STAYING HOME

CHRISTMAS season, particularly the holiday break, is by far the most joyous time of the year. Having an extended time off work and just taking things easy at home with my family make it more blissful for me.

From the 23rd to the 29th of December, I enjoyed hanging out at our own little house in Marilao, Bulacan than somewhere else. I wouldn't even get dressed. It was my day to relax and read and do housekeeping without time pressures.

First on my list was to organize my school and personal files on my work/study area and those in my desktop by saving my files on CDs as backup. Next was to deal with clutter and dirt all over the house. It’s amazing how much clutter can accumulate when you’re not paying attention to it.

I sorted through unused clothes, books and magazines, decorations, and kitchen wares. And while inspecting shelves, closets and kitchen racks, I discovered swarm of termites burrowing on a closet where my kids’ old school books and some of my school files are stacked. The termites must have found the books delicious that they crunched almost all of them and nibbled on some of my files. The rest of my files and other parts of the house would have been gobbled down had I failed to detect the silent insect invasion for a couple of months more.

My wife helped me in decluttering and keeping our home guest-ready. We had visitors on the 24th, mostly my in-laws from Malate, Manila. With additional work to deal with, like wrapping gifts and planning and actually preparing for the noche buena, keeping a clean home for the holiday can be a real challenge to her. She had to redo the decors on the Christmas tree and walls, and had to change the curtains and sofa covers.

Staying home also means helping with the laundry and sharing with cooking chores. But this time, as if in an extended family weekend, I do most of the cooking. Of course, I enjoyed most of it, especially when I see my kids anticipating my mostly Ilocano recipes that I served on the table.

And during my free time (no household chores to do), I see to it that my kids are entertained every second of the day, otherwise, you would hear from them “I’m bored” or “When are we going out?” I let them watch DVD movies with me and my wife. They were happy watching old movies and some cartoons.

I gave my kids extended time for play which I wouldn’t normally do during school days. I allowed them to play with their playmates in the street, especially in the afternoon. My two boys played basketball in the plaza near our place every morning. My six-year-old girl was content playing with her new Barbie doll and her cash register toy. I allowed them to swim with their cousins in the club house pool on Christmas day, and we flew kites on the next day.

My kids thought that the holidays were just fine, even with my cancellation of any plans of a holiday getaway. Good enough, even while they were home, they got what they requested from Santa, and had received the gifts and even cash sent to them by their godparents and relatives.

I told them that going to Star City during this time is out of the question, because with the monstrous crowd at its peak season they might not get their money’s worth as they had to endure long queues for their favorite theme park rides.

Going to the mall is also out of the plan. I would not willingly drag my kids during holiday madness through wandering mall traffic, and multitudes of shoppers darting and dashing between clumps of regular stalls and those mini tiangges! How I hate long queues for security checks at narrow entrances and those Christmas carols playing non-stop! I don’t think I could endure long lines on counters and even on restroom. And best of all, I intentionally blocked the temptation of spending too much by shunning shopping malls during this season.

Surprisingly, though, we all found out that we gained so much fun even without going outside our home during the holiday break. Call me shallow, but being with my family for seven straight days at home was a rare and exhilarating experience. I wouldn’t exchange that for any material gift for this season.

REMEMBERING OUR DEAD

DEATH is a natural cycle. It is normal as there is birth, baptismal, wedding, rejoicing or celebration; as regular as the night reigning supreme over the sun’s realm but only for half of the day. This is not a big surprise, since no one lives forever. Everyone who comes to this world has to leave. All of us will die.

But yet death can be so heart-wrenchingly shattering, especially when it happens in the family. It isn’t anything anyone wants to think about, yet it is part of our life. This is the bitter awakening of what we are fated for, what we should be living for. It’s a realization that when death knocks at our door, in spite of the fullness of life, we must give in, as a sleepy man must not, as it is useless, to resist sleep after a tiring day.

And to remember our relatives and loved ones who are dead, we light a candle for them, offer flowers and prayers at their grave. We now love them in their absence as we did in their presence. We mourn for losing them, but we can smile with the thought that there was rejoicing in heaven for having them now.

My own first experience of death came when I was about six. It was my first memory of a close relative leaving us. Minutes before his tragic death, I saw Uncle Erning enter the house that night just to inform my parents that he was going home to the barrio after closing their stall at the market. My mother invited him to stay and have his dinner but he declined. He said my cousins Edwin and Danny who were in the tricycle, were in a hurry to go home. But minutes after he left, he got into an accident that caused him his life. A van collided with his tricycle as they negotiated a junction just a kilometer away from our house. My two cousins were spared. I remember my Aunt Colling the next morning screaming, kicking and shaking, and wailing to high heavens “Why?” I felt sad that this was happening. My uncle was so alive when I saw him that night. This was unfair. I knew how hurt my aunt was.

But prior to Uncle Erning’s death, our own family had suffered two deaths. A brother and a sister both died when they were born (our youngest, my mother’s 10th child, was also stillbirth when she came out years later). When I was a boy, their graves were the ones we visited in the cemetery. I remember them only how they died, but not how they looked as I never had the chance to look at their faces or to hold them.

I was in elementary school when another death came in our family. And I was a witness how it came about. When my lolo sa tuhod, my maternal grandmother’s father, breathed his last on his death bed, I was with some of my cousins, aunts and an uncle who was especially summoned to Apong Casio’s side. I saw my uncle’s hand clasped with that of my great-grandfather, as the latter started to jerk, gasped and then he went off. There was a symphony of wailing around the house. The wake was held in our house, and it was more of a reunion than anything else because of multitude of relatives, most of whom my parents had not seen for years, some of them from Hawaii, to attend the wake.

But the saddest part was when my maternal grandfather died in 1990 due to a lingering illness. I received the news while I was in the boarding house near the university where I was a college freshman. My brother Romel and I were both stunned. Apong Angel was very close to all his grandchildren, as he was the very reason why we always had reunions during Christmas and some family celebrations. He was the venerable patriarch, enforcer of discipline, a referee in some fights with my siblings and cousins, but a storyteller par excellence. My brother and I hurriedly went to the barrio that afternoon and we were able to see our grandfather still on his death bed, as the coffin had yet to arrive.

