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La Virgen de Petron

Hello, Billy?

M. L. Tan

Even street kids have started imitating the mother in the PLDT ads on radio and television. "Hello, Billy?", they go, although I suspect when they do so, it isn’t just the ad they’re parodying, but their own mothers as well.

The PLDT ad sinks in because the setting and the scripts are all too familiar. Look at the questions Billy’s mom asks: Have you eaten? Did you bring an umbrella? Have you gone to Mass yet?

Let me give a quick recap for overseas Filipino readers who haven’t seen the ads. (After all, it’s your mothers PLDT is targeting.) Billy’s mother keeps ringing up her son, sometimes at rather inappropriate times like during a business meeting. One day she checks with Billy to see if he’s gone to Mass, reminding him he needs to do that to receive God’s grace. Billy answers he’s already been blessed, and passes the phone to a girl named Grace to say hello. "Disgrasya!", Billy’s mom reacts with shock.

The television ad seems to have so clicked so well it’s merited a follow-on, the second spot now featuring Billy’s mom in a trying-to-be-noncholant interrogation, probing for details about this Grace. Billy says his Grace cooks, and likes children -- she’s probably a teacher from what the way the ad depicts her – but Billy’s mom and her Pekinese are now really apprehensive wondering if maybe this Grace is disgrasyada, bringing in a ready-made brood for Billy.

My Pinay friends love the ads but admit there’s an "aray" element to it all. In western cultures, it’s the men who joke, sometimes bitterly, about their mother-in-law (or, since marriages are now becoming rare, the mother of their partner or girlfriend). In our culture it’s the opposite: our women are always wailing about Junior being a Mama’s boy and his mother well, being some kind of dominating ogre who practically castrates Junior.

Billy doesn’t have to be in New York. If he lives in the Philippines, the gods forbid he should live separately from mom but if he does – even if it’s on the next street -- he can be sure of getting as many phone calls as Billy does. That’s why the ad appeals to Pinoys as well, the ads reminding them of their own over-protective inquisitve moms who still think of their little boy as, well, a little boy. In the PLDT ad, you see Billy’s graduation picture in the background. That isn’t too bad. I know mothers who keep pictures of their sons in their cub scout uniforms. (Guess who?)

This Billy’s mom syndrome isn’t a uniquely Filipino institution. You have variations all over and it tends to be more prevalent in Latin cultures, from the Italian Mama to our Pinay Nanay. One theory which I’ve discussed in an earlier column is that our women are neglected by their husbands so they lavish all their attention on their son or sons.

The son, in turn, places his mother on a pedestal . Ironically, while he venerates his mother, Latin men tend to neglect their wife, and hold other women in contempt, seeing them as sexual prey. This has been described as the Madonna/whore syndrome and Madonna here doesn’t refer to the pop singer.

To some extent, the Latin Mama contributes to this contempt for women. Like Billy’s mom, the Latin Mama thinks no woman (or, for mothers of gay men, no man) is good enough for their sons – they’re not bright enough or are too bright, they’re too plain or too pretty, the litanies stretch on and on. Going around with a Pinoy male becomes a never-ending Olympiad, competing with his mother for attention and affection.

But the norms are changing, and one reason is that the Pinoy is being weaned, by force, from their Nanay. Migration, within the country or to distant lands, means many more Billy’s. It may be difficult for mothers and sons but it’s happening. Not only that, as the PLDT ad shows, we find signs of rebellion. On the radio ad, Billy protests a bit, a wee bit mind you, about his mother’s many calls and questions. Billy’s mom is taken aback and accuses him of becoming makulit, to which he retorts, again ever so gently, "And who did I get that from?" Aba, impudent son!

The TV ads also hint at this rebellion. Billy knows his mother is dying to find out who this Grace is, but he's not going to offer more information than what’s needed. I can hear hundreds and thousands of Pinoy males chuckling when they see that because many of them, fearful of intrusive Pinay mothers, do keep their love affairs hidden from Nanay.

Will there be a sequel yet to the ads? Are Billy and Grace married, or are they still planning on tying the knot? Most importantly, will Billy’s mother approve? Will this become the ad industry’s version of Rosalinda?

Will there be a happy ending to all this? If PLDT goes on a third, or fourth ad, and I hope they do, then we just might find Grace talking with Billy’s mom and her Pekinese. In this saga, the Pinoy is really only an extra. The real protagonists are the women.

Abangan!