ON TO A NEW WORLD

I have sadly left this platform, swept by the mighty wave of change into facebook where I was more productive, more inspired to write. I have just finished a book.... It was the fruit of painstaking effort, a truly modest dream come true but exhilarating nonetheless.... I hope whatever, whoever is left of my blogging friends can take a look at it and share my happiness. For old time's sake....

It's been quite a while....

"Pillows from the Stone Age"

Into the Storm

Into the storm is not only the perfect storm. It should rank as one of the best chill out movies I’ve seen after a long while. The best thing about the movie is there is no villain in it, unless you hate your life so much that you see typhoons as your enemy. The plot is nothing to make you lose sleep and think seriously hard which is really the reason I loved it. Some movies try expect you to understand the phenomenon of inter-galactic molecular combustion while discussing on the side how sheep cell can be replicated to produce the animal’s living carbon copy through the wonders of medical cloning. Let’s leave those movies to the intellectuals.

Into the Storm has refreshingly none of that BS, thank God. To put is simply, there are movies that thrive on the philosophy of filmmaking where the less you think, the more you enjoy.  And Into the Storm proved that philosophy once again. There was a time “2012” was my number one disaster movie, a close second should be the Will Smith starrer “Independence Day”. Well, the ranking has changed and I should place “Into the Storm” on top with “2012” a distant second. That’s how good the movie is. Well I urge you not just to believe me but you better see for yourself. Watch it, for the love of God!

For one, the movie was able to overcome my initial reluctance to pay money to see it considering that people like me have this natural tendency to be seriously skeptical of films that come out after a major disaster happens, which I feel are all about squeezing an otherwise  unfortunate event of its commercial potentials to generate money.

But although I still think the film capitalized on what Yolanda’s did to Leyte, the redeeming value of Into the Storm is the way it concentrated almost entirely on capturing the visual images of the hurricane on a rampage. There was no major political statement to be made. Unlike in “2012” where the president had to make the decision to stay with his people to the bitter end or in “Independence Day” where an emotional speech was inserted somewhere before the ultimate showdown with the alien-invaders. In Godzillah for instance, the movie tried to take a stab at the awful state of politics in New York.

Into the Storm resisted the temptation to criticize the human race for its endless political agenda or mankind’s plunder of the environment. It was like “hey buddy, let’s just watch this thing and relax, okay?” is the overwhelming attitude of the film and oh yes, it got the message through and stayed true to the theme the entire two-hour screening. There was no letup in the action the moment it began.

This movie decided to spare us from the awful sight of people dying and starving and living in shelters. Instead we are treated by the movie to a larger than live rather, more aptly, closer than close viewing of flying trucks and airplanes, of buildings being lifted off the ground, and treated the imagination to spectacular sights that we will otherwise not be able to see up close in real life and expect to live to tell what happened. 

The in-your-face treatment of disaster scenes highlighting only the physical destruction may lack the emotional punch if people were placed upfront and in the center of the drama but hey, that is precisely the point the film was trying to make – its lack of pretense or political agenda. The film succeeded beautifully in this regard. In the beginning, the movie introduced to us two characters, a pair of thrill-seeking bums who would to anything for a kick attempting to be the next you tube sensations with the craziest video stunts. They just lacked one member to be the Three Stooges. But anyway, they made the whole movie fun while it lasted – right to the very end. I wouldn't want to spoil the thrill here so let me just mention that the movie regardless of its hardcore topic, took its time teasing our sense of humor.

Finally, the movie passed impressively the verdict of the worst team of critics you can ever assemble. I was at the movies with the gang – my wife Arlene, Alon (13), Aya (11) and Nanay, who is already 86. Usually, the kids would start fighting and throwing a tantrum if they don’t see anything to keep them still and Nanay would be snoozing as soon as the dim-lighted theatre goes completely dark. Guess what, they stayed still and kept themselves awake. And when we came out and talked about what we’ve just seen, I felt that for one brief moment, my 86 year old mother was a kid again, grateful and ecstatic to be at the movies.

So go ahead and watch it.

Prom Night

This could be the longest one minute of her young life.

