Mister Firecracker

By Lawrence Casiraya INQUIRER.net YOU only have a few seconds to light a 5-star and move away before it explodes. He can make one with a few more seconds to spare. Seven seconds, to be exact, was all it took for Dennis Asturias to get a piece of paper, take a pinch of pulbura -- a chemical concoction of potassium chlorate and sulfur, or referring to it as "devil" ("Yun pampasabog") -- with his silvery fingers, fold it a couple of times in the process putting the mitsa or fuse (that piece of coiled string wrapped in red) and finally chuck it in a cardboard box already full to the brim with thousands of 5-stars he has made. The speed by which he can make these deadly firecrackers is nothing short of amazing, considering he uses his bare hands -- no gloves, nothing to protect his fingers, only a towel wrapped around his head to wipe his sweaty arms. In a town where 80 percent of the population is involved in the production of firecrackers, it shouldn't be difficult to find people like him who can finish a few boxes of 5-stars in a day. The boxes are used packaging for cigarettes, I couldn't help but notice the irony in that. Dennis is from Pulong Buhangin, a remote barangay of Santa Maria, Bulacan, acknowledged as the center of Bulacan's fireworks industry. Pulong Buhangin, therefore, is the core of this industry because this is the production hub. Don't expect to find gated factories, though. Apparently, we discovered during our trip that led us to Pulong Buhangin, fireworks -- like Bulacan's candies and sweets -- are literally homemade. We found Dennis in a small nipa-lined shack in the backyard of, we assumed, was the employer's house. The wall carried newspaper clippings of his favorite basketball team. Different shacks like his carried signs like "production,""wrapping," and "bodega" or storehouse. Others like him, meanwhile, were making fountains, kwitis and sawa -- the last one is a kind of firecracker, literally a snakelike string of hundreds, sometimes thousands of 5-stars. Dennis was not at all disrupted even when we were interviewing him while he was pinching, wrapping and chucking -- all in one fluid motion. "Maliit pa lang ako hanapbuhay ko na to. Ten years old pa lang ako tumutulong na ko sa packing (I've been doing this work since I was 10)," he says. Dennis is now 27 years old. But he says this only serves as his sideline, or something he does to earn extra when he can't find a regular job in Manila. He says he earns about P700 per week. Of course, the inevitable questions: How many times has he been in any accident involving fireworks? He casually replies, "Di pa ko napuputukan ni minsan (I've yet to mishandle firecrackers by accident).” In this video, he even shares his secret on how to light a 5-star properly and safely.