Compostela Valley Rep. Manuel Zamora defies all the stereotypes of trapo congressmen.

by Luz RImban

	More known to his constituents as Way Kurat, Rep. Manuel Zamora waters seedlings at his nursery in the House of Representatives. [photo courtesy of Ben Razon]

HE IS the exact opposite of his better-known namesake, big-time businessman and political power player Manuel Zamora. To start with, this Zamora is rather slight in build. And instead of having a suave nickname like ‘Manny,’ people know him more as ‘Way Kurat,’ Visayan for “no fear.” He also does not have a driver and a Ford Expedition; he prefers to ride his mountain bike — probably the only one in the country with the “8” plate number — to make the trip from his rented home in Northview subdivision to the House of Representatives complex in Quezon City.

The 30-minute ride can be arduous, and Zamora is often drenched in sweat by the time he parks his bike somewhere in the south side of the complex. He then takes off his T-shirt, uses it to wipe his sweat, and then gulps down a bottle of water. Next he slips on frayed working clothes and rubber flipflops. Before long, Zamora is at his compost pit where, with his bare hands, he mixes maggots with muck. Only after all these does he sit behind a desk, in the 800-square-meter garden he calls his office.

And that’s on a regular day. When his bike breaks down and he has to take a tricycle, House guards will first bar him from entering the complex, since no one on anything as lowly as a pedicab or tricycle is allowed into the grounds.

But the guards take only a few seconds to recognize the 51-year-old Zamora, the representative of the first district of Compostela Valley in Mindanao, whose peasant ways and bike riding have made him a celebrity. He stands out among the 200 or so congressmen in Armani suits and P500,000-Rolex watches on their wrists. No wonder Zamora, a freshman legislator, has been asked to guest on various television news programs and talk shows.

It took a while for Way Kurat himself to get used to his new stature. For a whole year after he was elected in May 2001, he says he faced himself in the mirror and asked, “Is this really me? Am I really a congressman?” He says he did dream of one day appearing on television without having to pay for it, but he never imagined rubbing elbows with the high and mighty in the hallowed halls of the nation’s legislature.

Going by the traditional rules of the game, very few like him ever make it to Congress. Most representatives are lawyers, businesspeople, or engineers from wealthy clans who inherited their seats from parents or spouses. Zamora is an ex-student activist and farmer more suited to the parliament of the streets. He has neither title nor degree and never made it past the first year of college. In fact, he was a freshman for four years in three different colleges and universities: He kept failing algebra and so never made it to sophomore level.

Yet, while complex mathematical equations elude him, he is good at basic arithmetic and has an A-1 memory to boot. That’s because he spends Sundays playing kristo or bet collector at cockfights. (“My church is the cockpit,” he says.) It is a kristo’s job to hang on to bets placed in the heat of the tupada by an arena full of rowdy gamblers and to remember who won how much when the dust has settled and the winnings are shared.

So what is a college-dropout-turned-farmer-moonlighting-as-a-bet-collector doing in Congress? It’s tempting to say it’s like seeing Manuel Conde’s “Juan Tamad Goes to Congress” come to life, but Zamora hardly strikes anyone as lazy. He also may not be as simple as some may think. In fact, he seems rather complex — a character surely, but a complex one nonetheless.