Sining sat in one corner, far from the glare of the chandelier light illuminating the entire room where only the faintest flash of light could reach her, slicing through the darkness every now and then before leaving that corner in pitch darkness yet again. For now, everybody’s attention is transfixed on the contilion de honor, where the chosen few – the tallest, fairest, and comeliest members of the class had the opportunity to participate – and the dance was the culmination of weeks of rehearsals which some even took to the extreme with weeks of dieting. It was the ritual reserved only for the most stunning and virile among the lot, the ones who radiate with the glow of youth and closely approach the fairy tale images of prince and princess which sadly she is not. In a moment, the music stops and this is where the things she dreads the most set in. She remembered what her father told her in the car, on their way to the dance. Sining at 16 is a ball of nervous energy threatening to explode.

This is just a phase, a rite of passage so don’t take it too seriously if others get all the attention it’s not because you deserve less. It is not a statement of how much you are worth or where you stand in the order of things. You all have a full life ahead, and no one knows where it will lead you. Years from now, you will just laugh it off especially if it turns out the expectations that you have for one another completely fall off the mark. It’s all superficial for now and physical attraction naturally gets a lot of praise and attention but as you move up in years, character takes over and changes the way you look at the world. In the meantime be what you are. Be your age. Just enjoy the dance. Have fun. If you act naturally and be kind to everyone, and put on a genuine smile, they will remember you as that simple girl who made the evening truly special.

She could almost remember every single word that his father said during the ride except that the element of encouragement in the manner he delivered his message had dissipated now, and Sining began to seriously have some doubt. After all those words came from a confessed wall-paper and high school geek himself – surprisingly, his father was even proud to admit that – so they offer little comfort. She felt worse than Cinderella did with seconds ticking away before midnight turns her from princess to pauper. Sining glanced at the buffet table and noticed that some girls have actually helped themselves to the food – honestly, that was the only reason they came here for. She promised not to be like them even as her stomach protested, making her remember she never had anything for lunch, for fear of not fitting into her gown. If only her father knew.

As soon as the cotillion stopped, there was a flurry of shoving and teasing as the boys go after the girls they like for the next dance, this time, unrehearsed and anything goes. Again as expected, there were beelines for the comeliest ladies while those who get passed up pretend as best they can not to care. The DJ caught everyone by surprise and brought the house down by putting on Psy’s K-Pop smash dance hit, right after the formal cotillion, drawing a collective nervous laughter from the very young crowd. The music had already started, transforming the crowd into a dancing suicidal mob when Sining heard a familiar voice, barely audible amidst the heart-pounding noise. “Shall we dance?” When Sining looked up, she saw Eugene, the gangling senior with a serious nutrition problem some class bullies have likened him to the life-size skeletal system model back in biology class when they were sophomores. For a brief moment in that dark corner of the room, she thought he was a creature from horror movies but immediately Sining smiled a wide smile and took his hand.

She could barely remember anything else after that. Eugene was very shy and unassuming but a true gentlemen and every other boy that took her to the floor after that was a similar model in decorum – grateful and happy enough just to be able to say that he was not be turned down. Sining never said no to anyone even as her foot ached and she even successfully yanked Jeremy off his seat – her gay classmate – for a shot at a slow sweet dance when “Blue Moon” played along.

That night, when the party ended, she found her father already asleep inside the car at the parking lot, the engine and airconditioner turned off because he's saving on gas. She had to tap hard on the windshield to awaken him. Three of her best friends who had no one to fetch them asked to share the ride, and her father said yes without a second thought even complimenting them, saying it was not everyday that she gets to have beautiful princesses for company. But when he found out they were hungry and never had a bite, he pretended to be mad and drove to the nearest restaurant still open at one o’clock in the morning. They were lucky to find one far away all the way up in Timog Avenue. There, all dressed up in their evening gowns and in full make up, she and her classmates gorged on their very late dinner like starving sailors while her father watched wondering what on earth is happening to the young ladies of today.

It was the best dance and dinner date she could ever possibly ask for.

Chill

It’s funny how the Red Hot Chili Peppers, my college definition of artistic rebellion, never fails to bring out my inner Jekyll and Hyde. I grew up admiring them – obscene, irreverent, gross, smelly, stinky and all. That was during college. And that was a long time ago. Looking back, I realized that my connection with the band is because they affirm my personal faith about believing in choosing to be different and refusing to follow the convention.

