Filipino Idol
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Like many Filipinos, family-man Reyes celebrates All Souls Day at the grave of his father.
[Photo by Ted Lerner] |
FOR MOST of the year, the La Pieta Memorial Park in Angeles City, with its large trees and manicured lawns, is an oasis of serenity amidst the noise and tumult of the city. Come Nov. 1, however, the park, like every other cemetery up and down the archipelago, transforms into a sea of people. Filipinos revere their dead relatives, and, once a year for the holiday surrounding Nov. 1, the entire country visits the graves of their departed loved ones. As befitting Filipinos' happy-go-lucky nature, the atmosphere is always decidedly more festive than sad, as if treating the dead like they are still alive.
As the warm day fades into dusk, La Pieta is literally a mob scene of humanity. The roads leading in and out of the cemetery are choked with cars and foot traffic. Families are spread all over the well-kept, grassy lots, and many have erected large canopies over their family plots. Crowds gather around trucks selling pizza and doughnuts. The air is filled with the shrieks of playing children. Burning candles become brighter as the darkness takes over the daylight. Men sit at plastic tables drinking brandy and beer, and playing cards.
Amidst the crush of people, a park attendant leads the way to the back of the cemetery to the Reyes family plot, where Efren greets his guests with a smile. Family members, including Efren's four brothers and sisters, and a horde of their children, offer friendly smiles and waves. Within seconds, plates of fried chicken, pork barbeque on sticks, beef stew, pancit noodles and various tropical fruits are served up. Efren's younger brother delivers a bottle of brandy.
Efren's father, Pedro de los Reyes, died in 1996 at the age of 75 and is buried here, next to Efren's grandmother and his mother in law. Sitting beside his father's grave, Efren looks relaxed. He wears a sleeveless white t-shirt with the word "California" on the front.
Efren's English is better than he lets on. However, he prefers to speak in Filipino, or even better, the local dialect of this province, Pampanga. He says he doesn't get to spend much time with his family, but, with the cell phone, he regularly keeps in touch on the road, exchanging daily text messages and calls with his wife, Susan, and their three children.
Efren isn't wearing the protective glasses, but still keeps them by his side. He talks about his eyes and his recent Lasik surgery.
"Sometimes I was getting double vision when I look at the balls," he says. "My eyes were getting tired. When your eyes are tired, you can't see anything on the table. Before the surgery, the doctor gave me glasses to wear. We went downstairs [in the Manila mall where the eye clinic is located] to the pool table. I can see good with the glasses. He told me, 'That's how you'll see with the surgery.' I was scared before the surgery. But I can see good today. I think if I play today, I'm gonna play good."
He believes that much of the problem with his eyes was the result of too many camera flashes from the photos he's practically forced to pose for, even just moments before a match.
"In other countries where I'm not known, it's not a problem," he says. "I play good because nobody is taking my picture." Often in other countries, however, Reyes still cannot escape the adoration from his countrymen. Decades of economic and political meltdown have sent Filipinos to all corners of the globe in search of work. That's why when Efren plays in Warsaw, Poland, or in the United Arab Emirates, three-fourths of the crowd is made up of Filipino expatriates cheering him on. So why doesn't he have one of his friends or a bodyguard just tell people no?
"Filipinos, they want it now," he says with a laugh. "They say, 'Idol, pleeeaase!' How can I say no? I can't say no to people. That's not nice." It is one of Reyes' constant dilemmas. Wherever in public he travels, he receives the adulation of a citizenry starved for sporting heroes, with people affectionately yelling out, "Hey Idol!", and asking for an autograph and to stand for a photo. He tells how in the Dumaguete exhibition, he was followed to the bathroom by people asking for autographs and wanting him to pose for a picture. He's truly a nice guy who wants to please an adoring public, but he also needs to concentrate on his game.
To understand this phenomenon is to capture a glimpse of modern Filipino culture and Reyes' lofty status in it. Billiards is a game entwined in the very fabric of the society, loved by young and old, rich and poor, especially the poor, who number close to three-fourths of the Philippines' 90 million people. Reyes is truly one of them, the Filipino everyman, the consummate local boy, born gutbucket poor, a grade-school dropout, but one who had an extraordinary ability and ran with it to win world titles and make it to the Hall of Fame. Throw in that aw-shucks grin, exhibiting a humbleness which Filipinos find irresistible, and the fact that despite his meteoric success, he's stayed close to his roots, it's easy to understand why Reyes is more than iconic, more than a living legend. "Bata" ("The Kid") as he's affectionately known to Filipinos, is a real, live Filipino folk hero.
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