Today I remember a line from an old teacher which never fails to put that funny feeling in my gut. It was said in a dingy old schoolroom many years ago in the mid-70s. The subject was Spanish (not at the University of the Philippines); the teacher, a wrinkled old spinster, sparkling gold in the half dark from her complete set of bling-blings. I should have remembered to sit at the back of the class for this one but I liked Spanish. I don’t know what got into me. I sat cross-legged at the front row; of course, in my comfortable old tie dyes, tattered denims and my classic pair of leather sandals.It took me only a little while to catch on, for though she peppered her lecture with quaint colonialist references in Spanish, in truth, I had Spanish aunts and uncles who were wont to repeat this saying: “You can take the goat out of the mountains but you never can take the mountains out of the goat.” I guessed she was referring to the state of my toenails by the way she was staring at it all the while that she lectured on culture and breeding. Who are cultured and why. But not content, she ended her lecture with an in-my-face accusation that unless I was cultured enough to take care of my toenails I should have no right to wear sandals. By then I had grown old enough to know that the proper answer to classroom-in-fact-generic ignorance is that smug and silent old smile, which never failed to send teachers up the wall. A smile is a smile is a smile in any language, and so with smugness. But this memory came to me now while I was contemplating the sad prospects of our economy, charter change, and that sordid affair at a country club somewhere up north where two well-to-do families ended up in a brawl instead of a resolution to each of their golf games. I wondered immediately about the state of their toenails. I wonder the same way about the congressmen pushing for constituent assembly. I wonder equally about Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and the rest of her cabinet. What do their toenails look like? You see, I disagree with my old Spanish teacher. The state of one’s toenails is hardly the best measure of culture. I know this because I once lined up in the grocery store when this seemingly decent lady behind me started poking me in the back with her groceries, as if such an act would somehow shorten the length of our collective waiting. Ostensibly, I looked down to study her toenails and they were pedicured and neatly cut. That old teacher was wrong. The better measure is that a person knows how to line up, knows how to keep in line, knows exactly why the ability to respect a queue is the greatest mark there is that a person is well-heeled, sufficiently educated, comes from a respectable family, and, in the best sense of the word, is cultured. To be sure, there are other facets to being cultured but the rest follow after this indicator. Knowing how to fall in line proves a person has grown to realize that there have to be modes of behavior we should go by in order to ensure we do not end up killing each other over simple issues like getting our groceries over the counter. It is not law and the legal system that require us to behave in a civilized manner. Indeed, there has to be an unwritten understanding between us of those areas of human behavior that we should not breach because such a breach would compromise the rights of others and consequently also the rights of all. Should such infringement become common practice, the ultimate consequence would be chaos and strife, precisely the type of chaos and strife which now define our political and economic life. It is unfortunate that sort of behavior has become commonplace even outside our country clubs. This is sad testament to the state of culture and breeding among the elite of our culture. True, the poor can scarcely be expected to have better manners. But on the other hand, our predicament can hardly be blamed on the poor. They only suffer the consequences of acts of power and control by those who now call the shots in our country. We would be better off if only the elite knew how to stand in line and respect each other, instead of engaging in this anarchistic helter-skelter rush to power and wealth which has obviously become their collective obsession. “Find the shortcut to everything! Me first! Damn everyone else!” Unbridled greed! If only they would show a bit more culture and a bit more breeding, a big part of our problem would now be solved. Alas, I can only wonder: What do their toenails look like? | 
