tambay
/noun/
- a person, jobless, who rummages through the smoking heaps of smokey mountain. he is searching for discarded chicken bones and/or a leftover jollibee combo meal to serve to his child for the evening. his wife has disappeared for the night, and his baby’s shrill whines keep him from falling asleep on a dampened cardboard mat.
- a person, jobless, who stares blankly at the figures on the TV, wondering where the money his father had once hidden has gone. he waits for the Manila envelope that he was promised by the man on the screen, but sits down to an empty table, facing half a tin of Delimondo meat and a burning kerosene lamp.
- a person, jobless, the first son of a political family. he looks at the framed photo of his father by his bedside, wondering how to one day live on his legacy. he does not hear, nor remember, the cries sustained by his people marching down what was once a national highway.