Reina Adriano | 124428 | FA-CW 102.

The Jocka Jeans Rivalry in the Dread-Filled Daze

Break it in half, then break it open: JSEC isn’t my cup of tea. It means business. It smells

money. That’s why it’s the student enterprise center. When you read the initials, it sounds

like a rapper. Like Childish Gambino. Or Kanye. Or Drake. Or someone high on drugs. J-

SEC. It’s classy. It’s cozy. You’ve got fresh air and marble tables and enough sunlight and

plants all around when there’s not much people; you’ve got cool jocks, sexy cheerleaders,

students with fat wallets, bad ventilation, and a half-an-hour wasted looking for space when

it’s lunch break. It’s the go-big-or-go-home mindset: you don’t fit, then you don’t sit.

JSEC is like the High Street with the pavements and the pillars but instead of yuppies

you’ve got kids in high-end fashion with half-Filipino, half-English articulation you’d choose

to swallow yourself whole. It’s as if, you know, parang, the language of the masses has been

injected with unnecessary verbiage: I want to make tusok-tusok the fishballs there at the

other university, says one girl before she gets interrupted by another: Ewww, that’s so kadiri,

my yaya won’t allow me—it’s cheap street food!

I eat street food. JSEC spits it out. I spend the coins in my pocket on a stick of isaw.

JSEC hates cheap food. I spend cheap when I don’t have enough to spend for a meal in

school after class. JSEC chews my bills raw. Nobody wants a stick of pork intestines for

lunch or meryenda. The place is asking for a fight.

My taste ends up in pure mockery. I blame JSEC not having the food I’m used to. It’s

reverse elitism. Pish-posh the posh magnets and bury the craze of sophistication. It’s my

waleyers to their dude, pare, bro, what’s up. They have this uniform there: it’s a staple you’d

be the odd one out if you don’t conform. I wear jeans. I wear t-shirts when I’m too lazy to sift

through my clothes to find a better top. Never in my life have I owned a pair of Stan Smiths--

white, top-class sneakers to be paired with almost any outfit in the wardrobe. But I have a
drab wardrobe and the student enterprise knows that every time I walk pass the red brick

road.

I eat with Tracey there once in awhile--she because she gets to save some money by

the end of the week; me because I like thinking I could be there. Tracey and I, wannabe

writers brooding over the food, the atmosphere, the people, even our own existence. JSEC

exists in its own glory; we’re don’t. We’re starving artists in the near future. In the round

tables with fancy metallic chairs I sip my drink, imagining it to be a mojito instead of a

poorly-blended iced tea. Sometimes my English falters and I stutter when I’m nervous in a

crowd of strangers. Talk about wanting to belong.

Ahhh, if only we could afford this place everyday. If only JSEC knew it sets apart the

rich kids from those struggling with finances. That would be like Marx rising up from the

grave and starting a mass upheaveal in Katipunan. But JSEC doesn’t do that. Because Ateneo

is all for cura personalis and helping out each other in times of need. The enterprise center

does that. But what it also does is something worse: it sets apart people who listen and those

who don’t.

Once, on one dreary day in November, about noon or past so, a girl walked into the

hub with a megaphone on hand and started rousing people to join the mass protest—Marcos

Not a Hero! Marcos Not a Hero! I thought it was exciting, my blood rushing in my veins. I

was ready to get out on the streets and start shouting at the top of my voice. Like a big break

on shitty day when no one can rain on my parade. Except nobody thought it was. At least

those people hanging out did not. Damn, it was awful. I felt awful for the plants and the water

fountain and the huge cut-out standee of Kiefer Ravena, Blue Eagles captain and campus

crush. All of them wanted to go rally into the streets and protest about the former dictator’s

burial—that is, if they could walk.

 That was when I learned that JSEC is not heaven. It pretends to be. It’s a purgatory

for those who hate to dip their toes into the mess. It’s a mask of a place. But nobody cares,

nobody cares, who the hell cares from those begs to be heard. I walk over the counter, faded

slightly-loose pants and all, get my plate, and hand over my payment for the combo meal that

could have paid for the commute back home.