassy in the old days before the telephone appointment system was set in place-times two hundred.

Along the way, snippets of talk:
· A pretty girl talking to 2 friends: "Sabi ko sa kanya: Putang-ina, ikiskis mo iyan sa pader!"
· A little kid: "Kuhang-kuha niya ang dialogue: Gimme that gun!"

A kaleidoscopic parol that changes patterns every few seconds greets the entrant to the Quirino Grandstand area. Behind it, almost hidden by several sheets of flour sack, is a single, sweaty man rotating something which resembles a music box cylinder-except this one emits sparks. Whoa. It's a manual parol. What an apt image for all this hullaballoo.

8:10 PM : Enduring the Grandstand Throng
I find a space near the steel bars that separate the crowd from the inner circle of celebrities and crew. I am mashed up against a hundred other people, all of us sweaty and anxious about what's about to happen. Then the ABS-CBN celebration starts with a great song-and-dance medley restaging the Philippines' history, with a 120-piece orchestra conducted by Ryan Cayabyab milked for all they're worth. Singers grace the stage, the only ones I recognize are Agot Isidro (yummy), Pops Fernandez (blond and yummy), Randy Santiago (the shades) and April Boy Regino (awful cowboy hat).

At the first number's climax, the balloons that block our vision are finally released into the air and for ten seconds there is complete chaos in our section-people pushing and pulling like lunatics, all to grab balloons before they're airborne. I am reminded of a moshpit except instead of people slamdancing to music, they squash each other for ballons. Whoa. A girl behind me grabs 3 green ones. A beefy, butch production girl on the other side of the fence starts shouting: "Putang-ina mo, pakawalan mo ang lobong iyan!" She does. Eventually. The show begins.

At some point in the first few numbers, someone is using my shoulder as a support. Except the hand doesn't leave my shoulder-on the contrary, it seems like it's comfy where it is. That and several giggles from behind me prompt me to glance back at the owner of the hand, a demure gay. I tell him: "Sarap ba?" The hand falls away.

The rest of the show appears to be yet another ASAP episode magnified ten times, maybe. The stage is enormous, the orchestra awesome in size. The entertainment? Sigh. I head back after an hour or so of enduring being pressed up against a Rexona-less throng. Grab a bite at Jollibee in Luneta, and walk past the 30 year old prostitute in red hot pants trying to sell her wrinkly wares, then take a Fairview jeep back to my home area.

9:45 PM : Television Wars
Surprisingly, there aren't that many explosions in my neighborhood yet. I am still able to walk home without losing a limb only to turn on the television and gape in wonderment at the stellar competition between networks for the more bongga-cious Millennium Party.

There is the omnipresent ABS-CBN celebration taking place at three different venues in Metro Manila: Luneta, Quezon Memorial Circle and the Fort (which is not covered anywhere on TV--- too bad, since most of the bands are there). The sheer immensity of Channel 2's coverage leads me to blurt: "Ohmigod, they turned the country's NYE into a noontime variety show!" Ah well.

And then there is the obstinate Ayala-GMA Millennium Party which, while every other channel broadcasts Erap's blah-blah-blah Millennium speech, chooses to stage a whopper of a dance number featuring Ara Mina, Sunshine Cruz and a host of less curvaceous others. Do I watch a big Boob or do I watch bouncy boobs? Decisions decisions. Unfortunately, in almost every technical aspect, from off-focus cameras to bad sound balance between music and vocals, to crumby minus one numbers, to slipshod technicians testing microphones DURING THE SHOW, GMA-7 proves, beyond a doubt, why it's a distant second to ABS-CBN. The fact is: their Millennium Party broadcast sucks BIG TIME. Maybe experiencing it live is a different matter. But I sincerely doubt it.

But let us not forget the dark horse(s): PTV 4, IBC 13 and ABC 5 all team up to deliver the Jinggoy Estrada party from the Greenhills Shopping Center in San Juan. Richard Merck hosts, an array of guests arrives, but never enough to hold your interest for more than 5 minutes. Switching from channel to channel comparing picture quality between the three also proves why no one watches these channels. PTV's color is bland, their sound okay. ABC's sound is awful and their picture mediocre. IBC's color is horrific and their sound worse. Sigh. Change channel.

11:59 PM : Countdown To Armageddon
The fireworks build up to a crescendo. Every channel except GMA-7, has switched over to the ABS-CBN countdown where Erap clearly demonstrates why the country is in deep shit. His countdown goes: "14, 13, 12…10, 9, 8 (etc)…" Leaping lizards, Batman, the President can't fucking count. January one enters the picture.

I switch the channel to GMA-7 and… shake my head in disbelief. Apparently Ayala Avenue is in a whole different time zone because their countdown comes almost 2 minutes AFTER all the other channels'. (This explains a lot, don't you think? Why you feel like shit after commuting from Makati, why it takes so long to get there. You get fucking BUS LAG from the freaky time zone difference, man!) Midnight! Fireworks! And then this awful repetitive GMA Millennium theme song is played and overplayed, bruising already battered ears. Ugh. More noise.

12:10 AM : Oh Shut the Hell Up
My family lifts glasses of water and Coke in a toast to a better year. This time though, without consulting each other, we decide to put the longstanding tradition of banging pots and pans thru every room (to scare the evil spirits away) on hold. There's been too much useless noise in the country as it is. We continue watching the televised parties and make rude comments, as we are wont to do, before heading upstairs to a peaceful slumber.

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