I will never forget the two weeks that followed. The gloom hung like a cloud over everything, and whenever I think of that time, the gloom comes back to me (as when I was writing this blog, I felt a lump in my throat). My mother, aunts and uncles, my mother’s siblings, and my cousins were inconsolable, but everyone stuck to one another in grief. It’s all for our beloved apong lakay (grandfather).

Apong Ansang, my paternal grandmother, died when I was already married and working in Manila. She was bedridden for the longest time as she was already sick and old when I visited her during summer, in one of my rare vacations in my hometown in Ilocos. She was staying in an uncle’s house just a block away from ours. She found difficulty recognizing me. And when she got my name right, she requested for a pasayan (prawn) for her dinner, at least, as she told me, before death could overtake her. I told father about it but he replied that my grandmother was only acting out just to be pitied. In short, I must not be bothered about it. I know father was not close to her mother because when she got a second family after grandfather died, my father and his siblings when they were young were left with the care of their spinster aunt and a very stern grandfather. That perhaps started the estrangement, or aloofness, even when death beckons her mother.

A month after I went back to Manila, Apong Ansang passed away. I went to her wake with a heavy heart, not just for the loss, but for the prawns that I was not able to buy for her.

The death of my maternal grandmother, Apong Lumen in 2003, brought the same gloom as when Apong Angel, her husband, died 12 years earlier. Only that the whole Escobar clan had matured then, and we knew that death is inevitable for her advance age. And everyone accepted the fact that her death made way for my mother and her siblings to settle whatever differences and misunderstanding they had before, and for them to account for the estate.

But there’s one scene during the funeral that I will never forget. Milton, my eldest brother and one having the distinction as the unang apo (first grandson), was very silent during the wake and the funeral mass after that. After the mass, as it was the tradition, all of us relatives, went near the coffin for our final respect and for pictorials. Milton maintained his stoic stance unlike most of us who are either sobbing and moaning and gasping for breath. When it was time to close the coffin , my brother asked the procession to stop for a brief moment. He went near the coffin, embraced it, and it was only then that I heard his most mournful cry to date.

There were other deaths in the family, most of them close relatives, but rarely did I attend the wake or funeral. But I couldn’t cry as I did when I was young. Death would just come and go. And for this year, my mother’s cousin who was living in Hawaii died of stroke, and my paternal granduncle died of old age.

But the death early this year of my sister-in-law’s husband due to heatstroke was one of my saddest times. It was so sudden. Only a month earlier, Kuya Rudy was in our house to celebrate with his granddaughter who, with her mother, lived with us in Bulacan in the duration of the young girl’s daycare education. Our family had a good time with him in SM Marilao for my children’s recognition day. He had been very helpful in times of our need, like when we needed a repairman for our electrical connections in the house, or a helping hand during a handaan (party) for some important occasion.

But with his funeral, I didn’t cry for him, because I know he’s in a very peaceful place now. My stifled cry went for those he left behind. His wife, who was now left alone to tend for the family. A daughter and a daughter-in-law who were both pregnant that time, their unborn no longer have the opportunity to see their grandfather alive.

It was Kuya Rudy’s grave, along with my father-in-law’s, in South Cemetery in Makati that my wife, my three kids and I visited yesterday, a day earlier than the usual time for the observance of All Soul’s day. Only a year ago, in this same cemetery, Kuya Rudy was with us, so full of life, while the whole family lit candles for our dead. Now he’s on the other side, and the thought of it made me really sad.

But the melancholy will not last forever, I’m pretty sure. And our natural course is to live and then wait for our own time to depart this life. Why not, if we the living live deeply enough, then we have no fear of death.

BEST GIFTS

IN my birthday last week, my kids surprised me with their personally made birthday cards, which they handed me with hugs, kisses and chuckles early in the morning on the 21st. That’s what I meant in my previous blog that there are good reasons to celebrate your birthday, just as there many reasons to establish a good attitude in life. Let me say then that receiving greeting cards from the kids is the best gift ever a father could have on his birthday. 

My three kids are a good bunch of inspiration for me. Seeing them in the morning completes my arsenal for staying on, moving on, and hanging on in every setting of my life. Of course, I flare up sometimes, scold them, and find less time with them. But I will not dwell on that. A child is a child, sometimes naughty, demanding, and sometimes sweet; as father must always be a father, and always in him a soft spot or a weak spot. As a father, I could be so busy with my daily schedule and routine that I could have become so clueless.

To my kids, there’s no better way to express their love than to put them in words and colorful artworks. Here are my kids’ recent masterpieces.

This one is from N-yel, my eldest.

Yes, that two photos are Manny Pacquiao’s which he (or with Mom as co-conspirator) had clipped from an old newspaper. My wife and my kids love to tease me that the world-renowned boxing champion and I are like peas in a pod, especially when I sport long hair with a split on the middle and bangs hanging on the sides, and when I made myself unshaved for two or three weeks. But read on, did my son scribble the word handsome? But I rather take the whole message to mean, “Hey, my dad’s the champ!”

This one is from Dudoy, my second child.

This boy hasn’t grown up his love for dinosaurs. Not yet. He still loves to collect dinosaurs, to watch dinosaur movies, to read about dinosaurs, act like dinosaurs, and think like dinosaurs. So what do you expect when he thought of something to represent me on my birthday card? A T-rex with a big mouth ready to devour its prey would be it (but instead he cropped my picture and drew a cake as prey this time). Now I realized my dinosaur lover of a son loves burger than anything else. But for “dinosauring” me, I won’t treat him not even a bite of his burger. Just joking.

And this one is from Eya, my youngest.

My girl with a toothless grin loves to write love notes and to doodle on paper scraps and on pages of her notebook. (Last time, I heard her Mom telling her to stop sending sweet-nothings to her classmates, one of them a boy.) And for this one from her, she used a colored paper and a scented pen for a change (why not, it’s her dad’s special day). The erasures must have been due to her brother’s editing. And the unusual cut on the corner must be hers, because she still messes up her artwork with the scissors.

Just like their other letters and impromptu cards I received from them, I will keep these cards in my personal drawer. I know that anytime soon, they no longer do this for me or for their Mom. One day they will no longer recognize themselves in what they wrote. The he-he-he’s and emoticons, the dinosaurs, and scented notes with erasures may soon be a thing of the past, and they may not be as sweet as they do now. And like many of my fondest memories, they’ll be anchored on things that no longer exist. But I just hope they won’t stop sending me those handwritten cards.

