Tuloy

by Ronan

The back door to my mom's clinic in Cubao lies beyond this dark and stingy eskinita right beside two pawnshops and a Muslim general merchandise stalls selling cell phone casing and various trinkets. It's a few meters off the side entrance of the Murphy Market that leads to the dry market section selling kitchenware, slippers and pots. Numerous vehicles park right in front of the opening of the eskenita block the existence of such a secret passageway. If Araneta had its Gateway, this was the gateway of 15th Avenue.

Once you reach the end of the eskinita, you now have before you a secret garden of shanties, clothes hung to dry and random plants in random pots made of clay, tin and rubber tires. It's the looban, one of many in the area. But this one rested right in the heart of 15th Avenue. This would have to be the Residences (right above Greenbelt) of 15th Avenue. The way to our back door lies to the left from the end of the eskinita. It's on top of our staircase on which hang three sets of clothes lines, as we too have to dry our clothes and save on the electric billing.

When I was younger (than I am now,) I hardly passed through the eskinita. I always found it dirty and quite the scary way to our house. I would only pass there if I was with my mom, dad or an adult companion. I would always pass through the front entrance leading straight to my mom's clinic. Not until recently, when I began spending more time in Cubao, did I find myself passing through this portal almost all the time, to and from home.

Then, I did have friends who lived "down there" (the term I openly use to refer to the area down from our back door.) We'd play street games on the backyard when it wasn't so crowded yet. See before, there was half a basketball court there, a canal, and a semi-vast garden and semi-vast tall grass area. Now, there hardly is any room to run around the backyard since the owners decided to make it into a dump for residential occupancy. Really, the situation "down there" is quite the depressing site, that when my friends moved out there over a decade ago, I never bothered to go down there to check. Ever.

The eskinita is the only way that connects the inner cluster of lives out to society. It is actually quite the convenient path to take to revere discretion of the hustle and bustle of the jeepney route passing through 15th. On dry days, patches of wet area are scattered along the path. On wet days, the patches get deeper that sometimes, wooden planks are placed for the pedestrians. You see, along the sides of this hall of sorts lies the NAWASA meters for the entire community, most of which give off the occasional leak every once in a while, explaining the blotches of dark grimy water.

On bad days, you could catch a fat rat run across the eskinita carrying in its mouth a piece of bread or food from some nearby house. This rat is just one of the regular passers of this eskinita. Around 530-6 am, you could see school children who live "down there" pass through with their small bags. Early evenings, the entrance from the 15th is cluttered with residents eating isaw that the Muslim businessman readies by five in the afternoon. Late nights, you could be walking along with a few overtime laborers or some regular drunkards, still capable of walking their way home, with the stench of strong alcohol perfuming the entire stretch of the eskinita.

When I leave for Makati in the morning, I pass through this rundown eskinita to save our helper the hassle of waking up earlier just to open the front entrance to the 15th. At night, I creep my way through the back to save them the hassle of waiting up for me and unlocking the front entrance for the clinic. It's quite the rundown routine, but through time, you can see the scratches of weather and civilization breathe through its thinning walls. This eskinita is alive.

It's a metaphor for the lives of the people who live and thrive beyond its ends. "Up there" or "down there," we all have to go through it.