I was then the reed-thin, asthmatic-looking nerd-geek crossbreed with thick-rimmed glasses who always seems to get the distinction of being the shortest boy in class. I mean, vertically challenged --- heck, what I like about this blogging thing is you get to reveal your worst affliction and still feel less miserable to have admitted it compared to when you do it publicly. Behind that pathetic exterior is a rocker-rebel who would not hesitate to choose chaos over peace, disturbance rather than comfort uncompromising as I was – then and now – when defending the choices that I make. And during that time, I choose to march with the sweating masses in Mendiola, face the Marcos government’s marines rather than sit on Spanish class trying to stay awake while struggling to conjugate nosotros vosotros or listen while my Humanities Professor rant and rave about the perfect male figures that Michaelangelo formed from slabs of marbles, muscular men but in my mind were the most miserable of creatures with their pitifully small and shy phalluses retracting under their wrinkly scrotum covers. 

To me, the perfect man-image is Anthony Keidis in his birthday suit rocking on stage with only socks for underwear, and while my Humanities professor sees the physical epitome of perfection in the sculptures of the Greeks, I, the geek, would rather hear and see the metaphysical definition of what rebellion is all about. The naked truth in public is not always a bad thing, because it also resembles a casting away of the earthly embellishments of life, until only the butt-naked flesh remains. Think oblation.  Sometimes, if the force of ideological protest fails, wouldn’t it be nice if one can just, out of sheer exasperation with life, drop those clothes and run. That’s it, I’ve had enough, one could just say. The heck with decency, the hell with religion. Let me get naked and run. For no reason but the heck of running naked. I really suspect I must be a streaker in my previous life, a streaker with a mean streak and who knows, the Chilli Peppers went side by side with me in some of those streaking. 

Every Chilli Pepper concert is a corruption of the virtuous society that we thought existed, a middle finger flashed in the faces of moralists and decent men. Every Chilli Pepper concert is a phone call away from calling the police to launch the mass arrest of psychopaths and perverts let loose in the streets. If I can afford it, I would not have missed their live acts. But I was just a college student at that time.

But then again, the terrible thing that people are afraid to confront one day caught me by surprise. I grew old. My inner rocker is not spared from the ravages of time and could barely rekindle some of the vitality during moments of deep introspection, as when I am in a long drive and Under the Bridge comes up on the radio. There is almost sadness in realizing that I have lost the lyrics of Can’t Stop which all my life I believed will forever be etched in my psyche but when suddenly, the song came blaring out of nowhere during a monster of a traffic jam in SLEX my mind couldn’t cope with the rhythm and beat, feeling humiliated at how I could have lost the words. 

The worst part was after I learned recently that they were coming to Manila. If I were still the college geek, I would have robbed the bank, or held up my parents for the premium ticket. That’s all the chance I have to get the money and go to the concert then. But I have to remember that I go to work on a tailored suit now.I meet people who have stashed away millions in the banks, ready to kill or be killed to keep it there.  My life revolves today around long and exhausting travels, endless disagreements, high-stake lawsuits, and high-profile litigants, and yes, ironically, I have reached a point in my life where I cannot even afford the time it would cost me to go to a rock concert. The Chilli Peppers are calling me back to where I came from but instead of listening to the call, I went the other way and deliberately missed the trip. 

The geek must be dead.

Dasal sa Alon

A day to escape from my life in a box...
A day of defiance...
A day at the beach....

Galit ang dagat

Bawat hagupit ng alon sa pampang ay sumasabog na matinding poot

Kulang na lang na ito'y magsalita
Sabihing ako'y nalulungkot
Nangungulila sa naglahong kulay at ganda ng dati kong daigdig

Mundong nabili na
Ngunit paulit-ulit pa ring binenta
Hanggang wala nang gustong bumili

Katulad ng perlas na ginawang kwintas
At gomang tirintas na inilalako sa tabing-dagat

Yakap-yakap ng babaing kulot
Ang mayamang matanda na galing sa ibang bansa
Na nagmamasid sa bawat nababasag na alon sa batuhan
Na nagiging tulis-tulis na liwanag

Kaya huwag na tayong lumusong
At sumubok na magpahabol sa alon

Dito na lang tayong magkahawak-kamay sa pampang
Makipagtuksuhan sa mga alaala
Habang dumidilim ang langit 
At nagagalit ang dagat


(Puerto Galera, sunset, Oct.15, 2013) 

Rosalie

As if the rain could read my mind.

I stepped out to a roaring downpour that instantly turned the Pinaglabanan Shrine into a shallow pool of dirt and mud that almost seemed unreal now, almost unrecognizable from the earlier scene of a bustling and breezy urban park under the scorching midday sun when I quietly walked in, unnoticed by anyone in the crowd about an hour ago. That scene and the crowd are now completely gone. Perhaps, I figured, the rain alludes to my own drastic mood swing from one of quiet purpose to complete emotional chaos and the message from the rain could only be one of two things – either it sympathizes with my sorrow, or it actually mocks my misery.