My kids love to write sweet-nothings and flaunt their creativity when they make cards for their Mom on her birthday or on a Mother’s day, and for each one’s birthday, and during Christmas. Even when there is no occasion at all. My youngest, when she has the mood, draws stick figures with I love you’s and I miss you’s naturally matched with heart shapes and smileys. Then, pointing at the figures for me to see, she chatters with her sweet little voice “This one is you, Daddy, this one is Mommy, this is Love, this is our house, etc.”

A BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION

A GOOD music in the morning to pep me up, a hearty breakfast with steaming black coffee, hugs and kisses from my wife and kids, the smiles of neighbors you meet in the street. I try hard to establish that attitude of joy in my life, because I want a day that is filled with happiness, not sorrow. Especially when it is my birthday.

And that will be tomorrow September 21.

I was born exactly a month before the Plaza Miranda bombing in Quiapo, Manila, and exactly a year before President Marcos declared Martial Law in the country. But the later event is more significant. The presidential declaration is considered as the most crucial episode in our history that ushered in the long reign of Marcos dictatorship. Since then, September 21 has become a very memorable date in the country, and just like those birthdates that fall on holidays or any historical date, it has an easy recall.

But do I really need to celebrate for all the world to know? Is it supposed to be a purely personal celebration?

For the first time in many years, right before I write this blog, I remember my former boss (God bless her soul) and her antipathy on birthday celebrations.

She wasn’t keen on celebrating birthdays. If she had her way, she didn’t want us in our department to greet her with lavish gifts or throw a party for her, much more to celebrate on her birthday. A birthday to her is purely personal thing, a time for her to introspect and evaluate her life, so why throw a party just to have fun and tell the whole world that it is her birthday. Once, when we invited her to attend one sumptuous party for an officemate who was celebrating her birthday, she naturally declined the invitation.

My former boss was one of my mentors when I first worked in Rex Publishing, but her stance on birthday celebrations didn’t suit me well. I had theories why she hated it: she might have an unhappy memory about birthdays, she had no family of her own as she was unmarried, or she didn’t want obsequious people to use her natal day to strut their skills on her. Or she just tried to rationalize things in her or the company’s favor, that when we do a party we are practically cutting our working time in the office.

That started then my own introspection and reflection during my birthday. I began to reflect on purely personal terms the significance of my natal day.

To me a birthday is a cause of celebration. There's always a certain expectation and significance for it. Just like anything good that happens to you, a good report card from your kids, a great day at work. I believe that life is about rejoicing. Every good thing is significant and always a cause of celebration and you want to share that with your family and friends. We are all for a party, anytime.

So when one celebrates his or her birthday, it’s one way of saying, Hey, I live for another year in this planet and let’s hope for more years to come. Who cares if a birthday would just add another year to your age? You grow old year by year, even if you don’t celebrate your birthday anyway.

I rather think of another year passing, what I have accomplished so far and what I haven't. I tend to focus on the first. And this gives me some reason to make merry. There must be good reasons to celebrate.

I don’t usually have particular plans for my birthday; except that, I must be sure that I will have a nourishing dinner or lunch with my wife and kids. Last year I treated them with an early dinner at KFC in Caloocan, just that one, and then we went home.

Because it is non-working holiday tomorrow (this year it falls on a Ramadan, now a national holidays upon the official declaration by Malacañang), I might have a real party this time. It means I have more time with my kids; and I expect some important guests, particularly my brother and two sisters, and some of my in-laws from Malate to come over.

I’m not twenty-one anymore but I can still pretend I am. I can always think of my birthday as a milestone, another marking up of my chronological age, but not my outlook in life. Grow old, and grow wiser than ever before, seems to me a good dictum.

A RENEWED PASSION

SOMEONE has said that human nature is so weak in the bookstore.

There’s truth to that, with what happened to me one Wednesday morning while I was in a bookstore that exclusively sells secondhand books, at Waltermart near Muñoz Market in Quezon City.

It’s 11:30 a.m. on my watch, and I still had 30 minutes to spare before I go to work. But that half-hour dragged on until past 12. I knew I would be late, but I had not yet decided which book or books I must buy. And worse, I only have P400 in my wallet for the rest of the week.

With a very limited time and budget, I must pick with any one or two of many books that I had selected. Dammit, there’s so many for picking that morning when in some regular days, I could only see two or three good ones for me. I picked up Main Street by Sinclair Lewis (P65), John Lennon by Alan Clayton (P180), East of Eden by John Steinbeck (P180), Mitla Pass by Leon Uris (P45), Mexico by James A. Michener (P65), and Presumed Innocence by Scott Turow (P85). But I must choose only one or two if I hold on to the more expensive titles, or at least three if I chose the less expensive ones. The clock was ticking very fast.

To think that a day before that I also ransacked a stall of secondhand books at a lobby in Trinoma, another mall along EDSA within the city. For almost an hour of rummaging, I was able to bring home five good books: Got Shorty by Elmore Leonard, The Cider House Rules by John Irving, and Roger’s Version by John Updike, a Magic Tree House’s Dingoes at Dinnertime, and Happy Feet (junior novelization of an animation movie)—the last two were for my two boys who have also been fond of reading pocketbooks.

For the past few months I have been buying an average of one book a week, all second-hand books. With my limited budget (look, I am a father of three, have a part-time job, and a law degree to complete), I couldn’t afford to buy expensive new releases, all bestsellers, on display in National Bookstore. Even when I buy one if I got extra money to spare, I would still have second thoughts shelling out P300 or P400 for a new book. I might rather use that amount for four or five secondhand books from Booksale. Why not, I don’t exactly need new releases when there are myriads of good old books out there that I couldn’t even read a fraction of them in my lifetime.

I haven’t read the other books—around 20 of them—that I have bought since June. But I don’t mind looking at my unread books, and that, once I’ve finished reading one, I can immediately browse at them, thus giving me a choice from which I can select the next one.

My passion for reading has been increasing since middle of last year. It all started when I got invited by a friend to open a Shelfari account. I felt good downloading from my memory box those titles, from children’s storybook to romance and bestsellers to classic novels that I have read, and compiled them in a list, complete with pictures of familiar covers and some important details. Then I began to think of those books I haven’t read so far. It was then that I realized I have missed so many books since I faltered from reading and collecting books some years ago, thanks to termites which gobbled most of my first collection of pocketbooks, in our rented place near Muñoz market.

