A man’s view of Women’s Day

Nora Sorino

ILIGAN City–At a back street while riding a “sikad” that day, the driver greeted me with a “Happy International Women’s Day, Maam.” In jest, I greeted him back: “Rebound… same to you.”

“Ha!” he retorted with a single laugh. Which wasn’t a laugh as single laughs are but a kind of sarcasm.

“Why is that?” I asked.

“It’s unfair,” replied Dolpo (I learned his name later). “We don’t have ‘Men’s Day.”

Pausing a little, he carried on: “There’s ‘Mother’s Day,’ and we have ‘Father’s Day.’ There’s ‘International Women’s Day’ but we don’t have ‘Men’s Day’ or ‘International Men’s Day. Unfair.”

I said, “That’s because women have been treated for so long as second-class citizens. And they wanted to stop that.”

This elicited another “ha” from him–meaning that he didn’t buy that, or that he’s just tired of women–the women in his life, particularly.

He said, “That’s not true–that women are treated as second-class citizens.”

I half-expected him to say that it is the men who are being treated as second-class citizens. Maybe he thinks so without his articulating it. So I said: “Oh, really?”

Dolpo explained: “For example, Ma’am, the ‘4Ps.’ It’s only the woman who is getting it. The mother. And the children. Nothing for the man, the father.”

I couldn’t help but agree with him for I remembered families fighting over it–the 4Ps. It seemed that it was the mother who received it. And the children. And as to how or what to do with it, it was the mother’s, well, “diskarte.” Of course, there are provisions from the government as to how it is to be used. But we know that these are not being followed to the letter by the family or the mother. And the father, uh, for sure he has other ideas, too, which really do not jibe with the rest of family or the woman of the family. Hence, Dolpo’s remarks on the 4Ps.

I think everybody knows what the 4Ps is all about. And there’s talk on it. Like, not all receivers are “indigent” or that it is taken over by the “5-6” people long before it is received.

All these things came to my mind. But before I could utter more words, Dolpo said, “The marriage contract, it should have an expiry date!”

“Ha?” This might have sounded like Dolpo’s single laugh. And he carried on without giving some space for me to say about nullification of marriage or legal separation. Which are some kind of “relatives” to his “expiration date of the marriage contract.”

For several minutes after the ride, I mulled over what Dolpo was saying. And then in the middle of it, I remembered some man saying: “Women have one advantage over men. If they cannot play it smart, they play it dumb.”

Ha!