Balikwas

The Filipino building contractor, with a degree in engineering, is entitled to call himself ‘Engineer’, in a society which loves titles. Anyone with a law degree is addressed as ‘Attorney’ and even the women in the retail optician, if they are graduates, will refer to each other as ‘Doctor’. It is a charming, even a touching, feature of a society whose people are famous for their modesty and self-effacement. Filipinos are also very keen on marking significant events with a ceremony. For example, the new house, when it was eventually built, would need a blessing from the local priest and no Filipino will drive a new car which has not been, for a few pesos, blessed also so that its occupants will be rendered safe from automobile mishaps. Oddest of all, to an Englishman, is the ceremony of the ‘debut’, based, I suppose, on the famous Queen Charlotte Ball, when upper class young English women used to be presented to the Queen, as a prelude to a ‘season’ of dances and parties which were, in actuality, little more than expensive marriage meat markets. This anachronism, and the changing status of women in society saw the English version of the debut terminated in 1958. But it still lives on in The Philippines, where middle class eighteen-year-old women ‘come out’ as ‘debutantes’ at a grand party when they attain their majority. So, before the workers could get going there was the ground-breaking ceremony when three white chickens were sacrificed and their blood sprinkled on the lot to ensure good health and fortune to the occupants of the house. They were subsequently given to the workers for lunch. (It’s a very Catholic country.) Because so many of the workers would be itinerant, they would be living near their work. Before building our house, they had first to construct a large temporary structure for their own living quarters. So, immediately after the chicken-slaughtering, the first job, to be done quickly because it was still the rainy season, would be to build themselves a wooden-framed, canvas-covered ‘bunk house’. Only then could work really start on our place. The contract was drawn up with Engineer Vic that the house would be finished by January 23rd 2013. Payments would be staged in November and December with a final P200,000 due after completion. In Lincoln, I negotiated a provisional, tentative, date for completion of the sale of November 30th, with exchange of contracts at or about November 15th. This now gave us a schedule to aim at. We were blessed by Loydz’ familial connections. Her army of cousins was unfailingly helpful to her, and, being generous Filipinos, happily included me in their many kindnesses. It just so happened that one of her favourite cousins, Cosette, also lives in Lipa. Cosette, not having a full-time job herself, gave generously of her time and services as a driver so that Loydz would be able to visit the building site regularly to supervise, as project manager, the progress of the works. We were helped in keeping up the project’s momentum by the assistance of Cosette’s husband, Bobi, who turned out to be an extremely useful go-between with Engineer Vic. As a senior member of the building department of the Lipa Municipal Authority, one of his duties is the issuing or with-holding of city building permits. Building projects do not move at a steady rate. There is an initial flurry of activity when walls go up quickly and the roof is put on. At this point, the casual observer would think that the job was nearly finished. This is not the case. A house can look even 80% complete but it is in the final details where the time will be consumed. Engineer Vic regularly showed us spreadsheets of project plans and building costs and, as far as we could tell, he would indeed meet his various deadlines.