Now to catch up on my reading, I read while in a vehicle as I commute from our home in Marilao, Bulacan to our office in Quezon City, which is a one-and a-half-hour travel. And during office hours, I stole some time beyond coffee break to read pages of my book. And I’d formed the habit of reading more pages before going to sleep. So in those terms, I'm on track!

But one side effect though is that, my allocated time for my law course was now at a minimal because I have been spending more time reading fictions than reading my codals and textbooks on Taxation and Civil Procedure. So most of the time I cram in these subjects.

I don’t think it is a belated passion for reading. I haven’t stopped reading pocketbooks since high school but not as this rate that I am having now. I am starting to build up my library at home. It was my second attempt to put up another collection after that sad incidence with the termites.

Going back to Booksale, I settled on the more expensive ones: John Lennon and East of Eden. They were rare titles in a second-hand store as this one, and the copies were in good condition as if they had not been used at all by their first owners. That cost me P360, and one-hour salary less (due to tardiness) from what I would earn that day. Now you call that a sign of a weak human nature!

But it’s nice to think that when I get home I have new materials to read. Then that would inspire me to finish the one I am reading now, The Sandman: Book of Dreams, and have vowed to complete one more book by the end of the week.



My latest Shelfari account on books read

POLITICAL

I AM an apolitical grade schooler when Senator Ninoy Aquino died on August 21, 1983. But I was aware of that event early on. I could feel that most if not all people of Ilocandia (the Ilocos Region) just shrugged the event off as nothing serious as to distract President Marcos—yes, the Apo Marcos of us Ilocanos. And the old folks wouldn’t care! The Apo is a strong man, they said. That settled things then, the event would never be a distraction, even children of my age would agree.

But more than two years after Ninoy’s assassination, the “event” would lead to a monumental uprising, no longer a mere distraction of the strongman’s rule. After the snap election pitting Marcos against Cory, Ninoy’s grieving widow and a political neophyte, crucial episodes of our history unfolded before us. When the regime’s Defense Secretary and one of his trusted generals defected, citing massive cheating in the election as one of their reasons for their heroic act, hundreds of thousands of people had began to gather in EDSA to support them.

I remember that fateful day of February 25, 1986. It was wee hour of the morning. I was stirred from my slumber by a neighbor calling on my father to go out and hear for himself a very important scope. “Awanen ni Marcos! Pimmanawen! (Marcos is gone! He’s left!)”

As I had been a captive listener to my grandfather’s radio and to gossips and serious conversations of adults who had been following the developments in EDSA since day one, I was interested to know the outcome of the said rebellion or revolution (whatever side you were in then). My grandfather was hoping early on that these rebel soldiers and oppositionists and opportunists alike, including the Catholic Church hierarchy, would eventually see the light and concede to the Apo’s election victory. My father, my neighbors and almost all Ilocanos shared the same sentiment, at least during those troubled times.

But now the Apo had given up the fight. I hurriedly went out with my father and proceeded to our neighbor’s house. Heard over the radio in crackling signals was a report about a US helicopter slipping Marcos out of the country while nobody was looking.

My father was speechless for a moment, so with our neighbor, and his sons who were also stirred from sleep like me. It was as if a light went off and a breath of life snuffed out. It was sad for my grandfather, my father, my neighbor and the rest of the Ilocanos.

When I went to school, where I was a high school freshman, an overcast air is evident in the campus. I could sense the somber mood among the students, teachers and school administrators while they discussed about our future. The school owner, a staunch Marcos supporter, after a moment of gloom would eventually shift its loyalty to Cory, as there was no more chance for the Marcos loyalists to fight back, and a support from the new government would be necessary for the survival of the private school. But even months after EDSA, political discussion would rather center on Cory as usurper of power; otherwise, Marcos loyalists, most if not all of them in Ilocos, would rather not talk about it. So I finished high school with no politics bothering my life again.

But my self-imposed ignorance was only short-lived. By the time I entered college, the Cory administration had been fighting tooth and nail to ward off rebel soldiers. The bloodiest of this series of coups happened in 1989 during my first year in college.

By then, I know what’s good and bad for our government. I had learned enough what Marcos had done to our democracy, and the excesses of the dictatorial regime. I would know then that the military cannot just grab the government from Cory. It helped that I regularly read the Free Press, which I bought almost every week with whatever I could save from my allowance. I started subscribing to the opinions of Teddy Locsin and other magazine contributors in their defense of democracy and the Cory administration, and their aversion to dictatorship and its clones. Gen. Rodolfo Biazon, the Marines commander during the series of Honasan-led coups, would become my hero for successfully defending the State against power grabbers.

There wasn’t a time that Cory became popular among us, at least in Ilocos. I heard people mumbling that they’re better off with Marcos, and they thought that if life wasn’t as easy as before, why would they have to embrace a new regime. Marcos was still and always be their guy.

But to those moderates, or those who would rather embrace Cory administration and its shortfall than to revert to martial rule, believed that there were other factors beyond the control of the Cory administration that kept us from progressing as a nation, such as these tragic calamities (Mt. Pinatubo eruptions, earthquakes), series of coups, and the fact that Cory inherited a bankrupt government. That Cory wasn’t popular in the region was also true at least with student leaders and campus activists. For them Cory was a “tuta ng Kano” because she had wanted to extend the stay of the US bases in the country. But the magnificent 12 in the senate, headed by then Senate President Jovito Salonga, thwarted her when they rejected a proposed bases treaty that would have given the U.S. more years to maintain its bases here.

While in college, I also joined some student movements, campus demonstrations and forums against US bases and everything that stinks of neocolonialism. As part of the student publication, I became a member of a militant writers’ group.

Immediately after college, I went back to my high school alma mater to teach for a year. There my third year students would remind me of the usual apathy that most Ilocanos had for Cory. I remember that class we had in February that year. A day earlier, the Ramos government had just declared the EDSA anniversary as non-working holiday. Now my brief discussion on the date as part of my motivation for the lesson, turned out to be a question-and-answer forum. “Do we really need to celebrate the People Power?” somebody asked. That started it all. Then they barraged me with questions centering on Ninoy, Marcos and Cory. Is Ninoy a hero? Was Marcos really bad? Did he really order the assassination of Ninoy? Or was it Imelda? Why a revolution happened in the first place?

