I love fireworks; I loathe firecrackers

On the evening of June 12, 1998, we were crossing a flyover in Edsa. I can’t remember anymore which one but I do remember that we stopped, and so did other drivers, cops included. Somewhere in Manila, some government committee in charge of the centennial celebrations had started lighting up fireworks. Who could resist the spectacle of lights in the sky? We sat there, windows rolled down, transfixed at the magnificent display.

Truth is, I always gape when I witness a fireworks display. Near or far, whether I’m watching a full show or I’m just seeing the last few bursts, my reaction is the same. It is this feeling of wonderment that brought us to the bedeviled Pyro Olympics in January last year. It is the same reason why we always stay for the fireworks show when we used to go to Enchanted Kingdom. It’s not something I can’t put into words. But show me a fireworks display and I’m likely to stop anything I’m doing and gape.

But even as a child, I never went anywhere near people who lighted firecrackers. I did light the traditional luces and Roman candles but stopped when one of them exploded while my brother was holding it. It was good that the damn thing exploded at the far end and not where his hand was. There were times when my father bought triangulo–I don’t remember if my brother was allowed to light any–but I was never asked if I wanted to. I was always too far away during the New Year’s Eve revelry when neighbors gathered out on the street for the noise-making.

I hated noise. I still do, especially meaningless noise. I never did understand why men and boys acted as though the ability to light exploding firecrackers was a test of manhood and courage. Boys who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, were taunted as cowards and gays. Pathetic thinking, if you ask me. One New Year’s Eve when I was in college, an uncle’s hand got blasted from an exploding firecracker. There was a trail of blood from the gate all the way to my grandmother’s house where he kept insisting that it was nothing and he didn’t need to go to the hospital. I thought, oh really, or maybe it was more out of a twisted sense of virility. Or, perhaps, it was embarrassment–a grown man in the hospital sitting in line in the company of teenagers and young boys while waiting to be sewn up because he was too stupid to refrain from doing what everyone was warned not to do year in and year out.

It’s not like the public does not get enough warnings. It’s not like media scrimp on footage of bloody hands and torn fingers, burned faces and ruined eyes. Every year, on New Year’s Day, that’s the staple of news programs and I don’t expect this year to be any different. But while prior warnings abound, they become insufficient when faced with the combined force of the casual availability of firecrackers and a culture that says the ability to light them without flinching is a sign of virility, danger be damned. This mindset is reflected in the very law that seeks to regulate the manufacture, sale and possession of firecrackers–RA 7183, signed into law in 1992, declares as legal the following exploding firecrackers:

(1) Baby rocket–A firecracker with a stick so constructed that lighting of the wick will propel the whole thing to lift a few meters before exploding. The firecracker is about 1 ½ inches in length by 3/8 inch in diameter while the stick is about a foot in length;

(2) Bawang–A firecracker larger than a triangulo with 1/3 teaspoon of powder packed in cardboard tied around with abaca strings and wrapped in shape of garlic;

(3) Small triangulo–A firecracker shaped like a triangle with powder content less than the bawang and usually wrapped in brown paper measuring ¾ inch length in its longest side;

(4) Pulling of strings–A firecracker consisting of a small tube about an inch in length and less than ¼ of an inch in diameter with strings on each end. Pulling both strings will cause the firecracker to explode;

(5) Paper caps–Minute amount of black powder spread in either small strips of paper on a small sheet used for children’s toy guns;

(6) El diablo–Firecrackers tubular in shape about 1 ¼ inches in length and less than ¼ inch in diameter with a wick; also known as labintador;

(7) Watusi–Usually reddish in color about 1 ½ inches in length and 1/10 inch in width usually ignited by friction to produce a dancing movement and a crackling sound;

(8) Judah’s belt–A string of firecrackers consisting of either diablos or small triangulos that can number up to a hundred or thereabout and culminating in large firecracker usually a bawang;

(9) Sky rocket (kwitis)–A large version of a baby rocket designed to be propelled to a height of forty (40) to fifty (50) feet before exploding;

(10) Other types equivalent to the foregoing in explosive content.

Fifteen years after RA 7183 became a law, new varieties of firecrackers–crying cow, Camara, Chickboom, Dart Bomb and Tamba Lete, among them–have surfaced and the law has not been amended to include them. The public is just as hard-headed as the lawmakers. The Department of Health reported that between Dec. 21 and 28, there have already been 103 firecracker-related injuries and the common culprits were the piccolo, five-star and triangle.

And it’s not like illegal firecrackers have been wiped out. Last Friday, the police seized thousands of pesos worth of firecrackers, including scores of super lolo and giant triangulo, in Valenzuela City where they were being sold openly in the streets.

When I got married and was living at my in-laws’ house, I was shown home movies sent by my husband’s oldest sibling, a brother who had been living in Illinois since the mid-1980s. There was one tape taken on New Year’s Eve showing him and his family, including his young son, using different kinds of noisemakers to welcome the New Year. They had everything–from trumpets to cans to metal cookware–except firecrackers. And I thought, oh okay, so this blasted obsession with firecrackers as a man thing could be outgrown and overcome. There’s hope.

The intermittent noise from firecrackers have been hurting my ears all afternoon as I prepare the pork and the chicken for the grill–and it is only Dec. 30 as I write this column. By the time this sees print, all sounds will be drowned by the deafening explosions. And I wish, just as I wish every New Year’s Eve, for a downpour just so keep those macho guys from lighting their firecrackers. If the government were serious about discouraging the use of firecrackers, clouds would be heavily seeded every New Year’s Eve. I won’t mind not seeing any fireworks display if it also means being able to greet the New Year in peace and quiet.