I said purpose because I just made a promise to myself earlier today that my search for Rosalie would end now. Not tomorrow, not tonight but now. Right here, right now. And then sad to say I got my wish.

I reached out to my briefcase and held the paper in my hand, scanning carefully every entry – the dates, places, numbers, notes, punctuation marks included – and still I can’t seem to come to grips with the reality of my heartbreak, if only people knew what I am going through and what all of this meant to me.  For the past several weeks, the thought of Rosalie consumed me. Without any exaggeration, it was already a matter of life and death to me at this point.

The case of Rosalie was referred to me by a friend, through an innocent phone call that unexpectedly came while I was cruising EDSA on another rainy afternoon in mid-July. I vividly remember hesitating whether or not to take the call, wary of accidents that occur most of the time from the slightest distraction. Atty. John was almost frantic, struggling to catch his breath on the other end of the line while narrating the story of this family fortune that now lies at the center of a bitter and protracted lawsuit. And this is where Rosalie comes in. If we can prove that she is still alive, we might as well take a bite from out of all that bounty.

And so during the next few weeks, I live, eat, and think of that single thought and in fact even in my dreams, I dream of Rosalie. How is she now, how does she look like, and most of all, where can I find her. Every single day and every single hour of those past few weeks, I agonized over these thoughts, completely consumed by the great desire to know the answers to my questions. It was like a seed had been planted to the core of my soul. It was causing me so many sleepless nights. It was already eating bits off my health and I was sincerely terrified it might just be a matter of time before it robs me of my sanity.

Long hours of research and visits to government offices, meeting people, asking around, losing my way to where I am going, finding my way back again to where I’ve been, spending the last cent of my money, borrowing someone else’s money and spending it to the last cent, skipping several meals, and missing important appointments, I have to deal with all of that, which is really bad but not as bad compared to the fact that the progress of my search had been excruciatingly slow. Only bits and pieces of information would come out of the blue which do not even remotely compensate for the enormous amount of energy I was already expending.

This much I have learned. She was born sometime before the war. Married in the 50’s and after that, disappeared without a trace. And now, I need her with the urgency and desperation of one who lives his life for the moment that he finds the missing map to the hidden treasure, the one elusive piece of the puzzle that I will never ever forgive myself if I should let it elude me.   That’s how obsessed I was. 

I remember early this morning, my conversation with Mr. Horror Movie. He was at the stockroom of the census office in Times Street, and immediately upon seeing him I was prompted to relate the experience to something about movies. You know what, I have this habit of automatically connecting people, events, and experiences to the movies I watched or books I’ve read at some point in my life and on that particular moment, my reaction to the sight of Mr. Horror Movie was obviously unflattering. But what am I supposed to do? That meeting turned on the hidden switch. I couldn’t think of any other image or sentiment that would connect me to him except for the Nightmare on Elm Street. One of these days, I would have painful karmic lessons from having this aberrant behavior.

But there he was, in what I would call the dungeon of the census, a place that reeks of the stench of decay, the dim light mood does not help in any way to assuage my morbid mixed emotions when I walked in. As I turned left to one of the isles in between rows of bookshelves, he was there, smiling a wicked smile that almost made the hair on my neck stand stiff. But in fairness, he went about his work with the absolute dedication of the man who seems to honestly want to have nothing else to do with the rest of his life than this. I wouldn’t be surprised if his last wish is to get buried somewhere here.

I mentioned to him first the full name of Rosalie making sure I pronounced it right and gave the few details I have gathered about her life from all my adventures and just like that, Mr. Horror Movie immediately went to work scanning across piles upon piles of documents that connect to the past, frozen in time.

I was surprised to be left alone in the dim-lit room with the mixed scents of noxious fumes, dead things, the leaking sewer, and the unforgettable smell of paper mill that never fails to take me back in time to my old job as proofreader at the old Evening Post. I tried looking behind my back from time to time, expecting some rabid voracious beast to leap out of the dark and devour my intestines. In that brief interlude of time somewhere underneath the bowels of this scary old building, amidst shadows and secrets, I fought fear by retracing my steps back to that dark rainy afternoon in July when I received Atty. John’s phone call while driving in the middle of Edsa. One day, I was in Sta. Rosa Laguna, and the next day, I was flirting with the thought of taking the last plane trip to Davao but decided against it after a friend tipped that someone at the Civil Registry in Mandaluyong holds the key to my fortune. One moment I was at Quiapo underpass looking at magic amulets, and at the South Cemetery the next. And then there was that drinking binge with forgers, fixers and plain crooks during yet another typhoon-ravaged evening at some stinky bar in Claro M. Recto, when I had grown so desperate, too desperate that I seriously considered breaking the law if that is the only way to get what I wanted.  