I was surprised that I could tell them in simple words and with conviction about what I know and felt about the People Power. I narrated the events that preceded it, and saying in summary that Marcos was bad, that Ninoy had good reasons to go against Marcos, and that Cory was brought to the fight, by a stroke of God’s hand, to save our democracy from the dark reign of a dictator.

From that day on, I affirmed my admiration for Cory and my political conviction, that everything contrary to democracy is bad.

That, I admit, must have started my real political awakening, and the burden that I must bear until now. It pains me to see our country still wallowing in extreme poverty many years after that euphoria and exhilaration of the success of People Power of 1986. I feel nothing but utter disdain to our present leaders. It upsets me to see politicians doing everything to perpetuate themselves in power, obviously by nepotistic and patronage type of politics, and by charter change. It disturbs me to see leaders of rebel soldiers who wanted to grab power by force, disregarding our Constitution in the process, but who are now so eager to join democratic elections just to continue their greed for power.

But what disturbs me more is to see deposed President Erap Estrada raring to run for president again. Erap even becomes an admirer of Cory, something he didn’t hide during the wake of the former president. He even extolled the heroism of Ninoy and his ideals. Now this pardoned convict wants to run again. For what? To go back to the government that he plundered from 1998 to 2001?

Well, we are in a democratic country. It’s damn complicated living on it. But even with the kind of political leaders that we have right now, I never regret living with this country. There’s always hope, as Cory, the plain housewife, had shown us during trying times after the death of her husband.

MY CHAMPION TEAM

NO matter how busy I am with office jobs and school assignments, I always find time to watch my favorite team San Miguel Beer when it has a game on TV. That’s why when classes in college were suspended that Friday due to a heavy downpour (a typhoon signal wasn’t even raised in the metropolis by the weather bureau that day, July 17), I left our office earlier than usual and went straight home to catch up the live telecast of an SMB game. But it wasn’t an ordinary game. It was the do-or-die Game 7 Finals match between my favorite team and a more popular and very aggressive opponent, the Ginebra Gin Kings—yes they are still the most popular ball club long after the exit of its legendary playing-coach Robert Jaworski.

I had plans to watch the game live at the Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City, perhaps with my two boys in tow, but I didn’t have the luxury of time and extra budget within that week to go to Cubao for the ticket. Watching a live telecast on TV of a do-or-die match, anyway, is no different than watching it live in the venue; the thrill of the action is also present, except the deafening cheers and boos, and heart-thumping exhilarations from thousands of fiery fans. But no one can prevent me to shout and cheer with wild abandon, even when I am alone in the living room and the clock is ticking into the last quarter of the day when most neighbors are already snoring in their beds.
But for this rare Game 7 of the finals, my cheers and that usual panicky feeling was rather subdued, not because my two boys and their little sister were already sleeping (my wife would rather watch a teleserye than a basketball game for more than an hour), but because I felt relaxed with the Beermen leading the scores throughout the game, thwarting every rally the Gin Kings could muster on the crucial stretch. And halfway to the fourth quarter, I knew my team was a cinch to capture the PBA (Philippine Basketball Association) Fiesta Conference title.

I have been rooting this team since 1993, after the disbandment of Great Taste, an old favorite team of mine, and the eventual transfer of its streak-shooting franchise player Allan Caidic, my idol way back in my high school years, to the Beermen. But this time Caidic, was on the other side of the fence as Ginebra’s assistant coach. Yes, even with the transfer of Caidic to Ginebra in 1998, my loyalty remained with the Beermen and the talented crew now headed by Danny Ildefonso, Danny Seigle (in the injured list), and Olsen Racela.

With the Beermen leading by 8 points with a minute to go, I saw some Ginebra fans starting to negotiate their way out, hoping to leave before the balloons and confetti fall on the arena. I knew how they feel. I also had a painful experience at the big dome in 1998, when my favorite team was on the losing side of a Game 7 match.

It was an All-Filipino championship between the San Miguel Beermen and the Alaska Milkmen, then bannered by the formidable triumvirate of Bong Hawkins, Jojo Lastimosa and Johnny Abarientos. That was my first time to watch a championship live on the venue. I was so excited and hopeful that my favorite team will bounce back from its loss a game before. I was with two of my female officemates, both Beermen fanatics, who turned from demure office workers as if with the flick of a switch into shrieking unlady-like fans. In the final two minutes, I knew that the chance of our team for the title was already buried by an insurmountable lead of their opponent, and with Nelson Asaytono and the rest of the Beermen fumbling with the ball all the way into the crunch time. We decided to go out of the arena half a minute before the final buzzer, hoping to beat the onrush of fans exiting the venue at the same time. And lo and behold, we were joined by thousands of other SMB fans, in a funeral-like procession toward the exit, silent and sluggish, and exhaustion and disbelief imprinted on our long faces.

I fear of a repeat of that heartbreaking Game 7 loss with this present game between San Miguel and Ginebra. Thinking of a déjà vu made me go aarggh! And the number was not on our side, because prior to the season-ending Friday game, the Beermen had lost all their last four Game 7 matches in the finals, yes, including that defeat from the Alaska Milkmen in '98. And the last time the Beermen lost in the finals two years ago, it was on the hands of the same Ginebra team (sans their marquee player Mark Caguioa whol, like Seigle, was sidelined with injury).
But what I fear didn’t come to pass. Bilog ang bola, indeed, as one Ginebra ad would say! After a four-year title drought and heartbreaking losses, six semifinals and one finals, in between, the team finally captured the crown, the Beermen's first with Siot Tanquincen as head coach. It felt good, damn it, seeing Ildefonso and Racela again leading the victory whoops for the team.

Hoorah to the Beermen!

GOODBYE, MJ!

I GROANED when I heard from a female officemate, her eyes glued to her eMac, about Michael Jackson’s untimely demise. It was early morning in the office that day (June 26, Philippine time) when the news came in via the Internet. Elizabeth Taylor would be saying then: “I still can't believe it. I don't want to believe it. It can't be so.” And I felt the same way that moment.

In a wink I joined millions of people—fans, die-hards and just curious—who utilized the worldwide web to confirm the death of the King of Pop, and just like them, I Google about Michael Jackson’s life. I made broadband-quick flashback from the 70s when the popular quintet The Jackson 5 with the prepubescent Michael and his brothers singing “I’ll Be There,” to the zombie dance in the “Thriller” video and space walk-inspired move in the 1980s, up to his startling physical transformation and allegations of child abuse, and to his reclusive years in the latter part of his life. I was born when Michael released his first solo single “Got to Be There” and since I was a kid, I have enjoyed listening to every chart-topping hit he churned in his long career.

