ILIGAN City ― "Health experts are divided over this banana thing." I' was talking about this type of banana that people mostly don't eat directly but have to boil, fry, broil, or whatever and, never eaten raw just like the other types. "Some say that this banana type is good for the health as it aids in the digestion while others say it is a no-no."
I said thus to my nerdy friend Mike as we sat at the city public plaza's cemented seats at the edges where the "Indigay sa Lechon" was in progress as part of this month's fiesta activities. Among them were sellers of cooked bananas, maybe to go with the "free" lechon? That is if you are fast enough to go with the tide of people savoring the "free'' And I remember that joke of a radio commercial that says: "Wala nay libre karon, bayot!"
Mike's comment was off-tangent as he said something about "banana republics." Like if the US does not like a leader of a country, it exerts efforts to change that leader to its liking. It doesn't matter if the leader is a dictator. Provided that one is favorable to their interests.
And then he mentioned countries like Honduras, Costa Rica, and Hawaii. I half expected him to mention our Ph of a country, but didn't. That is after I said my "ha?" For, in my simplistic understanding, banana republics are unstable countries and may be prone to manipulations by some "experts" on the matter. And not necessarily upon the dictates of America or any other powerful country.
"All these countries, produce bananas," I said because I didn't know much about banana republics in the first place. "And by the way, what is the similarity between a banana and a woman's chest?" I said by way of a joke. Because, you see these talks about the peculiarities of some countries make me dumbfounded, sometimes.
''I don't know," he said feigning ignorance.
"They are both sagging," I said: He saw my point. And then he talked about the colors of bananas, the yellow, the green. :'' But mostly, they are yellow."
I agreed. And then he fiddled with his mobile phone in his hands. He showed me a bunch of luscious-looking" red-colored bananas saying, "What's the proper name for this?" There was mischief in his eyes so I hesitated in answering him.
"This is called 'red-tagging,' " and he gave out a hearty laugh. So I laughed too but that wasn't a laughing matter. With that, I remembered something about accidentally seeing on YouTube a report by a lawyer Glenn Chong, about Liza Araneta Marcos "meeting with the officers of Smartmatic: just before the 2022 elections. Implying that the presidential, and other wins at the national level were not the people's will. But the will of the ''VCM of said company. ''
This time it was Mike's turn to give out a sudden "Ha?' I expected him to again talk on "banana republics" but he didn't.
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