The introspection was cut short by Mr. Horror Movie’s sudden appearance from the dark, carrying a huge book that let loose a mighty spray of dust when he abruptly opened its pages. And there it was. Everything that I wanted to know about Rosalie. That yes indeed, she walked the aisle as a 21 year old bride in 1957. I wonder what gown she had, the scent she wore. Was she pure and untouched at the altar on that day? Afterall, those were the days.

And then, finally, I got the fact that I wanted to know. The one answer to my question, the one I've been waiting for. Immediately, I wanted to scream, I wanted to tear this building apart, I wanted this place to burn to the ground, tell it to bring its secrets to hell, and never come back again even in my memory.  My instinct was to bid my farewell to Mr. Horror Movie, but as if on cue, as if to read my thoughts, he offered his hand, not saying a word, but I fully understand that what he meant was his job was done and I should be going. I accepted the handshake and it felt cold, like shaking the hand of a body that’s just been taken out from the morgue. When I turned my back and headed for the sunlight, I had to squint and blink to adjust to the sun until I realized I was in tears.

If my discovery from the dungeon with Mr. Horror Movie this morning was not enough to bring me down to my knees, my next quick stop – here at Pinaglabanan crushed my spirit beyond resurrection, by this time, the sun had absconded and left the whole of the heavens to the rain. So this is where the journey stops, I said to myself. Rain-drenched Pinaglabanan. As I held the paper in my hand – a reproduction of the microfilm entry that officially validates the record I just found at the dungeon – I was consumed with a totally different, incomparable kind of emptiness that I have never felt before in my entire life. Rosalie has become more than a ghost from the past. I realized she has taken her place somewhere in the deepest corners of my consciousness, a place that takes only the worst of emotions to enable me to sink deep enough to recognize that it actually exists.

I wonder what they made Rosalie wear at the funeral, her own funeral. I wanted to know if the mortician did a good job to conceal the ravages of tuberculosis that led to her untimely death at the tender age of 24, three years after her wedding. Maybe she was a beautiful woman, a lovely bride, but how was she when she laid there lifeless. Cold. Dead. It is almost unfathomable that someone I have never even met, someone I would never have the chance to know, someone who was there long before I came, and left already long before I had my turn to come to life, someone who is not and never will be a part of me except perhaps for a passing memory, or if not an obscure image in time, a speck in space, indeed unfathomable is the only word I can think of to describe the short, very short and anonymous life she lived and in the mysterious confluence of events that she found me, or rather that I found her, and then how one thing led to another until here I am questioning my purpose, my being, my own faith. I was grieving for someone I never came to know, someone from another generation far removed from the day the great force behind the order of things commanded that I come to life.

I am a man who had lived through many episodes of pain and grief but here, right here under the rain, while holding the paper that is already beginning to wilt in my hand, the suit I was wearing already a complete mess, and my spirit broken, and as I stood defiant under the rain, and completely soaked to the bone, I knew I had fallen down a new depth where I have never gone before. Another heartbreak like this would probably kill me.

Rest in peace Rosalie…

My Father's Day

"When I was a child, I had life all figured out. Life is all about making sad people become happy. I guess I never changed the way I think from there because up to now, years later, I subscribe to the same school of thought. What I never expected was just how far this simplistic yet life-altering principle can take me. You would think it takes a rocket scientist’s understanding of life to be able to reveal the purpose and reason why we live. Well, think again. I became a journalist. Analyzing unfolding history not from the safety of the office cubicle but in the frontline, where the raw emotions of a rebel attack aftermath, the tears of a losing Olympian, the last dying dream of a PWA (person with aids), and the national hysteria of a Michael Jackson visit would inevitably spill over you."

My father was almost in tears looking at the distance and almost totally unconscious of my presence as he spoke. I realized he was talking to himself. The impulse to make people happy is one of my father’s most powerful and endearing traits, in fact it ruled his life and one I am quite pleased to become a living and breathing witness to.

