Beauticians

by Marlon

When I was starting out as a makeup artist, a college friend asked me to do her makeup for her wedding. So with four other friends we hired a van and drove north of Manila. The wedding was to be held in their summer place. We left Manila around sunset for the five-hour drive. Because of the traffic, we got there by midnight. The provincial roads in that area are narrow and dark. On one of the curves, our headlights revealed a military check point. Now, the Philippines had a long history of military check points, specially during the Martial Law in the 70’s. It’s not that we don’t trust our men in uniform completely but when it’s midnight and you’re way out in the boondocks -- men with big guns who block the road are very scary. So we stopped in front of the checkpoint, our driver rolled down his window and greeted the men politely. The men had stoic faces and systematically surrounded our van. They opened doors and shone flashlights inside the van. Personally I was very scared. When, they got to the back of the van, they opened the back door and found one of our friends sleeping on top of make-up boxes and hair styling bags. They brusquely woke him up and asked, Ano ang nasa mga bag? (What’s inside the bags?) My friend who was surprised and who didn’t know what was happening piped in his sweet high-pitched voice, Make up?! The men looked at each other and started to laugh, A mga beautician! (Oh, beauticians!) They let us go.