I’m sure, people like me, who were born during the peak of the early part of his career, along with the bell-bottomed pants and afros and hippies of the 70s, who had spent teenage life in the turbulent 80s—fashion-wise, and who had matured along with musical fusions and crossovers in the ‘90s, cannot escape from the looming presence of Michael’s music in their lives.

I myself love many of his songs and some had remained a significant imprint in my life. “Give Love on Christmas Day,” as ubiquitous as parol, Christmas trees, and puto-bumbong during the yuletide season, was an early favorite Christmas song of mine. I’d love singing it from the moment I heard it from our old vinyl record. “Ben” was also an easy favorite, not only for its melody but also for the reason that I have a very dear brother whose nickname is Ben. “Beat It” made me dance and sing during my elementary days, trying every way I can to copy his eye-popping dance moves and be popular in school. “We Are the World,” his collaboration with Lionel Richie and other topnotch celebrities of the decade, opened my eyes to starving multitudes in Africa. “Heal the World” made me feel the same civic feeling at the time when I was contemplating with what to do with my life after college.

Now I can only think of his 750 million records and record-breaking albums and complicated dance techniques, not for whatever he had become or for whoever he was. I must say that his pedophile cases, his penchant for plastic surgery, and his Wacko Jacko persona are just sidelights of his stunning musical versatility that I admire, and loads of sheer star power that had entertained music lovers around the world.

Wacko or just plain wacky, pedophile or not, black or vitiligo white, I don’t care, because Michael has always been one of my idols in music. What he had done to music—our soul, his legacy, is far-reaching. Look at how many artists, from Mariah to Usher to our very own Gary Valenciano, he had influenced. And as one blogger puts it, MJ made the world a better place for a lot of people.

His music, from his boy soprano to his androgynous high tenor, will live on in my playlists.

Thanks, Michael!

RIGHT PLACE

BEING at the right place at the right time spells success. No problem about that. Are we not all aspiring to be at the right place when the right time comes? Love stories are replete with this theme. And there are some simple stories too. Sometimes we are not conscious about it, but God puts anyone right on the spot, not only for one’s sake but for others’ as well.

It happened so pretty in my case a couple of weeks ago, and this I want to share.

Call it a coincidence also, or a sheer act of providence. But whatever it was, it saved my family from embarrassment, and (thank God) it saved our house and everything I have from the wrath of fire. Otherwise, every neighbor would point to my two sons, 11 and 9, as the culprits; and my wife and I were the ones to blame for being reckless.

Almost.

I was at the office that Friday morning during the summer break. My wife was with my daughter, our youngest, in a ballet school. That’s why my two sons were left at home; and in days like this, they were free to watch TV, or movies on DVDs, play with their collectible cards, as long as they do not go beyond the gate nor allow any of their playmates come inside the house. And except for the usual kalat (litters of toys, books, kiddie magazines, play cards) in their room and in the sala which vex their mother everytime she arrives home from the ballet school, the boys have been very responsible as they can already prepare their own meal and wash the dishes. It so happened that this particular day, a call came from a classmate of one of my sons: they were going to have a practice for the local church choir in which they were new recruits.

My aspiring singers had to go, so they coursed through their message to our good neighbor, my kumare (my daughter’s godmother), who at that time was supervising the repair of a leak off their restroom’s wall. My kumare texted my wife. My wife agreed, but first the boys had to have their lunch first, and after that they had to heat what would be left of the ginisang munggo so it will not be spoiled for the next meal.




So off my eager kids to their choir practice. They locked the door and the gate, and then gave the keys to my kumare. And as if in a cue, my kumare’s 6-year-old boy started to fidget with a stomach trouble and that he wanted sooo badly to relieve himself, but the repairman told him that they must wait for a few more hours or until tomorrow to be sure. But just like any 6-year-old who couldn’t endure when nature calls, the boy squirmed, as he was about to explode. After an hour or so my kumare texted my wife if she could just use our restroom. Being a very urgent case, my wife readily agreed.

It was when my kumare opened the main door of our house that she discovered the horrendous stench of a burning food in a metal pot. Smoke was emanating from the kitchen, almost engulfing the whole house. She found out that my kids, in their haste, forgot the pot of leftover they were heating, leaving the stove with flame unattended! It’s only a matter of time before the house would go pop and boom like a firecracker.

What if my kumare did not call for the man who repaired their CR that day, as she was supposed to do the repair on a Sunday? What if her son wouldn’t like to use our own CR and choose another neighbor’s house instead? What if he just felt fine that time of the day? What if…

At times I have been possessed by the belief that there are no such things as two or more circumstances without obvious causal connection, and that “everything happens for a reason.” I know there must be reasons for this near-tragic event, but by now, for whatever reason, my family is spared and I have something to be grateful to my kumare.

And sure, my kids had learned their lesson. When they poo, they can also use any neighbor’s restroom. Just kidding!

NAMELESS

THE death of nameless faceless people that you may hear about everyday could only bring a transient sympathy. It just stays there in a minute, and then it goes away. But it keeps your feet firmly on the ground, reminding you that life is fleeting, and so are memories of images passing our sights and the emotions that go with them.

I come to validate this thought when I heard of the death of a sidewalk vendor whose face I would see everyday in the route to my place of work.


Biak-na-Bato Street, Quezon City

I called him ‘Tay or Manong as I didn’t know his name. He was one of the many familiar faces and nameless people, like those of the jeepney drivers in our subdivision, barkers, mall guards, churchgoers, beggars and sidewalk vendors on street corners and bus stops along my usual route to work, that I meet everyday. A smile then and now, and a familiar look.

He must be around 70, lanky, with square shoulders seemingly propped by a clothes’ hanger. His skin was brown as the soil, the texture like prunes. I’d almost always see him wearing faded shirts and faded shorts.

He had a kariton, a wooden box the size of a regular office table, but with extended post in each corner above the surface, which was covered with recycled tarpaulin. He had a wide variety of merchandize—yosi (street term for a cigarette), gums and candies, biscuits, pens, instant coffee, mostly 3-in-1’s, and tabloids, among others. I was his suki, or regular buyer, of his instant coffee and Skyflakes crackers.