"It is almost addictive. It consumes you, heart and soul you sink deep into your own trap, you just keep doing it from the first time you felt the sheer joy of transforming grief into smile then you go at it over and over again at the expense of your own private time and relationships and never run out of opportunities because there are just too many people in the world who are sad and waiting to be consoled."

I truly believe the man and for a while I was genuinely sympathetic. Then I remember the late nights he would come knocking at the door, only to fall asleep like a dead log for long hours, and then leave and be gone for days without a word, at times, even for months returning only to reenact this cycle of sightings and disappearances all over again. I remember the awful drugs and drinking binge, the endless waiting to see him come back. I haven’t really forgotten and I doubt if it is within me to forget the absentee celebrant that he was during his own birth day and on father’s day, his excuses for not being there to pin medals when we did well in school, the fact that it was mom who taught me to swim, to bike and fly a kite, the dark void that he left in my boyhood.

"So as I was saying, I took it a step farther, quit my job with the network with my career just starting to blossom and all my life savings I had no second thought about spending for tuition to enroll in law school and in the next four years I had toiled like a slave, friends say I had completely lost my mind, well, they can say what they want, it’s a free country, but law school was an obsession a reason to push myself to work even harder, to live in constant desperation to be an attorney at last."

He broke into a half-smile at the mention of attorney at last. He is indeed an attorney at law, one of the very best. His colleagues would tell me about it to have me drawn into a conversation and I would oblige like a dutiful son to affirm the impression, by showing them how I had I kept abreast with all my father’s achievements, to take the cue from them, as if I had been programmed to do so. And indeed, they were genuinely amazed, maybe envious when speaking of my father’s landmark battles in court, the winning lawsuits against mighty business empires and high-profiled criminals, the oral arguments in the High Court that they can’t stop talking about in legal circles and conversations like these are part of urban legend, a modern day lore except that everything they knew is true. He played his maverick’s role with aplomb.

But these friends are completely mistaken if in their opinion my father earned a fortune from his practice. I myself am beleaguered by this irony. If the man had really earned his millions, well, he made a good job hiding it because I have not seen the benefit of those staggering tales of money. Always a simple man, you don’t equate father with fancy clothes and cars. We live in the same neighborhood from the time I was born and see no hope of moving into a better place, not that I am complaining of what we have and where we are. My father had never failed to remind us that a lot of people are in worse shape in the few times, rare occasions indeed that something like conversation would break the silence between the two of us. The law completely took him away from us. I still do hate the missed opportunities, the family bonding moments that we never experienced as much as we craved for them, just the simple joy of having a complete household, and the comfort in the knowledge that he was in the next room, and not the sad fact that he was not really present in our lives even when he is around because his heart throbs for the call of the courtroom, and the files of documents that demand too much of his time to make sense of life’s legal side and that side of life that people make with their greed and infidelity, the people who just can't wait to be relieved of their sadness. 

The medical attendant signaled my visiting hour is up. I gave him a hug and as he bent to kiss my forehead, I realized I will never be as tall as he, and maybe it is a metaphor of how I may never come to reach the heights he managed to scale. But I am happy with what I am and what I’ve done. That’s always been my retort and rebuttal.

As I walked out of the hospital and stand at the street corner now, my mind was deluged with reminiscences, a rush of memories that come forth almost in the form of a physical force ramming against the doorway to all the deepest private thoughts that I have kept so tightly closed and which I have always tried to avoid being exposed and agitated. It was not his fault that he took to heart the child’s faith that maybe it was destiny's will that wanted him to heal people of their sadness for there cannot be a more noble thing to live for. If only I had the power to change things before they happened I would have made him realize that one must hold back bits of that happiness that he was unwittingly giving away, if only to save some for the people in his life who truly mattered. I am selfish, in a way I guess I am but the way I see it now in hindsight, it would not have hurt to have spared something for himself, the happiness that he thought was abundant and inexhaustible. 

He might have succeeded in a grand way in turning sadness to gladness, but doing so had left him almost completely consumed with sadness himself, betrayed by his childhood faith.

"Halohalo"

I can’t recall anymore how long and how many times I’ve done this before, sitting under the tree right next to the rows of food stalls here at the Quezon City Hall open food court chilling out over halohalo on a disposable paper-thin plastic cup.

It’s been so long since the first time I’ve been here doing this but I remember it was years ago, as a struggling government employee and it’s amazing that I still do this now. My thoughts then were of the forthcoming prosperous times, perhaps having cappuccino at new world café poring over the newspaper’s business section to analyze the latest movements of my blue chip stockmarket investments.

