Bob Ong's MacArthur

MacArthur’s concept was taken from a classic Pinoy joke: What do you call the feces that don’t go down the drain after flushing? The answer is “MacArthur” – “I shall return.”

MacArthur is the sad story of 4 miserable friends (probably in their late teens to early 20s) who managed to stick with one another even to the darkest parts of their lives. They lived different lives, but somehow they connected through their favorite pastime – shabu drug addiction. Cyrus is the oldest among the group. He is an orphaned boy whose mode of survival is via stealing. He lives with his grandfather who is a barber. Voltron is the daredevil who is willing to try almost everything to survive. Jim is married with children but does not have a stable source of income so he escapes the reality through drug intoxication. Noel is a college student who learned how to take things from their house and sell them to sustain their vice.

All four encountered tragedies which none of them was able to solve. Their lives have gone “stinking bad” but it was almost rotten when they realized it. The friends struggled to pull each other up in the hopes that they are not too late for redemption.

This is Bob Ong’s first attempt to fiction. And as usual, it’s a short-story written in Tagalog. As I read the lives of the four main characters, I said to myself that their situations can be really compared to fecal matter. The analogy is evident and touching to the point of being disturbing. Yet, albeit fictional, I could say that the stories of the protagonists do exist in the Philippines.

The story is tragic and sometimes morbid. But I guess if ones situation is comparable to the end-product of digestion, there could be no better ending to it. In any part of the world, society views thugs as trash, regardless of what brought these people to be one. In third world countries, poverty is almost always the primary cause and it is vividly portrayed in this book.

The thugs of our society, however we get rid of them, would always return and be around. "MacArthur". This book is timely and socially relevant. However, it does not offer solutions. It just tells us that these tragedies are real; they are out there in the minefields of life. Bob Ong probably wants to convey that if your situation goes really deep shit, there’s no other way but expulsion. Out you go. He could have identified a number of solutions to this problem but nobody knows for sure which is right. Who are we to judge such persons anyway?

MacArthur is an easy and quick read. But mind you, it could be heavy, disturbing, and even disgusting. Bob Ong is yet to hone his crafts as a fiction writer, should he decide to be one. If you’re curious, go ahead and get a copy. But I can’t really say you would like it. I don’t like it, but I don’t hate it as well.