He would stay in a portion of an asphalted street (I always wonder why sidewalk vendors, even with such a name, would rather stay in a portion of a street than in the sidewalk), near a sectarian school on Biak-na-Bato Street. His regular patrons were those passersby that go to offices and residences around the area, those going to the school, to a huge Dominican church nearby, and to loading/unloading zones along Quezon Avenue.

His very visible position was a stone’s throw away from the spot where two holdup men were gunned down by the city police two or three months ago, and very near to an LTO office where cunning and very accommodating fixers abound, in spite of the sign that says “Bawal ang Fixers Dito (No Fixers Allowed).”

The last time I asked Manong of a packet of 3-in-1 coffees from his mobile sarisari store, he was fanning himself with a folded tabloid. “Naubos,” he said with a toothless grin. And that was two days before I heard of the news of his death.

Manong was a victim of a hit and run. He was crossing the four-lane Quezon Ave. grasping a bottle of Red Horse beer in the part of that stretch of the road where pedestrians are not supposed to cross. A speeding van hit him before he could reach the other side.

He was gone like a cigarette smoke, a nameless death. He was erased from the surface of the earth, which even any memory of him would soon go away like his bloodstain on the asphalted road. But why did I care if he died that day, tomorrow is no different than yesterday, except the absence of the familiar kariton on its usual spot.

The next day when I went to work, I bought a 3-in-1 coffee from another store. And while sipping my cup, it comes to my mind: That there is a world I am in and there is a world I am just passing through. And how I sometimes bother things I couldn’t reach, or things that even death couldn’t treat with respect.

RED ANTS AND CRUMBS

SHE said she was having a date that night. So I didn’t ask her again. I went back to my table in the other room, and dived into a bulk of manuscripts I had been proofreading since morning.

Then I forgot about her. It was February 14, and what the heck. I’d just received my payslip. I could just stay in my rented space in Roxas District, read another Leon Uris or John Grisham book, or treat myself with a bowl of simmering bulalo in a sidewalk bulalohan along Aurora Blvd. in Cubao.

It was past 5 and most employees had left the office. And over the glass wall that separated our editorial office and the circulation department where she stayed, I could see her still absorbed in paper works, and I didn’t think she was raring for a date. But I won’t ask her again.

I was the only one left in our department, because, unlike my officemates, my official daily time would end at 6 (the company allowed me to extend additional hours from Monday to Friday so that I can have the whole Saturday for my post-grad studies).

It was 6 when I asked her again. She said she wasn’t sure about her date, and she must stay for an hour to finish some job. I went back to my table, closed the manuscript, looked up the wall clock, again and again, and then lost my thought watching a column of little red ants marching to the flower vase atop my cubicle. They were gathering tiny crumbs from the crackers I had for my 3 p.m. snack.



I left the room, locked the glass door and off I went to the circulation department. I told her, if she’s really going on a date, I could stay with her in the room for the meantime, and then we could just go out the office together and part ways at a street corner. She said it’s OK. So I stayed on, and between our conversations I skimmed through back issues of the company’s publications—showbiz, sports, and music magazines.

She was introduced to me only in August, or six months earlier, by her best friend, a classmate in college, who asked her to join her in the company. She was shy, slim, a little above five feet, with an attractive face, observant eyes and long tresses.

I came to know her more closely one Sunday afternoon, days after the first meeting. She was alone in the office. Her best friend wasn’t able to join her that day. Meanwhile, the magazine editor who called me for a press work that day, also changed his mind and cancelled our work schedule at the last minute. I went straight to her office, said “hello” and stayed on for the next two hours talking with her. It was then that I learned we finished college at the same year, her family is Ilocano, and her late father, a brother and a sister, share the same birthday, September 21, which is also MY birthday!

That night, I invited her for a dinner in a sizzling joint cum bakeshop near the office, just across Sto. Domingo church. While eating, we talked more about our college days, some wacky officemates, Eraserheads’ songs, and her goals in life.

More dinnertimes together followed after that. And in a fastfood near Welcome Rotunda, I paid her three 100-peso bills as payment of my loan from her petty cash. The bills contained the three words I wanted to say to her. She counted the money, looked at me in disbelief, and then put the bills in her purse. She said she is on a relationship.

That must be her date now, I thought.

We left the office at 7. So you’re not having a date, I said. She nodded. Then I offered myself to just bring her home, which I would usually do when we leave the office at the same time. So we hurried out of the office, and flagged down the first Malate-bound jeep that we saw from the street corner along Quezon Ave.

Almost everybody around us seemed in a romantic mood, from two or three young pairs who made goo-goo eyes at each other inside the jeep, to PDA couples squeezing each other's hand while roaming the streets, some girls holding a flower, and to couples in glass-walled fastfoods. And for sure there could be more lovebirds inside cinemas and motels, of course, and in some bushy spot of a public park. We just smiled with our observations, and would rather talk about everything but love matters.

We alighted in front of the Malate church. We walked on towards Remedios Street. The night was clear and starry, and the cool breeze coming from the Manila Bay wafted like sweet caress. I suggested a dinner, she said it was okay, so I brought her to a burger stand near their place.

I had been wildly delighted at the prospect of going out on a V-day with her, and that was it, though unplanned and not necessary. I finally had a date with you on this day, I said. She laughed, and she said not a word to validate it. We just enjoyed our company together. She knew the real me. I need not be the right guy for her, but I just allowed myself to be a real friend to her. And it was the same way that I came to know her more. I was so comfortable with the setup that I stopped thinking about my feelings for her and simply enjoyed being with her.

And before she knew it, a long-lasting friendship loomed large before us. Until she was nudged into love territory I marked my own.

That, I must say, was our first date—a friendly date—in a Valentine’s Day. But it was a date and our best ever. And our last, because on December that same year, I married her.

JUST THREE WORDS

WHAT is your motto in life? It was a bonus 5-point question—so unexpected like a lightning at this time of the year, in my midterm exam for a civil law subject. But it was a breeze to answer it in not less than 50 words and having the extra points.

When was the last time I answered the same question? High school days, when I had to fill out slum books of my female classmates? Before I graduated in college, when the yearbook committee asked me about it?

It didn’t take me a minute to think what to write in the exam, because I have been consistent about it and live by this motto: NEVER GIVE UP.