I have since stopped being a bureaucrat and those thoughts of prosperous time have remained just thoughts but refusing to fade.

The friends that I used to visit every now and then at their office desks in the nearby city courts are not there anymore; they have moved on for better things. It gives no comfort reminiscing of my old job at Visayas Avenue, which with the passage of time have only memories to offer now, and not exactly pleasant ones.

Most of my friends don’t get in touch I really doubt if they ever pause once in a while to think of me at all. Well, since I only get to remember them once in a rare while too, I guess I have no right to expect as much.

So when I go back to my old haunts like I do today, here in this familiar spot under the tree, it brings me a feeling of being stuck in the past, of being left miles behind by those who stood beside me when I was just at the starting line of the rat race.

Maybe I should have embraced destiny instead of chasing it. 

Maybe I should have stopped daydreaming of coffee breaks at new world long ago. If I did,  who knows, perhaps i would not be feeling like this, alone in the world and lonely. There should be purpose not only bitterness for every moment of reminiscences that I spend with my halohalo under the tree.

You know what, I don’t really like the taste of halohalo but I just don’t understand why I keep on coming back and doing this…

End of the World

I watched the end of the world tonight.

They came in full force; the women with babies in their arms, the men with their tattoos and the smell of hangover, together with the pot-bellied children with mucus on their faces. They all came.

And I made them wait for two and a half hours. Their impatience and collective frustration showed. The children were already lying on the floor, barefoot and disheveled, the women talking in the manner they would haggle over fish at the wet market while some of the men have already started smoking and all decorum the courtroom commands was quickly forgotten.

My arrival was greeted by an impatient hush. I knew that every eye in that courtroom became immediately transfixed into me, watching my every step as I moved through the aisle, crowded with wayward limbs and bodies, and parting it the way Moses did the Red Sea. And as I took my seat before the bench, I cringed at the thought of tomorrow’s tabloid headlines: Lady Judge Lynched by Angry Mob.

Take a hundred hungry and angry people and keep them waiting in a cramped spaced that could only accommodate at best a fraction of that number and you might as well be doing a home-made bomb experiment. The atmosphere was volatile and frightening even for a judge.

“Your Honor” the young lawyer was addressing me with the calculated expression of one already at the edge of his temper yet trying desperately to maintain his composure. Lawyers are good at pretending that everything would turn out fine especially when they address judges even after a two-hour wait. “The folks at Sitio Maligaya have reached a consensus that they would accept a compromise if the lots are sold to them at a price they can afford. They realize the folly of litigating over the long haul and frankly, I told them we are looking at a ten year trial at least, if we cannot agree on a settlement. Hopefully, this honorable court would assist the parties to reach a reasonable agreement.”

The opposing counsel, an old balding veteran lawyer chimed in. “With all due respect your Honor these people should not dictate what terms are acceptable. The land was occupied by them for more than twenty years without paying a cent so as the true and rightful owners, my clients have every right to evict.”

I knew right away, with lawyers like these, it was going to be a long night. I rattled off worst case scenarios and conversely, the possible win-win solutions. Scaring them back to their senses if they don’t settle and why, for everybody’s peace of mind, both must be willing to accept sacrifices “because one can’t have his way all the time” and “sometimes it is better to take a little and give a little than lose everything”.

I wanted to be equally sensitive and open minded to the sentiments of both sides but the hard realities of this world makes it even harder to keep that neutral stand at some point. These people wanted a piece of the earth; their whole lives, they felt the pain of deprivation and social inequity. Poverty drove them into the slums, the dark and slimy and crime-infested section of the city where they try to fit in, to try to survive and live a semblance of life in the midst of dirt, poverty and decay, to make sense of what fate had given them, where fate had pushed them until fate they accepted. Yet now, despite the acceptance and surrender to fate, they are about to be driven away.

The old man had taken to the floor now, arguing fiercely about “social justice not being a solace to the scoundrels, and for rich and poor young and old alike to have their fair shake”. In between jabs at empty air, he would throw glimpses at the crowd, contemptuously and with an air of utter disdain. He would reserve the fiercest glare at the other counsel, the younger lawyer who is himself keeping a brave front, and a swagger only lawyers feel the need to show, as if arrogance would translate into something brilliant and produce legal miracles and indeed I would sometimes find myself craving for the same miracle, even as a judge myself.

