By Willie Jose
I remember my “Tuli” ( circumcision) rite of passage, which took place in the summer of 1960, right after I finished elementary school. Before entering high school, I wanted to make sure “everything was done” so I wouldn’t have to worry about being teased by my classmates for being “supot” (uncircumcised).
Being teased as a supot is an unwelcome thing because it carries a connotation of cowardice.
At that time, two of my friends and I decided to go together to a manunuli. It was much cheaper than going to a hospital for a circumcision, where we would have had to pay more. Not only that, but we didn’t want our parents to come with us. Even at that early stage of our lives, we already felt a strong sense of independence.
But why was going to the local practitioner (manunuli) much cheaper than having the circumcision done at the hospital? Well, this procedure is called “pukpuk,” in which the manunuli uses a wooden anvil, a sharp razor blade, and chewed guava leaves as antiseptics for quick healing.
Normally, what happened right after the circumcision, the chewed guava leaves were nowhere to be found since the boy had already swallowed the ground leaves out of extreme anxiety.
The manunuli lived in a row of shanties behind Precinct 6 in Sampaloc, Manila, along the railroad tracks. When we arrived, there was already a small line of boys waiting. I saw one boy coming out of the house wearing shorts, carefully loosening them so his newly cut skin wouldn’t brush against the fabric.
As for me, I made sure to go first. I wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible.
The procedure itself was simple but nerve-wracking. The “surgeon” first cleaned my penis thoroughly with alcohol. Then he inserted a small, flattened piece of wood between the foreskin and the shaft. He placed a labaha (razor blade) on top of the skin and, with two or three swift strokes, the skin was cut open. Afterward, he applied a chemical solution to the wound and wrapped it with gauze.
When it was over, I put on my loosened shorts and walked home alone. It was quite a distance from our house in Loreto, but I managed to get there.
Undergoing that rite of passage was something to be proud of. It meant I could now consider myself a “real” man. Beyond tradition and pride, it was also believed to be good for one’s health, as circumcision was thought to prevent the buildup of residue beneath the foreskin.
Looking back, it was more than just a physical procedure. It was a moment of courage, independence, and transition — a step from boyhood into young manhood.
So this time of the year, during the school break, from April to May, it’s normal back home to see a bunch of young boys trooping to manunuli to undergo Tuli, it’s a deeply ingrained cultural tradition, marking the boy’s transition into manhood.
Well, it’s a different feeling to enter high school when one is circumcised, because he would not hesitate to pee showing his “real thing” to fellow peers, actually, it’s a badge of honour of being “tuli na”,
Willie Jose is a freelance journalist, and his past experience includes serving as a reporter for the Bluffs Monitor, a copy editor for the Times Journal, and, now, a columnist for Balita, a community newspaper in Toronto. He’s an alumnus of the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila. He has recently written a book—Iskolar ng Bayan—published by Amazon.
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