Amadis Ma. Guerrero paints a portrait of a “passionate but entirely platonic affair” (Hidalgo 305) between a forty-five-year-old university teacher and a young policeman, set in Quiapo in the '70s in the story “Miss Lily and the Policeman.” The short story originally appeared in Graphic before it was published by the author in The Mainstream in 1975.
Miss Lily is a lonely spinster who decides to take a leisurely walk along Quezon Boulevard, a stretch of highway in Quiapo, after an unrewarding day in school. Her observation of Quiapo gives the reader a picture of a lively thoroughfare,
She noticed that many new disco pads and beerhouses were springing up in the area; the old, familiar thoroughfare was trying to modernize itself. All sorts of jazzed up colors assaulted the passers-by, and blinking neon lights beckoned to her in the early evening. Small groups of drinkers could be seen in the exposed restaurants, which remained male precincts. (Guerrero 27-28)
The camaraderie and freedom of the drinkers made her envious and gave her the idea to strike up an acquaintance with a stranger. She soon dismissed the thought, thinking it foolish “to seek friendship in the teeming, indifferent streets of Manila” (28). She continued to walk, crossed the overpass at Raon, a commercial center, and went in the direction of the Quiapo church. She notes that this part of the boulevard was even more congested.
RAON Shopping Center still attracts people who are looking to purchase electronic devices such as TVs, sound amplifiers, and mobile phones at an affordable price. (Photos are taken in October 2017)
Upon reaching the church, she proceeded to make her way “past the swarms of vendors who clustered around the church, selling everything from beads to penoy” (28). It was a Wednesday, and although there was a regular novena underway, she said her own in honor of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face. When she finished, it was already evening, and she observed again the traffic of people and vehicles in Quiapo,
Overloaded buses swept by, enveloping bystanders in a pall of smoke. Vendors shrilly called out their wares intermittently.
She descended into the underpass, where the shuffle of feet replaced the roar of engines. She noticed a circle of people watching something and, her curious nature prevailing, gravitated there. The center of attention was a beggar with a stereo amplifier. The man played on an electronic guitar, and would from time to time adjust the amplifier to create more harmonious sounds. The crowd was amused. “Pa-class itong pulubi,” someone close to her snickered. A woman dropped a coin in the mendicant’s buri hat. (29)
When she stepped out of the underpass, she saw a policeman directing traffic. She noticed that we was unusually good-looking. When their eyes met, Miss Lily flushed, and she hurried to catch a bus to take her home.
A TRAFFIC AIDE directs traffic and assists pedestrians near the overpass in Quiapo. Although this photo was taken in October 2017, it is not hard to imagine the circumstances of Miss Lily’s meeting with the policeman to be quite similar to this.
Miss Lily then makes it a point to pass by Quiapo in the succeeding days, just so she can observe the cop that she has come to admire. She musters the courage to introduce herself but faints because of her high blood pressure. The policeman helps her and introduces himself as Virgilio Alfonso. Miss Lily asks him if she can talk to him when he is free, and although the cop was initially hesitant, he grants her request and a friendship begins to blossom between the two.
A neighborhood restaurant became their meeting place: “a small place no different from a thousand and one oother establishments in the city. Mirrors lined the walls, for it was Chinese-owned, and narrow seats and tables stood in rectangular rows. Painted menu were in evidence, and a jukebox near the entrance played a popular tune” (33).
Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo hails Amadis Ma. Guerrero as the most persistent chronicler of Manila, not including Nick Joaquin (305). In Guerrero’s story, Quiapo is described as the busiest district of the city, and “despite the intense heat and the smell of sweat” (Guerrero 29), Miss Lily does not see it as a hostile, nightmarish place, but a place of possibilities for human interaction. Guerrero writes Quiapo with loving detail, and as Hidalgo notes, “unlike most other stories set in the city,” “Miss Lily and the Policeman” “go[es] beyond using the city as mere backdrop; and … depict[s] the city in terms other than the conventional and thoroughly predictable, i.e., heat, crowds, traffic” (Hidalgo 309).
Quiapo is carefully woven into Miss Lily’s platonic love affair with Virgilio (whom she affectionately calls “Rio”). Her old-fashioned ways find an outlet in teaching English classes in a nearby university and praying the novena inside the church while her more audacious side manifests outside the walls of the academe and the church - in the streets and restaurants of Quiapo.
Later, the unlikely twosome part ways as Virgilio reveals that he will be marrying a girl and they will be spending their honeymoon in Baguio. Miss Lily says that she is happy, but is actually devastated. She is haunted by a dream of the policeman making love to his bride. Two weeks passed before she returns to Quiapo. She sees him in the outpost near the underpass, directing traffic, “[h]is whistle, commanding and insistent, send[ing] tremors through her” (Guerrero 38). The story ends with Miss Lily reaching out towards the policeman, and the two of them clasping hands.
WORKS CITED
Guerrero, Amadis Ma. “Miss Lily and the Policeman.” The Mainstream, 1975. pp. 27-38.
Hidalgo, Cristina Pantoja. “Metro Manila: City in Search of a Myth.” Philippine Studies, vol. 50, no. 3, 2002, pp. 303–326.
“Miss Lily and the Policeman”: A May-December Friendship in Quiapo by Amadis Ma. Guerrero
Eric Gerard H. Nebran | October 29, 2017