They were worlds apart, these party litigants and it didn’t help that lawyers have this flair to disagree on the most mundane and trifling. We spent hours fighting over price per square meter, the manner and duration of payment and which side will advance the cost of survey and documentation. The longer we spoke the wider the division seemed to grow. I lost track of the many times I pounded the gavel and the instances I wish it’s the lawyers’ heads that were taking the pounding. A drunken man made a scene quoting excerpts from the bible and pontificating that society must stop this injustice now or the end of the world will rid us of our petty quarrels. I threatened to walk out if his companions would not make this crazy man leave. Gladly they listened and kicked him out.         

Three hours into the stalemate, I was beginning to accept the futility of our situation. It was already past dinnertime and ours were the only lighted room in the whole five story building, in the whole compound of the city hall for that matter. Courts adjourn at five, at times earlier and when sessions are held well after dusk it’s either because a military coup or a hostage taking is keeping the judge up.

And then it happened.

It occurred to me that most of these people are uneducated and uninformed, relying on gossip, if not the exaggerated explanations of those similarly uninformed and uneducated to form their own personal opinion of the world. I absent-mindedly reached for the calculator icon on my i-phone and tried this simple mathematical equation: price per square meter (or P3,500.00) multiplied by the number of square meters in a lot divided by sixty, which is the number of monthly installments over five years, equals the monthly amortization. I turned to the fat woman on the front row, the most vocal of the group and asked the measurement of her lot. Per my calculation, her ten square meter lot would cost P35,000.00; divide that by 60 and you get roughly P585.00 which would be her monthly amortization over five years.

The woman regarded me with misty eyes in a manner I have only seen just once before in my whole life when the priest touched a cancer patient on the forehead to administer miracle healing. She self-consciously asked if she can borrow my phone and showed it to the rest, like it was the holy grail. Just like that, a long line of people immediately formed in front of me, inquiring about the formula and if “please your honor, madam judge can you help me find out how much I should pay monthly for my lot?” By all means, I obliged to their pleas, my hands in fact were trembling in the rush to get it done. By all means.

I wouldn’t mind breaking protocol and I would much rather have this moment last for as long as I can help it, for as long as there is peace, seeing them smiling, relieved at last, their lawyers shaking hands and exchanging high fives. Even the drunken fellow had returned, sober now and self-consciously and politely standing in line.

The significance of this moment will make it to become one of the high points of my life as a judge. This people for whom society seems to frown forever, to whose hands, the blessings of the earth are hard to come by, these people who fall prey to politicians' promises and government's neglect, will finally get their due, not in the manner of dole outs or of alms thrown at them out of pity, but something they would have to pay for, something that they would earn, something that they would accept with their heads held high because they will pay for it no matter how modest and trifling their means. From now on they will no longer be called and treated by society as some unwanted, illegal, some unfortunate outcasts among men because by the sacrifice they make these people are going to earn back their pride and their dignity. Sometimes, where law or religion fails, a simple mathematical solution may just provide the answer to the greatest problems of man. Yes. I watched the end of the world tonight. The world that these people used to know has ended. Thank God, it was a happy ending...

As This Sun Bleeds

Coming home from a meeting with Grace

On a jampacked train at Boni Station

I realized that something special

Had taken place

Rising up to offer my seat to a septuagenarian

I already knew that having a seat

On a rush hour trip is such great luck

That to give it away for someone else

And sacrifice what I wanted so badly

Makes me a fool or just plain crazy

Standing up and facing west

I caught a glimpse of the sun descending to rest

A ball of fire on crimson sky

I looked around and I saw red

The faces of passengers

The ground below

The buildings and rooftops

The solitary dove

The skies above

The world is on fire as the sun comes down

With such magic spell

To turn the heavens into bloody hell

Without regrets and bleed to death

Losing the vision of the sun’s last dance

Across the horizon

When the train just passed Kamuning Station

I was filled with longing

To turn back the train and return to the scene

To capture the moment all over again

While the dying embers fade out of sight

To take flight during the night

Reminiscing now, through the paths

I’ve travelled, 

The loved ones I’ve lost

The sunsets I’ve seen

Like yesterday’s sunset

That I watched from the train

At least I can say that unlike those people

Who looked the other way

Or fell asleep during the trip  

The ones who missed this masterpiece in red

Compared to them I am much more blessed

I’m coming home with a poem in my head

Coming home from a meeting with Grace
I realized that something special had taken place.