by Jojo Soria de Veyra
THREE SONGS (198_?)
Ilagay Mo, Kid. Forget that the Village People of the 1980s that Mike Hanopol's Hagibis aped for the Philippine entertainment scene were Greenwich Village, New York City, gays. Unless you're gay. Simply regard Hagibis as a Manila barkada with their supposedly very Filipino (also very Italian and very Irish?) standards for macho barkada-establishment, standards they enumerated in this piece.Legs. Then enter this barcada. Actually the reverse happened in the '80s -- Hagibis becoming one's own barcadas -- for the band functioned as makers of songs to be used in barcada gatherings back when sing-along meant drunken singers hovering over their barcada guitarist and a "Song Hits" book.
Singing or listening to Legs, picture neighborhood or campus girls dancing. The value I saw in Legs as macho erotica was that, unlike American or Brit erotica by white rockers crooning about blondes in boots walking down avenues, this one presented the imagination with black-haired Filipinas in skirts (mini or otherwise) or tight jeans, and that without even pushing a specifying word of racial description.Katawan. With this hilarious song the same effect above happens on our respective macho memories, the naughty lines "lumalabas ang aming pagkalalaki/ 'pag mayroong magagandang mga babae" aside. Obviously this did Hotdog's "mga babaeng nag-gagandahan" one better by zooming out to full-body shots. A Pinoy-society consciousness comes out in the disclaimer or lie "kaming lahat ay binata pa naman", and the bridge line "Ingatan ang inyong katawan" is very '80s: after aerobics' becoming fashionable in Manila during this time! (4/04)
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