Winston Churchill during the war had uttered these words in a speech before British students (some say “Never give in” were his exact words). Christopher Columbus and Thomas Alba Edison might have uttered these words also in their respective undertakings. I can’t imagine the world now without Columbus who never gave up during his voyage to the New World, what with the uncertainties of his destination, unfriendliness of the sea, and mutinies among his men. And what would the world be without inventors like Edison who persevered to make our life easier than before?

Never give up! Perhaps one of the most evocative mottos, and it has proven to have woven magic to people who take these three words to heart. For me, it has become like a mantra every time I am in a bind. For without it I would not have accomplished things and become the person I am now. My college education was filled with uncertainties and consistent combat against poverty. I had lots of rejections when, as a probinsyano and an inexperienced fresh grad, I applied for a job in the big city. And in pursuing my dream to buy a house with my hard-earned money, I was robbed thousands of pesos by a scheming real estate agent.

But did I give up? In those particular cases, NO. I finished college by supporting myself; I worked as a student assistant for a time and an underpaid farmhand during semestral breaks. I persisted in my job applications, until I was hired by a publishing company which up to this time is still providing me the work I need to earn a living. And I was able to acquire a house on mortgage from a new and legitimate broker (though I wasn’t able to recover my loss).

My father used to say to me, if you think you can do it, you can do it. I remember I was tempted to add: if you think you can’t do it, then forget it. But I realized early enough that this is wrong, because the resolve to do something must dwell first on the mind, that’s why there’s this mental conditioning: if you think... Now if you think and you believe it can be done, then you can do it, as what my father used to say. But if you lose, there’s always a second chance, and third, and so on.

But the best one that gives me the real push comes from the bible, thanks to a Born-Again Christian friend in college who first shared this verse to me: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Philippians 4:13). Now this added a new dimension to the three-word motto “Never give up” as I say it now because a resolve that comes with it, is now hinged on a belief that I cannot fail because Someone’s up there to help me all the time.

There are times, however, that I wasn’t able to use the motto, along with my father’s words and my favorite verse, to my best advantage. Sometimes I falter, waver in my faith, and give up things for good reasons. And some, for bad reasons.

When did I give up? I can only think of a few. I gave up playing chess, though I have been good at it when I was younger, because I had been very emotional when I lost in a match; I gave up my post-grad studies midway to the course because I decided that I rather start a family of my own than embark on a new career; and I gave up a friendship because I chose the will and weal of a group rather than nurture a close relationship with this person.

But so far, one thing will never change about me. Not a chance would I give up working and dreaming for something better.

THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE... MALATE

LONG before I become a resident here, Malate to me is just a passive host to many rowdy bars and restaurants stretching up to nearby Ermita district, and a perfect place for people who love to chill out, hang out and have sex.

During my first year in the metropolis in the early 90s, I only heard of the place from news reports about its famous mayor Alfredo Lim, the former chief of police who became the city mayor, became a senator, and now mayor again, padlocking bars and restaurants in Malate-Ermita area which the city council believed were havens for prostitution and lewd shows. Years after, the Supreme Court ruled that the good mayor and his council had acted beyond their power when they padlocked even those legitimate businesses; but even then, some of the bar-owners, entertainers and bar patrons had moved to other red districts in the metropolis.

Mayor Lito Atienza, who succeeded Lim, initiated the rejuvenation of old districts including Malate, along with city squares and mini plazas around the city. New resto bars and KTV joints, most of them now owned by Koreans, were opened. And a motley cluster of new businesses came in, sprucing now that once deserted (at least during Lim’s first term) Nakpil-Adriatico-Orosa stretch, near the Robinson’s Place which is just a few blocks north.

I first came to see Malate closely when I frequented the place to visit my girlfriend whose family resides in one of the remaining pre-war wooden houses along Remedios St., just about 500 meters from the Malate Church. It was 1996, three years after I left Ilocos, and I was then working as a proofreader in a publishing house and a bed spacer in an old house in Quezon City. In that same year, I married my girlfriend in Malate Church, and since then, or from January 1997 up to the later part of 2001, when my family moved to Bulacan, I have been a resident of Barangay 697 of Malate District, and a registered voter of the same barangay a year after that, and the succeeding elections even up to this time.

But even though I am now residing in Marilao, Bulacan, the old district of Malate to my family is always a home. My three children were born in Philippine General Hospital, in nearby Ermita, and all were baptized in Malate Church. When they were babies, we would bring them to the barangay center near San Andres market in Malate for free medical checkups.

We go to Malate during the feast day of its patron Our Lady of Remedies, celebrated every third Sunday of November. We go to Malate when one my kids or my wife is sick and needs a check up (their doctor is in Singalong), or when my wife has to do some important business in the metropolis. Malate is always a home, a stopover point, a watering hole.

But one important thing that gravitates my family to Malate is New Year's celebration, because it is a perfect time for a reunion for the Gundran family (which means my mother-in-law, my wife’s two elder brothers and two elder sisters, plus their kids, in-laws and grandsons). We will welcome New Year watching fireworks just outside the gate fronting Remedios St., and feasting on spaghetti, ham, and pork or hotdog barbecue after that, and exchanging gifts (we do this on the 31st, not on the 25th).

So for the past twelve years, except once where my family went to my hometown in Ilocos Sur in 1999, I would celebrate New Year in Malate. And the first day of the year would be spent usually with my family strolling and taking pictures in the baywalk area along Roxas Blvd. Or we attend a mass in Malate Church, visit Manila Zoo, shop or do funhouse games in Harrison Plaza or Robinson’s Place, or run/play around with the kids in open spaces in Remedios Circle or in Paraiso ng Batang Maynila, along with street kids, some of them running around half naked.

And after every holiday season, we leave for Bulacan with the hope that anytime soon, we’ll be back to old Malate district, to be with my wife’s relatives, and see her birthplace, her city, and her home again. Meaning no matter where my family goes or how far we have been gone, we still go back to Malate if we have our way. And indeed, there’s no place like this one I also consider home for the past 12 years now.

Here are some snap shots I got from Malate this New Year:

San Andres market fruit stands & Paraiso ng Batang Maynila


Remedios Circle & Remedios St. front of Royal Plaza


Malate Church & Rajah Sulayman Park


Manila Baywalk fronting Malate Church & Adriatico St.