IN a recent episode of a now defunct late-morning TV show, a macho dancer related to the host and the audience how he would retort everytime his tambay neighbors would make fun of his job. "You know, things like that always happen when you live in overcrowded places. I just tell them, at least I earn money, I don't steal, unlike you who are only tambays. You may even be social diseases."

The guy should not have been too arbitrary in judging his tambay neighbors.

We have a neighbor who was a tambay for so many years before finally deciding he wanted to be a taxi driver. He never harmed anyone; he merely spent the mornings and the afternoons hanging out or drinking at the corner stores or on the sidewalks. The only crazy thing he did back then was to shout at a uniformed Air Force CMT cadet who happened to pass him by one morning, "You bastard MMDA fellows, you are so industrious! You work even on Sundays!" He was so drunk he failed to recognize the young man whose house is nearer to his than ours.

We should not be too harsh on tambays just because they are so. There are different kinds of tambays. There are tambays who are nothing but tambays. There are tambays who are also disturbers of the peace. To be nothing but a tambay, although not exactly a noble occupation, is not all that bad. To be both a tambay and a disturber of the peace--that is really bad. I do not know that our neighbor, during his tambay days, was a worse fellow than those of our government officials who coddle druglords and other criminals.

Yet we abhor tambays so. This is because in a money-oriented society such as ours, everything is measured in terms of cash. Who has not heard people calling the money-laundering corporate lawyer a genius and the low-earning human rights lawyer a fool? Who has not heard people calling the corrupt public official a genius and the statesman a fool? Who has not heard people calling the millionaire's mistress a genius and the pauper's wife a fool?

And since tambays earn nothing, we look upon them as good-for-nothing lowlifes and perpetually wonder why they were ever born. We are so obsessed with money, we forget that people should be measured not by how much they make but by what they do.

Of course, it is infinitely better to earn an honest living than to be a tambay. It is not just a matter of not having to forage on your relatives and friends for your daily bread; it is also a matter of not having to worry that those you forage on may be fed up with having to give to you. But being a tambay is certainly not the worst thing in the world.

It is better to be a tambay than to be President of the Philippines and do nothing except to pour the people's money into mansions for your mistresses and drinking sprees with your friends. It is better to be a tambay than to be a Senator and do nothing except to insult a young lady lawyer who gave up a high-paying job for a low-paying one for reasons of principle.

Let us not be too quick to damn tambays lest in doing so we also damn ourselves. (Tinig.com)